Chapter 51: Lando's Mission
“Can you mark all the facilities in the port?”
“I can for the places I’m allowed to go, but there’s a large part of the port that my men and I are not allowed to enter,” Li Huamei said with some regret. “Their surveillance of me is very strict—in the past, it was the Australians themselves who stood guard, and it was more relaxed. Now that they’ve been replaced by Ming people recruited from the mainland, it’s much tighter.”
“So you’re starting to lose your appeal to them,” Li Siya said jokingly. “Your charm has declined.”
“No, I think they like me very much, especially among the naval officers,” Li Huamei said. “But there are some people among the Australians—they are very vigilant and suspicious of everyone—including their own people. Considering that they are actually weak in numbers, this is understandable.”
“How many troops do you estimate they have?”
“I can’t estimate that, but in the port, you can always see about two companies of infantry, very well-trained—completely European-style training, and very well-equipped. Gunners and sailors are not included. If all the sailors were armed, they could form at least twenty companies. These sailors are also well-trained. The Australians have a lot of firearms and plenty of ammunition.”
“So the Dutch have no hope of attacking Lingao.”
“None at all. How many ships can the Dutch send? Fifteen? Sixteen? They could only send fourteen ships during the expedition to Penghu,” Li Huamei said. “Back then, they brought all the British with them and still couldn’t even take Macau. Now they want to attack Lingao, which is ten times harder to crack than Macau. I’m afraid they won’t even be able to enter the port and will just be rebuffed.”
“That’s why they’re willing to pay five thousand guilders,” Li Siya said.
“Our relationship with the Australians is very good, and we make a lot of profit from the Goa trade. Why should we pull chestnuts out of the fire for the Dutch? It’s only five thousand guilders.”
“This is not as simple as five thousand guilders,” Li Siya said, lifting a corner of the curtain and gazing at the fountain dripping in the atrium. “You said that the Australians’ power has been growing stronger day by day over the past three years. When they are strong enough to ignore the powers of the South China Sea, will there still be good days for us sisters?”
“They’re still a long way off. Zheng Zhilong…”
“Zheng Zhilong is also a threat,” Li Siya said. “But the Australians in Lingao are more dangerous than Zheng Zhilong—no one knows what their intentions are—they still have many cards they haven’t shown.”
Li Siya believed that a fight between the Dutch and the Australians would do them no harm. Since the Dutch could not eliminate the Australians—they would only be beaten back in defeat—their interests in Lingao would not be affected in any way. The threat of a formidable enemy like the Dutch would only make the Australians more eager to win over their existing collaborators, and Li Huamei could demand more benefits from it.
Overall, if this opportunity was used well, it would be a “double loss” for those two, and a “double win” for the Li sisters.
“We need to make the Australians suffer a little,” Li Siya said. “Then they will be better to you. In short, it’s better for things to be a little chaotic on this sea.”
“The Dutch can’t make the Australians suffer. They don’t have the ability.”
“That depends on us, doesn’t it?” she said. “Give the Dutch a helping hand.”
Li Huamei remained calm. “What do you want to do?”
“There is one person I am prepared to use.”
“Aragones? Although his situation is not good, he is not a very useful person.”
“Him? He has some use. But the person I want to use is this one: Weiss Lando.”
So she sent her most trusted black female slave, who often handled secret matters for her, to see Lando. This woman not only spoke very good Portuguese, but was also a cold-blooded killer when necessary. She was skilled in preparing and administering poisons and had silently eliminated many of Li Siya’s enemies and people she found annoying.
Li Siya, with her keen sense of smell and her all-pervasive spies—she kept a large number of scoundrels of all nationalities in Macau as her eyes and ears—was in control of all kinds of information in the city.
Weiss Lando’s appearance in Macau did not arouse much of her interest. He was just a common European dreg in the Far East—relying on his brute force and skill with swords and guns to try to get some benefits. Even on the Countess of Scarborough, she had not been very impressed by him, except for his strange-accented Italian and his out-of-place demeanor.
