Ximen Bao was appointed governor of Ye, in the state of Wei, in modern central China's Henan province.

Upon arrival at his post, he called a meeting with the town-fathers and inquired about their livelihood. The town-fathers told him about the wedding of the River God, which had been the source of the misery.

The Ye County had been plagued with floods caused by the River Zhang. According to the local witches, it was the doing of the River God. If a girl was presented to him each year, the flood might be averted. So each year, the witches went around visiting every home in town. If they saw a pretty girl, they would appoint her to be the bride for the River God. Every year the local officials would collect several thousand ounces of silver from the people in the county to spend on the wedding. It was believed that as a rule, they used about two or three hundred on the wedding but kept the rest to themselves. Girls of wealthy families could be exempted if they donated a large amount of money. Those who could not afford to pay had to surrender their daughter once she was chosen.

Before the wedding, the bride had to be bathed, dressed in a silk gown and made to stay in a specially built bridal bed by the river and fast for a few days before being presented to the River God. On the day of the wedding, the bridal bed was lowered into the river along with the dowry. She was supposedly to join the god down below.

This practice had been going on for several years. The local residents were terrorized. As more and more people fled the town, the town was more dead than alive.

Ximen Bao decided to go and have a look when the next wedding was to be held.

The new wedding took place in due course. The ceremony was attended by all the local officials and the witches. Thousands of local residents came out to see the ritual, too. The chief witch was a seventy-year-old woman who was accompanied by a dozen of junior witches.

Ximen Bao, who was present, asked the bride to be brought to him. Then, he looked at her for a while.

"I don't think she is pretty enough," he said to the chief witch. "Could you go and inform the River God that a better-looking one will soon be chosen and the wedding is postponed until the day after tomorrow?"

He mentioned the guards to throw the old witch into the river.

The crowd was shocked.

After a while, Ximen Bao said, "The old lady has gone for some time. We cannot wait for her all day. Better send someone else to hurry her a bit."

He ordered the guards to throw one of the junior witches into the water. She began to struggle and shriek. But the governor turned a deaf ear to her plea.

A few moments after she was thrown into the river, the governor ordered a third witch to be thrown into the river.

"She is too slow. We must send another one to find out why they are late." The governor became impatient.

After four witches were dispatched, Ximan Bao said: "Maybe the women are not doing a good job down there. We must send some man."

He turned to the local officials standing by.

An official who had collaborated with the witches was forcibly dumped into the river by the guards despite his protest. The governor stood on the riverbank for a long time, looking rather solemn.

"None of them came back so far. What should we do now?" He asked other officials.

They were all on their knees, begging for mercy. Some of them kowtowed repeatedly until their foreheads were covered with blood.

"All right. Let me call it a day," Ximen Bao finally announced. "We'll wait until we have news from the River God."

Since then there was no more wedding of the River God.

Ximen Bao instructed local residents to dig twelve irrigation canals in order to redirect the flow of the river so that there would be no more flood to harass them. As a result, all the fields had ample water supply, though at first some people complained of the hard work of the project.

Ximen Bao remarked: "People prefer an easy life and do not want to work hard. If you try to get consensus from them on everything, nothing will get done. Sometimes you just have to tell them what to do. At present, they are complaining that I work them too hard, but future generations will be grateful for what I will have done for them."