Chapter 296: The Collaborator
“But we must not underestimate this fellow. He is a pragmatist through and through. Just look at the percussion fuze he designed,” said Lin Shenhe. Weiss had managed to bribe some Spanish officers to steal several of Hale’s artillery fuzes under the guise of them being scrap, and had the Haiqi make a special trip to bring these dangerous items back to Lingao for disassembly and analysis. “The structure is terrifyingly simple, with no detonation safety mechanism other than a separating spring. The key is that it doesn’t require any complex processes or many skilled craftsmen, making it well-suited for the production level of that half-baked factory in Manila. At the very least, it can detonate with relative reliability. Compared to the standard Type 1 fuze produced by the Bopu factory, its effectiveness in tests on medium-hard ground was only eight percent lower, which is quite a good performance. As for safety, besides our own products, what other 17th-century high-explosive shell fuze even needs to consider safety performance?”
The atmosphere in the meeting room turned grave again. Xu Ke, who had been silent until now, spoke up: “The data on imported materials, combined with intelligence from other sources, allows us to basically conclude that the Philippine authorities currently lack the ability to produce their own pig iron.” He pulled a few photos from his documents. “The Grand Library’s materials indicate that the early iron industry in the Philippines was closely related to technology spread by Chinese immigrants. Until the early 21st century, the local blast furnaces were still the ‘trumpet furnaces’ that had appeared in Fujian in the late Ming Dynasty. However, according to the Manila station’s report, no similar equipment has been found in Hale’s factory or elsewhere.”
“If the personnel who infiltrated the melting and casting workshop of Hale’s factory saw correctly,” Xu Ke flipped through some more pictures, which were sketches made by the intelligence bureau based on Ji Mide’s descriptions, “the pig iron ingots and scrap iron are unloaded from the port onto small boats and transported directly up the river to the factory’s dock. The smelting equipment includes a crude ground furnace, where Chinese workers use the traditional Chinese iron puddling method to produce wrought iron to feed the forging and rolling machines. There are also two cupola furnaces for casting special parts, which are very common in Europe at present. The core of the casting workshop is three reverberatory furnaces. According to the Manila station’s description, some may be used for melting copper, but they are mainly for melting iron.”
“Among them is a smaller reverberatory furnace, from which workers are often seen taking out red-hot clay pots and pouring the red-hot molten metal from the pots into trough molds. Intelligence personnel witnessed workers loading each clay pot with weighed iron filings, small broken pieces of iron, charcoal particles, and cut iron bars before putting them into the furnace, with 12 pots being placed in the furnace door each time. We deduce that this is for producing crucible steel, and the process seems to be similar to Krupp’s method. However, the output is not large. The main function of these reverberatory furnaces is to refine pig iron of varying quality from different sources. It makes sense that Hale’s factory, unable to produce its own pig iron, would place special emphasis on this process.”
“Please note, the style of the reverberatory furnace shown in the sketch is basically identical to the unfinished twin-chamber reverberatory furnace of the Zheng clan found on Xiamen Island. At the Xiamen foundry site, even hollow, water-cooled cast iron tuyeres for the furnace were discovered. If Hale is also using the same tuyeres in his Manila factory, then his reverberatory furnace should be designed with a heat exchange chamber to increase production efficiency through a hot blast. At least in this casting workshop, Hale’s reverberatory furnace is the most technologically advanced thing for its time, or in other words, black technology. As for the others, green sand casting, chill casting, and the like are nothing special.”
“Has Amaterasu descended to Earth?” someone retorted. “So this little Japanese is a weapons expert and a chemistry expert, and now he’s a metallurgy expert too?”
“We know too little about him. But since he is Japanese and skilled in weapon manufacturing, one might guess he has conducted in-depth research into his own country’s military technology history. After all, modern Japanese military industry started with building reverberatory furnaces to cast iron cannons in Nirayama and Kagoshima. From some of the materials I’ve reviewed, some refining reverberatory furnaces in the Bakumatsu and early Meiji periods in Japan did indeed use similarly structured hollow, water-cooled tuyeres.”
“The Philippines is rich in all kinds of metal ores. Could this be the situation,” said Wu Mu, “that Hale, in order to confuse us or for the sake of caution, on one hand requests imported metals from the Spanish Governor-General, and on the other hand, is setting up native blast furnaces in other parts of the Philippines to smelt iron and copper, which are then transported to the Manila factory for processing? I’m not denying the achievements of Comrade Rando and the Manila station, but the farthest their sphere of activity extends is the outskirts of Manila, which inevitably leaves blank spots.”
“I agree,” said Jiang Shan. “I propose we immediately dispatch a long-range resource exploration team to cooperate with the Manila station to investigate the important mineral deposits in the Philippines, especially the current state of mineral extraction and processing, to ensure we have firsthand intelligence. Considering the danger of this mission, I request the assistance and support of our comrades from the Army and Navy departments, and the Special Reconnaissance Team.”
