Chapter 2929: Tianjin Wei (8)

The young manager Gu watched his uncle spewing fire and said not a word, only waving away the waiters who had drifted over at the commotion to rubberneck. When Li Luoyou had at last spent his fury and lay back gasping in the round-backed armchair, his wife's nephew drew a slim volume from his breast, opened it to a page, and handed it across. It proved to be a scrapbook, leaf after leaf pasted thick with the little tofu-block clippings cut from the Lingao Times and the Yangcheng Express: "A great fire broke out in the Japanese city of Edo a week ago; the castle town has been utterly destroyed; the dead, it is said, number beyond ten thousand..."

"Japan — that would be the Wo kingdom, yes? And Edo, the capital of the Japanese Taikun? What has that to do with Liaodong?" Li Luoyou read the clipped article from head to tail and was no wiser for it. "And is this not stale news from the twelfth month of last year?"

"The Senate combs both oceans, east and west — the whole world over — for copper, and of every ten parts it buys, a good seven come at the least from Japan." Gu Baocheng helped himself, in no hurry at all, to a spoonful of sea cucumber braised with three shredded delicacies. "Last year the Taikun of Japan, the Tokugawa lord, wishing to hoard copper for the minting of Kan'ei Tsūhō coin, proclaimed through his realm a total ban on the export of copper. Who could have guessed that barely half a year later the great city would 'pass water' — burn, that is, as the polite word has it. Edo, after all, is Japan's foremost city; its castle town seethed with every trade, the single richest revenue spring of the Tokugawa hegemony — and now all of it is given over to the flames. The Tokugawa, having no other recourse, rescinded the edict and reopened the copper trade. The newspapers say the burning of the city was wholly the work of dry weather and the townsfolk's carelessness with fire. But the true root of the calamity — well, who could ever trace that out?"

The nephew delivered all this in a mild, level tone, as pleasantly as though recounting a traveler's tale — and it made Li Luoyou's scalp crawl.

"I mention the matter only to put you on your guard, Uncle: whatever the Australians mean to get their hands on, they will get. So it was with Japan; so it will be with Liaodong. If the Senate wants Liaodong's coal and copper, then let us step forward and sell it to them! To trade what lies in the ground of Liaodong for the Australians' coveted silver dollars — what wrong is there in that? If we do not dig the ore, do you imagine the Australians will not lay hands on it all the same? Will they not find some other channel? Or even... go straight to the Jianzhou Slaves — to that pack of banner lords and beiles? You will remember, surely: there is a certain Senator Huang who nowadays resides in Shenyang year-round, strolling in and out of the banner lords' mansions as if they were his own home; to obtain audience with the chieftain himself he need only send word a day in advance. Tell me — if they wished to run this trade themselves, could they do it or could they not? And by then, Uncle, guess which the Australians would lay down in payment: good silver, hard cash — or muskets, cannon, and gunpowder? And in the tinkering of such engines of slaughter, do the Jianzhou Slaves stack up against the Australians by so much as half a hair?"

Li Luoyou's face was grave. He not only knew Senator Huang; in Shenyang he had dined with him and hunted with him. All he knew was that the Senator's chief purpose there was "buying people." The captives the Jianzhou Slaves carried off from the Central Plains and from Korea passed, in an unending stream, through Senator Huang's hands, onward to Hainan and Guangdong.

On this matter Li Luoyou's heart was sorely divided. In its essence it was a "business" that used human beings as oxen and horses; neither the Jianzhou Slaves nor the Kun thieves were anything good. But judge by deeds, not by hearts: the captured common folk who fell into Australian hands fared better, at the least, than they would freezing and starving in the bitter wilds of Liaodong — reckoned so, it had plucked several hundred thousand souls out of fire and water.

