Chapter 185

The flickering candlelight in the Chenghuang Temple of Chaoyang County cast long, dancing shadows as Shen Xitang’s leather boots trampled over the rubbings of Lin Dachun’s memorial. Xiao Heng’s scabbard shattered a model of the Hall of Mirrors in a disguised Versailles; inside the exposed Bronze Secret Casket, the Treaty of the Loire was striking to behold—beside the clause "Ceding the Han River Waterway" on the parchment, the French fleur-de-lis, the Spanish castle crest, and the hidden seal of the Eight Merchant Guilds of Chaozhou were hideously intertwined. "Look at the tidal date of this treaty," she said, her armor scraping against the rolled edges of the Chongzhen Calendar Treatise star charts. "This record of the 'Great Tide of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen destroying Guangji Bridge' coincides exactly with the eve of Zheng Shilong burning the coastal defense maps..." At the sound of the third watch's clapper, as seventy French eighteen-pound naval cannons disguised as ritual vessels fired in unison, the gilded inscription "Wanggong Factory Special Supply" glowed blood-red above Xiangzi Bridge, blasting the final key to the Ming Dynasty’s southeastern sea defenses into nothing more than scraps at a banquet of European powers.