After the New Year, as the final batch of grain and fodder went into storage, Liu Cheng received his formal appointment papers from the Department of State Affairs.
He was not only Administrator of Huainan Commandery, concurrently General of the Vanguard Army, but had also been given the administrator's post for Qiao Commandery, his theoretical ancestral home... This was certainly special treatment, a little extra acknowledgment of the money this fellow had previously raked in for the court South of the Yangtze, but it was nothing particularly unusual.
There was precedent, and it had arisen during the Northern Expedition a few years earlier.
At the time, the Huai River line marked the limits of the present court's actual control; farther north was enemy territory. Chen Kui, then Administrator of Shouchun, had also been appointed Administrator of Liang Commandery farther north. In other words, he could attack northward and bring Liang Commandery under his own administration, or the appointment would facilitate sending troops toward Liang Commandery and calling up the local powerful clans.
By now, many commanderies and princedoms north of the Huai River theoretically belonged to the court, of course, but in practice they were mostly just garrisoned, with no revenue or population to speak of. Many would rather seek a refugee commandery South of the Yangtze than become administrator of one of these large commanderies in Huaibei. At this point, granting him Qiao Commandery, directly across the river from Huainan, amounted at most to encouragement from the court and a gesture of support for his efforts to develop the north.
Yulong, everyone here at court trusted him. He should go all out!
An administrator's post handed out for free-why turn it down?
Liu Cheng accepted on the spot.
Still, he was not leaving immediately... Along with the appointment came