Late October, on the northern bank of the Great River.
That morning, the sun was still bright, though clouds had already gathered visibly. Before noon, as the north wind rose, the weather turned gloomy. Under these skies, over twenty thousand main-force troops of the Exorcising the Dragon Army marched brazenly past the northern side of Chiping.
Before the mass of troops arrived, Han Erlang, the deputy commandant defending Chiping, had sensed something wrong. He immediately ordered the city secured and sent messengers north, trying to notify Governor Cao Shancheng.
Yet Han Erlang had underestimated the Exorcising the Dragon Army's determination. Almost as soon as he noticed something amiss and issued his orders, countless light cavalry appeared in view, sealing off almost every junction. Every rider who left the city faced a hunt by ten or even dozens of times his number.
Looking down from the walls, the light cavalry riding in groups of three or five stirred dust across the winter fields, as though dozens of invisible hands were endlessly drawing lines across the Hebei plain below.
But once the main force of the Exorcising the Dragon Army came into view, those earlier cavalry patrols seemed like child's play.
After crossing the pontoon bridge into Hebei, whether
deliberately or otherwise, the troops immediately abandoned their previous system of marching under individual leaders. At Zhang Xing's insistence, Xu Shiying and Liu Zhouchen jointly commanded them, following the Eastern Territories' version of the Six Secret Teachings to produce a respectable formation for a large army on the march.
No one was better qualified to judge its effect than Han Erlang, "reviewing the troops" from Chiping's walls-Xu Shiying and the others could hardly leap about like monkeys to get a look, could they?
From the walls, apart from the few hundred light cavalry