"What we are doing is not harming the Han common folk — it is precisely saving them." Li Luoyou found himself utterly without an answer to his nephew's battery of questions; the smoldering fire in his chest could only be drowned, cup after cup, in wine. And the nephew's level voice went on falling on his heart like hammer-strokes, one after another without pause: "Consider, besides, where matters now stand: the Court means to make war on the Australians! You need only attend to the court gazette to know it — from the day the Kun surtax was first levied, the Court has had motions abroad to march south. And the Australians? One glance at the trial balloons their newspapers are floating tells you they too are whetting their knives. All this year, at wharf after wharf, mountains heaped on mountains of coal, saltpeter, sulfur, tung oil, cotton, jute... Whatever cargo the Portuguese of Macau bring in, the Australians buy the shiploads down to the last crate — feeding the horses, honing the blades, putting their armament in order! And for what? If it is truly, as the papers tell it, no more than a rupture with the Jianzhou Slaves over Korea, then heaven has handed us the chance of chances: this one-of-a-kind channel sits in our very hands — just the thing to seize a fortune the size of the sky. But if it is war with the Court — then heaven and earth will be turned upside down! And in that day, silver, connections, a road of retreat — which of these is not the very root by which we stand? And that, Uncle, is the business to hurry all the more..."

"The Senate means to make war on the Court again?" The words went off in Li Luoyou's mind like bolts of thunder. Little by little he could no longer hear what his nephew was holding forth about at such length; his whole body slumped into the armchair as though the sinew had been drawn out of his bones. Just as Gu had said: the signs of this had been there long before! But he had kept his eyes shut to them, as if by not looking he could be spared the facing of that final, unavoidable question.

In this moment he understood: the time of the last reckoning was almost upon him.

Through the windows opened upon the river came a gusty sweep of sound from the sea — the coarse chanties off the ships, the boil of voices along the wharves, and, borne from somewhere far away, what might have been the wailing of a man under the bastinado. Now it all blurred into one dim and distant noise, wrapping him round in a vacuum of dead silence. His lips trembled with something he wished to say; a long while passed before he could laboriously squeeze out the words: "Let your uncle... think it over yet a while..."

That evening Gu Baocheng declined Li Luoyou's invitation to lodge at the Liaohai Trading House's Tianjin branch, pleading that he had already engaged a room at the Qiwei inn and had appointments with merchants to talk business. Li Luoyou knew a deliberate evasion when he heard one. He was glad enough to see the young man showing at last the bearing of a grown man — and yet he felt a faint, melancholy sense of loss.

That night, according to custom, he slept in Concubine Guo's room at the Tianjin branch — for where there was a branch, there was invariably a concubine stationed. Concubine Guo found it passing strange. True, the Master slept in her room on every visit to Tianjin, but he had long since looked straight through her as though she were not there; it was above two years since there had been any pleasure of fish and water between them. Who could have guessed that on this visit he would prove so vigorous? She was overjoyed beyond all expectation.

The next morning, at the first graying of the light, Concubine Guo rose before him and went down to the kitchen herself to oversee the servant women at their cooking.

Breakfast was laid on the eight-immortals table of the main room. There was but one bowl of japonica-rice congee simmered soft and yielding with deer velvet, its surface drifting with the finest medicinal powder, its fragrance clean rather than fierce; beside it a plate of little chive-and-egg pancakes, cut neat and square; a few lengths of steamed yam, peeled and soft, dressed with a mere trickle of first-quality Liaodong honey and scattered with Liaodong pine nuts; and warming at the side, a cup of goji and red-date tea.

When she saw Li Luoyou stir awake, she stepped softly up and laid a padded satin jacket about his shoulders, saying with a low laugh:

"The Master travailed hard yesterday. Your concubine put a little ground deer velvet into the congee. A bite or two upon waking warms the stomach's qi — it does no harm, and it puts a bit of strength back besides."

Li Luoyou settled himself and took up his spoon. Concubine Guo hovered at his elbow, gently serving the dishes, her glance cast down and charged with soft allure:

"Chives are the herb that raises the yang; yam above all things knits up the kidneys. Only common household foods, Master — you may eat with an easy mind."

