The Years of Rice and Salt (57 page)

Here were the accounting rooms and the offices. The chandler's big office door was closed, but voices came through it. Kiyoaki approached, heard men speaking Japanese:

“. . . don't see how we could coordinate our efforts, how we could be sure it was all going off at once—”

The door flew open and Kioyaki was seized by the neck and dragged into the room. Eight or nine Japanese men glared at him, all seated around one elderly bald foreigner, in the chair of the honored guest. The chandler roared, “Who let him in here!”

“There's no one downstairs,” Kiyoaki said. “I was just looking for someone to ask for a—”

“How long were you listening!” The old man looked as if he were ready to hit Kiyoaki with his abacus, or worse. “How dare you eavesdrop on us, you could get rocks tied to your ankles and thrown in the bay for that!”

“He's just one of the folks we plucked out of the valley,” Gen said from a corner. “I've been getting to know him. Might as well enlist him, since he's here. I've already vetted him. He hasn't got anything better to do. In fact, he'll be good.”

While the old man spluttered some objection, Gen got up and grabbed Kiyoaki by the shirtfront.

“Get someone to lock the front door,” he told one of the younger men there, who left quickly. Gen turned to Kiyoaki:

“Listen, youth. We're trying to help the Japanese here, like I told you down at the gate.”

“That's good.”

“We're working to free the Japanese, actually. Not only here, but in Japan itself.”

Kiyoaki gulped, and Gen shook him. “That's right, Japan itself! A war of independence for the old country, and here too. You can work for us, and join one of the greatest things possible for a Japanese. Are you in or are you out?”

“In!” Kiyoaki said. “I'm in, of course! Just tell me what I can do!”

“You can sit down and shut up,” Gen said. “First of all. Listen and then you'll be told more.”

The elderly foreigner asked a question in his language.

Another of the men waved Kiyoaki aside, answered in the same language. In Japanese he said to Kiyoaki, “This is Doctor Ismail, visiting us from Travancore, the capital of the Indian League. He's here to help us organize our resistance to the Chinese. If you are to stay in this meeting, you must swear never to tell anyone what you see and hear. It means you are committed to the cause without a chance of backing out. If we find out you've ever told anyone about this, you'll be killed, do you understand?”

“I understand,” Kiyoaki said. “I'm in, I said. You can proceed with no fear of me. I've worked like a slave for the Chinese in the valley, all my life.”

The men in the room stared at him; only Gen grinned at the spectacle of such a youth using the phrase “all my life.” Kiyoaki saw that and blushed hotly. But it was true no matter how old he was. He set his jaw and sat on the floor in the corner by the door.

The men resumed their conversation. They were asking questions of the foreigner, who watched them with a birdlike blank expression, fingering a white moustache, until the man translating spoke to him, in a fluid language that did not seem to have enough sounds to create all the words; but the old foreigner understood him, and replied to the questions carefully and at length, taking pauses every few sentences to let the young interpreter speak in Japanese. He was obviously very used to working with a translator.

“He says his country was under the yoke of the Mughals for many centuries, and finally they freed themselves in a military campaign run by their Kerala. The methods used have been systematized, and can be taught. The Kerala himself was assassinated, about twenty years ago. Doctor Ismail says this was a, a disaster beyond telling, you can see it still upsets him to talk about it. But the only cure is to go on and do what the Kerala would have wanted them to do. And he wanted everyone everywhere free of all empires. So Travancore itself is now part of an Indian League, which has its disagreements, even violent disagreements, but mostly they work out their differences as equals. He says this kind of league was first developed here in Yingzhou, out in the east, among the Hodenosaunee natives. The Firanjis have taken most of the east coast of Yingzhou, as we have the west, and many of the old ones out there have died of disease, as here, but the Hodenosaunee still hold the area around the great lakes, and the Travancoris have helped them to fight the Muslims. He says that is the key to success; those fighting the great empires have to help each other. He says they have helped some Africans as well, down in the south, a King Moshesh of the Basutho tribe. The doctor here traveled there himself, and arranged for aid to the Basuthos that allowed them to defend themselves from Muslim slave traders and the Zulu tribe as well. Without their help the Basuthos probably wouldn't have survived.”

“Ask him what he means when he says help.”

The foreign doctor nodded when the question was put to him. He used fingers to enumerate his answer.

“He says, first they help by teaching the system their Kerala worked out, for organizing a fighting force, and fighting armies when the opposing armies are much bigger. Then second, they can in some instances help with weapons. They will smuggle them in for us, if they think we are serious. And third, rare but possible, they can join the fight, if they think it will turn the tide.”

“They fought Muslims, and so do the Chinese. Why should they help us?”

