1636: The China Venture

by Eric Flint

  Thankfully the destruction of the second of the three pirate boats took the fight out of the enemy. The third proa, with the more lightly wounded bailing water and those still uninjured rowing, turned tail.

  The pirates in the water were still of concern. One of the Rode Draak sailors, noticing a group that was swimming toward the Rode Draak, lit a grenade and tossed it into their midst. However, it was not one of the fancy “anti-diver” grenades with an internal fuse. When the grenade hit the water, the fuse fizzled out. The sailor shrugged and drew a large pistol.

  He wasn’t the only one shooting, of course; the men of the Rode Draak, lining the rails, fired methodically at the frantically swimming pirates until at last the cove was quiet once more. Quiet, that is, until the saltwater crocodiles that had been waiting patiently on a nearby sandbar slipped into the water for an unexpected but welcome feast.

  Nonetheless, the captain doubled the watch and those who did return below slept fitfully for what was left of the night.

  The following morning, Captain Lyell summoned all hands on deck. He talked about what was done well in the evening action, and what he found wanting.

  The team who had overcharged their carronade were easy to pick out from their fellows; they were the ones with the guilty expressions. Their punishment might have been harsher if they hadn’t struck the decisive blow. As it was, they had to help the carpenter repair the broken carronade carriage and remount the barrel on its slide. Some parts of the old carriage were unusable and these were cut up and given to the offenders to hang from their necks as a reminder to them and the rest of the crew of the error.

  * * *

  They emerged at last from the Sunda Strait and set course for the island of Pulau Aur, the “Island of Bamboo,” which lay off the coast of Malaya. On a day when the wind was light, and they weren’t making much progress, Captain Lyell decreed an hour of target practice. Their target was a small uninhabited island that hadn’t done them any harm, but they shot it up anyway.

  Of all the gun deck teams, the best performer was the very one that had overcharged their carronade in the Bangka Strait engagement. After this was acknowledged publicly, they hung their little pieces of carronade carriage around their necks once again, this time as a badge of pride rather than of shame.

  At Pulau Aur, which was marked by twin peaks, they stopped for fresh water. There was a small fishing village, with each house raised on stilts and having a veranda and a steeply pitched roof. The sailors traded some trinkets for goats, and mutton stew was on the crew’s menu that night.

  From there they headed for Pulo Condore, or Cȏn Sởn, an island a bit east of the southern tip of Vietnam, and then partway along the Vietnamese coast.

  By this time, there were sure signs that the southwest monsoon had begun, and “No Leg” recommended that instead of continuing along the coast—the “Inner Passage”—they ease into the open sea. And indeed, they were soon making much better time than they had been previously.

  Chapter 19

  May 1635

  On board the Rode Draak

  In the South China Sea

  Martina cleared her throat. “Doctor Carvalhal, may I have a word with you?”

  Rafael Carvalhal was a short man; if Martina wore heels, she’d be taller than him. He had salt-and-pepper hair, and the same olive skin that some of her Saluzzo in-laws did. He had come to Grantville in the fall of 1631, after the Battle of Breitenfeld, and enrolled his son Carlos in the high school. He was a graduate of Padua, one of the few European medical schools that would accept Jews; most learned the art as apprentices of other Jews.

  Despite these credentials, he had taken a job at the Leahy Medical Center Emergency Department as what initially amounted to a nurse-translator. That is, he helped the up-timers understand the complaints of their non-English-speaking patients, and helped the down-timers understand the diagnosis and proposed course of treatment. And as a nurse, he did whatever he needed to do. At night, he studied the up-time books of medicine, sometimes grabbing a book as soon as Balthazar Abrabanel returned it to Doctor Adams.

  By early 1634, when he was recruited for the USE mission to China, he had advanced to being one of the regular doctors in the rotation.

