Shifting Spring Cage

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The Cage of Shifting Spring (移春檻) was a lavish flower wagon owned by Yang Guozhong, who was chancellor to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. It was the centrepiece to his entry to the 754 Flower Banquet, a competition for the most beautiful and magnificent flower exhibit.

Design

According to Kaiyuan–Tianbao Anecdotes (開元天寶遺事), the Shifting Spring Cage was a vehicle with wooden wheels, a floor made of planks, and a cage installed upon it. In springtime, an assortment of exquisite, blooming, and exotic flora would be planted within the cage. Through a mechanism linking the wheels with the cage, the cage would automatically rotate as the wagon was being towed. It was regarded as a wondrous exhibit to behold wherever it went.

History

The Cage of Shifting Spring was the main set in Yang Guozhong's presentation to the annual Flower Banquet. This was a contest which he participated in every year via a proxy team. With little exception, his delegates would be petty criminals who resorted to extortion and even flagrant robbery to acquire the plants used to embellish their wagons. This was no different in 754, when the gang hired by Guozhong murdered 17 villagers from Duling village, a farming community specialized in high-quality peonies. Owing to his underhanded tactics and his tremendous wealth, Yang Guozhong, via the Shifting Spring Cage, was declared the winner of the 754 Flower Banquet as usual.

Behind the scenes

The Shifting Spring Cage is mentioned twice in The Flower Banquet, the first volume of the Chinese-language manhua Assassin's Creed: Dynasty, as the name of Yang Guozhong's parade procession for the Flower Banquet, but no other context is given to explain what it is. Information about it is only provided in the volume's special issue in the form of an excerpt from the 10th century Kaiyuan-Tianbao Anecdotes and nothing else. Even though it lends its name to the winning exhibit, it does not seem that it ever appears in any panel unless the luxuriant, roofed platform Guozhong's team use as their stage is meant to be the "wagon", in which case it would actually be a parade float.

Name

The original name of the wagon in Chinese is 移春檻 (Mandarin: yíchūnjiàn or yíchūnkǎn).

• 移 means 'to shift, to move, to change'.
• 春 is the season of spring.
• 檻 is a wooden cage for animals or people. By extension, it also came to refer to prison wagons with such a cage installed, as well as wooden fences and banisters in general.

In the French edition of Assassin's Creed: Dynasty, an alternative name is given instead, Fleurs des Mille Printemps ('Flowers of the Thousand Springs'). In the English publication, it is simply called Shifting Springs.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Dynasty