In the trance, he saw ships laden with poppies sailing from India to Canton, but as they sailed, the poppies grew smaller and smaller until they had condensed into bricks—and the ships were the outlandish half-circle craft of the west, with their square sails and single flags. Most of those flags bore the cross of Saint George, but for some odd reason, it was laid over the X-shaped cross of one of the other new saints, that Saint Andrew, as he called himself. . . .
The ships dropped anchor in Canton harbor, and round-eyed sailors rowed their cargo ashore. At first they had to persuade Chinese peasants to buy it, so cheaply that they all but gave it away. Soon, though, the Cantonese were buying the opium of their own accord, then buying it frantically, and paying whatever the Englishmen demanded. The more they bought, the deeper into torpor the Dragon sank. . . .
But the Manchus stirred within his blood, the Manchus and, through the civil service, their Chinese servants. The governor of the province was outraged (on behalf of the emperor) that he was not receiving a share of this lucrative traffic, so he imposed a tax, a tariff, in the emperor's name.
The English squalled protest, a protest that their consul filed with the governor—or with his agents; the governor was too busy to confer with a lowly barbarian. But while the consul protested, the Scottish and English captains smuggled the opium into Canton.
Finally, the emperor (or his servants) told the governor to enforce the tax.
The Dragon waked, to find the knights grown amazingly, grown by half and more, and Saint George largest of all. He roared in surprise and anger, rearing back to rend them with teeth and claws.
Saint George couched his lance, called upon his God, and rode full-tilt against the Dragon.
This time the huge claws only rocked him in his saddle, only made his steed swerve from its course. The beast was immense, far heavier than any horse the Dragon had ever seen! It would make a good meal, and the Dragon was hungry, he thought, even as he opened his vast jaws and lowered them, to gobble the temeritous knight
The lance pierced his tongue, ran over it into the back of his throat. The Dragon roared in pain and anger and reared back, yanking the lance out of the knight's hands. His mouth filled with blood, but the knight shouted and attacked him with his sword. The stabs were only pinpricks, but they irritated the Dragon sorely. He threw himself down, curling about the knight and his horse, cutting them off from his fellow knights by the impenetrable scales of the Dragon's back. His belly was not quite so well-armored, but well enough to withhold all but the strongest pricks of Saint George's sword. The knight whirled about, stabbing frantically, isolated and contained, while the Dragon watched balefully.
The governors men sealed the warehouses where the British stored the opium they had smuggled in—if unloading ships in broad daylight can be considered smuggling. Chinese officials announced to the English that the opium had been confiscated.
In return, British gunboats sailed into Canton harbor and began bombarding. The Chinese cannon were poor things in comparison to the British, far out of date, and the forts fell quickly. The British pressed a treaty on the Chinese that was just as the British wanted, and the governor's staff signed it. Thus ended the Opium War, with the British firmly ensconced on the island of Hong Kong and with trading rights clearly spelled out for the European nations, in Canton, Shanghai, and a few other treaty ports.
But the Chinese mandarins drew rings around those ports, and ignored them. A few missionaries penetrated the interior, a few merchants, but the mandarins ignored those, too. Surely they were too few to matter, and too unsophisticated; after all, they were only barbarians. . . .
The Dragon watched the little horseman's sallies and charges with amusement as Saint George struggled to break out of the huge living ring that contained him. The Dragon grinned, reflecting that when his mouth healed and the blood within dried up, he would have a very full meal.
But the wound festered, and the pinpricks released new germs that percolated through his body—more new ideas, more new concepts. The one that would do the greatest damage of all was the strange religion that insisted there was only one God, though he had a Son. . . .
In the south, a hill man named Hung Hsiu-Ch'uan came to Canton to take his examination for the civil service. There, a strange man dressed in the robes of the Ming Dynasty, the last with emperors of Chinese blood, gave Hung a small book containing excerpts from the Christian Bible. When he failed the examination and was carried home in delirium, Hung dreamed that the One God gave him the task of expelling the demons from China and bringing the whole world to His worship.
But the one God was named "Shang-Ti," the first father-god of China, though his son was named Jesu.
For Hung Hsiu-Ch'uan, a few years later, went to a missionary, learned of Christianity, and read more of the books of the Bible, then went home and began the cleansing of China.
Saint Andrew took up Saint George's lance and sword and drove both beneath the Dragon's scales, into his flesh. The monster roared and whipped about, his body fighting against itself in agony, due to the foreign life in his blood.
Of course, he was no longer a living ring, and Saint George rode free again, his sword and lance once more in his own hands.
Hung Hsiu-Ch'uan gathered a band of men to worship Shang-Ti and Jesu; he marched them into temples and broke idols. But when the emperor sent soldiers against him, he found that the only way to continue the cleansing of China was to declare himself to be emperor—and the emperor was the Son of Heaven. After all, Hung knew that the Mandate of Heaven had passed to him. He declared a new Empire, the Tai-Ping Tien Kwoh, the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, and went out to wreak war upon the land. He defeated the Manchu armies; he conquered city after city, province after province, until he held most of southern China.
The watching saints applauded. "Christianity conquers China!" they cried. "Our God is invincible indeed!" Then they sat back, to watch the Dragon's convulsions.
Hung Hsiu-Ch'uan made Nanking his capitol, then sent armies north, to attack the emperor himself. They came within forty miles of Peking before they were driven back. Then the Taipings sat, ruling the south, for ten more years, with constant skirmishing along their border with the Manchu emperor. Gradually, though, they began to weaken.
Finally, a Chinese general of great ability arose. Little by little, he began to push back the Taipings.
The saints watched as the Dragon shuddered and snapped in delirium. "He is weakened," said Saint Andrew. "Perhaps we should attack now."
"No, we should not." This one was no saint, but a somber figure in dark clothing and a stark white collar, with knee pants and white stockings, steel buckles on his shoes, and a flat-topped conical hat with a wide brim and another steel buckle. "Surely thou dost see that, ill or not, the monster is still formidable. See how his eyes do blink, how his jaw doth snap! He doth dream, but were we to descend on him, he might take us for figures from his nightmare, and spring upon us."
"Surely we can defeat him, all of us together, my son!"
The black-clad man glared at Saint George. "If I am thy son, I am estranged indeed, thou Papist! Nay, I have declared my independence of thee; I have conquered half of the New World, and am a nation to be reckoned with!"
"An upstart nation," the saint scoffed, "and one whose empire is small indeed, compared to ours."
The Puritan favored him with a black regard. "Wert thou in my Salem, thou wouldst find thyself quite quickly in the stocks! Nay, I have experience of the paynim; I say, withhold our hand."
"I like not your manner," Saint George grumbled, "but your advice is sound."
The Dragon whipped in waves, his whole body clashing against itself.