Chapter 107 Flower Garden Department

Thinking of this, Shen Dan, his head in a whirl, turned back to gather the many retainers of the Xiu Yuan (Embroidery Garden), recounting in detail everything that had happened during his meeting with Ye Tao. He didn't conceal the reprimand he had received during the imperial audience, speaking frankly about it. Then, he proposed that those who felt they could handle it should join him in Yunzhou, starting from the grassroots level of officialdom. In fact, when he subtly hinted that Tan Weishi might hopefully enter Ye Tao's household as she wished, many had already made up their minds. For them, Tan Weishi was far more than just a patron; she was their goddess. They might not have had any hope of being with the princess, but that didn't diminish their willingness to serve her unto death, to guard their goddess from afar and in silence. From this moment onwards, the official faction that would later be known as the Xiu Yuan system was effectively formed…

Ye Tao was unaware of all this, and even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared. In Yunzhou, there were simply too many factions of officials. The young descendants of the various local families of Yunzhou formed one faction. Ye Tao demanded the separation of political and clan power, with clan punishments giving way to formal judicial rulings by the government, and the various prominent families not enjoying any special privileges. However, he didn't deny the administrative abilities of those officials who had served in various places for many years and who were from the major clans or had close ties with them. In the Bureau of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, the technical officials, originally the professionals in Yunzhou who did this kind of work and had few opportunities to become officials, formed another faction. In the environment of Yunzhou, these technical officials had a very strong voice. The tribal descendants from the Benlang Plains also had many representatives serving as officials in Yunzhou now. Some of them were using their original expertise in the Bureau of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, but there were also a few who had been exposed to the same education as the children of those aristocratic families since childhood. In fact, because of their broader perspectives and more straightforward personalities, these people's achievements were truly impressive. Then there were the officials continuously selected and sent to Yunzhou from the territories originally belonging to Dongping. Among these people, there were even quite a few from the Intelligence Bureau.

The situation in the military was much the same. There was the Yunzhou local faction, the Blood Kirin Army faction, the tribal faction, the Imperial Guard faction, the Jianghu faction… If anyone else were to take the position of Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner, they would probably have a headache over this, but Ye Tao had good relationships with all sides, and he never cared about factional issues, only about whether things could be done well. Moreover, Ye Tao had once declared that once the number of officials reached a certain limit and the framework of the Yunzhou ruling and governing institutions was filled to a certain extent, a completely new official evaluation system would be deployed and implemented. It didn't matter which faction anyone belonged to; what mattered was that everyone actively contribute to the construction of Yunzhou…

For Ye Tao, the addition of a Xiu Yuan system of officials, most of whom were from poor scholarly backgrounds, had experience in enduring hardship to study, and had positive and upward-striving character, probably wouldn't even register.

Ye Tao had little interest in most of Lian Fei's (Consort Lian) activities during her visit to her family, especially the initial activities of worshipping the Chang family ancestral shrine in Yuhang. What he couldn't tolerate the most was that it would take Lian Fei's entourage more than a month to travel from Danyang to Yuhang. And what delayed the most time were those ceremonial guards from Chun Nan walking in front, determining the speed of the entire entourage. Chun Nan had never been a country with a good cavalry tradition, and Chun Nan, which had always followed ancient etiquette, could only do so in terms of ceremonial guards. This frustrated Ye Tao to no end. Due to the progress of road construction, the increasing maturity of four-wheeled carriage technology, the mechanical and even the first generation of hydraulic independent suspension had been born, and there were also a large number of horse resources. As the Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner, Ye Tao had to frequently travel between the Ye Clan Workshop, Ningyuan City, Suiyuan City, and Thunder Cliff, but everyone in Yunzhou knew that, while maintaining a relatively comfortable situation, the standard speed of Ye Tao's entourage was between two hundred and two hundred and sixty *li* per day, and this speed even included half an hour of rest at noon.

Ye Tao, who originally felt that going to Chun Nan was purely boring, was extremely impatient with such a journey. He complained in front of Chang Hongquan that the only thing worth seeing in Yuhang was the clock tower project under construction. And in the time it took Lian Fei's carriage to travel from Danyang to Yuhang, even if the scenery along the way was beautiful, he could see it ten or eight times at his travel speed.

Lian Fei and the Chun Nan envoys were naturally furious. Especially Lian Fei, Chang Ling, had long felt that there might be some problems with this trip to visit her family. Originally, her triumphant return to her hometown, showing her power and prestige, and at the same time, through the actions of the Chun Nan royal family, further enhancing her influence in the Dongping royal palace and court, was very likely to be disrupted by a large group of people. Ye Tao, who nominally "accompanied the imperial carriage," had no intention of doing so, and the officer corps led by Chi Yun and the young Dongping scholars and "cultural visiting group" personally led by Tan Weishi, who set off with the family visit delegation, didn't bother with Lian Fei at all, completely ignoring many of her requests.

In fact, among all the things that Ye Tao, Tan Weixin, and Tan Weishi had created, only the various dramas constantly staged in the lecture hall of the Yi Zhan Lou (Chess Battle Building) were deeply loved by Lian Fei. This time, Chang Ling specifically requested Liu Xiangyuan to organize a theater troupe to accompany her to Chun Nan, which was almost shelved because of a serious problem raised by Liu Xiangyuan: there was no suitable venue.

