by Jeannie Lin
“There’s no way of knowing. Your father once maintained unofficial communication with several scientists through the trading port in Nagasaki. He would send envoys a few times each year to exchange information. Near the end—”
He stopped suddenly and looked up at me, apologetic.
“It’s all right.” The pang of grief was only momentary. “Continue.”
“Near the end of your father’s life, he managed to establish communications across land and sea.”
Chang-wei reached beneath the bunk and produced a wooden box and a scroll, which he set down between us. I shifted back to allow him room as he spread out the map.
Realization struck me. “This was your cabin, wasn’t it?”
He must have moved out hastily, leaving his belongings behind. “Your comfort is more important than mine,” he said with a smile. “I can sleep anywhere.”
I smiled back at him. I had missed this feeling of being close to Chang-wei, of sharing confidences. I remembered then that he was lending money to support my brother’s studies. I needed to speak to him about that, but now was not the time. I didn’t want to be indebted to him.
Chang-wei returned his attention to the map. “The empire of Japan has limited all foreign trade to two settlements here in Nagasaki.”
The empire of Japan consisted of a string of islands curving to the east of the Joseon peninsula. Chang-wei indicated a location at the southern tip of the chain.
“There isn’t as great a distance as one would think between Nagasaki and Peking. It can be traveled by sea in less than a week. By airship, in less than two days. My research through the Ministry archives uncovered mentions of a project to build a signal tower in Peking.”
I knew immediately where the tower was located. “The Observatory.”
Chang-wei nodded. “Among the instruments.”
I had seen the Ancient Observatory when we’d arrived by airship. The platform had been built upon the ramparts of the old city wall and featured a series of astronomical instruments and structures cast in bronze and steel. At the center was a spire that rose high into the sky. I’d assumed it was yet another device for measuring the heavens.
“I first thought of it when I saw the device inside your father’s puzzle box. I knew the box and device were Japanese in origin, but I didn’t recognize its purpose.”
Both Chang-wei and I looked to the wooden box set between us. The exterior was lacquered to a glossy black finish but otherwise unadorned. Chang-wei slid open the lid to reveal a drum of twisted copper wire and other metallic parts. My father’s device was among them.
“It’s a receiver. It took me the entire year consulting with old diagrams to fix the signal tower. Once it was operational, I started to receive messages.”
Fascinated, I peered into the box. Chang-wei leaned in close, pointing out the metal plate with a cylinder attached. “The listening device attaches here. We should still be close enough to the tower.”
Wires extended from the receiver to connect to an earpiece in the shape of a dragon. The device curled around my ear, attaching to form a cuff above the lobe.
A series of faint clicks came from the piece. “How do you know someone is sending this message?”
“The signal comes and goes, but I’m convinced the pattern starts to repeat after two hundred and fifty-six signals,” Chang-wei explained. “I’ve written it down here.”
He showed me a page of his notebook where he’d recorded a series of dots and dashes. I listened closer to the signal, searching for the pattern, but I was more aware of Chang-wei, head bent beside me, as we embarked on this new mystery.
“I haven’t been able to decipher any of it,” he confessed.
He had made an appeal to the Emperor based on a mysterious message he couldn’t interpret? I hated to admit I was as skeptical as the Grand Council.
“How do you know the message is an invitation? It could be warning us away.”
Chang-wei was adamant. “The tower was built in collaboration with the Japanese. Someone is signaling us, trying to start the conversation. We can’t ignore it. This is what your father started, Soling. This is what he dreamed of. An exchange of ideas.”
The way he spoke of my father touched me but also made me nervous. My father, the former head of the Ministry of Science, had been executed when the guard towers and cannons had failed to protect our key port cities from falling to the Yangguizi. Much later, I learned the reasons weren’t so black-and-white. He’d written a report criticizing the empire’s technology and defenses as inferior to the inventions of the West.
And now Chang-wei insisted on going down the same path.
I dropped my voice low even though we were alone in the cabin. “It was those ideas that labeled him as a traitor.”
“But the flaw was not in his way of thinking. And Emperor Yizhu is different from his father.”
That was true. Yizhu hated the Yangguizi even more than his father had, but Chang-wei was too idealistic to realize it.
I stared down at the coded message. Listened to the faint clicks coming from the receiver. Did my father’s associates on the other side even know he had been executed a decade ago? Did they realize their signals had been lost to the sky?
Until now.
“The transmitting tower resides in Nagasaki, the only port open to our ships,” Chang-wei went on with growing excitement. “Someone is trying to reach us there. We can’t send a message back, but we can find the tower. We can reestablish contact.”
“What happens when we find this person?”
His eyes shone bright. “Then we will no longer be alone in this fight.”
* * *
The airship was a falcon-class transport vessel, more lightweight than the war-class ships and designed for smaller supply runs. From what I could see, the envoy consisted of Chang-wei, a translator, an armed escort of four Forbidden Guardsmen and now myself.
