Tai-Pan (45 page)

“Like potting sitting ducks,” the admiral said disgustedly.

“Aye,” Struan said. “But their losses are slight and ours negligible.”

“A decisive victory, that’s the ticket,” Longstaff said. “That’s what we want. Horatio, remind me to ask Aristotle to record today’s storming of the Bogue.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

They were on the quarterdeck of the flagship H.M.S. 
Vengeance,
 a mile aft of the path-blazing frigates. Astern was the main body of the expeditionary force, 
China Cloud
 in the van—May-may and the children secretly aboard.

“We’re falling behind, Admiral,” Longstaff said. “Can’t you catch up with the frigates, what?”

The admiral controlled his temper, hard put to be polite to Longstaff. Months of being held in check, months of orders and counterorders and a contemptible war had sickened him. “We’re making way nicely, sir.”

“We’re not. We’re tacking back and forth, back and forth. Complete waste of time. Send a signal to 
Nemesis.
 She can tow us upstream.”

“Tow my flagship?” the admiral bellowed, his face and neck purple. “That sowgutted sausagemaker? Tow my 74-gun ship of the line? Tow it, did you say?”

“Yes, tow it, my dear fellow,” Longstaff said, “and we’ll be in Canton all the sooner!”

“Never, by God!”

“Then I’ll transfer my headquarters to her! Put a cutter alongside. Ridiculous, all this jealousy. A ship is a ship, sail or steam, and there’s a war to be won. You can come aboard at your convenience. I’d be glad if you’d accompany me, Dirk. Come along, Horatio.” Longstaff stamped off, exasperated by the admiral and his insane attitudes, by the feuding between the army and navy: feuding over who was in command, whose counsel was the most worthy, who had first choice of careening or barrack space on Hong Kong, and whether the war was a sea war or a land war and who had preference over whom. And he was still privately angry at that cunning little devil Culum for tricking him into signing away the Tai-Pan’s knoll—into believing that the Tai-Pan had already approved the idea—and for jeopardizing the nice relationship he had built so carefully with the dangerous Tai-Pan over so many years, molding him to his purposes.

And Longstaff was sick of trying to set up a colony, and sick of being pleaded with and railed at, trapped in the squalid competition between traders. And he was furious with the Chinese for daring to repudiate the wonderful treaty that he and he alone had magnanimously given them. Goddamme, he thought, here am I, carrying the weight of all Asia on my shoulders, making all the decisions, keeping them all from each other’s throats, fighting a war for the glory of England, saving her trade, by God, and what thanks do I get? I should have been knighted years ago! Then his wrath abated, for he knew that soon Asia would be stabilized and from the safety of the Colony of Hong Kong the threads of British power would spin out. At the dominating whim of the governor. Governors are knighted. Sir William Longstaff—now, that had a nice ring to it. And as colonial governors were commanders-in-chief of all colonial forces, lawmakers officially and by law—and the direct representatives of the queen—-then he could deal with popinjay admirals and generals arbitrarily and at leisure. The pox on every one of them, he thought, and he felt happier.

So Longstaff went aboard 
Nemesis.

Struan joined him. Steamship or not, he would be first in Canton.

In five days the fleet was at anchor at Whampoa, the river behind them subdued and safe. A deputation of the Co-hong merchants, sent by the new viceroy, Ching-so, arrived immediately to negotiate. But at Struan’s suggestion the deputation was sent away unseen, and the next day the Settlement was reoccupied.

When the traders came ashore at the Settlement, all their old servants were waiting beside the front doors of their factories. It was as though the Settlement had never been left. Nothing had been touched in their absence. Nothing was missing.

The square was given over to the tents of a detachment of the military, and Longstaff made his headquarters in the factory of The Noble House. Another deputation of Co-hong merchants arrived and was again sent away as before, and laborious and elaborate preparations were openly begun to invest Canton.

By day and by night Hog Street and Thirteen Factory Street were a booming, seething mass of buying and selling and fighting and thieving. The brothels and the gin shops thrived. Many men died of drink and some had their throats cut and others simply vanished. Shopkeepers fought for space and prices rose or fell but were always as much as the market would bear.

Again a deputation sought audience with Longstaff, and again Struan dominated Longstaff and had them sent away. The ships of the line settled themselves athwart the Pearl River and the 
Nemesis
 steamed calmly back and forth, leaving horror in her wake. But the junks and the sampans continued to ply their trade, upstream and downstream. The teas and silks of the season came down from the hinterland and overflowed the Co-hong warehouses that lined the banks of the river.

