Turnsheet 9

An extract from the turnsheet of the Right Honourable Wilson Mandrake, Baron of Brighton, MP. Written by Ivan.

The King is not enthused by the idea of having his son's leg chopped off so it can be replaced. Princes Richard is downright resistant. You do manage to persuade them to let you take a look at the Prince's leg, though the Prince's guards remove everything sharp from you and the room, just in case, before the examination.

Unfortunately the main thing you learn is that this is beyond even the most powerful alchemy to put right. Even if you were to replace his entire leg with metal the wound would still reopen and begin to bleed. There is some form of, for want of a better description, sympathetic magic going on. The Prince has become linked in some way to someone or something else and until it is cured he won't be.

Princess Chang Ping on the other hand proves a much more willing patient. She has nothing further to lose if you should fail and your assessment of her is correct, she needs no mollycoddling. The arm you craft for her from biological material (you don't tell her its origin and don't much want to think about it yourself) should in fact be superior once fitted. In a fit of zealous invention, and possibly some opium, you craft an arm that looks basically human if somewhat muscled and which is about twice as strong as that of a blacksmith and armoured besides. It ought to be a real boon to a warrior and who knows maybe it will be useful to a nun or princess too.

You offer the Princess some of your opium, and even just simply alcohol, before you operate but the dictates of her faith forbid such substances. You operate without anaesthetic and are further impressed with the Princess' ability to only scream occasionally as you poke around in her nerves and bones. A few hours of work though attaches the new arm.

An extract from the turnsheet of the jinshi Tsung Chang-Mai. Written by Ivan.

Immediately after the end of Court, Baron Mandrake arranges a meeting with His Majesty the King and puts forward his case for a military intervention in the affairs of Cathay. It is not known precisely what the King's response was but Mandrake has clearly been given leave to make arrangements. The forces under his command in the Army of Albion and the Fleet of Blue immediately begin to make preparations for departure. Initially at least this involves very little movement of men and ships; instead supplies and arms and gunpowder crowd docks and ports. Baron Mandrake rapidly disappears into a sea of paperwork and message runners as his forces are made ready for a military engagement on the other side of the globe.

Together Baron Mandrake and Tsung pay Court to another royal, seeking approval of their plans to re-establish the Ming Dynasty. Crown Princess Chang Ping still resides upon the flying island of the East India Company. Tsung and Mandrake make the terrifying voyage to visit her, hoisted from the sea by a swinging lift winched by a crane reaching out over the island's edge. Several ships have been badly damaged already by the larger cargo lifts as they swing with smashing force into rigging and decking. A few lives have been lost too, both from impacts with lifts and failures of the immensely long hawsers. Fortunately this trip features no deadly surprises, just nausea and fear.

It is a relief to be shown into the civilised and ceremonious space of the Crown Princess' Court. She has clearly been making herself known to the Cathayans of the island and there is a genuine feel of a Court, small perhaps and in exile, about the place now. Like the Court of Albion in miniature and with more elaborate rituals. You are immediately shown into the Princess' presence, her most trusted ally and most valuable patron.

Mandrake and Tsung make plain that Albion will intervene for her, militarily and diplomatically, and that there are nobles in Cathay who remain loyal to her and her family and will rally to her cause. For the first time since you have known her, her calm is broken by an emotion other than concern for another; doubt and worry is written clearly across her face. She asks you both about your recent trips to Cathay, about the state of the land and the people, about the policies of the Qing and a hundred other details. She reveals a mind for detail and considerable insight into the politics and alliances you have explored in your trip. But it is Tsung who ends the conversation, silent for several minutes as Mandrake explains intelligence he has gathered on the Kingdom of Tungning.

Suddenly she kowtows and from her prone position declares, “You are the true Daughter of Heaven, the Mandate of Heaven is yours”.

The Crown Princess is shocked to silence and nods once, and then with shaking voice tells you both, “I shall do my part for my people's sake. I thank you for your aid and council and ask you now to go and make the last of your preparations. I shall bring all those here who listen to my words back to Cathay”. As you leave tears are streaming down her face.

Baron Mandrake also approaches members of the Venerable Order of Sir Walter Raleigh, their work curtailed by the recent peace with Spain and the rest of Catholic Europe, and promises them rich pickings in the exotic orient. Not only will there be gold and silver a plenty but cargoes of spice and silk which they cannot find in the Atlantic. Unfortunately the ships of the Privateers are generally not equipped for such long range raiding and only about a dozen captains are both willing and able to answer his call.