  Carvalhal of course had visited Morris and Judith Roth, Grantville’s first Jewish family, many times. They had a good collection of books on Jewish history and from this he had seen confirmation of a claim that the Jesuits had made: that Jews lived in China. He had not taken particular note of this at the time, but he had mentioned it to his son, who was intrigued enough to write a paper about the Jews of Kaifeng for his history class. And Rafael had honored his son’s scholarship by reading the paper.

  The Jesuits were interested in those Jews for several reasons. First, they hoped to prove that the Torahs in use in Europe had been deceitfully edited by rabbis to remove prophecies of the coming of Jesus. The Jesuits assumed that the Jews had come to China before then and had unedited Torahs.

  Secondly, the Jesuits had a bitter dispute with the other missionary orders as to which Chinese terms were properly used to refer to God and Heaven, and whether the rites honoring Confucius and ancestors were compatible with the Christian faith. Since Judaism was also monotheistic, Jewish acceptance of a term or custom was some evidence that it was free of the taint of idolatry.

  In the old time line, in 1650, Manasseh ben Israel had cited those (in fact unedited) Chinese Torahs in his plea to Oliver Cromwell to permit the Jews to return to England, but otherwise the European Jewish community had been relatively uninterested in Chinese Jewry until the nineteenth century.

  In the here and now, Balthazar Abrabanel had urged Rafael Carvalhal to accept the position of mission physician, both to provide assistance to Chinese Jewry, and to bring back to Europe as much in the way of Chinese herbal medicine as possible.

  “How may I be of service, Tàitai?”

  Martina noted with approval his choice of language. The decision had been made that the USE mission staff should speak in Chinese, or if not in Chinese, then in Portuguese or Dutch, whenever possible.

  “Since we left Batavia, I have been quite nauseous.”

  “I see. And have you missed your period?”

  “I have, but that happened when we left Gothenburg, too. And from time to time in the course of our voyage.”

  “Yes, you can miss a period when you are under stress, and given the rigors of the voyage, and the expectations we are under, that is not surprising. And the nausea could be just sea sickness. We were on land long enough for you to, I think the expression is, ‘lose your sea legs.’

  “Forgive me for asking, but how often and how recently have you and your husband, er…” His voice faded off.

  “Had sex? Hardly at all during the voyage; privacy was an issue. I guess we made up for lost time when we stopped at Batavia. Still, we were careful. I kept track of my basal body temperature, menstrual bleeding, and cervical mucus, and we had intercourse only when I was supposed to be infertile.”

  Doctor Carvalhal nodded. “Those methods are good but not perfect for avoiding pregnancy, especially if you have an irregular period. And of course, each time you have intercourse, you are rolling the dice, even if the odds are in your favor.

  “Breasts swollen? Increased urination? Spotting? Cramping? Mood Swings? Bouts of Dizziness? Constipation? Food cravings or aversions? Fatigue?”

  “None of those yet, Doctor.”

  “You brought an up-time basal thermometer with you. By any chance did you bring a home pregnancy test?”

  “No, Doctor, or I’d have used it instead of coming to you. I didn’t think to try to buy one until this summer, and by then the pharmacy had sold out.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, then. Let me know if you experience any of the other symptoms. And, in any event, if you are pregnant, as a first-time mother you’ll probably start to show at twelve to sixteen weeks. If that happens then we will know that you are pregnant, as the l
awyers in Grantville say, beyond any reasonable doubt.”

  Year of the Pig, Third Month, Day 10

  Near Guangzhou (Canton)

  The Rode Draak and the Groen Feniks anchored in a small but deep cove on the island of Tai-fu. This island lay a bit upriver from the mouth of the Pearl River, the Boca Tigris, and its forts, but well downstream of the city of Guangzhou.

  Captain Lyell paid off “No Leg,” thanked him for his service, wished him the best, and gave him messages—written of course by Mike Song—to convey to the local authorities. “No Leg” hailed a passing sampan, and took it upriver toward Guangzhou.

