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Although Lin Xiuming was young, he had led troops in quite a few battles. He rarely waged war in winter, but he had some understanding of the battlefield conditions in rainy weather.

In front of him, the numerous wagon ruts and horse prints, albeit covered by heavy snow, allowed him to approximate the number of people based on the footprints.

Given the repeated trampling in the snow, it was clear that a large number of people had passed through here.

Most of the footprints in the middle were from humans, while those on the sides were from horse hooves, indicating a cavalry unit had been transporting something.

To be precise, it wasn’t something being transported, but given the multitude of footprints, it seemed they were escorting people.

At that moment, a soldier beside Lin Xiuming said, “General, look at the black rock fragments in the snow. If I am not mistaken, this should be coal slag.”

They had been stationed in Yan County for almost two months now and were aware of major events there, such as the stoves and coal introduced by the North Prince Mansion.

Their camp had relied on stoves from the North Prince Mansion to get through this winter. Without the coal and stoves from the North Prince Mansion, they didn’t know how they would have survived the cold.

The soldiers were familiar with “coal,” the material for the charcoal balls, and everyone knew the charcoal balls from the North Prince Mansion were made of coal.

Looking at the scatterings of coal slag in the snow, the soldiers immediately identified it as coal slag.

Hearing his subordinate’s words, Lin Xiuming dismounted and squatted down, grabbing some of the black rock fragments from the ground and sniffing them.

“Hmm, indeed it’s coal slag,” he confirmed.

Lin Xiuming then tossed the coal slag from his hand to the ground, stood up, and glanced at the intermittent trail of coal slag in the snow.

The soldier beside Lin Xiuming continued, “These must be the North Prince Mansion’s soldiers escorting the Barbarian Tribe slaves transporting coal ore.”

Lin Xiuming did not respond and pondered over the coal slag on the ground.

Indeed, the scattered coal slag on the ground suggested the transport of coal by the North Prince Mansion’s Barbarian Tribe slaves, however…

Lin Xiuming swept his gaze toward the direction in which the tracks extended, and from their alignment, it seemed that these people had come from the north.

Were there coal mines of the North Prince Mansion in the North Land?

Lin Xiuming was not familiar with the distribution of the North Prince Mansion’s coal mines, and the first thing that came to his mind wasn’t coal mines, but Tianguang City to the north.

From the horseshoe prints, the cavalry escorting these people was numerous. Lin Xiuming knew that the whole of North City had only those fifty thousand Heavy Cavalry.

Although North City did have light cavalry, their numbers were scant, probably not even reaching ten thousand men.

But judging from the horse prints in the snow, the cavalry that had come from the north was definitely more than ten thousand strong.

Wasn’t it said that North City’s Heavy Cavalry had suffered casualties of over forty thousand, nearly annihilated? How could the North Prince still have so many cavalry?

Seeing that Lin Xiuming kept staring at the horseshoe prints as if in a daze, the soldier beside him asked in confusion, “General, have you discovered something?”

Lin Xiuming returned to his senses and then replied, “Nothing, I was just thinking about something. Alright, let’s continue on our way. We can use these footprints to head north.”

These footprints had compressed the snow, making it thinner and in contact with the ground, easing their progression forward — a fortunate thing for Lin Xiuming and his troops on their march.

Afterward, Lin Xiuming led the court’s twenty thousand soldiers, following the footprints left by Xuanyuan Chen’s southward march to go northward.

Although the prints were quickly covered by the heavy snowfall, they still managed to use these footprints to travel a great distance, saving considerable time.

Without these footprints, they might indeed have needed a whole month to reach Tianguang City.

During the journey to Tianguang City, Lin Xiuming paid close attention to those footprints. He had the feeling that the situation in Tianguang City was not as he had heard, that the North Prince must have concealed the true state of the warfare.

They might not really be heading north to withstand the southward advance of the Barbarian Tribe; it was more likely just a pretense.

Seeing so many horseshoe prints, Lin Xiuming could only think of those fifty thousand Heavy Cavalry from North City.

Lin Xiuming had more or less guessed Lu Chen’s thoughts, but he didn’t intend to reveal them; he just pretended to be oblivious.

Since his father had already decided to support the North Prince, he certainly needed to incline towards the North Prince too, so playing along with the North Prince’s act would suffice.

Originally, Lin Xiuming had felt considerable pressure about heading north. Although the desire to achieve military exploits lingered in his heart, he had only twenty thousand court cavalry under his command. Considering that the Black Cavalry had been annihilated, he doubted whether his twenty thousand cavalry could withstand the grand army of the North Fre King.

But upon seeing the footprints on the ground, Lin Xiuming suddenly saw things clearly — it was probably not the Black Cavalry that got wiped out, but the North Fre King’s grand army.

He thought, how could the North Prince possibly be defeated by the North Fre King? In his hands, the North Prince held weapons capable of blowing Barbarian soldiers to smithereens in an instant. Although he had never seen the North Prince’s army use such weapons, his last visit to Yan County allowed him to surmise the might of those mysterious weapons from the craters left behind.

With such weapons, not just the Barbarian Tribe, even Great Wu would only face a sound defeat in North City.

After more than half a month’s journey, Lin Xiuming and his men finally arrived at Tianguang City.

This year, the winter in North City was colder than usual, with heavier snowfall, reducing visibility to less than five meters even during the daytime.