The Rebellion Engines

by Jeannie Lin

  I thought of everything Hanzhu had revealed to me when we were alone.

  “Hanzhu is not a criminal,” I asserted. “He’s not really a traitor.”

  Chang-wei let out a breath. “He is a criminal. And it’s the Emperor and his inner council that decides who is or isn’t a traitor.”

  We were released after half a day as promised. Kai staggered above deck, found that looking at the rolling ocean all around him didn’t help, and promptly staggered back down.

  Chang-wei and I were brought to Hanzhu’s laboratory. He stood, jacket removed and shirtsleeves rolled up, over a map.

  “Two days to Shanghai,” Hanzhu declared, showing the course on the map. “If we don’t encounter any obstacles.”

  “Seems a roundabout way,” Chang-wei remarked.

  Hanzhu refused to spare him a glance. “Water taxes and my refusal to pay them.”

  I remembered how Satomi had spoken of parties claiming territorial rights all along the coast.

  “Waterways are like roads,” Hanzhu explained conversationally. “Except no one can see them. You can’t know them unless you travel them often enough and they continually change. Those of us who listen for news at every port and navigate carefully have a chance of avoiding danger. Everyone else just falls prey to whoever is the first shark to come along.”

  Chang-wei didn’t argue. “Two days then.”

  “We’ll enter the Huangpu inlet and dock in the foreign devil’s settlement.”

  “In the Meiguo section.” Chang-wei opened his journal to show us a picture of the flag with white stars on a blue background alongside red stripes.

  “I know Meiguo,” Hanzhu replied, exasperated.

  The two of them were going to be at each other’s throats for the entire time. At least for now they were snapping softly.

  In appearance, they couldn’t be further apart. Chang-wei in proper Manchu attire, his queue neatly braided. He appeared the cultured gentleman, while Hanzhu wore his Western buttons and sleeves with careless disdain, his hair unkempt and a growth of stubble roughing up his jawline. It was the scholar and the rogue to any who would look upon them.

  Yet it was Hanzhu who had come from wealth and Chang-wei who had come from nothing. Even so, they were not so far apart as they would like to believe.

  “Once you reach Shanghai, I’ll abandon you to sail away with your silver.”

  Chang-wei nodded. “I wouldn’t think to ask for anything more.”

  “Shanghai isn’t the same as you remember,” Hanzhu warned. “On land or at sea. The waters surrounding it have become so treacherous that the Qing authorities have even hired pirates from Canton to fend off pirates from Macau. Pirates fighting pirates.” He gave a bitter laugh.

  “That’s why I thought of you, Brother.”

  Hanzhu’s grin faded and he took on a serious expression. “Any ship that looks to be carrying anything valuable is a target. Any ship that looks to be vulnerable is a target. We’ll be traveling with two smaller, more maneuverable vessels. Each outfitted with cannons and a crew prepared for battle. Hopefully any pirates we encounter will see that we’re armed and ready and decide whatever we’re carrying isn’t worth the fight.”

  “Your formidable reputation may be of use here,” Chang-wei observed.

  “There are two edges to that sword,” Hanzhu snorted. “Light and dark. Dead or alive.”

  Chapter 12

  We emerged above deck to a cloudless sky. The vessel cut a line through the otherwise calm water, propelled by the gunpowder engine. The sails were simultaneously unfurled and angled to catch even the slightest breeze, taking advantage of wind and fuel.

  I had spent time on board this junk before and returning to it was much like coming back to visit the home of an old friend. The layout and locations of the ship were familiar, as were the routines the crew would engage in. I recognized most of the faces on board. Yang Hanzhu had assembled a close-knit crew that had remained together for several years now. Satomi and Makoto were the newest additions.

  Little Jie was no longer little. Nor did he look like the street rat I’d met who had first brought me to Yang. He must have been twelve years of age by now. I found the boy hanging up on the battens of the main sail as I came to the quarterdeck.

  “Miss Jin,” he called down to me from on high with his skinny legs hooked over the bamboo frame. He freed one hand to wave at me in a gesture that made my stomach lurch.

