What does it mean to see the hotel raising the flag?

This sentence means to see a hotel in front, with a flag in front of it, which reads five words:' Three bowls can't cross the mountain'. The Water Margin, written by Shi Naian at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, is the first novel about peasant uprising in China. The Water Margin is also one of the most epic works in China literature, and one of the earliest Zhang Hui novels written in vernacular Chinese in China history.