There were no similar places on-site in Chun Nan with the typical stage structure of a lecture hall. The various dramas and theater troupes organized and funded by Tan Weishi, and now hosted by Liu Xiangyuan, had complained countless times that the capacity of the lecture hall was not large enough, and that only this standard stage made it impossible to arrange the schedule. Just last month, Liu Xiangyuan's theater troupe, which had carefully prepared an opera for three months, was only able to perform it for four days, a total of seven performances, before it had to give way to another public Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) tournament, causing everyone to complain. This super tight schedule of the lecture hall would probably not change until the Lanxin Grand Theater, which was under construction, was completed next spring.

The Lanxin Grand Theater, designed by Ye Tao in the midst of his busy schedule, with its basic architectural structure and acoustic characteristics, had the largest theater hall that could accommodate 1,400 spectators, with the most ideal acoustic characteristics of this era, and also left room for further installation of other types of equipment in the years to come. In addition, there were six small theaters that could accommodate between one hundred and three hundred people, to suit different types of needs. After the completion of the Lanxin Grand Theater, all the construction teams responsible for the construction of the Ye Clan Construction Company would all go to Yunzhou to start the construction project of the newest city in northern Dongping, which everyone was looking forward to, yearning for, and imagining. It was possible that they would not return to Danyang in the next few years, once again astonishing the people of Danyang, whose appetites had grown increasingly larger with the constant surprises over the years.

But the people of Danyang were not worried. Compared with the many advanced concepts of the city in the north that had not yet been named, Danyang was indeed a bit old. After the city in the north was completed, the comprehensive renovation project of Danyang would be launched, and the design and construction standards implemented in that new Danyang were: the capital of a unified country in the entire Central Plains in the future.

Compared with the Dongping people's high-spirited, constantly seeking innovation and change attitude, Chun Nan, especially Yuhang, the capital of Chun Nan, did seem to lack confidence. If Dai Yuege hadn't taken two construction teams to Yuhang at Tan Weishi's request, and completely renovated and rebuilt a long-vacant ancestral temple building in just one month, Lian Fei Chang Ling's idea of inviting Liu Xiangyuan's theater troupe to perform in Yuhang would have fallen through. But Chang Ling didn't want to owe Ye Tao or anyone related to Ye Tao a favor for this matter at all. She regarded these things as another kind of display of power.

However, Chun Nan, especially Chang Hongquan, couldn't force Ye Tao to accept their arrangements. Ye Tao had promised to sell a large number of high-quality military horses to Chun Nan, and Ye Tao had reached a package of cooperation agreements with him in private, allowing him to protect himself no matter what happened within Chun Nan. In addition, he didn't like Lian Fei Chang Ling very much. Chang Hongquan finally proposed a plan that Ye Tao found acceptable. Ye Tao would not travel with the family visit delegation. He would first enter Chun Nan, continuously visit several places, including Chang Hongquan's fief, Jinzhou, and then arrive in Chun Nan before Lian Fei arrived in Yuhang, to cooperate with a series of activities. Then, he would take a ship from the Dongping Navy or the Seven Seas Trading Company at Yuhang Port, return to Yicheng, then from Yicheng to Danyang, and then back to Yunzhou.

In this way, Ye Tao could achieve the goal of assessing Chun Nan's technical potential and war production potential that Tan Xiaopei had requested, but also compress the journey to a little more than two months. Adding the time to travel back and forth between Yunzhou and Danyang, it would be four months, which was much shorter than the previously estimated six months. As for the fact that such an arrangement would make Lian Fei even more annoyed, and would make many officials and clans in Chun Nan feel that he was extremely rude… Ye Tao really didn't care about these things. The investigation that Tan Xiaopei asked him to conduct had fully demonstrated the attitude of the national lord.

To allow a regional official like Ye Tao to enter Chun Nan for investigation, naturally he couldn't be allowed to have nearly a thousand various guards and near-guard troops accompanying him at any time, as he did in Yunzhou. The accompanying security would have to be handed over to the Chun Nan military. Ye Tao had no objection to this. Even Liu Yong, Guan Huan, and Liu Qing had no objections. They personally selected a guard force of only fifty-five people. Including Ye Tao's entourage, including female relatives, close attendants, and clerks, there were only eighty-two people in total. However, Liu Yong's request for the protective forces provided by Chun Nan almost caused Chun Nan to collapse. He simply said that the number didn't matter, and he didn't want fancy ceremonial guards, but he must not delay Ye Tao's travel speed. And this speed, Liu Yong said very politely, was an average of more than one hundred and sixty *li* per day. Chang Hongquan generously helped solve this problem. He had his own personal soldiers and the Chun Nan Imperial Guards form an elite cavalry detachment to take on this security task. If it hadn't been inconvenient to send out all his guards, he would have even wanted to separate out this troop himself. This was Sun Jin's suggestion. He knew that the several officers and guards accompanying Ye Tao's entourage were proficient in cavalry techniques and tactics. Without them having to give instructions, just following Ye Tao's entourage back and forth, watching with their eyes and learning with their brains, even if they could only learn a semblance, it would be very good. It should be known that the cavalry techniques and tactics skills of the people around Ye Tao were far higher than those of the Blood Kirin Army's cavalry troops.

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