Chapter 176: Liu Xiang's Calculations
"More waiting?" The voice belonged to a woman standing nearby.
Aragonés cast a disapproving glance at his companion. She was wrapped entirely in a black cloak that gave her an almost monastic appearance, only her dark curly hair visible beneath the hood.
"Li, I am the captain of this vessel. You are merely Chief Liu's liaison."
"True enough. But in another hour, the tide will turn. After that, you'll catch neither the flood to enter the harbor nor the ebb to leave it."
He knew she was right. Spanish galleons were clumsy beasts—turning and maneuvering in confined waters pushed them to their limits. Rowboats could tow them, certainly, but riding the tides remained the surest way in and out of the bay. Still, he resented a woman questioning his judgment, even one as beautiful as this, even one whose Spanish flowed as naturally as a native's.
"Begin," Aragonés ordered. Once they finished here, he would continue north to deal with that nuisance Zheng Yiguan.
Fifty sailors who had been waiting on deck clambered over the railings and descended into two rowboats. Most were Southeast Asian natives from the Malay Peninsula—former dugout-canoe pirates who had spent their lives raiding merchant vessels. This work was their specialty. The handful of Spaniards among them served as gunners. Each rowboat mounted a 2-pounder light cannon, a requirement that had come directly from Chief Liu, who seemed genuinely terrified of enemy firearms and had demanded Spanish artillery and heavy muskets for support.
Behind them on Liu Xiang's ships, pirates were transferring to sampans. These smaller craft reportedly carried the Chief's finest fighters. Aragonés had little investment in the operation's success—he was merely helping Liu seize a few fast ships and capture some prisoners. Chief Liu's fear of the enemy's guns bordered on obsession.
"Monkeys, serve the Catholic King well." Aragonés made no effort to mask his contempt for the dark-skinned, narrow-eyed native sailors. If Europeans were not so impossibly difficult to recruit in Southeast Asia, such lowly heathens would never have set foot aboard his ship. Their crooked yellow eyes always flickered with that peculiar mixture of cruelty and cowardice. Aragonés knew he was little more than a circus ringmaster among them, requiring constant applications of the whip and the sugar lump—fail to provide both, and they would devour him.
Entering a river port like Bopu in a Spanish galleon meant riding the tides while rowboats towed you in. Exposed rowers made easy targets for shore cannon and musket fire—a dangerous proposition under any circumstances. Had Aragonés been facing a well-defended European port, he would never have attempted it. But native sailors existed to be spent as cannon fodder, and losing a few mattered little. Besides, this was China. Aragonés was firmly convinced the Chinese understood nothing of naval warfare, much less port defense. Years ago, his predecessors had raided ships in the Pearl River with complete impunity.
His gunners stood ready at their stations. The broadside ports gaped open, black cannon muzzles trained on every possible shore target. He had absolute confidence in his firepower advantage. Those Chinese guns—could they even be called cannons? Crude copies of century-old designs, nothing more.
According to the plan, the Countess of Scarborough would provide fire support from within the bay during Liu Xiang's landing operation. Liu Xiang would use sampans to ferry five hundred men ashore. Their objective: capture at least one of the iron fast-ships moored along the coast. Defectors from Zhu Cailao's camp had provided Liu Xiang with intelligence on these vessels' combat capabilities—clearly attractive to any pirate worth his salt.
Zhu Cailao's previous encounter had left Liu Xiang with several firm impressions. First, the iron fast-ships were extraordinarily sturdy—ordinary cannonballs simply could not penetrate their hulls. Second, they were remarkably agile and swift. Third, their crews appeared to lack cannons entirely. Zhu Cailao's men reported the ships mounted something resembling oversized crossbows, weapons that proved wildly inaccurate. However, they also carried exceptionally powerful muskets with impressive range and deadly precision.
Based on these assessments, the pirates would rely primarily on the Countess of Scarborough's guns to suppress the enemy. No matter how powerful those muskets might be, they could not match proper cannons. Under covering fire, one pirate force would infiltrate through Bopu's mangrove swamps, creating enough chaos to divert the "Australians'" attention. A second force would then seize the moment to rush the harbor and capture at least one iron fast-ship. Liu Xiang had given his captains explicit instructions: they must take some "Australians" alive.
For this purpose, the Spanish had sold them eight rowboats along with specialized towing equipment. Once they succeeded, the rowboats would tow the iron ship out of the harbor. One vessel was the minimum acceptable result.
Aragonés had no objection to the plan itself. What he could not fathom was the Chinese pirate chief's obsession with these iron ships. To him, they were simply too bizarre. Ships that moved without sails or oars—such things were either miracles of God or creations of the Devil. In his estimation, the latter seemed far more likely.