Then Jin-qua arrived, by night. In secret.

“Hola, Tai-Pan,” he said as he entered Struan’s private dining room, leaning on the arms of his personal slaves. “Good you see my. Wat for you no come see my, heya?” The slaves helped him sit, bowed and then left. The old man seemed older than ever, his skin more lined. But his eyes were young and very wise. He was wearing a long, silk gown of pale blue, and blue silk trousers and soft slippers on his tiny feet. A light silk jacket of green, padded with down, protected him from the damp and chills of the spring night. And on his head was a hat of many colors.

“Hola, Jin-qua. Mandarin Longstaff plenty mad hav got. No want this piece Tai-Pan see frien’. Ayee yah! Tea?” Struan had deliberately received him hi his shirt-sleeves, for he wanted Jin-qua to know at once that he was very angry because of Wu Fang Choi’s coin. Tea was poured and servants appeared carrying trays of delicacies that Struan had especially ordered.

Struan helped Jin-qua and himself to some dim sum.

“Chow plenty werry good,” Jin-qua said, sitting very straight in his chair.

“Chow werry bad,” Struan said apologetically, knowing it was the best in Canton. A servant came in with coal and put it on the fire, adding a few sticks of fragrant wood. The delectable perfume of the wood filled the small room.

Jin-qua ate the dim sum fastidiously and sipped the Chinese wine, which was heated—as were all Chinese wines—to just the correct temperature. He was warmed by the wine and even more by the knowledge that his protégé Struan was behaving perfectly, as a subtle Chinese adversary would. By serving dim sum at night, when tradition dictated that it be eaten only in the early afternoon, Struan was not only further indicating his displeasure, but was testing him to see how much he knew about Struan’s encounter with Wu Kwok.

And though Jin-qua was delighted that his training—or rather the training performed by his granddaughter, T’chung May-may—was bearing such delicate fruit, he was beset with vague misgivings. That’s the infinite risk you take, he told himself, when you train a barbarian into civilized ways. The student may learn too well, and before you know it, the student will rule the teacher. Be cautious.

So Jin-qua did not do what he had intended to do: select the smallest of the shrimp-filled steamed doughs and offer it in midair, repeating what Struan had done on the ship of Wu Kwok, which would have indicated with exquisite sublety that he knew all that had happened in Wu Kwok’s cabin. Instead, he picked one of the deep-fried doughs and put it on his own plate and ate it placidly. He knew that it was much wiser, for the present, to hide the knowledge. Later, if he wished, he could help the Tai-Pan avoid the danger he was in and show him how he could extricate himself from disaster.

And as he munched the dim sum he reflected on the utter stupidity of the mandarins and the Manchus. Fools! Contemptible, dung-eating, motherless fools! May their penises shrivel and their bowels fill with worms!

Everything had been planned and executed so ingeniously, he thought. We maneuvered the barbarians into a war—at a time and place of our own choosing—which solved their economic problems, but in defeat we conceded nothing of importance. Trade continued as before, through Canton only, and thus the Middle Kingdom was still protected from the encroaching European barbarians. And we yielded only a flyblown malodorous island which, with the first coolie to set foot on shore, we had already begun to retrieve.

And Jin-qua considered the perfection of the scheme which had exploited the emperor’s greed and his fear that Ti-sen was a threat to the throne, and had made the emperor himself destroy his own kinsman. A divine jest! Ti-sen had been so beautifully trapped, and so cleverly selected so far in advance. The ideal tool to save the emperor’s and China’s face. But after years of planning and patience and a complete victory over the enemies of the Middle Kingdom, that greed-infected, harlot-sniffing lump of dogmeat—the emperor—had had the fantastic and incredible stupidity to repudiate the perfect treaty!

Now the barbarian British are angry, rightly so. They have lost face before their devil queen and her besotted intimates. And now we’ll have to begin all over again, and the ancient purpose of the Middle Kingdom—to civilize the barbarian earth, to bring it out of the Darkness into the Light, one world under one government and one emperor—is delayed.

Jin-qua did not mind beginning again, for he knew that time was centuries. He was only a little irritated that the time had been put back unnecessarily, and a superb opportunity wasted.

First Canton, he told himself. First our beloved Canton must be ransomed. How little can I settle for? How little? . . .

Struan was seething. He had expected Jin-qua to pick one of the shrimp-filled doughs and offer it to him in midair. Does that mean he does na yet know that Wu Kwok passed the first coin? Surely he realizes the significance of the dim sum? Watch your step, laddie.

