by Robert Wang
Hau Ma Ma whispered something into Little Spring’s ear, and she nodded. With a smile that could melt a glacier, she pretended she was so shy that she couldn’t even look at Da Ping. Informed that she was dealing with an inexperienced youth who also happened to be the Number One Son of the most important opium dealer in all Canton, she put all of her considerable charm to use.
She took Da Ping’s hand to lead him to one of the smaller, private barges, the best one that was available on this busy night. She led him across a narrow plank from the dock to the barge and then through two sets of doors. As she closed the second one, she discreetly loosened the neckline of her gown just enough to show off her voluptuous, firm breasts. The room was dimly lit with more flower lanterns and contained a large, comfortable-looking bed at one end and a narrow opium bed next to it. In the middle of the room was an ornate table set with a wine jug and cups and a few dishes of light refreshments. The furnishings and the art on the walls were of the finest quality, as well made and costly as anything Da Ping had at home.
Sweet, resiny incense smoke filled the room, making him a little dizzy. Da Ping could feel his own heartbeat, and a cold sheen of sweat was forming on his forehead. He felt a powerful urge to empty his bladder but was too embarrassed to do anything about it.
Her young client was fidgeting and looking as though he desperately needed to urinate. Little Spring sized up the situation immediately.
“Lord Master Lee,” she murmured, “I am so honored by your presence. I am your humble servant tonight. I am so nervous but will do my best to please you in any way you wish. Please allow me to order some warm water so that I may have the pleasure of bathing your Jade Stalk. I will return in just a minute.”
As soon as she left the barge, Da Ping ran to a side door facing the water and took a long, satisfying piss over the side. Little Spring watched him from around the corner and laughed to herself while servants brought in a large wooden tub and filled it with pleasantly hot water. This is going to be fun, Little Spring thought. And Young Master will remember tonight for the rest of his life. Which will be great for me!
Da Ping had heard Chu Sing describe his exploits with the Flower Lantern ladies in tedious detail, but he still wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation himself now that he was about to experience a woman touching his Jade Stalk for the first time. He was far more nervous than aroused, and he began to doubt his ability to perform the acts that Chu Sing was always boasting about. He tried to calm himself and summon his feelings of confidence and entitlement, but they disappeared like the smoke from a snuffed candle.
Little Spring could see every emotion he was feeling as it crossed his face. Hau Ma Ma had chosen her for a reason; she had a knack for making first-timers feel comfortable and in control.
“Lord Master Lee,” she said in her soft, shy voice, “before I bathe you, I would like to dance for you so I will not be so nervous for what is to follow.”
“Sure…Miss…ah…” He had forgotten her name already. “That would, uh, please me.”
Little Spring loosened her gown a little more and clapped her hands, which was the cue for the musicians hidden in the chamber between the outer and inner doors to begin playing. She began by making a deep bow to Da Ping, exposing her breasts in all their glory, and stepped back to begin the slow and sensuous dance that she performed several times a night to drive her clients wild with desire. Da Ping couldn’t believe his eyes. He hadn’t seen a woman’s nipples since he’d been weaned, and a tingling sensation began to build in his lower abdomen.
She is so beautiful, even without bound feet, he thought. Little Spring’s family had sold her to the Flower Lantern when she was fifteen, much too late to have her feet bound. Not surprisingly, the hallmark of beauty so valued in a noble wife was not at all necessary to arouse a man in a brothel. Little Spring’s clients were captivated by her beauty and splendid figure, and they returned to the Flower Lantern again and again to experience her masterful skill at pleasing the Jade Stalk.
As she finished the abbreviated version of her dance—she knew Da Ping would not be able to wait much longer—she let her robe slip down her shoulders, giving him a full view of her upper torso and her beautifully shaped breasts and pink nipples. As she knelt before him, Da Ping lost all control of his own body and leaped at her like a hungry tiger attacking its prey. He pawed at her breasts and thighs, gasping for air.
“Ooh, my Lord Master,” Little Spring moaned with deliberate and precise timing. “I am all yours tonight!”
