Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo, Delegated to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze at the Midst of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the"rice-bowl" system that runs on the boat and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner in the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax once the ship has to crash through rescue missionaries up river and a river-boom at China Light Mission.