The Struggle for Population

The northern Tongbai Mountain Range connected to Hidden Dragon Commandery's Dabie Mountain Range, southern Chen Commandery, the western headwaters of the Huai River, and the stretches along the Huai River in southern Jiujiang Commandery and Chen Commandery.

The Huan Kingdom Army surged like an endless tide along Chen Commandery's official roads, sweeping north with overwhelming momentum.

At the same time, millions of civilians headed south with their families, wives, and children, pouring into the Huan Kingdom like a flood of refugees.

One stream went south, the other north. The sight was magnificent and strange, leaving onlookers astonished and full of speculation.

Helplessness, misery, numbness, hope, longing...

These were the feelings most evident among the millions of civilians heading south.

Watching the refugees stream toward the Huan Kingdom like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, Lü Chen's expression darkened. He turned to Tian Dan, the Huan Kingdom's marshal, and complained:

"Why is the Huan King doing this? Since my king has ceded the lands north of the Huai River, he naturally won't go back on his word. Why must the Huan King mobilize so many troops to move every last resident there south?"

Under the agreement between the Zhangchu State and the Huan Kingdom, each territory was to be handed over as soon as the Huan Kingdom's reinforcements arrived. The Zhangchu State had thought nothing of it and had long since withdrawn its garrisons from the lands north of the Huai River that it intended to cede.

Who would have thought that, wherever the Huan Kingdom Army went, it would make no immediate move to station troops or reassure the people? Instead, its first act was to "entice" and forcibly relocate the local civilians south. Countless waves of refugees followed, a spectacle rivaling the calamities and disasters seen perhaps once