The Rebellion Engines Read online

  “Chang-wei,” I began in a warning tone. “Hanzhu has never aligned himself with the Taiping movement or any other rebellion.”

  He had just rejected Qing rule and taken to sea. He operated outside the laws, which is exactly why he was useful now.

  “We need to negotiate passage to Shanghai for me and my crew and our cargo.”

  I tensed at the mention of Chang-wei’s involvement. He was the one with the foreign contacts and better able to move about the concession, but I still didn’t like it. Chang-wei wasn’t a soldier. He was an engineer.

  “What if Hanzhu wants to know why?” I asked.

  “Then tell him.”

  “That you’re bringing weapons to Qing loyalists?”

  He sighed. “I don’t see how we can avoid it. As long as the rebels occupy the city, foreign influence continues to grow stronger. Perhaps Yang will see it that way. He may have objections to the Qing government, but surely he doesn’t want to be ruled by foreigners.”

  The insurgents had occupied Old Shanghai for over a year. All of the officials and citizens loyal to the Qing had fled into the concession areas of Shanghai occupied by Western powers.

  “If he insists on knowing any more, tell him our aim is to establish contact with the circuit intendant, Taotai Wu.”

  Chang-wei had been tasked with bringing word from the Emperor to the intendant. Taotai Wu had been appointed administrative control over Shanghai by the Qing government. The uprising had momentarily stripped him of power, but he remained connected to the loyalist forces who had gathered in the region. There had been skirmishes between the loyalists and the Small Swords, but the Old City was shielded by a defensive wall the loyalists couldn’t breach. To prevail, they needed support from Peking that had been slow in coming.

  Over the last year, the Taiping rebel army had grown into the hundreds of thousands, swallowing city after city. The Emperor’s forces were struggling to hold onto territory and couldn’t spare any troops to re-capture Shanghai.

  The Emperor’s Grand Council couldn’t spare any more soldiers. The loyalists would have to make do with the gunpowder and weapons Chang-wei managed to smuggle in.

  “Will the Westerners allow munitions into the foreign concession?” I asked.

  “They’ve been doing so. How do you think the rebels are being supplied?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make sense of it. “Maybe you need to be the one to make your case to Hanzhu.”

  I wasn’t any good at keeping the alliances straight. Everything was becoming entangled and there was no telling who was friend or foe.

  “Yang will refuse simply because it’s me proposing it. But you. He holds you—” Chang-wei struggled to find the words. “With some regard.”

  Regard? I frowned at him. Yang Hanzhu had been a family acquaintance. I’d known him before ever meeting Chang-wei. Hanzhu was older than him by five or six years. As a child, I’d referred to Yang Hanzhu as “uncle”. He would show me his experiments when I visited his laboratory. Perhaps that was why Hanzhu remained sentimental towards me, but he was also shrewd. He’d know I was just parroting Chang-wei’s demands.

  “Hanzhu resents both the Qing government and the Yingguoren,” I reminded him.

  “Then tell him we can pay him.”

  “Insult him like that and he’ll surely throw us into the sea.” I paused, considering carefully what Chang-wei was proposing. “If I can convince him—”

  He straightened, listening.

  “If I can convince him, then you’ll take me with you to Shanghai.”

  Chang-wei tensed, a protest already forming on his lips. We were interrupted by Satomi returning from the main deck.

  He held my gaze for a second longer, frustrated at not being able to respond, before turning to her. “Sagara-san. Thank you for your assistance bringing this meeting together.”

  “So formal,” she mused. “I’m not so formal in your language. We’ll reach Yang-san by first light tomorrow morning. He’s not so far if we sailed directly, but there are matters of caution.”

  “There’s no one following,” Chang-wei assured.

  “So you say. But the imperial navy aren’t the only ships we’re evading nowadays.”

  I recalled the yellow notices calling for Yang Hanzhu’s capture. “Who else?” I asked curiously.

  “Imperial ships. Foreign ships. Pirates from Macau. Pirates from Canton.”

