Jade Dragon Mountain

 

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To my mother

 

Author's Note

Yunnan Province is located in the far southwest of China. To the Chinese elite of the early eighteenth century, Yunnan was an uncivilized, dangerous frontier. It was also one of the major producers of a commodity fundamental to Chinese culture: tea. From the mountain jungles in the south of the province, the dried leaves traveled north on mule caravans along a path known as the Tea Horse Road. The city of Lijiang, which I refer to by its older name, Dayan, was a hub on this trade route. The ethnic group native to the region is called the Nakhi.

In Imperial China, the Emperor was considered a divine being, chosen by the heavens to rule the world. Because the heavens selected only just rulers, no action taken by the Emperor could be unjust.

 

Prologue

April, 1780.

 … You must understand, before I continue, that seventy years ago we in the West did not know very much about China. There were no crates of opium stamped for delivery to its shores. Our alchemists could not replicate its porcelain. The promise of silk and tea and spices made our merchants sick with desire, but China had no interest in the paltry, scrabbling kingdoms of Europe.

The Emperor, called the Kangxi, tolerated only one kind of foreigner: the Jesuit. They were his advisors, his astronomers, and his amusement. The others, be they merchants or adventurers, were turned away. And the Company, the poor Company, whined at the door like a hungry dog, a frustrated brute who smelled meat but could not reach it. Now the situation is very different. The Company would be better likened to a wolf. Be wary, nephew, of the creature you have taken as your employer.

Memory, I have always thought, is like deepening waters, and every day the sunken objects on the sea floor are a farther and more frightening journey away. I know that they are there, but I do not look at them. The ripples on the surface distract me, and call my attention to the flotsam and jetsam that are within reach. Now, as I imagine your ship being readied to sail, a light shines into the depths. It illuminates an evening, one of Galland's last. As usual, he and I were hunched and freezing over our books in his wretched apartment at the Golden Circle.

The university had not paid him in three years. He spent the coins he gleaned on ink for his projects—a dictionary of the Orient, an encyclopedia of Arabic, and his tales of the thousand and one nights that so delighted the nobility of Versailles. I was his student, urging him to sit closer to the fire, for I could see his face becoming gray and his hands turning to bones bound by translucent skin.

A knock announced a visitor. How I stared at the figure outside, cloaked against the cold night. He seemed to have stepped from the pages of one of my master's tales. He was tall, with black eyes and a beard oiled to a point. His clothes were simple, but in his self-assurance I detected a suggestion of regal vanity. Galland greeted him as an old friend, and rushed to prepare tea. I knew that he had only one portion remaining, and no money for more. But Galland kept the tin hidden from our guest's view, and put the last of the dry leaves into the old teapot. Our guest said nothing, but I think he must have known, for through some trickery I found on the following morning that the tin was full of tea so valuable it is reserved for emperors and kings.

The man said that he had come to tell a story, and that it would not be like the other tales. It was a story, the man said, that would take the whole night to relate. Galland brought a fresh pile of paper from the drawer. In the hours that followed, I did not hear the scratching of the quill, or the sounds from the street. I did not feel the itch of wool, or the damp, or see the open texts I was meant to be studying. The storyteller replaced my world with his own.

Time passed very quickly after that night, and Galland died before he had completed the dictionary, the encyclopedia, or the tales. My memory of the story sank into the dark. But Galland left all of his notes to me, and several months ago I found among them the jottings he made on that evening. My circumstances being better than his were at my age, I have had the leisure to compile his work into a kind of order. I include the results of my efforts with this letter to you.

I must burden you with a few details of history. You are about to embark on your own adventure, and your mind is on what is ahead. But you must never neglect the past. It pulls at our decisions like a magnet, and can block our progress as if it were in front of us, not behind.

So it was for the Kangxi Emperor, who began his rule encumbered by the past. He was only the second emperor of his line. His people, the Manchu, were horsemen from the north who invaded China and toppled the native Ming. The Manchu founded their own dynasty, and took the name Qing. Anxious to be accepted by their new subjects, they adopted traditions of the conquered. They studied the intellectual and aesthetic interests of the Chinese elite, and imitated the Ming style. But the horsemen of the eight Manchu banners enforced their rule to the very borders of China. Ming revolts were crushed without mercy, and native rulers were replaced with Qing magistrates.

The Jesuits had first come to China during the late Ming years. They had brought with them the principles of Western science, and a willingness to teach what they knew. Not averse to degrees of assimilation, they had devoted themselves to the study of the Chinese language and customs, and had earned a place at court.

The Kangxi elevated the Jesuits to still higher rank. This was, you understand, a result of their usefulness. He was unmoved by the Christian faith. But as long as the Jesuits behaved as his subjects, their knowledge—mathematics, engineering, cartography—was assumed into his own aura of divinity.

Years passed, and the Jesuits began to lose influence in Rome. In 1704, the Pope sent a Dominican envoy to China to persuade the Kangxi to replace the Jesuits with Dominicans. Although the Kangxi defended his favorites, his patience had begun to wane. He was annoyed by the squabbling between foreigners. He dispatched a message to the Pope suggesting that if he truly wished to reform the Jesuits, the Emperor could perform the service by cutting off their heads.

That is what I know of the world in which this story took place. I do not know if any of its characters really lived, but they walk with me now in the twilight garden of my home, and sit with me in my little study. I wonder if any of the Chinese books in my humble collection were read by the librarian in this tale. Of the incredible device brought to the Emperor of China by the English East India Company, I have found no record.

—E
XCERPT
FROM
A
LETTER
WRITTEN
BY
THE
BOOKSELLER
P
AUL
-H
ENRI
D'A
UBIGNE
TO
HIS
NEPHEW
A
RMAND
B
ADEAU
,
CARE
OF
THE
CAPTAIN
OF
THE
R
ESOLUTION
,
TO
SAIL
THE
FOLLOWING
WEEK
TO
C
ANTON

 

6 Days

 

Chapter 1

It was a cold morning in early spring when Li Du came to the top of a small hill and saw below him the city of Dayan. The sun had not yet touched the valley, and the only perceptible movement was in the pale smoke that blurred the rigid curves of the tile and wood rooftops.

Beyond the city to the north, a mountain emerged slowly into the dawn. Its base was blue and featureless, a shape without dimension against the brightening sky. But on the distant summit, the snow and ice glowed golden pink in anticipation of sunrise.

Li Du could see the pass that would take him over the mountain and down to the river valley on the other side. But between him and that ridge lay Dayan, unavoidable. With a small sigh that puffed into the cold air, he rose, rinsed his bowl in a stream that ran by the hilltop temple where he had stopped to drink tea, put out the little fire he had made, and began the descent into the valley.

It took him a little over an hour to arrive at the houses on the edge of town. By that time the sun had risen and the road was crowded with travelers, farmers, and horse caravans. The farther into the city he went, the more packed the narrow streets became. Soon he was moving at a shuffle, surrounded by people and cows and horses, all bumping and jostling and making noise. The ground was littered with dung, peels, chewed and trampled sticks of sugarcane, gristly chicken bones, and discarded rice disintegrating in puddles of water. He tried at once not to step on porcelain cups, not to hit his head on copper kettles strung on ropes, and not to trip over the dogs that scampered or slept or wandered in search of bones.

Li Du was a man of middle age. He wore old clothes that were neatly patched, and a velvet hat that had lost its shape and faded from black to graying blue. A rough woven bag was slung across his back, and he carried a book, his pointer finger inserted between two pages to mark his place.