Summer rain fell thick and flourishing. Looking out from the newly restored Three Towers of Linzhang, one saw only mist and rain over the Zhang River, with no way to make out the details. Yet even ordinary people without any cultivation could sense the clamor along the river channel from that far away on the towers.
There was no helping it. Yecheng was Yecheng precisely because this was where the Zhang River came closest to the Great River... The Zhang River cut diagonally across the entire Hebei plain, continuously bringing in or distributing the finest resources of all Hebei, while its proximity to the Great River made this place a gateway facing the Central Plains.
This was Hebei's natural heart and capital.
Thanks to that, countless vessels were converging on the Zhang River at this very moment, and the rain had left them jammed outside Yecheng's northern and southern docks, creating all this noise.
In a side hall atop the central tower of the new Three Towers, named the Swallow-the-Wind Platform, Zhang Xing, Chief of the Exorcising the Dragon Gang, drew his gaze back from the river and turned toward the brand-new round table before him. "Where were we?"
From the look of him, the commotion outside had actually distracted him.
This was an emergency meeting. The Grand Traveling Office ordinarily held a regular monthly meeting chaired by Zhang Xing, generally attended by its five Dragonheads-Wei Xuanding, Chen Bin, Xiong Bonan, Xu Shiying, and Chai Xiaohe. Any other Dragonheads in Yecheng were also supposed to attend, reviewing the month's work and issuing coordinated government orders... This time, however, they were holding an emergency discussion of the military situation that had suddenly arisen, so the two nearby Dragonheads, Dan Tonghai and Hong Changya, had also hurried over.
Eight people in all