Chapter 179

The ancient coconut trees on Zhongye Island are soaked in rust-colored blood; Shen Xitang’s leather boots tread over the charred pages of the *Zheng Clan Marine Charts*. Xiao Heng’s scabbard shatters a model of a disguised Batavian clock tower, revealing a Bronze Secret Casket. Inside, the *Malacca Deed of Cession* lies in plain sight—next to the clause "leasing twelve salt fields in Qiongzhou," the Habsburg coat of arms of Spain, the Tudor rose of England, and the seal of the Jianzhou Plain Blue Banner overlap in a grotesque display. "Look at this tide of the treaty," she says, her armor scraping against the rolled edges of the *Investigation of the Eastern and Western Oceans* star chart. "The calculation for the 'first day of the thirty-second year of Yongli' falls exactly on the eve of Prince Yanping Zheng Keshuang’s surrender to the Qing..." A thunderclap erupts from the sea and sky. As sixty British Carronades, disguised as Red-Barbarian Cannons, swivel their muzzles, the gilded inscription "Wanggongchang Special Make, fifty-fifth year of Chongzhen" glitters like blood amidst the nine-dash line, obliterating the last silhouette of Chinese sails into nothing more than ink blots on the grid of imperial powers.