The Great Xuan Dynasty's First Pass

Everyone stood on the deck of the grain ship, gazing into the distance.

The setting sun had dyed the river gold and crimson where the Huitong River met the Wei River.

Watchtowers and checkpoints dotted both banks.

Black-robed clerks, towmen with waxen-yellow faces, merchants, laborers...

People of every description streamed back and forth, their clamorous voices nearly drowning out the river's roaring waves.

The river entrance had been completely blocked by a towering wooden lock gate.

Dozens of grain ships and passenger boats crowded before the lock, waiting anxiously.

"Raise the lock!"

As the old clerk at the gate struck the bronze gong, the canal workers swiftly set up the gangplanks.

"Hey-ho, hey-ho~"

Bare-chested towmen on the bank shouted work songs as they hauled the ropes, sweat rolling down their bronze-colored backs.

As the winch turned, the enormous wooden gate slowly rose.

The ships that had been waiting for ages immediately entered.

After a dozen or so vessels passed through, the wooden gate slowly descended again, leaving the ships behind to continue waiting.

This was the canal pass's "lock transfer."

Its scene and scale were in no way inferior to any wharf.

Li Yan and the others were not surprised when they saw it.

Linqing City was no simple place. It was the foremost commercial hub in the north of the Great Xuan Dynasty, the chief of the Grand Canal's eight customs stations, governing four hundred li of waterways and ports. Its tax revenue exceeded the total commercial tax of all Luzhou Prefecture by more than tenfold, ranking first in the entire country.

Jinan Prefecture was nothing beside it; even Suzhou and Hangzhou had to stand aside.

"Outshining the Two Capitals" was no empty phrase.

The city not only stockpiled heavy troops but was also where merchant guilds from every