1636- the China Venture Read online

  The balloon flight had exceeded Zhilong’s expectations. Unknown to the up-timers, he had had his brother Yan the Swallow gather a small group of local dignitaries nearby, but where the balloon could not be seen until it was airborne. Zhilong had promised them a “surprise.”

  If the balloon had never taken off, the “surprise” would have been a new “smoke play,” a kind of daytime firework display in which the emphasis was on colored smokes rather than flashes of light.

  But once Yan spotted the balloon in the sky, he had drawn attention to it, cutting short the smoke-play performance at the end of an act, and led the dignitaries to the launch site to welcome Zhilong back to Earth.

  Now, Zheng Zhilong was the first Chinese to ascend into the sky. Well, if you excluded certain legendary sages, but since they ascended all the way to Heaven and didn’t come back, Zhilong didn’t think they should be counted. Nor did he count Mike Song, since Mike considered himself an American. Anyway, what was important was what the Chinese spectators thought, and they hadn’t seen Mike in the air.

  The advantage of the public display was to increase Zheng Zhilong’s cachet. The disadvantage was that word of the flight would inevitably reach the ears of Xiong Wencan, the governor of Fujian Province. Zhilong had plans to get Wencan replaced by a more pliant individual, but in the meantime Zhilong owed him some deference. He would have to give Wencan the opportunity to meet the up-timers, but then make sure that Wencan didn’t gain control of them.

  Fuzhou

  The Rode Draak and the Groen Feniks sailed to Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, escorted by Admiral Zheng Zhilong’s victorious fleet. On arrival, Zhilong sent word ahead to the port authorities that he had important foreign guests and would be gratified if they were permitted to visit the city. They granted permission—Zheng Zhilong’s name had great power in Fuzhou—and directed the foreign vessels to Mawei harbor.

  After some further cajoling and judicious gift giving, the port authorities permitted the members of the USE mission to disembark, but made it clear that they held the Zhengs responsible for the visitors’ behavior. They also made it clear that the visitors were being welcomed as tourists, not as diplomatic envoys. Diplomatic status would have to be accorded by the imperial court in Beijing.

  Mission lodgings

  Fuzhou

  “Well,” said Doctor Carvalhal, “you are definitely ‘showing,’ Martina. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Something in Martina’s expression troubled the doctor. “It’s the news you’ve been expecting for months now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course, Doctor. So I am due in December?”

  “That would be my best guess. Women show at twelve to sixteen weeks gestation, and the normal gestation period is forty weeks. Well, call it thirty-seven to forty-two weeks to be safe.”

  “And you are confident that you can deliver me safely?”

  “Absolutely. Of course, I would have no objection if you retained a local midwife, but I would monitor the situation, and I have the tools—obstetric forceps, for example—on hand if something goes wrong. Which I am sure it won’t, you being a healthy young woman with, if I may say so, ample hips.”

  He offered her his hand, and she shook it. “Now, go off and tell your husband the good news.”

  As he watched her walk toward her room, Doctor Carvalhal fervently hoped that his presence in the birthing chamber would not be required. Back in Europe, babies were usually delivered by midwives.

  Once Doctor Carvalhal knew that he was going on the USE mission to China, and that the mission staff would include women of childbearing age, but no midwife, he had approached Beulah McDonald, the Dean of the College of Nursing, and asked for advice. She in turn had put Carvalhal in touch with some of the resident craft midwives.

  They gave the Jewish physicians some helpful tips, of which the most important, really, was “find a midwife once you’re in China.”

  City street in Fuzhou

  Mike Song cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Admiral Zheng!”

  The admiral, who had been about to turn into a shop, halted and looked around. The street was so crowded—much more than even Grantville—that it took a few seconds before he spotted Mike.

  “Ah, Michael Song. Nephew of Jason Cheng. My distant-in-time-and-space kinsman. What may I do for you?”

