Liu Tan pondered. "There are so many people in the delegation. I'm afraid a single small flotilla won't be enough."
He looked at Feng Yiling. "Uncle Feng, can we use larger ships? Or prepare more small boats?"
"I'm afraid not," Feng Yiling said. "The waterways here are narrow and shallow. Even the deepest stretches are only a few zhang deep, and the shallows are barely five chi. The widest point is probably no more than fifteen or sixteen zhang across, and Tigerhead Shoal is narrower still. Any boat drawing more than three chi is unusable. As for small boats, if each is a little over a zhang wide, no more than two or three can travel abreast. The shoal itself isn't large, either. There's no room to moor many boats."
Liu Tan pressed him. "How many can we moor at most? Even if they can't travel abreast, we can stagger them in a column. There are a hundred and twenty-eight people in the delegation. Uncle Feng, work out how many boats we would need."
Feng Yiling looked troubled, unsure for a moment how to explain.
"It isn't a question of how many boats would be enough," Wang Yang said. "More boats would make it harder both to move undetected and to fight on the water. Even if we reduced the number of soldiers to leave more room, and disregarded the risk of attracting attention, lining boats up like a long dragon, bow to stern, is taboo in river warfare. Besides, the channel is cramped. If the enemy used fire, or one or two boats ran into trouble and sank, blocking the channel, the boats ahead couldn't retreat and those behind couldn't advance. Unable to move either way or protect both head and tail, we would be at their mercy..."
"Exactly!"