Before she could even finish her prepared line, Da Ping ejaculated inside his clothes. He was overcome with shame and embarrassment and turned away from Little Spring. His thirteen-year-old temperament took over, and he began to cry.
Little Spring, she said to herself, this crying boy in front of you is Lee Shao Lin’s Number One Son, and you need to make him feel like a man who just conquered the world. She sighed. This would require extreme measures.
“Ooh, Lord Master,” she whispered, manufacturing a blush, “you are such a gentleman to spare me tonight. I am…so…so…touched by your kindness.” Little Spring was so well trained that she could command tears when they were needed, and she let Da Ping see them run down her face while pretending to hide behind her hands.
Da Ping had no idea what was going on. He saw real tears on a beautiful naked lady who had just thanked him—but for what? He didn’t know and didn’t care, because somehow he felt better. He felt an urge to comfort Little Spring, and he patted her bare shoulder. She slowly raised her tear-streaked face to look at him, and his heart melted. His pats turned into a gentle caress, and with perfect timing, she threw her arms around him and pressed her lovely naked body against his.
“But I really do want you, Lord Master,” she whispered in his ear. “Please, please, I beg it of you.” She felt Da Ping’s Jade Stalk grow erect against her body and knew she couldn’t risk another near miss.
“Lord Master Lee,” she said, “please excuse me, but I must first do what my herbalist has instructed I do when I am overcome with emotion and desire.”
Da Ping relaxed his hold on her, but just a little bit. “All right. What is that?”
“I must smoke some opium to relieve the pressure, or I will be ill.”
“Really?” Da Ping had no idea opium could be used in this way.
“Yes, Lord Master, opium is the best medicine under these circumstances.” She pretended that an idea had suddenly crossed her mind. “I would be honored if you would share a bowl of the concoction that Herb Master Liu has prescribed for me.” Little Spring was very familiar with the effect of the drug on men’s sexual performance, and she was counting on it working a miracle on Da Ping.
Da Ping would never have believed that a day that began with good-natured ribbing from his more experienced friend would end with him sharing an opium pipe with a beautiful naked woman who craved the honor of servicing his Jade Stalk. He threw all caution to the wind and nodded.
Next to the opium bed was a small table with a pipe stand holding a magnificent and perfectly aligned pipe with ornate copper decorations. It had a jade mouthpiece on one end and a brass-and-ivory bowl on the other. An intricately painted container next to the pipe held the opium paste, and another larger box contained the stirring needles, an oil lamp, and some other utensils. Little Spring carefully rolled a bit of the hardened opium paste into a ball about as wide as her smallest fingernail and stuck it to the end of a needle. She lit the lamp and held the opium-tipped needle over the low flame until it softened and began to bubble and turn golden. She stretched the gooey paste into long strings with another needle so it would heat evenly over the lamp, then rolled it back into a small ball before placing it in the bowl of the pipe. Like those of most seasoned addicts, her movements were deft and relaxed, demonstrating the skill of someone who had performed the ritual so many times that it was second nature.
Little Spring offered the pipe to Da Ping. He had watched his father smoke a
t home, so for the first time that evening, he felt like he knew what he was supposed to do. He reclined sideways on the opium bed, resting his head on a ceramic pillow next to Little Spring, put the jade filter to his mouth with the bowl over the oil lamp, and inhaled the smoke that the heat produced. Da Ping immediately started to cough.
“Oh, Lord Master, be gentle and take a smaller draw,” Little Spring whispered into Da Ping’s ear. “Let the dragon come to you, Lord Master.”
Within seconds, Da Ping’s head began to spin, and he felt a silken cloud engulf his entire body. He had never experienced anything like it before, and he could feel himself floating above the opium bed. Little Spring watched him critically as she took her own practiced inhale from the pipe. She usually timed her sessions so that she could make it through the evening before experiencing the first withdrawal pangs, so this was a welcome early reward for her efforts with the young lord.