  “Be careful up there,” I scolded, which set him laughing. He looked more sure-footed climbing the sails than I was moving on dry land.

  There was a barge master who everyone referred to as Master Yim. His skin had the leathery look of a lifelong seafarer, making it difficult to tell his age. I placed him ten years older than Hanzhu based on his steady and even-tempered nature. He was one of the few crewmen who had kept his queue, which, at least to me, gave him an air of propriety.

  Satomi made it known to us that Master Yim was the stand-in authority who kept an eye on the day-to-day running of the ship as well as conditions in the fleet. Though Hanzhu was the ship’s owner and captain, he was prone to disappearing into his laboratory for days at a time.

  As for the rest of the crew, it was comprised in part from the merchant shipmen who had once been employed by the Yang family and then a band of characters Hanzhu had taken on in his travels through various ports. Like in Ningpo, the language spoken was a base use of Canton dialect with a mix of words and phrases adopted from other tongues. Common shipboard terms served as an underlying backbone. It was a language of strangers from different lands attempting to make meaning between them.

  Chang-wei stayed above deck just long enough to see that his team were settled before disappearing below to catch up with Liu Yentai in the engine room. Satomi came to me then.

  “Will you have tea?” she asked.

  I followed Satomi to the galley. There was a stove there in the small cooking area. She poured tea into two chipped porcelain cups and offered one to me which I took gratefully. We returned above to the quarterdeck to drink by the last of the day’s light. My hands curved over both sides of the cup, letting the warmth seep through. Hot tea signaled normalcy. I took a calming sip while watching the waves.

  It had been a long time since I’d last been out at sea, with nothing to see but water from all sides. One easily lost a sense of time and space. Perhaps an experienced sailor might have some compass or map in his head to track where he was, but for me, I was nowhere. I was in-between until setting foot on land again.

  Satomi drank her tea beside me. The falling sun cast a warm glow over her face. We were the only women on board. On a typical day, this meant she was here alone among this rough-and-ready lot. Yet she appeared more at ease, less wary and reserved than I remembered her.

  “Does this life suit you?” I asked.

  “It has to,” she replied, non-committal. A light scattering of freckles lay across her cheeks.

  “Do you ever think of going home?”

  “It’s not possible,” she replied curtly. Then softer, “Maybe one day, one of these many islands we flit to and from will capture my interest.”

  It sounded like a far-off fantasy. “It must be hard to be constantly at sea.”

  “I was always surrounded by the sea in Nippon.” She sounded far away.

  We drank our tea in silence for a while before Satomi spoke again. “Yang-san thinks there will be war again.”

  I thought of the rebels. Of the battles at Changsha and Nanking and Shanghai. “There’s war now.”

  Still, Satomi’s words caused some alarm.

  For the last year, Satomi had lived just beyond the shoreline, in places where boundaries and nations blurred. As part of Yang Hanzhu’s retinue, she would have witnessed growing tension between the foreigners and the Qing empire. Between Japan and the other neighbors. If Hanzhu was becoming more fearful, I needed to be as well.

  “Hanzhu trusts you,” I remarked.

  “He allows me
passage for as long as I require.”

  “I think it’s more than that.”

  Hanzhu and Satomi had formed a connection upon their first meeting. They were fellow exiles by choice.

  “Yang-san is an eccentric. A madman,” Satomi said as a matter of fact. “There is something about that that feels very familiar. Even oddly…comforting.” She caught herself and straightened with a frown. “What about you and Chen Chang-wei?” Satomi asked, changing the subject. “One would have thought the two of you would be married by now.”

  My heart thudded. “No one thinks that. There are…too many other things going on. With the empire. With the uprisings.” I made a motion to drink even though my tea was nearly gone.

  Satomi shot me a skeptical look. “Yet here you are, the two of you, still together. And you saved his life.”

  Chang-wei’s heart had stopped on the journey back from Japan to Shanghai. I’d managed to revive him.

