After the New Year, the weather began its unhurried, punctual revival, and temperatures slowly rose. It was easy to imagine the thaw arriving within the first month, when the Great River and Bohai would be covered in shattered ice and the fields soaked through with melted snow.
Then, naturally, preparations could begin for plowing and spring planting, working from south to north.
Measured by spring planting, Zhang Xing had already spent four full years in this world and was about to enter his fifth. Once summer arrived, he would also enter his third year as a rebel.
A scholar could rebel for three years without success, but three years of Zhang Xing's rebellion seemed, if anything, to have progressed too quickly.
It really had been too quick.
His life since rebelling, especially, always felt as though someone were pushing him along... According to his original plan, he should only recently have crossed the river by now, and might not even have fought his first battle. Yet the Righteous Army that had crossed the river had long since won the battle to establish a foothold, completed its reorganization, and stood ready for its next trial.
But what could he say? Circumstances spared no one. Who wasn't being pushed along?
"Lord Feng." In the main hall of the General’s Residence in Hejian Commandery's seat, Great Wei's Northern Hebei Campaign Commander, Xue Changxiong, glanced at the light streaming through the doorway. Speaking quietly to an old man in plain clothes seated before him, he looked somewhat uneasy. Fully armored, he shifted his feet, scraping off a good deal of mud. "Circumstances spare no one. Who isn't being pushed along? Do I not know the roads are muddy and spring planting is upon us? Do I not know the rebels are stirring people's hearts?