Opium Warfare

by Justin Bienvenue

  “Well, whichever one of you is working for The Green Gang let this be your warning. While there is no proof of what else you may have talked about with Zheng I assure you it will only ruin things for you. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll cut your ties with them,” the head of the committee advised. “I have great respect for all of you, so it’s why I won’t immediately command who amongst you is the rat. I’m asking, no wait, I’m demanding you, whoever you are, back out now or you will regret it. This deal with the Russians is better than any deal you have on the table with the Green Gang.”

  The men were then briefed on when the Russians would be making business arrangements with each of them. Afterwards, they made their way out of the building. As Quan was making his way out of the building, he was stopped by Aeris.

  “Quan! Can you believe this? A rat among our committee?” he asked.

  Quan did his best to not give off any suspicion of a guilty look, but he didn’t have to worry as his shame was coating it for him nicely.

  “Yes Aeris, it is quite a shock. I just hope that whatever happens, the Russians will see the good of our deal together.”

  “Yes Quan, I believe you’re right. Hopefully, the Russians believe in our deal no matter what happens. Perhaps we can get together and go over our plans for the deals next week?”

  “That would be good Aeris, I shall see you then.”

  Quan and Aeris parted ways, retiring back to their homes.

  * * * * * *

  A few days later, Quan had his meeting with the Russians. He was excited and overjoyed at the opportunity. He dealt in very unique furs that he acquired from reputable places as well as from his own hunting. Quan wasn’t much of a hunter, but when he could every once in a while, he would go hunting and kill small game. He learned how to hunt and basic wilderness skills from his father back when they hiked the great Himalayas when he was a boy. He met with them at a local teahouse in town. When he arrived, he noticed there were two of them and the expression on their faces didn’t seem too pleased.

  “Hello Mr. Tsang, please have a seat,” one of the Russians said.

  “Thank you.”

  “It is good that we get to do business with the fine men of Shanghai once more,” he continued.

  “Yes. I’m very glad that we made peace and hopefully, we can come to terms on making this arrangement with furs a successful one,” Quan said and extended his hand.

  “Yes, that would be a very prosperous thing, but before we get to business Mr. Tsang, I have one thing to ask you.”

  Quan suddenly felt chills running down his spine and he tensed up. He wondered if they somehow got the word about his connection with the Green Gang.

  “Yes? What is that?” Quan asked.

  “Would you like some tea? We are at a teahouse after all,” the man asked.

  Quan sighed in relief.

  “Oh!” he laughed. “Yes, yes, I believe I shall have some tea. I enjoy Oolong.”

  Quan got his tea and then sat back with the two Russian men, and they began going over their fur business arrangements. Seeing as he was about to have a deal in place, Quan decided now was the time to come clean about his deal with the Green Gang. He would face the repercussions with the committee later.

  “Gentlemen before we proceed, I just thought you should know that I have been doing small business with Nan-dao Zheng of the Green Gang. I know you question his motives sometimes and believe me I do as well, but as you may probably guess, the fur business hasn’t been easy as of late. I needed help and he was the only person to whom I could turn to. I hope this doesn’t change your mind about us conducting business together. If it does, I will understand completely.”

  He waited for one of them to respond and felt things had now become strained. He felt as though perhaps he had just blown the deal. After a few moments of talking between themselves, the two men faced Quan to give him their answer.

  “First off Mr. Tsang, we thank you for being honest with us. We imagine it must not have been easy for you to tell us this bit of news. It is true that we do not like Nan-dao Zheng and his way of business, however, we also understand how difficult times have been in the fur trade, because we have had the same issues. It is part of the reason we decided to sign the treaty with you and your fellow committee members.”

  “So, does this mean you’ll still do business with me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Tsang, we wish very much to do business with you still.”

  “Thank you!” he clasped his hands together in a greeting gesture.

  “You’re most welcome, and thank you Mr. Tsang for your generous offer and your brave honesty as well. We have a meeting with your friend Aeris next, is he still a cheery fellow?” the man asked.

