Tai-Pan

by James Clavell

  “Why?”

  “To give you time to get used to our ‘enmity.’ You’ll need practice. You and Robb are to start the buildings. The plans are already settled. Except for the Great House. I’ll decide about that later. Begin to build a church on the knoll. Get Aristotle to design it. Pay him a tenth of what he asks in his first breath. You and Robb are to do everything.”

  “Yes, Tai-Pan,” Culum said. Tai-Pan. Not Father. Both men heard its finality. And accepted it.

  “Build my cottage on suburban lot seventeen. Robb has the plan. It’s to be up in three weeks, the garden planted, and a ten-foot wall around it.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Whatever it costs. Put a hundred, two hundred men abuilding it if necessary. Furnished, landscaped as the plan says. And I want all our buildings finished in three months.”

  “There’s at least ten months of building there. A year or more.”

  “Aye. So we use more men. More money. Then we’ll finish earlier.”

  “Why hurry?”

  “Why na?”

  Culum looked out to sea. “What about the ball?”

  “You arrange everything. With Robb and Chen Sheng, our compradore.”

  “And Robb? He’s not to know that our enmity is a masquerade?”

  “I’ll let you decide that. You can tell him the night of the ball. If you want.”

  China Cloud crested the horizon. “We can go now,” Struan said.

  “Good.”

  Struan put the glasses and the remains of the food back into the haversack. “Send some men up here secretly to keep a permanent watch during daylight.”

  “What for?”

  “Ships. From here we’d have four or five hours’ advance notice of arrivals. Especially the mail packets. Then we send a fast cutter and intercept her and get our mail before the others.”

  “And then?”

  “We’ve the jump on everyone. In four hours you can do a lot of buying and selling. Knowing four hours ahead of others could be the difference between life and death.”

  Culum’s respect increased. Very clever, he thought. He was staring idly westward at the big island of Lan Tai. “Look!” he cried suddenly, pointing just south of it. “There’s smoke. A ship’s on fire!”

  “You’ve sharp eyes, lad,” Struan said, swinging the binoculars over. “God’s death, it’s a steamer!”

  The ship was black and lean and ugly and sharp-nosed. Smoke poured from her squat funnel. She was two-masted and rigged for sails, but she wore no sails now and steamed malevolently into wind, the red ensign fluttering aft.

  “Look at that belly-gutted, stinking fornication of a Royal Navy ship!” Culum was rocked by the vehemence. “What’s the matter?”

  “That bloody iron-festering whore—that’s what’s the matter! Look at her steam!”

  Culum stared through the glasses. The ship looked harmless to him. He had seen a few paddle ships like her before. The Irish mail packets had been steamers for ten years. He could see the two giant paddle wheels, amidships port and starboard, and the billowing smoke and the frothing wake. There were cannon aboard. Many.

  “I can’t see anything wrong with her.”

  “Look at her wake! And her heading! Into wind, by God! She’s steering due east. Into wind. Look at her! She’s overhauling our ship as though Blue Cloud’s a pig-rotten brig in the hands of godrotting apes—instead of one of the best crews on earth!”

  “But what’s wrong with that?”

  “Everything. Now a steamer’s in the Orient. She’s done the impossible. That rusty, iron-hulked, machine-powered, Stephenson-invented pus-ridden harlot has sailed from England to here, against all the sea’s disgust and the wind’s contempt. If one does it, a thousand can. There’s progress. And the beginning of a new era!” Struan picked up the empty wine bottle and hurled it against a rock. “That’s what we’ll have to use in twenty or thirty years. Those bitch-fornicating abortions of a ship, by God!”

  “It is ugly, when you compare it to a sail ship. To Blue Cloud. But being able to sail into wind—to forget the wind—means that it’ll be faster and more economic and—”

  “Never! Na faster, na with the wind abaft the beam, and na as seaworthy. And na in a storm. Those smellpots’ll turn turtle and sink like a stone. And na as economic. They have to have wood for the boilers, or coal. And they’ll be nae good for the tea trade. Tea’s sensitive and it’ll spoil in that stink. Sail’ll have to carry tea, thank God.”

