Chapter 775 – The Slave Ship
The mistress nodded; this was a fairly sensible approach.
Yang Shixiang paced, thinking that once Xuan Chun formally became Liu San's concubine, the tie between his family and the elders would deepen yet another step. A pity his own children were so young—they couldn't marry into the elders' ranks yet...
He suddenly remembered: didn't his wife's Third Cousin have three daughters? They were, after all, his own nieces by affinity. With no head of household—just one little boy—everything would be at the Yangs' disposal. The three girls were of suitable age, from gentry stock, literate and well-mannered, and not bad-looking. They could quite properly be wed to elders as formal wives. He had heard one elder was about to marry a local landlord's niece.
Yang Shixiang felt as if he had discovered a new continent. Excitedly, he drummed his fingers on the teacup.
The mistress found this strange. "Husband, what has you so pleased?"
"Good things, of course," Yang Shixiang laughed, setting the topic aside for now.
A swift two-masted schooner rounded Luhuitou Point and entered Dadonghai just as the Sanya noonday sun scorched the earth. The sky was azure blue, the sunlight dazzling. It was a vessel of about two hundred tons.
The wind was fair, and the ship was flying. Its battered exterior showed it had been tossed about at sea for a long time, having traveled a great distance. The sun-cracked wooden planking testified to years of sailing the Southeast Asian seas. The jury-rigged secondary mast held together with rope, the hole-riddled sails, the shot holes and scorch marks on the hull—all spoke of a harrowing voyage.
From the masthead flew a triangular pennant: Lingao's sailing-permit flag. Only vessels bearing this flag were permitted to enter ports controlled by the Lingao regime. At the stern fluttered a peculiar banner—red and white stripes with the English St. George's Cross in the upper left—the ensign of the English East India Company.
When the ship reached the second navigation light at the Dadonghai entrance, still far from the Anyouwei wharf, all sails were struck and the anchor chain clattered down. The ship swayed for a few seconds, then lay still as the cable drew taut.
A steam-powered landing craft, belching black smoke, chugged out from the Luhuitou naval pier. Seven or eight sailors stood armed guard aboard.
"These Australians have built quite a pier here," said a bearded European standing on the poop deck, excitement in his voice. He strained to see, greedily eyeing the wharves and town along the bay. Clearly, development was recent. It looked a bit like English colonies in the New World—but on a far larger scale. The battery atop the hill alone was awe-inspiring.
"God! That boat moves on its own!" exclaimed the captain beside him.
He was tall and thin, gaunt-faced. A white man, but years adrift in the East Indies had stained his face the color of tobacco leaves. He wore a tattered long coat; the originally white cuffs had served for years as napkin and handkerchief, turned oily black. Several buttons were missing, and the remaining ones had lost all color. Around his waist, incongruously, was wound a bright-red Chinese-satin sash, from which hung a gleaming Mughal-style saber with an ivory hilt and golden chasings. On his feet: a pair of ragged boots. He sighed as he dabbed snuff beneath his nose—years of the habit had left two yellow mustaches under his lips.
"The Australians are very capable. This is nothing," said the man gazing at the shore, his face wreathed in smiles. "What day is it?"
"December 28, 1630," the captain said, sniffing his snuff and frowning. "You've asked me ten times."
"Thank God! You have delivered me and my vessel on time and safely!"
The one thanking God so devoutly was none other than John Quark—or, formally, johnquark—holder of the House of Elders' Sanya slave-trade patent.
As an English merchant operating under the English East India Company system, johnquark's Lingao visit had yielded an unexpected windfall: the slave-trade patent. He was not about to pass up such a golden opportunity. Before returning to Macau, he had discussed implementation details with the elders of the Colonial Trade Division. They had given him Sanya's precise latitude and longitude, issued authorization certificates and port-access permits, granted limited duty-free import-export privileges, and provided the sailing-permit flag for entry into any Qiongzhou port.
Armed with these treasures, johnquark returned to Macau and immediately booked passage on a ship bound for Bantam.