  “Oh yes, quite so, and still stubborn as ever if not bargained with correctly,” Quan said laughing.

  The men began going over the plans of where they will exchange the furs and after a few minutes, they bid farewell and went their separate ways. Quan returned home a happy man as he not only got the deal done, but he confessed to his working with the Green Gang.

  The next day Quan awoke to two men whom he recognized as members of the Green Gang. They came at him and before Quan had a chance to react, they took him against his will. They brought him back to the Green Gang warehouse and they dropped him before Master Nan-dao Zheng.

  “Master Zheng, what is the meaning of this?!” Quan demanded.

  “I could ask you the same question Quan. I believe you have a deal in place with the Russians, yes?”

  Quan said nothing.

  “You don’t have to say anything Mr. Tsang, because I know you have a deal in place; they told me. They also told me that they won’t be doing any sort of business with me or any of my associates. All because you told them.”

  “I’m sorry, I had to. Besides, I told you I wouldn’t be working with you anymore,” Quan explained.

  “That not only wasn’t your call to make, but you ruined any deal we could’ve had with anyone! Not just the Russians, they told other countries not to do any business with us. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

  “I’m...I’m sorry, Master Zheng. I’m sure you can do business elsewhere.”

  “No, you fool! You have set us back for quite a while! You have destroyed my ability to negotiate with anyone.”

  “I’m sure the Russians already knew of your work and disapproved.”

  “Yes, but your honesty and coming clean only furthered their hatred toward us. This cannot go unpunished Mr.Tsang, I cannot allow you to leave here.”

  “What...what are you saying?” Quan asked.

  “Take him over to the Chambers.”

  The two men then grabbed Quan and dragged him over the Chambers. Everyone else slowly followed them to the room. Nan-dao Zheng made his way into the room after and motioned for one of his young pupils to come forward. He then presented a sword to the young man. The man took the sword from his master. The two men threw Quan down. Quan knelt and didn’t move after that.

  “You will kill this man for his betrayal,” Zheng ordered.

  “Nooooo! Please!!!” Quan pleaded.

  He tried to turn around, but the two men stopped him.

  The young man approached Quan and looked down at him before raising his sword. Quan looked up at him and he could tell the young man couldn’t be any more than twenty years old. He noticed the man’s hand shaking nervously. He saw worry and fear in his eyes.

  “Kill him,” Zheng repeated.

  The man’s sword was high above his head while it was still shaking in his hands. Aside from his shaking, he remained motionless.

  “What are you waiting for? I said kill him!” Zheng urged him again.

  The man gripped the sword tighter as sweat dropped from his forehead, and he slowly lifted the heel of his left leg up and grinded it to the floor. Clearly nervous. After shaking some more, the man dropped the sword from his hand. He fell to his knees and began weeping.

  “
You are weak and have disgraced what the Green Gang stands for. How disappointing. Take him away,” Zheng said as a group of men took the young man away.

  “I will deal with him later, but first, I need someone to step forward and kill this man for his treachery.”

  Another young man among his gang stepped forward. Zheng looked at him emotionlessly.

  “I sincerely hope you don’t fail to go forward with what must be done or you’ll end up with your friend who just got taken away.”

  The young man picked up the sword from the floor. He then scrutinized it and weighted it in his hand trying to get a feel for it. Zheng looked at him inquisitively, wondering if he’ll go through with it.

  “Are you ready?” Zheng asked.

  The young man nodded as he raised the sword above the side of his head and walked over to Quan. Just as Zheng began to speak and before he could finish, the young man, with one swift movement, brought the blade down to Quan’s head, decapitating him. The man turned to Zheng with a cold stare on his face. Nan-dao Zheng smiled mischievously before clapping in approval.

  “Excellent!” Zheng applauded.

  The young man bowed down to Zheng before going to hand him back the sword.