The East India Company too puts its forces and its wealth at Baron Mandrake's disposal. Their merchant ships, the formidable East Indiamen, are more heavily armed than most and have the best crews that money can buy even if they are less well-drilled than the patriots of the Navy. The John Company also hires a large force of mercenaries, some of them Protestant troops from Albion and Germany, and another substantial force of Indians which joins the fleet when it docks in one of the Company's factories in that land.

The East India Company has another surprise however, hundreds of Cathayan refugees arriving by Guild of Navigator boats from somewhere else in Albion and boarding dozens of transports prepared for them.

Princess Chang Ping has arrived with the first of these refugees, in time for the wedding of Leah Brandage and Tsung Chang-Mai. She is clad in simple robes befitting a Taoist nun and it is remarkable how much more comfortable she appears in that garb than the dress of a Princess that you saw her in only shortly before. Evidently a holy woman she is a puzzle to those few who see her and do not know her, the long sword strapped to her back somewhat incongruous!

She is smuggled aboard Baron Mandrake's ship, the Phoenix, along with a more public appearance by “Leah Brandage”. Emerging from Lanik College escorted by Tsung Chang-Mai and dressed in the real Leah Brandage's clothes, Nine Fires Cap the Hills' resemblance is uncanny. She has even mastered many of Leah's mannerisms and you are certain that any watchers will be completely fooled as she disappears down to the other passenger cabin.

Nine Fires' ability to impersonate your wife truly is uncanny and more than a little disturbing. The legends of the Hu Li Jing all tell of men and women seduced easily by the demons and it's suddenly only too easy to see how. Nine Fires walks the deck of the Phoenix with you in the guise of Leah on occasion to keep up the charade, lest any of Mandrake's crew are in the employ of the Jesuits. It is so achingly close to having the real Leah with you, Nine Fires even laughs and touches your arm in the same familiar way. On occasion Nine Fires use her skills to tease you, arriving back in your cabin to act the vamp or to suddenly scold you close to tears. Faced with such an excellent actress you begin to wonder how much of Nine Fires normal persona as a scribe is act too.

Ships belonging to Captain Smashing and Prince Lang have made even more rapid arrangements. They will be journeying to Cathay the long way round, through the canal that is to be built across the hundred miles of land in Panama that separate the great Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In order to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet in Cathay they make sail more than a month ahead of the main force gathering around Oxford.

Lady Morag Douglas, adds the final component to that proud fleet assembling off Oxford, one of her most experienced captains and crew arriving with banners snapping in the breeze as the gathered ships raise sail and haul anchors at the beginning of their journey eastward.

The fleet of warships and transports from Oxford makes rapid progress to the Gerard Canal. On board as well as Baron Mandrake and Tsung Chang-Mai are the Jewish officer Lt. Altair Ibn La-Ahad. It also becomes apparent once the ships are out of port that the heir of the Cathayan Empire, Princess Chang Ping is also there, smuggled on in secret.

The fleet is met with a friendly reception by the Bey of Suez, at one end of the Canal, Baron Mandrake having given the Ottomans advanced warning of the arrival of his fleet. They are also met there by a small patrol of Albion frigates, part of the regular patrol of those waters that the Admiral of the Blue has instigated in those waters since Albion took control of Malta. The captains of those ships report no unauthorised shipping and Baron Mandrake gives them even stricter orders on who may and may not use the Canal while the expedition is underway.

Finally weeks later the fleet makes landfall in Cathay at the port of Canton and begins taking on fresh supplies and unloading troops and gunpowder from Albion in preparation for the coming conflict.

The White Tiger and White Wolf of Ambassador Lang and The Disdain of Commodore Stirling arrive in Canton (Guangzhou) and join the rest of the fleet. Ambassador Lang joins the ground forces and Commodore Stirling departs with Lady Morag's ship and the Privateer force. It will be their role to attack ports belonging to the Manchu in Northern Cathay and carry off everything of value. Admiral Mandrake emphasises that they are to minimise damage to the port facilities, and where possible the civilian populations of the cities, but can loot all they like. “They can steal what they want, but I'd like the ports available for the Ming to move back to.”

Mandrake and Tsung travel southern Cathay with Crown Princess Chang Ping meeting with those they have previously established as loyal to the Ming dynasty. Canton was chosen as the first port of call because the head of the bureaucracy there was previously a senior official at the Imperial Court in Beijing. He has met Princess Chang Ping and is both able to vouch for her identity reliably and is sufficiently well-known as a trustworthy and wise man that those who have not already closed their minds will believe his words. When Mandrake and Tsung introduce him to the future Empress of the Ming he immediately falls to his knees and pledges his loyalty.

