Chapter 76 Second Prince of the Army Formation, I've missed you so much!
Gao Guan ordered the twelve guards of the Southern Court to search along the riverbank for several days, but to no avail.
The story of the courtesan from Yifeng Pavilion falling into the river quickly became a topic of conversation among people during their leisure time.
It was a hot topic not only among the common people but also among the imperial court.
The romantic affair between Sheng Yu'an, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Qin girl who had her face slashed and attempted suicide by jumping into the river was astonishing and temporarily overshadowed the incident of the students' disturbance at the Imperial Academy.
Soon, everyone realized that the matter was not so easy to resolve.
They also discovered that the deceased courtesan Qin Sensen was not an insignificant woman of low social status.
Three days have passed since the students of the Imperial Academy rioted and the courtesan fell into the river, yet there is still no trace of them. Helpless, Gao Guan could only order the Yong'an Prefecture to write down the case file and record it in the missing persons register.
When Xie Wenjun returned to Yongdu from Wuzhou and learned of this matter, he only said, "I want to see the person alive or dead."
The Southern Prefecture and Yong'an Prefecture mobilized their forces again to quickly search along the riverbank.
Many days have passed, and still nothing has been gained.
A living person, nowhere to be found, neither alive nor dead. The princess ordered a thorough search; if they couldn't find them, the mission wouldn't be over, so the search had to continue. The Xu River was filled with constables and soldiers, ropes tied around their waists, eyes fixed on the water's surface, and retrieval tools in hand, constantly probing underwater.
The ringleaders were imprisoned, and those who followed suit were also flogged and fined.
I originally thought that the princess was only concerned with upholding the law and enforcing the law. Even if it was just a courtesan from Yifeng Pavilion who died, she would never allow the unhealthy trend of "the law does not punish the masses" to be tolerated.
Before long, everyone began to realize that something was wrong.
Several students from the Imperial Academy were arrested in Yong'an Prefecture and imprisoned in the prefectural prison. These young men, dressed in white, were precious and talented, with promising futures ahead of them. Cheng Lingdian dared not use torture indiscriminately, but simply kept them locked up. They were placed in the cleanest and brightest cells in the prison.
The students were imprisoned with their classmates. At first, they were uneasy, but after a few days they figured out the court's attitude and felt relieved. They discussed the political situation and current events, often talking late into the night.
No one took the prospect of imprisonment seriously.
Once you get out, consider it a prison experience, something you can brag about to your fellow inmates.
It did not go as they wished.
After waiting for many days, it should have been time for the officials of the Imperial Academy and the heads of various families to come and pick them up.
Everyone was fully prepared to go home, receive a slap on the hand, a scolding, and be forced to kneel for several hours, only to be back as spirited young men the next morning. But what they received was an imperial edict to throw the troublemaking students into the Dali Temple prison.
The situation took a sharp turn for the worse after the students who caused trouble at the Imperial Academy were transferred from Yong'an Prefecture to the Court of Judicial Review.
First, the Changning Guard took away many officials from various government offices. Then, the Princess summoned some minor local officials to Yongdu. Many outsiders were completely baffled: what was the purpose of summoning these insignificant soldiers?
Once they grasped some of the secrets, everyone became fearful.
The officials taken away by the Changning Guard, along with the local "shrimp soldiers and crab generals," were all relatives of the students who had caused trouble at the Imperial Academy. Regardless of whether they were close or distant relatives, anyone with even the slightest connection to them was spared. At best, they were reprimanded; at worst, they were demoted and had their family land confiscated.
Like grasshoppers strung together. Its influence is widespread.
The straw rope that tied the grasshoppers together in their various nests was the "Wanliaolu" in the hands of Princess Xie Wenjun.
The "Records of Ten Thousand Officials," meant to "bless future generations," had become a more complete family register than even ancestral genealogies. What's chilling is that this register, capable of implicating nine generations of relatives, was in the hands of those who could truly take their lives.
Then rumors began to circulate in Yongdu: Sheng Yu'an, the famous figure mentioned in this poem about flowers and wine, wanted to divorce his wife. This sparked much speculation. Could it be that the person behind stopping the Liuguang Boat, disfiguring Qin Sensen, and forcing her to jump into the river to commit suicide was actually Sheng Yu'an's wife, Guo?
