The Heng River.
It was a great canal that ran east to west through the Great Sage Dynasty.
After the Great Ancestor conquered Xiliu, he had ordered this river dug so that the people of Xiliu and the people of the Great Sage Dynasty could grow closer together.
Its merit benefited the present age, its legacy a thousand autumns.
This great canal not only tightened the ties between east and west.
It also made the economies on both sides of the Great Sage Dynasty flourish.
Merchant fleets could be seen everywhere upon this river.
Especially at the docks of each prefecture: wealthy merchants, young masters, scholars and poets, sailors chanting work songs...
Having left the capital, Zeng Anmin's disaster relief fleet had now reached the waters of Qingzhou Anhe Prefecture, still more than fifteen hundred li from Xiliu.
Directly ahead of the relief fleet, a flotilla of more than ten vessels, large and small, was stopped there.
"Stop the ships!!"
After receiving Zeng Anmin's orders, Dongfang Sheng led three hundred Imperial City Department Investigators aboard over a dozen small boats and charged straight toward that flotilla in less than the time it took to burn half an incense stick.
Zeng Anmin stood atop Dongfang Sheng and looked up at the flotilla.
Ordinary fleets, whether military ships of the Imperial Court or merchant vessels of trading companies, all flew banners.
One could tell at a glance what organization a fleet belonged to.
Yet the strange thing about this flotilla was that it had no banners.
Thus, Dongfang Sheng had grown suspicious of it.
"Stop your ships! Did you not hear me?!"
A trace of icy coldness laced Dongfang Sheng's voice.
When he saw that, upon hearing him, the fleet not only failed to stop but instead hoisted its sails and attempted