Chapter 198: Macau Tour

With Guangzhou now firmly in hand, Guo Yi and his colleagues turned their attention to a pressing matter: converting Lingao's growing stockpile of war spoils into silver. If they could also secure orders for liquor, it would provide a valuable outlet for the waste materials from the upcoming Leizhou sugarcane pressing season.

The Executive Committee approved this new expansion initiative without hesitation. Given that the overland route into Macau required passage through the Barrier Gate—and that relations between the Ming government and Portuguese Macau had begun to curdle—they opted for the simplest approach: entry by sea.

The Portuguese guarded Macau jealously, viewing it as the crown jewel of their East Asian trade. They scrutinized foreign merchants with suspicion, yet welcomed Chinese traders with open arms—a favorable asymmetry for entry. Beyond the immediate goals, the Executive Committee harbored grander ambitions: establishing a trading house in Macau that could facilitate direct overseas exports, bypassing Guangzhou entirely.

Macau in 1629 stood at the zenith of its commercial glory. The great triangular trade that radiated from its harbor was the most lucrative route in all of international commerce, and the transmigrators naturally had designs upon it.

The Guangzhou Forward Station had been allocated a 40-ton single-masted vessel by the Executive Committee. Between ships captured at Baitu and others purchased locally in Hainan, the Committee now commanded a considerable fleet, its sailors recruited from Guangzhou and intimately familiar with the Pearl River estuary's treacherous waters.

Yet both Guo Yi and Ma Qianzhu agreed that since this voyage marked their first foray into Macau, it was best not to involve newly hired locals. They dispatched the 70-ton double-masted Tongji from Lingao instead. From the Forward Station's limited personnel, only Zhang Xin actually joined—a man who had once worked at a modest shipyard on the shores of Dongting Lake and was eager to personally assess Macau's shipbuilding capabilities, as well as study the Portuguese vessels anchored there.

The remaining berths were filled by transmigrators from Lingao. When word of the expedition spread, volunteers materialized from every corner—most of them nursing transparent hopes of sampling foreign women. Their justifications were creative: the Industrial Department proposed assessing European technological development; the Agriculture Department expressed curiosity about whether New World crops had been introduced locally; the Finance Department suggested investigating foreign currency systems. Bai Duoluo of the Printing Office offered a justification that left everyone doubled over with laughter: "I am a Catholic, so going to Macau will help me interact with the local Portuguese."

In the end, this "inspection delegation" ballooned to over thirty souls, when originally the ship needed only ten including sailors. Those who secured approval stuffed their bags with modern trinkets, dreaming of emulating those European sailors who had used glass beads to seduce native women across Africa and the Americas. Those denied passage complained bitterly, requiring department heads to mollify them with vague promises. The resulting chaos need not be detailed further.

Wen Desi led the Macau Commercial Inspection Delegation, with Diana Mendoza accompanying as translator. Zhou Weisen tagged along under the pretext of looking after his family member—it would hardly do if this Western mare grew disoriented among her compatriots and bolted.

The Tongji loaded sample goods in Guangzhou and collected Zhang Xin. Old Manager Shen, upon hearing that Proprietor Zhang was bound for Macau, had offered to provide an interpreter, but Guo Yi declined, fearing their peculiar group would attract unwanted attention. Shen Fan instead wrote a letter of introduction to a business associate who operated a silk shop in Macau and spoke the foreigners' tongue. Should they require assistance, they could seek him out.

Macau lay close to Guangzhou—strictly speaking, both Macau and Hong Kong could be considered outer harbors of the great southern port. Administratively, the territory fell under Xiangshan County. Most transmigrators aboard could recite the history of Portuguese settlement by heart, and some had visited in their original timespace. Everyone burned with curiosity to see what this Macau looked like now.

As the Tongji cleared the Pearl River estuary, Mengde was the first to spot land. Everyone crowded to the rail, gazing at a tombolo in the distance—a land-tied island. A narrow isthmus connected it to the mainland in the shape of a lotus blossom. Macau was minuscule; even the modern territory would span only sixteen square kilometers, and this Macau had not yet reclaimed any land, remaining merely "a city built against the mountain, four or five li in circumference."

Upon the lotus stem stood a gate structure: the Barrier Gate. Anyone traveling overland had to pass through it; theoretically, crossing the barrier meant crossing a border. In practice, both Ming and Qing governments retained judicial and administrative authority over Macau—it was simply that the Portuguese had long governed themselves, and Chinese officials rarely troubled to interfere. True separation from Chinese sovereignty would not come until after 1842.

Macau possessed inner and outer bays. Mengde steered toward the inner harbor, and from the deck the entire city came into focus. Portuguese residence had been formally permitted since 1583—nearly half a century now—and sustained by the colossal profits of the carrying trade, urban construction had achieved considerable sophistication. Tall Western-style walls encircled the settlement, with prominent fortifications bristling at strategic points. The English and Dutch had repeatedly attempted to seize Macau, and the Portuguese authorities took defense with deadly seriousness. By 1623, all major fortifications had been completed.

