How can a single rock bring down a dynasty?
In the second year of the Xuanhe era, Yang Zhi, son of a military family, accepts the most important imperial assignment of his life: transporting the Taihu Lake's strange stone, “Little Xiegu,” to the capital, Dongjing, to adorn the imperial garden of Genyue. What seems like an honorable path to promotion is, in truth, a voyage straight to hell.
He witnesses families destroyed wherever the imperial yellow seals appear. To transport the massive stone, a thousand-year-old water gate is demolished, severing the lifeline of the canal system. When he tries to uphold justice within the rules, he discovers that the entire bureaucracy, from petty clerks to powerful ministers, has rotted to the core. On a stormy night on the Yellow River, the convoy sinks and the ships capsize. An officer who has faithfully done his duty becomes a wanted criminal of the court overnight.
In exile, he ventures into the heart of the Flower and Stone Convoy disaster, witnessing how this grand project, undertaken in an age of “abundant prosperity,” hollows out the foundations of the Great Song and becomes the spark that ignites Fang La's rebellion. With a ledger in hand documenting overwhelming evidence of corruption, he faces the ultimate choice: accept a pardon and clear his own name, or give up everything to speak for the countless wronged souls beneath the canal?
A novel that blends the fervor of Water Margin with the microhistorical perspective of The Lychee Road. Through a single strange stone, it reveals the rise and fall of an empire.
