Thinking of Dongting Lake’s water to the south, yearning for Yanmen Pass to the north. 0

Both rice and millet are worth cherishing; flying away, then returning once more.0

Silence in the peak of autumn, while the peaks of mountains stand solemn.[1]1

Zhao Changhe arrived at Yanmen. As he gazed at the distant scenery, he suddenly felt that this poem suited the moment quite well. He was like the geese flying back and forth between the north and south, but in his case, it was not for the sake of rice and millet.0

As for composing poetry about the scenery, he was stuck at the moment, not a single line coming to mind. It seemed that certain things required the right mood.0

Yanmen was not just a mountain range with a pass; it was an entire prefecture, with several counties under its jurisdiction. The barbarians knocking on the gates of the pass were not just passing by, and it was not a one-off thing. It was a continuous and persistent harassment. The Great Wall stretched for tens of thousands of li, with countless battles, big and small, inside and outside.1

Whenever it seemed like the enemy had completely withdrawn, they often abruptly returned and launched another attack. While this was an uncommon scenario when it came to wars in the Central Plains, to the barbarians, it...0