The Portuguese paid scant attention to Chinese vessels. Entry and exit were casual affairs, with no interception or inspection. The Tongji slipped into the inner harbor without incident. Several Portuguese ships rode at anchor in the bay, and two in particular—massive hulks with towering masts—left a deep impression on everyone. By Wen Desi's reckoning, these vessels exceeded 1,500 tons, an impressive achievement for wooden construction. Presumably, these were the great carracks Portuguese merchants used to ply the triangular trade routes. As for local Chinese junks—medium and small wooden craft—they were beyond counting, most of them merchant vessels ferrying goods from Guangdong and Fujian.

Bai Duoluo, who had leveraged his Catholic faith for a berth, disembarked with the others. He had no idea how Director Wen's foreign woman had negotiated with the Portuguese, but everyone went ashore without difficulty. Bai Duoluo's English was passable, yet here it proved as useless as Chinese. A strange sensation stole over the group as they walked through the streets of this tiny territory—surrounded by unfamiliar languages, unfamiliar architecture, an unmistakable sense of displacement settled into their hearts.

The city bore no resemblance to any Chinese settlement. It recalled instead a small Spanish town: streets laid out in neat, orderly grids. The compact urban core centered on a cross-shaped main thoroughfare, and at the intersection rose a tall wooden cross. Buildings lining the streets were unmistakably Iberian—low arcaded structures with whitewashed walls—and from the street one could see that every window was shuttered tight against the subtropical glare. Someone mused aloud about serenading beneath such windows with a guitar. Miss Mendoza remarked in English to Director Wen that the place reminded her of certain inland towns in Venezuela. Wen Desi was unsurprised—both were, after all, textbook examples of Iberian colonial urbanism.

The streets teemed with the quintessential population of a colonial outpost: Portuguese, Chinese, Africans, and mixed-heritage people of every conceivable combination moved through the crowds. Japanese were numerous as well, most clad in Portuguese servants' livery, scurrying about on errands. Throughout East and Southeast Asia, the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch employed Japanese as servants, craftsmen, sailors, and soldiers. Dark-skinned men with curly hair who might have been Indians walked among them, alongside ragged Southeast Asian natives with shifty, watchful eyes.

The scene was vibrant, almost theatrical: nobles passed on horseback; veiled ladies rode in two-person sedan chairs, shaded by parasol-bearing African slaves. Even thousands of miles from Lisbon, the Portuguese maintained their aristocratic pretensions. And weaving among them were sailors of every shade, universally drunk, staggering from one tavern to the next. At the gates of fine residences, liveried servants sat with rattan canes at the ready, delivering swift blows to any drunkard who attempted to intrude.

Macau's population had swelled considerably by this era. The permanent Portuguese residents, including their African slaves, numbered around one thousand. Beyond them were uncounted local Chinese, as well as a floating population of Indians and Malays who stopped briefly for trade or service as sailors.

The group meandered through the streets, casting curious glances in every direction. They never located the legendary "tavern with Western hostesses," so Bai Duoluo proposed viewing the famous São Paulo Cathedral before its eventual destruction by fire. Everyone agreed. They navigated by rough memory toward the original site and discovered a major construction project underway—the cathedral, also called St. Paul's Church, remained incomplete. Stone and timber lay scattered across the grounds, but every craftsman in sight was Japanese. Someone found a Japanese speaker to inquire, and they learned that construction had begun in 1612. The transmigrators exchanged incredulous looks—seventeen years of work, and the church was still an unfinished shell. What precisely had these Japanese been doing all this time?

Bai Duoluo deployed his Catholic credentials and quickly extracted useful information from the Japanese laborers. Most of them were Kirishitans—Japanese Christians—and working here represented both livelihood and offering to their faith. The Japanese workers warmed to Bai Duoluo, this Chinese fellow believer. After they stumbled together through some Latin Bible verses, the craftsmen opened up about the local situation.

It emerged that one leg of the great triangular trade that had made Macau prosperous had already been severed. According to the Japanese: in 1608, a ship from the Arima domain had clashed violently with the Portuguese while passing through Macau. The then-governor, André Pessoa, had suppressed the mutiny aboard the Japanese vessel with brutal force, killing many and executing the ringleaders. Only at the bishop's intercession had he spared fifteen prisoners.

When André Pessoa sailed to Japan in 1610 to resume trade, he met fierce retaliation from the Arima domain. His trading vessel was besieged by four thousand men. In the end, trapped and despairing, Pessoa ignited the ship's powder magazine, destroying himself and his cargo in a single cataclysmic blast. Portuguese trade with Japan had been severed ever since.

(End of Chapter)