On the second day of the last ten-day period of the fourth month, Murong Chui's Central Army halted temporarily at Heze, waiting for the vast army to finish crossing the Ji River once again.
Yes, once again... the Ji River and the Bie Ji River, or the Southern Ji River and the Northern Ji River.
This was the route upstream of Juye Marsh that Murong Chui had specifically chosen to reduce the number of river crossings, after studying a map and questioning the scouts.
Looking back now, his choice might not have been right. Both branches of the Ji River carried substantial volumes of water where they entered Juye Marsh, and the terrain around the marsh was also rather complicated, making the crossings troublesome. Farther upstream, although they would have had to cross the Pu River, a tributary of the Northern Ji River, making three crossings in all, the volume of water seemed less daunting.
But that was hard to say. Who knew how much time three river crossings would waste?
Murong Chui understood perfectly well that behind this small matter of crossing rivers lurked a certain glaringly obvious, much larger problem.
Had this been Liaodong, whether river or marsh and whatever the season, he, Aludun, could have known with his eyes closed which route was fastest and where best to cross. Had this been Hebei, he could have entrusted the problem without worry to those reliable Xianbei chieftains in his army who had spent three to five years there. But this was Henan... and even in Henan, where he was leading an army for the first time, given enough time, he could have sent large numbers of mounted scouts and officers ahead to reconnoiter and obtain a comprehensive picture of its military, political, and geographical circumstances.
Yet he had