Others are generally less quick to fall into line but Mandrake and Tsung's previous diplomatic tour has established those who will be most easily won over faced with the true heir. Chang Ping is herself an enormous asset to the mission, capable of projecting utter certainty and yet willing to compromise for the good of her people. The Princess' reputation spreads rapidly. There were already rumours of her escape from the Forbidden City and false rumours of her wanderings through Cathay. Soon small bands of recruits for the army that rumour insist she is gathering begin to appear even from the lands of those nobles who have not yet pledged their loyalty.

With a significant fraction of the nobles of Southern Cathay already pledged, the Princess invites the rest to a great conference at which she will put her case (by the advice of Mandrake and Tsung). Her quiet words to the gathered lords build to a great chorus of affirmation as all their pledge her their loyalty, some because they believe it her due and some because they can see the way the wind is blowing.

The family Lang of the Kingdom of Tungning is amongst those to pledge loyalty to the Princess. The eldest brother of the family, Láng È-le, is amongst those who pledges his sword and as the Lang family has become one of the most powerful families he is added to the young princess' honour guard.

Ambassador Lang is little in evidence at the growing Imperial Court. Instead he is training his own men and, after the Kingdom of Tungning joins the princess' army, a small force from their army too. He is quick to explain to those from Albion who wonder about his connection to the powerful Lang family supporting the Princess that Asian surnames can often be the same without direct familial connections, even though the name 'Lang' is not a common one.

Lang proves himself a more than capable warrior and soldier though. The first of the battles against the Manchu is fought only three weeks after the arrival of the soldiers and diplomats from Albion, while the Princess is still rallying loyalists to her cause. Keen to crush the resistance before it can grow (rumour says that the Regent Princess Dorgon has received disturbing portents from his astrologers) a great Manchu army advances on Canton.

Though outnumbered two to one Lang and his forces, supported by the troops of Albion and the East India Company, launch themselves without hesitation upon the invaders. The Manchu are capable lead and experienced warriors but Lang is a truly impressive swordsman and cuts his way through the heart of the enemy army and into the general staff. The confusion this causes, allied with the plentiful gunpowder available to those allied with Albion is decisive.

Shockingly enough during the fighting Lang encounters the Princess Chang Ping herself! Surrounded as she is by Manchu warriors she is more than capable of cutting them down herself. Lang is later heard to wonderingly admit that she is almost as good with a sword as he! Rumours also swirl through the camp of the princess' great strength, her left arm capable of blocking sword blows and tearing shields from the grasp of even the strongest men.

There is news too when the battle is over, that the Royal Navy and Privateers have fought a great battle to the north at the same time and are victorious. The Manchu are defeated on land and sea alike.

With the Manchu thrown into disorder by the sudden defeat of their army and navy Mandrake, Altair and Tsung execute the next part of their plan. Disguising themselves as pilgrims they make their way to the Manchu-held city of Hangzhou near the mouth of the Yellow River, about halfway between Canton and the capital at Beijing. Nine Fires once again dons her disguise as Leah Brandage and even shares Tsung's rented room in the inn at which they stay. Her behaviour is enough to engender knowing looks and a few whispers, hopefully some of which will reach the ears of any listening Jesuits.

The party makes no attempt to be subtle about its investigations of the Jews of Hangzhou, spreading money freely and asking questions loudly. They don't even make more than a token attempt to disguise the Westerners amongst the party, confident that the Jesuits in the Manchu government will see that the locals do not arrest them.

These predictions prove accurate. No-one attempts to stop them, and within the day they have actually succeeded in learning a considerable amount about the small Jewish community in the city. It is appears that although there were a few families previously their numbers have been swelled by the destruction of the city of Kaifeng to the north. Kaifeng was flooded by the Ming by the orders of the Chongzhen Emperor in a vain attempt to stop the rebel Li Zicheng's march upon Beijing. The city was then abandoned, a testimony to the loss of the Mandate of Heaven by that Son of Heaven.

The Jewish community of Hangzhou is trickier to track down, wary of people asking questions, but eventually Tsung manages to locate the local rabbi. It is while making their way to his house in a sprawl of narrow alleys that the party is attacked by hooded figures. Surprise is significantly less than they were lead to believe, the sharpened swords of the grim-faced “pilgrims” unexpected and their apparent orders to ensure that Mandake, Tsung and Leah survive complicated when Mandrake and “Leah” unsheath blades and attack. The fight is one-sided and the Jesuits are soon dispatched.

