Zhang Xing emptied a basketful of letters into the brazier for fuel, tucked away only the sheet with the table on it, and went back to rest with Bai Yousi.
The next day, Great Dragonhead Zhang drew roughly a thousand men from the Lihu camp. Along with the senior leaders and leaders who joined them along the way, including Wei Xuanding, Dan Tonghai, and Zhai Qian, their attendants and personal guards, and the gang's elite members who had accompanied him from the start, the imposing procession crossed the Ji River and headed upstream toward the seat of Jiyin Commandery.
Before they reached the city, Li Shu, the Exorcising the Dragon Gang's right-wing Dragonhead stationed in Jiyin, and Fang Yanlang, acting governor of Jiyin Commandery, led the many personnel remaining in Jiyin City twenty li out to welcome them.
The two Great Dragonheads and Chief Wei rode abreast along the river, laughing and chatting, discoursing on the realm, and treating the Four Sovereigns as so much dung. They seemed like the closest of brothers-or, more precisely, brothers within the gang who had shared hardship and happiness to establish a foundation for resisting Wei.
The senior leaders and leaders accompanying them were no longer the greenhorns who had flushed crimson upon grasping a thing or two during the election of leaders.
Even the least of these men could now serve as a county magistrate with real authority. Generally speaking, unless they were newly surrendered recruits, the civil officials could essentially become a commandery's acting governor or deputy acting governor, while even the lowest military commanders generally had around a thousand troops under them... With such standing, they had long since attracted heroes and cultivated retainers seeking service, along with relatives and friends offering support. Otherwise, they would not even have been able