May, the eighth year of Hongzhi (1495), Great Ming, Ningbo Port.
The thin morning mist dispersed over the harbor. Ningbo Port, where in ordinary days a thousand sails raced one another, now had more than forty great sea-patrol ships and over a hundred small inspection boats gathered upon the water, presenting an unprecedented air of killing severity. A single official dispatch from the Ningbo prefectural yamen had been issued ten days early with unprecedented efficiency. Most of the merchant ships and civilian boats in Ningbo Port had been forcibly ordered to leave, to moor at the surrounding small harbors and fishing villages.
Yet at this moment, the "great merchants" of Ningbo Port sat upright in elegant seats in the tallest teahouse in the city, sending their clerks to the harbor to watch while they drank tea and chatted with laughter. Though all their faces feigned calm, their voices still carried an excitement difficult to conceal.
Because with Wagoku's once-in-ten-years "tribute" fleet arriving, laden full with gold, silver, copper Liao, and other goods, this true once-in-a-decade "great business," worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels of silver, was about to begin! As for those small merchants who had been driven away, they simply lacked the background and the entrance token to take part in this grand "Wajin-goods trade."
"Hm? So many Water Fleet banners? Taiping Patrol Office, Xiayu Patrol Office, Chuanshan Patrol Office, Changshan Patrol Office... Songpu Patrol Office, Shipu Patrol Office, Xiangtou Patrol Office... more than ten coastal inspection offices—could they all have sent ships?!"
"Mm, and it's an order from the Zhejiang Provincial Administration Commission. Earlier he reorganized the yamens, audited the granaries, and dismissed more than a dozen petty clerks in one breath, then went to inspect the guards' armaments, ordering drills and training, wasting rice