The Yan Army had come so quickly, of course, because the Jin envoy Chen Caozhi had gone on a mission to the Qin State.
In Yonghe Year Eight, the Xianbei Murong Jun had usurped the imperial title and proclaimed himself emperor. Thereafter, he contemptuously called Qin and Jin the "two bandits" and constantly harbored ambitions of annexing them. Thus, when Murong Ke learned that the Jin State had sent the Crown Prince's Attendant Chen Caozhi to Chang'an to exchange weapons from Jiangdong for warhorses from the Guanzhong and Long regions, he immediately mobilized three thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry. With Yue Xi, the Grand Preceptor's Sima, leading the vanguard, he prepared to take Luoyang in one stroke, press straight toward Mianchi, Lingbao, and Tong Pass, water his horses in the Wei River, and threaten Chang'an, the capital of Di Qin-
Of the three states of Yan, Qin, and Jin, Yan was currently the strongest. By moving its capital from Dragon City beyond the frontier to Ye City in the heart of the Central Plains, Yan had laid bare its ambition to contend for the realm. As Grand Preceptor and commander-in-chief, holding supreme authority over Yan's military and civil affairs, how could Murong Ke, Prince of Taiyuan, permit Qin and Jin to join forces against his Great Yan? In the fifth month, he had moved the ancestral temples and the court officials from Dragon City to the new capital of Ye City. He was greatly surprised to learn that the Jin envoy Chen Caozhi had gone to Chang'an. Eastern Jin had always claimed to be the legitimate dynasty, regarding Qin and Yan, which had founded states and proclaimed emperors, as illegitimate regimes. Men such as Yu Liang and Huan Wen had likewise enhanced their reputations through northern expeditions. Why were