1636- the China Venture

by Eric Flint

  Some of Judith’s napalm formulation had been liberally applied to the floor of the gate tunnel, between the outer door and the portcullis. The flaming bolt set it on fire, so the enemy, still reeling from the first volley, suddenly found themselves standing on liquid fire. The fire traveled up their clothing as they screamed. Fleeing, they spread the fire to the men behind them.

  Between ten and fifteen seconds had passed, during which time volley gun number two had reloaded.

  “Fire!”

  As his crew reloaded, Colonel von Siegroth turned to Fang Kongzhao. “Lift the portcullis! It’s getting in the way!”

  “It will keep the enemy from rushing you, colonel.”

  “As long as we can maintain this rate of fire, there’s no way on Earth that they are getting halfway across the gate tunnel.”

  “Very well,” said Fang Kongzhao. “Let’s lift it partway, so it’s four feet above the ground. That will clear your barrels but slow down a charge.”

  “Do it!”

  “Lift the portcullis four chi,” Kongzhao told the gate commander. “But be ready to drop it again at an instant’s notice!”

  As soon as this was done, a third volley was fired and then a fourth. These were quite effective. By now, the bodies of the fallen were seriously obstructing enemy movement.

  Belatedly, some of the enemy tried flattening themselves against the walls of the gate tunnel, and sidling toward the inner gate. They had noticed, or guessed, that this would put them outside of the current splay arc. Von Siegroth reacted by shifting the splay lever to a broader setting, but that would also waste some bullets on the tunnel walls.

  “Fire!”

  “Drop the portcullis!” Kongzhao then commanded. “Crossbowmen, aim fire at anyone getting too close.” Two crossbowmen slid under the cart, and punished the innovators. There was, of course, no room for them to reload. Rather, after shooting, they passed the crossbow out to a reloader who handed them a loaded crossbow.

  The sixth volley completely broke the attack. The attackers turned tail, but a fair number were struck down as they ran.

  “They’re running!” said von Siegroth with audible glee.

  “Close the rear doors!” Fang Kongzhao ordered. And as soon as this was done, and the crossbowmen and volley gun number two pulled back, he added, “Reinforce the rear doors!” The laborers propped the timbers against the doors first, then piled the sandbags against it.

  “We’ll have to send laborers out to replace the outer door, once the enemy has retreated across the moat. We have a spare already built.”

  “Be careful there are no fakers in the gate tunnel,” von Siegroth warned.

  “With the portcullis down, we’ll spray your napalm on them, and set it aflame,” Kongzhao said grimly. “If anyone is faking death, it won’t be a fake for long.”

  Chapter 50

  Ninth Month, Day 19

  The enemy appeared to have vanished. From the highest vantage points available, Colonel von Siegroth, Eric Garlow, Mike Song, Fang Kongzhao and Fang Yizhi, telescopes in hand, scanned the countryside all around the city, from the moat to the horizon, without seeing anything move other than birds.

  Fang Yizhi said aloud the question that had occurred to all of them. “Is it a trap?”

  “I wish we had the balloon with us,” said Eric.

  “But without it, there’s only one way to find out,” the colonel added.

  “I will lead out a patrol,” said Fang Yizhi.

  “Won’t we need to reconstruct one of the bridges, first?” asked Mike.

  Yizhi shook his head. “The moat’s only twenty feet across, and the stretch of water to be crossed is less. The depth is five feet but the water is still, so we can swim our horses across.”

  “We can also take out a boat and run guide ropes across the moat, from mooring post to mooring post,” said Eric.

  “Good idea,” said Fang Kongzhao. “The ropes can be cut quickly enough. And Colonel, perhaps it’s time to set up an outside volley gun nest, again.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Yizhi, stay on the west side of the river,” Kongzhao added.

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Yizhi returned in the afternoon and reported that he had seen no sign of the bandits. He asked for permission to ride to Anqing, and his father said that he would sleep on that question.

  Ninth Month, Day 20.

