Rising Sea Read online

  Rising Sea is a work of fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events, locales, or living persons is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2019 by James Lawrence

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781797768489

  This book is dedicated to my wife and family. Without their support and assistance, it would not have been possible to complete this book.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Chapter 1: South China Sea, 1809

  Chapter 2: Bab Al Mandab Strait, Red Sea

  Chapter 3: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  Chapter 4: Paphos, Cyprus

  Chapter 5: Antelope Shoal, South China Sea

  Chapter 6: South China Sea

  Chapter 7: London, UK

  Chapter 8: Beijing, China

  Chapter 9: Paphos, Cyprus

  Chapter 10: Beijing, China

  Chapter 11: Switzerland

  Chapter 12: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  Chapter 13: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  Chapter 14: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  Chapter 15: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  Chapter 16: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  Chapter 17: Nassau, Bahamas

  Chapter 18: Atlantic Ocean

  Chapter 19: Abu Dhabi

  Chapter 20: Dubai, UAE

  Chapter 21: Beijing, China

  Chapter 22: Siargao, Philippines

  Chapter 23: Athens, Greece

  Chapter 24: Beijing, China

  Chapter 25: Indian Ocean

  Chapter 26: Gwadar, Pakistan

  Chapter 27: Switzerland

  Chapter 28: Paphos, Cyprus

  Chapter 29: Beijing, China

  Chapter 30: Paphos, Cyprus

  Author Notes

  Chapter 1: Brussels, Belgium

  Chapter 2: New York City

  Chapter 3: Eleuthera, Bahamas

  About the Author

  James Lawrence has been a soldier, small business owner, military advisor, and defense trader. He currently lives in the Middle East. He is the author of five novels in the Pat Walsh series; Arabian Deception, Arabian Vengeance, Arabian Fury, Arabian Collusion, and Rising Sea.

  Chapter 1

  South China Sea, 1809

  Lady Chang (Ching Shih before her marriage) held tightly to the door handle on the heavy wooden wardrobe to steady her balance. Once or twice a minute, a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the dark, cramped stateroom through the pane glass window. The floor beneath her was in constant motion as the sixty-six-foot junk pitched and canted while crabbing its way ahead through the raging sea. This typhoon worried her more than any she’d ever encountered in her eight years of living at sea. The decision to sail into the storm was a gamble, but the stakes were high and she had no other option. Despite the situation, she remained resolute. Lady Chang was the leader of the largest pirate force in the world and she didn’t earn command of a fleet of seventeen hundred junks and seventy thousand pirates by running away from danger.

  The loud staccato beat of the heavy rain pelting against her stateroom window was interrupted by a booming thunderclap. The force of the thunder shook the window panes. Lady Chang wrapped herself in an oilskin, pushed the door open against the wind, and stepped out onto the poop-deck balcony to face the elements. From her perch on the balcony rail, she spotted the junk’s captain below on the main deck. He had both hands on the wheel, his shoulders and head were down, and his feet were planted wide for balance. The captain of the Key-ying had a rope tied around his waist as an extra precaution. The scant storm rigging on the three masks held only a hint of canvas, but it was enough to give the experienced mariner all the control he needed to keep the nimble junk from being swamped.

  The tumultuous weather matched her mood perfectly. Lady Chang’s reign as leader of the Red Flags was coming to an end. The majority of the Red Flag junks were under the command of her husband, Chang Pao. His situation was even more desperate than her own. Chang Pao’s fleet was trapped in the delta of the Pearl River by a combined force of Emperor Jiaqing’s Navy and a Portuguese Fleet. It was because of the situation in the Pearl River Delta that she now found herself in this storm.

  Chang Pao was a courageous leader and a brilliant tactician; her late husband had adopted the boy at an early age after recognizing his potential. Following the untimely death of her fifty-three-year old husband, she and her stepson married in order to retain control of the Red Flags. Lady Chang and her first husband had built the world’s greatest pirate empire and she refused to allow the death of her husband and partner to destroy it.

  The Red Flags were a tiny pirate force before the leader Cheng I rescued the demure prostitute Ching Shih out of a floating brothel in Canton. Many believed it was the clever Ching Shih who planted the idea of marriage in Cheng I’s head. Others believed Cheng kidnapped her after recognizing her value as a strategist. Regardless of the reason, the decision altered Cheng’s fortunes immensely. Cheng’s brutality and Ching Shih’s cunning combined to create the most powerful pirate fleet in the history of the world. Within a few short years, the Red Flags created a monopoly on pirating in South East China. Perhaps the biggest reason for the success was Ching Shih’s unique management system. Many pirate captains willingly served under the Red Flag banner because of the certain prosperity and security that followed. In situations where gold and safety were insufficient motivation, it was not uncommon for pirate captains to be forced to pledge fealty to the Red Flag banner by sheer force. Ching Shih’s pretty face, small stature, and gentle personality masked an iron will and a razor-sharp mind without equal in the South China Sea.

  In Lady Chang’s time, ownership did not pass to a wife upon the death of her husband. This was especially true in the pirating community. When Cheng I died, his widow had very little time to seduce her stepson—who was only a few years younger than herself— and shore up control of the Red Flags with a new union. The marriage between Cheng I’s widow and her stepson was driven both by necessity and the heart. The union proved to be every bit as successful an alliance as her first marriage.

