Chapter 48: The Man on the Ship
Then he went to the Planning Yuan to apply for lead, tin, and antimony. These were the three essential metals for casting lead type. Especially antimony; without antimony, the effectiveness of lead type would be greatly reduced, and its lifespan would also be shortened.
“It would be even better if we had bismuth,” Zhou Dongtian vaguely remembered that this was also needed for casting lead type.
“There’s definitely no bismuth. Lead and tin are available. Antimony is a bit difficult,” Wu De said.
The reason it was a bit difficult was not that China didn’t have antimony. On the contrary, in this era, China had a lot of antimony, both in ore and as a finished metal. The problem was that people at that time confused antimony with tin. The world’s largest antimony mine—the Xikuangshan in Hunan—was mined in the Ming Dynasty, and it was thought to be a tin mine at the time, hence the name.
Since there was no concept of antimony, when the Guangzhou Station purchased antimony, they could only say they were buying tin. As for whether what they bought was tin or antimony, it had to be shipped back for metal composition analysis.
“So far, we haven’t bought any antimony,” Wu De said. “But the Guangzhou Station has already sent people to Hunan to buy antimony. If you’re not in a hurry, you can wait a few days.”
Besides making lead type, antimony was also useful in making pyrotechnics. The combined demand from several aspects eventually led the Guangzhou Station to send a special procurement team—with personnel from the long-range exploration team also going along—to Hunan. On the way, they would also go to Jiangxi and Hubei to see if there were any non-ferrous metal mines that had already been developed in this era. The provinces in the Huguang region were all major mining provinces.
“Hehe, you could have just come to me directly. I have antimony here,” Ji Wusheng said with a smile, patting his shoulder when Zhou Dongtian came to the last stop—the metallurgy department—to discuss the casting of lead type.
“You have it?!” Zhou Dongtian’s spirits rose.
“Indeed, I have some private stock,” Ji Wusheng nodded. “The quantity is not large. This thing increases every now and then, and the quantity is not large. I was too lazy to report it every day, so I thought I’d just accumulate it and report it all at once. Anyway, antimony is not rare, so no one would suspect me of corruption.”
He took him to a warehouse in the non-ferrous metal workshop of the metallurgy department. A dozen antimony ingots were lying in the warehouse, and there were also a dozen boxes of small, un-remelted antimony pieces, all of small size.
“You’re something else! Where did you get it? Didn’t you say you hadn’t bought any antimony?”
“Indeed, I haven’t bought any, but there’s antimony in the money,” Ji Wusheng said.
The non-ferrous metal workshop under the metallurgy department had a long-term task, which was to melt and refine the copper coins and scrap metal objects collected from various channels. Whether it was copper coins or various scrap copper and iron, they were actually alloys, containing various non-ferrous metals, which could be recovered after purification.
“The most recovered are the various small copper coins from private minting. The locals say they are mixed with a lot of lead, but in fact, they are not only mixed with lead, but also with tin—and a lot of them are also mixed with antimony.”
As for daily utensils, most were pewter and tinware, which also contained a lot of antimony mixed in as tin. In this way, these antimony pieces were recovered bit by bit.
“Although it’s not much, it should be enough for now,” Ji Wusheng said. “If you need it, I’ll report the number to the Planning Yuan immediately. Once the procedures are done, it’s all yours.”
“It’s a bit little, but it’s enough for now,” Zhou Dongtian thought. Since people had already been sent to purchase it, subsequent antimony would arrive continuously.
After solving the problem of the type casting materials, he handed over the remaining matters of the type casting process and printing press manufacturing to the engineers of the machinery factory—they would choose the optimal movable type printing press plan based on the data.
Zhou Dongtian only made one request: it would be best to design two different printing presses, one a small machine that could be hand-cranked or powered by animal power, and the other a large machine powered by machinery. The former he planned to use for setting up printing factories in the territory of the Great Ming in the future, especially in Nanjing. Zhou Dongtian was already preparing to reenact the events of Leizhou in Nanjing, to crush the woodblock printing industry of Sanshan Street in Nanjing in one fell swoop and establish a brand new printing empire. The latter would of course be used in the occupied areas of the transmigrators.
He asked the Planning Yuan for a quota of “purified” apprentices and prepared to send them to Hu Qingbai for training.
“These apprentices don’t need to be taught anything else. The key is to teach them to read. It’s not over when they know the eight hundred commonly used characters. They must know at least three thousand Chinese characters,” Zhou Dongtian said. “And they must know both simplified and traditional characters.”
“Good heavens, your request is too high. Learning so much in three months?” Hu Qingbai was dumbfounded. “It will have to be cramming and corporal punishment.”
“As you wish. If corporal punishment for female students can make the teachers teach with full enthusiasm, you can also choose female apprentices—I need strong ones, I’m counting on them to set lead type,” Zhou Dongtian said. “By the way, they also need to know pinyin, and their pinyin must be good!”
Knowing pinyin was mainly for the convenience of character retrieval. If there was a linotype machine, this requirement could actually be dispensed with.