  I stared at the leaves at the bottom of my cup, trying to hide the skip of my pulse. Every mention of Chang-wei did this to me lately. Satomi and I were friends, but not the sort of friends who shared such personal details. Even if we had faced life and death together.

  Still, I hadn’t had the chance to talk to anyone about Chang-wei’s proposal. There had been my mother — but then death and disaster had struck. Perhaps it was a bad omen.

  I shouldn’t be thinking that.

  “He wouldn’t marry me just because I saved him,” I protested, my face growing hot. Was that why he’d proposed? Duty? A sense of debt?

  Satomi held out her hand for my empty cup. “Better that he owes you than that you owe him,” she assured, her lips curving upward in a knowing smile.

  When night came, we retired to our respective berths. I passed Chang-wei as I moved toward the draped area at the forward end. Satomi’s berth was located there, which I’d be sharing. The section was separated with a curtain to provide some privacy. The crew slept in close quarters on the ship, with bunks arranged into lower and upper levels. Satomi had more space to herself than the others as the topmost bunk was left empty.

  “Will you be alright?” Chang-wei asked me.

  There was a dark smudge over his left cheek. Everything in the engine room was covered in a layer of soot. I resisted the urge to wipe it away. The gesture would seem too intimate. Wifely.

  Even unspoken, that word was strange, with a heaviness attached to it that sent a flutter to my stomach. Or perhaps that was just the roll of the ocean.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “The others and I will be at the opposite end. If you need me.”

  I nodded.

  “Sleep well,” he added.

  We weren’t saying anything of importance, yet this somehow felt like the best conversation we’d had in a long time. The time away for a night’s sleep suddenly felt like a parting, even though we were sure to see each other in the morning not long from now.

  “Sleep well,” I replied.

  He even bowed at me as we awkwardly parted. I turned quickly to hide my smile.

  I awoke alone in the berth and saw it was morning by the swaying light seeping from the deck hatch.

  The sleeping arrangements were sparse. Satomi had taken the lower bunk while I slept on the upper level. When I opened my eyes, she was already gone.

  The sea had been calm through the night and sleep surprisingly restful. It still took me a moment to stretch out the knots in my back and neck. I could hear the sounds of many footsteps overhead. Combing my fingers through my hair, I repinned it into its usual knot and straightened my appearance before passing through the curtain.

  The bunk area was empty. I climbed up the stairs to the main deck and was greeted by the rush of wind and the rustle of the fan-like sails overhead. The crew were already at their morning tasks. Little Jie ran about with tea and stopped in front of me to pour a cup.

  “Are you going to fight the Small Swords in Shanghai?” the youth asked brightly.

  I was taken aback by such a direct question. “I am not much one for fighting—”

  “I hear the rebels have superior kung-fu skills. There were roving bands of fighters all over the city that used to battle each other, but then they joined together and kicked out the crooked Taotai.”

  Jie grinned at me, fully excited as if he bore some grudge against the former official. Maybe it was a grudge against any authority.

  “What else have you heard?” I asked.

  “They’re calling for everyone to join them. Fight the Qing, preserve the Ming!”

  I wasn’t sure he was aware that I was Manchu and Qing. Or even what was meant by preserving the Ming, a dynasty that had ended two hundred years earlier.

  “That sort of talk would have you imprisoned on the mainland,” I chided gently.

  His grin only widened. “That’s why I’m at sea. Though I might jump ship in Shanghai.”

  “To join the rebels?”

  “And learn some fighting skills! I’ve been trying to get Makoto to teach me, but he won’t let anyone touch his swords.”

  Makoto was currently scrubbing the deck with the other crewmen. Maintaining the ship, in a ritual of swabbing, sealing and repairing, was a constant battle against the elements.

  “Perhaps keep pestering Makoto,” I suggested, a bit unsettled at the casual way Jie talked of rebellion. “He was once samurai.”

  “I knew it!”