Some even say that the eldest princess ordered the Sheng family to handle this matter.
The Guo family is very prominent. Would the Princess really offend the Sheng and Guo families for the sake of a courtesan?
It is certainly possible.
Soon after, Sheng's wife, Guo, was sent back to her hometown and confined to her home. When she left Yongdu, she traveled in a simple carriage with no one following her and no servants.
Then, two more things happened.
Yifeng Pavilion was a royal brothel, unlike the brothels in the countryside. The madam in the pavilion was only a womanizer; the real person in charge was the head of Yifeng Pavilion behind the scenes. One of the incidents was that not long after the death of the courtesan Qin, the head of Yifeng Pavilion committed suicide at home in a strange posture: his forehead and nose were on the ground, and his hands were clenched into fists and held upright in front of his chest.
This is a gesture of repentance towards the deceased, which is popular in the North.
Secondly, amidst the public outrage, Yao Jifeng was arrested in Cangnan and escorted to Yongdu for trial. Gu Xie, the headmaster of Lingjiu Academy, was also imprisoned for harboring remaining criminals.
The people in the court and the public were in a state of panic. It wasn't until they connected the two events that they understood the root cause of the princess's wrath. They stopped causing trouble, hurting people, and the courtesan falling into the river.
Meanwhile, the call from both the government and the public was to abolish girls' schools.
This has touched a raw nerve.
The trend of women studying calligraphy appeared earlier than Lingjiu Academy, and this trend was initially started by Qin Sensen, the talented courtesan of Yifeng Pavilion.
Then everything makes sense.
This was a move that no one had anticipated.
In Suzhou, the official gazettes have been arriving earlier than usual these past few months. The postal service is still as slow as ever, but Chen Liangyu has been sending people on horseback to pick them up shortly before their arrival.
"She's quite something. A mere registrar of officials, yet she manages to keep all the officials in the court in check." Chen Liangyu stood outside a spruce forest on a mountain in the Qilian Mountains, flipping through dozens of books in his hands. The pages of the official gazette were not bound together, and the pages were not connected, so he could only read them one by one.
Jingming said, "Does the Princess really intend to punish the students of the Imperial Academy?"
"How should I know? She didn't tell me."
Chen Liangyu rolled up the official gazette in her hand. "Jingming, does the Princess not know how to use the iron-tipped letter tube? Why haven't I received a single letter from her?"
Jingming said, "How would I know? The Princess didn't tell me."
"As if I hadn't asked."
Chen Liangyu waited at the mountain pass for a long time, and finally a group of people emerged, their legs feeling like lead. Lin Yin walked at the front, clutching a long spear tightly in her hand, the tip touching the ground as she used it as a crutch to support her body.
Approaching, he leaned forward and knelt before the legs of Chen Liangyu's horse, his voice barely a whisper, "Let me, let me go back to Bogong Ridge."
Chen Liangyu dismounted, lifted her from the ground, and made her lean against a rock. "There's no precedent for this. Where's Bu Ping'er?"
Lin Yin's lips were cracked and peeling, and he was panting heavily. "If you don't come out, you're 'dead' inside."
The death she spoke of was, of course, not a real death.
The spruce forest was filled with thirty soldiers in formation. Even the most elite Eagle Head Army could only manage to break through all of them. If someone was captured in the formation, they were "dead."
Chen Liangyu asked, "At which level will I die?"
Bu Ping'er was a general who had followed her from Linxia to Yongdu. She was already familiar with most military formations, so she shouldn't have been captured so early. Otherwise, it would have been truly embarrassing.
Lin Yin said, "In the final battle, she was a better marksman than me. She protected me and helped me break through, but she was left behind in the enemy lines."
She had just crawled on the dusty ground, her face covered in mud and sweat, leaving mottled marks that made her look quite pitiful.
Chen Liangyu nodded, "It's alright."
"You came here specifically to guard me?" Lin Yin's shoulders slumped slightly, and his arms hung limply at his sides.
Chen Liangyu remained noncommittal: "Let Bu Ping'er come out and return to the Suzhou camp."
