"Look at the nitrated patterns on these fish bladders!" As Xiao Heng smashed a flint with his Xiuchun Saber sheath, the Bronze Fuze that burst forth revealed Manchu ciphers that aligned perfectly with the "ice cellar repair" expenditures falsely reported in the *Zhexi Military Pay Ledger*!
In Hangzhou Prefecture, the sea walls of the Qiantang River were soaked in salt frost. Shen Xitang’s leather boots stepped over the tattered pages of *Wulin Old Stories*. Xiao Heng’s sheath shattered a camouflaged Delft ceramic pagoda model; inside the revealed Bronze Secret Casket, the *Sudeten Sea Secret Treaty* lay plain to see—next to the clause "cede the Jiangnan canal route" on the parchment, the Dutch VOC emblem, the Swedish lion, and the hidden dart flag of the Textile Bureau were intertwined in a sinister display!
"Look at this treaty’s tidal omen." Her armor scraped against the curled edges of the *Chongzhen Calendar Treatise* regarding the Qiantang tide forecasts. "This strange phenomenon of the 'tide running dry by five zhang on the eighteenth day of the eighth month of the seventeenth year of Tianqi' is exactly the eve before Zhang Bingzhen burned the river defense maps..."
Chapter 200