Chapter 1257 - Demise
On a narrow trail winding beneath the hillside, a 7.62mm round from a Mosin-Nagant punched through Zheng Zhilong's chest. Before TĹŤ TarĹŤ and his companions could react, two M77B1 rifles opened up with NATO rounds, cutting down several Japanese mercenaries in an instant. TĹŤ TarĹŤ survived the first burst only because he had thrown himself flat, reaching for Zheng Zhilong.
Ignoring the bullets snapping overhead and the bodies of his comrades crumpling around him, Tō Tarō grabbed Zheng Zhilong under the arms and dragged him on his knees toward a large boulder behind a screen of bushes. Once they reached cover, he saw the full extent of the damage—a wound to the chest, another to the leg. Blood gushed freely, and crimson foam bubbled at the corner of Zheng Zhilong's mouth. There would be no surviving this. Grief welled up in Tō Tarō's chest, and tears spilled down his face unbidden.
Though mortally wounded, Zheng Zhilong's mind remained sharp. Knowing his end had come, he forced himself to speak: "Life is like morning dew, destined to vanish. Do not grieve too deeply for me. I rose from storm and strife in my youth and built this enterprise before I was thirty. It has not been a wasted journey..." Blood surged up his throat, sending him into a fit of coughing. TĹŤ TarĹŤ hurriedly wiped the crimson from his lips. After resting a moment, Zheng Zhilong gathered his strength and continued, "I just cannot let go of Fusong..."
TĹŤ TarĹŤ choked back his tears. "I swear on my life to follow the Young Master and protect him to the death."
Zheng Zhilong gave a weak nod. "I trust you. If the situation becomes impossible, try to take him back to Hirado. Find—" He whispered several words in a voice too low for anyone else to hear.
"I understand, my lord."
"I am truly unwilling..." Zheng Zhilong's gaze drifted, and before he could finish the thought, the light left his eyes.
Tears blurred Tō Tarō's vision, but there was no time for mourning. The surviving bodyguards and mercenaries lay dead or dying around him. The ambushers would charge down at any moment. In this chaos, he could neither bury the corpse nor conceal it—but the General's head must never fall into enemy hands. This creed was inviolable to a samurai. He drew his wakizashi without hesitation, severed Zheng Zhilong's head, wrapped it in cloth, strapped the bundle to his back, and vanished into the tall grass.
By the time Qian Shuixie led his men to Observation Post 6, the gunfire had ceased entirely. The team leader who had laid the ambush gave a brief report. When Qian Shuixie heard that the sniper had hit a young man who closely matched the photograph, his heart lurched—could Zheng Zhilong truly have been here?
He scrambled down to the trail at the base of the hill. Beside a large boulder lay a dozen bodies. Their weapons and equipment marked them as elite troops, and several were clearly Japanese—mercenaries found only among Zheng Zhilong's personal guard. This group was undoubtedly his escort. The team members checked them over; a few still drew breath, but they were fading fast and could provide no useful information.
"Which one resembled Zheng Zhilong?" Qian Shuixie asked.
The problem was that none of the corpses on the ground matched the photograph. The sniper searched for a long moment but could not identify his target. Then the team members found it—behind the boulder, a headless corpse. The wounds on the chest and leg confirmed it had been struck by a Mosin-Nagant.
Qian Shuixie knelt beside it and studied the remains. The head was gone, and the body wore the coarse homespun common to Zheng's soldiers. Yet the very fact that the head had been taken spoke volumes. No one severed the heads of their own fallen comrades without reason—unless that person was a VIP, and his men, unable to bury him in time and unwilling to let the enemy claim the General's head, resorted to this extreme measure.
The evidence pointed strongly toward Zheng Zhilong. Qian Shuixie examined the ground nearby and found drag marks in the dirt. Someone had pulled this man behind the boulder after he was hit. With so many others left where they fell, the fact that only this person received such attention indicated a status far above the rest.
If not Zheng Zhilong himself, then surely one of the key figures in the Zheng organization—perhaps one of the Eighteen Chi.
"Search the bodies."
Nearly everyone carried gold and silver valuables, but nothing that could prove identity. The headless corpse was clean—entirely empty—which only deepened suspicion. Then the search yielded another clue: beneath the rough outer garments, the body wore underclothes of fine silk, wholly inconsistent with the homespun exterior.
Qian Shuixie took out his Casio card camera and photographed the entire scene. He ordered the headless corpse buried separately beside the boulder and marked. Since the head had been removed and identification was impossible, there was no point in transporting it back.
