Turbid Waves of the Cangming: My Chronicle of the Grain Transport Trade

In the seventh year of the Jinghe reign, Lin Dan, a scholar from a humble family, passed the highest imperial examination. But with no connections at court, he was demoted to a lowly judicial clerk in the murky Canal Transport Office. He thought power would always be beyond his reach, until his photographic memory and extraordinary feel for numbers led him to uncover a shocking secret in the vortex surrounding the empire's lifeline. The Grand Canal teems with transport vessels, carrying not only grain and military provisions, but also boundless greed and murderous intent. Tiny discrepancies in the ledgers conceal the loss of tens of thousands of taels of silver. “Ghost transport ships” appear and vanish in foggy stretches of river, leaving behind the terrifying mystery of crew members dying under bizarre circumstances. Low-ranking clerks who try to expose the corruption are killed one after another, their bodies found in strange states. The northern frontier is under threat, while the empire's treasury is being hollowed out, and it seems that all of it points to a sinister network woven around the canal. Lin Dan must tread carefully. His superiors undermine him, his colleagues scheme against him, and local power brokers and canal gang bosses watch him like hawks. He has no choice but to navigate the world of banquets, account books, and docks, wielding the abacus as a sword and data as a shield as he fights back from the cracks in the rules of officialdom. The moment his reform proposals strike at the roots of the problem, mortal danger follows. Meanwhile, he meets and grows close to Su Liuying, the daughter of a canal gang boss, unaware that she carries the secret of the Cangming Bureau, which guards the dragon veins. The two face agonizing choices between using each other and genuine affection, between the nation and personal gain. A former dynasty's treasure buried beneath the river, a hidden mastermind at court, a crisis over canal grain shipments that could decide the outcome of a war... Wave after wave crashes over them. This is a canal steeped in the stench of money, blood, and conspiracy, yet it is also a shortcut to the peak of power. Watch how a low-born official untangles the threads, calculates the hearts of men amid towering waves, solves strange cases, and executes traitors