Gunpowder Alchemy (5 page)

Yizhu gestured to the table at his side. “Inspector Aguda found these in your possession.”

My acupuncture case lay open. Yizhu picked up one of the thin needles to examine it in the light.

“The Western devils believe that acupuncture is nothing but a folk remedy. Our weapons are primitive and outdated. We are easy prey.”

He looked directly at me and I fought the urge to duck away.

As Prince Yizhu returned the needle to its place, I caught a glimpse of his expression. Lines of quiet anger cut deep, but only for a moment. When he raised his head, his look was impenetrable. To show emotion was a weakness.

“Do you think the
Yangguizi
are correct?” Yizhu asked me. “That our ways are ancient and misguided?”

I could sense the teeth behind the question, and I struggled to find a proper answer. “How can it be a mistake to follow tradition? Our empire is the greatest under heaven and always will be.”

Yizhu laughed and the sound rang out flat in the chamber. “A good answer, Soling.”

My palms started to sweat. I didn't like that the crown prince knew my given name.

“A perfect answer,” Yizhu continued. “The same answer echoed by every minister and every general that serves the dragon throne. The same answer we have heard from every scientist since the blade fell over Master Jin's neck.”

My chest squeezed so tight I could barely breathe. The crown prince was being cruel, but the Emperor's son could be as cruel as he wanted to be.

“But your father once told us something different,” he went on. “He once said that we needed to build warships and cannons and flying machines to rival the ones we had glimpsed from the West. Our empire contains the men and the minds to surpass these fledgling kingdoms. Have you seen the land of ‘
England
' on a map?”

I shook my head. The foreign name was unfamiliar to me.

“I have, Soling. The size of it is smaller than Hunan province. How could anything so insignificant challenge us?” He was right in front of me now. I could feel his heated breath against my face. “Master Jin Zhi-fu warned us all that if we didn't act soon, it would be too late. That this tiny kingdom would bring us to our knees. Yet who could believe such nonsense?”

The silk of his robe swiped against me as he stalked away. Prince Yizhu suddenly bent over and squeezed his eyes shut, touching two fingers to his temple. Even the pained gesture appeared regal. He was quiet for so long that I began to worry, at first for myself, but then for him.

“Imperial Highness, are you not feeling well?”

He ignored my question. “It is not too late for us. Our empire understands the rise and fall of dynasties. We are the Middle Kingdom, the greatest empire under heaven.”

What was I expected to do? Agree, just as he'd criticized me for doing moments earlier? Respond that the Son of Heaven would rule for a thousand years?

Some of the fire had drained from his speech, but he remained gravely serious. “My Imperial Father didn't fully understand the danger the empire faced. He made the mistake of trusting the words of his advisers and never seeing for himself. That is why this prince is here in Canton, this harbor of foreign devils and traitors. That is why he asked that you be found.”

“Me?” I trembled at the sudden intensity in his eyes.

No one was allowed to speak ill about the Emperor. Certainly not a prince who could challenge his father for power. I was afraid now to find out what he expected of me.

“The prince finds himself in need of men like your father,” Yizhu said.

Sadness swept over me. He didn't even realize the irony of it all.

“Father believed in serving the Emperor above all else.” A lump formed in my throat. “But it's too late now. I'm not my father. I don't know half of what he knew.”

“Your father continues to serve our empire,” Yizhu proclaimed.

I looked up at him in confusion. “How?”

“His research was never destroyed.” The prince's hard, black eyes met mine. “The Emperor failed to recognize your father's importance to our empire, but I will not make that mistake. I intend to continue his work to build an army. My own army.”

I dug my nails into my palms so the pain would wake me up. I had to be dreaming because what Prince Yizhu was telling me made no sense.

After Father's execution, the imperial authorities had come to take everything: his writings, the inventions, all his sketches and scribblings. Everything was burned in front of the Ministry. Our family was left with nothing.

“Master Jin's research remains in the vaults of the imperial palace. The Ministry of Science has studied every last scrap of paper,” Yizhu went on dispassionately.

The new Ministry. The one that had declared Father's ideas misguided and dangerous.

“Why?” My eyes stung with tears, but I wouldn't let them fall.

“Because knowledge is the true sword.”

I could barely gather my breath to speak. When I did, the words came out strained. “If my father hadn't been—if he were alive, he would have devoted everything to your cause.”

The prince's demeanor remained cold and detached. Royal blood truly flowed through his veins, and my pain was insignificant, anyone's pain was beneath him. “As I recall, Master Jin had many loyal disciples.”

“Who were all purged from the Ministry,” I replied bitterly, not caring if I drew his wrath with my insolence.

“The prince has heard that Jin treated his disciples like family. His daughter was well-known and accepted among them. As I recall, she was a frequent visitor to the Ministry of Science.”

Yizhu fixed me with a pointed look. The injustice of our first meeting came back to me. I had been justified in scolding the little boy who'd so carelessly mishandled one of Father's works, but I'd learned that right and wrong meant nothing against imperial authority.

“Do you know the men who worked beneath your father? Would you recognize them to this day?”

