The Dragon and the Stars

by Derwin Mak

  Now that he was high over Pyongyang, Yuansi could see where all the Japanese troops were hiding. Using a long pole tipped with a red flag, he pointed at these positions, guiding the artillery fire to strike at them. Salvo after salvo of cannon fire and hwacha arrows fell where he aimed, and the Japanese troops suffered heavy losses. A few noticed Yuansi’s Kongming lantern flying overhead and aimed their arquebuses at him, but he was flying too high for the bullets.

  Yuansi put down his red flag and picked up a white flag. He waved it in wide, slow circles. It was time to end the battle.

  From the west side of Pyongyang, Japanese soldiers, captured in the fighting, marched from their prison compounds onto the battlefield until they were right behind the pavises of the Chinese soldiers at the limit of Japanese arquebus range.

  Before his flight, Yuansi had convinced them that the dream of Japanese conquest of Korea and China was dead. The Great Ming had learned the trick of teleportation—hadn’t they seen with their own eyes how the Ming army had appeared out of nowhere, like troops descended from Heaven? But all the prisoners would be allowed to go home to Japan if they would help convince their comrades to give up Pyongyang and retreat.

  As Yuansi gave his signal, the Japanese prisoners began to sing an old folk song of Kyushu, from where most of Konishi’s men came:

  Cherry petals have filled the floor of the valley.

  Tears have soaked the faces of the children.

  Oh my sorrow, my sorrow is great.

  The warriors, they have died as beautifully as falling cherry blossoms.

  My son, oh my son, he is not coming home from battle.

  As the prisoners’ mournful song rose in volume, the allied artillery stopped firing. Gradually, the return fire from Pyongyang stopped as well. Only the singing Japanese voices filled the silence.

  Yuansi looked down, and he could see that it was no longer only the prisoners who were singing. The Japanese soldiers in the city sang as well. Their voices swelled louder and louder, and through the smoke of the burning city, Yuansi could see that the city was filled with upturned faces full of tears.

  Konishi, his heart filled with despair, ordered his samurai to mount their horses and began the retreat from Pyongyang under cover of night.

  From the simple but elegant sandalwood throne in the private audience chamber, the Emperor stood up to welcome Yuansi.

  “You have fought well to help Korea, and more importantly, defended the homeland. Though we have not yet won the war, you have dealt Toyotomi a heavy blow. You have King Seonjo’s gratitude and ours.”

  Yuansi knelt to kowtow to the Emperor and was once again lifted to be seated by the throne.

  “Bìxià, I saw Toyotomi’s soldiers flogging press-ganged Korean laborers to death and caught his daimyo selling captured Chinese soldiers to Portuguese slave traders. I was glad to do my duty.”

  The Emperor sighed. “Toyotomi thought he was going to bring the blessing of the virtues of the Japanese Emperor to Korea, to China, to India and Siam, and all of Asia, even if it was by the point of a sword. From his view, he believed that he was behaving in the most virtuous way possible, and his superior weapons were the proof of his virtue.

  “But let us turn to more immediate matters. General Li wrote to suggest that we establish a network of your Běidŏu stations in the Gobi desert in the far west and in the snowy forests of Jianzhou to allow military maneuvers by day and night. He also seeks funds to build more of the man-carrying Kongming lanterns you invented for reconnaissance and to equip the army with our own hwacha based on Korean designs and arquebuses modeled on those captured from Japan. I believe these are your ideas?”

  “I have given such suggestions to General Li, Bìxià. But real credit should go to your virtue and wisdom. It was the painting you gave me and what you taught me about how to look at it that inspired me to think of the Běidŏu.”

  “Ah, Master Wu Zhen would be saddened to hear that his art was used for war. Although I have given your suggestions some thought, I fear the answer must be no.”

  Yuansi froze. “Why?”

  The Emperor, his eyes somber but determined, looked at Yuansi. “Let me tell you a story. Almost two hundred years ago, during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, the great Admiral Zheng went on seven voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean. He led fleets of treasure ships, each one the size of a floating town, the greatest ships men had ever built, and sailed to India, Arabia, Africa, and Ceylon. He sailed farther than any Chinese had ever gone and saw more than any Chinese had ever seen. He spread the fame of China far and wide, and he went farther and farther with each voyage. Had he kept on sailing, I believe he would have gone around the world and found the lands of Mexico and America, whence we now get our Spanish silver, maize, and sweet potato.

  “Yet, after the death of the Yongle Emperor, his successor, the Xuande Emperor, stopped all ocean-going exploration, burned all records of Zheng He’s voyages, scuttled the great treasure ships, and forbade any further construction of them. The arts of navigation and ship construction were lost, and today China cannot build a ship even one tenth as large, so that we have been plagued by the wōkòu all these years. Do you know why Xuande did that?”

  Yuansi shook his head. He was sorry that such knowledge was lost.

