1636- the China Venture Read online

  Eric drummed his fingers on the table. “So? There’s enough silk in China for both Macao and the USE. And there’s other stuff we want, or have to sell, that Macao has never traded in.”

  “The monopoly is the lifeblood of Macao,” said Father Aleni. “At least, that’s how the Macanese think. They will do almost anything to protect it.”

  Eric snorted. “Oh, I know that! We were the target of an unsuccessful Chinese fireship attack off Guangzhou. And our new Chinese friends have told us that the attack was instigated and paid for by Macao. Did you know about that?”

  “I did not.” If Aleni did, it wasn’t evident to Eric; he had a good poker face.

  “What they need to realize,” said Eric, “is that the technology coming out of Grantville is like a rising tide, and a rising tide lifts all boats.” He paused for rhetorical effect. “At least if the Macanese don’t end up with holes in their boats as a result of getting in our way.”

  “I will certainly convey what you have told me, and my own observations, to the vice provincial,” said Aleni.

  “Good, good,” said Eric. “And speaking of observations…let me take you for a tour.”

  “Mister Saluzzo has already shown me around a bit.”

  “Shown you his gadgets, eh? Well, I have something else to show you.”

  Eric’s tour took Aleni to the gun deck, where he took pains to point out the size of the cannon and their ability to fire explosive shells. “In 1634, when Hamburg forbade us passage down the Elbe, one ship of the USE Navy destroyed their entire fort. We have the photos to prove it, as I’ll show you in a moment.”

  He chose not to mention that the ship in question was an ironclad, with bigger guns than those carried by the Rode Draak. “The Macanese should not take our failure to retaliate for their sneak attack as a sign of weakness. If they attack us again, I will declare open hunting season on the Portuguese. And that would not bode well for the Catholic mission in China. Please be mindful of that.”

  Chapter 26

  Year of the Pig, Fifth Month (June 15–July 13, 1635)

  On the morning of the Double Five Festival—June 19, 1635 in western reckoning—the members of the USE mission stood, sat or squatted under a mat shed on the shore, awaiting the start of the dragon boat race, just as did many of the residents of Fuzhou. Some locals, not satisfied with the view from land, had hired sampans or junks to take them out on the water. Some of the junks were populated by the Tanka boat people, who spent virtually all of their lives on board, their babies roped so they could be hauled back in if they fell over the side.

  In China, it was believed that the dragons dispensed rain, and that storms were the mark of dragons fighting in the sky. At the end of the fifth month, the Celestial Emperor would divide the dragon host, assigning a different territory to each dragon. Farmers prayed to Lung Wang, the Commander of Dragons, to neither assign them a lazy dragon that would bring little rain, nor mistakenly place dragons too close together, leading to storm battles and floods.

  Here on the coast, the dragon boat races honored and propitiated the spirits of the drowned. The boat lengths varied, depending on the wealth of the sponsor, from twenty to a hundred feet, with a crew to match seated in pairs. The boats were so narrow that the knees and thighs of adjacent paddlers practically touched. There was a drummer at the prow or in the center, and a helmsman standing at the stern.

  The prow of the dragon boats was curved, like the neck of a swan, and terminated in a dragon’s head, its mouth agape, and gilded so it gleamed in the summer sun. The hull was painted so that it appeared to have scales. There were of course individual variations; this one had brass wire whiskers, that one had red eyes. There was even one that apparently had a concealed fire, as smoke belched out of the dragon’s mouth.

  Judith Leyster had both her sketchbook and her camera on hand. She seemed, however, to make more use of the former than the latter. The camera’s lens was slow by up-time standards, making action shooting difficult, but she could capture a mental image of an action scene and then draw it from memory.

  The dragon boats moved slowly toward the starting line, marked by buoys, giving the crowd the opportunity to admire them, and then took their positions, sculling as needed to hold themselves steady until the race started. Martina Goss said to her companions that their jockeying and jostling reminded her of the thoroughbreds being cajoled into the starting gate at the Charles Town race track back in West Virginia.