The vessel flew through the night with the engines purring beneath us. I tried to get what rest I could. As Chang-wei had promised, by midafternoon as I strolled the upper deck, I could see land in the distance. Were we truly so close to the island empire?
“Come see the harbor.” Chang-wei beckoned me to the side.
A wave of dizziness struck me as I looked down and gauged how high we were. The coastline below was barely visible through the clouds.
The countryside was far away and quiet from up here. A feeling of awe swept over me just as it had when I had entered Peking in the Emperor’s dragon airship. In the blue waters of Nagasaki Bay, I could see several ships, their sails the most visible feature from on high.
I also realized for the first time what a strategic advantage airships could serve. For the last several years, Peking had pushed the factories in the south to the breaking point manufacturing more. Mining crews had been worked to exhaustion to produce ore. The number of vessels in the imperial fleet was carefully guarded. The Emperor didn’t want our enemies to know we were gathering our strength.
As the airship gradually descended over the bay, I could clearly make out a fan-shaped island in the distance, just off the coast.
“Dejima, the Dutch trading port,” Chang-wei explained, coming to stand beside me. His shoulder brushed against mine, and the year apart faded away. It was like this between us when we’d first arrived in Peking.
“Only a limited number of trading ships are allowed into Japan each year from each nation, and contact with foreigners is strictly controlled. Our empire is at least allowed a settlement on the mainland.”
Several stone watchtowers lined the coast, rising high above the wharf. Chang-wei produced a pair of eyeglasses from the pocket of his sleeve and put them on. He adjusted the telescopic attachment over the right lens. Then he scanned the shoreline, his gaze sweeping over the entire bay before us. He seemed to be searching for somet
hing. With my naked eye, I could see the outline of the city and the rise of the hills beyond, lush with vegetation.
“This is when we find out whether our official request is in order. Captain Zhao is sending the signal now.”
Up in the main mast, I could see flashes of light as the crewman angled the signal mirrors.
“We needed to get special dispensation to land an airship.” Chang-wei handed the spectacles to me. It took me a moment to focus the eyepiece onto the watchtowers, at which time I could clearly see the cannons aimed at us.
“All should be well,” Chang-wei murmured as I tensed.
I had a nightmare vision of crashing into the sea in a ball of flame. At that moment, an answering signal came from the nearest tower. I handed the spyglass back to Chang-wei. And then waited.
The boom of cannon fire never came.
“They’re hailing us in,” Captain Zhao reported.
I let out a breath and gripped the rail as the airship continued its gradual descent.
“Nothing to fear,” Chang-wei said, reaching out to touch his hand to mine. The touch was brief, there and gone.
Chang-wei was always calmest when the danger was greatest. One of the defining characteristics I’d come to know about him.
“Are the Japanese hostile toward our empire?” I asked. From where we stood, we could be approaching one of our own ports.
“They have no reason to be. I have more to fear from my own countrymen.”
I pondered his remark as I watched the coast come in closer. At first I thought he must have been speaking of the rebels, but it was odd for Chang-wei to refer to himself so personally.
We passed over Dejima, and I strained to catch a glimpse of the Dutch traders, but everything looked like miniature models from this vantage point. The people were as small as mice.
I had seen Western foreigners for the first time in the Shanghai settlement, even spoken to one who had taken the time to learn the Canton dialect, a trading language, common to many of the treaty ports.
Though they were pale skinned and lighter haired, I had to admit they were hardly devils. The differences in appearance were hard to focus on exactly. Some features such as the nose or mouth were larger . . . and . . . I couldn’t find the right word. Coarser in appearance.
Chang-wei was more familiar with the foreigners than most of our countrymen. He had been taken aboard a Western ship after the first conflict. They’d forced him into service, and he’d even sailed all the way to their capital, a place called London, where he’d settled for several years.
I couldn’t imagine it, living so far away in a strange land. The islands of Japan seemed a far-off and exotic place.
The landing field was marked by flags raised onto bamboo poles. It was located inland from the shore. Captain Zhao navigated the airship between the watchtowers and positioned it over the clearing. Air hissed from the jets as the balloon was depressurized, reducing the ship’s buoyancy until it touched down on the airfield.
The airship rumbled as the captain cut the engines. The rotors wound down and went still. Down below, a Japanese entourage made its way toward us. They looked to be at least twenty men strong with swords that were sheathed, yet prominently displayed.
“Ready?” Chang-wei asked.
The look on his face was one of excitement. He was fully suited toward such adventure. The rest of our much smaller escort formed around us as the crew lowered the gangplank. I prepared to set foot down on the land of the rising sun.
Chapter Seven
Captain Zhao took the lead, having made several landings in Nagasaki. “No political envoys or ambassadors are allowed to accompany the merchant ships,” he reminded us as the port officials approached. They were escorted by armed swordsmen in case we presented any threat.
The captain greeted the landing party and explained our purpose, which was trade and nothing but trade.
Chang-wei briefed me on the details as we waited. Our cargo held ginseng and various other medicines and remedies. The landing party had been sent by the Saga domain, whose daimyo, the feudal lord, was charged with defense of the coast. I knew little of the samurai warriors of the Japanese aside from their legendary reputations for upholding honor until death.
