TAI-PAN
A NOVEL OF HONG KONG BY
James Clavell
FOR
Tai-tai, for Holly, and for Michaela
BOOK I
Struan came up onto the quarterdeck of the flagship H.M.S. Vengeance
, and strode for the gangway. The 74-gun ship of the line was anchored half a mile off the island. Surrounding her were the rest of the fleet’s warships, the troopships of the expeditionary force, and the merchantmen and opium clippers of the China traders.
It was dawn—a drab, chill Tuesday—January 26th, 1841.
As Struan walked along the main deck, he glanced at the shore and excitement swarmed over him. The war with China had gone as he had planned. Victory was as he had forecast. The prize of victory—the island—was something he had coveted for twenty years. And now he was going ashore to witness the formality of taking possession, to watch a Chinese island become a jewel in the crown of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Victoria.
The island was Hong Kong. Thirty square miles of mountainous stone on the north lip of the huge Pearl River in South China. A thousand yards off the mainland. Inhospitable. Unfertile. Uninhabited except for a tiny fishing village on the south side. Squarely in the path of the monstrous storms that yearly exploded from the Pacific. Bordered on the east and on the west by dangerous shoals and reefs. Useless to the mandarin—the name given to any official of the Chinese Emperor—in whose province it lay.
But Hong Kong contained the greatest harbor on earth. And it was Struan’s stepping-stone into China.
“Belay there!” the young officer of the watch called to the scarlet-coated marine. “Mr. Struan’s longboat to the midships gangway!”
“Yes, sir!” The marine leaned over the side and echoed the order.
“Won’t be a moment, sir,” the officer said, trying to contain his awe of the merchant prince who was a legend in the China seas.
“Nae hurry, lad.” Struan was a giant of a man, his face weathered by a thousand storms. His blue frock coat was silver-buttoned and his tight white trousers were tucked carelessly into seaboots. He was armed as usual—knife in the crease of his back and another in his right boot. He was forty-three, redheaded, and his eyes were emerald green.
“It’s a bonny day,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Struan walked down the gangway, got into the prow of his longboat and smiled at his younger half-brother, Robb, who sat amidships.
“We’re late,” Robb said with a grin.
“Aye. His Excellency and the admiral were longwinded.” Struan stared at the island for a moment. Then he motioned at the bosun. “Cast off. Go ashore, Mr. McKay!”
“Aye, aye, sorr!”
“At long last, eh, Tai-Pan?” Robb said. “Tai-pan” was Chinese for “supreme leader.” In a company or army or fleet or nation there is only one such man—he who wields the real power.
“Aye,” Struan said.
He was Tai-Pan of The Noble House.
CHAPTER ONE
“A pox on this stinking island,” Brock said, staring around the beach and up at the mountains. “The whole of China at our feets and all we takes be this barren, sodding rock.”
He was standing on the foreshore with two of his fellow China traders. Scattered about them were other clusters of traders, and officers from the expeditionary force. They were all waiting for the Royal Navy officer to begin the ceremony. An honor guard of twenty marines was drawn up in two neat lines beside the flagpole, the scarlet of their uniforms a sudden splash of color. Near them were the untidy knots of sailors who had just fought the flagpole into the stony soil.
“Eight bells were time to raise the flag,” Brock said, his voice rasping with impatience. “It be an hour past. Wot’s godrotting delay for?”
“It’s bad joss to curse on a Tuesday, Mr. Brock,” Jeff Cooper said. He was a lean, hook-nosed American from Boston, his frock coat black and his felt top hat set at a jaunty angle. “Very bad!”
Cooper’s partner, Wilf Tillman, stiffened slightly, feeling the underlying edge to the younger man’s nasal voice. He was thickset and ruddy, and came from Alabama.
“I’ll tell thee right smartly, this whole godrotting flyspeck be bad joss!” Brock said. “Joss” was a Chinese word that meant Luck and Fate and God and the Devil combined. “Godrotting bad.”
“It better not be, sir,” Tillman said. “The future of the China trade’s here now—good joss or bad joss.”
Brock stared down at him. “Hong Kong’s got no future. It’s open ports on the China mainland we be needing, and you knowed it, by God!”
“The harbor’s the best in these waters,” Cooper said. “Plenty of room to careen and refit all our ships. Plenty of room to build our homes and warehouses. And no Chinese interference at long last.”
“A colony’s got to have arable land and peasants to work the land, Mr. Cooper. An’ revenue,” Brock said impatiently. “I be walking all over and so have you. Not a crop’ll grow here. There be no fields or streams, no grazing land. So no meat and no spuds. Everything we be needing’ll have to come by sea. Think of the cost. Why, even the fishing be rotten. An’ who’s to pay upkeep of Hong Kong, eh? Us and our trade, by God!”
“Oh, that’s the sort of colony you want, Mr. Brock?” Cooper said. “I thought the British Empire”—he spat deftly to windward—“had enough of that sort of colony.”
Brock’s hand strayed near his knife. “Be you spitting to clear yor throat, or spitting on the Empire?” Tyler Brock was nearing fifty, a big, one-eyed man as hard and as permanent as the iron he had been forced to peddle in Liverpool as a youth, and as strong and as dangerous as the fighting merchant ships he had escaped to and at length had come to rule as head of Brock and Sons. His clothes were rich and the knife at his belt was jeweled. His beard was graying like his hair.
“It’s a cold day, Mr. Brock,” Tillman said quickly, inwardly angry at his young partner’s loose tongue. Brock was no man to bait, and they could not afford open enmity with him yet. “Plenty of chill on the wind, eh, Jeff?”