  The next morning, the sentries sounded an alert. Rushing to the battlements, Fang Kongzhao and the other leaders happily discovered that a government battalion was marching up along the Tongmian River. At least, it had all the right flags and uniforms.

  Sun Lin volunteered to take out a patrol to confirm the bona fides of the soldiers. They rode out a short distance beyond the moat, and waited.

  A squad broke off from the main body of the supposed government force. They marched up to perhaps a hundred yards away from Sun Lin’s position, and then stopped.

  It was Sun Lin’s move.

  “You only live once,” he remarked. “Wait here,” he told his men, and continued on alone.

  He spoke to the squad leader and inspected him and his men closely. Nothing was suspicious, but still…

  “What happened to the bandit army that rode against Anqing?” he asked.

  “The neighborhoods north of the Yangtze were looted, but the bandits didn’t succeed in crossing the river. Eventually, reinforcements came upriver from Nanjing and downriver from Wuhan, and the bandits retreated west, toward Qianshan, and up into the mountains.

  “This battalion was sent to relieve Tongcheng, and then its cavalry auxiliary will reconnoiter Luzhou.”

  “Who is your battalion commander?”

  The squad leader named a man that Sun Lin had heard of but never met.

  “As you can see, Tongcheng held off all attacks. Do you have any communiqués to be delivered to the city leaders?”

  “I do,” said the squad leader. He handed over a sealed cylinder. “This is for the district magistrate.”

  “The district magistrate is sick,” said Sun Lin, “but I will give this to his designee, Fang Kongzhao.”

  * * *

  Fang Kongzhao rolled up the unsealed message. “It appears to be in order, although the battalion commander is certainly no scholar. There is not a single classical allusion worthy of note!

  “Anyway, I think we can return to peacetime routine. After restoring the floating bridges, we can allow people to enter and leave the city and halt the rationing of food and water.” He paused for a moment, thinking, and then added: “We can also dismiss the militia, reduce the guard on the walls, and take the visitors’ volley guns and cannon off the walls.”

  He turned to face Colonel von Siegroth. “Colonel, I can promise you a glowing letter of recommendation to the Wuhan Military Commission. Your ordnance performed superbly well. Hopefully, they will want to buy something from you. As for you, Ambassador Garlow, I am looking forward to finally seeing some of the nonmilitary wonders that you promised to show me.”

  Anqing

  Once the “all clear” message came to Jiujiang, Xu Xiake and the Hubers had continued on to Anqing, about ninety-five miles down the Yangtze. Since both the current and the wind were favorable, they made better time than they had on the way out. It was just as well, because they still didn’t know what the situation was in Tongcheng.

  Calling on the prefect of Anqing, Xu Xiake was advised that according to interrogation of captured bandits, Tongcheng had successfully resisted attack, and that a message would be sent northward to Fang Kongzhao. While they still did not know the fate of their friends, Xu Xiake and the Hubers could be more hopeful.

  They learned the good news, not via a messenger, but directly. The entire USE/SEAC party, together with the Fangs and several of their friends, came down with the foreign weaponry that had helped save the day at Tongcheng.

  At Fang Kongzhao’s urging, the prefect and the commander of the Ming relief forces wa
tched a demonstration of the volley gun, and both agreed to write a letter of recommendation to the Wuhan Military Commission.

  Eric Garlow and the others were happy to see Xu Xiake and the Hubers, even though disappointed that their mission had been disrupted. Eric told Xu Xiake how much he was counting on him to find the ore.

  “It should be a great adventure; I am looking forward to it,” said Xu Xiake.

  The presence of Xu Xiake and the Hubers in Anqing wasn’t the only surprise for the USE/SEAC mission. Zheng’s brother, Yan the Swallow, was waiting for them also.

  “My brother the admiral heard that Anqing was under attack, and feared for your safety. He sent me to prod local officials as might be needed. Unfortunately, by the time I headed upriver, traffic was restricted, so I was forced to wait in Chizhou, thirty-three miles downriver. I am really disappointed that I didn’t get to see your cannon and volley guns in action at Tongcheng.”