From the rabbi of Hangzhou, a man who seems to radiate peace and goodness, the party learns that his community has felt watched for more than three years now. There was a raid upon them in Kaifeng but the younger members of the community fought them off. He is unsure what they wanted, though the presence of nets and chains hints that their goal was prisoners. Lt Ibn La-Ahad joins the party a few days later, smuggled in by ship, and he and Tsung travel north to Beijing.

Tsung, with the aid of her Infernal Scribe Nine Fires, helps to disguise Lt. Ibn La-Ahad. His own skills in this field are considerable, but he doesn't know the customs of Cathay sufficiently well to imitate the travellers of that land without lessons. These continue even as he and Tsung travel north. Baron Mandrake has been generous with funds and the, obvious when necessary, threat of Lt. Ibn La-Ahad is enough to ensure that in the troubled roads no-one attempts to relieve you of your money. It does mean that you can pay for considerable privacy as you rent several rooms to yourselves on the barge carrying you north on the great canal to Beijing.

In Beijing Tsung once again makes contact with her friends in the Imperial Court. They immediately council her to immense caution. The Court has been warned that two travellers from Albion will attempt to kill the Prince Regent, the emperor he guards and the one who warned him. No official admission has been made that this is von Bell, but everyone suspects it.

Tsung switches plans and begins to instruct Lt. Ibn La-Ahad on the layout of the Forbidden City in which the Emperor and his advisors and servants traditionally live. It is immense and heavily guarded, but its size and Tsung's knowledge of it allows the Jewish gentleman to quickly formulate his own plan to reach the Chambers of the Seers of the Heavens. He slips away that night.

An extract from the turnsheet response of Lt. Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad. Written by Ivan.

You slip over the walls of the Palace, clad in black and invisible to the patrolling guards, as you expected their lanterns and torches not reaching far into this secluded corner. It is not difficult, simply time-consuming and dangerous, for you to make your way over rooftops and through shadowed courtyards. The tramp of the armoured guards is everywhere, and it is clear that their officers have been given strict orders that their patrols are not just to be for show. You are rescued from treading on one silent sleeping guardsmen when his sergeant arrives just before you to roar in his ear. You can't understand the language but some things in every army are the same and you know he will be spending the next week scrubbing potatoes or washing rice or whatever it is they do in the Manchu army.

On the roof of the Chamber of the Seers of the Heavens you carefully move aside the slates. The eastern sky is not yet brightening but time is beginning to run out if you are to make it back out again. You drop into a corridor formed of intricately decorated paper screens and brightly coloured marble pillars and begin hunting your target.

Tsung has told you that it is at the heart of this building that the court astrologers prepare their divinations and that it is just off the central meeting place that the chief astrologer has his quarters. If he expects you it will be hear that his defences are greatest. You slide the blade of your sword out of its scabbard an inch in anticipation and then return it to stride purposefully on.

The Jesuit von Bell awaits you, apparently alone, in the large room at the centre of the building. The ceiling is decorated in an enormous representation of the night sky and from the walls hang vast starry charts. Desks are strewn with smaller charts, some open and some tightly wrapped.

Von Bell has clearly gone native, barely recognisable as German let alone a Jesuit. He is dressed in the flowing robes of a Ming scholar, you have seen a handful of such in your travels. His thin white beard stretches almost to his knees and somehow his fingernails seem to have grown so they are almost as long as a book. As he flies at you in a rage you realise they are sharpened too.

It is also then that you spot the archers hidden in the eaves of the ceiling. They let fly with a hail of arrows, but your sword is out of its scabbard now, glowing brightly in the darkness. You shove von Bell aside, his nails drawing a fine line of blood from your face as you spin and dodge cutting the arrows out of the air around you with the flickering sword in your hand.

Von Bell flies at you once more, even as the archers that surround you draw their bows for a second salvo. Now though you know what to expect, and as von Bell charges at you a single bound carries you above him and his shoulders are the spring that propels you at the first archer above you. Your sword arcs into the archer and pins him to the ceiling long enough to clamber onto the balcony. The bows are no use so close to you and quickly circling the room the archers rain down on the floor below, their spilling blood darkening it.

A final leap from the balcony lands you near von Bell, fear now lighting his eyes. He moves to speak. Perhaps to plead or bargain but your sword silences him forever and you depart swiftly before guards can sound the alarm and slow your exit. As you leave you set fire to the charts, the slow column of smoke as the building burns just silhouetting the brightening eastern sky as you lower yourself from the outer wall of the Forbidden Palace.

An extract from the turnsheet response of the jinshi Tsung Chang-Mai. Written by Ivan.

