Chapter 2: Director Wen's Ambition
Wen Desi recounted his solo crossing in broad strokes. The alternate timespace he'd reached through his bathroom opened beneath a hill beside a small river. Judging by the cultivated land, this was a prosperous agricultural region, and the terrain and vegetation suggested southern China. He had been weighing whether to venture deeper in search of a village when something unexpected happened.
A party of soldiers in ancient costume came marching along, led by a mounted officer, driving a dozen peasant-looking captives toward the riverbank. Then the killing began.
Wen Desi had seen his share of graphic photographs online, but witnessing slaughter from thirty meters away was something else entirely.
When it was over, the soldiers severed the heads, scattered some damaged weapons around the corpses, and rode off in formation behind their officer.
"Good thing I was wearing camouflage," Wen Desi said, a tremor still in his voice. "The nearest ones came within ten meters of me."
The alternate timespace had left him with two lasting impressions: the air was excellent, and life was cheap.
He opened his laptop and showed them photographs from the scene. Rendered in nine-megapixel clarity, the mutilated, headless corpses were vivid enough to turn a stomach.
"I also found some copper coins scattered nearby." He produced a plastic bag containing a dozen or so coins. "Several types. I had someone examine them—the most recent are Tianqi Tongbao."
"Could also be from the Chongzhen reign."
"At minimum, it's after Tianqi Year Two," Xiao Zishan said with confidence. "Emperor Guangzong reigned only a few months before he died. In Tianqi Year One, they were still minting his father's Taichang Tongbao—they didn't begin striking Tianqi-era coins until the following year. Factor in minting and circulation time, and you can estimate Tianqi Year Three or later."
"That's still a broad window. Those two brothers reigned over twenty years between them."
"I believe it's Tianqi, or early Chongzhen at most. Chongzhen Tongbao was minted in large quantities everywhere and circulated widely. You wouldn't find only Tianqi coins otherwise."
With the era roughly established, the question remained: what did they actually intend to do?
A wormhole to an alternate timespace held monumental significance for the scientific community, but the three men gathered in that bathroom were clearly not physicists—no Nobel Prize awaited them. If they broke this as major news, none of them worked in media; at best they'd be footnotes in the story. As the discoverer, Director Wen might earn a brief mention, but little more. All three also harbored the same conspiratorial thought: given the potentially enormous consequences, the wormhole's existence might well be suppressed entirely—Americans had long suspected something like Area 51 existed—and in that case, their prospects would be grim indeed.
Setting aside the question of property rights—since ownerless objects belong to their discoverers, Wen Desi could technically be considered the wormhole's owner—the other two understood clearly that this was an opportunity. If Wen Desi had truly intended to chase some physics prize or attempt his "solo, bidirectional, low-profile crossing," he would never have made that post.
How great was this opportunity? As Director Wen put it: great enough to potentially possess an entire world—another dimension's seventeenth century.
At this thought, their breathing grew heavy.
After a brief discussion there in Wen Desi's bathroom, the initial Executive Committee was established and immediately produced its first document. In the historical chronicles of New World discovery, this meeting would come to be known as the "Bathroom Conference."
The guiding principle passed by the conference: Build a New World!
But how would they create their new world? The ancients were not mindless NPCs—in wisdom they were no less than modern people, and they lacked neither courage nor strength. As for environmental adaptability, pampered modern folk could not begin to compare. Though these three enjoyed time-travel and alternate-history novels, at least they knew they possessed no "aura of a true king."
The one advantage transmigrators held over the people of that era was three hundred additional years of civilizational accumulation.
"Scale and standardization," Wang Luobin declared, "are the keys to victory. An industrialized society is capable of defeating any ancient society."
Their vision crystallized: assemble a large group of transmigrators possessing modern technology and management expertise, carry modern industrial equipment and technical knowledge, cross together into that timespace, establish a base, complete basic industrialization, form a comprehensive industrial system, and from that foundation, dominate the globe.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. No matter how grand the goal, one must eat one bite at a time. After discussion, the group settled on two near-term objectives:
- Recruit transmigrators.
- Raise funds to purchase materials and equipment.
Wen Desi decided to first establish a Skype chat group for communication. The original post, now wildly popular, would receive no further explanation—he simply added the group number and a backup email address, then locked the thread. Everyone agreed that from now on, it was best to avoid attracting attention.
As for funds, though these three had some savings, their combined total came to less than one million yuan. One million RMB to complete industrialization—even the industrialization of the Industrial Revolution era—was pure fantasy.
Subsequent participants would theoretically bring capital too, but likely not much more.
Exploiting price differences between the two timespaces through bidirectional crossing seemed the most realistic method for raising funds quickly.
Using modern products to reap enormous profits in an ancient era—this was the tried-and-true wealth-building technique in every time-travel novel. Everyone immediately thought of glass mirrors, glass cups, matches, wristwatches, and other trademark transmigrator treasures. Countless predecessors had relied on these to make their fortunes in alternate timespaces, digging up their first pot of gold and setting out on the road to hegemony.