  At their peak, the Red Flags controlled all of the coastal villages around Macau and Hong Kong. The villages had little option but to pay tribute to the strongest force in the region. Tributes from territorial possessions and bounties from seized merchant ships provided a reliable and lucrative income. Good things don’t last forever; the death knell for the Red Flags came when the Qing Dynasty reversed a centuries-old policy and opened up the hermit kingdom for trade with Europe.

  The control the Red Flags held over the trade routes into China was quickly recognized as a major impediment to commerce by the European powers. At the Europeans’ prompting, the Emperor issued a proclamation directing the villages to cease paying tribute to the Red Flags. Forces were deployed to the coastal region to enforce the new proclamation. In retaliation for the Emperor’s attempt to reclaim some of his own kingdom, Chang Pao launched a punitive strike deep into the Pearl River. He sacked, pillaged, and burned every village that failed to render a tribute payment. His attack reached all the way to the major city of Guangzhou. The attack was designed to serve as a warning to prevent future encroachments by the Emperor into Red Flag territory. At any other time, the brazen Chang Pao would have returned home victorious. What he didn’t know this time was that the Portuguese government had deployed a fleet to help the Emperor deal with his pirate problem.

  As Chang Pao withdrew from the Pearl River and entered the delta, he found his exit blocked at the narrowest point of the strait in a spot the locals referred to as the Tiger’s Mouth. In the
seventeen-mile-wide choke point between Macau and Hong Kong, he was confronted by six hundred of the Emperor’s junks and six Portuguese warships. Fighting off his natural inclination to be aggressive, Chang Pao engaged the Portuguese in a series of probing actions over a week-long period. He tirelessly searched for a weakness to exploit in the Emperor’s defenses, but he found none. Although Chang Pao’s junks outnumbered the Chinese and Portuguese ships, the firepower advantage belonged to the Emperor. Each of the Portuguese warships had one hundred cannons while the average Red Flag junk could muster only fourteen. The defenders were anchored and would be able to fire many cannons from their broadsides into the attacking forces, while Chang Pao’s advancing junks would find it much harder to bring their firepower to bear in a fight. It would have been suicide for Chang Pao to attack and foolish for the Emperor’s forces to relinquish their defensive advantage and close with the Red Flags. Consequently, the two forces faced off against each other in a lasting stalemate, engaging in only minor skirmishes.

  Upon learning of the entrapment and standoff, Lady Chang immediately traveled to the home of General Li Ch’ang-keng, the Chinese Regional Commander. She brought with her an escort of pirate wives and children. Lady Chang hoped the presence of the families might give her an advantage by humanizing the pirates who had been terrorizing the region for more than a decade. The uninvited visit caught the General by surprise. Lady Chang explained to the General that a battle would be very costly for both sides. She cautioned the General not to accept the huge cost in sailors and material required to destroy the Red Flag Pirate Fleet; she offered a much better resolution to the conflict. The General agreed to a negotiated settlement to the hostilities. When the terms were finalized, Lady Chang left her husband and his forces behind the cordon and embarked on a trip down the South China Sea to Palawan Island. She set out in a minor flotilla to retrieve from a hidden treasure cache the gold she needed to complete the financial terms of her agreement with the Chinese Government.

  The journey from Macau to Palawan, Philippines, took two weeks. It was typhoon season, and travel across the South China Sea was perilous. On the return trip, Lady Chang’s junk and two others from her twenty-ship armada were heavily laden with gold. Pirates don’t have banks; they have hiding places. Lady Chang and her husband had two secret holes where they stored plunder. The secret hole in Macau was out of reach because it was on the wrong side of the Emperor’s barricade. The second hiding spot was in a cave on the southern tip of Palawan Island.

  Lady Chang descended the stairs and walked to the helm. Her hair instantly became matted by the heavy rain and the spray from the waves crashing against the hull. She joined Captain Chi under the small wooden roof that protected the helm station from the rain and sun.

  “What news do you have?” Lady Chang asked her most trusted officer.

  “The conditions are ripe for cyclones,” Chi answered.

  Lady Chang surveyed the sea around the junk. The rain made it difficult to see more than a thousand yards. When the sky lit up from a lightning bolt, she counted seven other vessels including the two that were carrying the treasure. The rest of the armada was beyond her sight.

  “We need to seek safe harbor,” Chi said.

  She had only one month to fulfill her part of the agreement with the Emperor and the trip to Palawan had already consumed two weeks.

  “Press on,” Lady Chang ordered.

  It was a good deal and she couldn’t afford to default on it. She would pay the Emperor 130 thousand taels of gold and surrender her fleet to the government. In exchange, all of her men would be amnestied and her husband would receive a commission from the Emperor. Although the details of the agreement had not yet been shared with her men, she was certain they would be supportive of her decision. A big reason why she had been so successful as a pirate was not only due to the severity of her discipline but also because of her humanity. Tacked up on a board on the mast in front of her was a set of rules she posted on every ship:

  Lady Chang okays all attacks beforehand. Disobey, and you’re beheaded.

