Chapter 59: The Shadow of the Dragon-Steed Plow

The bronze floodgate of the underground palace in Yecheng slowly rose, and Zhang He's torch illuminated the mottled inscriptions on the walls. Old soldier Wang Wu touched the engraved characters that read "The People are Heaven," his Adam's apple bobbing as he said, "General, these words... they look just like the talismans my father drew before he died."

"They are not talismans." Zhang He's scabbard brushed against a relief carving of millet ears, and the sound of rotating mechanisms startled a flock of bats. "These are the scale markings of the Mohist agrarian measuring rulers." He abruptly pried open a bronze millet grain, and a rusted square-cornered ruler rolled out from a hidden compartment. The inscription "Made in the Second Year of Jingyuan" was clearly legible upon it.

Wang Wu's pupils suddenly constricted. "This ruler... my family buried a ruler just like this one in our ancestral tomb!" He pulled half a broken ruler from his inner pocket, and its fractured edge fit seamlessly against the mechanical ruler. The bronze gears roared in response, and the sound of surging river water echoed from the depths of the underground palace.

"I never would have imagined, I truly never imagined that the broken ruler in your hand would have such an origin..." Zhang He clearly had not anticipated such a coincidence, let alone running into it by chance. It felt as though some unseen providence was aiding them.

"Heaven bless our Great Han..."

The twilight over the Southern Palace in Luoyang dyed the armillary sphere red, and Liu Xie's fingertip oozed a drop of blood over the coordinates of Yecheng. Jia Xu's hand holding the medicine bowl suddenly trembled. "Your Majesty, Zhang He has opened the Mohist sky-measuring ruler, and the Luo River has suddenly altered its course..."

"It hasn't altered its course." Liu Xie suddenly coughed and began to laugh. "It is returning to the old riverbed of the Yu Gong." He dipped his finger in blood and traced lines on a silk cloth; the crimson lines unexpectedly coincided perfectly with the *Map of the Yu Gong Mountains and Rivers* on the wall. "Tell Zilong to have the White Horse Cavalry plant rice along the new riverbed."

When Sun Ru lifted the curtain and entered, she brought with her the fishy stench of the river wind. "Word from Yizhou: remnants of Yang Xiu's faction have discovered the wreckage of an earth-dragon cart along the ancient bed of the Min River." Her gilded dagger pinned a sand table down, and the compass set into its hilt pointed straight toward the Dujiangyan Irrigation System. "The Young Lord led men to unearth Li Bing's water-stabilizing divine needle."

"It is not a divine needle." Liu Xie suddenly crushed the medicine bowl. "It is a Mohist water-level instrument." The ceramic shards rearranged themselves on the sand table to form a model of the Dujiangyan. The bloody froth he coughed up seeped right into the position of the "Flying Sand Weir." "Have Liu Xun melt the divine needle down... and cast it into new floodgate gears."

In the ruins of the Yizhou River God Temple, Liu Xun was using a measuring ruler to gauge the cracks in the divine needle. The old priest suddenly grabbed his wrist. "Inspector, beneath this lies the place where Li Bing suppressed the water dragon..." Before he could finish his sentence, the bronze divine needle suddenly cracked open, revealing a set of internal bronze gears. The turbulent waters of the Min River instantly surged backward, washing the runes on the "Dragon-Suppressing Monument" into a Mohist mechanism manual.

"Pull the gates!" Liu Xun's roar was swallowed by the waves. Sun Ru's iron chains wrapped around the crossbeam of the River God Temple, and her gilded dagger plunged into the gate mechanism. The moment the gears locked, the backward-flowing river water suddenly split in two, exposing rows of bronze seed-drills lined up at the riverbed. A line of small characters was carved onto one of the shafts: "The thirty-sixth year of First Emperor, the Mohists changed the weir into farmland."

The old priest suddenly dropped to his knees and wept bitterly. "So the River God was nothing more than a seed-drill... Our ancestors deceived us for two hundred years!"

On the scorched earth outside Hulao Guan, Gan Ning stepped on Yuan Shao's golden helmet and laughed loudly, "Does Lord Benchu know how many plowshares can be cast if this armor is melted down?" His iron hook snagged the battered armor, beating out the tune of *Emperor Xia* on an anvil. The surrounding surrendered soldiers suddenly joined in unison, their singing shaking dust loose from the fortress walls.

"General!" A scout galloped up. "This was found in Yuan Shao's grand tent!" Unrolled, the silk cloth depicted the Eight Trigrams Formation of the Yellow Heaven Teaching, and the very eye of the formation bore the pattern of the Mohist sky-measuring ruler. Gan Ning's pupils abruptly constricted. "Report to His Majesty at once! Zhang Jiao's remnants and the Mohist traitors..."

