After the New Year, the weather began to revive at its own unhurried, punctual pace, and temperatures slowly rose. It was easy to imagine that the thaw would come during the first month, when the Great River and the Bohai Sea would be full of broken ice, and the fields soaked through with melted snow.
Next, naturally, preparations for plowing and spring sowing could begin, moving from south to north.
And reckoned by the spring plowing, Zhang Xing had now spent four full years in this world and was about to enter his fifth. Soon, when summer came, even his career as a rebel would enter its third year.
A scholar could rebel for three years without accomplishing anything; Zhang Xing's rebellion, by contrast, seemed to have progressed too quickly in three years.
It really had been too fast.
Life after the rebellion in particular always felt as though someone were pushing him along... According to the original plan, he should only recently have crossed the river at this point, and might not even have fought his first battle. Yet the Righteous Army that had crossed the river had long since won its foothold, completed its reorganization, and drawn up in readiness for the next trial.
But what could one say? Circumstances spared no one. Who was not being pushed along?
"Master Feng." In the main hall of the General’s Residence in Hejian Commandery's seat, Xue Changxiong, Great Wei's Northern Hebei Campaign Commander, sat in the place of honor. He glanced at the light streaming through the doorway and spoke in a low voice, somewhat uneasily, to an old man in plain clothes seated before him. Fully armored, he shifted his feet, scraping off considerable mud. "Circumstances spare no one. Who isn't being pushed along? The roads are muddy, and