When he returns he tells you that von Bell is dead. You leave Beijing early the next day but rumour manages to first catch and then outrun you. Soon the whole of Cathay seems to know there was an attack within the Forbidden City though who and how many were slain fluctuates wildly as you travel back the Guangzhou.

All those in Cathay sail back to Albion a few months later. The war between the Ming and Manchu is still raging but it appears that with Albion's help the Ming now have a fighting chance of retaking the north. They are certainly strongly in control of the south and the Princess Chang Ping shows every sign of strengthening her control over the fractious nobles and moulding them into a unified capable force.

Before you return Princess Chang Ping meets you in private and reminds you that once she once wished you would consider yourself as her ambassador in heart and mind. Now she appoints you her ambassador to Albion as the future Empress of Cathay come to reclaim her throne. She would be honoured if you would accept the title.

It is while Lt. Altair is about his clandestine mission in Beijing that you dispatch Nine Fires on one of her own. Scrolls such as you require are rare but where is more likely to house them than the Imperial Archives. As far as you can determine the Archives have been largely untouched during the rebellions and invasion by the barbarians as the Ming Dynasty crumbled.

Once the Archives would have been warded against even the mightiest demon but now you believe they may have failed from lack of care and renewal and a single Hu Li Jing might well be able to find a crack in their protection and make her way within.

When Nine Fires returns with a scroll, its age marked by its immense fragility, your theory is proved correct. If the scroll is missed however then the wards will be stronger in future.

An article in the military pamphlet 'The Dragon', published in Dunkerque

And though all Christendom be at Peace, the great Spectre of the Witch-King having banished all thoughts of War between Nations and Kings, there are still Conflicts abroad. And on those Distant Shores we hear reports of the Valour of Albion's soldiers, though they be a World away from the Throne still they fight in the King's Name.

The Major the Admiral the Right Honourable Lord Wilson Mandrake marshalled a great Fleet and a great Force of Arms. Sailing switfly into the Waters of the Fearsome Manchu, he commanded Warriors upon Land and Sea alike. The reports of those Cathayans remaining in Albion reveal the Manchu as the Most Terrible of Savages who Burn what they cannot Carry away on the Horses. Treasure, Books and the Men and Women of distant Cathay are all destroyed by these Barbarians. Offended by these Depredations against even the Heathens of the Orient mighty Albion shouted “NO” and moved to Destroy another Enemy of Peace.

Aiding Baron Mandrake in his Christian duty upon the Land were forces led by Commodore Stirling and a dozen Ships of the Lady Morag. Many are the rumours that have been Whispered about those Two and their Privateering whether true or false but know that they or their Men fight in the Aid of their Brothers. And in Clash of arms upon the firm Terra we learn that Unchivalrous Blackguard and Abuser of the Trust of the Lord General, the so-called “Ambassador” Lang has sought to make slim amends in show of swordsmanship.

It is only a matter of Days now before Albion's loyal Friend the Princess Ping is set upon the Throne of all Cathay and King Matthew gains another Friend over the waves. A new Ambassador has been sent from Cathay to represent that Empire to the Court of her great Ally.

Admiral the Baron Mandrake has led a mighty fleet and army into battle against the Manchu in Cathay and struck a telling blow against. As Albion has committed herself to the Ming Dynasty so too must the Merchant Companies. The Crown Princess Chang Ping is to be treated with the utmost of respect and where possible efforts are to be made to satisfy her orders for guns, cannon and powder for so long as her credit remains good. A decisive victory for the Ming will once again open the markets of all Cathay ot our traders.

We have also received intelligence that the Jesuit astrologer and adviser to the Manchu, Johann von Bell, has been slain. This should weaken anti-Albion sentiment in that Court should the Princess Chang Ping fail.

Finally the Crown Princess has dispatched a new ambassador to these shores. She is to be treated with the utmost courtesy and all Companies personnel are ordered to make her stay as comfortable as possible. The rooms assigned to the late Lao Jungfei are to be made available to her should she so desire. It is also requested that Company officers ensure the same fate does not befall her as her predecessor.

Gunpowder supplies are once more to be rationed. A recent explosion at the John Company facility which is key to the sourcing of the black powder has severely reduced supplies. Officers will be informed once the situation is rectified. Know that the East India Company has plentiful supplies at this time and can maintain the arsenals even in the case of a general war of several months duration.

A message from Proprietor the Baron Wilson Mandrake of the East India Company:

“I consider Tsung Chang Mai to be first among the Traders of the Honourable East India Company. Her opinions and requests are to be considered more important than those of other Traders.
Proprietor Mandrake”

Also with the blessing of Proprietor Mandrake, Dame Megan Annwn has joined the ranks of traders within the East India Company.