Later, she saw him many times on the street, in taverns, and at church. This person never received her attention, until one time, one of her subordinates brought her a strange thing.
It was a rectangular piece of paper, very exquisitely printed, with a round portrait of a European man on it. As for the text on it, she couldn’t read it. It should be a European language. Besides that, there was an Arabic numeral 10.
The source of this piece of paper was the landlady of the small inn where Lando was staying. After getting drunk, he had tried to pay his bill with this piece of paper. After being refused, he had a drunken fit and stuffed it into the landlady’s bodice.
Li Siya ordered to buy this piece of paper from the landlady for one real. This piece of paper reminded her of the similar printed matter she had found on Manager Wen back then. But the one on Manager Wen was red and had the Arabic numeral 100 on it. The portrait was of a yellow-skinned person. Also, the text on it was in Chinese characters.
“Weiss Lando is an Australian! Or at least has a very deep connection with the Australians!” Li Siya felt like she had discovered a new continent. Thinking about it this way, Aragones’s attack on Lingao was a suicide mission from the beginning! Needless to say, the other party had sent this person to Macau for her.
She immediately had someone keep a close watch on this Australian—but after more than a year, Lando not only had not returned to Lingao once, but had never even been to Huang Shunlong’s shop. He had no contact with the outside world, except when he was working for the Jesuits. He spent almost every day in Macau, living a life of debauchery.
In any case, he did not look like a spy.
She inquired about all the news about this person from her informant in the Jesuit order. Lando was received from the hands of the Great Ming government. The Great Ming government had captured him from a small county town on the coast called “Lingao.” At that time, he was rescued by a few fishermen and sent to the county town.
The informant told her that Lando served the Jesuits very loyally, and Father Geranzani was very satisfied with him—except for his spending habits.
After a long period of observation and probing, Li Siya confirmed one thing: Lando was an Australian, but Lando and the Australians in Lingao were not on the same side.
If they were on the same side, he would never have had any contact with the Australians in Lingao for more than two years. And he had never done anything to serve the Australians—except possibly leaking the news of the night raid on Bopu.
Also, she had heard from Geranzani’s attendant that Lando had told the president several times, “They are out-and-out Chinese, although not people of the Ming Dynasty.”
Although the president might not have understood what he meant, Li Siya understood very well: Lando clearly knew the background of the Australians in Lingao. As for why he emphasized “Chinese, not people of the Ming Dynasty,” there should be another reason.
If it were an ordinary person, Li Siya would have had him secretly kidnapped and tortured to get the truth out of him long ago. But Lando was serving the Jesuits in Macau, and she was not yet arrogant enough to dare to offend the Jesuits.
Now was a good opportunity. Li Siya considered it for a few days and came to a conclusion.
The Dutch wanted to find out the secrets of Lingao. She could let Lando go. If Lando was an Australian spy, he would never tell her the key defensive measures of Lingao. And Lando did not know that Li Huamei was her person. A simple comparison would reveal the truth. On the other hand, if Lando was not a spy, his intelligence on the Australians’ many secrets would be more detailed than her foster sister’s.
If that were the case, Lando would be a rare commodity! Li Siya thought, the Australians will inevitably be a hegemon in the South China Sea in the future. Having someone who knows their secrets in her hands would be of immeasurable benefit.
Lando did not yet know that he had been schemed against by Li Siya. Since he had accepted the money, he decided to go to Lingao himself. He wanted to see with his own eyes what the Chinese were doing in Lingao and assess whether he could defect to them. In his view, no army of this era could be a match for the Chinese armed with modern weapons. If the Chinese were to be defeated by the people of this era, then he would be better off giving up the idea of defecting to them.