  Culum was amused but didn’t show it. “Yes. But in time they’ll improve, certainly. And if one can sail out here, as you say, a thousand others can. I think we should buy steamers.”

  “You can, and you’ll be right. But damned if I’ll buy one of those stench-filled monstrosities. Damned if the Lion and Dragon’ll fly one of them while I’m alive!”

  “Do all seamen feel as you do?” Culum asked the question carelessly, warmed inside.

  “That’s a right stupid question! What’s on your mind, Culum?” Struan said tartly.

  “Just thinking about progress, Tai-Pan.” Culum looked back at the ship. “I wonder what her name is.”

  Struan was studying Culum suspiciously, knowing that the man’s mind was working but unaware of what it was planning. That’s odd, he told himself. That’s the first time you’ve thought of Culum as a man and na as your son and na as “Culum” or “lad” or “laddie.” “Thank God I won’t live to see the death of sail. But that whore heralds the death of the China clipper. The most beautiful ships that have ever sailed the seas.”

  He led the way down the mountain toward Aberdeen. Later the steamer passed close enough for them to read her name. It was Nemesis. H.M.S. Nemesis.

  Three

  The two frigates poured broadside after broadside into the first of the forts athwart the Bogue, the ten-mile neck of water that guarded the approach to Canton. The Bogue was heavily fortified with dominating forts and dangerously narrow at its mouth, and the frigates appeared to be at a suicidal disadvantage. There was scant room to maneuver, and the cannons in the forts could hold the attackers easily at point-blank range as they tacked back and forth, groping upstream. But the cannons were set firm in their beds and could not traverse, and centuries of corrupt administration had allowed the fortifications to languish. Thus the token cannon balls of the forts passed harmlessly to port or to starboard of the frigates.

  Cutters left the frigates, and the marines stormed ashore. The forts were taken easily and without loss, for the defenders, knowing themselves to be helpless, had wisely retreated. The marines spiked the cannon and a few stayed to occupy the forts. The rest went aboard again, and the frigates moved north a mile and poured broadside after broadside into the next forts, subduing them as easily.

  Later a fleet of junks and fire ships was sent against them but the fleet was sunk.

  The two frigates could decimate so many junks so easily because of superior firepower, and because their rigging and sails gave them speed to all points of the compass, whenever the wind blew. Junks could not tack as a frigate could tack, or beat to windward. Junks were designed for Chinese waters and monsoon winds, the frigates for the howling misery of the English Channel or North Sea or Atlantic where storm was commonplace and tempest a way of life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Like potting sitting ducks,” the admiral said disgustedly.

  “Aye,” Struan said. “But their losses are slight and ours negligible.”

  “A decisive victory, that’s the ticket,” Longstaff said. “That’s what we want. Horatio, remind me to ask Aristotle to record today’s storming of the Bogue.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  They were on the quarterdeck of the flagship H.M.S. Vengeance, a mile aft of the path-blazing frigates. Astern was the main body of the expeditionary force, China Cloud in the van—May-may and the children secretly aboard.

  “We’re falling behind, Admiral,” Longstaff said. “Can’t you catch up with
the frigates, what?”

  The admiral controlled his temper, hard put to be polite to Longstaff. Months of being held in check, months of orders and counterorders and a contemptible war had sickened him. “We’re making way nicely, sir.”

  “We’re not. We’re tacking back and forth, back and forth. Complete waste of time. Send a signal to Nemesis. She can tow us upstream.”

  “Tow my flagship?” the admiral bellowed, his face and neck purple. “That sowgutted sausagemaker? Tow my 74-gun ship of the line? Tow it, did you say?”

  “Yes, tow it, my dear fellow,” Longstaff said, “and we’ll be in Canton all the sooner!”

  “Never, by God!”

  “Then I’ll transfer my headquarters to her! Put a cutter alongside. Ridiculous, all this jealousy. A ship is a ship, sail or steam, and there’s a war to be won. You can come aboard at your convenience. I’d be glad if you’d accompany me, Dirk. Come along, Horatio.” Longstaff stamped off, exasperated by the admiral and his insane attitudes, by the feuding between the army and navy: feuding over who was in command, whose counsel was the most worthy, who had first choice of careening or barrack space on Hong Kong, and whether the war was a sea war or a land war and who had preference over whom. And he was still privately angry at that cunning little devil Culum for tricking him into signing away the Tai-Pan’s knoll—into believing that the Tai-Pan had already approved the idea—and for jeopardizing the nice relationship he had built so carefully with the dangerous Tai-Pan over so many years, molding him to his purposes.

