Bao Bantou, following his orders, arranged a meal and brought his “cousin” to meet with the lord.

Shuang’an Prefecture lay in the southeast of Fujian — mountains and ridges stretched on all sides, rivers wound and curved through its valleys, and to the east lay the open sea. It was destined to be rich in mountain delicacies and ocean bounty.

Tea, bamboo shoots, timber and timber goods abundant beyond the realm — fish, salt, clams and shellfish matching the wealth of Qing and Qi. No empty claim, this.

By now the dishes on the table were all laid out: clear-broth river clam soup, the stock limpid and smooth; ginger duck, its fragrance deep and full, its color a rich, appetizing hue; and the classic vegetarian dish of Jiahe Island, “Half-moon Submerged in the River.” Bao Bantou had put no small amount of thought into the selection.

A jar of aged cellar wine from Wuyi Mountain had been unseated from its clay seal, and the aroma of rich grain spirit filled the private room.

Yet faced with such fine food and excellent wine, the two people in the room were wholly without appetite. Their brows were knotted, their worry plain on their faces.

“Third Brother, I came back to my hometown like this, sneaking and creeping — how could the authorities have noticed me out of nowhere? Has the official seen through my identity?”

The one speaking looked somewhat older than Bao Bantou. Even dressed in new clothes, he could not conceal a complexion of deep tan, darkened and roughened by wind and sun. His frame was powerfully built, yet his hands had nowhere to settle, fidgeting with nervous energy.

Bao Bantou knew full well that it was his own careless mention of the matter before my lord that had brought this about. He dared not say so, and so made up another explanation: “Old Ninth, you invited the whole village to a banquet. A commotion that large — how could you possibly hide it from the authorities?”

Bao Old Ninth said again: “But in all the villages around here, I’m not the only one who has ‘done business’ and come home to throw a feast. Why single me out?”

Bao Bantou glanced at the time, and advised: “This is not the moment to be puzzling over that. Better to think about what you’re going to say when the time comes.” My lord would be arriving soon enough.

“What if the official asks about the ‘business’ — what am I to say? Stick your head out and it’s one cut; pull your head back and it’s the same cut. There’s no way to live through this…” Old Ninth’s worry grew heavier still.

Bao Bantou mulled it over for a long while but could not produce any useful guidance. He said only: “Just read the situation as it unfolds. The Prefect is reasonably even-tempered.” Not violent or vicious.

Just then, through the window, Bao Bantou saw my lord’s carriage arriving slowly, drawing to a stop outside the tavern.

Then came the sound of unhurried footsteps ascending the stairs.

That day, Pei Shaohuai was dressed in a round-collar blue robe, a jade ring pendant at his waist, a folding fan in hand. His youth was such that at first glance he gave the impression of an elegant, well-bred young scholar from a wealthy family.

Only his manner and gaze — warm and composed — made him all the more difficult to read.

Bao Bantou quickly assumed a welcoming expression and called out: “My lord, this way, please.”

After brief pleasantries, they settled in. The door was pulled shut and even the upstairs windows were latched; the room fell into complete quiet. Bao Bantou could only pour the wine and serve the dishes, saying: “My lord, please try this jar of aged wine from the Fumu estate.” He hoped to break the oppressive silence in some way.

“How does this gentleman address himself?” Pei Shaohuai asked.

“A rough man, nothing more — ninth-born in the family… My lord may call him Bao Old Ninth.” Faced with an official, even one who appeared to be a slight and scholarly young man, Bao Old Ninth could not suppress an instinctive fear.

Pei Shaohuai raised his cup with one hand. “A cup?”

Bao Bantou and Bao Old Ninth quickly lifted their cups with both hands. They clinked; wine splashed over the rims. Both drank in a single draught.

After a few cups, with the first hints of warmth showing, Pei Shaohuai finally said: “Old Ninth, as you can see, I’ve come today in plain dress. I’m not here to make things difficult for you.” He leaned forward slightly and continued: “I heard from Bao Bantou that you do business away from home. The one you do business with — is it Wang Chu or Xu Wu?”