I bowed my head in apology. “I was merely a child, Imperial Highness.”

I had been pretending my childhood was from another life for so long, it was easy to lie now, even to the crown prince. That girl was someone else.

He snorted. “The prince wishes he had the luxury of forgetting.”

Tension gathered in his jaw. His shoulders were raised and the cords of his neck pulled taut. Yizhu halted the interrogation and turned away, pressing a hand to his temple.

It was hard to think of the two of us as being the same age. At that moment, Yizhu was at once a young man and an old one. I noticed the pallor in his complexion and how his hands were clenched tight. How long had he been doing that?

My physician's training took over. “Is the prince not feeling well?”

I started to approach, but Yizhu flashed me a look that stopped me cold. With a single command, the doors swung open. Inspector Aguda entered and kowtowed to pay his respect before rising to stand beside me.

“Bring her to Engineer Chen.”

Yizhu's abrupt change left me confused, but I admit I was relieved to be free of him. Every moment within the presence of royalty was dangerous. A single word could change my life and a single mistake could end it.

The crown prince was no was no longer watching us as we departed. His eyes were closed and he stood very still in the center of the room, as if willing the universe to stop moving.

My anger receded, curling up and growing quiet within me as we left the room. I wasn't worthy of judging the actions of an Emperor or a prince. Men of power had to make difficult decisions, Father had told me more than once. Decisions that could affect hundreds or thousands of lives.

Father had gone to the imperial palace that night without fear, while I had clung to his hand until the very edge of our courtyard where the servants had to pry me away. I didn't know anything about honor or courage. I was just a little girl who had wanted her father to stay.

The hallway outside was empty. Where was the entourage of attendants and guards who always accompanied the crown prince? Prince Yizhu appeared to be keeping his presence in Canton a secret.

The moment the doors closed behind us, Inspector Aguda spoke. “Do you recall a man named Yang Hanzhu?” he asked.

“No.”

Instinct told me to lie and I'd done so without thinking. Of all my father's associates, I remembered Yang most of all. Uncle Hanzhu, I'd called him, though he was only ten years or so older than me. I could see him now, smiling at me crookedly, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

“What comes first, Ling-ling? Smoke or fire?”

“No?” He went on regardless. “A man who goes by Yang has surfaced in the port cities of the empire. He's been reported in Canton, Macau, occasionally to the north as well. He appears to be a trader of some sort, but stays in the foreign concessions where we have limited authority. Our informers have been attempting to track him for nearly a year. We suspect he is the same chemist who served under your father. It is here that your assistance is required.”

“But I told you I don't know this man.”

Aguda was unperturbed. “He'll know who you are. Yang Hanzhu was fiercely loyal to your father. Your presence will draw him out into the open.”

He pushed at the double doors at the end of the corridor. I was met by a study filled with shelves and shelves of books. A wave of longing hit me.

It was a library, like the grand book rooms in the Ministry I had explored when I was a little girl. Rows of shelves lined the wall cluttered with books and charts. Secret writings that contained so much undiscovered knowledge.

A desk was situated at the center of the room, and behind it sat a young man. To his left, I could see some sort of elaborate framework with the wings of a bird built out of rattan, but it had been set aside. Instead, my puzzle box was set before him. A spark lantern created a sphere of light that glinted off the steel surface.

The young man's eyes were hidden behind a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles that appeared unwieldy over his face. He wore an official black cap adorned with a mother-of-pearl ornament at the crown that denoted his rank. Beneath the headdress, his hair was braided neatly into a thick queue that he had thrown carelessly over one shoulder.

He was so absorbed in his endeavors that he didn't even glance up as Inspector Aguda ushered me inside.

The inspector cleared his throat. “Mister Chen.”

The man shot to his feet and pulled off his spectacles. I saw now that they were for magnification rather than corrective purposes. His eyesight appeared undoubtedly clear, and an odd expression crossed his face when he focused on me.

He bowed stiffly with the spectacles dangling forgotten from his hand. “Inspector Aguda.”

The address was spoken with care, with an effort toward formality.

“His Imperial Highness instructed me to bring Miss Jin to you.”

“Thank you, Inspector.”

Aguda retreated from the room, leaving me alone with the stranger. From his clothing, I could discern he was yet another imperial bureaucrat. He was of a lower rank, yet one still demanding respect.

Now that the spectacles were removed, his eyes revealed themselves to be a rich brown in color, set deep and serious. He had a prominent nose with a noticeable dip in the angle of the bridge that gave him an intriguing look.

His mouth pressed tight. “I apologize, miss. I don't believe the inspector knows.”

I frowned at him. “I don't understand, sir.”

He blinked rapidly, struggling for words. “What I mean is that—of course, you don't know, either.”

Engineer Chen looked to be in his twenties, perhaps eight or nine years my senior. For a man who had earned a place in the crown prince's retinue, he seemed to lose his composure quite easily.

“My name is Soling, family name Jin,” I offered, realizing we hadn't been introduced.