As I glanced upon them now, I had the same sense of foreboding I felt among the Jin Jun, the Forbidden Guard that protected our Emperor. Among samurai, apparently one sword was not enough. Each man was armed with two. I supposed so they could kill a man twice, if needed. I kept my gaze directed downward.
Zhao provided papers and a circular jade seal that had been broken in half.
The samurai glanced at the papers and then back to the airship as if scanning it for weapons. He replied to the captain, and I found myself straining to understand, even though I knew nothing of the Japanese language. The sound of it was harsh to the ear, lacking the fluid tones of our tongue. He seemed to speak at great length, after which Zhao relayed a simple message.
“We will be escorted directly to the custom house.”
Captain Zhao brought two of his men, leaving the rest on board. Our party was five in number compared to twenty samurai who looked like they could cut us in half.
The foreign settlement was located along the shore. A stone wall delineated the foreign area, but the true boundary between Nagasaki and the trading post was enforced by the watchtowers that lined the coast.
“Separated by the distance it takes to fire an arrow,” Chang-wei said beneath his breath.
We were allowed through the checkpoint with little incident given our armed escort. Once inside the trading post, the escort led us to an official-looking building set apart from the shops and stalls. The structure rose two stories high, and there were more guards at the front entrance.
It was the custom house, and we were brought inside to be presented to the presiding official who sat behind a desk in the main room. Captain Zhao stepped forward with his seal. The official opened a box lying beside his papers and lifted another half seal, which he held against the captain’s counterpart.
Once satisfied that the two halves fit together, the official gave a nod and pushed a ledger book forward. Zhao was familiar with the routine. He bowed once and bent to sign the book before gesturing to Chang-wei.
“Every foreigner registered and accounted for,” Zhao remarked.
Chang-wei took the brush to enter his name into the ledger. As I wasn’t asked to do the same, I assumed I had taken on the identity of his wife. It made us appear more respectable.
After registering at the custom house, we were set free to roam the confines of the Chinese section. The settlement was filled with merchants’ shops and stalls, not unlike the markets of Canton or Shanghai, but without the same crowded streets. There were fewer inhabitants here than on the mainland.
The buildings were constructed with two levels and inclined rooftops. Dwellings and shop spaces merged seamlessly together, and I watched traders haggling over prices in one shop while others sat down for steaming bowls of bone soup in the next. In the distance, I could see the curving rooftop of a temple, painted auspiciously red and rising above the clutter of the marketplace.
We walked along the main lane, feeling like strangers in this land despite the familiar sights. Stacks of porcelain ware filled one shop while another displayed bolts of dyed cloth. The language that flowed from the stalls was a mix of Chinese dialects and Japanese, reduced down to haggling terms and numbers. I saw a glimpse of silver change hands.
“The shogunate keeps careful control on who is allowed in and out of the country,” Captain Zhao explained. “There is a strict number of ships from each foreign government and tight control over what goods are brought in. Custom house officials are completing an inspection and inventory of our cargo at this moment.”
“What of the opium trade?” I had to ask. So many of the ships leaving our ports
were opium runners.
“Opium trade is banned by the Tokugawa shogunate and punishable by death.”
“They must have taken warning from our struggles,” Chang-wei remarked grimly.
Our empire would have been wise to do the same. If we had shut out the foreigners and executed the drug runners, we would be a different empire. Instead, the drug had flooded onto our shores in a black wave. Thousands upon thousands of chests of it. When we tried to close the gates, it was too late.
“Our ministry made contact with a foreign studies scholar ten years ago when we last visited,” Chang-wei said. “He lives in Nagasaki city. Is there any way we can locate him?”
Zhao ran a hand over his beard. “I can make a request to the bugyō for a special pass outside of the Chinese settlement. But foreign merchants are low on the city administrator’s list of concerns.”
“I do appreciate your assistance, Captain.”
With that, Captain Zhao left to oversee his business affairs. I watched him disappear into the market lane. “It may take a while before we can get the required passes.”
Chang-wei frowned. “Hopefully there won’t be too much of a delay. We don’t have much time.”
We went in search of lodgings and were quickly directed toward an establishment near the docks. There was a blacksmith’s forge nearby and a busy stable house. Though the inhabitants were in constant transition with traders coming and going, a permanent settlement had grown up around the port. To these people, the Chinese quarter, or the tōjin yashiki, as the Japanese called it, was home. The rest of us were strangers.
Chang-wei negotiated for rooms, and the only ones available were tucked in the back. They were small spaces stacked together with thin walls between them. Zhao and his crewmen took rooms in the north wing while Chang-wei and I occupied a separate apartment across the walkway.
I surveyed our chamber, which didn’t take long. There was a bamboo mat laid down as bedding and a chamber pot for use at night. A screen separated out a private sleeping area.
There was a time I would have blushed to be in such close, intimate quarters with Chang-wei, but this wasn’t our first adventure together.