Chapter 56: Lingao Town
Guo Yi perked up at this. No wonder leaders so often traveled abroad—foreign monks really did chant different sutras. He tugged eagerly at Xue Ziliang's sleeve, hungry for more details.
"Have you heard of the World Republic case?" Xue Ziliang asked.
"Can't say I have."
"It's a textbook example—fits our situation perfectly." The case dated from 1960, as bizarre as they came. A man named Fritz Bothe, claiming to be Adolf Hitler's illegitimate son, had established something he called the World Republic. He announced publicly through European media that on December 16th of that year, the Third Flying-Saucer Fleet from Venus would land at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport. Az, Supreme Commander of the Cosmic Commando, would thereupon proclaim Earth-man Fritz Bothe as President of the World Republic's Supreme Government. President Fritz would immediately demand the surrender of all Earth's militaries, the destruction of every ammunition depot, and the confinement of all soldiers to their barracks.
In most respects, this case was indistinguishable from countless other frauds—except for one crucial detail: Fritz Bothe had committed no actual fraud. He genuinely believed himself to be Venus's chosen World Republic president. Consequently, he was never held criminally liable.
"Sound familiar? I believe everyone here, from top to bottom, genuinely thinks they've reached a new world. In reality, this might be nothing more than some deserted island in Vietnamese waters—possibly rented by someone in the organization with ulterior motives."
"So it's just a foreign version of playing emperor..." Xiao Guo yawned. What's so special about that? Since 1949, China's backwaters had produced at least a dozen self-proclaimed true emperors. He'd reviewed those files during slow afternoons—most of them made for highly entertaining reading.
The explanation was plausible enough, but it still couldn't account for all signals vanishing. While he was mulling this over, the cabin door swung open. Someone tossed in three blankets.
"Rest well. You're on the road tomorrow." The person delivered this brief message and was gone.
"Looks like they'll be moving us in the morning. I'd better get some good rest so I can walk." Xue Ziliang, well fed and satisfied, chatted a while longer before growing drowsy. He wrapped himself in a blanket and drifted off. Salina, who had barely spoken all evening, also slept.
As a true Chinese person, Xiao Guo understood Chinese subtlety in his bones. For a captive, "on the road" was an inauspicious phrase—it could just as easily mean execution.
Meng Xian, who had tossed in the blankets, clearly didn't realize his casual remark would keep Xiao Guo awake half the night, filling page after page of a notebook with farewell letters he kept writing, crossing out, and rewriting.
Night fell, and Lingao town lay in deathly silence.
After the evening watch, curfew had emptied the streets, leaving the darkened town especially gloomy. Soldiers stood at every intersection along the stone-paved main road, ready to question any who dared pass. Throughout the day, refugees had streamed in from outlying villages—whole families with their pigs, cattle, chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs in tow. The county had opened every temple and shrine to shelter them, yet many still camped along both sides of the stone road. Even the animals seemed to sense disaster approaching; few made any noise. Only children too young to understand still cried, quickly hushed by their parents.
Red and white paper lanterns hung outside government offices and temples, their dim light swaying beneath the eaves. In their faint glow, proclamations were visible on the walls. Occasionally night watchmen passed with small lanterns, striking their wooden clappers, accompanied by local militia.
The city walls stood quiet. Lanterns hung at intervals while militia patrolled the ramparts. Ever since the Bopu beacon-tower alarm that morning—since Patrol Inspector Fu had fled back in panic—the town's atmosphere had grown unbearably tense. In the street shadows, people whispered.
"Do you think the pirates have withdrawn?" someone asked quietly under the eaves.
"No word from the villages yet. Hard to say."
"Usually these pirates grab what they can and leave. Maybe their ships have already gone."
"If they'd really left, would Magistrate Wu have sent for reinforcements?" another said mysteriously. "This afternoon, Vice-Magistrate Wu went to Housuo for troops."
(Housuo: a garrison belonging to the Hainan Interior Guard's 5,000-household system, with two stations in Lingao County.)
"The pirates are that strong?" A thin, dark-skinned man shifted uneasily. He was a migrant farmer, originally from Fujian, renting land to work. After years of backbreaking labor, he'd finally built up a small estate, and last year he'd brought his newly wedded wife from home. Now she clutched a piglet to her chest, surrounded by two large bamboo cages stuffed with chickens and ducks—the smell was foul, but she didn't mind.
"Not just strong—very strong." A small trader who'd apparently seen something of the wider world spoke with dramatic gravity. "These past years, the waters of Liangguang have known no peace. Yang Er, Liu Xiang—even the government forces can't handle them. Admiral Yu has launched campaign after campaign, losing more often than winning. I hear the court is even considering offering them amnesty."
"Amnesty means peace, right?" someone ventured.