  Martina Goss saw a young boy run by, with five threads of different colors tied around his wrist. Seeing Martina’s quizzical expression, Yan explained, “This is the time when the five poisonous animals emerge: the snake, the scorpion, the lizard, the toad and the centipede. The threads protect against them, but they must be taken off after noon to ‘throw away the evil.’”

  She in turn whispered to her husband. “The lizard? What lizards are poisonous?”

  “Gila monsters, at least. But even most lizards aren’t venomous, it’s just a folk belief. No worse than saying that owls are wise or that bats are blind. Which we certainly say back home.”

  A vendor came by, selling bronze medals with the picture of the Taoist sage Zhang Daoling riding a tiger and chasing off the evil five with a magic sword. When the visitors declined to buy any of these medals, he instead offered them charms of yellow paper with pictures of the creatures. These likewise refused, he shook his head sorrowfully—whether for loss of the business, or in contemplation of the sorry fate of the unprotected foreigners—and continued on his way.

  A cannon was fired, and the race began, with the drummers beating out the rhythm for the paddlers to follow.

  “The boats are sponsored by different clans, associations or guilds,” Yan the Swallow explained, “and the competition is fierce.”

  “What’s the prize for winning?”

  Yan shrugged. “Applause from the crowd. Bragging rights. Gifts from their sponsors.”

  “Of course, that doesn’t mean that the spectators don’t gamble on the outcome,” he added a moment later.

  Success was not dependent purely on paddling skill. At first, the crews of boats that were neck and neck merely shouted or sang insults at each other. But as the race progressed, deeds replaced words. Stones, some the size of goose eggs, were flung at the enemy, and if two boats came close enough, the paddles were more likely to be swung at a rival’s head than dipped into the water. Of course, that gave the boats behind a chance to catch up, and thus the race developed into a free-for-all.

  For that matter, the spectators were often partisan, and would throw rocks at a passing boat that represented a rival faction. Even if that didn’t happen, there was a constant cacophony of exhortations to one’s own boat, imprecations of all others, and of course the continual beating of gongs and explosion of firecrackers by the audience.

  According to the encyclopedia entries that von Siegroth had read, the firecracker was originally a green bamboo tube that had been thrown into a fire and exploded when the air and sap inside expanded. It was first used in the Lunar New Year celebration, to scare away the evil spirit Nian. There was no lack of evil spirits in Chinese folklore, and the usage spread to other ceremonial occasions, including, evidently, this Double Five Festival.

  Taoist alchemists invented a quick-burning black powder, and the bamboo tubes were filled with this powder, leading to a faster, louder bang. They continued to tinker with the formula, adding saltpeter for a more explosive effect. Finally, the bamboo was replaced with a paper tube, and a fuse was added.

  Colonel von Siegroth had brought his telescope, and was studying two boats that had just fouled each other as they struggled to find a free lane. “Man in the water! Why, they are just letting him flail about.”

  Yan the Swallow shrugged. “If you fall into the water during the race, you are a sacrifice to the water spirits and you must save yourself. If you save a drowning man, then the water spirits will deem that you have offered yourself as a substitute, and claim yo
u as a substitute the next time you ford a river or go to sea. In fact, it’s considered good luck for the community if someone drowns during the racing.”

  “Not good luck for the paddler in question,” von Siegroth observed drily.

  Von Siegroth’s telescope also picked out the singsong girls, dressed in satins and pearls, as they cruised in small sampans down the waterway, beckoning at likely prospects to come aboard. Some of the junks were floating brothels. No doubt some of the girls would find their way onto the Rode Draak and the Groen Feniks.

  There wasn’t just one race, of course; the competition went on from the Hour of the Snake in the morning to that of the Monkey in the afternoon, perhaps six hours all told. By the end, the paddlers were the worse for wear, exhausted at best and more likely also bleeding and bruised.