For a man in his position, such a breakfast was no extravagance. Trade at the Liaohai House had fallen off these last years from what it once was, but the foundations were still there; a bowl of velvet congee and a few little dishes did not so much as dent the loose change of his ordinary household expenses. Yet with the world abroad growing ever more tangled and wild, Li Luoyou had no heart for the enjoying of good food. The congee was good congee and the pancakes good pancakes, but eaten they seemed to have lost something of their savor — as though a thin something lay between them and the tongue.

As for last night's indulgence — it had been less passion than the reflex of a man adrift before his own future.

Concubine Guo was so attentive for no reason beyond the hope of a son or a daughter — something to lean against in the years to come. And what those years would bring, he himself had no bottom to stand upon.

Li Luoyou swallowed two spoonfuls of congee and felt a mild, warming current sink slowly down his throat, loosening every sinew and joint a little — yet the knot between his brows did not unwind.

Seeing his face so indifferent, Concubine Guo folded away a measure of her charm, lightly brushed from his lapel a crumb that was not there, and said softly:

"Does it not suit the Master's mouth? Shall your concubine have the kitchen steam another basket of crab-roe buns? Or brew a bowl of mutton broth?"

He shook his head and tapped his spoon once against the rim of the bowl — a single light note.

"No need. This is well enough."

Concubine Guo lowered her eyes, the tips of her fingers twisting faintly at her handkerchief, and only after a long moment said, low-voiced:

"This bondmaid... this bondmaid only sees the Master worn down by the road, and heavy with troubles from outside. I thought that if you could at least take in something nourishing, and make the body's bones solid, then whatever came, it could be borne."

Li Luoyou glanced up at her. Hers was a mild and dutiful face; she had served him twenty years and more and never once spoke a word out of turn — a woman who kept scrupulously to her place. He could not call what he bore Concubine Guo any great affection, but he did hope to see her fed and clothed and free of care to the end of her life, to live out her days in peace and quiet. Whether Heaven would grant a man's wish — who could say?

"You are thoughtful." His tone was flat, betraying neither pleasure nor anger. "Only, of late the news from south and north is in a hopeless muddle. Food has lost its savor!"

Concubine Guo started, and said quickly: "Master, do not brood so on these heart-grinding matters. However hard the trade, it cannot weigh against the Master's health. And besides... besides, the Master's spirits are so strong just now — in time, things will surely come round."

By the latter half of that sentence a faint flush had risen in her cheeks, and her head bowed lower.

Li Luoyou was silent a moment; he did not take up her words, but said only, mildly:

"Whether things go well or ill — that is not for little folk like us to settle." And with that he could not help heaving a long sigh, desolate indeed.

"The Master runs himself ragged abroad on trade now — you must take care at every hour."

"Do not trouble yourself over that," he said. "In matters of business, I know my own measure."

"It is not the trade your concubine worries over." Concubine Guo's voice was very low. "It is the Master."

Li Luoyou was silent a little, then reached out and patted the back of her hand. "I know."

Hard upon his words came a patter of quick, light footsteps beyond the courtyard gate, followed by Saoye's voice, reporting low through the door, hands clasped in deference:

"Master — Master Chen Yujie is without, asking to see you. He says it is urgent official business; he is waiting in the flower hall."

Li Luoyou's spoon stopped short; the last trace of languor drained from his eyes in an instant.

"Understood. Ask him to wait a moment — I shall come directly."

The steward withdrew at the word.

Concubine Guo rose in haste and straightened for him the collar of his robe: "Master, see to your business first. Your concubine will keep the noon meal ready against your return."

A tightness clenched in Li Luoyou's chest. That the Erudite should come so suddenly — without asking anyone he knew it almost certainly concerned Grand Secretary Xu. Only yesterday the man he had sent round to the governor's yamen had reported back that the Grand Secretary meant to tarry several days more at Gegu and could not return within two or three. And Chen Yujie, up to his ears in the affairs of the cannon bureau — what should bring him calling, all unannounced?

(End of chapter)