Mainly through mid-June, the Exorcising the Dragon Army's Second Eastern Expedition advanced with a grandeur entirely different from before, far beyond anything the people of the region and its surroundings had imagined.
This grandeur did not come from columns of over ten thousand men marching en masse down the main roads, winning every battle and taking every stronghold along the way, unstoppable as a spear thrust that pierced everything. Rather, it was an all-engulfing sweep, like the floods so common in the Ji River basin, seeping into everything.
Tens of thousands of troops advanced east, but divided into forces of several thousand, a thousand, even five hundred or one or two hundred, moving in sequence deep into every strategic location across the three commanderies: from the main roads and major cities to transport hubs, market towns, mines, and ferries, then villages and hamlets. After them came clear, unmistakable written decrees and sweeping operations to restore public order.
Finally came the actual enforcement of those decrees.
In barely half a month, within the portions of the three commanderies occupied by the Exorcising the Dragon Army, the vast majority of commercial, agricultural, handicraft, 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.
Confusion and disorder were inevitable, as were perfunctory compliance and covert resistance, and even oppression born of excessive force. But no one could deny that, in this way, the Exorcising the Dragon Gang had swiftly left an impression carved into the bones of the three commanderies along the middle reaches of the Ji River-they truly meant to replace the government and take over everything. They truly meant to rebel.
These people, wearing Six Harmonies Boots, carrying long halberds, and marching almost without cease,