Zhou Dongtian, without stopping, rushed to Si Kaide’s place and requested to join the “Jiangnan Trade Inspection Group.” The purpose was naturally to inspect the printing industry in Nanjing.
“There is no Jiangnan inspection group. There are only trade inspection teams to Liaodong and Southeast Asia. The ones going to Jiangnan are the people setting up the trading posts. You want to go?”
“I want to go!” Zhou Dongtian said affirmatively.
“Fine, but if you go, you must talk less and follow orders on the road.”
“No problem, I’m mainly going to observe. I won’t stay long.”
The news of the formation of the north and south trade inspection teams moved many people who were interested in being dispatched. Many people were daunted by the training required to be dispatched to the Great Ming, but being dispatched to Southeast Asia or Liaodong did not require “Ming-ification.” Especially in Southeast Asia, not only could they enjoy the tropical scenery, but they might also be able to pick up a few foreign girls. A dozen people immediately signed up for the Southeast Asia inspection team.
The purpose of dispatching the Southeast Asia inspection team was to get a feel for the situation in Southeast Asia, especially to collect information on the Dutch. According to the assessment of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, the Dutch were the most threatening European rival to the transmigrator group. Therefore, inspecting the Dutch East India Company was listed as an urgent task.
Lando spat. The saliva flew into the dark sea and immediately disappeared.
He was unemployed, and had been for a long time. Since he had followed Aragones on an unsuccessful expedition, he hadn’t landed a new job.
After Aragones’s ship rendezvoused with Liu Xiang’s fleet, they once again attempted to gain a foothold near the mouth of the Pearl River. The task given to him by Geranzani to secretly sabotage their success was completely unnecessary. Liu Xiang only wanted to use the Spanish to strike at Zheng Zhilong and warn him not to “cross the line.” He had no intention of letting them gain any real foothold.
As a result, Aragones, as the main foreign aid in Liu Xiang’s fleet, fought a battle with Zheng Zhilong’s men in a muddled encounter. In terms of performance, the Countess of Scarborough performed quite well. Taking advantage of the galleon’s high hull and superior firepower, Aragones fully satisfied his desire for combat performance and taught the “Chinese barbarians” a harsh lesson.
But when Zheng Zhilong’s fleet began to release fire ships, Aragones had to turn and flee. If he lost this galleon, he would be finished. As a result, the hastily assembled crew in their confusion ran the Countess of Scarborough aground, and it was immediately surrounded by countless “junks.” Zheng’s sailors swarmed aboard, and in a moment, the demoralized Malay sailors on deck were slaughtered. Just as Aragones was about to meet his end, Liu Xiang’s ship came alongside and finally saved his life. But the noble “Spanish lady,” the Countess of Scarborough, after being “trained” into a sorry state at Bopu, had now completely fallen into the hands of Zheng Zhilong as a captive.
Lando almost died in the chaos. In fact, Aragones was able to hold out until his allies came to the rescue entirely thanks to the VZ68 submachine gun that Lando had hidden on his person. He hid in the mizzen topcastle, continuously picking off the surging Zheng family sailors with bursts of fire. The enemy, intimidated by the fierce firepower, halted their advance. A group of Zheng family sailors then began to install a cannon on the deck, preparing to bombard the mizzen topcastle. Lando used his submachine gun to pick them off one by one, and with great difficulty, he stopped this attempt.
After being rescued, he repeatedly thanked God—Weiss Lando had never been a devout believer, but in his dozen or so years as a mercenary, he had never encountered such a dangerous and desperate situation. If Liu Xiang’s men hadn’t come to the rescue, and he had been trapped on that ship, he wouldn’t have been able to use his great skills. He would have either been chopped into pieces or forced to jump into the sea—and would most likely have drowned.
“I should have gone to Manila to make a living long ago.”
Weiss Lando, an Italian-American, 35 years old, had participated in the Bosnian War as a volunteer, first fighting for the Muslims and then for the Croats. After the war, he and a few partners started a small-scale arms smuggling business. The business had just started to pick up when he made a mistake in Iraq, lost most of his goods, and was finally wanted back home. With nowhere to go, he took his last bit of goods and prepared to go to Thailand to sell them to the local gangs.
Just one day before arriving, they suddenly encountered a strange storm on the South China Sea—one minute it was clear skies, the next a fierce wind was blowing, and it felt like the boat was being sucked into a whirlpool. Lando even vaguely remembered that the sky in the distance was still blue, with no storm clouds. Then they all lost consciousness.
When they woke up, only three of the five people on the boat were left. One of them was already dead. Lando tried to continue sailing, but found that the GPS navigation system was a blank slate, with all data reset to zero. All navigation equipment was useless. Even the radio was a dead silence, except for the hiss of static. Even the maritime satellite phone had lost its signal.
The remaining two people used a sextant to test, and it proved that they had deviated from their original course by more than five hundred nautical miles. This data shocked them—the chart showed that they had arrived not far from Dongsha Island.
This made Lando and the others panic. Dongsha Island was the territory of the Taiwanese army, with marines on it. If their boat was inspected, no country’s law allowed private arms trafficking. How could they get away with it? And Taiwan was more loyal to its motherland than he was to his own. If he was caught, he would definitely be extradited back. A few federal felonies plus so many years without parole, he would have to spend the rest of his life in an orange jumpsuit.