  “On those voyages, Zheng He and his men discovered many beautiful and fertile lands far beyond the boundaries of the Ming Empire, lands rich with spices, exotic animals, and beautiful women, but little in the way of arms. It would have been easy for China to decide that those lands should also bathe in the virtue of the Ming Emperor and to enjoy the benefits of Confucian civilization, that the squabbling natives should be made to appreciate peace and to learn Daoist values, and that the virtuous thing to do was to send a fleet of treasure ships laden not with goods for trade, but with soldiers with flaming arrows.

  “Does that remind you of anyone?

  “Xuande believed that path would have corrupted us beyond redemption. He chose to remove all temptation.

  “The temptation offered by your inventions are similarly corrupting, Yuansi. There was a time when our ancestors fought hand to hand, with crude bronze swords and wooden spears, and each life was dear. But now at a single command, you can launch a thousand flaming arrows propelled by rockets at a city with little thought. Your inventions would allow us to rain down death upon men with ever greater efficiency, to march troops through darkness to the doors of unsuspecting homes.

  “Today, we go fight in Korea to defend ourselves, but who knows where such logic will stop? It is far too easy to make of virtue a cover for all manner of vices. We cannot trust in our capacity to always reason to true virtue; we can only reduce our capacity for evil should we err.

  “There has been enough killing, Yuansi. I’m going to order that the prototypes for your inventions be destroyed and the records of them expunged from the histories.”

  A chill settled in Yuansi’s dāntián. He felt as if a part of his qi, his spirit, had been laid out on and imbued into those machines. His heart convulsed, and he clenched the armrests of his chair.

  “Bìxià, China must defend itself. The Jurchens are watching in the northeast for any sign of weakness, and in the west, the Mongols remain a threat. We cannot tear down the Great Wall and hope for the kindness of the world.”

  “If China cannot preserve its virtue, then there is nothing worth defending at all.”

  The Emperor and the General stared at each other. Tan Yuansi did not lower his eyes.

  Toyotomi’s invading army did not fully retreat from Korea until his death in 1598. Afterward, the Jurchens, taking advantage of the weakened and ill-equipped Ming army, conquered China between 1618 and 1645. Some twenty-five million Chinese are estimated to have died as a result of the Conquest.

  In 2000, China began to launch its own satellite navigation and positioning system. It is named Běidŏu.

  Author’s note: the painting in this story is Wu Zhen’s Fisherman.


  Afterword

  Derwin Mak and Eric Choi

  THE Dragon and the Stars can trace its beginnings to 2007, when Derwin went to that year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan. Thanks to the proximity of the venue, many science fiction writers from China were able to attend the Yokohama World-con, and Derwin was thrilled to meet these peers from the country of his ancestors.

  The SF authors from China were equally eager to meet a Canadian writer of Chinese ancestry. One of these authors was Wu Yan, who is also a professor of literature at Beijing Normal University. Dr. Wu asked Derwin to write an article about Chinese-Canadian science fiction writers for the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World. This article, which included profiles of Dragon writers Tony Pi, Melissa Yuan-Innes, and E.L. Chen (as well as honorable mention of two certain editors), was published in the May 2008 issue of Science Fiction World.

  As for the anthology itself, that came about in the same manner as many other great ideas—over a meal. Shortly after the article’s publication, Derwin met Eric for dinner at, appropriately enough, an (authentic) Chinese restaurant in Toronto. We got to talking about the poor manner in which Chinese people and culture are often portrayed in both speculative and mainstream fiction.

  Regrettably, most depictions of Chinese characters and themes occupy a rather narrow range, usually as martial arts fighters or magical Buddhist monks in historical fantasies. It was the Chinese who invented rockets, gunpowder, paper, and the compass, yet we are rarely shown as engineers or scientists—except when Fu Manchu or Ming the Merciless invents a new death ray. When Chinese people do appear, they are usually in minor roles; if they’re not villains, the men are sidekicks of the main characters and the women are girlfriends of white heroes.

  This is hardly representative of a five-thousand-year-old civilization.

  Over the course of those five millennia, and especially within the last century, many Chinese have left the land of their ancestry and settled across the globe, creating a diaspora of remarkable diversity by adapting and merging the rich heritage of China with the new traditions of their adopted homes. As Chinese-Canadians, we are not the same as Chinese-Americans, Chinese-Singaporeans, Chinese-Filipinos, or Hong Kong Chinese. We are all Chinese, yet we are all different.

  And so we thought, what better way to show the diverse culture of this great diaspora than through original stories of science fiction and fantasy written by overseas Chinese?

  Many thanks are in order. The first must go to Dr. Wu Yan, whose interest in Chinese-Canadian speculative fiction writers kicked off the chain of events that led to this collection. We also wish to express our appreciation to Tess Gerritsen, who so generously took time out of her busy schedule to write the beautiful introduction that opens the book. But our deepest gratitude goes to our hăo péngyou Julie Czerneda, who championed the idea of this anthology from the start and was a constant source of advice and inspiration as it came together.

  Měi ge rén, fēicháng gănxiè.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  E.L. Chen was born in Toronto to immigrant parents who, unlike those of most Canadian-born Chinese of her generation, actually met in Canada. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as Tesseracts Nine, Tesseracts Twelve, Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and On Spec. “Threes” was inspired by contemptuous ex-boyfriends, Chinese funeral customs and—as always—fairy tale sisters. Everything else she doesn’t mind you knowing about can be found at elchen. blogspot. com.