  Night came, and the dragon boats were taken back out on the water, this time moving in slow procession, and with lanterns at the prow and stern, and more lanterns. Nor was this the only light visible; the foam about the prow was glowing, the result of bioluminescent marine organisms, and there were sparks of light as the oars bit into the water.

  As below, so above; a fireworks display began. This was of particular interest to Colonel von Siegroth. In Europe as in China, the development of recreational fireworks and military gunpowder technology were closely intertwined. In fact, textbooks for artillerists often covered both. But chances were that Chinese and European fireworks practices were quite different. What he learned here might well have value back home.

  What first caught his attention was a display of ribbons of light that swirled over the surface of the water.

  “What are those?”

  “Water rats,” said Yan. “Like a firecracker, but with a hole in the end of the tube.”

  “Ground-skimming rockets!” said Jim, who was standing nearby.

  “They are the same as what we call ground rats, except that water rats are on floats,” Yan added. “The military puts hooks and pikes on ground rats and uses them to scare enemy horses.”

  Next, the Chinese pyrotechnicians fired rockets into the air. “And those are flying rats,” said Yan. “They are like arrows, with ground rats attached.”

  Rockets, von Siegroth knew, had been used by the Mongols against Baghdad, by the Arabs against Louis IX, the Ottomans against Constantinople, and the French against the English at the siege of Orleans, but they had been generally considered more inaccurate than artillery. The USE had shown during the Baltic War that rockets could be effective, but von Siegroth was still somewhat distrustful of them.

  These rockets, at least, were purely for entertainment. Some were fired singly, others in salvos. The colors were mostly the familiar ambers and off-whites known in pre–Ring of Fire Europe, but von Siegroth’s attention was caught by a pair of rockets that curved in opposite directions, and flared green.

  He glanced at the up-timers’ expressions; they did not share von Siegroth’s amazement. No doubt, in the world they left behind, green fireworks were commonplace. It was not as bright and pure a green, however, as the one von Siegroth could achieve.

  “Now that’s pretty,” said Martina. Two fountains of white sparks had erupted. By the light they emitted, and with the aid of his telescope, von Siegroth could just make out that they were emerging from a conical structure with a small mouth on top and a broad base.

  Von Siegroth stroked his chin. “I am confused. Those white stars are brighter than anything that’s been made so far in Europe. I know that you up-timers can do better using magnesium or aluminum—there was someone in Grantville who fired off some magnalium powder for my edification—but I was under the impression that neither of those elements were purified by the Chinese before the West.”

  “You are correct,” said Eric. “They don’t even know that aluminum or magnesium exist, let alone how to make them. I do have some magnesium ribbon and aluminum foil, to show the Chinese scholars, by the way. But not enough for a serious fireworks display. Curiously, the Chinese were the main producer of magnesium in the late twentieth century, although I’m not sure why.”

  “Magnesium has some military uses,” said von Siegroth. “Could we teach them how to make it now?”

  Eric made a face. “Well, I’m no chemist, but one of my briefs for the USE army was researching strategic materials. In America, we made magnesium by electrolyzing magnesium salts derived from seawater or brine. The Chinese used a different process which needed silicon. And that’s not available in China either.”

  Colonel von Siegroth tapped Yan’s shoulder. “Captain Zheng Zhiyan, do you know the secret of the white fire?”

  “I am sorry, I don’t. But I can direct you to the shops that make fireworks, and perhaps you can persuade them to reveal it.”

  Father Aleni’s church

  “Madame Goss. I am pleasantly surprised to see you,” said Father Aleni.

  “Surprised? You surprise me in turn, Father. Did I not say I was in need of confession?”

  “You did, but when I was on your Rode Draak, Eric Garlow made veiled threats, so I was not sure you would be permitted to return.”