Though he subsequently reported a "suspected killing of Zheng Zhilong" to the Lichun, he continued to enforce the blockade toward Wulao Mountain to prevent any other fugitives from slipping through.
Mateus's company, harried relentlessly by Shi Zhiqi, finally shattered. Mateus and a portion of his men managed to reach the docks, seize two boats, and escape. The rest were killed or captured. Those lucky enough to evade pursuit lost all cohesion and scattered into the forests.
Follow-up fleets arrived in succession. Heavy artillery units, Army regulars, and logistics columns landed one after another. Though no targets of value remained on the island, many Zheng army stragglers still lurked in the forests, and several Zheng family fortresses had yet to be occupied. The reinforcements arrived just in time to begin the mop-up.
Gulangyu fell later that day. The First Expeditionary Force waited for the main force to land before beginning their crossing. They occupied the island without resistance—the garrison had already fled in panic.
As an intelligence officer, Xu Ke was among the first to set foot on Gulangyu after the fighting ended. This "Piano Island" was currently just a desolate speck of land, devoid of any artistic atmosphere save for a few fishing villages.
The small island southwest of Xiamen was formed almost entirely of rock, covering barely four square kilometers. Xu Ke climbed to its highest point, Sunlight Rock.
The surface of the stone glowed a pale gold. Strangely, the sunlight seemed not to reflect from it but to be absorbed entirely.
"No wonder they call it Sunlight Rock," Xu Ke murmured, gazing up at the slightly angular monolith on the hilltop. Nearby, round boulders clustered densely together.
From this vantage, one could see the extent of the Zheng family's investment in the island. They had built not only fortresses but also large-scale weapons workshops and a shipyard. The shipyard itself was unremarkable—it produced large fu ships and guang ships using traditional Chinese methods. On the beach lay several unfinished hulls that appeared to displace over a thousand tons. It seemed even Zheng Zhilong had recognized that small-tonnage vessels no longer held any advantage on these seas.
"There's not much profit in the shipyard—those ships aren't complete. But the weapons workshop is a treasure trove," said a naturalized worker from the Planning Agency's Special Search Team who accompanied him. Excitement crept into his voice. "It's packed with pig iron, copper, and lead—especially copper. I'd estimate over ten thousand catties! And dozens of iron and bronze cannons..."
He assumed the Chief was also from the Planning Agency, since Chief Xu had been inspecting supply yards and warehouses ever since coming ashore.
Xu Ke smiled faintly. His concerns were different. He cared less about how much wealth could be seized and more about whether any of these spoils might threaten the Senate's rule.
Just now at the Zhongzuo Garrison, he had spotted two Lingao-manufactured 24-pounder cannons. Their carriages were damaged, but the guns were so distinctive that the Marines recognized them immediately as standard Navy naval guns. Xu Ke subsequently verified the emblems and serial numbers, confirming that both cannons came from the missing patrol boat Hong Kong Customs 64. He ordered the soldiers to collect the shells and accessories. They soon recovered the damaged carriages, auxiliary equipment, unfired shells, and several time fuzes for shrapnel rounds.
That these cannons had ended up in Zheng Zhilong's possession clearly indicated that Hong Kong Customs 64 itself had fallen into enemy hands. This was no surprise to Xu Ke—few parties possessed both the motive and the audacity for such a deed. What troubled him more was the purpose behind it. Had they seized the ship merely to obtain the cannons? Since the guns were here, where was the machine gun?
Xu Ke pondered for a moment. "Let's take a look at the shipyard first."
The shipyard's equipment and materials were conventional, employing traditional Chinese techniques. Yet while inspecting the unfinished fu ships, Xu Ke noticed certain anomalies.
First, the length-to-beam ratio of these vessels approached four—traditional fu ships rarely exceeded three. Such proportions sacrificed speed for stability. Second, the ribs followed a European design, and on one nearly completed hull, half of the upper deck had already been laid.
An ordinary observer would have missed these changes, but Xu Ke was a naval intelligence officer with a keen eye for shipbuilding technology. He had once crammed extensively on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century navigation and naval matters.
These improvements suggested the Zheng organization had begun experimenting with European ship manufacturing techniques. Increasing rib density and strength, adding an upper deck—these appeared to be preparations for mounting more cannons. Traditional Chinese hull types like fu and guang ships could not accommodate large batteries due to structural limitations.
Still, these were all mature technologies of the era, bearing no trace of borrowing from Hong Kong Customs 64. And the missing patrol boat's whereabouts remained unknown.
(End of Chapter)