Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 991

Chapter 982: The Siege of Terra (Part 1)

For the past few days, Marshal Yan Xinzhen of the Imperial Guards has been primarily concerned with two matters.

The first is clearing out the Imperial Palace.

Clearing out every last person from the palace is, of course, unrealistic, given that the entire palace encompasses the former Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

While it’s called a palace, it serves as a residence, with high-ranking officials from across the Empire maintaining their official residences. It also serves as an administrative office, with many of the Empire’s central government offices located within the palace. It also serves as a ceremonial venue, with various squares and halls hosting grand ceremonies…

However, these are merely incidental functions of the palace.

Perhaps over the course of time, these attributes have become particularly prominent.

High-ranking officials take pride in having a residence within the Terra Imperial Palace. The daily orders issued by countless government agencies determine the rise and fall of the entire cosmic empire. Various ceremonies both leverage the palace’s majesty and gradually add to its splendour.

However, no matter what, it cannot conceal the fact that the Terra Palace was designed from the outset as a vast military fortress, humanity’s last ditch defense.

The Imperial Guards have spent millennia meticulously maintaining its warfighting capabilities.

For this very reason, it’s impossible to expel everyone except the Ten Thousand and their subordinate Palace Guards.

Even though Yan Xinzhen completely distrusts the bureaucrats of the previous government, some institutions and personnel necessary to maintain the palace’s proper functioning must remain.

As for the rest, the powerful residents and those offices less relevant to the palace’s survival must be expelled. The Imperial

Guards will have no control over where they work or what they do once they’re gone. Do

whatever you want, just stay out of the palace.

Without the time and energy to discern the loyal and the traitorous, the pure and the corrupt, treat them all as potential threats and expel them.

Those who could pose a threat to the palace from within must be eliminated as much as possible.

The remaining maintenance department, with its numerous engineers, technicians, and the like, would be under strict control, even if they were retained.

The Imperial Guards would absolutely consider every potential hazard as a worst-case scenario and had prepared ample contingency plans. Should any problem arise, no matter how minor, there would be a response.

These matters were Yan Xinzhen’s highest priority, and he personally oversaw them.

This was the Imperial Guards’ duty. After the Emperor’s ascension, they lost their paramount duty as the Emperor’s personal guard. For millennia, they had to find a purpose for their existence.

Protecting the Imperial Palace was that purpose, and

it was something they absolutely could not lose.

Beyond this paramount priority, Yan Xinzhen’s second concern for the time being was how to help Robert, the Son of God.

He trusted Robert’s credentials and hoped that Robert would reside on Holy Terra, in the Imperial Palace. While

the Palace’s sole owner was the Emperor, that was true; but even the Emperor’s son could reside there for a while.

Yan Xinzhen had lived for over two thousand years, and during that time, he had witnessed the ugliness of the Terran government.

Honestly, he felt neither happy nor sad about this.

He didn’t care what happened to the Terran government; that wasn’t the Custodians’ responsibility.

Their duty was simply to protect the Imperial Palace.

To protect the Empire… and perhaps a little bit of it as well.

But the core responsibility was to protect the Imperial Palace.

The main force of the Imperial Guards has always been stationed within the Imperial Palace—or at least, within Terra itself. However, they also have covert teams operating outward. Most of the time, this is due to their established, proprietary intelligence network receiving intelligence of potential threats to Holy Terra, prompting them to dispatch the Imperial Guards. Occasionally, they might be called in by the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Taxation to resolve a matter. Generally, this depends on their mood.

No matter how those high-ranking Terran officials of the past raged, no matter how seemingly doomed the Empire seemed, it wasn’t the moment.

Within the Empire, there are always individuals whom even a perfectly human like the Imperial Guard would haile as heroes, repeatedly turning the tide.

It’s a comforting sight.

However, after the Cataclysm, the situation was somewhat different.

Yan Xinzhen discovered that Terra was out of control.

It was one thing for these worms to wreck havoc on the political landscape of the empire, as Yan Xinzhen had witnessed countless similar incidents over the past two thousand years.

The chaos they had wrought upon the empire was no surprise.

However, when coupled with the scars, unprecedented in millennia, that tore through the empire, something else was happening.

Over the decades, Yan Xinzhen gradually realized that if things continued like this… the empire might truly be destroyed by these people!

How would he defend his palace then?

And at this point, how could he save the empire?

They were merely the Imperial Guard, the Ten Thousand—just ten thousand men.

Even if each one was a perfect human, capable of crushing the Space Marines they despised, they, unlike the Space Marines, were not solely focused on combat and warfare. They also pursued various disciplines, tailored to their strengths and interests. Whether in social sciences or technical fields, they were exceptional scholars, artists, and administrative experts.

But… after all, they were only ten thousand men.

They lacked the legal basis for governing the Empire.

If they were to take the initiative and do something earth-shattering, the Imperial Guards would face numerous obstacles. Though he held the title of Grand Marshal, there were also those even more senior than him, and conservative factions existed within the Imperial Guards.

Hesitation, ambivalence, uncertainty about what to do… Amidst this, he heard of Robert ‘s arrival.

The Son of God was one of the few figures the Imperial Guards could identify with, and even willing to obey to a certain degree.

Convincing himself of the high probability of truth, upon learning of the lunar war, Yan Xinzhen dispatched troops to support him.

In the days that followed, he actively sought a way to bring the Son of God and his troops to the surface.

The Imperial Guard troops dispatched to control the orbital artillery defenses were one such effort.

But he felt it was not enough. He considered further avenues to aid the expeditionary force.

Plans were proposed one after another, and he hesitated over which course of action to take.

However, the greatest crisis Yan Xinzhen had encountered in his more than 2,000 years of Imperial Guards career and 1,100 years as Imperial Guards Marshal had occurred.

Enemies appeared in enormous numbers from multiple directions of the Imperial Palace.

They were about to lay siege to the Terra Palace!

Now was not the time for Yan Xinzhen to consider how to help Robert, but rather how to get Robert’s help as quickly as possible.

Although the Terra Palace could be considered the most complete defensive fortress complex in the entire human empire, the Imperial Guards were still too few in number, and the enemies they had to face were too many.

(End of this chapter)