  You give all loot to your superior, who distributes it afterward. Disobey once, you’re beaten. Disobey twice, you’re dead.

  Don’t desert your post or take shore leave without permission. Disobey once, we cut off your ears (since you clearly weren’t using them.) Disobey twice, you’re dead.

  Rape a female captive, better believe that’s a beheading.

  Have consensual sex with a female captive without permission, you’re headless and she’s taking a swim with a lead weight.

  If you want to have sex with a female prisoner, you take her as your wife. You are faithful to her. You treat her well. Or we take your head.

  Oh, and don’t use the word “plunder.” Instead, say “transferring shipment of goods.” It just sounds nicer.

  Lady Chang stood with Captain Chi against the driving rain. The dry comfort of her stateroom was only steps behind her, but she wanted to set an example for the crew of thirty-two onboard the Key-ying. Later in the afternoon, the sky began to lighten, and the intensity of the rain let up. For the first time in two days, she was able to see the sails of all twenty junks.

  “Look,” Captain Chi said, pointing to a funnel cloud forming over the dark sea.

  “It’s a cyclone,” she replied.

  The Captain turned the junk hard to port and the rest of the armada did the same. The ship increased sail and listed heavily to the starboard side as the junk ran almost perpendicular to the wind. The sea was rough, and the waves broke against the starboard side, spraying torrents of water across the deck. The armada raced to get out of the path of the cyclone as the funnel cloud bore down on the fleeing junks. The seamanship of Captain Chi and the crew was second to none. Even though they were riding low in the water with a heavy cargo, they managed to sprint ahead of the other junks in the armada. The formation became a strung-out column of fleeing junks. The armada was spread over a length of two miles when the ominous black funnel cloud overtook the line of escaping junks.

  At the front of the column, Lady Chang and the Key-ying were engulfed in darkness. The Captain screamed for the sails to be furled and a heavy wind swept over the junk. Lady Chang and Captain Chi tied themselves to the wheel mount with a single line of rope as the pirates all around secured themselves as best they could. A giant wave forced the junk to a near vertical position before dropping it thirty feet backward into the sea.

  When the junk slammed into the sea, the rear mast snapped in half and a dozen pirates were swept off the stern deck and into the sea. The fury lasted less than half an hour until finally the sky brightened and the heavy seas returned to a more manageable state.

  “Turn back and check for survivors,” Lady Chang ordered.

  “Aye,” the captain replied.

  Lady Chang surveyed the surrounding sea to locate the surviving junks. She searched mostly for the Red Dragon and the Galloping Horse, the two other junks carrying treasure. It was not until the next morning that a full accounting from the cyclone was made. The armada lost seven of its twenty junks and 247 personnel including pirates and family members. The biggest loss was the Red Dragon, which was carrying a third of the treasure. Knowing the perils of sea travel, Lady Chang had been wise to withdraw extra booty as a contingency should she lose a ship. She had all she needed in the holds of the Key-ying and the Galloping Horse to free her husband and conclude the deal.

  Chapter 2

  Bab Al Mandab Strait, Red Sea

  Captain Song stood behind the two-man console on the bridge of the Wuhu, a Type-054A guided missile frigate. The two junior officers seated in front of him at the helm stations were busy talking into the microphones attached to their headsets and adjusting the computer displays in front of them. The bridge officers managed the propulsion, navigation system, and deck operations of the one-hundred-and-thirty-meter stealth ship as it made its way south on the Red Sea toward the Gulf of Aden.

  Song made sure Lieutenant
s Liu and Chin, his two bridge officers, were fully briefed before he stepped back from the bridge and entered the darkness of the Combat Information Center (CIC). The CIC was the nerve center of the frigate. It had an ultra-modern Star Wars ambience about it, with its vast array of computers, controls, and display screens. Operations within the CIC were grouped according to their respective combat roles and functions. The computer operators were grouped in clusters and each cluster was managed by a warfare officer.

  As he made his rounds, Song checked that each man was fully engaged in his respective responsibilities. He gauged the professionalism of his officers as they each oversaw a cluster of system specialists. Every system specialist had his own console to operate and they each controlled an assigned sensor or weapon. He walked behind each of the working men and checked that their systems were operational and current.

  In the back of the CIC, in an elevated chair overlooking the clusters, was his executive officer (XO). The XO was serving as the principal warfare officer of the entire center. The display in front of the XO displayed the ship’s Combat Management System (CMS), which is an automated tactical command and control system that has a built-in Decision Support System (DSS). The CMS makes it possible to create situational awareness of everything going on inside and outside of the ship. One of the most critical functions of the CMS is that it builds a tactical picture that allows for the identification of threats, the evaluation of threats, and provides target assignments to weapon systems in situations where the threats must be destroyed. Operations in the CIC are networked together by an elaborate local area network that enables speedy and accurate information exchange within the CIC and enhances battlespace awareness and a rapid response to air, surface, and sub-surface threats. The tiny room was the brain of the frigate and the Wuhu had the most advanced brain in the entire Chinese Navy, a thought that filled Song with immense pride.