“Plenty boom-boom ship, heya?” Jin-qua said at length.

“Plenty more Longstaff hav, never mind. Werry bad when mandarin mad hav.”

“Ayee yah,” Jin-qua said. “Mandarin Ching-so werry mad hav. Emperor say all same Ti-sen.” He drew his finger across his throat and laughed, “
Phftt!
 Wen L’ngst’ff no go way, hav war—no hav trade.”

“Hav war, take trade. Longstaff plenty mad hav.”

“How muchee tael help plenty mad, heya?” Jin-qua put his hands into the sleeves of his green silk coat, leaned back and waited patiently.

“Doan knowa. Maybe hundred lac.”

Jin-qua knew that a hundred could be settled amicably at fifty. And fifty lacs for Canton was not unreasonable when she was helpless. Even so he feigned horror. Then he heard Struan say, “Add hundred lac. Tax.”

“Add hundred wat?” he said, his horror real.

“Tax my,” Struan said bluntly. “No like tax on head cow chillo slave my, chillo little my. Mandarin Ching-so werry plenty bad.”

“Tax on head chillo? Ayee yah! Plenty werry bad god-rottee mandarin, werry!” Jin-qua said, pretending astonishment. He thanked his joss that he had heard about the reward and had already settled that matter quickly and adroitly, and had sent word through an intermediary to the English whore—and thus to Struan—just in case someone had attempted to collect the reward for May-may and the children before they were in safety.

“Jin-qua fix! Doan worry, heya? Jin-qua fix for frien’ in few days. Werry godrottee mandarin Ching-so. Bad, bad, bad.”

“Plenty bad,” Struan said. “Hard fix maybe, cost many lac. So no add one hundred lac. Add two hundred!”

“Jin-qua fix for frien’,” Jin-qua said soothingly. “No add one, no add two! Fix plenty quick-quick.” He smiled happily at the perfect solution he had already instigated. “Werry easy. Put other name on Ching-so list. One-Eye Mass’er cow chillo, and two cow chillo little.”

“What?” Struan exploded.

“Wat bad, heya?” What in the world is the matter? Jin-qua wondered. He had arranged a simple exchange—a worthless barbarian woman and two worthless girl children belonging to the man committed to Struan’s destruction in return for the safety of his own family. What’s wrong with that? How is it possible to understand the barbarian mind?

In God’s name, Struan was thinking, how can you understand these heathen devils? “No like list,” he said. “Na chillo my na chillo One-Eye Devil, na chillo any. Werry godrottee bad.”

Kidnaping certainly is very, very terrible, Jin-qua thought in agreement, for he was in constant fear that he or his children or his children’s children would be kidnaped and held for ransom. But some names have to go on the list in replacement. Whose? “Jin-qua not put cow chillo on list, never mind. I fix. No worry, heya?”

Struan said, “Add two hundred tax my, never mind.”

Jin-qua sipped his tea. “Tomollow Co-hong talkee L’ngs’ff, can?”

“Ching-so can.”

“Ching-so add Co-hong, heya?”

“Tomollow Ching-so can. Next day Co-hong can. Talkee how muchee tael. While talkee, we buy sell tea all same.”

“Finish talkee, trade can.”

“Talkee trade all same.”

Jin-qua argued and begged and tore his hair and eventually conceded. He had already obtained Ching-so’s agreement to begin trade immediately and had handed over half the agreed amount of squeeze—the other half to be due in six months. And he had already suggested the face-saving device that Ching-so would use to protect himself from the wrath of the emperor for disobeying orders: that the negotiations were to be protracted until the last ship was filled with tea and the last tael of bullion paid, at which time Ching-so would fall on the Settlement and burn and loot it and send fire ships against the barbarian merchantmen and drive them out of the Pearl River. Trading would lull the barbarians into a false sense of security and give time for the obviously necessary Chinese reinforcements to arrive. Thus the barbarians would be defenseless and Ching-so would win a great victory.

Jin-qua marveled at the beauty of the plan. For he knew that the barbarians would not be helpless. And that looting and burning the Settlement would infuriate them. And that they would instantly sail north from Canton and stab at the Pei Ho gate to Peking again. And that the instant the fleet appeared at the Pei Ho, the emperor would again sue for peace and the treaty would be in force again. The perfect treaty. It would be so because the Tai-Pan wanted the “perfect” treaty and “Obvious Penis” was only the Tai-Pan’s dog.