Duling village
Duling village (Chinese: 杜陵村) was a settlement which was home to a group of famous flower farms.[1] The livelihood of its villagers was based on the flower market, whose sheer scale at the peak of the Tang dynasty made it highly lucrative. The demand for the illustrious Duling flowers was further aggrandized by the Flower Festival,[1] an annual contest for the most beautiful and magnificent flower procession. So expensive were they that in the preparations for the 754 festival, the chancellor Yang Guozhong hired a gang of thugs who called themselves the Yichunjian to use coercive means to procure its peonies.[2] What followed was a flagrant robbery of the Duling gardens that culminated in the massacre of seventeen villagers.[3]
This atrocity provoked the fury of the Hidden Ones. One of their agents, Li E, arrived in Chang'an on the day of the festival to avenge the slain farmers. He ambushed the last cart of peonies that was on its way to rendezvous with the rest of the Yang family's procession, killing all three Yichunjian henchmen in charge of transporting it.[2] The small cart's failure to arrive at the parade drew little suspicion from the Yichunjian boss since it was inconsequential for their presentation,[4] and he was then assassinated later that day by Li E at Chenxiang Pavilion.[3]
Appearances
- Assassin's Creed: Dynasty (mentioned only)