  Mike came closer. “Actually, Admiral, it is what you and I can do together that I wish to discuss,” he said, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the hubbub of the street. “You have gone out of the way to help us establish ourselves, in Xiamen, and Fuzhou, and I have heard that you are working to clear the way for us to continue on to Hangzhou. I don’t know whether the USE mission will ultimately succeed in its goal of talking to the imperial court. I hope it does, and I will help all I can. But I also have to look out for my family’s interests. First, I have a lot of ginseng to sell. Some of it is from my family’s land, some was collected elsewhere in the Grantville countryside, and some is from the America of this time. It is not quite the same plant that you have here in China, but in the old time line, American ginseng sold well over here.”

  “When you get to Hangzhou, there is an entire market in that city devoted to medicinal plants,” said Zhilong. “Pose first as a buyer, and learn the prices, then come back as a seller. I am sure you will do well.”

  “But there’s another matter. I already told you that I grew up on Taiwan. Specifically, in Taipei. Well, my uncle remembered…” Mike glanced around to make sure no passersby were listening to their conversation. The precaution was probably unnecessary, since the noise of the crowd in the streets was half-deafening. “There used to be gold mining in one of the suburbs of New Taipei City,” he finished.

  Mike now had the admiral’s undivided attention.

  “And since we are from Taiwan, we have good detailed maps of it. Maps, of course, of Taiwan of the twentieth century, but the location of the gold deposit would still be the same. So what I want is an agreement under which I share the maps and memories with you, and my family gets a percentage of the gold.”

  Mike didn’t feel the least bit of guilt in advancing the proposition, since he wasn’t doing anything wrong. As was commonly done with long-distance trading ventures, individuals were allowed to engage in private transactions. In essence, they offset the tremendous risks of such voyages—both physical as well as financial—by piggybacking their own trade goods onto the cargo carried by the vessels being used. The quid pro quo was well understood by everyone involved. Someone like Mike Song was provided with a portion of the cargo space, in exchange for which he would not let his own business dealings interfere with his responsibilities to the mission as a whole.

  “How interesting,” said Zhilong. “You know, I have a branch office in this town, it is a pleasant walk away, and it is a place we can speak with greater comfort. Let us continue this conversation there.”

  Mike agreed, and they walked to Zheng’s local office without further discussion of Taiwanese gold. Zhilong led Mike in and through the offices, and out at last into an inner courtyard with a fountain.

  Zhilong motioned to a bench close to the fountain. “Here we can speak without being overheard. No one can come close to us without being seen, and the sound of the water will mask our voices if we speak softly.”

  “Convenient,” said Mike.

  Zhilong cocked his head. “Where in Taiwan are we talking about?”

  Mike smiled. “If I tell you then I have nothing left to bargain with!”

  “You misunderstand me. I am just asking whether it is in the north, south, east or west, and how far inland. The answer affects how much trouble it would be to find the gold and hold it. And that in turn affects what sort of royalty would be reasonable.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. New Taipei City is in the north. I’d say that the mine isn’t more than three miles from the coast. That’s good, isn’t it?”

 
Zhilong shook his head sorrowfully. “It’s bad. It means that once the Dutch and the Spanish learn of its location, they can land troops to seize it. It’s surely not far from the old Spanish fort at Keelung. But let’s keep talking, I am sure we can come up with a fair deal.”

  After some further discussion, they reached agreement, and Zheng Zhilong promised to have it put in writing for Mike to look over.

  * * *

  “Well, well, it looks like I am going to do even better from this USE mission than I expected,” Zheng Zhilong mused. He had spoken to his legal expert, who had explained how one could adapt the contracts used for drilling partnerships in Sichuan for this purpose. It was fortunate that the mine was in Taiwan, as Taiwan was not considered Chinese territory, and thus was unaffected by the state monopoly on the mining of coinage metals.