  Guangzhou

  “No Leg” Huang’s first stop was not any official building, but rather the local office of the Zheng family trading company. The office was in something of an uproar, as it was also the liaison between the local authorities and Admiral Zheng Zhilong’s operations against the pirate fleet of Liu Xiang, which was active in the waters of Guangdong Province.

  Still, after some doing, he located the Zheng in charge.

  “Cousin Swallow!” he cried. Zheng Zhiyan, Yan the Swallow, was a kinsman by marriage; Zheng Zhilong had married a Huang.

  “Important news! Two ships have arrived from Europe. One bears three men and a woman from Grantville.”

  From then on, the office was in even more of an uproar.

  Third Month, Day 12

  Tiger Island

  The two ships had been allowed to buy provisions and fresh water, but not to trade, let alone proceed up the Pearl to Guangzhou and beyond.

  Peter Minuit urged that they proceed up-river without permission and, if the natives dared to fire upon them, fire back. Maarten Vries warned that the Pearl River was notoriously dangerous to venture upon, at least in a ship of the Rode Draak’s draft, without a native pilot as a guide. Peter Minuit said, no problem, grab a ship captain off his junk and insist that he guide them across the shoals.

  “Somehow, I don’t think that such behavior will persuade the Chinese that we are friendly traders,” said Eric drily.

  “Oh, these Asiatics will look down their noses at you until you show them you mean business, then they’ll prostrate themselves before you.”

  “Enough,” said Eric. “We’ll send another messenger with gifts, wait a week, and if we don’t get anywhere, we’ll sail for the Pescadores and Taiwan and talk to the Chinese there.”

  Third Month, Day 18

  Finally, the USE mission did get a Chinese visitor, but he was not a mandarin.

  “My name is Zheng Zhiyan, that is, Yan the Swallow,” he said. This Yan the Swallow, Eric observed, was a young man of athletic build who looked to be about Eric’s own age.

  “I have heard that some of you are from a town called Grantville, is that correct?”

  “That’s right,” said Eric. “Four of us are.”

  “Excellent. My elder brother, Zheng Zhilong, is most interested in meeting people from Grantville, and seeing the wondrous contrivances of that remarkable place. Unfortunately, he cannot come here now. He is an admiral in command of the naval forces of Fujian province, and he has pursued the pirate fleet of Liu Xiang into these waters. I was left here as the liaison between him and the governor of Guangdong Province, whose capital is Guangzhou.”

  “I think I have heard of your brother.…” That was an understatement. According to Mike’s teachers back in Taiwan, Zheng Zhilong was a former pirate chieftain who was offered an admiralty, used his new position to wipe out his former rivals, and then controlled the overseas trade of Fujian by demanding licenses to sail. Thanks to these payments, and his own trading ventures, his income was said to be greater than that of the Dutch East India Company. And a few years after the Manchu invaded, he cut his hair into a Manchu pigtail, although they ultimately executed him because his son remained loyal to the Ming cause. That son, in turn, later took Taiwan from the Dutch, hence his family’s prominent place in Taiwanese schoolbooks.

  “All good, I hope! Now, I see that your two ships have many guns…”

  “They are well armed,” Eric acknowledged.

  “Then may I suggest that you join your forces to his against Liu Xiang? It will serve as proof, to him and to the officials in Guangzhou, of your friendly intentions. If you are willing, I can guide you to him, and tell you the proper recognition signs so that you aren’t fired upon. By his forces, that is.”

  Eric’s eyes widened. “I…I would have to consult with my advisors. Could you stay aboard while I do so?”

  “I’d like a tour of your ship, actually.”

  Eric arranged for Yan to be given a tour by the first officer of the Rode Draak, with Mike Song as his interpreter.

  And in the meantime, Eric called a council in which he was joined by Jim Saluzzo, Captain Lyell, Maarten Vries, Peter Minuit, and Colonel von Siegroth.

  The final conclusion was that Eric should politely decline, citing as his reason that there were substantial quantities of silver on board, for purchasing silk and other Chinese goods. Consequently, his responsibility to those who had supplied the silver was to keep the Rode Draak out of harm’s way if possible, and use its guns to defend itself only when it had to fight.