A sudden thunderbolt split a tattered banner, and a torrential downpour poured down. Gan Ning suddenly caught the scent of sulfur—black oil seeping from the scorched earth was flowing together with the rain to form the pattern of the Eight Trigrams.

When the thirteenth green calyx plum blossom bloomed in the warm pavilion of the Southern Palace, Liu Xie was tracing the Mohist mechanism manual with blood. Jia Xu's silver spoon suddenly clattered to the floor. "Your Majesty! Fierce fire-oil is seeping from the earth veins of Hulao Guan, forming the pattern of the Yellow Heaven Teaching..."

"It is not seeping." Liu Xie's cinnabar brush suddenly snapped. "It is the dragon-anchoring nail that Yang Xiu buried before he died." He lifted a floor tile, revealing a miniature model of the realm's river canals. "Tell Gan Ning to melt down Yuan Shao's golden helmet and plug the Zhen trigram."

Sun Ru burst in, completely drenched. "The Young Lord discovered this at Dujiangyan!" The fragment of the *Mohist Canon* she unrolled showed Zhang Jiao's handwriting overlapping with the Mohist Master's Decree: "In the Jiazi year, borrow the earth-dragon cart to alter the fortune of the mountains and rivers."

Liu Xie suddenly coughed violently, blood splashing onto the model. The blood-stained Luo River suddenly shifted its course, washing the black oil of the Yellow Heaven Teaching into a pre-arranged flood-discharge channel. Gasping for breath, he pointed to the green calyx plum blossom. "Which... which blossom is blooming?"

"Thirteen and a half." Jia Xu's silver spoon lifted a half-opened flower bud. "Last night's lightning split the calyx."

In the morning light of the Yizhou River God Temple, Liu Xun was assembling the bronze floodgate. When the final gear clicked into place, the old priest suddenly cried out in shock, "Inspector, look! The diverted waters of the Min River gleam with a golden-red hue in the morning sun, gathering in the middle of the river to form the two characters 'Jingyuan'." On the hillside across the bank, a bronze plow monument spontaneously cast by the common people was being poured, and the inscription upon it was precisely "Universal Love is the Agrarian Foundation" from the *Mohist Canon*.

"Young Lord, an urgent dispatch from Luoyang!" The post-runner's hooves shattered the river mist. The unrolled secret letter contained only a blood-drawn Eight Trigrams chart, with the Zhen trigram marking the pattern of Yuan Shao's golden helmet. Liu Xun abruptly grabbed his measuring ruler. "Miss Sun, let us go to Hulao Guan!"

At the earth fissure of Hulao Guan, Gan Ning was leading men in melting down the golden helmet. As the crimson molten iron was poured into the fissure of the Zhen trigram, a column of violet smoke suddenly billowed to the heavens. "General, watch out!" The deputy's shield was corroded, leaving an Eight Trigrams indentation. Gan Ning's iron hook snagged the battered shield, discovering Yang Xiu's dying words carved on the back: "Borrow your hot blood to boil the cauldron of heaven and earth."

"He cannot boil it!" Liu Xun's measuring ruler suddenly thrust into the earth fissure. "The rule of the Mohists is..." When exposed to heat, the bronze ruler body revealed itself to be a key. Amidst the shaking of the earth, a giant bronze tripod rose from the fissure, and the three hundred and sixty grooves inside the tripod fit the Jingyuan currency coins perfectly.

"Young Lord, fall back!" Sun Ru's gilded dagger shot out and snapped the ear of the tripod. The moment the tripod tilted, the black oil accumulated within it poured into the preset trenches, igniting towering flames upon contact with bronze sparks. The tongues of fire branded the shadow of a massive plow onto the fortress walls, reducing the Eight Trigrams formation of the Yellow Heaven Teaching to ashes.

The twilight of the Southern Palace was stained with blood, and Liu Xie leaned against the armillary sphere, gasping for breath. Jia Xu suddenly pointed at the green calyx plum blossom and cried out, "The four... fourteenth blossom!" Hidden within the half-opened flower bud was a bronze plum. The moment Liu Xie plucked it, the plum cracked open to reveal a miniature mechanical diagram—every single beacon tower along the Great Wall was actually modified from a giant seed-drill.

"Your Majesty..." Sun Ru's call was drowned out by a peal of thunder. She saw the drop of blood between the Emperor's fingers seep into the mechanical diagram, dyeing the beacon tower at the coordinates of Bingzhou the color of blood. Outside the window, cheers suddenly arose from the common people as the newly cast Jingyuan plow monument was unveiled in the southern part of Luoyang city, its inscription glowing golden-red in the setting sun:

"When the Mohist current surges through mountains and rivers, it is time for the dragon to leap and the plow shadow to rise."