From the city tower of Dingbei, looking north through the crenellations, one can see a wave-like formation of soldiers and hear their resounding shouts. Those are certainly not the soldiers of Da Lin.
Chen Liangyu said, "Bei Yong has come up with some kind of dragon energy array. It looks terrible. Go and break it for me."
Although that place was indeed Beiyong's territory, the fact that troops were being deployed not far from the Dingbei city gate was a blatant provocation.
Lin Yin stared intently for a long time, "Isn't this just a slightly modified formation from the Yin Yang Three Scrolls?"
The Yin-Yang Three Scrolls formation appears simple, but in reality, the key element can be replaced if one is not careful, making it difficult to deal with and break. With slight modifications, it becomes quite different.
"That's why I'm sending you."
Chen Liangyu had three small flags given to her: two five-sided flags for signaling, and a triangular flag, half white and half red, for signaling and fighting.
When a flag is placed on the back of the enemy's troops before they enter the battle, it is tantamount to an agreement between the two sides that, regardless of victory or defeat, the outcome of the battle is null and void, and any hostages captured or weapons seized must be returned.
That sounds incredibly pathetic. Isn't it obvious they're afraid of losing?
War is war. Who treats something as serious as war as a game? But there are some.
Before the Great Lin and the Northern Yong went to war, there were often clashes. Both sides wanted to test each other's strength. They would carry their battle flags and go into battle, both holding their breath and wishing they could annihilate the other's troops.
Therefore, although it was called a "battle drill", there were still casualties.
"Understood!" Lin Yin said. "General Bu, Deputy General Jing, come and assist me."
Bu Ping'er and Jing He then mustered their troops and marched towards the Jiaolong Qi Formation. Chen Liangyu stood on the Dingbei city tower, watching the two armies draw closer and closer. Just before reaching the front of the formation, a small group of men quietly circled around to the rear of the main army, and then quickly rode their horses up the high cliff.
Lin Yin waved his flag on the cliff, and the soldiers below followed the flag signals to attack or retreat. One wave, two waves, three waves... the attacks became increasingly fierce. Lin Yin stayed on the cliff for two days. After two days, he came down from the cliff and, as the vanguard general, led his troops into the Qi formation, directly attacking the core of the formation.
Once the key point of the formation was breached, the army's formation indeed collapsed.
Just as Lin Yin leaped onto his horse and cheered, a figure rode out from the dragon-like aura formation. He wore a golden crown with red tassels hanging down, and the breastplate of his armor gleamed with golden light. At first glance, this person truly possessed the bearing of a dragon.
Lin Yin couldn't help but glance at him a few more times, her smile as radiant as a peach blossom: "Second Prince, it's been so many years, I've missed you terribly. I've been thinking of you day and night."
Zhai Ji's thick eyebrows creased into two furrows. "You're from Bogongling?"
Lin Yin exclaimed, "Good memory. After all these years, you still like the Second Prince very much. If I had known this would happen, I should have broken your legs and left you at Bogong Ridge back then."
Zhai Ji scoffed, "If you can break through this prince's formation, then you have some skill."
Lin Yin said, "The Yin-Yang Formation is ever-changing but its principles remain the same. The profound theories within it were not taught to you alone by the Chief. Second Prince, don't overestimate yourself and think that you are invincible just because you have obtained the Three Scrolls of Yin and Yang. The principles of vertical and horizontal formations and Yin and Yang are mutually reinforcing and restraining. Even I can break your formation. If my Commander were to come in person, what do you think would happen?"
"Do you think I, the prince, am afraid of Chen Liangyu?"
That's what I think.
"..."
Lin Yin left behind a string of laughter that sounded like the tinkling of silver bells, saying, "I'm leaving. Goodbye."
Author's Note: The story is almost finished. My typing speed is slow, which may have affected everyone's reading experience. I'm sending out red envelopes to everyone. Please check in the comments section to receive them.
I've been very busy with work lately, and my life has been quite dramatic.
This profound story teaches us not to exert ourselves blindly when we shouldn't. If I had just followed the usual routine, I wouldn't have run into her.
Thank you for keeping me company while I write and for listening to my rambling.
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