usatvline Chapter 39 In Daxing Garden, Sharp Blades Gone Dust [Seeking Monthly Tickets]
Chapter 39 In Daxing Garden, Sharp Blades Gone Dust [Seeking Monthly Tickets]
The north wind of Daxingyuan, carrying the rough smell of loess and sweat, hits you in the face.
The wind carried the faint sounds of countless footsteps and the clanging of metal in the distance, like muffled thunder.
This made this royal forbidden garden less elegant than the gardens of southern China, and more desolate like the northern borderlands.
Yang Yan reined in his horse, his dark royal robes billowing in the wind.
He squinted slightly, his gaze passing over the withered meadow and landing on the dusty, shouting drill formations in the distance.
"Yan'er, the wind and sand are strong here. You've just recovered, you shouldn't stay here for long!" A warm and concerned voice came from beside him.
Crown Prince Yang Yong spurred his horse forward, and his large hand naturally rested on his shoulder, his eyes filled with pure paternal love and concern.
Yang Yan instantly suppressed all his sharp calculations and replaced them with the earnestness and admiration that a child should have.
"Thank you for your concern, Father." Yang Yan bowed slightly, his face beaming with the unique radiance of youth, a mixture of shyness and curiosity.
"However, my grandfather conquered the world on horseback, and the land of my Great Sui Dynasty was forged in the crucible of swords."
"If I only know how to bury myself in books and know nothing of warfare, how will I have the face to stand in the court in the future? Today, being able to accompany Father to see this military display, my heart is... truly moved!"
These words perfectly portrayed the image of a grandson of the emperor who admired his ancestors' achievements and longed to establish his own fame.
Sure enough, Yang Yong's face broke into an undisguised, even somewhat naive, proud smile.
He patted Yang Yan's shoulder forcefully.
"Good! With such ambition, you truly are a worthy son of the Yang family! Come, let me show you around!"
Seeing Yang Yong's untroubled smile, Yang Yan felt even more tense.
This pure joy, in the face of the turbulent times of the Eastern Palace, is both a luxury and a fragile thing.
Yang Yong pointed ahead with great interest and introduced in a loud voice: "This Daxing Garden covers an area of a hundred li and was built in imitation of the Shanglin Garden of the Former Han Dynasty. It contains twelve military gardens, where the elite troops of the twelve guards of the capital are stationed, with a total strength of no less than 100,000..."
His father's words were filled with pride. However, what Yang Yan was calculating in his mind was another cold and chilling account.
His gaze swept over the brightly armored and imposing Imperial Guards in the distance, but what came to mind were the old and weak faces left over from the Six Guards of the Eastern Palace, who had been repeatedly transferred and were neglected in training.
As he listened to his father proudly recount the twelve guards, several key names that would tip the scales in his mind flashed through his mind: Yuan Min, Yuwen Shu.
Yuan Min held command of the Left Guard, while Yuwen Shu controlled the Right Guard.
Although Yuan Min was a distant relative of the late Crown Princess Yuan, this connection gave him a natural goodwill and limited protection towards the Eastern Palace. However, his support was always separated by considerations of patriarchal clan rules and interests, and was by no means a force that could be relied upon.
Yuwen Shu, the Right Guard, had long been a steadfast confidant of Prince Yang Guang of Jin.
Even more deadly is that the figure sitting at the highest point of the Ganlu Hall—the Emperor's grandfather Yang Jian—is relentlessly and mercilessly suppressing the Eastern Palace with suffocating methods.
He repeatedly used the pretext of "optimizing the defense of the capital region" to transfer the elite troops of the Six Guards of the Eastern Palace in batches to the central imperial guards, leaving the crown prince mostly with the old and weak.
Then, citing the "importance of local defense," Yuan Xiaoju, a former general of the Crown Prince and a trusted ally, was transferred to the position of Governor of Shouzhou, thus completely severing his direct connection with the Crown Prince.
One by one, the cold facts converged in his consciousness like a chilling current.
Ultimately, this led to a cruel conclusion: on the scales of military strength that determined everything, his father, the Crown Prince Yang Yong, had long been suppressed by the invisible hand of Emperor Yang Jian, leaving him no room to maneuver.
At this time, the Second Uncle, Prince Jin, although powerful, was far from being able to control everything—the real pressure always came from the supreme imperial power.
A faint sense of regret surfaced in my heart.