"Peace?" The trader snorted. "I doubt it. Yang Er accepted amnesty once—still terrorized common folk afterward. Every time I've crossed the sea these past two years, my heart's been in my throat. Fu San from Silkworm Village was killed at sea. They never even found his body..."
"These pirates won't attack the county seat, will they?"
"The last siege was thirty years ago, during the Ti'nan Village Li people's uprising. My grandfather was even conscripted as militia to defend the walls. Those Li—like madmen, they came in waves, an endless sea of them. Later Ma Shi came again. They didn't attack, but the gates stayed sealed the whole time."
(Note: The Ti'nan Village Li uprising occurred in the twenty-fifth year of Wanli; the Ding'an Li man Ma Shi's uprising was in the twenty-seventh year of Wanli.)
"Surely this time will pass safely too."
Just then, the Magistrate's Clerk came striding by with several men. Seeing the animated discussion, he shouted angrily: "You savages—what nonsense are you spreading? Keep running your mouths and I'll charge you with disturbing public order!"
(Note: In Ming Hainan, city folk called rural people "savages" [manzi]; rural people called city folk "red fathers" [chifu]. Both were insults.)
When the official showed his authority, everyone fell silent. Since curfew that morning, a dozen unlucky souls had been beaten or locked in the cangue for talking too much or looking the wrong way.
After the Clerk had gone far enough, the trader muttered: "Only knows how to bully little people. Go fight the pirates if you're so tough..."
"Say less!" An old man cut him off. "What time is this for wagging useless tongues?"
That night, Lingao's magistrate sat alone in his reception hall. His name was Wu Mingjin, a man from Nan-Zhili nearing fifty, his hair already gray. He'd been a juren but had failed the higher examinations for years. Finally assigned a county post through the civil-service placement system, he'd ended up in this remote southern borderland. Though Lingao had been a county for ages—even counting only from when the seat moved to Mo Village, that was five hundred years—to this Nan-Zhili native, it remained barbarous wasteland. Since taking office, he'd tried to do right by the people: water management, land reclamation, encouraging farming and sericulture... all in hopes of leaving behind a good name. But years of natural disasters and human strife had worn him down. Coastal beacon towers alarmed multiple times each month. Pirates struck everywhere—Bopu, Shipai, Maniao—and the government forces were helpless. The county could only close its gates and wait, relying on the tired old strategy of "pirates leave when sated." Last autumn, another typhoon had destroyed countless houses and villages, displacing the population. He'd set up gruel stations and collected unclaimed corpses—but epidemic had still broken out, killing many.
(Note: According to Lingao County Annals, between the Tianqi and Chongzhen eras, five magistrates are recorded. Ye Yao and Wu Mingjin were in office during late Tianqi / early Chongzhen. Since exact tenure dates are unknown, I've used the latter.)
Originally, this beacon-tower alert hadn't concerned him much—pirate raids were routine here. But what Patrol Inspector Fu Baiwen reported after fleeing back had genuinely alarmed him.
The pirates' vessels were unlike anything ever seen before—"giant ships" with hulls taller than the main hall of Lingao's Confucian Temple. Each accompanying vessel was larger than government warships. They used neither sails nor oars yet moved freely across the water, as if by magic.
Most inconceivable of all: the ships were made of iron. Iron ships that float? This was far beyond his comprehension. Humans instinctively fear what exceeds their understanding.
When he actually saw these people landing, Fu Baiwen had immediately led his men in a panicked sprint back to the county seat. He'd sensed instinctively that these people were unlike any pirates or traders he'd ever seen or heard of. They certainly hadn't come to Lingao for a few loads of salted fish or a few bushels of rice.
Wu Mingjin couldn't rely solely on Fu's account—military men often exaggerated threats to justify avoiding a fight. Amid the chaos, he'd sent a Danjia-born runner familiar with the Bopu area to investigate. When the runner returned at noon, he could barely speak coherently. From his jumbled account, Magistrate Wu pieced together the following: these pirates numbered over a thousand. Once ashore, they had vehicles that moved across the beach without horses or oxen—people simply sat inside and the machines moved of their own accord. Some vehicles could effortlessly hoist enormous iron boxes and carry them about... and there were many other things the man couldn't even describe. In short: this group was deeply, profoundly uncanny.
Now Wu was genuinely worried. He didn't believe in sorcery. Having traveled through Guangdong en route to Hainan, he'd seen Portuguese ships and cannons, even telescopes. He knew overseas peoples possessed marvelous devices. But what if these pirates attacked the county using some foreign contraption? Lingao's forces were pitiful: runners and yamen clerks, eighty militia, and the Patrol Inspector's twelve archers who'd returned—barely over a hundred men in total.
So he'd urgently sent Vice-Magistrate Wu Ya with silver to Housuo for reinforcements. Wu Ya had just returned with his report: the Housuo commander agreed to send thirty men and one cannon by tomorrow morning—but afterward, each man would require one shi of rice as reward.
(End of Chapter)