Chapter 196: Nightscape

Everything before was the carrot; now comes the big stick.

To urge the Philippines to make a decision as quickly as possible, Cai Feiming now formally announced: effective immediately, Dayuan will blockade all shipping routes inside and outside the island. This order will remain in effect until both sides reach an agreement.

Ensign Sandoval and his group were stunned.

They first spent some time sorting out the logical sequence: these short-haired heretics had first brutally hijacked them here, then smiled as they stuffed their ship's cabin full of cargo, next they promised to open trade, and after that came the blockade of the shipping routes, an attempt to starve the soldiers in Taipei to death there...

Half seawater, half flame. Half guns and cannons, half roses.

This reckless carrot-and-big-stick policy, to be honest, was a bit too forceful. If not for the fact that these flat-cake faces were all devout Catholics, with a +2 bonus to saves against 'chaos,' 'confusion,' and 'bewilderment,' they would have gone insane by now.

Once Sandoval's group fully grasped the Transmigrators' intentions, they instinctively began to haggle: "In the name of God, that fortress belongs to His Majesty the great Ferdinand IV! You cannot seize it like this!"

Cai Feiming rolled his eyes. "Does the very fact that you are sitting before me not yet suffice to make you grasp the terror of armed force?"

"The only reason that fort still remains in your hands is entirely due to our goodwill. Do you understand goodwill?" Cai Feiming rapped his knuckles on the table, wearing the expression of someone looking at an idiot. "A single morning would be enough to kill all your soldiers. Think about those corpses on your ship!"

Only when he saw these few bunglers' eyes finally begin to show terror did Old Cai, exasperated, add: "Furthermore, I do not believe you have been granted diplomatic authority by Manila. Therefore, gentlemen, you have no right to discuss anything with me here. You are merely messengers."

At this, Cai Feiming took four documents out of the drawer. The first two documents were a formal diplomatic agreement and a personal letter from Xia Xianze; these needed to be taken by the Ensign to Manila and delivered to the Governor-General.

The third document was the demand list.

Considering Manila's pitiful commodity export capacity, the list was very short—so short it contained only two commodities: silver and "Filipino helpers."

Silver needs no explanation; the Fleet of Great Sails trade transported vast amounts of silver to Manila every year, renewing the subscription for this regime that had no competitive goods and only ran a deficit. Filipino helpers need even less explanation, famous even in later ages, so Dayuan was now very interested in the young, able-bodied men and women of the Philippines.

With the strategic minds of Ensign Sandoval and his few companions, they were incapable of recognizing the importance of this trade condition: the moment this demand list was presented, the Philippines would, for the first time, have a "self-produced" competitive product.

Of course, the Transmigrators didn't need these few fellows to understand everything. They only needed the messengers to deliver the letters to Governor-General Juan Niño de Tabola in Manila, and that was it. When Governor-General Tabola saw these documents, he would naturally understand their value.

As for that stone fort in Taipei, in the face of such enormous profit, it didn't even count as a bargaining chip: the Spanish were now in a period of industrial hollowing and decline. Apart from silver, they had nothing. Now and in the future, they would contract across the Americas, Africa, and Asia; their colonies would be nibbled away one by one, let alone the many forts they lost every year.

As long as Governor-General Tabola's competence was above bungler level, he would certainly agree to this agreement.

The fourth, and final, document was a commitment letter: the Crossing Faction committed that, after both sides established a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, they would provide, free of charge, several sets of coordinates near Manila for the Spanish to mine gold, silver, and copper.

Of course, the Transmigrators would not be responsible for the enormous initial costs of building mines amidst malaria, savages, and tropical jungle. As for the day when gunboats arrived at Manila's doorstep, whether the flat-cake faces could actually open the mines, and if they did, how much gold and silver they could dig out—that would depend on their luck.

After sealing the four documents with a sealing wax bag and locking them inside a wax seal box, Cai Feiming handed both the key and the box to Ensign Sandoval.

Once the Ensign swore in the name of God and the King that he would deliver the letters to the Governor-General, and the other three men pledged to bear witness, Cai Feiming nodded with satisfaction. "Very good. It seems you finally understand the nature of your work."

At this point in the meeting, the pre-planned diplomatic mission was already mostly accomplished.

Next, Cai Feiming took out a few sheets of paper and a quill pen, tossing them in front of the Spanish. "Alright, one last item. Write."

"What do you need us to write?"

"A letter to the commander in Taipei, of course. Tell him everything that has happened here." Cai Feiming's gaze swept across the four faces. "Additionally, I need one of you to take the survey ship to Taipei tomorrow morning and deliver the letter to the commander there. And until orders arrive from Manila, persuade the commander to provide conveniences for the survey ship... at the very least, do not show hostility and provoke our people into opening fire."

After a brief discussion among the four Spaniards, they decided that First Mate Sampel would serve as the messenger to Taipei. As for the letter itself, the professional letter-writer, the Military Chaplain, dashed it off in one go.