The rowboats began their slow work of towing the Countess of Scarborough toward the bay. A depth-sounding dinghy led the way. Everything remained calm.
"I should make something clear," Aragonés said to Li Siya. "My ship will depart at low tide, whether or not you've captured any vessels."
"One hour will be sufficient." Li Siya allowed herself a faint smile. She had not personally designed the operation, but she had contributed to its planning. Among all the pirates, she alone had dealt directly with the Australians. Their brilliant raid the previous year had wounded her pride deeply—so deeply that even Zheng Yiguan had begun to doubt her afterward. Furious, she had claimed her ship required repairs and returned to Macau. There, she had dispatched agents to investigate "Australian" news, only to discover they had abandoned their houses, goods, and servants, vanishing like smoke into the air.
Only recently had word arrived of a group appearing along Qiongzhou's coast—shaved heads, short clothes—accompanied by a gigantic iron ship. The description triggered an immediate memory of Wen Desi. That Australian merchant had been shaved-headed and dressed in short clothes.
To investigate, she had put to sea once more. With Zheng Zhilong occupied by amnesty negotiations in Fujian, she had attached herself to Liu Xiang's operation in Guangdong as a guest advisor. Li Siya operated independently along the coast. Though she occasionally worked under various major gangs and paid their protection fees, she never participated in inter-gang warfare—plunder and adventure were her only interests. Her superior fast ships and cannons allowed her to live as she pleased.
"Wen Desi," she murmured, "are you waiting on that shore too?" A chilling smile crossed her face.
"Captain Li?"
"Hmm?"
"Why did Chief Liu send four hundred men ashore today?" Aragonés had never understood the logic of landing four hundred Chinese pirates in broad daylight. To him, it seemed like pure suicide.
"To give the Australians a victory," Li Siya explained. "They call themselves Australian, but they don't deny their Chinese ancestry. The Chinese celebrate victories with drinking and revelry."
"We Spaniards do the same."
"And after the drinking and revelry, they won't be nearly as alert."
"You sent four hundred men to their deaths just to make them careless? God in heaven!"
"Spending four hundred piastres for such results—do you really consider that a poor bargain?" Li Siya glanced at him coolly. Compared to the Chinese, these Spaniards who knew only how to host roasting parties for heretics were as innocent as convent virgins. Even those charming Italians understood that men pursuing great deeds should not be bound by moral principles—one should consider only whether results proved beneficial, never whether methods caused harm. Better still, these cannon fodder believed they were serving Zhu Cailao. That fool Zhu Cailao would probably die of headaches trying to understand what had happened. The thought brought her immense satisfaction.
Aragonés found himself genuinely shocked that a pirate chief would so unhesitatingly treat his own countrymen as disposables—and that this woman calculated nothing beyond recruitment costs. Inwardly, he despised her completely. But the lives and deaths of heathens were no concern of his. Saving souls was work for priests, and Aragonés had little desire to deal with priests.
A thought struck him suddenly—this woman was half-Portuguese. "Captain Li, do you still count yourself among Christ's lambs?"
"I attend church as often as you do," Li Siya replied, her smile mocking.
"Sampan sighted!" The observer nudged Xue Ziliang sharply.
"Keep watching!" From the moment those ships had begun turning toward Bopu, Xue Ziliang had known trouble was coming. The maritime assault was about to begin.
"Many sampans!" the observer exclaimed. "Too many to count—"
Xue Ziliang snatched the binoculars. The scene before him was spectacular—at least thirty sampans advancing toward Bopu across the dark water, larger ships following in their wake.
Two hundred fifty meters...
Two hundred meters...
Through the lens, he could make out bare-chested pirates with knives clenched between their teeth. He could almost see their savage grins.
"Report to Bopu—now!"
"Re—reporting, Captain," the radio operator stammered, his face suddenly pale with fear, "the radio's not working!"
The moon sank below the horizon. Sea and sky merged into pitch blackness. Xue Ziliang had heard no alarm from Bopu. Uncertain whether the tower watch had spotted the approaching threat, he grabbed an SKS rifle and fired a single shot at the nearest sampan.
The crack of the gunshot split the silent night with startling clarity. A tracer round streaked across the darkness like a falling star. In that brief flash of light, a figure on the sampan shuddered and collapsed.
Half-asleep in the beacon tower, Li Di heard the shot and snapped instantly awake—he had nearly dozed off! He grabbed his binoculars and scanned toward the source of the gunfire. After a moment of adjustment, the sampans and ships suddenly came into sharp focus. He was so startled he nearly fell backward. Scrambling into the beacon tower's duty room, he found the hand-crank alarm and began turning it frantically.
(End of Chapter)