China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

a constant stream. They wore conical hats and loose dress, and they carried pikes and clubs. “Local police,” said Tully. “They’re supposed to report to the Hong. Protect the merchant quarter.” He snorted. “Lin’s controlling them now.”

They kept on coming. A hundred. Two hundred. They formed up in lines in front of every factory.

A few minutes passed before Trader saw, from the far end of the factories, a single burly figure emerge and start walking towards them. It was Read.

Trader held his breath. Read walked in front of the police lines. They watched him, but they did not move; and when Read reached the English factory, nobody stopped him from going in.

“Morning, gentlemen,” he remarked cheerfully as he came into the library. “Got any food?” It was hard not to smile in his cheerful presence. Trader looked at him gratefully. “I’ve been watching Delano try to boil an egg,” Read added by way of explanation.

“Can you boil an egg?” Trader asked.

“Yes, but it was more amusing to watch Delano try and fail. Do I see bread and marmalade? And coffee?”

“Help yourself,” said Matheson. “You seem very calm,” he remarked approvingly.

“No use getting in a flap. Stiff upper lip, and all that.”

—

An hour passed. The police in front of the factories were doing drill. Was this to intimidate the merchants, or were they preparing for an order to move from Lin?

The men in the English factory took turns keeping watch at the window. Trader, Tully, and Read were all sitting in leather armchairs when Dent came to join them.

“If the police do break in, I suppose it’s me and Tully they’ll arrest again,” Dent remarked.

“Maybe,” said Read. “But if Lin decides to cross the line and use force, he might as well arrest all the opium traders.” He considered a moment. “They might be in a Chinese jail quite a while.”

“You’ve assumed Lin’s got control of his men,” Tully Odstock observed. “But it could turn out another way. I’ve seen riots before. Long hot day. Big crowd. Tempers get short. Then something happens. Who knows what? Anything can set them off.”

“And then?” asked Trader.

“They riot. Burn the factories down.” He nodded grimly. “With us in ’em.”

Nobody spoke.

—

The sun beat down that afternoon, burnishing the iron moorings along the water’s edge until they were too hot to touch. The police ended their drill and set up bamboo shelters with matting roofs to give them shade. But they gave no sign of leaving, sun or not.

Elliot looked in at the library and they all gathered around. “There will be a negotiation,” he told them, “as soon as I meet with the commissioner.”

Matheson introduced Trader to him, explaining that Trader had only recently arrived. Elliot acknowledged Trader’s bow very civilly and remarked that he had chosen to come at an interesting time.

They ate salt beef from the larder that evening, with the few fresh vegetables they had left. At least the English factory still had a well-stocked wine cellar.

The sun went down. Through the window, Trader saw the police patrolling the waterfront. No change there. The men were sitting down to play cards, but Trader wasn’t in the mood, so he took up his book again and had managed to become quite lost in the riotous comedy of Pickwick when a voice interrupted him.

“Stop reading and talk to me,” said Read. He was carrying two glasses of brandy.

“I must say,” Trader remarked, “I’m glad to have your company, but you must wish you hadn’t come.”

“I like to live dangerously.” Read gazed into his brandy meditatively. “Not that I think we’re in that much danger.”

“Why?”

“The Chinese like the tea trade. They’ve no real interest in destroying the tea merchants. For remember, you fellows may sell opium, but you also buy tea.”

“I have another question.”

“Shoot.”

“The Chinese authorities may not like the opium trade, but it’s been going on for years. Now, all of a sudden, the emperor wants to destroy it. I buy the moral crusade story. But is there something else going on here?”

“Good question.” Read took a sip of brandy. “You could say, Mexico.”

“Mexico?”

“I was drinking with a sea captain in Macao last week. This is how he explained it. What’s been the main trading currency all over the world for centuries? Silver dollars. Spanish dollars. Pieces of eight. It’s been the only currency everyone trusts. And a lot of the silver came from Mexican mines. But then Mexico becomes independent from Spain. They mint their own silver dollars. Not bad quality. But out on the high seas, everyone still wants Spanish pieces of eight, and trade expands, and there aren’t enough of them. People will even pay a premium for them—more than their face value. In short, acceptable silver currency for trading is in short supply. With me so far?”

“I think so.”

“Right. What has always been the problem with the Chinese trade?”

“They sell to us, but they don’t buy much in return.”

“Exactly. Half a century ago a Chinese emperor looked at English goods for sale and was not impressed.”

“And nothing’s changed.”

“Right. And when the Chinese sell us tea, how do they want to be paid?”

“In silver.”

“When your comprador goes to the local Canton market and buys vegetables, he uses small change, copper coins. But larger transactions, including all government taxes and expenses in China, are paid in silver. So the Chinese government always needed lots of it. They sold us tea, silver flowed in.”

“Right.”

“And when we didn’t have enough silver, because pieces of eight are in short supply, we discovered a neat trick: Chinese smugglers will pay us silver if we get them opium. Then the circle was complete. We deal in opium and pay China for tea with their own silver.”

“So China’s not getting the silver it wants.”

“Oh, it’s much worse than that. Opium’s addictive. China’s purchases of opium are growing much faster than their sales of tea. Result: More silver is flowing out of China than coming in. Far more. They’re bleeding silver.” He shrugged. “The emperor has to