The morning mist at the Jingdong Garrison's bronze battery hung heavy with the scent of sulfur and saltpeter. Shen Xitang’s black boots crushed the charred edges of the *Anglo-Trade Charter*, and the scraps of parchment stuck to her soles caught fire upon touching the volcanic earth, revealing a hidden layer of Gaelic cipher: alongside a clause for "Winter 1645: Twenty Cannons in Exchange for Mengyang Jade Mines," the coordinates for shelling the Tengyue Guard were marked in Manchu!
"Lord Thousand-Householder, inspect this breechblock." Xiao Heng’s Xiuchun Saber cleaved through the bronze tail-plug of the cannon. The blade scraped across the lion crest of "Charles I." "This 'double-helix gas seal' locking technique is a secret skill Xu Guangqi obtained from the Frankish breech-loading gunners in Macau during the Tianqi era..."
A faint sound of flint scraping emanated from the battery’s drainage culverts. Fifty English musketeers wearing tricorn hats scrambled out from the vents, the rifling in their Brown Bess flintlocks matching the snowflake patterns found on the relics of the Zhejiang Troops from the bloody battle at the Hun River. Shen Xitang’s Silver Silk shredded the stock of one musket, and from the wood shavings fell a tattered page of the *Mu Mansion Blood Covenant*: "For every three days the Jingdong Garrison is held, the English are permitted to mine five miles of jade!"
Chapter 156