“Also, we have now recognized this man Hale’s talents. What we need to figure out now is his purpose in serving the Spanish colonial authorities so diligently. Is his attitude towards us friendly, or is he hostile? If the latter, how do we eliminate him and the adverse effects he brings? To resolve this, Comrade Rando needs to try to make contact with him proactively. This also carries certain risks and requires everyone’s assistance. We must start drawing up various contingency plans and prepare for everything from peaceful contact to all-out war.”
On the coastline of one of the countless uninhabited islands in Manila Bay, a lamp lit up in the morning mist, flashing rhythmically.
With the flashing of the light, a light, two-masted Cantonese junk gradually emerged from the hazy sea mist. It cautiously patrolled along the coastline, maintaining a distance from the shore. A light signal also began to flash from its mast.
After a few exchanges with the light on the shore, the junk’s rudder was moved, and its bow changed direction, heading towards the small island.
The island’s coast was rugged with reefs, and dense jungle and wild grass extended almost to the rocks. The coastline was desolate. In this seemingly uninhabited small bay, however, a wooden pier had been built. Judging by the decay of the wood and the density of the barnacles attached to it, the pier had been recently constructed.
Although wild grass was already growing vigorously on the compacted gravel ground, it was still possible to see that the ground along the coast by the pier had been leveled.
The junk cautiously approached the pier. At the bow and stern, several stout men wearing conical hats and black clothes, armed with Japanese-style arquebuses, bows, and lit match cords, carefully kept watch on their surroundings.
The sea and the island were silent, with only the sound of waves crashing against the reefs echoing. The junk gradually drew near the pier. As a sailor at the bow threw out a mooring line, a whistle sounded from the shore, breaking the silence. Several small Malay sailors ran out from the woods, caught the line thrown from the bow, and skillfully secured it to a bollard. The two sides exchanged a few words in the Hokkien dialect, and a gangplank was quickly set up.
Marcos appeared on the pier, welcoming the arriving guest.
They didn’t exchange many pleasantries on the pier. Marcos led the man directly to a thatched hut in the jungle.
Hale was already waiting in the hut for Zheng Zhifeng’s arrival.
He was not dressed like an “old sea dog” as he was when he last met Zheng Zhifeng, but was draped in a monk-like black robe. Other than that, he was no different from when they had met on Xiao Liuqiu.
In contrast, Zheng Zhifeng’s former elegant and noble demeanor of a young gentleman had vanished. His face was haggard, a clear sign of mental and physical exhaustion.
I didn’t expect him to be so worn down! Hale was secretly surprised and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret.
Hale was one of the first in Manila to receive news of Anping’s fall. The destruction of Anping-Xiamen and the death of Zheng Zhilong were a devastating blow to the Zheng clan, and no less a heavy blow to Hale himself. He had originally hoped that the Zheng clan would act as a stable supplier of Chinese goods, and he could use their urgent need for firearms to draw funds to upgrade his own factory. At the same time, by improving the Zheng family’s equipment, he could enhance their combat effectiveness and tie down the Australians’ actions. Hale had originally hoped the Zheng clan could drag the Australians into an endless war of attrition along the Chinese coast, leaving them no time to look south.
But the Australians’ strike against Xiamen-Anping completely shattered his plan. Although the Zheng family was not completely annihilated and their territory along the Fujian coast was not damaged, the Zheng clan had virtually disintegrated. The remaining forces were fragmented, and their strength was greatly diminished. That year, they didn’t even send an Anhai ship to Manila. His spies sent to the Chinese coast and Japan reported that the Anhai ships sent by the remnants of the Zheng family to Japan had suffered heavy losses. A Ming merchant had crossed the sea ahead of schedule during the winter when non-Chinese ships did not arrive, taking an unknown route and transporting a large quantity of Chinese goods. Not only that, it was rumored that a large amount of goods had also been transshipped from Korea. As a result, when the Anhai ships arrived, they found that all Chinese goods were plentiful, and the market price was low. The Anhai ships had to sell their cargo at a reduced price. Not only that, the spies also reported that although the Anhai ships owned by the various factions of the Zheng family had quickly recovered to a considerable number, many were hastily built with that year’s timber, of very poor quality, typical one-time trading vessels.
What worried Hale the most was that the current division of the Zheng clan severely weakened their strength, making them even more strategically insignificant. And the division also made the Zheng clan unable to resist the encroachment of other forces: the Liu Xiang group, compressed into the Chaoshan area, was stirring with the support of the Dutch. The Dutch were bargaining among the various Zheng factions, trying to gain the greatest benefit. The Australians turned a blind eye to the changing situation in Weitou Bay, yet they swallowed up the foundation the Zheng clan had painstakingly built in Tainan over many years.