  If Yan the Swallow was disappointed by this answer, he did not show it. He promised to put the USE mission in touch with Zheng Zhilong once Liu Xiang had been dealt with.

  Third Month, Day 23

  “Get up, sir!”

  Eric Garlow rubbed his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “You need to come to the captain’s cabin right away sir!”

  When he reached the cabin, Eric found that Jim Saluzzo, Mike Song, and Peter Minuit were there already. And that Yan the Swallow was back, accompanied by a servant.

  “He says the Portuguese have paid the locals to launch a fireship attack on us. After midnight, at the ebb tide,” said Captain Lyell.

  “So the questions are, first, do we believe him, or is this just a dodge to get us away from dealing with his competitors? And second, do we flee or fight?”

  Yan assured them that if they doubted his words, they were welcome to wait for the attack.

  Tiger’s Island was so named because it resembled a tiger crouching in preparation to leap upon some passing prey. Were the Chinese imitating the tiger?

  Eric proposed that a lookout be posted on the summit of Tiger’s Island, which was almost six hundred feet high. However, that would mean that after the fireship attack, they would have to return to the cove to pick up the lookout. And that would give more time for the forts to come into action, assuming that the attack was authorized by the government rather than a private enterprise of the Portuguese allies.

  “Let’s hoist anchor and move a bit down-channel,” said the captain. “We can hold position, even with sails set, if we let out a sea anchor behind us. If we spot fireships, we just cut loose the sea anchor and we will quickly speed ahead. Both the wind and the current favor us, and the fireships will merely be drifting downriver.”

  The Rode Draak exchanged signals with the Groen Feniks, and Lyell’s plan was put into practice.

  As Yan the Swallow had predicted, a flotilla of small junks rounded Tiger’s Island and then proceeded downriver toward the two European vessels.

  “Cut away the sea anchor!” Lyell ordered, and a moment later there was a jolt as the ship’s resistance to the force of the wind abruptly lessened.

  The forts remained silent, and as they lost sight of the fireships, far behind them, Captain Lyell asked quietly, “What now?”

  “Where will we find Zheng Zhilong?” Eric asked Yan.

  “Since you don’t want to be part of the sea battle, you should sail for Xiamen, which is a port on Liaoluo Bay. I will guide you. But I believe that you are towing behind you the small boat I came by. Please allow my servant to board it and return to Guangzhou. I will give him instructions; he will make sure that my letter to the admiral goes out immediately on a Zheng family junk and advises the admiral of where to find you. At least, as s
oon as the winds permit.”

  “Very well,” said Eric. “Captain Lyell, are you agreeable?”

  “I am,” said Lyell. “I will make the arrangements.” He turned and then paused. “You know, the fireship attack was botched. The cove we were in didn’t face upriver; so the fireship crews would have had to remain on board to steer around the island and even then the current into the cove was weak. We moved into a more exposed position, but they couldn’t take proper advantage of it because the wind gave us the greater speed.”

  “Perhaps the miscreants were inexperienced, or perhaps they were misinformed as to your exact position,” Yan suggested.

  “Well, it’s no matter, we evaded the attack. Let me get your servant back where he belongs.” Captain Lyell strode off.

  * * *

  Yan the Swallow cleared his throat. “Now that we know each other a little better, I hope that I may raise a ticklish subject. Your flag. Please don’t fly your flag any more. At least, not in Chinese waters and most especially not in my family’s home port, Xiamen.”

  Captain Lyell raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with the flag?” The USE flag featured a black Saint Andrew’s Cross on a red field, with eight gold stars overlaying the diagonal stripes of the cross, and at the center, a big gold crown with three small ones below it. The central symbol was the lesser coat of arms of Sweden.

  “The ‘X’ is very bad luck! An ‘X’ is used to mark the names of criminals who are to be executed!”