Master HA instance with multiple slaves

Was it this one?
Automating the sharing of sensors and switches between HA’s using MQTT Discovery and Statestream

The author developed an automation that makes the entities auto-discoverable via MQTT Discovery.

Frankly, knowing Home Assistant is more of “random skill set” than knowing MQTT. However, if you don’t want to use MQTT to connect the systems, then you don’t have any easier options left.