Outside the eastern city wall, the crowd was packed as densely as a school of fish, bustling and jostling until they had squeezed autumn into summer. The frailer people had barely walked at all, yet the crowd pushed them back and forth until they were drenched in sweat.
Had heavy contingents of soldiers not guarded both sides of the main road, the commoners and scholars would have blocked it long ago. Even so, people were still occasionally squeezed onto the road.
The soldiers kept frowning. The chatter and clamor of so many people churned like boiling water, making their heads feel ready to burst.
Li Fanming and the others had taken their places atop the eastern city wall early. They gazed at the Yangtze River to the north, stretching like a strip of white silk, then looked at the earth-colored road between the blue sky and green fields, watching the unbroken procession of carriages gradually approach.
The procession stopped ten li away, where Prefectural Governor Dong Wencong, Rites Office Director Nie Changju, and the others greeted it.
Ordinarily, only a few officials needed to go ahead to greet the visitors ten li out. But Nie Changju had brought a large contingent of Xiang Prefecture's Qing Officials to welcome the Qing Lord, and they chatted warmly with the Qing Kingdom's officials, looking far more like one family than they ever did with Dong Wencong.
Dong Wencong remained expressionless throughout, observing every formality in his welcome.
Not far away, scholars from various kingdoms kept frowning. Every one of Xiang Prefecture's Qing Officials acted as though he had seen his own relatives. Some could even be described as bowing and scraping like lapdogs.
Li Fanming sighed. "I finally understand what sort of resistance Fang Yun has faced in Xiang Prefecture, and why its