  “It’s thieves stealing from thieves out on the water.” Makoto came to join in. “There’s not a stretch of coastline that someone hasn’t laid claim to, demanding a water tax for safe passage. This is why our fleet was formed. A lone ship couldn’t survive.”

  “How many ships are under Yang’s command?” Chang-wei asked.

  “You see, Shinajin. Questions like that make people suspicious of you,” Satomi said with a sideways glance.

  “I apologize. I’m always curious,” Chang-wei replied.

  “A scientist’s curiosity or an imperial agent’s?”

  He bowed, conceding both his innocence and complicity at once and Satomi smiled back at him. I was given a glimpse of how charming Chang-wei could be.

  “It’s not command so much as…sōgo ni yūekina,” Satomi explained. “A mutual arrangement. This is the fastest of the smaller ships.”

  The engine started with a rumble beneath our feet and the vessel picked up speed through the water. The battened sails were rotated and adjusted to reduce the drag from the wind.

  “Between Yang Hanzhu and his engineer, he’s able to outfit these ships with the fastest engines in the water,” Chang-wei observed.

  “The engines themselves have been a problem,” Satomi concurred. “We’ve been chased by pirates wanting to steal our ships to salvage the engines. Then there’s the matter of the bounty on Yang-san himself.”

  “The engineer is more valuable,” Chang-wei said bluntly. “It’s still Old Liu Yentai, isn’t it?”

  I looked to Chang-wei. He’d been captured by the Yingguoren during the war and forced to labor in the engine room aboard their steamships. It was how he’d learned about the inner workings of the foreigners’ war machines.

  “This is why Hanzhu wouldn’t go to Ningpo,” I said.

  The notices for Yang Hanzhu’s capture suddenly made more sense. The battle for control of the empire was becoming one of engineering.

  Despite its small size, the ship we were on was outfitted for battle. Chang-wei lifted a tarp to reveal a portable cannon underneath before Makoto tugged the cover back in place. There was also a supply of clay jars stashed on deck. I assumed they were fire bombs which were a favored weapon of Hanzhu’s. The chemical compound within them ignited on contact and would even burn on the surface of water.

  Below deck there was a compartment where we could rest at night and stay away from the sun. There was no privacy there, just space for us to sleep along with the crew as they rotated in and out.

  That night I was pressed close to Chang-wei. His arm draped around me in the dark.

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  “Yes, to what?”

  “Shanghai.” He was formless in the darkness.

  “I thought you would say that it was too dangerous.”

  There was silence. I wished I could see his expression, not that I could always read it. But I’d become better over the last year together.

  “I considered all the possible alternatives,” he admitted finally. “Shanghai is, unfortunately, the best scenario.”

  Chapter 10

  Chang-wei sighted land on the horizon just after dawn. He lowered the set of field glasses and held them out to me. They were crafted from solid brass and weighed heavily in my hands. I lifted them to my eyes, taking a moment to steady myself against the slow roll of the deck.

  “There.” He helped me direct the glasses to the correct area.

  “I see it.”

  “An island,” he said. “There are many small islands off the coast of Ningpo. Some were use
d as enclaves by outlaws before they were raided by the imperial navy.”

  Apparently, they were still in use.

  “We’ve done everything Yang Hanzhu wanted,” Chang-wei went on. “We’ve put ourselves completely at his mercy. I hope it’s enough.”

  Just the thought of seeing his old colleague did something to him. His spine went rigid with tension and his jaw set into a hard, unyielding line.

  I handed the field glasses back to him. “What happened between the two of you?”

  “I don’t know if anything ever happened. We were never friends.”

  They had both served in my father’s Ministry but in different departments. Hanzhu in alchemy and Chang-wei in engineering.

  “It might have something to do with how your mother favored Yang and your father, myself,” he admitted after a pause.

  “Why would it matter who my mother favored—?”

  Chang-wei met my eyes but said nothing.