Knowing that the truth behind the court intrigue was that the emperor himself was weakening the Crown Prince, rather than a simple fratricidal conflict, perhaps he... shouldn't have written such a sharp essay in the examination hall, and even less should he have revealed his sharpness during the night meeting in Ganlu Hall.
That would not only fail to reverse the decline, but would also likely exacerbate Yang Jian's deep-seated fear of the "outstanding talents" emerging from the Eastern Palace.
"Lingnan..."
A place name, along with a resolute thought, became incredibly clear and sharp in his mind.
"That might really be the only option."
To protect themselves, and even to seize a chance of survival amidst future turmoil, they must possess their own power—an army that truly obeys Yang Yan and upon which they can rely for survival!
The Sui Dynasty's military system emphasized the separation of soldiers and generals, with the ultimate authority over all armed forces firmly in the hands of the emperor.
In the capital city right under the emperor's nose, any attempt to secretly build up an organized military force is tantamount to digging one's own grave.
But Lingnan is different.
That place was a remote and uncivilized land, far from the reach of the emperor. The Li and Liao ethnic groups occupied the mountains and forests, and their friction with the imperial court never truly subsided.
In order to save trouble and maintain control, the imperial court even tacitly allowed the local military governorate to recruit "local soldiers" and implement a policy of using barbarians to control barbarians.
What appeared to be a desolate land rife with pestilence and exiled officials was actually a crack that had not yet been completely tainted and controlled by the central power.
It is the only possible, and the most likely, soil in which he can quietly cultivate his own foundation.
The thought of "Lingnan..." became more urgent and burning than ever before amidst the deafening sounds of battle.
As the father and son spoke, a magnificent military compound came into view in the distance.
The tall rammed earth wall resembled a city wall, with a series of arrow towers on it. The black "Sui" character flag fluttered wildly in the north wind, as if the aura of war and battle was emanating from the flag.
Before the garden gate, a group of guards stood in full armor, holding long halberds, their eyes as sharp as eagles.
Even after seeing the prince's entourage, they did not relax in the slightest and still stepped forward meticulously according to the rules to check the pass tokens.
After verifying the Eastern Palace's gold token, the heavy iron-clad wooden door slowly opened. The father and son rode in side by side.
The moment you step inside, an intense, almost suffocating aura hits you—a mixture of dust, men's sweat, leather, steel, and grease, a unique, fiercely masculine scent characteristic of military camps.
Looking out, the vast and boundless training ground seemed to have no end.
Several thousand-man formations were simultaneously conducting drills. Most of the soldiers were shirtless, their bronze skin glistening with sweat under the dim winter sun.
Sometimes they charged like a burst dam, the blades of their spears converging into a moving forest of death; other times they froze instantly, their massive shields slamming into the ground, forming an impenetrable wall of steel.
The shouts of a thousand men as one, the violent clashes of weapons and shields, merged into a continuous, deafening roar, as if even the ground beneath their feet was trembling.
Yang Yong stopped his horse and watched, his face full of excitement and pride.
However, Yang Yan's gaze did not linger too long on those strong and powerful soldiers.
His gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, was firmly fixed on the tall command platform in the center of the training ground, and on the twelve huge flags on the platform, each associated with one of the five elements and five colors, which were being waved continuously by the flag bearers.
The five main flags, blue, red, yellow, white, and black, correspond to the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, signifying different directions of movement and attack.
It is accompanied by a secondary flag depicting the sun and moon, used to distinguish the main attacker and the main defender in the chaos of the battlefield.
Every clean and crisp movement of the flag bearer directly affected the massive square formation of thousands of people below, causing them to gather, disperse, and reunite in endless variations, their uniformity so chilling that it inspired trepidation.
This military flag command system, which originated from Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Yong, and was further improved and matured by Yang Jian, was no longer a diagram in an old book, but a living, roaring, and operating war machine before his eyes.
For the first time, he, a person from a later era, so vividly touched the cold pulse of the pinnacle of ancient military art.
This army, from its equipment and training to its command system, is undoubtedly the pinnacle of its time, a peerless weapon capable of conquering new territories and suppressing the world.
But for some reason, a strange chill rose in Yang Yan's heart.
Looking at the soldiers who obeyed orders without question, and at the command flags held high above, a thought uncontrollably popped into his head—this elite army, its blades now pointed at the Turks in the north, Goguryeo in the east, or… the Eastern Palace in Daxing City?
Thinking of this, when he looked at the majestic and imposing army formation again, he felt an indescribable sorrow and worry slowly seeping into his body.
A sharp blade covered in dust is a hidden danger to the nation...