You've Got Mail: Cautionary Tale (YGMCT)

Chapter 11 - The Great South Garrison General

Chapter 11 – The Great South Garrison General

Stationed in Bastion City were the fiercest troops of the Great Xia. So strong and overpowering was their presence that they seemed to be the very rulers of the territory that they stood upon. Even if the other three military forces in the land were to be combined into a single army, it would pose little threat to the camp in Bastion City.

If not for the fact that the Protector General had came from a line of ministers, and was as thick as thieves with the Emperor, the Emperor might have become worried, and… well, the Emperor would not be able to do much as well.

Logically, putting aside the savagery of the southern barbarians, before Guan Shanjin had defended Southern Xinjiang with his General status, every year, they would be pillaged by the southern barbarian king. However, within five short years, the southern barbarians had been completely dealt with, and obediently slunk out of the demarcated limits of their territory, accepting their defeat and paying tributes. The Emperor did not think that his head was as hard as that of the southern barbarian king.

Of course, it was not that there were no people who hated and were jealous of Guan Shanjin, but so what? He was always in Bastion City, and never returned to the capital, and under his hand was the Great Xia Dynasty’s most fearsome troops. Just mentioning his name was enough to stop little children from crying at night, and even if they were drunk, no one had the guts to openly speak ill of Guan Shanjin.

As for the ingratiating ones? There were many.

At first, they started sending him beauties. Plump ones, thin ones, all beautiful in their own ways. Just like a hundred flowers blooming together, all sorts of beauties were amongst them, and the Emperor’s harem might even lose to them.

However, Guan Shanjin was not interested.

That was no ordinary lack of interest.

When Guan Shanjin made a name for himself, he was only sixteen years old, and had long achieved military merit for himself in the northwest region. The Guan family army was renowned, and so the Western Garrison General did not dare to spearhead the campaign. Also, the Western Garrison General used to be a commander under the Protector General, and later, the Protector General had handed him command of his own troops and promoted him. Hence, he would naturally be more lenient with his previous little master.

After he came of age, Guan Shanjin was finally willing to return to the capital, idling about for two years. On the surface it looked as though it was the Emperor who had taken pity on him for having spent so much of his young life on the battlefield, and never got to enjoy the feeling of being with his family. Now, he gave the family a chance to spend more time together, and also to conveniently settle his marital matters, birth a successor, and soothe the Protector General’s love for his child.

In private, it was a lot simpler. The Emperor was afraid that this young man would be too difficult to control, but it was a waste to leave this sword unused. He planned to let him marry and start a family as quickly as possible, and in that way, he would have a few more chips in his hand.

No one was sure if Guan Shanjin had seen through the Emperor’s plan, but young General Guan was completely disinterested in the various beauties that appeared at his door daily. The scrolls of paintings in his study piled up in stacks, and if there was no space on the wall for them to be hung up, they would be sent to a corner of the house and left to collect dust. The clever steward came up with an idea of replacing the paintings on the wall daily,  so as to somewhat give face to the various aristocratic families.

But by the time half the beauties on the paintings had found their marriage match already, young General Guan still did not pay an iota of attention to those drawings, not to mention selecting one of them.