  As for the percentage, Zhilong couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Mike was getting a good price for his information, but Zhilong would have been willing to offer substantially more if Mike had pressed the matter. Mike was definitely a bright young man, but he was not a skilled negotiator. And even if he had been, he didn’t know or at least appreciate several key facts. The first was that Zhilong had recently negotiated a deal with the Spanish in Keelung, and would have a free hand there. And the second was that if the mine had been more than three miles from the coast, Zhilong would have complained about the dangers of aborigine attack and the cost of transporting men and tools to the mine and ore from it. So Zhilong had turned what was really an asset—the short distance to the coast—into an apparent liability. And from the sound of it, Mike was keeping this mine a secret, so it wasn’t likely that he would discuss the deal with someone who would know better, like Lyell or Vries.

  Still, now that Zhilong knew that there really was gold in Taiwan, he needed to give some thought to the Dutch presence in Zeelandia, in southwest Taiwan. He knew that in the old time line, the Dutch forced out the Spanish in 1642, and were in turn forced out by his son in 1662.

  Besides, Zhilong had been thinking lately that it might be nice to be king of Taiwan, just in case the Ming Dynasty fell in the new time line, too.

  The Dutch were vulnerable. A good part of their European fleet had been destroyed in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1633, and the Dutch economy had been damaged by the siege of Amsterdam in 1634. The country was now at peace, but it wasn’t clear whether the Dutch in Asia would acknowledge the sovereignty of King Ferdinand—there were a lot of hardline Calvinists in Batavia.

  In addition, the Dutch of Asia were now heavily committed to the alliance with the Japanese, including the occupation of Manila and the transport of the Japanese Christians to the new colony in California. Which Zheng Zhilong knew all about because Chinese ships, indeed some Zheng family ships, had been hired by the Japanese “First Fleet.”

  Zhilong made a mental note: Try to get more information from the Americans on the resources of California and instruct Chinese crews of the colony ships to investigate.

  Could he buy Zeelandia from the Dutch, now that they could trade with the Japanese via Manila? Did he have the strength to seize Zeelandia if they balked?

  * * *

  Once Mike secured a written contract with Zheng Zhilong, he was willing to explain all he knew about the location of the mining area.

  “My uncle says that the mining was carried out in the hill town of Jinguashi, which of course doesn’t exist yet,” Mike told the admiral.

  “So how will we find it?”

  “Maps. My aunt and uncle grew up in Taiwan, and they moved all their belongings to Grantville, so they have all their books. Since they drove around Taiwan, they own a road atlas, and the maps of Taiwan in that atlas are certainly the best in the world now.”

  “What is a road atlas?”

  “It is a book of maps for travelers who intend to ride from place to place.”

  “Ah. We have such things in China. There are guides for officials explaining what routes they must take to their posts, and how soon they must arrive in order to avoid reprimand. And there are guides for traveling merchants, with route maps and commentaries on distances, road conditions, bandit ambush points, inns, local products, and famous sites.”

  “Well, the road maps definitely show the location of Jinguashi. And I brought with me copies of the relevant pages. Of course, the problem is that the roads don’t exist yet, and the coastlines and river courses may have changed over the four centuries between now and when the atlas was written.” The map, unfortunately, was without precise indications of latitude and longitude. So the position of Jinguashi had to be guesstimated from what the map showed concerning the course of the Keelung River, and other vague geographical clues.

  “But you have been there? You will recognize the profiles of the mountains perhaps, when you come to the right place.”

  Mike shook his head. “Sorry. Never went there. The mines were closed in the 1980s. Anyway, I can’t go to Taiwan. My official obligations to the USE embassy trump my personal interest in this venture; that’s why we drew up the contract the way we did. Considering that we don’t even yet have permission to go to Hangzhou, let alone Beijing, it seems hard to believe that I will be free to lark off to Taiwan anytime soon, returning who knows when.

  “But based on the road map, Jinguashi is a little more than a mile south-southeast of Shuinandong. I have been there; it’s the town nearest a tourist attraction, the Yin Yang Sea. There’s no way your sailors could miss the Yin Yang Sea if you just sailed east along the northern coast.”