Da Ping felt as though he was covered with a blanket that gave him warmth, lightness, and an exultant feeling of confidence. As he gazed at Little Spring’s naked body, he was filled with renewed strength and vigor. Little Spring noticed the bulge in his clothing that was becoming bigger and firmer, and she took his hand and led him to the bed. She gently removed his clothing and then slowly, skillfully, and sensuously caressed his entire body using every part of her own. Opium or not, it was still his first time, so Little Spring took the lead, expertly guiding Da Ping into her Golden Gate and moving against him until his mind and his Jade Stalk exploded in pure bliss.
“Oh fuck, this is heaven!” Da Ping grinned wide when he finished, took another long drag from the pipe, and proceeded to enter Little Spring’s Golden Gate for a second and then a third time. And so it was that Lee Da Ping, Number One Son of Lee Shao Lin of Canton, experienced the forbidden thrills of both sex and opium at the same time at the tender age of thirteen.
Chapter Five
Bombay to Canton, 1832
In between his duties—which included scheduling the watches, overseeing loading and unloading at every port to ensure the stability of the ship, and minding the ballast, in addition to navigation—Higgins scoured the private libraries of every officer on board for more information about the opium trade and these two men, Jardine and Matheson, whose cargo he oversaw. He asked the older hands questions and read newspapers he picked up in port. Whatever he learned went into the notebook. When he filled a book, he mailed it home to his parents, carefully wrapped in linen and covered with exotic labels.
William Jardine, he learned, was born on February 24, 1784, the son of a small Scottish farmer. His village, Lochmaben, had its own grammar school, and it accepted a small number of poor students who could not afford the tuition. Young William was one of those. He lost his father at the age of nine and struggled to keep up with his studies while he worked the family farm. His brother, eager to see someone in the family earn a university degree, supported William in every way possible, and as a result of those sacrifices, he was able to attend the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.
Jardine earned his diploma in 1802 and shipped as a surgeon’s apprentice that same year on the Brunswick, chartered by the East India Company. By this time, the company was doing most of its trading with China. It maintained its own private army of over 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Royal Army, and used it to rule large areas of India as a de facto arm of the British Empire. In 1773 Parliament imposed a series of administrative and economic reforms that ultimately gave it control over the company, so Jardine was in fact working for the British Empire itself, earning five pounds for two months of service.
Jardine’s position as surgeon’s mate allowed him to mingle with the captain and other senior officers at the dining table, which made him privy to lively conversations about the China trade. He learned that the East India Company was selling opium to China and that officers were allotted a small amount of cargo space, known as “privilege tonnage,” that they could fill with opium on the way to China and Chinese goods on the voyage home. These officers made considerable profits from these private trades. The size of any officer’s tonnage was determined by his rank, so senior officers did very well for themselves. A quick study, Jardine grasped the opportunities available through trading with China, and after several voyages to China by way of India in the spring and back to England in the fall, he was an expert in dealing with the corrupt mandarins and customs officers to work around the laws against bringing opium into Canton.
When Jardine visited China for the first time, the Brunswick and all other incoming ships anchored off the mouth of the Pearl River in an area known as Whampoa, twelve miles from Canton, where corrupt Chinese customs officers “inspected” the cargo. The mouth of the Pearl River was known as the Bogue, and it was guarded by a series of forts. Small junks unloaded the opium from the foreign ships after clearing customs and carried it upriver to Canton, where the exchange was made: opium for Chinese silver and that same silver for Chinese goods. Some legitimate trade of British wool and Indian cotton for Chinese tea and silk occurred, but it was insignificant in comparison to the opium sales.
All the legitimate trade conducted by the East India Company in China took place in an area known as the factories in Canton—long, narrow buildings facing the river. Many had second or third stories used as dining rooms, bedrooms, and libraries. The British factory, the largest one, had a pleasant garden in front. All foreign merchants were restricted to this area when they disembarked, and all business was to be conducted only with approved Chinese hongs. There were thirteen of these hongs who conducted legitimate trade with Westerners, making an effective monopoly, and some of them became enormously wealthy by it.
