When Long Ao Tian came to Chen Ping for help, he had only suspected that Xu Tianran still controlled a secret supply line and could not be certain it really existed, but he had given Chen Ping one highly likely suspect.
Glorious Province of the Sun Moon Empire.
The reason Long Ao Tian was so deeply suspicious of this province was simple: its previous governor had been the Duke of Glorious, whom Ju Zi had led troops to wipe out.
Glorious Province lay in the northern Sun Moon Empire. Though called a province, it was effectively a small duchy, with every provincial affair decided by the Duke of Glorious alone.
It even had its own private Soul Engineer Corps. Its Legion Commander was none other than the Duke of Glorious's son, Zhao Yang, the Soul Master with the Violent Golden Bear martial soul who had nearly captured Ju Zi alive in the original story.
Although Ju Zi had been demoted three ranks because of Chen Ping in this timeline and had missed the episode in which Zhao Yang nearly captured her alive, after Zhao Yang took advantage of the five dragons sharing one court to proclaim himself king, Xu Tianran had still ordered Ju Zi to lead troops to wipe him out. Ju Zi had also killed many of the Duke of Glorious's diehard loyalists in the process.
Thus, if any province in the Sun Moon Empire was most likely to bypass the empire's central administration and secretly supply Xu Tianran's army, the prime suspect was undoubtedly this province, which Xu Tianran had personally ordered a campaign against to reclaim control.
Moreover, Glorious Province happened to lie in the northern Sun Moon Empire, while Xu Tianran had deliberately chosen the northern Heaven Dou Empire as his point of breakthrough for