  “Permitted? In the New United States—excuse me, I should say the State of Thuringia-Franconia—we have two rules about religion. The first is that there is no state religion, church and state are separate. And the second is that there is freedom of religion. Eric Garlow would not dare to tell me that I could not go to confession.”

  “I see.”

  “But if I may be so bold, Eric would not have made threats, veiled or otherwise, if the Church didn’t insist on meddling in secular matters—such as which countries may trade with China. And I hope that the Church had no role in the fireship attack that was made against us at Guangzhou…but I fear that it did. What do you think, Father Aleni?”

  “I think…I think you are a formidable lady, Madam Goss, and we had best proceed with the confessional.”

  The procedure was essentially the same as that which her husband had experienced a few days earlier. But when asked if she had any sins to confess, the conversation took a turn that Father Aleni had not expected.

  “Father, have you noticed that I am pregnant?”

  “Not really,” Aleni said. “You must still be quite early, or your clothing hides it well.”

  “Our doctor estimates that I am at the twelve- to sixteen-week mark.”

  “Well, I congratulate you. ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.’”

  Martina didn’t answer.

  “If you do not tell me what is wrong, child, I cannot help you.”

  “Father Aleni, you understand that I grew up in a world in which childbirth is safe. At least in my country. The maternal death rate was something like one in ten thousand. And as for infant mortality, perhaps five out of every thousand live births die before they are one year old. In a literal flash of light, we found ourselves in a world where bearing a child is like going off to war; there’s a real risk of dying in the birth chamber. And it is not a friendly world for infants, either.”

  “But surely in your Grantville, these risks were less.”

  “Oh, yes,” Martina admitted. “But not what they had been. We have doctors, but not a real hospital, and we lack many medicines and lifesaving equipment that we previously took for granted. And outside Grantville, and perhaps Jena and Magdeburg, the situation is more dire.”

  “And now you are in China.”

  “Yes, now we are in China. In some ways, their medicine is sounder than that of Europe. At least, I’d rather get acupuncture needles than leeches.”

  Father Aleni chuckled, despite the solemnity of the occasion. “Actually, the Chinese do use leeches, just not live ones. They grind them up and mix them with herbs.”

  “Yuck.”

  “But let us not stray from the point, Madame Goss. Why do you speak of childbirth and infant mortality?”

  “Well…I am afraid. Back in Grantvill
e, it seemed enough to protect us that we have a trained doctor accompany us, Doctor Carvalhal. But once I guessed I was pregnant, it all changed.… Father Aleni, I thought about asking the doctor for an abortifacient.”

  “Thought about it? You didn’t actually ask for it?”

  “No.”

  “The Church holds that knowingly aborting a child is a sin. ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew thee, and before you were born I consecrated you.’ When you say that you didn’t ask for it, does that mean that you just hadn’t found the right moment to ask yet, or that you changed your mind?”

  “I changed my mind,” Martina explained. “But I worry about having even considered it.”

  “Since you changed your mind before even speaking to the doctor, I consider this a situation in which you did not fully consent to the sin. The improper thought was therefore only a venial sin, not a mortal one. But as you recognize, it has weakened your will to avoid evil and you must fortify your soul against the temptation to commit mortal sin.”

  “What should I do?”

  “First, you must focus your mind on the good to expect from your pregnancy; you are bringing another soul into this world, and you will be responsible for guiding that soul toward the true Faith. I know that there are no other infants, or even small children, on your ships, but take advantage of being in this city to observe parents and children, and their love for each other. While few of these Chinese are Christian, that love is a steppingstone toward the love of the divine.

  “And secondly, you must remember that life on Earth, whether for yourself or your child, is necessarily fleeting, even if you were back in your twentieth century. Do not forfeit your life eternal in Heaven to avoid a little pain and suffering here on Earth.”

  “Thank you, Father. I feel better having told you my sin, and hearing your words of wisdom.”

  “Does your husband know?”

  “No! Must I confess to him, too?”