Wang Chu and Xu Wu: the two largest pirate chieftains operating in the outer seas east of Fujian, both of them Da Qing men.

Bao Old Ninth’s body should have been warmed by the few cups of wine; instead, his palms were damp with a cold sweat. He looked toward Bao Bantou, waiting for his brother to rescue him from this. It was just as he had feared — the official knew who he truly was.

“Answer my lord’s questions honestly… My lord has said he will not make things difficult for you.” At this point, there was nothing else Bao Bantou could say.

Bao Old Ninth worked his mouth for a long while before stammering out an answer: “Wang… Wang Chu.”

Since the matter was now out in the open, Pei Shaohuai went directly to the point: “The reason I have sought you out today is to ask you for some information.”

The chair scraped back, the table jolted. The powerfully built Bao Old Ninth dropped abruptly to his knees before Pei Shaohuai: “Official, I beg you to spare my whole family their lives. It is not that I am unwilling to speak — it is that… if I breathe so much as a word, not only will I not survive, but my aged mother and father, and my two boys who have not yet grown up, will all have no path left either.”

The money earned at the cost of one’s life had not been spent by Bao Old Ninth alone.

Bao Old Ninth assumed that Pei Shaohuai intended to ask on which island Wang Chu was hiding, how many men and ships were under his command — intelligence of that nature.

A new official lighting his three inaugural fires — he assumed Pei Shaohuai meant to make Wang Chu his first target.

Beside him, Bao Bantou’s expression had gone blank as well, a cold sweat breaking out — it seemed he had drawn the same conclusion.

Pei Shaohuai gestured for Bao Bantou to help Bao Old Ninth to his feet. He tapped the table lightly with his folding fan and said: “You think I want to investigate the location of Wang Chu’s hideout?” He shook his head, letting out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “Setting aside whether I even have the will for that — even if I did, I would need men and ships before I could do anything about it.”

The sea pirates were entangled with the local clans. Their people were all local men — funded by clan money, and with clansmen on shore passing them intelligence. The relationships were tangled beyond untangling.

By any measure, now was not the best time to settle accounts with the pirates. Pei Shaohuai would naturally not stir up a hornet’s nest at such a moment, making an already turbulent situation even more chaotic.

The room was quiet. After a pause, Pei Shaohuai continued: “The court has issued maritime defense reward schedules. For capturing or killing genuine Japanese raiders: an ordinary raider is worth fifteen taels of silver, a bandit leader twenty-five taels, and a ringleader fifty taels… For Da Qing sea brigands and pirates roaming the outer waters, capturing or killing one earns merely three to five taels. Tell me — in terms of merit, is it better to join forces to capture and kill Japanese raiders, or to cut each other down?”

Bao Bantou and Bao Old Ninth looked at each other for a long moment before understanding dawned.

“The official wishes to capture Japanese raiders?” Bao Old Ninth said. “Those Japanese are fierce to a fearsome degree…”

“You need only tell me what information you have about the Japanese raiders.” Pei Shaohuai said.

How to deal with the Japanese raiders was not Bao Old Ninth’s concern.

Pei Shaohuai asked: “From what you know, does Wang Chu hate the Japanese raiders?”

“Naturally he hates them.” Bao Old Ninth’s courage was returning somewhat, and his tongue loosened. He said: “The Japanese raiders have no sense of honor at sea. When they encounter a merchant vessel, they kill and plunder without exception. When they take the merchant ships, our ‘passage money’ naturally disappears with them.”

He continued: “When the Japanese raiders come ashore, they also seize able-bodied common people and haul them back to the islands to use as forced laborers… Once, the chieftain sent men out to escort a merchant ship, and they had the misfortune to run into Japanese raiders. The whole boatful of brothers was taken captive. Half a year later, one brother managed to escape by luck. When he spoke of what he had been through, the rest of us came to understand what kind of living hell exists on the Japanese raider islands.”

Not only killing for plunder — they also took ordinary people captive as slaves.

With that kind of enmity between them, it was natural that the sea pirates hated the Japanese raiders as well.

