For a nonzero holomorphic vector bundle on the curve, its degree of a holomorphic vector bundle and slope of a holomorphic vector bundle are
We obtain a bound independent of the particular holomorphic subbundle by fixing a Hermitian metric on a holomorphic vector bundle once and for all. Let be its Chern connection, its Chern curvature, and any positive area form on the compact Riemann surface. Write
Here is a smooth Hermitian endomorphism of . By compactness, its largest eigenvalue is bounded above by some finite constant on the whole curve.
Let be a holomorphic subbundle of positive rank , with the induced metric. Use the smooth orthogonal splitting of a vector subbundle . In this splitting the connection has block form
where is the projected Chern connection and is the second fundamental form of a holomorphic subbundle. The latter has type : the part of preserves the holomorphic subbundle. The adjoint includes conjugation of the form factor and has type . Squaring this block matrix gives
This derives the curvature formula for a holomorphic subbundle in the column-vector convention used here. Locally write . Then
The degree of a holomorphic vector bundle is the trace-curvature integral, since the trace is the curvature of the determinant line bundle. Hence
The last integrand is a nonnegative real two-form and is independent of the local unitary frame and coordinate. Since , the compressed trace is at most pointwise. Therefore
This is the subbundle slope bound from ambient Chern curvature. The right side depends only on and the initially chosen metrics, and is finite. It proves the requested uniform upper bound for every positive-rank subbundle, without assuming any stability property of or using a bound that depends on .