Around the middle of June, the advancing might of the Exorcising the Dragon Army's Second Eastern Expedition possessed a grandeur utterly different from before, far beyond anything the locals or their neighbors had imagined.
This grandeur did not come from columns of more than ten thousand marching down the main roads, taking every fortress and winning every battle along the way, unstoppable as a spear thrust that pierced through everything. Instead, it swept across the land like the floods so common in the Ji River basin, soaking into everything.
Tens of thousands of troops advanced east, yet dispersed into forces of several thousand, a thousand, even five hundred or one or two hundred, moving in sequence into vital locations throughout the three commanderies: from the main roads and principal cities to transport hubs, market towns, mines, and ferries, then into villages and hamlets. After them came clearly articulated written decrees of every kind and sweeping public-security operations.
Finally came the actual enforcement of those decrees.
In scarcely half a month, within the territories the Exorcising the Dragon Army occupied across the three commanderies, the vast majority of commercial, agricultural, artisanal, cultural, and public-security activities had all come into tangible contact with the military and political entity that was the Exorcising the Dragon Gang and its army.
There was inevitably confusion and disorder, perfunctory compliance and covert resistance, and even oppression born of excessive force. But no one could deny that, through these methods, the Exorcising the Dragon Gang had, in a short time, left an impression etched into the bones of the three commanderies along the middle reaches of the Ji River-they truly intended to replace the authorities and take over everything. They truly meant to rebel.
These people, wearing Six Harmonies Boots and carrying long halberds, almost constantly on