  The admiral looked puzzled. Yin and Yang, of course, were reference to opposing forces in Chinese philosophy. But he plainly had no clue as to what they might mean in this context.

  “A sea that burns?” he guessed.

  “The upper waters of the bay are yellowish brown in color,” Mike explained. “But the lower waters, say ten feet deep, and the open sea beyond the bay, are blue.” If the special coloration of the bay was the result of pollution from mining activities, then of course it wouldn’t exist in the seventeenth century. But Mike was taught in school that the gold rush in the Jinguashi area was in the 1890s, and his teacher had insisted that the bay was yellow before then.

  “Ah,” said the admiral. “The yellow of gold.”

  “Something like that,” said Mike. He knew that the real explanation was actually more complicated. When Mike toured Shuinandong, he had been told that it was natural runoff. Specifically, that the heavy rains that afflicted Taiwan leached ferric ions out of iron pyrite ore and these ions were imparting the yellow color. The yellow of fool’s gold, and it was simply fortunate that pyrites are often associated with gold ore.

  “Excellent,” said Zheng Zhilong. “I will need some time to recruit persons with experience in gold prospecting and mining. This has to be done circumspectly.”

  “Is there mining in Fujian?” asked Mike.

  “Mostly silver mining. The main gold mines are elsewhere. But don’t worry, I’ll find the people we need. If your information is good, you are going to become a rich man, Mike Song.”

  Chapter 24

  Catholic church

  Fuzhou

  The news of the arrival of the two ships from the United States of Europe darkened what had already been a bad day for Father Giulio Aleni of the Society of Jesus.

  The morning had begun with a report that in a town in northwest Fujian, there had been an anti-Christian demonstration. Men had paraded around in “Christian costumes,” some dressed as Dominican friars, and others as converted Chinese women. The “women” had sat on the laps of the “friars,” and it had gotten worse from there.

  The Dominicans had come to Fujian in 1632 and their unwillingness to make reasonable accommodations to Chinese mores was a thorn in the Jesuit side. They were joined in 1633 by the Franciscans. The Jesuits had managed to force them both out of Fuzhou, but they proselytized in more remote areas.

  According to Father Aleni’s contacts, the demonstration had been a response to an attack
by Christian converts on a local religious shrine. The instigators had already been punished by the county magistrate for the attack, but there was a movement to actually expel the friars from the county. While the Jesuits would cry crocodile tears if that were all that happened, there was always the danger that the Jesuits themselves would be tarred with the same brush.

  In the afternoon, there had been a heavy rain, and Father Aleni had once again noticed leaks in the roof. By now there was water damage to several walls, and no money for repair. The Society of Jesus’ main financial support in China was the community in Macao, and it in turn depended on the trade with Japan. But the last Japan fleet had been seized by the Japanese, and it was unclear whether the men, the ships, or most importantly the silver would ever come back to Macao. There was, of course, some direct support from the king of Spain, by way of his viceroy in Goa, but the Jesuits in Beijing received the lion’s share of that money.

  And now there was the USE visitation. “Get thee behind me, Satan!” had been Aleni’s reaction to the news. Father Aleni’s knowledge of the United States of Europe was limited in scope and half a year or more out of date, but what he knew was troubling enough. He had, of course, heard of the Ring of Fire—for months after the news of it had reached the small cadre of Jesuits laboring for the faith in China, there had been debates as to its theological significance. Since the pope and the Father-General of the Society had not yet, as far as Aleni knew, reached an official position about the event, the highest-ranking Jesuit in China, the vice provincial, had instructed all of the European fathers and brothers to say nothing about it to their flock, not even the literati on whom they depended for protection. Especially not those literati.

  Aleni also knew that the pestiferous town of Grantville had created a republic called the New United States, which had allied with the church’s great nemesis, the Swedish king. And that as of 1633 the NUS was a state within the United States of Europe, of which Gustav Adolf was the emperor.