Tang Changsheng had been right. News that the uprising in the Marquisate of He had failed had already reached the Heaven-Pacifying Army. At that moment, the army occupied Xinzheng, the capital of the Zheng Kingdom, and its forces were vast. Nearly two million people crowded into the city, which was almost larger than Xian'an City...
By now, Xinzheng resembled a vast refugee camp.
Yes, a refugee camp!
The uprising launched by the Purple Dusk Demon had come too quickly and wrought too much destruction.
In a very short time, the Heaven-Pacifying Army had swept millions of commoners into its ranks—men and women, young and old—with no discipline to speak of.
As a result, Xinzheng had become a refugee camp. Refugees dragging their children along and sleeping wherever they could filled its streets and alleys.
Because the attackers had help from inside during the siege, a third of Xinzheng's houses had burned down. There were no longer enough roofs to go around, and many refugees had to sleep in the streets.
Likewise, many of Xinzheng's original residents had been driven from their homes. Now refugees themselves, they had no choice but to join the Heaven-Pacifying Army and survive on the pitiful rations it handed out each day...
This was how the Heaven-Pacifying Army swept commoners into its ranks. Whenever it took a city, everyone in it was forced to join. In little time, its numbers had swollen to five or six million.
In fact, the troops now in Xinzheng made up only a third of its total forces. Most of the rest were scattered among other cities and towns. Xinzheng alone could never have held so many people...
The Heaven-Pacifying Army's headquarters, housed in what had once been the Zheng Kingdom's royal palace, looked more like a bandits' den.
Countless exquisite