The English trading post at Bantam was one of the English East India Company's most important footholds in the East Indies, second only to Surat. It was also the key English beachhead into the Spice Islands. The Dutch had long sought to conquer Bantam entirely, but with the Sultan's support, the English maintained control of their trading post.
In Bantam, his efforts to raise capital did not go smoothly. Rumors of a new maritime power along the China coast had vaguely reached the port. The EIC station had received word, but it was nebulous and unclear. No one knew the details. Johnquark's arrival was the first to bring definite news of the so-called "Australians"—their magical iron ships, self-propelled vehicles, and terrifying cannons.
During his stay, many visited daily to hear his accounts, but few trusted them entirely—especially the parts about the great iron ship and self-propelled carriages. Many suspected the documents and permits he displayed were forgeries. Even the Company's commercial agent at the post showed little interest in his slaving scheme.
Fortunately, among long-haul traders there was no shortage of the most ambitious adventurers. Under johnquark's persistent promotion, he finally recruited eleven shareholders—including two Dutchmen. Money knows no nationality. With a substantial sum raised, he began to execute his plan.
Johnquark chartered an English merchantman, Jamaica, to sail to Batavia. There he quickly purchased enough slaves. Conflict between the local Javanese and the Dutch was intense; small-scale armed clashes occurred frequently, and Javanese prisoners were constantly being brought in for forced labor. The Dutch considered them useless—Javanese had a reputation throughout the East Indies for being unruly. Normally, the Dutch didn't even allow Javanese to enter Batavia city; when hiring local auxiliaries, they preferred Makassarese.
Quark's slaving request was immediately approved by the Dutch authorities. He bought three hundred fifty captives.
Jamaica then set sail for Sanya. Johnquark kept the deadline of 12/30 firmly in mind. The timeline was tight; he had spent too much time in Bantam raising capital, and the voyage itself consumed yet more.
After surviving a storm at sea and two attacks by Portuguese ships, Jamaica finally reached Sanya safely. The slaves remaining in the hold numbered two hundred fifty—the loss ratio was not unusually high. This distance couldn't compare to a trans-Atlantic slaving run.
Upon learning from the boarding petty officer that this was a legally licensed slaving vessel, the report was immediately sent up. All elders in the Sanya area except for Xi Yazhou and Ji Runzhi had already returned to Lingao for the year-end assembly.
He Fanghui had also wanted to go back to Lingao—he had been lobbying for a transfer. News of the Hong Kong occupation had given him ideas about becoming Governor of Hong Kong, but all his telegrams and inquiries produced no word of reassignment. Originally he'd hoped to lobby in person at the assembly, but he drew the short straw and had to stay.
Xi Yazhou, who had volunteered to stay in Sanya, slapped He Fanghui's shoulder with a grin that didn't reach his eyes: "Spending New Year's in Sanya isn't so bad, is it? Go back and it's all debriefs and that stupid hearing. Stay here and you're free and easy."
At this moment, He Fanghui was in the Engineering Command Center with Ji Runzhi, pushing the construction schedule—Sanya had no holidays. Iron ore from Tiandu had to be produced as fast as possible. That was the standing policy.
"What? An English ship?" He Fanghui spun around, surprised, and asked the soldier who had reported. "Where are the papers?"
He knew about johnquark's slave patent—the Colonial Trade Division had sent them a memo. Slaves, that consumable commodity, were of course much desired, especially now that they were about to enter the high-mortality mining phase. Consuming Southeast Asian slaves was far more economical than consuming laboriously trained workers.
He checked the documents. Correct: the name on the papers matched the English merchant mentioned in the memo—johnquark.
"Excellent." He Fanghui greeted Ji Runzhi and rushed to the wharf to make arrangements.
On the deck of Jamaica, a grim spectacle unfolded. The surviving two hundred fifty slaves were brought up from the hold two and three at a time. Blinking yellow eyes, driven by the lash, they crawled out of the hatchway. The rags they wore had disintegrated during the voyage into mere tatters. The slaves were all frail and weak—the only food johnquark had provided them was sweet potato.
(End of Chapter)