  And Longstaff was sick of trying to set up a colony, and sick of being pleaded with and railed at, trapped in the squalid competition between traders. And he was furious with the Chinese for daring to repudiate the wonderful treaty that he and he alone had magnanimously given them. Goddamme, he thought, here am I, carrying the weight of all Asia on my shoulders, making all the decisions, keeping them all from each other’s throats, fighting a war for the glory of England, saving her trade, by God, and what thanks do I get? I should have been knighted years ago! Then his wrath abated, for he knew that soon Asia would be stabilized and from the safety of the Colony of Hong Kong the threads of British power would spin out. At the dominating whim of the governor. Governors are knighted. Sir William Longstaff—now, that had a nice ring to it. And as colonial governors were commanders-in-chief of all colonial forces, lawmakers officially and by law—and the direct representatives of the queen—then he could deal with popinjay admirals and generals arbitrarily and at leisure. The pox on every one of them, he thought, and he felt happier.

  So Longstaff went aboard Nemesis.

  Struan joined him. Steamship or not, he would be first in Canton.

  In five days the fleet was at anchor at Whampoa, the river behind them subdued and safe. A deputation of the Co-hong merchants, sent by the new viceroy, Ching-so, arrived immediately to negotiate. But at Struan’s suggestion the deputation was sent away unseen, and the next day the Settlement was reoccupied.

  When the traders came ashore at the Settlement, all their old servants were waiting beside the front doors of their factories. It was as though the Settlement had never been left. Nothing had been touched in their absence. Nothing was missing.

  The square was given over to the tents of a detachment of the military, and Longstaff made his headquarters in the factory of The Noble House. Another deputation of Co-hong merchants arrived and was again sent away as before, and laborious and elaborate preparations were openly begun to invest Canton.

  By day and by night Hog Street and Thirteen Factory Street were a booming, seething mass of buying and selling and fighting and thieving. The brothels and the gin shops thrived. Many men died of drink and some had their throats cut and others simply vanished. Shopkeepers fought for space and prices rose or fell but were always as much as the market would bear.

  Again a deputation sought audience with Longstaff, and again Struan dominated Longstaff and had them sent away. The ships of the line settled themselves athwart the Pearl River and the Nemesis steamed calmly back and forth, leaving horror in her wake. But the junks and the sampans continued to ply their trade, upstream and downstream. The teas and silks of the season came down from the hinterland and overflowed the Co-hong warehouses that lined the banks of the river.

  Then Jin-qua arrived, by night. In secret.

  “Hola, Tai-Pan,” he said as he entered Struan’s private dining room, leaning on the arms of his personal slaves. “Good you see my. Wat for you no come see my, heya?” The slaves helped him sit, bowed and then left. The old man seemed older than ever, his skin more lined. But his eyes were young and very wise. He was wearing a long, silk gown of pale blue, and blue silk trousers and soft slippers on his tiny feet. A light silk jacket of green, padded with down, protected him from the damp and chills of the spring night. And on his head was a hat of many colors.

  “Hola, Jin-qua. Mandarin Longstaff plenty mad hav got. No want this piece Tai-Pan see frien’. Ayee yah! Tea?” Struan had deliberately received him in his shirt-sleeves, for he wanted Jin-qua to know at once that he was very angry because of Wu Fang Choi’s coin. Tea was poured and servants appeared carrying trays of delicacies that Struan had especially ordered.

  Struan helped Jin-qua and himself to some dim sum.

  “Chow plenty werry good,” Jin-qua said, sitting very straight in his chair.

  “Chow werry bad,” Struan said apologetically, knowing it was the best in Canton. A servant came in with coal and put it on the fire, adding a few sticks of fragrant wood. The delectable perfume of the wood filled the small room.

