Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather

Chapter 572: Chapter 495: Birth of a Great-Grandson

Upon receiving the imperial edict, Yang Zhenshan officially took up the position of Martial Instructor at the Martial Arts Pavilion.

However, the Martial Arts Pavilion currently doesn’t even have a government office; it only exists on paper, so his role as Martial Instructor still leaves him with nothing to do.

Fortunately, the court soon selected a site for the Martial Arts Pavilion.

The Martial Arts Pavilion is distinct from the Imperial College. The Imperial College is a place for academic study, with classrooms and dormitories being sufficient, whereas the Martial Arts Pavilion is a place for Martial Artists to cultivate, at the very least requiring a drill ground.

Therefore, the site chosen by the court for the Martial Arts Pavilion is not within the city but within the Royal Hunting Ground to the south of the city.

The Royal Hunting Ground is enclosed with a wall spanning 120 li, with four gates around it, housing a government office, with one Chief Supervisor and four Supervisors in charge of management. Within the grounds, there are 24 gardens, which raise animals and plant fruits and vegetables, provided for the Emperor and nobles to hunt and enjoy.

Emperor Yanping is also quite generous, directly offering an estate as the site for the Martial Arts Pavilion.

After receiving the news, Yang Zhenshan immediately ran over to take a look.

The estate is large, covering about one hundred acres, originally used for planting fruits and vegetables, with more than a hundred rooms for servants to live in.

However, if this is to serve as the site for the Martial Arts Pavilion, significant construction is needed.

The servants must all move out, rooms must be expanded, and walls must be built to separate it from the Royal Hunting Ground.

Yang Zhenshan roughly sketched out a plan, drew a diagram, and then handed it over to the Ministry of Industry.

Constructing the Martial Arts Pavilion is naturally the job of the Ministry of Industry. It’s not something for a Martial Instructor to deal with, moreover, he currently has no means to conscript craftsmen.

The Ministry of Industry is quite efficient. By late May, they had already sent people into the site of the Martial Arts Pavilion to begin construction.

Mainly because Emperor Yanping was urging them on, and of course, the Martial Arts Pavilion also benefited from the prestige of the Martial Arts Temple, as Emperor Yanping was eager to set up the Martial Arts Temple, and the Martial Arts Pavilion got to take advantage of this tailwind.

On May 28, Marquis Jianchang, Zhang Luan, returned to the capital to assume the position of Minister of the Martial Arts Temple.

By June, the establishment of the Martial Arts Temple entered an intense phase.

The court issued documents, requesting the Governor’s Offices of the thirteen provinces to build government offices for the Martial Arts Department.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of War selected soldiers from the nine border towns to fill the ranks of the Martial Arts Temple.

On the other hand, Yang Zhenshan was also busy with the establishment of the Martial Arts Pavilion.

The construction of the Martial Arts Pavilion didn’t require his oversight, but the recruitment of officials and instructors for the Martial Arts Pavilion needed to be personally handled by him.

In fact, the Martial Arts Pavilion does not require Martial Artists with high cultivation, as the disciples recruited by the Martial Arts Pavilion are all Martial Artists who have just entered the Postnatal Realm.

To become a disciple of the Martial Arts Pavilion, one must meet two conditions:

Must be under the age of twenty-two.

The cultivation must have reached the Postnatal Realm.

Only by meeting these two conditions can one enter the Martial Arts Pavilion.

The Martial Arts Pavilion trains Martial Artists with potential, in other words, geniuses.

Although such requirements may overlook some late bloomers, this is the most suitable method for selecting disciples for the Martial Arts Pavilion.

To instruct Martial Artists who have just entered the Postnatal Realm, having a cultivation at the Postnatal Fifth Layer is sufficient.

In addition to cultivation requirements, instructors at the Martial Arts Pavilion also need to be skilled in military training.

The Martial Arts Pavilion isn’t fostering mere Martial Artists but Military Officers capable of leading troops in combat.

To put it simply, the Martial Arts Pavilion is a military academy.

In the future, the disciples from the Martial Arts Pavilion will all receive appointments from the court.

Yang Zhenshan’s goal is to make the Martial Arts Pavilion into Da Rong’s equivalent of the West Point Military Academy.

The future disciples of the Martial Arts Pavilion will become the backbone of the Da Rong Army.

Therefore, the disciples of the Martial Arts Pavilion must undergo military training.

This also necessitates that the instructors at the Martial Arts Pavilion have a cultivation of at least the Postnatal Fifth Layer and are proficient in military training.

And, undoubtedly, the soldiers from the Camp and Tenglong Guard of Chongshan Town are the most suitable candidates to be instructors at the Martial Arts Pavilion.

The reason is simple: The soldiers from the Camp in Chongshan Town have been trained according to Yang Zhenshan’s requirements, their training is in line with Yang Zhenshan’s teachings, and most aligned with his intentions.

Thus, the Ministry of War detached over twenty soldiers from Chongshan Town and the Tenglong Guard to serve as instructors and teaching assistants at the Martial Arts Pavilion.

Besides martial arts and military training instructors, Yang Zhenshan also selected several craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry and Imperial Physicians from the Imperial Hospital to act as teachers at the Martial Arts Pavilion.

On the 8th of early June.

The first batch of teaching and administrative staff for the Martial Arts Pavilion all arrived, totaling forty-three people including Yang Zhenshan.

The number is small, but this is unavoidable.

Even with the support of the court, it is not possible to find so many suitable personnel immediately.

Moreover, for the first batch of disciples, Yang Zhenshan did not plan to recruit too many.

According to Yang Zhenshan’s plan, the Martial Arts Pavilion will only admit three hundred disciples this year, expanding to a thousand once the site is built next year.

Standing in front of the rooms at the site of the Martial Arts Pavilion, Yang Zhenshan looks at the forty or so people gathered together.

The Martial Arts Pavilion has one Martial Instructor at Secondary Fourth Rank, two Directors at Standard Fifth Rank, one Supervisor at Secondary Fifth Rank, and a Chief Clerk at Secondary Seventh Rank.

There are also temporarily twelve instructors; four in Martial Arts, four in training, two scholars in military strategy, one craftsman scholar, and one medical scholar, all at Secondary Fifth Rank.

Eighteen teaching assistants are temporarily appointed at Sixth Rank, two librarians at Eighth Rank, both the Warehouse Envoy and Storehouse Envoy at Ninth Rank. Thirteen low-ranking clerks not included in the standard rank.

This constitutes all the staff on the roster for the Martial Arts Pavilion, however, this is just a temporary number of personnel for the Martial Arts Pavilion. As the various buildings on the site are completed, and as more disciples are recruited, the number of instructors and other officials like teaching assistants will expand.

However, for now, these people are more than enough.

The framework of the Martial Arts Pavilion must be set up first, then it can be developed and grown gradually.