On the Grand Canal at Wuzhen, Jiaxing Prefecture, grain barges pressed heavily into the water. Shen Xitang’s black-soled boots crushed the charred edges of a *Gazetteer of Zhejiang Water Transport*. Xiao Heng’s Xiuchun Saber sliced through the reed mats of a grain ship, and as bundles of lake silk burst open in the river breeze, they revealed not raw silk hidden within the gold-woven patterns, but twenty scrolls of Swedish-standard Matchlock Gun assembly diagrams. Next to the Swedish text dated "14th Year of Chongzhen" on the parchment, the quenching parameters for Falun copper mines were marked in Wu dialect!
"Lord Thousand-Householder, look at this reeling machine." Her fingertips brushed over the spiral grooves of the rosewood device. "This 'Nine-Turn Silk-Drawing' technique was an improvement by Huang Daopo during the Hongwu era. How could it be marked with the lion emblem of the House of Vasa?"
Suddenly, the sound of looms erupted from the river wharf. Forty weavers wrapped in green headscarves rushed out of the dye house; the forged patterns on their embroidery needles matched perfectly with the molds for sleeve arrows used by Li Rusong during the Korean campaign of the Wanli era. Shen Xitang’s silver silk shredded a bolt of floral satin, revealing a fragment of the *Stockholm Secret Ledger*—next to an official document claiming "eight thousand bolts of silk as annual tribute," a Finnish annotation read: "Resold to the Turku Cannon Foundry as inner linings for Matchlo…
Chapter 196