However, a European face going to Lingao would be too conspicuous. He would be targeted by the Chinese as soon as he entered the country. It was impossible to pretend to be a merchant—he didn’t look like a merchant, knew nothing about the trade here, and wouldn’t be able to withstand questioning. After much consideration, Lando decided to pretend to be a priest’s attendant. The Jesuits were recently planning to send two missionaries to Lingao. After receiving Lu Ruohua’s letter requesting more missionaries, the Jesuits had sent three more people, but the demand for missionaries in Lingao was still increasing. In addition, a priest had recently fallen ill and “answered the Lord’s call” while preaching in the Li area. According to the request of the Lingao church, the Jesuits decided to send two more missionaries to Lingao to preach.
Lando went to ask Father Comancho, saying only that he was very curious about Lingao and hoped to go with the group to have a look. His request was immediately approved. So Lando became a member of the Jesuit visiting group.
The spring sunlight, through the gaps in the bamboo grove outside the window, cast dappled shadows on the brick floor. A gentle breeze swayed the green bamboo, and a curtain of fragmented shadows flowed back and forth like a stream.
The bamboo had all turned green again, and the withered yellow leaves of winter were gradually fading away. The courtyard was full of life.
The furnishings in the study were very simple. It was hard to imagine that this was the private study of the Governor-General of Liangguang, Wang Zunde.
Wang Zunde was currently looking down at a letter. His dress was very simple, almost indistinguishable from a poor scholar. Wang Zunde was known for his simplicity. He always wore plain clothes and ate simple food, and had a reputation for being upright and honest in the officialdom.
This was a letter brought back from the capital by one of his disciples. Given his noble status and position, it would have been convenient and fast for the provincial courier to deliver private letters for him, but Wang Zunde never troubled them—who knew if the Eastern Depot had read the private letters that these couriers brought back to the province.
A private letter from the capital, the content was nothing more than family matters, various news, and the political climate in the court. It was originally nothing, but he was afraid that the eunuchs of the Eastern Depot who were looking for trouble would find some “inappropriate” words, and he would be in trouble.
The letter was written by a fellow official from the same year. And this letter made him feel a vague sense of unease. What caused his unease were the several “attachments” that came with the letter.
According to the custom of the Ming officialdom, when people wrote letters, besides the main text, there was also the so-called “secondary attachment.” A secondary attachment was an unsigned letter used to ask for favors or discuss confidential matters.
The letter in Wang Zunde’s hand now also had three secondary attachments.
The main text of the letter was, as usual, full of polite pleasantries about health and well-being. Wang Zunde quickly scanned it. The first part was about news from the court. He roughly read it. It was about the recent developments in the court: Yuan Chonghuan’s prospects were not good—more than a month ago, the court had already sent people to Guangxi to arrest Yuan’s family and relatives in Teng County and bring them to the capital. This official, who was once highly regarded by the emperor, would probably not escape execution. Although Yuan had no connection with him and he would not be implicated, seeing him being heavily used and then arrested, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of “the fox mourning the death of the hare.”
He picked up the second secondary attachment.
The content on this was about the news of the court’s battles with the Jiannu and the roving bandits. The war in the east had temporarily calmed down after the court recovered Zunhua. It was just that the situation of the roving bandits in the northwest was getting worse day by day, and there was a tendency for it to spread like wildfire. And among them, the post station soldiers, garrison soldiers, and military households of the Shaanxi garrison “followed the rebels in large numbers.”
When Wang Zunde saw this, he couldn’t help but sneer. He thought this was only to be expected. The garrison soldiers’ pay was already in arrears for years, and the abolition of the post station soldiers was a bad move. The northwest of Shaanxi was a poor and cold place, unlike the fertile lands of Jiangnan and Guangdong, where one could still barely survive by begging. They were originally living a hard life, half-starved. Now that they were laid off, where else could they go but to rebel?
Such a chaotic situation would probably not be suppressed for seven or eight years.
He threw down this secondary attachment and picked up the one below.
This one was written very briefly, but it was more important. It mainly said that since Xiong Wenhuan had pacified Zheng Zhilong, the situation on the southeast coast had stabilized somewhat, and the emperor seemed to be satisfied with this. He was urging Xiong Wenhuan to “clear the seas” as soon as possible.