  “We would have gladly foregone the experience,” Eric assured him.

  “Well, now that I am here, I will accompany you to Wuhan. I can at least see the demonstration, and perhaps I can help with the negotiations.”

  Chapter 51

  Ninth Month

  Hangzhou

  Doctor Carvalhal offered his stethoscope to Hengqi. “Now you listen.”

  “This is so much better than just using a hollow tube,” she commented. She moved the business end of the stethoscope from one part of Martina’s belly to another.

  “The heartbeat is above the belly button,” Hengqi announced.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” said Carvalhal.

  “What does that mean?” asked Martina.

  “It’s nothing to worry about at this point, but it’s consistent with your having abdominal and rib pain, and feeling the baby’s hiccups high in your belly. The baby is in breech position.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Jim.

  “Head up, feet down, so if nothing changed, the baby would come out feet first. Or bottom first.”

  “Isn’t that really bad?” asked Martina, her face pale. “Doesn’t that mean I have to get a C-section?”

  Seeing Hengqi’s puzzled expression, Doctor Carvalhal explained, “That means cutting into the mother’s abdomen and uterus to deliver the baby.”

  Hengqi, now understanding Martina’s concern, told her, “Don’t worry.”

  “Most breech babies turn just before the pushing stage of labor,” Doctor Carvalhal added.

  “That’s true, but there’s a method of turning them earlier,” Hengqi announced. “Moxibustion.”

  “What’s that?” asked Jim and Martina simultaneously. They exchanged looks and then smiled at each other.

  Doctor Tan cleared his throat. “We burn an herb over acupuncture points on your feet.”

  “I fail to see how manipulating Martina’s feet is going to have an effect on what her baby is doing in her midsection,” Doctor Carvalhal protested.

  “We Chinese have more than two thousand years of experience with acupuncture and moxibustion, and it is clear from that experience that stimulus in one part of the body can affect the other,” Hengqi responded, rather sharply.

  “Doctor Carvalhal, the blood circulates through the entire body. Is it possible that moxibustion affects the blood circulation?” asked Jim.

  “It seems pretty harmless to me,” said Martina, “as long as you don’t burn me badly, so I am willing to try it.”

  “I won’t burn you,” said Hengqi. “You just feel the heat.”

  “Which herb is it, anyway?” asked Jim.

  The Tans tried to describe the plant, but the best that Doctor Carvalhal could do with the description was to conclude that it was some kind of mugwort.

  Doctor Carvalhal leaned back, wearing a contemplative expression. “Beulah McDonald told me that there were some exercises that the mother could do to keep the baby from settling into the pelvis, and thus inhibiting the turn to head-down position. I will check my notes.”

  “We’ll try the moxibustion and your exercises,” said Martina, diplomatically.

  Hengqi put her hand on Martina’s arm. “And Martina, I have delivered breech babies without a ‘C-section,’ so don’t worry.”

  * * *

  The next day, Martina lay on her back, with her feet high on the wall, and lifted her hips. Jim slipped a pillow behind her back, to lend support, and she held that position for fifteen minutes, as prescribed by Doctor Carvalhal. She did this exercise several times a day.

  That night, just before Martina’s bedtime, Hengqi came by. They chatted for a bit, and then Hengqi commenced Martina’s daily moxibustion treatment.

  Martina rested her feet on wood blocks, with her little toes hanging over the edge. (The first time she saw them, Hengqi had been shocked by Martina’s obviously never-bound feet—why would the wife of a scholar have big, ugly feet?—but by now, she was accustomed to them.)

  Hengqi took out two moxa sticks—rolled-up dried leaves—and laid each on a wooden block of its own. These blocks each had a hollow cut to hold the stick in place. She lit the sticks and maneuvered them so the hot tip of each stick was close to the outside of one of Martina’s little toes, with the heat greatest just above the toenail. “We want the little toe to be as hot as possible, without being burnt. This is Zhiyin, the ‘Utmost Yin,’ the exit point of what we call the ‘bladder’ qi-meridian.”

