In the fifth year of the Xianfeng reign, the Yellow River burst its banks at Tongwaxiang, changed course dramatically, and poured into the sea via the Huai River, leaving millions of refugees homeless. Shen An, born into a family of water-control experts, was thrown into the flood on the night the levee broke as a “plague child to sacrifice to the river.” On the brink of death, he activated the “Yellow River Dragon King System,” which let him exchange his achievements in flood control for ancient hydraulic techniques such as the River-Quelling Iron Rhino, Stone Men to Subdue the Waters, and Channeling the Waters to Scour the Silt.
The System said: Insufficient faith points. Unable to activate.
Shen An said: Then I'll turn this river into a totem worshiped by all the people.
From a sacrificial orphan to a leader who recruited refugees to repair dikes and build dams, he tamed the Yellow Dragon through the principle of “using the river to control the river.” From a “river demon” reviled by the gentry to a “River God's Advisor” appointed by the Xianfeng Emperor, he joined late-Qing statesmen Zeng Guo Fan and Zuo Zong Tang to plan flood-control projects. From a lonely ghost by the Yellow River to the author of The Tongwaxiang River-Control Map, digitized in the National Library a century later.
The Yellow River changed course countless times over the millennia. This was the only time people tamed the flood.
Not because he had a System, but because he made the entire river believe in humanity.
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