The air in the Forbidden City's Hall of Mental Cultivation was as still and cold as the deep past. Outside, Beijing slept under a blanket of autumn stars, but here, in the Emperor's private study, the world was laid bare in harsh lamplight. Maps, not of China, but of the entire globe, were spread across a table of black lacquer, their surfaces a battlefield of penciled lines, arrows, and circles. This was not a room for governance; it was a room for conquest.
The Guangxu Emperor, or the soul that wore his face, stood before the table, his hands clasped behind his back. He did not look at the map of China. His gaze was fixed on two points of light in the vast darkness: a red circle drawn around the port of Singapore, and a blue one around the city of Vladivostok.
An aide, a young man from the reformed civil service, entered with the silent, practiced tread of someone who understood they walked in the presence of a living god. He held a lacquered tray bearing two dispatches.
"Your Majesty," he whispered, his head bowed.
The Emperor did not turn. "Report."
"A priority-one dispatch from Marshal Sun Lian's headquarters in Burma. The British punitive force, the entirety of the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles, has been… eliminated. The road to Mandalay is open." The aide's voice trembled with a mixture of awe and fear. An entire battalion of the legendary Gurkhas, wiped from the earth. It was a victory beyond imagining.
The Emperor gave a slow, deliberate nod. There was no triumph in his expression, no flicker of satisfaction. He had not conquered the world a first time by celebrating minor victories. Sun Lian had performed his function as expected. He was a cudgel, a blunt instrument of terror and unconventional warfare, and he had been used to shatter the enemy's kneecap. It was a necessary, brutish affair, designed to draw the eye, to create a screaming wound that would consume Britain's attention.
"And the second dispatch?" the Emperor asked, his voice a low baritone that seemed to absorb the light in the room.
The aide carefully placed the second, smaller cylinder on the table. "From our German liaison in Qingdao, Your Majesty. A coded confirmation. The vessel S.S. Ohioan is on schedule. It will enter the Huangpu River estuary in less than forty-eight hours."
This was the true victory. The Emperor finally turned his gaze from the map and picked up the small message. He did not need to decode it; he had its contents memorized. Onboard that neutral American freighter, listed as agricultural machinery, were the crown jewels of his new war: precision lathes from Krupp capable of milling modern artillery breechblocks, the advanced gyroscopes needed for his new torpedoes, and, most precious of all, the heavily guarded chemical precursors required by Dr. Chen.
The war in Burma was a spectacle. The war in Siberia was a meat grinder. But the real war, the one that would break empires, would be won here, in the laboratories and arsenals his new German technology would build.
He knew, with the cold certainty of a master strategist, that this shipment was the single most vulnerable point in his entire grand design. The British were not fools. Their vast intelligence network would have sniffed out the transaction. They could not stop a neutral ship on the high seas without risking war with America, but in the chaotic, corrupt nexus of Shanghai, anything was possible.
His gaze drifted back to the map of his own empire. A serpent lived in his house. The defeat in Siberia had proven it. A traitor with access to the highest levels of his strategy. He had unleashed his spymaster, Shen Ke, but the serpent was cunning, its trail obscured by layers of loyalty and deceit.
Patience. He had learned patience in his first life, watching the warring states devour one another before he struck. He would allow the serpent its moment of seeming triumph. He would let it strike at what it believed was his heart.
He looked at his aide, his eyes dark and fathomless. "Take a message to the office of the Minister-President."
The aide's brush was instantly poised over fresh paper.
"Inform Minister-President Yuan Shikai that a critical shipment of state industrial machinery will be arriving in Shanghai aboard the S.S. Ohioan. Tell him," the Emperor paused, letting the weight of his words settle, "that his full cooperation is expected to ensure its absolute security. The fate of the Northern campaign may well depend on it."
The aide's hand flew across the paper. It was a simple, administrative order. But both men in the room understood the steel hidden within the silk. It was not a request. It was a test. The Emperor was rattling the cage, and now he would watch to see what creature stirred within.
Shanghai was a furnace. The humidity was a physical weight, a wet blanket that clung to the skin and filled the lungs. For Yuan Shikai, the oppressive heat was a perfect mirror for the pressure crushing him from all sides. He sat in a private room in the Huxinting Teahouse, an elegant pagoda that seemed to float on the lake in the heart of the Old City. But its tranquility offered him no peace.