He sighed. Looking down, he folded the spectacles, one side and then the other with deliberate care, before placing them in the pocket of his mandarin jacket. When he looked at me again, a disturbing stillness had settled over him. A stillness that was not at all calm.

“Chen Chang-wei,” he replied, then waited for my reply.

I had none. My mind latched onto his name, repeating it over and over.

Chen Chang-wei.

Chen Chang-wei was the name of the man I was supposed to marry. A man I had never seen, yet of whom my parents had always spoken of so highly.

That man was looking at me now, his dark eyes searching my face. His mouth lifted in an odd half expression that didn't know what it wanted to be. Was it acknowledgment or apology or something else entirely?

We both looked away at the same time.

His attention shifted to the puzzle box. “This is Japanese, made of
tamahagane
steel. The same steel used in their katanas.” My heart was pounding so loud that his words all sounded like nonsense to me. I was standing next to my once-betrothed who was making a concerted effort not to look at me.

“See these here?” He ran a finger along the designs etched into the steel surface. “These patterns are a signature of the Yosegi region.”

I came closer because it would have seemed odd not to. “Inspector Aguda thought it was a weapon.”

The desk remained between us and I was grateful. There was a time, many years ago, when I had been insatiably curious about my husband-to-be. Now that broken promise remained like a chasm between us.

“The inspector is suspicious of everything,” Chang-wei said, turning the box over and over in his hands. “Do you know how to open this?”

I nodded and took the box from his hands. As I ran my fingers along the surface, searching for the catch, I could feel Chang-wei's gaze on me.

A flush crept up my neck until the very tips of my ears burned. “You're in the Emperor's service?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

My throat had gone dry. “All this time.”

“Not quite.”

The catch in his words made me look up, but I quickly ducked back down. I located the trigger panel on the box and slid the metal strip to the side. The action unlocked another panel, and then another one. Soon the gears took over and the box opened on its own in a series of whirs and clicks. We both watched the cascade of motion as if in a trance.

Chen Chang-wei.

I used to wonder what he looked like. I'd hoped, in girlish fashion, that he wouldn't be ugly. In the tradition of blind marriages, once our union was arranged, we weren't to meet until the wedding. I was banished from the Ministry from that day forward as well. Father had stressed that I was becoming a woman, no longer a child to run about the laboratories.

Now I knew that Chang-wei wasn't ugly, but I didn't know what else to think of him.

Though we were alone, I dropped my voice low. “Why does the crown prince want Yang Hanzhu?”

I saw a muscle twitch along his jaw. “When Yang was with the Ministry, he was involved in experiments with gunpowder. Special formulas that could be used for fuel.”

“But we already have gunpowder engines.”

“For small or midsized machinery. As we tried to scale upward, the mixture we used would become unpredictable. It wouldn't yield enough power.”

“The last year Father held office, the Ministry had become devoted completely to the development of weapons,” I recalled.

“Because of the war. The Emperor wanted more powerful cannons, but your father had another idea. He had seen what some of the Western ships were capable of.”

The devil ships. But Father had refused to call them that.

“The
Yingguo
ships are powered by steam and shielded with iron,” Chang-wei went on. “During the invasion, it didn't matter how fast our war junks could sail. They were no match.”

Realization sparked within me. “The empire has been building ships?”

“Armored ones like the foreigners have. And cannons and war machines as well. Though most of it is Crown Prince Yizhu's doing. He has made it his primary pursuit, and his imperial father indulges him.”

I thought of all the factories that had been set up. The increased production in the mines. Farmers had been dragged from the fields and put to work by imperial decree. Even children were being summoned to labor at a young age. All of this had been done at the whim of a prince who had barely reached manhood?

Yet Prince Yizhu valued my father's work while the Emperor had not.

“The empire wants to take back our ports and expel the foreigners,” Chang-wei explained. “But our own harbors are filled with foreign gunships now. We'll need a massive fleet to challenge them.

“Your father began to experiment with a gunpowder formula that was powerful enough to drive these large-scale engines. We have a reserve, but the supply is low and the factories haven't been able to replicate it successfully.” He leaned closer, dropping to a whisper and speaking rapidly. “Prince Yizhu is not the Emperor's oldest son, but for now he holds favor. There are many conspirators in the imperial court who wish to see him discredited. If we do not show progress soon, all of our efforts will be for nothing.”

If Chang-wei only knew what the crown prince's push for progress had done to us out in the provinces. Forced conscriptions, poor conditions.

“Do you know there have been two explosions within the factories in our province alone within the last three months?” I asked him. “Nearly twenty people were killed in an accident in Shaoyang. Many others were very badly burned.”

I hadn't known at the time that the factories were trying to refine gunpowder. Father had lost his arm in a much smaller accident in his lab. The process was unpredictable and dangerous at best, and deadly when things went wrong.

At least Chang-wei appeared regretful. “Those deaths were a tragedy. I can only hope further accidents can be prevented.”

I tried to absorb everything Chang-wei was telling me and was again swept up in a wave of sadness.

“If the Emperor had only recognized my father's vision sooner, then you would have everything you needed. Father wouldn't have had to die.”