New Recruits Enlist

Xingyuan City.

The new recruits from the surrounding villages and the city had all gathered on the drill ground.

The facilities on the drill ground were very old and long neglected.

That was only to be expected.

Xingyuan City lay in the remote southeastern reaches of the Great Yan Dynasty, with no external threats or enemies to worry about.

The city had a population of a hundred thousand, but its garrison numbered fewer than three hundred.

For this recruitment drive, a total of five hundred new soldiers had been enlisted from Xingyuan City and the dozens of villages and towns around it.

For the next month, all five hundred would be drilled by Xingyuan City's garrison.

The five hundred recruits crowded noisily together in the middle of the drill ground.

Most wore the coarse clothes they had brought from home, a jumble of colors. Some had patches upon patches sewn onto their garments.

There was little to be said for the recruits' morale. What they had in abundance was confusion.

They had no idea what the future held. These farm boys had far more fear than any desire to win glory on the battlefield.

Besides the dark-skinned farmers with their thick knuckles, many boys stood among the crowd who looked about Chen Yan's age, only more sallow and gaunt, with slender frames.

Beyond the recruits gathered in the middle of the drill ground, two rows of stables stood along the wall.

The two rows of stables looked large enough to hold a hundred warhorses, but now only two or three scrawny horses stood in the empty stalls.

Several dozen veterans stood scattered along the edge of the drill ground. They chatted among themselves, their gazes occasionally sweeping over the recruits before them.

Their eyes were full of indifference and understanding.