“He says, good question. He says, it's a matter of keeping a balance, and of setting the two great powers against each other. The Chinese and the Muslims are fighting each other everywhere, even in China itself, where there are Muslim rebellions. But right now the Muslims in Firanja and Asia are splintered and weak, they are always fighting each other, even here in Yingzhou. Meanwhile China continues to fatten on its colonies here and around the Dahai. Even though the Qing bureaucracy is corrupt and inefficient, their manufacturers are always busy, and gold keeps coming, from here and from Inka. So no matter how inefficient they are, they keep getting richer. At this point, he says, the Travancoris are interested in keeping China from becoming so strong they take over the whole world.”

One of the Japanese men snorted. “No one can take over the world,” he said. “It's too big.”

The foreigner inquired what had been said, and the translator translated for him. Doctor Ismail raised a finger as he heard it, and replied.

“He says, that may have been true before, but now, with steamships, and communication by qi, and trade and travel everywhere by ocean, and machines exerting several thousandcamels of power, it could be that some dominant country could get an advantage and keep growing. There is a kind of, what, multiplying power to power. So that it's best to try to keep any one country from getting powerful enough to start that process. It was Islam that looked to be taking over the world for a while, he says, before their Kerala went at the heart of the old Muslim empires and broke them. It could be that China needs a similar treatment, and then there will be no empires, and people can do as they choose, and form leagues with whoever helps them.”

“But how can we stay in contact with them, on the other side of the world?”

“He agrees it is not easy. But steamships are fast. It can be done. They have done it in Africa, and in Inka. Qi wires can be strung very quickly between groups.”

They went on, the questions becoming more practical and detailed, losing Kiyoaki, as he didn't know where many of the places mentioned were: Basutho, Nsara, Seminole, and so on. Eventually Doctor Ismail appeared to tire, and they ended the meeting with tea. Kiyoaki helped Gen pour cups and pass them around, and then Gen took him downstairs and reopened the chandlery.

“You almost got me in trouble there,” he told Kiyoaki, “and yourself too. You'll have to work hard for us to make up for scaring me that bad.”

“Sorry—I will. Thanks for helping me.”

“Oh that poisonous feeling. No thanks. You do your job, I do mine.”

“Right.”

“Now, the old man will take you in at the chandlery here, and you can live next door. He'll hit you with his abacus, as you saw. But your main job will be running messages for us and the like. If the Chinese get wind of what we're doing, it will get ugly, I warn you. It will be war, do you understand? It may be a secret war, at night, in the alleyways and out on the bay. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

Gen regarded him. “We'll see. First thing, we'll go back into the valley and get the word into the foothills, to some friends of mine. Then back to the city, to work here.”

“Whatever you say.”

An assistant gave Kiyoaki a tour of the chandlery, which he was soon to know so well. After that he went back to the boardinghouse next door. Peng-ti was helping the old woman chop vegetables; Hu Die was sunning in a laundry basket. Kiyoaki sat next to the baby, entertaining it with a finger and thinking things over. He watched Peng-ti, learning the Japanese words for the vegetables. She didn't want to go back to the valley either. The old woman spoke pretty good Chinese, and the two women were talking, but Peng-ti wasn't telling her any more about her past than she had told Kiyoaki. It was warm in the kitchen. Rain was coming down again outside. The baby smiled at him, as if to reassure him. As if telling him that it would be all right.

The next time they were down at Gold Gate Park, looking at the brown flood still pouring, he sat by Peng-ti on a bench. “Listen,” he said, “I'm going to stay here in the city. I'll go back out to the valley on a trip, and get Madame Yao's silkworms to her, but I'm going to live here.”

She nodded. “Me too.” She waved at the bay. “How could you not.” She picked up Hu Die and held her up in the air, face out toward the bay, and turned her around to face the four winds. “This is your new home, Hu Die! This is where you are going to grow up!” Hu Die goggled at the view.

Kiyoaki laughed. “Yes. She will like it here. But listen, Peng-ti, I'm going to be . . .” He considered how to say it. “I'm going to work for Japan. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“I'm going to work for Japan, against China.”

“I see.”

“I'm going to be working against China.”

Her jaw clenched. She said harshly, “Do you think I care?” She looked across the bay to the Inner Gate, where brown water split the green hills. “I'm so glad to be out of there.” She looked him in the eye, and he felt his heart jump. “I'll help you.”

4
                                                                                                            

Black Clouds

Because China's emerging empire was now chiefly maritime, its shipping
again became the biggest in the world. The emphasis was on carrying capacity, and so the typical Chinese fleet of the early modern period was very big, and slow. Speed was not a consideration. This made difficulties for them later, in naval disputes with the Indians and with the Muslims of Africa, the Mediterranean, and Firanja. In the Mediterranean, the Islamic Sea, Muslims developed ships that were smaller but much faster and nimbler than their Chinese contemporaries, and in several decisive naval encounters of the tenth and eleventh centuries, Muslim fleets defeated larger Chinese fleets, preserving the balance of power and preventing Qing China from achieving world hegemony. Indeed Muslim privateering in the Dahai became a major source of revenue to Islamic governments, and a source of friction between Islamic and Chinese, one of the many factors leading to war. With the sea far surpassing land as a means of commercial and military travel, the superior speed and maneuverability of Muslim ships was one of the advantages they held that allowed them to challenge Chinese sea power.

