Chapter 118: An Open Letter

Let's turn back the clock a little.

On December 25, 1627, the day Yang Er and Jiang Shang arrived at Dayuan aboard the Dog Eye, a Dutch speedboat was already anchored in the waters off Dayuan.

The third Governor of Dayuan appointed by the Dutch, Pauw Nuyts, had departed Hirado, Japan on December 3, 1627 aboard the speedboat Sloten, passed through Nagasaki, and arrived back at Dayuan on December 24. In fact, by the time the Dog Eye reached Dayuan, the Sloten had already been anchored in the waters off Dayuan for a full day.

Born in 1598, Pauw Nuyts was not yet thirty, in the prime of his life. He had a head of brownish-red hair, and the lines of his face were rough, with prominent cheekbones and jawbone — in short, the man was not blessed with good looks.

When the Sloten arrived in the waters off Dayuan on the evening of the 24th, Nuyts was astonished to discover that the Strolling Quartet, led by Johannes van der Hagen, had already sailed out on a boat to welcome them.

Van der Hagen himself was equally surprised. Because when Cai Feiming had pushed him onto the boat, the waters off Dayuan — at least within visual range — had been completely empty. Yet Cai Feiming had told him with absolute certainty: there is a ship coming from the north, and judging by the date, it is very likely Governor Nuyts's vessel; you few should sail out and take a look...

After they had sailed out and soon saw the Sloten riding the wind toward them, they could only attribute it to some kind of smoke-signal communication method used by the Crossing Faction.

Of course, none of that mattered. What mattered was the wonderful news Van der Hagen brought with him when he boarded the Sloten.

"Governor Nuyts, we have acquired a large quantity of raw silk and porcelain — the gates of trade with the Ming realm have been thrown open by us!"

"Whoa, that is truly excellent news! So this is why you came out of port personally to greet me? Very good, Mister van der Hagen. Now, please tell me, who is this merchant? Haha, I wager it must be Xu. You surely paid another large deposit, yes? Oh, greedy Xu... he is always so greedy."

"Ahem... Lord Governor," Van der Hagen cut off Nuyts's pleasant musings, then said with difficulty, "The party we traded with is a new merchant. Furthermore, the Shang Hall and the silver coins have both been mortgaged away... in fact, they are under military occupation."

"What? Jesus Christ! Did I mishear? You bastard — you have the time it takes to drink one cup of rum to tell me everything. I want to hear no concealment!"

In truth, it took Mister Nuyts an entire night before he could barely bring himself to believe the absurd tales told by the Strolling Quartet.

After all, these accounts contained far too many things that defied common sense. Nuyts and the other Junior Merchants found it very difficult to imagine the scene the Quartet described, of killing everyone present with just a single half-pounder cannon. Moreover, after this group had robbed and occupied the Shang Hall, they then intended to "lend" a large quantity of raw silk and porcelain to the Hall's original owner...

The chaotic conduct and insane logic of the Transmigrators were utterly incomprehensible to Mister Nuyts, a merchant of the medieval era. Everyone argued, debated, and explained in the sterncastle of the Sloten for an entire night, until the next morning, when Van der Hagen and the others returned to Dayuan by boat.

The next day, Mister Nuyts began ceaselessly interrogating the Dutch prisoners recalled from Dayuan.

These prisoners came by boat to the Sloten, answered the Governor's questions, then returned by boat, trading places with other prisoners who went out to the open sea for interrogation — before the agreement was signed, these men, including Van der Hagen, remained prisoners in status.

The ones occupying Dayuan Island were a group of "gentlemen" with a Western mode of thinking — this was the point the Quartet had stressed repeatedly. And so, for most of the daylight hours of the 25th, the gentlemen of Dayuan generously permitted the prisoners to go to the Sloten to give testimony, after which they were sent back by the gentlemen aboard the ship.

And so a day passed.