Li Shu led the main force east, while Zhang Xing oversaw the rear. Zhang Xing had also devised a small arrangement: Xu Dalang would hold the White Horse-Weinan line and control the waterways to secure a route into Hebei from the rear, while Daoist Wei and Niu Da controlled Puyang and Chanyuan, sharing Xu Dalang's burdens while also keeping watch on him.
Having arranged all this, Zhang Xing certainly did not think he could now sit back, enjoy himself, and play at farming. But he truly had not expected trouble to come one thing after another, leaving him no room to breathe.
In fact, the troubles at Chanyuan in Ji Commandery seemed never to have stopped from the very beginning.
But how should he put it? Thinking carefully, trouble in Ji Commandery was only natural. They had rebelled, so troops would naturally be sent to suppress them... Could they really expect Heaven's mandate to rest with them and everything to succeed in a single stroke? Hadn't he himself long since decided that great waves would come sooner or later, that the situation would eventually take a terrible turn? Then, looked at the other way, what did it matter if they now met a hard bone to gnaw, if they encountered trouble?
Were they supposed to stop gnawing just because the bone was hard?
Of course, they certainly needed to compile their intelligence before they could analyze and discuss it.
"Is there any paper?"
In the rear hall of the county offices, Zhang Xing suddenly broke the silence.
Without a word, Wei Xuanding rose and went into a side room off the rear hall, fetching writing brush, ink, paper, and inkstone himself. Zhang Xing thanked him and stood to take them, but set the brush, ink, and inkstone aside, keeping only