Chapter 1419 - Fort Santiago
These mornings, Jiang Shan had been arriving at the Foreign Intelligence Bureau office a little later than usual. Moreover, he had developed a rather inconspicuous habit: as soon as he sat down, he would unconsciously rest his hand beneath his nose, as if a hint of pleasant perfume still lingered on his fingers.
The bureau's secretary brought in the documents awaiting processing, placed in different trays according to their labels. This classified secretary had been transferred from the Political Security training course and was responsible only for work. Jiang Shan had never purchased a domestic secretary. He lived alone in an apartment and ate all his meals in the canteen.
He closed his eyes for a moment to dispel the lingering feminine images from the previous night, then picked up the document pouch on top, stamped with red marks. The label indicated this document came from the Macao Station. The letter's classification was: Extremely Urgent, Top Secret.
The Macao Station was the Foreign Intelligence Bureau's primary window and channel for observing the movements of Europeans in Southeast Asia and maintaining contact with Jesuit channels. It enjoyed the status of a first-tier station.
He broke open the wax-sealed cowhide envelope, and a European-style letter slid out. From the ostentatious coat of arms, he knew immediately this was a letter from Lando.
The letterhead inside bore an elegant family crest; the stack was quite thick. The Count of Fananovoua's Portuguese was extremely scrawled, with a translation attached below. In the letter, he used extraordinarily lengthy passages to discuss mineralogical matters with a purely fictitious subordinate, rambling endlessly about tedious requirements for mining machinery ordered in Macao.
Jiang Shan glanced over it briefly, then turned the paper over. The real intelligence was written on the back. The classified-room decoder had already applied a layer of iodine solution to the paper, revealing blue characters on what had been the blank reverse side. The combinations and arrangements of the letters were all encrypted ciphertext.
Besides the original, the envelope also contained a printed transcript that had been decoded and organized by the classified room. The report was written in English—a language Jiang Shan knew well—so it had not been translated. In the letter, Vince detailed his new discoveries in Manila: the newly constructed artillery firing range; the fact that the Spanish already possessed some kind of rifled cannon fitted with shells equipped with some kind of fuse—both explosive shells and shrapnel shells. Finally, Vince cautiously offered his speculation: the transmigrator who had gone missing from Ship A—that is, the Mackerel—the Japanese-American Hale, was currently in Manila and had become the chief military engineer upon whom Governor Salamanca relied greatly.
Jiang Shan read the report three times from beginning to end. He set down the transcript, grabbed the crank of the magneto telephone on his desk and turned it several times, then picked up the receiver.
"Hello... is this the telephone exchange?... Please connect me to the Executive Committee... Who's there?... Chairman Wen?... Good, then connect me to Chairman Wen's office..."
Despite not making many public appearances, the Count of Fananovoua had caused quite a stir in Manila's high society. The local belles were all quite interested in him, and the various legends about the Count were the most eye-catching topics at boudoir tea parties. This inevitably created displeasure among husbands—that is to say, the colonial officials and wealthy merchants. The major merchants especially despised the Count, because his understated luxury made their nouveau-riche ostentation seem worthless and utterly ridiculous.
Esteban SantafrĂa went around proclaiming that the Count was a thorough fraud, actually a swindler who had escaped from New Spain. But at a charity fundraiser for the Feast of Saint Peter, SantafrĂa's words were roundly rebuked.
"You always judge others by your own standards," the Jesuit from Macao attacked him.
The Dominican and Franciscan friars who had received large donations from Mr. Lando joined in this chorus with one voice. SantafrĂa found himself not only the laughingstock of the whole city but also in danger of becoming an enemy of the clergy and thus a heretic—it was said that His Excellency the Inquisitor was always very attentive to the faith of wealthy merchants. To avoid attracting that attention, he could only swallow his anger, and so his hatred for the Count grew all the more bitter in secret.
This commotion had no effect whatsoever on Vince Lando—or rather, he had no time to pay attention to such trifles. He was now dedicated to cultivating the colonial military officers, inviting them to hunt together and hosting lavish banquets at his villa the likes of which had never been seen in the region. All this quickly bore fruit. Major Alfonso praised the Count's excellent horses and weapons, as well as his outstanding marksmanship. Colonel Echázu wallowed contentedly in rum, rhubarb liqueur, mixed-fruit brandy, and porcelain plates heaped with delicacies. The rum mixed with fruit juice and chilled with well water was especially heavenly in Manila's terrible temperatures.
Since even the Jesuits praised the Count's valor in fighting for the glory of the Lord, and since he was so generous, this man was definitely "one of us"—this was the unanimous view of the colonial officers. For the first time ever, Echázu wrote a personal letter inviting Vince to participate in a pelota match.