  Realization finally struck me and my face flooded with heat. “Both of you wanted to—?”

  “Marriage is an arrangement between families,” Chang-wei said, redirecting his gaze to the horizon. “Yang Hanzhu really was the better suitor. He was a few years older than I and already established within the Ministry. Everyone knew that he came from a wealthy family.”

  “I was only nine years old at the time,” I mused.

  Chang-wei would have been eighteen years old, having just passed his exams.

  “What about your family?” I asked because I was too curious not to.

  “I came from the orphanage. I have no family.”

  I was struck speechless. He said it so simply, as if it were nothing. We had been through so much together and I had never known. Chang-wei never spoke of family so I’d never asked. It would have been impolite to do so.

  “Your father took me in,” Chang-wei explained. “Initially I fetched things for him, did small tasks in the various workshops and laboratories. I greased the gears, scrubbed the equipment clean. Whenever I could, I would try to read the books I found lying around. I’d scrub my hands for an hour, I was so afraid of leaving dirty prints on the pages.”

  I tried to imagine him, a skinny boy with dark and curious eyes, gingerly opening a newly discovered book with careful hands.

  All of the sudden, I understood the reason for Chang-wei’s unshakable loyalty. His loyalty to the Emperor. To my family. Our arranged marriage would have been akin to my father taking Chang-wei into the family. Like a son.

  Chang-wei needed to belong to something. It didn’t matter that court insiders whispered that he was hanjian, disloyal. It didn’t matter if they accused him of being a Western-sympathizer or dismissed his continued sacrifices.

  “My father always spoke so highly of you,” I told him, knowing my words wouldn’t be enough for him.

  “Your father was a very good man,” Chang-wei said, his voice thick with emotion. “You should know all this, who and what I am. Before—”

  His voice trailed away. Before I gave him my answer.

  I parted my lips, ready to give him my answer now. It wasn’t who he was or where he came from that made me hesitate.

  Chang-wei was finally making a name for himself because of his earnestness and his intelligence. And his undying loyalty. Our family name could have once lifted him, but it had since become a source of disgrace. In the past, our arranged marriage would have benefited Chang-wei, but being associated with the Jin name now could only drag him down.

  Chang-wei was looking at me intently, but I couldn’t bring myself to say yes yet. There were things he should know about me as well. And duties we had yet to complete.

  “Tell me about the orphanage,” I said instead, shyly.

  He tried not to look disappointed. “There were twenty boys there, young and old.” He drew me closer until I could feel the front of his robe brushing against my shoulders. A small shiver ran down my spine. “I was always getting into trouble, they said, before I could even remember. I liked to take things apart…”

  A shoreline emerged in the distance along with a set of sails like large red wings. I peered through the field glasses to see another vessel nearby in the water. And another closer to shore.

  “We’ll signal them,” Satomi said, coming up behind us.

  The crew assembled a launcher that consisted of a hollow iron tube erected on top of a stand. It looked like a small cannon. Satomi inserted a bamboo rocket before lighting a fuse. The rocket shot high before exploding in a puff of blue smoke that hung in the air. Several minutes later, there was a similar reply from the distant fleet.

  “Soon now,” Satomi said.

  Our vessel sliced through the water to rejoin its sisters.

  “Remember what we spoke of,” Chang-wei told me in a low voice.

  As we entered the bay, we could see a dock along the shore and a few wooden structures inland that appeared out of use. The fleet had taken temporary shelter in an abandoned enclave but wouldn’t remain for long.

  “We just float from island to island,” Satomi said wistfully. “Some large, some small. Some more dangerous than others.”

  Even though much of the fleet had gone ashore, Hanzhu remained on his flagship anchored in the water. He was waiting on the main deck for us as we climbed aboard on the rope ladder. He peered down at us. A brown cigarette rested between his fingers, emitting a thin plume of smoke.

  He was dressed in a Western-style trousers and boots with a leather waistcoat fitted over his shoulders and fastened with a row of silver buttons. He wore foreign clothing in defiance of the Qing government with its strict edicts regarding dress and appearance.

