With Lady Yang's generous payment tucked against her chest, Huo Qilang followed her instructions and hurried to Youzhou to deliver a letter, changing horses but never riders as she traveled day and night.
After passing Luoyang, she continued east to Weizhou, then headed north along the Taihang Mountains, crossing the three military commands of Weibo, Chengde, and Youzhou. When thirsty, she drank a few mouthfuls from a stream; when hungry, she stuffed down half a piece of dry rations; when utterly exhausted, she climbed a tree for a brief nap. She sustained herself entirely through her martial training.
After the An Lushan Rebellion, Emperor Daizong appointed surrendered rebel generals such as Li Huaixian as Jiedushi of Youzhou and the other two commands, leaving them in their existing territories. The Heshuo Three Towns gradually became independent regional powers that the court struggled to control. Although nominally loyal to Chang'an, they chose their own Jiedushi, paid no taxes to the court, and appointed their own officials. For years, they had remained the most intractable of the military commands plaguing the dynasty.
These three commands also bore old grudges against one another. Heavy forces guarded their borders, more strictly even than the frontiers between the Great Tang and its enemies. Born into a military household and long accustomed to roaming the Rivers and Lakes, Huo Qilang knew the soldiers' rotation patterns well and had her wits about her. She bribed her way through some checkpoints, bluffed through others, and, when all else failed, slipped past them at midnight. At last, she reached Youzhou territory within twenty days.
The farther north she traveled, the more the scenery differed from the Central Plains. Vegetation grew sparse, the climate dry, and when strong winds rose, grit slashed her face like knives. Huo Qilang thought the landscape