The loom at the hemp field suddenly clattered. Eighteen textile workers in bamboo hats burst through the smoke, their spinning wheels bearing engraved patterns identical to those of the projectile-weighing devices recorded in Mao Yuanyi’s "Treatise on Military Preparation" from the Tianqi era. Shen Xitang’s Silver Silk shredded a bolt of ramie fabric, revealing a scrap of the "Secret Accounts of St. Gotthard Pass"—beside the official document claiming "False report of 500,000 bolts of tribute cloth," a note in Romansh read, "Resold to Lucerne for matchlock gun trigger springs!"
"Look at the sulfur-nitrate crystals on these hemp fibers!" Xiao Heng smashed a piece of flint with his scabbard, and from the shattered bronze fuze inside, a Manchu cipher emerged that perfectly matched the "repair expenses for hemp mills" falsely reported in the "Ganzhi Military Pay Ledger."
On the Yangtze River at Jiujiang, the tea boats were soaked in pine smoke, and Shen Xitang’s leather boots trampled over the remnants of the "Fuliang Tea Record." Xiao Heng’s scabbard shattered a model of the Belém Tower, revealing a Bronze Secret Casket inside with the "Treaty of Tomar" in plain sight—beside the clause "Ceding the Yangtze canal routes" on the parchment, the Portuguese Armillary Sphere emblem, the Scottish thistle pattern, and the hidden-dart flag of the Jiangyou Merchant Guild were hideously intertwined.
Chapter 204