Pei Shaohuai nodded in understanding. He asked further: “Can you tell Japanese raiders apart from others?”

“That’s simple enough.” Bao Old Ninth said. “As for their ships — I once caught a distant glimpse of a Japanese raider vessel out at sea, and it was a truly frightening sight. I saw a man at the prow wearing a white headband, holding a folding fan, making strange movements with it — and not long after, I saw the wind and waves rise sharply… Later, when the brothers discussed it, they came to understand it was a Japanese man performing his sorcery.”

Pei Shaohuai reflected that the method of commanding troops in the Japanese warring-states era was precisely to direct forces using a fan.

It had evidently been mistaken for supernatural sorcery.

This also made clear that those coming to Da Qing to cause havoc were not ordinary Japanese people, but an organized, premeditated Japanese military force.

Only regular troops would use a fan at the prow to direct combat.

No wonder the Japanese raiders, once ashore, so often managed to prevail against larger numbers with smaller forces — their battlefield capability was formidable indeed.

Bao Old Ninth continued: “If you need to identify Japanese on land, that’s not hard either. They have protruding foreheads, and their speech is like bird calls — no one can make sense of it. The way they walk is like wooden puppets, and everything about them differs from Da Qing people.”

Afraid that Pei Shaohuai might underestimate them, Bao Old Ninth warned: “Official, please, never make light of these Japanese.” He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a long scar running along his arm, then continued: “Japanese men grip their blades in both hands to fight, and they are ferocious. Once a fight begins, they have no regard for their own lives. Three feet of steel, and they dance with it bare-armed — our weapons cannot stand against it… If a brother had not come up from behind and put a blade into that Japanese man, causing him to lose his strength, this scar would have landed on my chest instead.” Even recounting this experience, Bao Old Ninth was seized with a lingering dread.

Pei Shaohuai listened throughout without interruption. After hearing it all, he felt his own confidence grow.

Finally, he asked: “Do you know where the Japanese raiders are sheltering out at sea?”

Bao Old Ninth could not answer this. He was merely a small-time brigand under Wang Chu’s command — how would he have access to intelligence of that scale?

“Then let us stop here for today.”

More than half the dishes on the table remained untouched.

“I have answered the official’s questions. I trust my lord will keep his word and not make things difficult for me.”

Pei Shaohuai drew a letter from his sleeve and slid it across to Bao Old Ninth, saying: “Deliver this letter to your chieftain — that is how you survive.” He had written a letter to the pirate chieftain Wang Chu.

Bao Old Ninth’s eyes darkened. He was slow to take the letter. By conveying it for Pei Shaohuai, would he not be proving that he had been in contact with the authorities? Where would his survival be then?

Pei Shaohuai understood his misgivings and said by way of persuasion: “If you carry the letter, you can at least stay alive in the middle as a messenger. If you refuse — you came here today and met with me. Paper cannot contain fire indefinitely… Choose for yourself.”

That was the argument from self-interest.

Pei Shaohuai then made the argument from duty: “You and those like you have lived long in Fujian. You ought to understand it better than I do: every year at the end of spring and start of summer, the northeast wind prevails at sea, and Japanese raiders ride it down from Satsuma. This is the ‘major surge’ season for defending against the raiders. Then in the ninth and tenth months, when there are also occasional northeast winds, comes the ‘minor surge’… The Japanese raiders did not come to harass the people at the start of this summer. By the time autumn arrives and the harvest is in, the people may not be so fortunate.” The implication was plain: there was every likelihood the Japanese raiders would come to attack after the autumn harvest.

“Autumn is only a few months away now.”

Pei Shaohuai fixed Bao Old Ninth with a direct challenge: “You can shelter on an island and remain unharmed well enough. But on this shore — the villages and townships that gave you life and raised you, the old people and children you threw a feast for — who is going to protect them?” He hoped Bao Old Ninth would not be so faint-hearted, and that some measure of spirit would remain in him.

If Bao Old Ninth would not carry the letter, Pei Shaohuai would find another way to reach Wang Chu and Xu Wu.

