Within a matter of weeks, news that An Dushan, Military Governor of Luling, Fancheng, and Yuedong, Duke of Willow City Commandery, and Grand Commander of Yuedong, had rebelled spread across the realm. No one paid any attention anymore to Wang Chong's occupation of Huangzhou.
After all, An Dushan had marched on Shangdu, Luoyang, with menacing force, while Wang Chong was "harmless to man and beast," merely stirring up trouble in the border prefectures.
Most importantly, because Wang Chong could seal off the news, no one in Chang'an knew that he had already attacked and conquered six prefectures, dealt with the threat of the Eighteen Tribes, and was now fighting a raging war in Ling Prefecture.
Gao Gun had used Wang Chong's reputation for loving risks to lure out Feng Pofeng's general Lü Feng and thirty thousand troops. By some unknown means, he had kept Lü Feng's forces from turning back all this time. Wang Chong had cut off the road at Great Thunder Mountain, pinning down the army in Ling Prefecture Prefecture, while the other five armies swept through one prefectural city after another. In just over a month, they had taken fifteen prefectural cities in Ling Prefecture, leaving only six places still fighting like cornered beasts.
The happiest person during this time had to be Yuwen Xuandu, Chief Eunuch of the Prince of Yan's Residence. He had long been without real power. Although his position as steward at the Jiang Residence was lofty, it was only a title, a world apart from his former station. Wang Chong had first handed over all the officials of Huangzhou Prefecture to him. Now, as the attack on Ling Prefecture progressed, the Tailwind Army kept escorting officials from its various prefectural cities over to him, giving him more than a thousand people under