Then the Company decided to make an example of Struan and Brock, its chief antagonists. It withdrew their opium licenses and broke them.
Brock was left with his ship, Struan with nothing. Brock went into secret partnership with another China trader and continued to agitate. Struan and his crew fell on a pirate haven south of Macao, laid it waste, and took the fastest lorcha. Then he became a clandestine opium runner for other traders and relentlessly took more pirate ships, and made more and more money. In consort with the other China traders, he gambled ever more heavily, buying ever more votes and continuing to harass and exhort until Parliament was howling for the total destruction of the Company. Seven years earlier Parliament had passed the Act that eliminated the Company’s monopoly on Asia and opened it to free trade. But it allowed the Company to retain the exclusive right to trade with British India—and the world monopoly of opium. Parliament deplored the sale of opium. The Company did not wish to trade with opium. The China traders themselves would have preferred another—though equally profitable—staple. But they all knew that without the tea-bullion-opium balance the Empire would be wrecked. It was a fact of life of world trade.
With freedom to trade, Struan and Brock became merchant princes. Their armed fleets expanded. And rivalry honed their enmity even keener.
To replace the political vacuum left in Asia when the Company’s control was nullified and trade freed, the British Government had appointed a diplomat, the Honorable William Longstaff, as Captain Superintendent of Trade to protect its interests. The interests of the Crown were an ever-expanding volume of trade—to gain more tax revenue—and the continued exclusion of all other European powers. Longstaff was responsible for the safety of trade and of British nationals, but his mandate was vague and he was given no real power to enforce a policy.
Poor little Willie, Struan thought without malice. Even with all my patient explanations over the last eight years, our “exalted” Excellency, the Captain Superintendent of Trade, still canna see his hand afore his face.
Struan looked at the shore as the sun crested the mountains and bathed the men gathered there with sudden light: friends and enemies, all rivals. He turned to Robb. “Would you na say they’re a welcoming committee?” All his years away from Scotland had not completely erased his Scots brogue.
Robb Struan chuckled and set his felt hat at a crisper angle. “I’d say they all hope we’ll drown, Dirk.” He was thirty-three, dark-haired, clean-shaven, with deep-set eyes, thin nose, and heavy muttonchop whiskers. His clothes were black except for a green velvet cloak and white ruffled shirt and white cravat. His shirt and cuff buttons were rubies. “Good God, is that Captain Glessing?” he asked, peering at the shore.
“Aye,” Struan said. “I thought it apt that he should be the one to read the proclamation.”
“What did Longstaff say when you suggested it?”
“ ’Pon me word, Dirk, all right, if you think it wise.’ ” He grinned. “We’ve come a long way since we started, by God!”
“
You have, Dirk. It was all done when I came out here.”
“You’re the brains, Robb. I’m just the muscle.”
“Yes, Tai-Pan. Just the muscle.” Robb knew well that his stepbrother was Tai-Pan of Struan and Company, and that in Asia Dirk Struan was
the Tai-Pan. “A beautiful day for the flag raising, isn’t it?”
“Aye.”
Robb watched him as he turned back to the shore. He looked so huge, standing there in the prow, bigger than the mountains and just as hard. I wish I were like him, Robb thought.
Robb had gone opium smuggling only once, shortly after he arrived in the Orient. Their ship had been attacked by Chinese pirates and Robb had been terrified. He was still ashamed, even though Struan had said, “Nae harm in that, laddie. The first time in battle is always bad.” But Robb knew that he was not a fighter, not brave. He served his half brother in other ways. Buying teas and silks and opium. Arranging loans and watching the bullion. Understanding the ever more complicated modern procedures of international trading and financing. Guarding his brother and the Company and their fleet and making them safe. Selling teas in England. Keeping the books and doing all the things that made a modern company function. Yes, Robb told himself, but without Dirk you’re nothing.
Struan was studying the men on the beach. The longboat was still two hundred yards offshore. But he could see the faces clearly. Most of them were looking at the longboat. Struan smiled to himself.
Aye, he thought. We’re all here on this day of destiny.
The naval officer, Captain Glessing, was waiting patiently to begin the flag-raising ceremony. He was twenty-six, a captain of a ship of the line, the son of a vice-admiral, and the Royal Navy was part of his bloodstream. It was getting lighter rapidly on the beach, and far to the east on the horizon the sky was threaded with clouds.
There’ll be a storm in a few days, Glessing thought, tasting the wind. He took his eyes off Struan and automatically checked the lie of his ship, a 22-gun frigate. This was a monumental day in his life. It was not often that new lands were taken in the name of the queen, and for him to have the privilege of reading the proclamation was fortunate for his career. There were many captains in the fleet senior to him. But he knew that he had been chosen because he had been in these waters the longest, and his ship, H.M.S.
Mermaid, had been heavily involved in the whole campaign. Not a campaign at all, he thought with contempt. More of an incident. It could have been settled two years ago if that fool Longstaff had had any guts. Certainly, if I’d been allowed to take my frigate up to the gates of Canton. Dammit, I sank a whole bloody fleet of war junks, and the way was clear. I could have bombarded Canton and taken that heathen devil Viceroy Ling and hung him at the yardarm.
Glessing kicked the beach irritably. It’s not that I mind the heathen stealing the damned opium. Quite right to want to stop smuggling. It’s the insult to the flag. English lives ransomed by heathen devils! Longstaff should have allowed me to proceed forthwith. But no. He meekly retreated and evacuated everyone onto the merchant fleet and then hamstrung me. Me, by God, who had to protect the whole merchant fleet. Damn his eyes! And damn Struan, who leads him by the nose.
Well, he added to himself, even so you’re lucky to be here. This is the only war we’ve got at the moment. At least, the only seaborne war. The others are mere incidents: the simple taking over of the heathen Indian states—by gad, they worship cows and burn widows and bow down before idols—and the Afghan wars. And he felt a surge of pride that he was part of the greatest fleet on earth. Thank God he had been born English!
Abruptly he noticed Brock approaching and was relieved to see him intercepted by a short, fat, neckless man in his thirties, with a huge belly that overflowed his trousers. This was Morley Skinner, proprietor of the
Oriental Times, the most important of the English papers in the Orient. Glessing read every edition. It was well written. Important to have a good newspaper, he thought. Important to have campaigns well recorded to the glory of England. But Skinner’s a revolting man. And all the rest of them. Well, not all of them. Not old Aristotle Quance.