Xiao Zishan contributed the large quantity of promotional giveaways he had accumulated over the years, hoarded out of a fondness for small bargains: plastic powder compacts with mirrors, melamine bowls, spoons and chopsticks, small fruit knives, plastic-cloth kitchen aprons, acrylic hat-scarf-and-gloves sets, glass mugs, plastic lunch boxes, towels—three or four boxes of miscellaneous items in all. These cheap goods custom-made in Yiwu, stamped with various company logos, now gleamed like gold in their eyes.
Venetian glass mirrors in the seventeenth century were luxury items even in Europe and nonexistent in Asia—from this perspective, mirrors represented a monopoly. Then there were the unbreakable bowls and plates, the transparent lunch boxes. Even the empty purified-water bottles they had just drunk from—any of these were novelties unseen in that timespace. Theoretically, they could charge whatever they wanted: one hundred taels per compact, two thousand taels per cup, one hundred taels per bowl. Hadn't countless transmigrator predecessors done exactly this?
All three felt their blood pressure rising, excited by the golden future unfolding before them. Wen Desi even felt a twinge of regret—perhaps risking a solo bidirectional crossing really could have unified the world.
"But if we just go over like this," Wang Luobin said, recalling a practical issue, "the moment we reach the city gate, we'll be arrested as Japanese pirates and hauled off to the Maritime Defense Magistrate's office."
"Does Guangzhou have a Maritime Defense Magistrate's office?"
"I'm not sure, but the Maritime Trade Superintendency should be there."
"That's true—we're in strange clothing, and our accents are peculiar. Guangzhou isn't sparsely populated. And we have no travel permits..."
"Will they banish us to Liaodong?"
"It won't go that far," Xiao Zishan said, "but if our strange clothes and suspicious behavior get us dragged before the yamen, we won't die, but we'll certainly lose a layer of skin." He recalled some memoirs by Portuguese who had visited Ming-era China. One unlucky Portuguese pirate had recorded his entire experience after being captured in great detail. Though he lavished praise on the Ming judicial system, calling it a perfect institution of justice, fairness, and transparency, he also declared without hesitation that for prisoners, it was cruel.
Thinking of the various tortures the Portuguese had suffered and witnessed, Xiao Zishan shuddered.
"Maybe we should look up some Hanfu websites? I've seen a few that have done careful research on Ming-era clothing codes."
"Clothing is one thing," Wang Luobin objected, "but we can't learn the manners and behavior. It would only make us more suspicious."
"What if we pose as foreign merchants?" Wen Desi proposed. "We could claim to be sea traders from Borneo. Maybe we could even pose as tribute envoys? Don't emperors all love having myriad nations pay homage?"
"Tribute trade had already stopped by that point," Xiao Zishan said after a moment's thought. "Besides, the court was probably preoccupied and not interested. As I recall, the Ming had very strict controls on foreigners. Apart from the Portuguese, foreign merchants could only trade in Macau—their ships weren't allowed into the Pearl River."
"The Portuguese could enter Guangzhou?"
"Yes, apparently every year Guangzhou held trade fairs where merchants from all over brought goods to exchange with the Portuguese."
"So the Canton Trade Fair has this long a history," Wang Luobin remarked with admiration.
The Canton Trade Fair, once China's main window for foreign trade, had its predecessor in the Ming Dynasty—though back then it was open only to Portuguese merchants. Held twice a year, in summer and winter, at Haizhu Island, in the area around what is now the Haizhu District Trade Union Federation.
"But none of us looks like a foreign friend. Were there overseas Chinese back then?"
"Maybe. Who knows."
"This is a headache. Looks like we'll need to consult some historical sources."
Suddenly Xiao Zishan slapped the table and laughed. "We're so stupid! Why are we always thinking about how to get into Guangzhou? Aren't we already in Guangzhou?"
Everyone's eyes lit up. Of course—since the wormhole's entry and exit points were identical in both timespaces, as long as they crossed within the Ming-era boundaries of Guangzhou city, they would emerge directly inside the city. And if any crisis arose, they could simply open the wormhole and escape back.
The crossing point they chose was Haopan Street, originally in the riverfront zone south of Guangzhou. This area had been commercially developed since the Southern Song dynasty, and commerce flourished even more in the early Ming. When the city walls were expanded during the Jiajing reign, this commercial district along the Pearl River was enclosed within them. From then on, Guangzhou's southern city wall stood directly on the banks of the Pearl River.
In the Ming, Haopan Street was where wealthy merchants from other provinces supposedly congregated—though in truth, it was a gathering place for smugglers. These men colluded with fishermen on Youyu Islet at the mouth of the Pearl River, specializing in transporting goods from "barbarian ships"—smuggling, in other words. "Whenever a foreign ship arrived, they conspired with the wealthy merchants of Haopan Street from other provinces to load porcelain, silk wadding, private coinage, and gunpowder, departing fully loaded and returning fully loaded." Xiao Zishan strongly suspected that these so-called "wealthy merchants from other provinces" all had official backing, which explained why their smuggling operations were so brazen.
Since they were all in the smuggling business, they surely wouldn't care where the newcomers were from. Profit was the merchant's nature. From this perspective, the merchants of Haopan Street seemed the most suitable people to contact.
(End of Chapter)