  The most shocking part of Yang Hanzhu’s appearance, however, was his hair, which he let hang loose to his shoulders. No matter how many times I saw him, the rogue appearance was still a shock.

  “Jin Soling.” A slow grin spread across his face revealing even white teeth. Then he glanced behind me, and the smile disappeared. “And Chang Chen-wei.”

  “Elder brother,” Chang-wei began respectfully.

  Yang met my eyes, deliberately overlooking Chang-wei. He took a long drag of his cigarette, blowing out a stream of smoke. “So, what fool’s errand have you been sent on this time?”

  “Uncle,” I began respectfully.

  He made a face.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see us.”

  “This must be a greatly unpleasant task hearing how stiff and formal you sound,” he interjected with a snort before turning to address Chang-wei finally. “No ships following you? You didn’t send a spy kite after us?”

  “No, Elder Brother,” Chang-wei replied. “Not this time,” he couldn’t help adding.

  Hanzhu fixed his eyes on him. They were black and penetrating, set deep in his face and gleaming with intelligence.

  “We need your help,” I interrupted. There was no use in letting the two of them be reminded that they hated one another.

  “You need my help?” Hanzhu asked, his tone suddenly gentle, but no less sharp. “Or is it that boy Emperor who likes to give orders while sheltered away in the Forbidden City.”

  I stiffened. It was difficult to hear the Emperor treated with such disrespect.

  “I’m here to speak on the Emperor’s behalf, for his sake as well as mine.”

  Hanzhu held my gaze a moment longer before rolling his eyes.

  He turned to Satomi. “What’s the news in Ningpo?”

  “The reward for your capture has doubled. Five hundred taels of silver. Dead or alive—”

  “I haven’t done half the things they say I’ve done!” he ranted. “I didn’t sink those river junks at the Pearl delta. I never sacked Xiamen.”

  “They say you raided a trading fleet and burned fifty crates of opium,” Chang-wei chimed in.

  “Well, I did do that,” he admitted begrudgingly. “Those foreign devils keep bringing in more of that poison. You would think the Qing authorities would thank me for that transgression.”

/>   The opium trade was illegal in our country, but the treaty ports were enacted so the foreigners could continue to smuggle it in plain sight. And our people — I couldn’t help but think of my mother — our people kept consuming it. Opium was a festering, open wound that would not heal.

  Yang turned and started walking. Satomi indicated that we should follow and I quickly fell into step behind him.

  “It’s getting harder to roam about in exile these days,” he complained.

  He tossed the cigarette overboard into the sea before reaching the stairs and descending. Satomi glanced once over her shoulder. She gave me an encouraging nod before ducking below.

  There was almost a sense of homecoming, being back in the hold of Hanzhu’s ship, though it wasn’t necessarily a joyous occasion. While we were here, we were under Hanzhu’s protection, but we were also at his mercy.

  Chang-wei and I followed Satomi and Hanzhu to his workroom which he’d specially built on board in order to continue with his alchemical experiments. He was obsessed with the study of opium and the varying compositions of the drug. Hanzhu was convinced that the opium shipped through our ports had been tampered with to make the drug more addictive, more destructive. As if opium wasn’t destructive enough as it was.

  The wooden counters were currently bare and the equipment stowed away, but there were times when Hanzhu would disappear down here for days. A massive herbal cabinet with an array of drawers spanned the far wall. A series of cabinets lined another wall, filled with bottles and glass containers that had to be secured against rough seas.

  Yang rounded the worktable and turned to face us, hands braced against the surface of the counter as he waited for our proposal.

  “We need passage to Shanghai,” I began. “But the Small Swords rebels control the main port right now.”

  “That is why you want me to dock in the foreign concession,” Hanzhu completed for me.

  I could see an immediate sneer of refusal on his lips, but he held himself back. At least for the moment. “What is the purpose of this foolish mission?”