Chapter 25: The Rudder Lock

Lin Qian sat in the small boat, gazing toward Manila harbor in the distance.

By the light of the beacon fires, he could dimly make out four similar boats following behind them.

Each boat carried ten men, every man with an oar, driving the boats forward at great speed.

Under cover of darkness, they slipped silently straight toward the harbor.

The boats rowed on until they stopped before a massive iron chain.

This was the main anchor chain of a Manila galleon.

"Let me say it again—once aboard, no torches."

No one answered; all the crewmen stared at Lin Qian with blazing eyes.

Lin Qian's gaze swept slowly across every crewman as he said in a low voice: "Our fame begins here. Today, all of you bear witness! Board the ship!"

Bailangzai was first to climb onto the anchor chain, scaling it at speed.

The rest followed in single file, close behind him.

When he reached the top of the chain, there were still two meters to the ship's rail. Bailangzai took the grappling hook from his waist, tossed it over the rail, then climbed up hand over hand along the rope.

These boatmen worked the rigging at sea every day; climbing ropes was as simple as eating or drinking to them, and they swarmed up without the slightest hesitation.

Not long after Bailangzai came aboard, a thud sounded from the deck, followed by a heavy crash as something fell onto the planks.

"Who goes there?" A Spanish guard's shout rang out from the deck.

Then came a scream.

"Attack! Attack!" A guard shouted in terror.

Boom—a matchlock musket fired.

Then came the clash of blades and cries of battle, mixed with several screams and the dull thuds of steel biting into flesh.

The sounds of fighting aboard the Manila galleon soon alerted the harbor guards.

The guards snatched up their weapons and converged on the ship's side.

When they reached the ship, they found that the gangway connecting the rail to the pier had already been chopped through with axes by Lin Qian's men and thrown into the sea.

Unable to board the ship, the guards could only take aim from the pier with their matchlock muskets.

But the Manila galleon's rail was too high—firing upward, the guards could hardly hit anything. Even when someone did approach the rail, the light was too dim to tell friend from foe, and they dared not fire recklessly.

The crewmen climbing up the anchor chain were out of the guards' reach as well.

Because the Manila galleon had two main anchors, one on each side, and Lin Qian had chosen the chain on the side away from the pier, using the ship's hull to block the guards' line of fire.

For a time, the harbor guards could do nothing at all but stand by the pier and watch.

By the time Lin Qian climbed onto the deck, the fighting was essentially over.

A dozen or more Spanish guard corpses lay scattered across the deck, and all the torches had been kicked into the sea.

Bailangzai was wiping his blade with a dead man's clothing.

Lei Sanxiang was picking up matchlock muskets and handing them out to the crewmen.

A wounded Spaniard clutched his arm, kneeling on the deck with two steel blades at his neck, repeating: "I surrender, I'm bleeding, please give me treatment."

Lin Qian gave him a look. The man wore no clothes, his pale flesh exposed under the night sky—he didn't seem to be a guard. Curious, Lin Qian asked: "Who are you?"

"I'm just an ordinary sailor."

Obviously a lie—once a galleon docked, no one was allowed to stay aboard except the guards. Lin Qian said coldly: "Kill him."

He spoke in Spanish. The crewmen holding their blades exchanged bewildered looks.

The bare-bottomed Spaniard panicked and rushed to cut in: "No, no... My name is José, I'm just a passenger, spare my life—I'm a nobleman, my family will pay a ransom..."

Being able to ignore the rules and stay aboard did suggest the man had some special status, so Lin Qian decided to keep him alive for now. He asked casually: "Do you know where the steering room is?"

The Spaniard stared at Lin Qian as if he'd seen a ghost: "How do you know about the steering room?"

The so-called steering room was the compartment housing the rudder shaft.

When a ship turned, the helmsman spun the wheel, which drove the rudder shaft to move the rudder blade left and right, thereby achieving the turn.

Only large vessels like galleons and Manila galleons had steering rooms.

Because it directly affected navigational safety, the entrance to the steering room was kept strictly secret, hidden behind various decorations and furniture, like a secret chamber aboard the ship.