  I handed the cup back to Jie and the boy scurried off to carry on with his duties. Searching about, I spotted Chang-wei and Satomi on the raised quarterdeck, deep in conversation. I climbed the stairs toward them and caught part of the conversation about the roar of the wind.

  “How long did it take to perfect the sword fighting patterns?” Chang-wei asked.

  “…my father studied the sword from a young age…simplify the concepts…”

  I could only hear part of Satomi’s reply. Interestingly enough, fighting skill seemed to be the topic of the morning. As I came closer, I heard Satomi mention the name “Yoshiro” and it all became clear.

  Yoshiro had been an invention of her father’s. A mechanical karakuri warrior created to act as Satomi’s bodyguard. Though it was mute, it had been able to move, walk and even wield a sword. She spoke of Yoshiro with emotion, as if it were a companion and not just a machine. Even I had assumed Yoshiro was human before his secret was revealed.

  “My father was removed from Edo and put on house arrest,” Satomi was saying. “In isolation, he had a lot of time to develop his karakuri. I would see him creating wire patterns and then patiently testing them, making a small change, testing again. As a child, I didn’t understand what he was doing. Yoshiro started as a toy for me, like any other karakuri, but he gradually learned how to do more and more.

  “I was always careful when working on Yoshiro after my father passed away. I lacked my father’s knowledge of engineering and I knew if I broke anything inside, I’d be unable to fix him. Inside his frame there was a complicated mesh of copper wires and panels.”

  Like what the women in the wire room had constructed. I came up behind Chang-wei, but remained silent.

  “Sagara Shintaro was assassinated shortly after the Opium War,” Chang-wei surmised. “Which meant your karakuri servant remained operational for eight years with hardly any maintenance.”

  Chang-wei had managed to re-create something similar to the karakuri. His automatons walked about and appeared to react to movement and sound, but their behavior was crude in comparison to what Yoshiro had been able to do. Unfortunately, Yoshiro and all of the intricate wiring inside the automaton was lost. The machine had been beheaded by the shogunate’s assassins and its secrets left to rust among the weeds.

  “I still have my father’s journal, if you would want to see it,” Satomi offered.

  “My knowledge of Nihongo is unfortunately limited.”

  “If you ever have a month to spend at sea, I can translate,” she suggested.

  He bowed gracious
ly. “I would be honored.”

  Chang-wei’s reaction to Satomi’s offer was a little too warm. I stepped forward to position myself conspicuously beside him.

  “Soling-san,” Satomi acknowledged.

  “Satomi-san.”

  That came out colder than I’d intended. What had come over me? Satomi was a friend. A tall, clever and confident friend, who was able to discuss mechanical things with Chang-wei in a way I never could.

  Whoever said that envy was like a grain of sand in one’s eye was wrong. It was an entire beach.

  My face heated at my display of jealousy, though Satomi was polite enough not to mention it. She bowed and returned to her duties, leaving Chang-wei and I staring at one another. My stare was decidedly pointed.

  “What?” he asked, all innocence.

  “Translation?” I questioned evenly.

  “My interest is purely academic.”

  There was the barest hint of a smile on his lips. I turned sharply to present him with a stark view of my profile. Let him study that for a while.

  Eventually, Chang-wei rounded up his team and went down to the engine room to see if they could be of use. Even though we had paid Hanzhu in silver for the excursion, it still seemed necessary to make ourselves useful while on board. If nothing else, it passed the time.

  I went to inspect the medicine cabinet, which was stored in the cook’s galley and consisted of jars and bottles and an assortment of herbs. For the rest of the morning, I set about replenishing any medicines that were low. I searched out the required components from the laboratory and mixed a batch of Jinchuang ointment used to treat wounds. There were a few other common remedies that were always of use — a powder for upset stomach, a salve for burns — the same one I had used extensively at the Factories.

  Several of the crew remembered me from the last time I was on board and came to inquire about various aches and ailments. Kai managed to acclimate himself a little to the rocking motion of the ship. He came above board to make some conversation, at one point engaging in a game of dice with the crewmen where he proved himself to be a poor gambler.