  Eric Choi was born in Hong Kong but emigrated to Canada with his family at a young age. His fiction has appeared in the anthologies Footprints, Northwest Passages, Space Inc., Tales from the Wonder Zone, Northern Suns, Tesseracts Six, and Arrowdreams as well as the magazines Asimov’s and Science Fiction Age. He was the first recipient of the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing (now known as the Dell Award).

  An aerospace engineer by training, Eric has a bachelor’s degree in engineering science and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering, both from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from York University. He worked briefly for a NASA contractor but was forced to return to Canada due to U.S. technology export control regulations. Today, he is manager of business development at the Canadian space company COM DEV. His website is www.aerospacewriter.ca.

  In our timeline, Tsien Hsue-shen was deported back to China (not Canada!) in 1955, where he is today revered as the father of the modern Chinese space and ballistic missile programs.

  Brenda Clough’s parents came to the United States from China. She was born in Washington, DC, and still resides in the suburbs of Virginia. Brenda has seven novels published in traditional format and several more in electronic format at Book View Cafe. A finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, her website is www.sff.net/people/Brenda, and she also has an ongoing comic review blog at blog.bookviewcafe. com.

  Brenda was feeling steampunkish when she wrote “The Water Weapon”; something about steam and bamboo is so Chinese!

  Susan Ee is a writer and filmmaker. Her stories have been published in Beyond Centauri and Realms of Fantasy, and her films have screened at festivals and on television throughout the United States. She studied creative writing at Stanford University, Clarion West, and the University of Iowa. Her blog is www.feraldream.com.

  Of her story “Shadow City,” Susan recalls: “One day, a piece of a scene played itself out on the page. A young man who was a gatekeeper. His job wasn’t to keep people out; it was to keep people in. Being a gatekeeper meant so much to him, yet his emotions around it were a swirl of guilt, longing, and fear. I found him intriguing but didn’t have a story to go with him. I was drawn back to him several times over the next couple of years until I finally uncovered his story.”

  Eugie Foster was born and raised in central Illinois, although she now resides in Atlanta with her husband, Matthew, and her pet skunk, Hobkin. After receiving a master’s degree in developmental psychology, she retired from academia to pen flights of fancy. She also edits legislation for the Georgia General Assembly, which she occasionally suspects is another flight of fancy.

  Eugie’s fiction has received the Phobos Award and has been nominated for the British Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and Pushcart awards. Her publication credits include stories in Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Cricket, Apex Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Orson Scott Card’s Inter galactic Medicine Show, Jim Baen’s Universe, and the anthologies Best New Fantasy, Heroes in Training, and Best New Romantic Fantasy 2. Her collection Returning My Sister’s Face and Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice is now out from Norilana Books. Visit her online at EugieFoster.com.

  “Mortal Clay, Stone Heart” was inspired by the exhibit The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army, which she saw when it came to Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. Eugie hopes to one day visit the necropolis in Xi’an.

  Urania Fung was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and currently resides in Arlington, Texas. She holds an MA in English and an MFA in creative writing. Her work has appeared in the anthology Ages of Wonder and the journals Front Porch Journal and Texas Books in Review. She has been a finalist in the San Gabriel Writers League’s Writing Smarter Contest, the Writers’ League of Texas Novel Manuscript Competition, and the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers Contest. Her website is uraniafung.blogspot.com.

  While teaching English to ninth graders in Changping, China, from 2002 to 2003, she was quarantined during the SARS outbreak and had to force down the meals described in “The Right to Eat Decent Food.” Urania will always remember the “fun” they had trying to get decent food during the quarantine. The Chinese friends she made during her stay told her stories about fox demons, which were the inspiration for the Rabbit character. School administrators did not lift the quarantine until June 2003. The early termination agreements were a blessing!

  Tess Gerritsen’s father was second-generation Chinese-American, and her mother is an immigrant fr
om Kunming, China. Born in California, Tess studied anthropology at Stanford University and went to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she earned her MD. After several years of working as a doctor, she left medicine to follow her dreams ... and became a writer.

  Now an internationally bestselling novelist, she is the author of over twenty novels including the space/medical thriller Gravity and the popular Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles crime series. Tess is published in thirty-five countries, and twenty million copies of her books have been sold around the world. She lives in Maine, and her website is www.tessgerritsen.com.

  Emery Huang was born in Fairfax, Virginia, and now lives in Orlando, Florida. He has a degree in creative writing from the University of Central Florida. In 2008, he won the Gold Award for the 25th Writers of the Future competition.

  Emery always wanted to write about fox demons because he finds East Asian versions of lycanthropy interesting and vastly different from their Western counterparts. In the West, lycanthropy is perceived as a disease, where the human form is perverted into a monstrosity. In the East, lycanthropes tend to be animal or spirit in their natural state, and it’s their human form that’s the disguise. The particular details for “Lips of Ash” were conceived as Emery read a book on Chinese alchemy while sitting in MAC Cosmetics waiting for his girlfriend to finish browsing.