Ordinary crewmen didn't even know the steering room existed, let alone where its entrance was.

In history, Han Chinese had seized a Manila galleon only once—and that attempt failed at the last step precisely because they couldn't find the steering room, couldn't remove the rudder lock, and couldn't turn the ship.

Back when they were docked in Manila, Lin Qian had pried out most of the ship's secrets through constant conversation with Spanish sailors.

Estimating from the wheel's position, he could guess that the steering room entrance was most likely in the sterncastle. Even if he couldn't take a live prisoner to guide him, he could simply chop through the sterncastle deck and find it.

But since the bare-bottomed José knew where the steering room was, having him lead the way was far more convenient.

Lin Qian gestured for him to lead the way ahead, while instructing Bailangzai: "Take a few good men and search the holds."

Bailangzai nodded, took six men, and descended to the gun deck.

José said as he walked: "Can you stop the bleeding first? I feel like I'm about to faint."

Lin Qian pressed the tip of his blade against the man's back: "Stop pretending. That little bit of blood loss won't hurt you."

With a blade at his back, José walked considerably faster, heading straight into the sterncastle.

The first level of the sterncastle was a conference room doubling as the officers' mess.

Stepping inside, Lin Qian found his eyes brightening.

Worthy of being the most advanced ship in the world—the decor and furniture were extremely refined, feeling less like being on a ship and more like being in a European palace.

José lifted a carpet and pointed at the floorboards beneath: "It's right here."

Lin Qian gave a crewman a look. One crewman stepped forward, pried up a gap in the floorboards with his blade, then dug his fingers in and lifted the boards, revealing the entrance to a compartment.

"After you." Lin Qian said to José.

José made a bitter face: "I can't climb down with this arm."

Lin Qian did not reply. The hand gripping the blade pressed slightly forward, and José, prodded by the knife tip, was forced to the entrance of the cabin, where he could only helplessly crawl down the ladder.

Lin Qian and the rest of the crew followed him down. The cabin was pitch black, and a sailor struck flint to light the candles on the wall.

The faint glow illuminated the extremely cramped steering compartment.

The steering compartment was very small, barely enough for four or five men to stand, but its vertical space was deep—a full four or five meters—running almost all the way down to the lowest deck.

In the steering compartment, apart from the ladder, there was only a single massive straight timber—the transmission shaft connecting the helm wheel to the rudder blade: the rudder stock.

The rudder stock was set into the stern frame, appearing from the outside to be wrapped between two rows of thick planks.

At the base of the rudder stock, a through-hole had been left in the stern frame, and an iron rod as thick as a baby's arm was driven through it, with irregular seven-sided bolts screwed tightly onto both ends.

This device was the rudder lock, designed specifically to prevent ship seizure.

Without removing it, the rudder stock could not turn, and the ship could not be steered.

"Once a galleon docks, the wrench is delivered to the Governor-General's residence. Without the specially made wrench, this cannot be removed." José saw Lin Qian's intent and pointed at the seven-sided bolts on either side of the rudder lock as he explained.

The rudder lock looked like nothing more than a black iron bar, but in this era, it was absolute black technology.

First, it was of threaded construction, fitting flush against the rudder stock and stern frame, with nuts on both ends capable of withstanding five or six tons of lateral force.

Prying it open by manpower with a crowbar was utterly impossible.

The teak planks surrounding the rudder lock were extremely thick. Though this wood was not as hard as ironwood, it was still among the highest-hardness timbers around.

Chopping through the teak planks to extract the rudder lock would take an extremely long time, and the rudder shaft structure would be damaged as well—still unable to turn. And if luck ran bad, the stern frame would be damaged along with it, possibly even taking on water and sinking.

The design philosophy of the rudder lock was: brute-force breaching means self-destruction.

Lin Qian stared at the rudder lock, lost in thought. Even as he marveled at the Spaniards' century-plus of maritime wisdom, countless breaching schemes flashed through his mind, only to be rejected one after another. For the first time, he found himself at a loss.

Even with his usual composure, sweat gradually beaded on his forehead.

Yahei

Fenty

Pen