Chapter 493: Shocked

At the moment, the students in the archery academy were different from before. There used to be a total of 2,768 students back then. However, the archery academy now had 3,000 students and therefore expanded into thirty units.

After Yan Liqiang returned not long ago, he had more than two hundred men follow him in the operation to join the archery academy. These people were to train with everyone else in the archery academy, including Zhou Yong.

It hadn’t been long since Zhou Yong and the rest came to the archery academy. Under Yan Liqiang’s order, the group of two hundred people were scattered and very quickly threw themselves into the archery academy’s training. After only a week of training, they quickly blended in with the other students.

A part of them were young ambitious students, another part had ‘seasoned men’ who had just fought bandits on a real battlefield. They had seen blood, killed people, skinned the Vice Transport Commissioner alive, and were involved in a case that ‘sent shockwaves’ across the northwestern provinces. After Zhou Yong and the rest joined, there were subtle changes in the archery academy’s dynamics…

Wang Jianbei happened to be the first outsider to witness the changes.

“Reporting to the Chairman, there is a total of a hundred in the 1st Unit. A hundred out of a hundred are present…!”

“Reporting to the Chairman, there is a total of a hundred in the 2nd Unit. Ninety-eight out of ninety-eight are present…!”

“Reporting to the Chairman, there is a total of a hundred in the 3rd Unit. Ninety-nine out of ninety-nine are present…!”

…

Every group quickly numbered off in order. Even Wang Jianbei was shocked into silence by the efficiency and level of discipline exhibited by the formation. As someone who once led a troop, he naturally knew what this meant. For a moment, he even suspected that the Emperor definitely had a deeper intention in appointing Yan Liqiang as the Qiyun Protectorate General and sending him to Gan Province.

The few servants beside Wang Jianbei were stunned too. They were rendered speechless with their eyes as wide as saucers. The uniforms that the archery academy’s students were wearing, along with their synchronized movements and shouting instilled an amazing sense of power in them.

“H-How… How long have these people been trained?” Wang Jianbei asked Yan Liqiang after regaining his composure.

“Less than three months!” Yan Liqiang replied with a smile while looking at the square formation in satisfaction. After persevering in their training for more than two months, the people were like sharpened swords. They were visually close to the military parades that Yan Liqiang had seen on television in his previous life.

Even on the platform, all of them appeared to be standing in a straight line horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, or at least no one was able to pick out any flaws. Not only the spectator, but even the students participating in the formation were impressed by the united sense of power and honor.

“They are able to achieve this in less than three months?” Wang Jianbei mumbled to himself, as his gaze on Yan Liqiang turned weird. “If I’m not mistaken, this method is used to train soldiers. Please forgive my ignorance, though I would like to claim myself to be quite knowledgeable since I have met many troops in the Great Han Empire’s military, including a few elite ones. Even so, I have never seen such a training method. From where did you acquire it, Liqiang?”

“Hahaha, I have made a fool out of myself. Indeed, I’m not very knowledgeable in training soldiers and I wasn’t given any opportunity to learn either. However, I love seeing neat things. I blindly came up with the training method that this archery academy currently uses!” Yan Liqiang replied humbly.

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“Blindly came up?” Wang Jianbei didn’t believe it, of course. Thoughts ran through his head. His eyebrows were knitted together for a moment before they relaxed again. A smile appeared on his face as he gently dismissed it. “I see. How original of you, Liqiang!”

“Hahaha, there are more formation trainings later. I’ll be needing your guidance, Prefectural Governor!” Yan Liqiang said, then nodded to Shi Changfeng, who was standing on a high platform that faced the training field while holding a red flag. He made a few special hand gestures, then students on the training field started moving and commenced their formation training.

As soon as the training began, the training field was filled with voices that resounded through the sky. “One, two, one!””One, two, one!” Every square formation started moving in sync with the voices. It was a natural sight to Wang Jianbei, yet it also brought an entirely different feeling and amazement to him. He personally went down the platform and into the training field to watch how the troops trained. He would nod occasionally and appear to be in deep thoughts.

Wang Jianbei stayed in the training field for nearly an hour. After he was done watching all sorts of training there, he proposed to have a look around the student’s living quarters in the archery academy, so Yan Liqiang and Shi Changfeng showed him the way.

…

“W-What… What is this?” As soon as Wang Jianbei entered a room in one of the units’ barracks, he saw a dark green tofu-like block sitting on a bed that had been made without even a wrinkle. No matter how stoic he was, he couldn’t help but be flabbergasted when he saw the folded blankets which resembled blocks of tofu. Before he came to the archery academy, he never expected he would witness such an ‘marvel’ in his life. On every wooden bed was a block of tofu with perfect edges and angles made out of blankets.

Oh dear! A-Are… are my eyes playing tricks on me…?

“Ahem, Lord Wang, these are the blankets our students have folded!” Looking at Wang Jianbei’s expression which looked like he just got tricked, Yan Liqiang nearly burst out laughing but he managed to hold himself back. For some reason, this situation gave Yan Liqiang an indescribable joy.

“Blanket?” Wang Jiangbei took a deep breath, then went in front of a bed. He pressed his hand on the block of tofu, and its shape immediately changed. “It’s really a blanket!”

“Yes, of course it is!”

“All the students’ beds look like this?”

“Yes, all the students’ beds look like this!” Yan Liqiang nodded.

“How do they fold their blanket like this?”

“It’s very simple!” Yan Liqiang went over to spread open the blanket that Wang Jianbei pressed earlier, then skillfully demonstrated how to fold it back into a standard tofu-looking block in front of him.

Watching the blanket being magically transformed into a block of tofu by Yan Liqiang’s hands, the way the Pingxi Prefectural Governor Wang Jianbei looked at him changed.

“Can I take a look around the other living quarters?”

“This way, my lord!”

Truth be told, Wang Jianbei was truly shocked by Yan Liqiang after viewing another few living quarters…