In the alley where the Shang Family resided, several figures flickered amidst the alarmed curses of nearby residents, and flying sparks from the houses had already ignited some of the buildings.
Everyone was busy fighting fires at their own homes, leaving no leisure to spare for the Shang Family where the blaze had first originated.
The murderous intent concealed within the fire could only be felt by those being hunted down.
Hateful, truly hateful.
Not only killing people, but also setting fires—did they not realize that once things spiraled out of control, half the city would be reduced to ashes?
Because ancient buildings were primarily made of wooden structures, fires spread with extreme ease when they broke out, causing catastrophic losses.
Some fires were natural disasters, while others were man-made.
A fire broke out at the home of Yang Hao, an official in the Censorate of the Former Wei. Driven by the wind, the inferno spread rapidly, affecting over fifty thousand households and directly impacting one hundred eighty thousand people, nearly sixty of whom died.
The emperor flew into a rage; even with prime ministers and other high-ranking officials interceding, he still had Yang Hao beheaded and forty members of his lineage executed.
On the twenty-third day of the fourth month in the eighth year of Qingwu during the current dynasty, a winery in the Capital City caught fire. The Founding Emperor was shaken with fury, and after a subsequent investigation, an official was found derelict in duty and sentenced to capital punishment.
Therefore, intentionally setting a fire was a crime equivalent to treason, punishable by death with the corpse abandoned and denied burial; even if one did not deliberately start a fire, causing severe consequences was likewise a capital offense.
Even outside the Capital City, local jurisdictions carried heavy