The First Auxiliary Road from the Imperial Examination

"Sister Yuan, this garrison of the five armies in the capital is very different from that in the border town!"

An Yu and Sheng Yuan led their men to start their journey to inspect the Fifth Army.

The first stop, naturally, is the most important central army.

The central army camp was located in a valley fifty miles away from Kyoto.

Entering from the outside of the mountain and walking along the winding stone road for more than ten miles, visitors can experience the feeling of entering a paradise.

Of course, the premise is that "everyone is a guest".

Although Sheng Yuan and An Yu had heard a lot about the Five Military Bases in the capital, they had never been there in person, so this first sight was extremely new to them.

"Most border towns have vast territories, few soldiers, and vast plains. Thousands of miles of plains are all used as training grounds, so the training there seems to be closer to actual combat."

Sheng Yuan sat on his horse and looked around, watching the soldiers coming and going, busy with their work in an orderly manner, and nodded.

"As for this place, although the place is a little small, it has everything, such as training grounds and martial arts arenas. As long as you don't fall behind in training, everything has its own advantages. At least it's lively, isn't it?"

"That's right." An Yu looked around casually with his hands on the pergola, and just happened to see several teams of people passing through the hillside. He couldn't help but laugh out loud, "Sitting on the high slope of the border town and watching the sunset glow, there is always a sense of loneliness, and thoughts can't help but jump out; but here, even if you sit in the mountains to appreciate the bright moon and feel the breeze, there are still smoke and lights blowing in your face, and the sound of laughter and noise is ringing in your ears. The main theme is a world of fireworks!"

"...If Commander Qi heard what you said, he would probably doubt the discipline of his elite soldiers."

Sheng Yuan was just joking, but who would have thought that the commander of the central army, Qi Hanyuan, would come over from afar with his men. "General Sheng, you've come at a good time. The military training ground is currently holding the preliminary round of the competition. I wonder if you'd be interested in going there?" After exchanging pleasantries, Qi Hanyuan smiled and invited him.

"Oh?!" Sheng Yuan looked at him in surprise, "I didn't expect Commander Qi to be so quick... Since this is the preliminary round of the competition, I naturally want to see the strength of the central army's soldiers."

Since one invited enthusiastically and the other readily accepted the invitation, everyone naturally surrounded the two of them and headed towards the martial arts arena.

……

At this time, in the martial arts arena, there were thundering drums and endless cheers.

Looking ahead, one can see metal colliding with stone, afterimages of people, weapons and horses, all of which surround the mountain. Sand and rocks are flying, dust is rising, and there are shouts, sounds of instruments and hooves, all of which blend together and rise straight up into the sky.

After taking a quick look for a while, Sheng Yuan and the others looked carefully and were able to see clearly the preliminary events in the martial arts arena.

"...There are only two major events in the preliminaries. One is to test the soldiers' physical fitness, which are mostly small events such as climbing mountains and ridges, climbing cliffs, wading through mountains and rivers, running with loads, and marching at night. As for the other, it is to test the soldiers' technical ability. This kind of assessment is mostly small events such as controlling horses and leaping formations, light cavalry infiltration, jumping obstacles, galloping and shooting, and walking battles." Qi Hanyuan smiled and introduced the content of the preliminaries. "Of course, the two major events each include more small events than what I introduced."

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw a group of arrows fired at the same time not far away. A dense rain of arrows covered the sky and went forward. Almost at the same time, the moment the arrows left the bowstring, the sound of the arrows merged into one, roaring and whistling through the clouds.

"General, don't be fooled by the chaotic archery. In fact, the arrows and longbows shot out are clearly marked with numbers representing each soldier. All we need to do is record the position where the arrow lands on the target and the number on the arrow."

He said this, seeing that the directional archery at the martial arts arena was over and the next event was the galloping shooting at live targets, he couldn't help but smile and ask Sheng Yuan again: "The next event is the cavalry shooting event. I wonder if Governor Sheng would like to go and watch it? If Governor Sheng is interested in personally giving everyone a standard demonstration, the morale of the soldiers will probably be even higher." (End of this chapter)