Finally, after everyone had signed and marked the letter, this meeting—long premeditated, yet brought about by a coincidence—came to an end at last.

Since they were only stopping briefly in Taijiang for one night, these Spaniards, who had not undergone quarantine, were ordered to remain on their ship.

After the meeting ended, the Ensign and his men were also sent back to the galleon. Thereafter, aside from delivering a batch of supplies, Dayuan paid them no further attention.

The only one to enjoy guesthouse lodging, a hot bath, and clean clothes was First Mate Sampel. He would board the survey ship, which was setting out again, early the next morning for Taipei.

When the Ensign returned to the Alicante, the crewmen, having finally learned the truth of the situation, could at last weep tears of joy... everyone's lives were spared.

As for those trade agreements, those were matters for the big shots to worry about; small figures had no standing to judge them.

By this time, the sky had completely darkened. The Spaniards aboard the Alicante ate the salted fish rice sent from the port while admiring a nightscape unlike any they had ever seen.

The Industrial Party had ultimately compromised.

With the successive completion of a string of key sites—Chikan Wharf, the Chikan District Government, the Transmigrator Villa District, the Taijiang Shipyard, and the Taijiang Cold Storage District—the Industrial Party in the Kiln District could no longer delay the electrical infrastructure for both banks of the Taijiang. Thus, the 5-kilometer main cable, a secondary cable of equal length, substations, transformers, and so on had only recently been imported in one go.

For the entire Taijiang Lighting Project, the proportion of self-produced accessories from the Kiln District, including utility poles and various outer casings and brackets, was less than 20%. This was precisely why the Industrial Party kept complaining: if they had persisted a while longer, the Kiln District could have produced old-style asphalt wire on its own, and there would have been no need to use up so much of the import quota.

Complaints aside, the effect was utterly beautiful.

Now, with electricity connected to both the east and west banks, Taijiang became, every night, a dazzling world utterly unique to the 17th century.

Starting from the shipyard district in the north, which operated through the night, stretching all the way south to the warehouse and cold storage district, then leaping across the sea surface to reach Dayuan Island... an unbroken stream of lights in every color enveloped Taijiang, like a shimmering river of light, flowing endlessly.

The lights reflected on the dark blue sea surface, rising and falling with the waves. The star-shattered fragments of light and shadow mirrored the dense patches of stars studding the firmament overhead, like an inverted mirage, intoxicating beyond measure.

The Spaniards now clung to the ship's rail, greedily watching this nightscape of a heretic city, which so perfectly matched their fantasies of heaven. Excited shouts erupted from the galleon from time to time. The next moment, the searchlight on the blockhouse swept over, and the crewmen screamed in the blinding white glare. Well, that settled them all down.

After the terrifying searchlight beam moved away, the flat-cake faces huddled silently behind the gunwale, still gazing out at Chikan Street, from which tremendous noise emanated.

Chikan Avenue, in front of the Chikan Government building, was now the liveliest place on summer nights.

Due to the limited supply of light bulbs and electrical wire, the river of light along both banks of the Taijiang was, in truth, confined to the ring of important buildings facing the river. With the north-south running Chikan Avenue as the boundary, to the west were light bulbs; to the east, it switched to self-produced coal gas lamps.

Every night now, large numbers of workers would emerge from their pitch-dark dormitories and crowd onto Chikan Avenue and the shores of the Taijiang to cool off and eat grilled fish: authentic charcoal grilled fish.

The various kinds of grouper, shrimp, and crabs that would be expensive in later ages were not too pricey at the current Chikan Night Market: if a worker only treated someone once a month, it was affordable.

These grilled seafood items, generously sprinkled with salt and a small amount of chili powder, were all taken from the fresh goods transported into the cold storage that very day.

Theoretically, Dayuan's seafood should be extremely cheap—in the 17th-century strait, an infinite bounty of marine life grew freely.

The reason seafood prices remained stubbornly high was the lack of fishing nets. Dayuan's fishing ship fleet currently had no nylon; using traditional hemp nets to go to sea, they could only catch fish in the shallow layers. This was not only inefficient but also prevented continuous operation.

To solve this problem, the nearest point on the technology tree right now was steel wire fishing nets. Of course, this black technology could not be put on the agenda until at least after the iron sand mine in Taidong was developed.

Early the next morning, Andreis, who had been dragged to the all-night construction site to learn about cement usage for an entire evening, came back staggering. The poor man, being illiterate, had also received, when work ended at dawn, a hand-drawn diagram on Fujian bamboo paper—this thing was mass-produced, prepared precisely for those illiterate craftsmen of the Great Ming.

At the same moment Andreis returned to the Alicante, First Mate Sampel also stepped onto the deck of the Yuan Dou.

And so, the two sailing ships that had been locked in a life-and-death struggle just the day before now sailed out of the Dayuan Channel one after the other, like friends, riding the favorable wind southward.