The S.S. Prinz Eitel Friedrich was a gleaming white symbol of German imperial ambition. She was not a warship, but in her own way, she was a vessel of conquest. A fast, elegant mail steamer of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line, she sliced through the cold, grey waters of the Yellow Sea, her twin funnels trailing plumes of dark smoke against the pale sky. She was a bridge of German steel and commerce, connecting the Kaiser's growing interests in the Far East to the heart of the Fatherland.
Her decks bustled with the passengers of a globalized world. German merchants returning home with lucrative silk and tea contracts, stern-faced missionaries who had spent years attempting to save the souls of the heathen Chinese, corpulent diplomats from a half-dozen European legations, and their chattering wives. The conversations were a babble of German, English, and French, a microcosm of the international order that believed itself to be the permanent master of the world.
Among them, a quiet, scholarly man named 'Mr. Li' stood by the promenade railing, watching the coast of the Shandong Peninsula fade into a hazy smudge on the horizon. He was dressed in a well-tailored but unremarkable Western suit, his face distinguished only by a pair of round, steel-rimmed spectacles. He looked like a minor academic or a secretary to a diplomat. No one gave him a second glance. In his possession, chained to his wrist and locked inside a heavy, weighted diplomatic pouch, was a secret that had the power to shatter the very world these passengers inhabited. He was the Emperor's envoy, and he carried the formal acceptance of a Sino-German alliance, the blueprint for a new world order.
He was a man of immense intellect and quiet courage, but he was not a spy or a soldier. The crossing, he had been assured, would be a routine civilian passage, the safest and most discreet way to travel.
The first sign that his passage would be anything but routine appeared on the eastern horizon. Four columns of dark smoke, thicker and more purposeful than that of any merchantman. They grew with alarming speed, resolving into the sleek, menacing shapes of four armored cruisers. They were grey wolves of the sea, their hulls low-slung, their ram bows designed to gut an enemy ship, their gun turrets uncovered and trained forward. They flew the White Ensign of the British Royal Navy.
On the bridge of the Prinz Eitel Friedrich, Captain Albrecht Richter watched their approach through his binoculars, his knuckles white on the brass railing. His face, normally ruddy and cheerful, was a thundercloud of Teutonic outrage.
"They are on an intercept course," he snarled to his first officer. "The arrogant pigs. What do they think this is? The Napoleonic Wars?"
Under the established rules of international law, the unwritten gentlemen's agreement that governed the civilized world, this was an impossibility. Great Britain and Germany were not at war. A warship had no right to interfere with a civilian vessel from a neutral nation on the high seas. It was an act of piracy. Richter, a proud veteran of the Imperial German Navy before joining the merchant marine, held his course. It had to be a bluff, an arrogant display of British naval dominance, a piece of intimidation. He would not be intimidated.
One of the British cruisers, a formidable vessel of the Devonshire class, detached from the squadron and surged forward. She was the HMS Kent. She pulled alongside the German steamer, close enough for the passengers on the Prinz Eitel Friedrich to see the faces of the British sailors on her decks, faces that were not friendly, but hard, grim, and professional.
A signal lamp on the warship's bridge began to flash, spelling out a message in crisp, clear Morse code.
"HEAVE TO AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE YOU ARE CARRYING A BELLIGERENT AGENT AND CONTRABAND OF WAR."
Captain Richter's face went purple with rage. Belligerent agent? Contraband? His country was at peace! This was an outrage, a violation of every treaty, an insult to the German flag. He ordered his own signalman to flash back a furious, sputtering reply.
"MAINTAINING COURSE. YOU HAVE NO LEGAL AUTHORITY. THIS IS A CIVILIAN VESSEL OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. I WILL REPORT THIS AGGRESSION TO MY GOVERNMENT."
On the bridge of the HMS Kent, Captain Sir Reginald Crichton read the German reply. He sighed. He was a man of the old school, a believer in the rules. But his orders, delivered in a triple-encrypted cable directly from the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, were unambiguous. They contained only two words: "Succeed. Regardless."
He turned to his gunnery officer. "Fire a live round into his superstructure. Aim for the forward boat deck. I want to get his attention, not sink him."
"Aye, sir," the officer replied, his face grim. He relayed the order.
The forward six-inch gun of the HMS Kent roared. It was not a puff of smoke from a blank warning shot across the bow. It was the deep, guttural bark of a live, high-explosive shell. The shell screamed across the narrow gap of water between the two ships and slammed into the elegant, white superstructure of the Prinz Eitel Friedrich.
The explosion was devastating. It ripped through the lightly constructed upper decks, sending a shower of white-hot metal splinters and jagged pieces of teakwood flying through the air. A lifeboat was blown from its davits. The forward smokestack was punctured, sending a jet of scalding steam hissing into the sky. Panic erupted on the passenger decks. Screams and shouts replaced the polite chatter. This was not posturing. This was an unambiguous, undeniable act of war.
Mr. Li did not panic. The sound of the explosion was the death knell of his mission. He felt no fear, only a profound, cold certainty. He knew, instantly, what this was about. The secret of his journey had been compromised. The British knew. His orders from the Emperor had been absolute: under no circumstances was the formal proposal to fall into British hands. The alliance itself was more important than his own life.
He calmly walked to the railing, jostled by the screaming, terrified passengers. He looked at the British warship, saw the armed marines preparing to board, their rifles glinting in the cold sunlight. He looked at the locked diplomatic pouch chained to his wrist.
With his free hand, he produced a small key from his waistcoat pocket. He unlocked the chain. He held the heavy, weighted leather pouch in his hands. It felt like the weight of the entire world. He gave one last, long look back towards the hazy, distant coast of China, a silent farewell to his home, his family, his Emperor.
Then, with a calm, resolute dignity, he clambered onto the railing and leaped into the icy, churning waters of the Yellow Sea.
A British officer on the bridge of the Kent saw the splash. "Man overboard!" he yelled. "He jumped!"
Captain Crichton swore, realizing he had been outmaneuvered. "Launch a boat! Now!"
A cutter was hastily lowered from the British cruiser, sailors pulling frantically at the oars. They reached the spot where the envoy had disappeared in minutes. But it was far too late. The weighted pouch had done its work, dragging Mr. Li and his world-changing secret down into the cold, dark depths. There was nothing but grey, empty water.
The British marines boarded the crippled German steamer to find that their primary target had vanished. But the international incident, the point of no return, had already happened. A warship of the Royal Navy had, without a declaration of war, fired upon and violently boarded a German civilian vessel in international waters.
In Berlin, the news, when it arrived, would send the Kaiser into a fit of apoplectic, war-fevered rage. In London, the Admiralty, having failed in its primary objective, would brace for the inevitable and catastrophic consequences of its actions. And in Beijing, Qin Shi Huang would learn that his secret alliance had been discovered by his most formidable enemy, and that his trusted envoy was dead.
The shadow war was over. The first, irrevocable shot of a new and terrible world war had just been fired in the cold, grey waters of the Yellow Sea. The real war, a war between the Dragon, the Eagle, and the Lion, was about to begin.