  Jin-qua ate the dim sum fastidiously and sipped the Chinese wine, which was heated—as were all Chinese wines—to just the correct temperature. He was warmed by the wine and even more by the knowledge that his protégé Struan was behaving perfectly, as a subtle Chinese adversary would. By serving dim sum at night, when tradition dictated that it be eaten only in the early afternoon, Struan was not only further indicating his displeasure, but was testing him to see how much he knew about Struan’s encounter with Wu Kwok.

  And though Jin-qua was delighted that his training—or rather the training performed by his granddaughter, T’chung May-may—was bearing such delicate fruit, he was beset with vague misgivings. That’s the infinite risk you take, he told himself, when you train a barbarian into civilized ways. The student may learn too well, and before you know it, the student will rule the teacher. Be cautious.

  So Jin-qua did not do what he had intended to do: select the smallest of the shrimp-filled steamed doughs and offer it in midair, repeating what Struan had done on the ship of Wu Kwok, which would have indicated with exquisite sublety that he knew all that had happened in Wu Kwok’s cabin. Instead, he picked one of the deep-fried doughs and put it on his own plate and ate it placidly. He knew that it was much wiser, for the present, to hide the knowledge. Later, if he wished, he could help the Tai-Pan avoid the danger he was in and show him how he could extricate himself from disaster.

  And as he munched the dim sum he reflected on the utter stupidity of the mandarins and the Manchus. Fools! Contemptible, dung-eating, motherless fools! May their penises shrivel and their bowels fill with worms!

  Everything had been planned and executed so ingeniously, he thought. We maneuvered the barbarians into a war—at a time and place of our own choosing—which solved their economic problems, but in defeat we conceded nothing of importance. Trade continued as before, through Canton only, and thus the Middle Kingdom was still protected from the encroaching European barbarians. And we yielded only a flyblown malodorous island which, with the first coolie to set foot on shore, we had already begun to retrieve.

  And Jin-qua considered the perfection of the scheme which had exploited the emperor’s greed and his fear that Ti-sen was a threat to the throne, and had made the emperor himself destroy his own kinsman. A divine jest! Ti-sen had been so beautifully trapped, and so cleverly selected so far in advance. The ideal tool to save the emperor’s and C
hina’s face. But after years of planning and patience and a complete victory over the enemies of the Middle Kingdom, that greed-infected, harlot-sniffing lump of dogmeat—the emperor—had had the fantastic and incredible stupidity to repudiate the perfect treaty!

  Now the barbarian British are angry, rightly so. They have lost face before their devil queen and her besotted intimates. And now we’ll have to begin all over again, and the ancient purpose of the Middle Kingdom—to civilize the barbarian earth, to bring it out of the Darkness into the Light, one world under one government and one emperor—is delayed.

  Jin-qua did not mind beginning again, for he knew that time was centuries. He was only a little irritated that the time had been put back unnecessarily, and a superb opportunity wasted.

  First Canton, he told himself. First our beloved Canton must be ransomed. How little can I settle for? How little? …

  Struan was seething. He had expected Jin-qua to pick one of the shrimp-filled doughs and offer it to him in midair. Does that mean he does na yet know that Wu Kwok passed the first coin? Surely he realizes the significance of the dim sum? Watch your step, laddie.

  “Plenty boom-boom ship, heya?” Jin-qua said at length.

  “Plenty more Longstaff hav, never mind. Werry bad when mandarin mad hav.”

  “Ayee yah,” Jin-qua said. “Mandarin Ching-so werry mad hav. Emperor say all same Ti-sen.” He drew his finger across his throat and laughed. “Phfft! Wen L’ngst’ff no go way, hav war—no hav trade.”

  “Hav war, take trade. Longstaff plenty mad hav.”

  “How muchee tael help plenty mad, heya?” Jin-qua put his hands into the sleeves of his green silk coat, leaned back and waited patiently. “Doan knowa. Maybe hundred lac.”

  Jin-qua knew that a hundred could be settled amicably at fifty. And fifty lacs for Canton was not unreasonable when she was helpless. Even so he feigned horror. Then he heard Struan say, “Add hundred lac. Tax.”