The ink boats of Xin'an River in Huizhou Prefecture pressed against the ripples, and Shen Xitang's black leather boots crushed the scorched edges of the *Book of Fang Family Inks*. Xiao Heng's Xiuchun Saber cleaved open the Chinese fir wood chest of an ink boat, and baskets of pine-soot ink cakes suddenly burst open in the mountain wind—tucked among the grey-blue fragments was not glue or resin, but nine rolls of French-standard flintlock blueprints, where beside the French text reading "Fifteenth Year of Chongzhen," the pitch of the rifle's rifling at the "Versailles Arsenal" was annotated in the native accent of Shexian!
"Lord Thousand-Householder, look at this smoke-sifter." Her fingertips brushed the spiral grain of the tung-wood sifter. "This 'nine-turn smoke-sifting' ink-making technique is a secret skill modified by Luo Xiaohua during the Jiajing era. How could it be mixed with the etched fleurs-de-lis of the House of Bourbon?"
A bronze chime suddenly rang from the riverbank. Twenty ink-workers with green turbans tied around their heads rushed out from the pine-soot kiln. The fish-scale forging patterns on the pestles in their hands matched the gunpowder-grinding troughs used by Li Chengliang to garrison Liaodong during the Wanli era with absolute precision. Shen Xitang's silver silk shredded a piece of gold-foil ink, revealing a fallen page of the *Loire Secret Ledger*—next to the official document reading "false report of tribute ink of sixty thousand cakes," a not…
Chapter 202