  “No, no you keep it. You have earned that sword.”

  The young man nodded in approval, dismisses himself, and walks back toward the rest of his members.

  “One of you take Mr. Tsang’s head and dispose of it. If The Green Gang cannot do business with anyone, then Quan Tsang won’t either.”

  Chapter 12 - Enlightenment

  He stood in his luxurious robe with his attention completely on Ryu as he laughed wildly holding an opium pipe in his hand.

  “Ah, Ryu Tsang, we meet once again,” Shaojin said.

  “Shaojin! How do you know my name?” Ryu asked.

  “I know much about you, Ryu. I probably know more about you than you know about yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will, you will. To answer your question, how wouldn’t I know who you are? We first met at the docks after all. Sure, we didn’t exchange any words between us, but I asked your boss Rafael who you were after Rezel, one of my men, mentioned coming across a man who resembled you.”

  “Rezel...so that’s who he is. I had a few run-ins with him.”

  “Yes, he told me. After the second time he encountered you, I looked into just exactly who you were. Though, to my surprise, we met again in more different circumstances.”

  “What are you talking about? This is only the second time I’ve ever seen you face to face.”

  “You don’t remember? Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t now, would you?” Shin said.

  “Enough with the game Shaojin. Let Mia go!” Ryu demanded.

  “Don’t worry, if I wanted her dead, she would have been by now. I also have no intention of harming her.”

  “Why are you doing all this?!”

  “Isn’t it obvious Mr. Tsang? I wish for Shanghai to become an Opium Utopia, a euphoric paradise where everyone is happy. Don’t you want everyone to be happy, Mr. Tsang?”

  “You’re a dirty businessman and a murderer! You killed Chao!”

  “Yes, that was unfortunate, but you see, the stubborn old man wanted to back out of our deal. Did you know I was using his back room as an opium den? The very same room where I put a bullet in his head and a blade through his abdomen.”

  “You sick son of a bitch, you admit it!”

  “Yes Ryu, I killed Chao just like I had your boss Rafael killed as well.”

  “I had a feeling you were behind it!”

  “Yes, I had an old friend take care of that foul mouthed rat you called a boss.”

  “You bastard! I bet you killed Yugori too, didn’t you!?”

  “Yugori? Heavens, no. Yugori and me go way back. I did supply him with opium, though. The poor man succumbed to an overdose. He always said he was careful, but clearly his words caught up to him.”

  “So, in my eyes, you’re still responsible.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I did supply him with the drugs, and I may not have killed Rafael, but I had someone else do it for me. I am also responsible for a man jumping to his death outside the Astor House Hotel, did you hear about that?

  “Hear about it? I watched him fall...no one knew why he did it.”

  “The man owed me a rather large sum of money and to another wealthy businessman over in Huangpu. Since his deadline passed and he still didn’t have the money, he took drastic action. Tragic really. But yes, he owed a debt just like your grandfather supposedly did.”

  “My grandfather?! What do you know about my grandfather?!” Ryu asked, enraged.

  “Well, for one, he didn’t die because of a debt; he was a traitor to his people.”

  “Liar! My grandfather was a good man who was killed over a debt.”

  “No Ryu, he was killed, because he was a member of the Green Gang, and he betrayed them when he decided to come clean about being involved with them.”

  “Lies! How could you possibly say that?”

  Shin Shaojin laughed before turning around to retrieve a sword that hung above a small piece of tapestry on the wall. He then turned back with the sword in his hand facing Ryu and confessed, “Because I was the one who killed him.”

  Ryu’s face became pale and he suddenly felt sick again.

  “No...no, that can’t be...you’re a liar,” Ryu said.

  “Oh, but it’s true. It was my first kill as a young boy. I was training to become an assassin, though, I grew out of that phase shortly after. Would you like to know how he died?”