The pelota court was actually a patch of land marked out on the parade ground outside Fort Santiago, shaded by trees on all sides, with grass as thick and soft as a carpet. The hollow clay balls, fired from clay, would not shatter even when they fell to the ground.
At eight in the morning, the officers had all assembled, fully accoutered as if going to war, mounted on their warhorses, lined up magnificently in two rows.
Drums thundered. First to ride out was Captain Pilar, a cavalry captain under Echázu's command. A cavalryman beside Vince immediately rode out to meet him. The two engaged in a splendid chase. Captain Pilar showed off his horsemanship, nimbly dodging clay balls thrown by his pursuer or accurately deflecting them with his shield. Another rider galloped out from the opposite line to support the captain, and in an instant the pursuer became the pursued.
Vince spurred his horse forward to support his comrade. One by one, the riders charged out from their lines to face each other, and the match eventually devolved into a free-for-all where everyone threw clay balls at everyone else. Servants ran about behind them, scrambling to pick up balls and hand them to their masters while also dodging horse hooves. It was skilled work. The clumsy Shrek was hit several times by clay balls flying about like stray bullets and fell onto the grass—fortunately, he was not trampled by any hooves.
The game ended at ten in the morning. The Count clearly still had plenty of enthusiasm and proposed a tour of Fort Santiago. His request was naturally granted, though the old colonel was somewhat fatigued after two hours of vigorous exercise. He had Captain Pilar accompany the Count, made his apologies, and slipped back into the barracks.
"It's certainly cool in here."
Captain Pilar turned his head in surprise to find the Count watching him, wearing that trademark toothy smile he used to mask his true expression. It was near noon, and the tropical sun was beginning to cast its vicious white glare. Sweat beads seeped from beneath the cavalry captain's powdered wig and streamed down his cheeks like little rivers.
The Count's patience was almost too much for him—he seemed interested in every room, every corner, even every drain and vent of the fortress, examining each in detail. And all the while he walked with a somewhat unnatural, mechanical gait. Pilar did not know his distinguished guest was using pace-counting to estimate the size of the fortress, the distances between gun emplacements, defensive works, and barracks. He assumed the Count might have strained his hip while riding.
They climbed all the way to the top of the castle. Behind the merlons of the wall, dark-skinned Tagalog sentries with spears stood beside gleaming cannons. The cannons were all bronze, mounted on four-wheeled carriages. The largest was a 42-pounder, enshrined on a separate gun platform. Judging from the patina, this gun had been here for many years.
But what caught Lando's attention was a pivot-style gun mount with an inclined slide that gave it nearly a 180-degree field of fire. This did not look like Spanish work. Vince carefully examined the massive wooden carriage and the iron plating wrapped around its surface. The iron was not yet rusted, indicating it had been recently made. Vince raised his hand and felt inside the muzzle—no rifling. Mounted on this suspicious carriage was merely an ordinary muzzle-loading smoothbore cannon.
"Take a look at this thing," Captain Pilar interrupted his thoughts.
"Isn't that a stove?" Vince noticed that every few gun positions along the platform had a brick furnace. "I recognize that thing next to it—that's a bellows the Chinese use."
"Exactly right, it's a blast furnace. Your breadth of knowledge never ceases to amaze us."
"If this is a furnace for heating grenades, I don't understand why such an elaborate blast furnace is needed. Wouldn't the normal practice be to set up a brazier? Unless the Colonel hopes the soldiers on the gun platform can also get hot meals out of it—that wouldn't be proper. It would spoil them."
"Now you're quite mistaken," the captain said, a smug, know-it-all smile appearing on his sweaty face—the kind stupid people often wear when they think they're being clever. "This is His Excellency the Governor's handiwork, a new gadget he came up with after listening to that Japanese fellow's ideas. What's roasted on this furnace is neither bread nor a soup pot, but cannonballs. Have you ever seen it? Before firing, the cannonball has to be heated on the furnace until it's red-hot."
"No, first time I've heard of it."
"Then when it's fired, it sets the target ablaze—it really is a good idea." The captain laughed. "Perhaps we should also wrap the cannonball in lemongrass, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, and turn it into a nice fragrant roast chicken. Then fire it off—the Dutch and the English will surely thank us from the bottom of their hearts for our generosity. Are you tired? Let me take you down."
Lando thought to himself that this captain's knowledge was truly limited—or perhaps it was because he had only ever served in the Philippines, where he saw only low-level warfare against natives. Red-hot incendiary shot was nothing particularly new in Europe.
But then again, it was all for the better that Manila's defenders were a bunch of rookies rather than veterans of the Thirty Years' War.