One man fought across three thousand miles; one sword once held a million soldiers at bay.
-Anonymous
Throughout the Divine Land, no one was unaware of the magnificent walls and lavish streets of sprawling Luoyang, the capital of the Central Plains.
Luoyang, then the political and military heart of the realm, had been founded south of the Yellow River in Henan Commandery, slightly west of center in the Heluo Basin. Because the city stood north of the Luo River, it had been called "Luoyang" since ancient times. The capital rested against hills to the north, overlooked Mount Song to the south, leaned against the Lesser Qinling Mountains to the west, and faced the alluvial Yi-Luo River Plain to the east. Viewed from the clouds, the capital region was enclosed by mountains on three sides and open to the east, like a winnowing basket facing eastward. The Heluo Basin was higher in the west than the east, and higher in the north and south than in the middle. Thus Luoyang, situated toward the west, commanded the lower ground, its towering, magnificent walls gazing sternly down over the entire Yi-Luo River Plain with all the imposing majesty of a sovereign.
Now, early that morning, dust billowed and battle cries shook the heavens across the vast royal Military Drill Ground on the Yi-Luo River Plain outside the eastern walls of Luoyang! Thousands upon thousands of infantrymen and cavalrymen, clad in armor and bearing keen weapons, trained diligently in the faint light of dawn. Though this was only a routine exercise, the soldiers remained scrupulous, charging back and forth and fighting at their officers' flag signals. Had the idlers watching from the sidelines not known this was a drill ground, they would truly have believed an earth-shaking battle was underway!
These ferocious troops, training