Officially, these thirteen hongs only dealt in tea, silk, porcelain, furniture, and other Chinese merchandise, which they exchanged for British wool, Indian cotton, and other Western products. Watches and clocks were among the most popular. These thirteen hongs gladly took silver for their trades when they sold more than they bought, and they knew well the true source of the silver; it was not from England. And if these hongs dealt in opium, they did so most discreetly to avoid attention from both the magistrates and the other opium dealers. Through this system of restrictions, the Imperial Court intended to control all foreign activities in China. Everyone in the Imperial Court, with the possible exception of the emperor, knew that this was not the case, and several cleared handsome profits by allowing the situation to continue.
Jardine discovered he could earn quite a lot by using his own privilege tonnage to import opium and return with tea and silk, like the other officers, but he expanded his business into brokering other men’s tonnage for a commission. His shipmates trusted him; he did the research to find the best deals, something many others had neither time nor inclination for. Jardine did so well that his profits from these private trades exceeded his new salary as ship’s surgeon by quite a bit. After a few more voyages, in which the Brunswick suffered foul weather, pirates, and attacks by the French, Jardine decided it was time to quit the seafaring life and devote all his efforts to the China trade.
His new career as a trader began in spring 1819. Jardine deposited the silver from opium sales in an East India Company account in Canton, and his partner Thomas Weeding, another former ship’s surgeon, issued a receipt backed by the company that allowed Jardine to withdraw the cash in London. The East India Company then used the silver to buy Chinese products. This saved Jardine the trouble and risk of hauling huge quantities of silver across the ocean and was possibly the world’s first large-scale scheme to launder drug money.
He invested everything he had saved over the previous two years to purchase a merchant ship, the Sarah, with his two partners, Weeding and an Indian merchant, Frame Cowasjee, just as the trade between India and China—and the addiction rate—was seeing explosive growth. The Sarah, weighing 488 tons and with a draft of eighteen feet, was built in an English shipyard and set sail for India on November 2, 1819. Jardine took pos
session of his new ship when it arrived in Bombay in April 1820, right around the time he met James Matheson.
Matheson was born to a family of some means, at least compared to William Jardine’s origins. He was born in 1796 near Sutherlandshire, at the northern tip of Scotland. Twelve years younger than his future partner, James grew up in moderate wealth. As a young boy, he was fascinated by exotic places and dreamed of travel to the far-flung corners of the world.
Like Jardine, Matheson attended the University of Edinburgh, but he left the university at seventeen to pursue a career in commerce instead, working for a mercantile house in London, where he picked up an education in accounting and business practices. At nineteen, disliking his prospects, he sailed to Calcutta in 1815, where he worked for his uncle’s firm, Mackintosh and Company. Three years later, he was sacked and ordered to catch the next ship back to England; instead, he decided he would go to Canton to try his hand at the opium trade. It didn’t take long for him to learn the business and become an excellent judge of opium quality, which earned him the custom and trust of the middlemen.
Jardine’s nephew, Andrew Johnstone, had followed in his uncle’s footsteps and worked as surgeon’s mate on the Scaleby Castle. Advised by his uncle to take advantage of his privilege tonnage, he found he needed cash for a lucrative transaction. Matheson was involved in the transaction and agreed to lend Johnstone the funds in Spanish dollars. Johnstone wrote to his uncle to ask him to honor the debt, which he did, establishing a feeling of trust between these two Scotsmen. They met and, around 1822, formed a partnership.
Matheson used his background in mercantile banking to negotiate with London banks to convert Chinese silver into notes that could be redeemed at a bank in India or London, creating another form of money laundering. Jardine and Matheson were already earning large fees for providing this service, and opium traders happily paid them to avoid the risk of losing their silver to pirates or storms. These paper instruments were so trusted that they became a currency in their own right, backed by opium, and could be used to negotiate other purchases. A circular known as the Canton Register and Price Current published up-to-date prices of opium in Canton, and an entire economy was created using opium sales as collateral to back up financial instruments that originated in London for the purpose of buying more opium. Jardine and Matheson became the central bank of this economy.