“Hmph,” Wang Zunde snorted. Xiong Wenhuan’s move was just to use one bandit to attack another, hoping that both sides would be defeated and he could reap the benefits. It was just that this matter was probably not as simple as he thought.
Although Guangdong did not have much contact with Zheng Zhilong, they knew a lot about the situation. The news mainly came from the Portuguese, including Zheng Zhilong’s rise to power and his special relationship with Japan. Wang Zunde knew very well that Zheng Zhilong was by no means a good person, nor was he an ordinary pirate who would be satisfied with an empty title like “Guerrilla General.”
After his pacification, he refused to withdraw from Zhongzuosuo and occupied Jinmen and Xiamen. His purpose was nothing more than to use them as ports for trade with Japan and other places. The Portuguese came to trade in Guangzhou twice a year, and many useful pieces of information could be obtained from them. For example, Zhongzuosuo was a more ideal trading port than Yuegang; Zheng Zhilong’s repeated attacks on Yuegang were not for robbery, but mainly to force the merchants not to trade there anymore.
“Zheng the rebel has the heart of a wolf and great ambitions. He has by no means sincerely submitted to the court!” This was Gao Shunqin’s comment after hearing about Zheng Zhilong’s pacification—of course, it was a private one.
But Xiong Wenhuan did not see it that way. For more than a year, he had been continuously supporting Zheng Zhilong with ships and heavy cannons, and even sent many of the Hongyi cannons that Wang Zunde had cast for Fujian to Zheng Zhilong. Zheng Zhilong in Fujian was getting whatever he wanted. He knew that the Zheng family had extensive properties in Fujian and had even extended their hands to Guangdong, buying many manors and properties. They even had manors they had purchased outside the city of Guangzhou. It was extremely arrogant!
But Zheng Zhilong had, after all, eliminated old sea bandits like Zhu Cailao one by one. As long as Xiong Wenhuan’s reports of victory continued, any impeachment would be ineffective. In the court and among the public, there were quite a few people who agreed with Xiong Wenhuan’s approach. The court opinion was very favorable to him, and it seemed very likely that he would be promoted.
This news seemed to have nothing to do with Guangdong. But Wang Zunde knew that if Xiong Wenhuan was promoted, the most likely position for him to take over was his own—Guangdong also had pirates, and their strength was no less than that of Fujian. With a reputation as a capable official who was “good at suppressing bandits and pacifying the seas,” Xiong Wenhuan would most likely come to Guangdong. He was already the governor of Fujian and had made great contributions. It was unlikely that he would just be transferred to be the governor of Guangdong.
If he couldn’t quickly open up a situation and achieve a few victories at sea, he would probably not be able to hold on to his position as the Governor-General of Liangguang.
It was just that the pirates on the Guangdong sea were also not easy to deal with. The first major group was led by Liu Laoxiang. This person had long been cruising outside the mouth of the Pearl River, occasionally going deep into the Pearl River to rob and plunder villagers and ships, and blocking the trade going abroad. The Portuguese in Macau had talked to him three or two times, hoping that the two sides would jointly suppress them.
The Portuguese had large carracks and red barbarian bronze cannons, and their combat power was considerable. But the Great Ming could not send out troops. To suppress them, they had to issue military pay and prepare ships, all of which required a large amount of silver. The Guangdong Provincial Administration had been crying poor, saying that there was no silver available in the provincial treasury. Right now, the money for casting cannons for the various provinces was mostly still in arrears. The cannon price approved by the Ministry of Works had not yet been seen.
However, Guangdong had many sources of revenue. If they really wanted to fight, they could still raise a sum of money from somewhere. It was just a bit not worth it.
Moreover, the officialdom in Guangdong knew nothing about Liu Laoxiang’s background, even less than the Portuguese knew. Without a guide, it was a fool’s dream to find Liu Laoxiang’s fleet in the vast sea and countless small islands. In the end, it would just be another loss of troops and generals. The court could afford to lose in the past, but now, the court could no longer afford to lose. One defeat meant that it would never recover.
Thinking of this, he was very annoyed.