As long as the rope was still anchored on Da Qing soil, as long as they too hated the Japanese raiders, they could be turned to Pei Shaohuai’s use.

Pei Shaohuai declared his position once more: “This official has come to take office, and the accounts this official is settling now are with the Japanese raiders.”

The accounts “at home” could wait.

Bao Old Ninth bowed his head and turned it over for a long while. At last he drew the letter into his sleeve and said: “I will carry the letter for my lord.” He had other conditions as well: “Once I put out to sea and head for the island, if there is no word back from me within seven days, I ask my lord to keep my family safe. They are innocent.”

Pei Shaohuai was not sure what “innocent” meant in this context anymore, but he gave Bao Old Ninth his promise: “This official’s word is binding.”

Bao Old Ninth had arrived creeping and sneaking. Now with a letter tucked in his sleeve — the fact already accomplished — he walked out of the tavern with his head up and his step wide open, no longer afraid of being seen.

Shortly after, Pei Shaohuai too boarded his carriage and departed.

——

Bao Old Ninth put out to sea and headed for the island. The day after, someone came to beat the drum of grievance at the yamen gates, seeking the Prefect’s justice.

At first hearing, it seemed to be nothing more than a dispute over custody of two children. On closer consideration, it became clear it was also connected to the people who had gone “to do business” on the outer seas.

The case was as follows. The one beating the drum was a woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Her husband had gone “to do business” three years ago and never returned — not a word of news since — and she had long since assumed he was dead. She now wished to remarry and take her two sons with her.

Her two sons were ten and eight years old — half-grown boys, both of them.

A widow bringing children into a new marriage might seem a burden, yet there was no shortage of families willing to take her — once she married, the children’s surname would be changed to that of the new household, making them effectively members of the family. At that age they could already be put to work as half a laboring adult.

The difficulty was that the first husband’s family kept blocking her at every turn and refused to let her take the two boys away, saying she could not let the children change their surname.

Pei Shaohuai questioned the children’s paternal grandparents: “Where did your son go, and what business was he conducting? How much silver has he ever sent home? What manner of business is it that drives a man to abandon wife and children in this way?”

The two old people hemmed and hawed and could not produce a clear answer. They only wept and lamented: “My lord, the land cannot sustain people here. He had no other choice…”

Pei Shaohuai asked further: “The woman just stated that before your son departed, he said that if he did not return within three years, she was free to remarry and the sons would go with her and take a new surname. Is this true? And do you recognize the written agreement she has produced?”

The agreement bore the signatures of local gentry — it could not be forged.

Pei Shaohuai was confident that if a careful search were made, such written agreements would be found in households throughout Shuang’an Prefecture, and they were by no means rare.

“My lord, it is true that those words were spoken — but the two children are after all their father’s blood. That woman is too heartless…”

The woman spoke through her tears: “My lord, please see clearly. If the children could stay and be fed properly, with a decent livelihood ahead of them — for what we once meant to each other, how could I bear to take them all away?” Like many families in the same situation, the woman’s husband was the youngest son in his household. The two children had an elder uncle above them.

Pei Shaohuai had a clear enough grasp of the matter. He asked the two old people: “Your son went away to find a path to survival for his wife and children, and you agreed to it. Now his wife takes her two young sons to remarry — also to find a path to survival. By what reason do you refuse?”

To go to sea as a pirate was to consent to the consequences.

It was difficult to say who was wrong and who was right in this case — because what was wrong was the world itself.

Pei Shaohuai ruled in favor of the two children being awarded to the woman, and permitted the remarriage.

There were many onlookers. When the ruling came down, reactions were divided. Pei Shaohuai struck the gavel block once and said loudly: “From this time forward, there is no restriction on fishing boats at the mouth of the Jiulong River. As more fishing vessels appear, there will be ample work for those with a pair of willing hands. If men who have gone ‘to do business’ away do not wish to see their wives forced to remarry and their young children take a new surname elsewhere, they would do well to come home as soon as may be. These are all the words I have to say.”

Opportunities, released little by little. The ropes on shore would naturally pull tighter and tighter of their own accord, and one day, the ships would sail home.