They quickly started the engine and headed for the open sea, but the magnetic compass and TACAN navigation system were completely chaotic. The needle on the compass spun slowly in circles, unable to point north. Lando and the others cried out in distress. In the chaos, the fishing boat sailed to a deserted island, and the fuel was almost gone.
It was on this deserted island that Lando first realized that he had encountered something strange or terrible. He had measured countless times with his sextant and chart, and it proved that he was on Dongsha Island.
But there were no Taiwanese marines here, not even a trace of an army ever having been stationed here—Lando had been to many deserted islands. As long as people had lived on an island for a long time, they would inevitably leave traces. If an army had been stationed, there would be even more man-made traces—at the very least, there would be a reinforced concrete water storage tank, and the foundations of the barracks and sentry posts would definitely be preserved. But here, there were only traces of local fishermen having been there.
All the electronic equipment remained silent. And the radar screen was a complete blank—Lando knew that the Dongsha Island area was on the route to Taiwan, and there should be many cargo ships passing by. But the radar only showed a very small number of small reflection points that seemed to be fishing boats.
No one could explain this problem. Lando could only think that his sextant measurement was inaccurate.
After some discussion, the two survivors decided to abandon the boat—the fishing boat was out of fuel, and it was carrying some arms. They first dealt with their companion’s body, then packed up the things on the boat, opened the seacock, and carefully sank the boat. The location was carefully chosen so that it could be easily salvaged later—in his plan, he would be able to come back in a few months.
On the way, they encountered a storm, the boat capsized, and they were rescued by a group of strange fishermen—the tattered fishing boat and the strange appearance of these people made him think he had reached some corner of Indonesia. Finally, he was put ashore in a daze and escorted by people with spears and armor—it was only then that he realized he had encountered something incredible.
After a series of transfers, he was finally handed over to a person who looked like a European priest. The priest asked him about his origin in several languages, and he finally understood one—Italian.
From Father Anders, Lando learned that it was “the 1627th year after the birth of our Lord Jesus.” He screamed and fainted on the spot.
When he woke up, he was already in Macau. After looking at the street scene in a daze, Lando still accepted the reality—a person who made a living on the edge of a gun would never surrender to the environment. He immediately picked up the Italian he had almost forgotten. With his limited historical knowledge, Lando knew that English speakers were not welcome here among the Portuguese.
Lando slowly made a name for himself by running errands for Father Anders. He claimed to be a scion of a rural noble family in Parma, Italy, and had been a volunteer in the Balkans—the latter was true, and the former was not entirely a lie: Lando’s grandfather was born in this village and had a strong impression of a fallen noble family in the village, and often told little Lando about this family. The so-called Parma scion that Lando fabricated was based on this family. Even the coat of arms was plagiarized and slightly modified.
The only problem was that he often blurted out English. Lando had to claim that he had been a prisoner of the British and had stayed in England for several years. As for how an Italian could have been a prisoner of the British, Lando had to continue to make up stories, saying that he had served the Catholic King of Spain—this was not uncommon among Italians—and was captured by the British during a campaign to support the Irish.
However, when he talked about this issue, he firmly stated that he only went to war to make a living, not out of admiration for His Majesty the King. He had a clear feeling that the head of the local Jesuit order valued the interests of the Portuguese far more than their Spanish king.
But for a modern person to live in 17th-century Macau was still very difficult. He had almost nothing, and the scariest thing was that everyone suspected his origin.
Fortunately, Lando had some knowledge of history. When he was fighting for money in Bosnia, he had some experience with religious fanaticism. He knew that it was best for him to show some religious fanaticism at this time, otherwise this group of priests would probably barbecue him for being out of place.
So Lando went to church for Mass every week—he had been baptized a Catholic as a child, but had not been to church since he became an adult—and he also went to confession from time to time. He also strictly observed the Friday fast. When the forty-day Lent came upon him, Lando experienced extreme hunger for the first time. Eating only one meal a day from morning to night, and not being able to eat meat, was not something a modern person could endure. For almost a month, he felt weak and had to live on smelly salted fish and eggs every day.
Besides the deadly fast, life in the 17th century was like a nightmare. There were annoying parasites everywhere, and it was difficult to have a chance to take a bath—this place was not even as good as the poor villages in North Africa he had been to, where many small cities had good steam baths. There was no fresh food, and salted meat and salted fish constituted the main part of the diet. The red wine transported from thousands of miles away was rare and expensive, and tasted like vinegar. He sometimes ate at Chinese restaurants—although the taste was completely different from what he had eaten in Chinatown, at least most of it was fresh vegetables and meat.
The sanitary conditions were terrifying. Fortunately, he was well-traveled and could endure it. The most terrifying thing was the toilet. After Lando went once, he decided he would rather find a bush in the suburbs to relieve himself than go to the toilet in the official residence. And he found that whether it was the Chinese or the Europeans, most people had no concept of toilet paper. He had to spend his own money to buy paper to solve the problem—and the paper here was very expensive.