The wind swept every clear cloud away; frost filled ten thousand miles of empty sky.
The party passed through the River Luo region, where the road to Youzhou bent north. All along their journey, the towering, overlapping ridges of the Taihang Mountains rose to their left, while the vast, level plains of Heshuo stretched to their right.
Once they passed the checkpoint into Weizhou, they entered Weibo, a powerful military domain and one of the Heshuo Three Towns. Since the An Lushan Rebellion, former generals of An and Shi had ruled this land independently of the court. A popular saying ran, "The Son of Heaven in Chang'an, the Yab soldiers in Weibo." The fierce personal troops under the Military Governor could rival even the Son of Heaven in might.
Baozhu had assumed that a region occupied by turncoat ministers must be impoverished, with the cries of suffering geese filling the fields. Yet everything she saw and heard along the way far exceeded her expectations.
Here in Heshuo, far from Guanzhong, there were no magnificent, prosperous metropolises like Chang'an or Luoyang, and the towns looked decidedly rustic. Yet fertile fields stretched as far as the eye could see, their ridges running to the horizon, and settlements were densely populated. Most of those working the fields, however, were elderly people and women; the able-bodied men were largely in military camps.
Watching cooking smoke curl above a distant village, Baozhu reflected privately: *Heshuo has vast stretches of fertile farmland, and the terrain is flat and open. Its grain yields must be much higher than those around the capital. It can support more troops, with strong soldiers and sturdy horses. That is what gives it the strength to stand against the court year after year, with the three towns holding their ground like the