The man sitting opposite him, a slender Englishman named Finch with pale, watery eyes, smiled as he poured the tea. It was a smile entirely devoid of warmth, the polite baring of teeth by a predator.
"A truly exquisite Da Hong Pao, Minister-President," Finch said, his Mandarin flawless, his tone as smooth as the silk of his European suit. "It is a testament to your nation's ancient and refined culture."
Yuan inclined his head, forcing his own features into a mask of placid courtesy. "It is a small pleasure in trying times, Mr. Finch. I trust your business in Shanghai has been fruitful."
"Regrettably, not as fruitful as my associates in London had hoped," Finch replied, setting his cup down with a delicate click. "Our investments, as you know, are significant. The returns have been… disappointing." He let the word hang in the humid air. "We hear troubling news from the south. A whole battalion of His Majesty's finest… gone. Vanished into the jungle. One would think an asset in your esteemed position might have provided a warning."
Yuan's heart hammered against his ribs, but his expression remained serene. "The Emperor's southern strategy was a closely guarded secret, even from his own cabinet. A rash move by a fanatical general. I could not report what I did not know." It was a lie, but a plausible one.
Finch's pale eyes narrowed slightly. He was done with pleasantries. "Let us speak of things you do know, Minister-President. A certain American freighter, for instance. The S.S. Ohioan. We are told it carries… agricultural machinery." The sarcasm was a razor blade wrapped in velvet.
Yuan felt a drop of sweat trace a cold path down his spine. "Wartime logistics are my concern. We require tractors to increase the grain supply for the armies."
"Tractors," Finch repeated, a flicker of amusement on his thin lips. "Of course. German tractors. From Krupp Heavy Industries. The finest tractor-makers in the world, I'm sure. My friends in London would consider the successful delivery of these… tractors… a catastrophic failure on our part. And, by extension, on yours. A failure that would necessitate a complete re-evaluation of our most profitable arrangements."
The threat was naked now, stripped of all pretense. Our arrangement. The secret bank accounts in Hong Kong. The political backing. The entire foundation of his shadow kingdom in Manchuria. All of it, gone. And with it, his life.
"The Shanghai docks are a chaotic place," Yuan began, playing his prepared hand. "The Green Gang, the river pirates… security is a nightmare."
Finch leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "We are not paying you for excuses, Yuan. We are paying you for results. We cannot touch an American ship. But a tragic accident during unloading… a bold act of piracy… such things happen in a city like this." He picked up his teacup again. "Make it disappear. Sink it. Burn it. I don't care how. But if a single one of those 'tractors' reaches a Qing arsenal, consider your accounts, your properties, and your life expectancy to be significantly reduced. Is that clear?"
Yuan Shikai looked at the Englishman's reflection in his own untouched cup of tea. He saw the face of the British Empire: polite, implacable, and utterly ruthless. And behind that face, he saw the cold, demanding gaze of his Emperor. Cooperate, or be destroyed. Sabotage, or be destroyed. He was caught in an impossible vise.
After Finch departed, leaving the scent of expensive cologne and mortal danger behind, Yuan sat alone for a full hour as the light faded outside. He thought of the chemical precursors hidden within that shipment, the key ingredients he needed to build his own weapons, to create a power base beholden to no one. Not to the British, and not to the reborn First Emperor. It was his only path to true freedom, to survival. To get it, he would have to perform the most dangerous juggling act of his life.
He rose from the table, his decision made. He did not return to his official residence. Instead, his private rickshaw took him through a labyrinth of dark, narrow alleys to a grimy, nondescript warehouse near Suzhou Creek.
A single figure detached itself from the shadows. The man was built like a bull, his face a mass of scars, one ear grotesquely swollen and deformed. It was "Big-Eared" Du, the master of the Green Gang, a man who owed Yuan his life.
Yuan did not waste time with greetings. He looked into the gangster's eyes, his voice low and cold.
"The German shipment. Aboard the American freighter Ohioan. It will be unloaded onto river barges two nights from now."
Du nodded slowly, his eyes glinting with greed. "My brothers are hungry."
"They will feast," Yuan promised. "But you will follow my instructions to the letter. There is a small portion of the cargo, marked with a black orchid. That portion is mine. Your men will secure it and bring it here. Everything else… everything… is to be destroyed. Burn the barges. Leave no witnesses. I want the river to be on fire."
He dropped a heavy leather pouch at the gangster's feet. The clink of gold was the only sound in the alley. The die was cast. The serpent was about to strike.