As the great wind rose, Li Shierlang left Eastern Capital City through the Upper Eastern Gate, filled with an inexplicable yet powerful melancholy. He had grown up there, entered official service there, and, by his reckoning, spent more than four-fifths of his life there.
Eastern Capital City merely stood unmoved in the wind.
Over the next few days, southerly winds blew in gusts, yet failed to bring enough moisture from between the Huai Region and Jianghan. The western Eastern Territories and the region around the capital, which should already have entered the heavy rains of May, received only a few light showers.
At this point, Zhang Xing was still inspecting villages in Eastern Commandery and Jiyin Commandery, the areas assigned to his inspection tour.
Unlike before, more and more clerks and staff officers temporarily transferred from Hebei and the various commanderies and counties joined his entourage. Many chiefs joined them too, and the number of items they investigated and recorded continued to grow. This made their pace through the villages fluctuate: on slow days, they visited only three to five villages; on fast days, seven or eight. Still, after a dozen days or so, they had visited seventy or eighty villages.
Meanwhile, the helmsmen and deputy helmsmen of the two commanderies who had received orders-in general, the middle- and senior-ranking members serving as county magistrates, county captains, and the like-also went out into the counties to fill in the gaps. Even the chiefs throughout both commanderies followed suit.
It actually looked as though they might cover every village in both commanderies over the summer. There could be no better example of those below following the lead of those above.
On this day in late May, Great Dragonhead Zhang reached a village east of Jiyin City, on the southern bank of