Jiangzhou.

Later known as Jiujiang, it is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Due to its low-lying terrain and dense river networks, it has historically been prone to flood disasters.

This flood struck too suddenly; the embankments of counties like Jiujiang, Pengze, and Hukou near the river in Ganbei collapsed entirely, turning the scene from Hankou to Jiujiang into a "water and sky as one". In the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, once Jiujiang breaches, it would cause flood backflow in the Poyang Lake basin, resulting in large-scale disasters in Jiangxi, Hubei, Anhui, and other regions.

The catastrophic floods of the Yangtze River in Central Plains history are often related to this area. For example, during the Republic of China era, there were over 60 breaches in the Yangtze River’s full course. Breaches at Jiujiang caused 145,000 deaths, and post-disaster cholera and other epidemics lasted for several years. The League of Nations estimated that this flood resulted in the largest death toll caused by a natural disaster globally in nearly a century.

And there was the massive flood in the 1990s, where people fought against floods using their bodies, something unimaginable in ancient times.

The Yellow River was the elbow strike against successive Central Plains dynasties that neglected water management, forcing the descendants of Yan and Huang to cry out for even their mothers.

And the Yangtze River’s grievances had already gone beyond mere elbow strikes.

Jiangzhou had a scholar, Lu Xiu, who engraved stone inscriptions documenting this post-disaster survival experience.

——"In the year of Xinsi, sudden summer floods arrived. On the banks of the Yangtze River, Jiangzhou breached.

First heard the sound of tearing silk, then suddenly the waves collapsed to tens of thousands of feet. Muddy waves filled the sky, like ten thousand horses trampling and writhing, the torrent eating the banks, like giant spirits tearing mountains apart.

Houses floated and sunk, like ducks diving into algae; fields drowned, like terrapins burrowing in deep pools.

The market collapsed, wealth scattered with the flow; paths dissolved, crops entrusted to the eastward water.

Alas!

Children clinging to beams, their voices hoarse holding drowning mothers’ hands, old men tying to trees, exhausted losing their grandchildren’s boat.

Floating corpses blocked the harbor, a tragic sight hard to collect, starving bodies filled the embankment, a horrifying heart unable to express.

Only seeing:

Ruined walls and broken foundations, still crying with rain, fallen beams and dried coffins, still weeping with the wind’s howl.

Oh!

Natural calamities descend brutally, what wrong have the citizens done? Earth’s virtue is unreliable, fate is thin among the living!"

Jiangzhou is a military stronghold of the Southern Tang.

From the era of Li Bian to Li Yu’s ascension, Jiangzhou has always been one of the core regions of the Southern Tang, with its economic and military status being very important, serving as a strategic point to resist northern regimes.

Such a frontier stronghold suddenly breaching its embankment caught everyone off guard.

Not only did the Southern Tang army and civilians suffer heavy losses, but Duncan’s tens of thousands of troops were also trapped by the flood, with only a few able to rush to aid Jingnan and other areas amidst the disaster.

Both enemies and allies are wounded in a flood, Duncan couldn’t believe the people of Southern Tang would be so desperate.

Jiangzhou, Yangtze River tributary.

Amidst the surging river, a young child embraces a withered tree, drifting with the current, swept away by the flood and narrowly surviving, clinging to a piece of deadwood, drifting for a long time, his body soaked pale, lips black, vitality fading, holding on solely by a strand of survival instinct and some luck, thus avoiding drowning in the torrent.

But at this moment, he was already hanging by a thread, conscious wavering, any moment could be swallowed by the water current.

In the lower reaches of the Yangtze, tens of thousands of floating corpses drifted, men, women, elderly, children, all drowned, the youth had some chance of survival, but the old, weak, sick, and disabled were instantly consumed by the flood.

At some unknown time, a massive dark shadow emerged amidst the surging waves.

Then, in the next second.

A giant dragon claw reached out from beneath the water, the silhouette of a cruel dragon appeared, Duncan stood on the dragon’s head, hands gripping the dragon’s horns tightly, the dragon extended a claw to grasp more than ten people still breathing, placing them on high ground along the bank.

Impossible to save, simply cannot save.

The width of the river near Jiangzhou was originally 2-3 kilometers, but now it’s expanded to over 10 kilometers, directly multiplying, and the affected range was beyond what human efforts could rescue, all low-lying areas were completely submerged.

The flood peak downstream had been relieved, at least in densely populated areas, the casualties wouldn’t be too horrifying.

But at the breach, the floods sloped downward, nearly leveling the villages and towns along the way, some villages having hundreds of households with not a single survivor, specific casualty numbers are still unclear, but just near Jiangzhou, tens of thousands died or were injured.

If the subsequent rescue efforts could not prevent the outbreak of plagues, at least tens of thousands more would die.

Duncan’s expression was solemn, his eyes showed a trace of compassion, along with immense anger and endless killing intent.

He placed his hand slowly on the dragon’s head and said in a deep voice, "I need you to temporarily use your flesh body to block the breach, lend me a hand."

"If unfortunately you die, I will take your soul away from this world."

"And find a way to recreate a flesh body for you!"

The Yangtze’s estuary was clogged with silt, slowing flood discharge efficiency, Duncan needed to seal the breach to stop the Poyang Lake basin from backflooding, which was crucial to save more people.

This task could only be accomplished by the dragon.

The dragon widened the river course all the way, now it was exhausted, upon hearing this, it let out a high-pitched dragon roar, then swam upstream. Its massive body maneuvered through the waves, revealing its True Dragon form, spanning dozens of meters, steering the water flow, then coiled and rose, using its dragon body to block the raging flood, enduring the impact of torrents, mud, and broken remains.

Wounds emerged on the dragon’s vast body.

Its huge dragon eyes floated to the surface, front claws clung to remnants, hind claws dug into the underground river channel, with the stance of a coiling dragon, it blocked a backflow gap of the Poyang Lake basin.

Who would have thought, back in Dangshan Dragon Pond, for the dragon to transform, it stirred a flood, submerging hundreds of towns and villages along the shore, the infamous wicked dragon.