“Because what His Majesty is about to reveal to you today is that he’s preparing for war.”
“War? How? There’s been drought and famine in China for years. How’s he going to pay for a war when he can barely deal with a peasant revolt every month?”
“I see you have good sources. Mine tell me he’s hoping for spoils.”
“A war can’t possibly give him enough spoils to feed the whole empire.”
“Then he must be thinking of a bigger war than you are.”
Those words gave him a chilling sensation that he welcomed as a brief respite from the heat in the same thought that rejected it for what it meant. “Just how greedy is that man?”
At that moment, Zhenzui himself, Son of the Heavenly Lord, entered Xiaobo’s tent. Both the Chief Eunuch and the priest jumped to their feet and kowtowed, with Xiaobo adding the sign of the cross that this emperor had made mandatory for greeting him. “Father, you’re here. Good. I didn’t want you to miss what I’m preparing for you. Meet me outside when you finish your tea.”
Verbiest waited for him to leave and said to Xiaobo, “If you’re committing the near-treason of warning me about this, you must already agree with Rome that he has to be stopped.”
The look she gave him crushed his enthusiasm. “Before you advise your superiors to declare war, I would advise you to remember that the Emperor is but one man. He is not China.”
His face managed to blush even redder than it was already. “I wouldn’t think of doing anything against the Chinese people. I just think the Emperor is a dangerous man.”
She shook her head slowly. “I had the same thoughts, long ago. But I’ve seen more than you have. The scope of my maneuvering is limited. Even pressure from your Church has proved insufficient. By this point, I’m counting on God to step in.”
“Then you still have a sense of proper piety. Why do you salute him with the sign of the cross? He’s making a mockery of traditions he doesn’t understand.”
“I do it because everyone has to.”
“If that is so, why do I get to refuse?”
“Your allegiance is assumed, Father. The way he sees it, you’re one of his worshipers; you just don’t know it yet.”
“That damned Hasekura! I pray that hell is giving him a heat like this.”
The mention of the dead ambassador darkened her mood. A lifetime had passed since his short role in Chinese history had ended; she had become a powerful yet powerless old woman, and she hadn’t stopped blaming herself for some of the forces that had pushed him into despair. “I knew ambassador Hasekura. You may have heard that I introduced him to Emperor Taichang.”
“I know about that.”
“If I can be certain of one thing, it’s that he had the best intentions. Are you sure he is in hell?”
“He was taught in our faith. He knew that nothing excuses suicide.”
“Yes, he was Catholic, but he was also Japanese, and he was a nobleman, and he was a father. People can be many things. And the way we know how to deal with life can come from many parts of our personal history.”
“That doesn’t matter. Because of him, millions of people were doomed to idolatry.”
“No. That’s not on Hasekura. And don’t mistake the Emperor’s actions for the heart of the Chinese people. Just because he’s dragging us with him doesn’t mean we’re happy to follow.”
“Even so, we all—”
The blast of an explosion shook the desert. After a wordless exchange of nods to confirm they had indeed heard it, they ran out of the tent to find out what was happening. Atop the hill behind them they saw the Emperor, mounted on a camel and surrounded by a dozen servants. In the other direction, covered by dust, the first watchtower of the Great Wall of China was crumbling down.
Verbiest climbed the hill, muttering curses against the sun and the sand and all the members of the royal House of Zhu, and Xiaobo followed more slowly, the pain in her feet drowned by more pain in her knees and hips and spine. When the Jesuit reached the summit he asked, louder than he meant to, because his ears were still ringing, “What did you do to the tower?”
Beaming with pride, Zhenzui answered from his mount, “A gesture, Father. A tangible sign of an invisible truth.”
Verbiest frowned. That was the official definition of a sacrament. “What is that rubble supposed to represent?”
“The future.” The Emperor nodded at a servant, who dragged a box he regarded with unconcealed contempt, and Verbiest felt pity imagining the effort of pushing that object uphill at noon.
The servant opened the box and Verbiest recognized the device inside. “I made that,” he said to no one in particular. It was a miniature carriage he’d built as a toy to showcase European metallurgic techniques. It was equipped with what the ancient Greeks had called an aeolipile, an enclosed cauldron with a small outlet where the steam pushed against a gear whose rotation was connected to the wheels. When the cauldron was filled with water and heated to the point of boiling, the carriage was able to move without anyone pulling it. “What’s this about, Your Majesty?”
“Last year, you gave me this as a gift. Today, I’m repaying your kindness.” At another signal from him, a banner was raised, and the desert rumbled with the sound of cannon fire. An entire section of the Wall was destroyed, and when Verbiest was able to hear again, his attention was drawn toward the voice of Xiaobo, who was finishing her ascent to the top of the hill and was pointing in a direction he hadn’t looked.
He turned around and the chill of dread returned. Behind the next hill, in a well-coordinated formation, ten thousand copies of his toy advanced toward the Wall. Each of them was the size of an elephant, each of them carrying an impressive cannon, each of them propelled by its own red-hot furnace.
“What is this?” he demanded of the Emperor.
“Your little invention has kept my smiths busy, Father. But I couldn’t have paid them without help from your friends in Copenhagen. Their traders are quite serious about paying us better prices than yours.”
By now Verbiest was finding it hard to breathe, outrage and terror disputing control over his voice. “What is the purpose of this? What are you going to do with those monstrosities?”
“Haven’t you heard? We’ve been fighting the Manchus at the northern border for years. My father appointed very competent generals, but your idea will get rid of the problem for good.”
“This is not the northern border, Your Majesty. You’re not telling me everything.”
“You’re clever, Father. That’s right: this division is marching westward. I’m tearing down this wall, all of it, because China’s no longer going to hide. We will once again expand and conquer.” He pointed beyond the demolished watchtower and added, “That way lie the lands of the Khan. After we take them, we’ll advance to the lands of the Shah.”
“Why? What did they do to you?”
“It’s not their fault,” said Zhenzui with unnerving serenity. “They’re just in the way.”
Verbiest was afraid to ask, but he had to know. “In the way to where?”
The Emperor turned to look at him and smiled with condescension. “You know to where, Father. To my holy city. The true faith won’t be restored until I capture Jerusalem back from the infidels.”
The Jesuit’s eyes filled with tears of rage, and not wishing to bear the sight of that impostor’s face anymore, he stood in horror watching row after row of steel beasts fire at the rest of China’s most famous defense and march through the rubble toward the boundless steppes of Asia.
Part 5: Leap
The impossible has never happened, and the possible should cause no wonder.