Chapter 147: Lightering

The Lin brothers had first been sweet-talked into going to Tangzhuang, then negotiated a maritime shipping deal. After the contract was signed, the two brothers could only hurry back to make arrangements. The Xing'anping, already fully loaded with miscellaneous goods and just waiting to set off, hastily unloaded some bulky cargo, then stuffed in another 100 piculs of raw silk. After all the fuss was finally over, it sailed homeward laden with goods.

Fortunately, the Great Ming had no department for managing overloading. Riding the north wind, the Xing'anping swayed and bobbed all the way back to its old home in Funing Prefecture.

After spending the lunar new year at home, the Lin brothers dared not delay. Ignoring the court ban, they brazenly bought 70,000 catties of top-grade pig iron on the spot, along with some wrought iron and 100 piculs of raw silk, stuffing the Xing'anping full once more. Seeing that it was already the sunny third month of spring, the Lin brothers picked an auspicious day, offered incense to the goddess Mazu, raised sails and set off firecrackers, made a sea sacrifice, and sailed out, heading straight for the opposite shore of the strait.

Crossing the sea from northern Fujian on the north wind, the Xing'anping effectively traced an uncontrollable diagonal line.

With normal luck, as long as the wind direction held, the Fujian junk would drift on the sea for two or three days before Taiwan's coastline came into view; of course, by then the ship might be off Taipei, or it might be off Taichung — the junk had no way to control that.

If luck was bad and they ran into all manner of wild, chaotic, or freakish gales... then they could only resign themselves to fate, and it was perfectly normal for everyone to find themselves at Mount Putuo five or six days later.

The Lin brothers' luck this trip barely qualified as normal. On the first night crossing the strait, the wind force weakened and the ship's speed plummeted. Fortunately, both brothers and the helmsman were old hands who had sailed for years, rich in experience, and they kept the course steady without mishap. Due to the weakened wind, the Xing'anping lost considerable time in the strait, and it wasn't until dusk on the third day that the lookout in the basket spotted land.

Lin Baoquan, who had been anxiously watching the sea from the sterncastle these past two days, finally breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of land and hurriedly ordered a slowdown to rest — this trip had been too close; if they still hadn't seen land by nightfall, the junk would have plowed straight into Big Island and easily run aground on a reef.

The next morning, the Xing'anping, which had been blown to the mouth of the Hsinchu River and anchored there overnight, finally set sail again, heading south along the coastline straight for Dayuan.

When the Xing'anping reached the open sea off Dayuan, it was already late March of 1628. The transmigrators had by then subdued the Madou natives and were in the midst of opening salt fields, steelmaking, and planting soybeans.

A speedboat came out to meet them from afar the moment the junk reached the open sea.

Lin Baoquan knew full well this was a Red Hair patrol boat, so he ordered the sails lowered. The speedboat soon pulled alongside the junk, and a patrolman nimbly climbed aboard using a rope ladder. Upon seeing this patrolman up close, the junk's crew couldn't help but pause in surprise — this was a Kun Person! Looking more carefully at the speedboat, the men on it also all had short hair.

... The man was around twenty years old, dark, lean, and wiry, with a short layer of black hair covering his scalp and no ordination scars visible. His upper body wore a tight indigo-blue front-buttoned short jacket with a row of four black wooden buttons down the middle; below were calf-length trousers that bared his legs, and on his feet a pair of oddly shaped straw sandals.

The man's getup was utterly bizarre, but the moment he opened his mouth, a mouthful of Fujian-accented speech came out. Lin Baoquan felt a sense of kinship but was not surprised: he knew the Dutch had Fujian and Guangdong boat people under them, only he hadn't expected these fellows to have their hair shaved off too. It seemed brothers serving under the Red Hairs truly had it rough.

The patrolman exchanged a few words with Lin Baoquan in his Fujian accent. After learning the Lins' purpose, he measured the junk's draft on the spot, then told Shipmaster Lin plainly: the junk's draft was too deep and it couldn't enter the harbor; the cargo would need to be lightered first.

This did not surprise Lin Baoquan: the Xing'anping was a sharp-bottomed Fujian junk to begin with, and loaded full of iron stock this trip, a deep draft was inevitable. After instructing the Xing'anping to shift a bit closer to the channel mouth, the patrolman disembarked and returned to port. Once the Xing'anping slowly got underway and moved to one side of the Dayuan Channel mouth, a string of five or six speedboats came darting out from the Taijiang Inner Sea.

This time, when that patrolman flipped back aboard, what he produced was the duplicate of the contract Lin Baoquan and Xiong Dao had signed in Hangzhou. Seeing the duplicate, Lin Baoquan had no further doubts and ordered the hatches opened. The sailors began using a slow hoisting method to transfer the iron stock bit by bit onto the boats.

The five or six speedboats, using both oars and sweeps, took turns lightering the cargo back to Dayuan. They toiled from morning until afternoon and only barely managed to unload one-third of the Xing'anping's stock. But that was enough; after measuring the draft that afternoon, the patrolman told Lin Baoquan they could now enter the channel... So the Xing'anping immediately raised half-sail and, led by two speedboats, slowly sailed into the Tai River Channel.

Standing at the bow, Lin Baoquan searched his memories from his youth while gazing off to his right at Dayuan Island, a place he had visited once when he was young.

Back then, Dayuan Island was a raw land overgrown with wild grass, much like Beixianwei Island on his left, both sparsely dotted with the thatched huts of a few savages. Lin Baoquan clearly remembered that when their modest junk advanced along this very channel underfoot, on the sandy banks on both sides, stark-naked savages would run alongside the ship, howling.

But revisiting the place today, Lin Baoquan could no longer see any bare-bottomed savages. In their place on Dayuan Island was a boiling din of human voices and a clamorous construction site.

Looking out from the bow, the wild grass on the sandy ground flanking the channel was long gone; instead, people were planting some kind of saplings. The plants were neatly spaced into three rows, with people digging pits in front and others pushing carts to water them behind. Further in the distance, one could see large numbers of hands bustling about the worksite, shoveling and pushing carts, seemingly leveling sand dunes.

As the Xing'anping passed the middle section of the channel, the Shang Hall on the upper-right corner of Dayuan Island grew increasingly distinct. Yet, compared to the dilapidated Shang Hall, what drew Lin Baoquan's attention even more was a conspicuous, bright-red dun-tai-style structure nearby.

This was a curious red-brick building, perfectly square, wide at the base and narrow at the top, already built up to about two zhang high. From Lin Baoquan's angle at that moment, he could see craftsmen bustling about on bamboo-and-wood scaffolding all around the dun tai.

"These Red Hairs really are rolling in wealth!" Lin Baoquan thought. Red brick was a material the rich in Fujian used to build mansions and homes; he never imagined the Dutch would use it to build a dun tai.

Just as Lin Baoquan was straining to observe the Dutch Shang Hall, the fort, and the pier, a burst of startled cries erupted from the Xing'anping's bow, now packed with sailors. Before Lin Baoquan could grasp what was happening, his sleeve was suddenly yanked hard, and his clansman's shocked shout rang in his ear: "Fifth Brother, look! A seabed scoop!"

Hearing this, Lin Baoquan instinctively shifted his gaze to the left front. The Xing'anping was now gradually nearing the channel mouth, about to enter Taijiang. It was at this moment that Lin Baoquan witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.