  The engineer in Jim kicked in. “Hengqi, the use of four separate blocks is inefficient and imprecise. There should be just two blocks, one for each foot, each with a raised and grooved section for holding the stick.”

  “If you make one, I will try it,” said Hengqi. Then she took out a large sand timer and turned it over.

  “How long must I sit here?” asked Martina.

  “One kè,” Hengqi answered. That was fifteen minutes.

  “Jim, please find me a book to read.”

  Tenth Month (November 10–December 8, 1635)

  Gu Ruopu’s home, Guest quarters, inner household

  Hangzhou

  Martina was relieved to discover that the fetus’ heartbeat was now below her belly button; that is to say, the baby was now in the head-down position. Both Doctor Carvalhal and Tan Hengqi immediately took credit for this achievement, the European citing the exercises and the Asian the moxibustion.

  Neither Doctor Carvalhal nor Tan Hengqi could predict precisely when the baby would be born. As the sixth-century physician Sun Simiao put it in his Recipes Worth a Thousand Gold Pieces, “When the days are full, then she will give birth.”

  This was no more comforting to Martina than it been to Sun Simiao’s patients a thousand years earlier.

  There had been much argument between Doctor Carvalhal and Tan Hengqi as to how the delivery should be orchestrated.

  When he came to Grantville, Doctor Carvalhal had been surprised to learn that in twentieth-century America, more than half of pregnant women gave birth lying on their backs, and that the next most common position was one with the head of the bed raised up, but not to a full sitting position. Did not Doctor Jacob Rueff plainly state in his 1554 treatise, The Conception and Birth of Humans, that a woman should be seated on a birthing chair?

  He was therefore relieved to hear from Beulah McDonald that the sitting position was sound medical practice; gravity helped the mother push out the baby. Having the woman lie on her back with her legs up in stirrups was for the convenience of the obstetrician.

  Martina and Doctor Carvalhal had questioned Tan Hengqi as to what the normal delivery procedure in China was. They were surprised, albeit for different reasons, to learn that she expected Martina to squat on the floor, over a bed of straw.

  “Won’t my leg muscles ache from holding myself that way?” asked Martina.

  “What we will do is hang down ropes from the ceiling, and tie them to a wooden bar. The wooden bar is lowered so it is at the height of your armpits when you are squatting; you hang on to the crossbar,” said Hengqi. “If it is no
t convenient to hang down ropes, then I would have a pair of women sit on either side of you, and let your arms rest on their shoulders.”

  “Why squat?” asked Doctor Carvalho.

  She frowned at him. “So the baby will come out more easily.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Doctor Carvalho, “I understand that it is good for the mother to be upright, but why not sit her in a birthing chair?”

  “What’s that?”

  It turned out that Hengqi and her father had never heard of such a device.

  After some argument and deliberation, Martina had opted for the birthing chair. Since this couldn’t be purchased in Hangzhou, Doctor Carvalhal had one built by Jim, with assistance from the ship’s carpenter, according to the doctor’s instructions.

  Well…in part, according to those instructions. Jim Saluzzo being an inveterate tinkerer, he designed and built a birthing chair with adjustable arm and foot rests, and a back that could fold down, just in case Doctor Carvalhal had to resort to obstetric forceps.

  In addition, Martina had moved, at Gu Ruopu’s invitation, into the Gu’s guest quarters. Martina’s lady friends, Ruopu among them, had been critical for months about Martina lodging in the residence rented by the USE mission, even in her husband’s company, as it was a mainly male environment.

  * * *

  “Is this going to hurt?” asked Martina uneasily.

  “Do you sew? Have you ever pricked yourself with a needle?” asked Hengqi. “No worse than that. Probably not even that bad, because the needles are only hair-thin and shaped to enter and leave the body easily. But you will be experiencing a little pain today to save yourself greater pain in the future. The acupuncture points lie on the meridians, the qi-energy pathways of your body, and we stimulate certain meridians to reduce nausea, pain and stress. And we only need to do this once a month.”