The development of steam power and metal hulls in Travancore was quickly taken up by both of the other major Old World hegemons, but the lead in this technology and others allowed the Indian League also to compete with the larger rivals on both sides of it.

Thus the twelfth and thirteenth Muslim centuries, or the Qing dynasty in China, was a period of rising competition between the three major Old World cultures, to dominate and extract the wealth of the New World, Aozhou, and the hinterlands of the Old World, now being fully occupied and exploited.

The problem was that the stakes became too high. The two biggest empires were both the strongest and the weakest at the same time. The Qing dynasty continued to grow to the south, north, in the New World, and inside itself. Meanwhile Islam controlled a huge part of the Old World, and the eastern coasts of the New as well. Yingzhou had a Muslim east coast, the League of Tribes in the middle, Chinese settlements in the west, and new Travancori trading ports. Inka was a battleground between Chinese, Travancori, and the Muslims of west Africa.

So the world was fractured into the two big old hegemons, China and Islam, and the two new and smaller leagues, the Indian and the Yingzhou. Chinese ocean trade and conquest slowly extended their hegemony over the Dahai, settling Aozhou, the west coasts of Yingzhou and Inka, and making inroads by sea in many other places; becoming the Middle Kingdom in fact as well as by name, the center of the world by sheer numbers alone, as well as by the new power of its navies. A danger to all the other peoples on Earth, in fact, despite the various problems in the Qing bureaucracy.

At the same time Dar al-Islam kept spreading, through all Africa, the east coasts of the New World, across central Asia, and even into India, where it had never really left, and into southeast Asia as well, even onto the isolated west coast of Aozhou.

And in the middle, caught between these two expansions, so to speak, was India. Travancore took the lead here, but the Punjab, Bengal, Rajistan, and all the other states of the subcontinent were active and prospering at home and abroad, in turmoil and conflict, always at odds, and yet free of emperors and caliphs, and in their ferment the scientific leaders of the world, with trading posts on every continent, constantly in opposition against the hegemons, the ally of anyone against Islam, and often against the Chinese, with whom they kept a most uneasy relationship, both fearing them and needing them; but as the decades went by, and the old Muslim empires showed more and more aggression to the east, across Transoxiana and into all north Asia, more and more inclined to court China, as a counterweight, trusting the Himalaya and the great jungles of Burma to keep them out from under the big umbrella of Chinese patronage.

Thus it was that the Indian states were often uneasily allied with China in hope of aid against their ancient foe Islam. So that when Islam and Chinese finally fell into active war, first in central Asia, then all over the world, Travancore and the Indian League were pulled into it, and Muslim-Hindu violence began yet another deadly round.

It began in the twenty-first year of the Kuang Hsu emperor, the last of the Qing dynasty, when south China's Muslim enclaves all revolted at once. The Manchu banners were sent south and the rebellion put down, more or less, over the course of the next several years. But the suppression may have worked too well, for the Muslims of west China had been chafing under Qing military rule for many generations, and with their fellow believers to the east being exterminated, it became a matter of jihad or death. So they revolted, out in the vast empty deserts and mountains of central Asia, and the brown towns in their green valleys quickly turned red.

The Qing government, corrupt but massively entrenched, massively wealthy, made its move against its Muslim rebellions by initiating another campaign of conquest, west across Asia. This succeeded for a time, because there was no strong state in the abandoned center of the world to oppose them. But eventually it triggered a defensive jihad from the Muslims of west Asia, whom nothing would have united at that point except for the threat of Chinese conquest.

This unintended consolidation of Islam was quite an accomplishment. Wars between the remnants of the Safavid and Ottoman empires, between Shiite and Sunni, Sufi and Wahhabi, the Firanji states and the Maghrib, had been continuous throughout the period of consolidation of states and boundaries, and even with sovereign borders more or less fixed, except for ongoing struggles here and there, they were not initially in a position to respond as a civilization to the threat from China.

But when threatened by a Chinese expansion across all Asia, the fractured Islamic states pulled together, and began to fight back as a united force. A collision that had been building for centuries now came to a head: for both of the big old civilizations, global hegemony or complete annihilation were thinkable possibilities. The stakes could not be higher.

The Indian League tried at first to remain neutral, as did the Hodenosaunee. But the war drew them in too, when Islamic invaders crossed into north India, as they had so many times before, and conquered it south to the Deccan, across Bengal and down into Burma. Similarly, Muslim armies began to conquer Yingzhou east to west, attacking both the Hodenosaunee League and the Chinese in the west. All the world descended into this realm of conflict together.

And so the long war came.