  “You son of a-”

  “Yes, I know, son of a bitch. But my mother was no dog Mr.Tsang, although a dog is rumored to be what took your grandfather’s head by the hair, dragging it out into the fields. There are many rumors of where your grandfather’s head is. One thing is quite clear however, I took his head off with the blade I now hold in my hands. It was given to me by the then leader of the Green Gang, Master Nan-dao Zheng.”

  “Stop it, just stop it!”

  “Some say his head is buried under the earth in the opium fields, underwater beneath the Garden Bridge, ooh this one’s good, under the Chinese Embassy Building where he frequently met with his fellow committee members, how’s that for irony?”

  “Shut up! You’re a twisted man, Shaojin!”

  “Haven’t you felt it Mr.Tsang? A connection between us? I know you have. I’m sure for every misdeed in town you’ve ever seen, you thought of me and maybe it’s because of this. Maybe it’s because I was the one who sliced off your beloved grandfather’s head.”

  Mia looked on in shock, still tied up and gagged. Ryu began balling his hands into fists and didn’t know whether to attack Shaojin, keep listening, or cry at this point.

  “So my grandfather was a member of the Green Gang, and he betrayed the people of Shanghai?”

  “That is what I said, wasn’t it? And he wasn’t a member officially, nor was I back then, but he went to Master Nan-dao Zheng again, the leader of the Green Gang at the time, since his fur business was declining.”

  “And when he wanted to stop doing business with him and cut ties with him, you killed him?”

  “When Zheng found out that the Russians were going to do business with your grandfather, they nor any other country wanted to do business with him, he became quite angry. He had someone try to kill your grandfather, but that person failed to go through with it, that’s when I stepped up and did the bidding.”

  Ryu began to shake and cry. He didn’t care anymore. For years his father told him tales, countless tales of his grandfather and his journeys. He even told him countless times of how his grandfather died. Sure it was odd to tell a kid something like that, but his father had great pride in his father and he only felt that his own child should know the truth and be proud of it as well. He now wondered if his father knew the truth or if he’d been lying to him for all these years.

  �
��Come now, Mr.Tsang. I am doing you a favor. I am telling you the truth and aren’t you more at ease of knowing it? Doesn’t it just make your mind clearer? If not, then perhaps you could use some opium.”

  “No, it doesn’t help! You’re behind killing nearly everyone I’ve ever cared about! I don’t care what you say, I don’t believe you, I don’t! And I’ve never touched opium ever, I’m no drug user!”

  “Ah, and you accuse me of being a liar. Mr.Tsang, you may not believe me, but don’t stand there and be a hypocrite telling me you’ve never tried opium.”

  “I haven’t! I grew up with two good parents and developed good morals, and I’ve never tried opium. I see people on the streets with it and every time I do, it makes me cringe,” Ryu said.

  “Ha! You claim you’ve never smoked opium, which I find to be quite humorous, because you see Mr.Tsang, you’re one of the biggest opium users in all of Shanghai!” Shaojin replied.

  “You don’t know-”

  “Before you say another word, let me piece it all together for you and then you can tell me if I’m wrong. You say you’ve never touched opium and yet, the second time we met wasn’t here and now, but at an opium den almost a week ago. I was sitting down in a meditative state and I just happened to open my eyes to get a glimpse of you walking in. You sat down next to me on a mat and, though I don’t like to be disturbed when smoking opium, I remembered you from the docks and decided to speak to you. We then engaged in a brief conversation.”

  “You have the wrong person Shaojin. Either that or you’re far more sick and twisted than I thought.”

  “No, Mr.Tsang, it is you who is the sick one. I am not mistaken; it was you I saw. You smoked opium and lots of it, though, for someone reason, you cannot remember any of it or you subconsciously don’t remember.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about! I think I would know if I smoked opium,” Ryu said.

  “Clearly not, Mr.Tsang, As I stated earlier, perhaps subconsciously, you just don’t remember and perhaps in your active state of mind, you’ve let yourself believe that opium is bad, but deep within the cortex and interior of your mind, you embrace it but blocked it out.”