The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Coal Mine

“Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao!”

“What is it, Miss Chue?”

This kind of exchange had nearly become a routine for them. It was unusual, however, for Chue to show up after a day’s work, just before Maomao went to bed.

“What brings you here so late?” Maomao asked.

“Well! I have a little something to tell you about Mister Lahan’s coal code!”

Maomao had told Jinshi about Lahan’s letter—and if Chue was coming to her at this hour, it suggested something had come of the matter.

“The fact is, not many letters have come from Mister Lahan for the Moon Prince.”

“I kind of thought not.”

“We estimate that only half his letters have made it here. But even on a long, difficult journey like this one, doesn’t it seem weird that so many letters addressed personally to the Moon Prince should accidentally disappear?”

“Ahh...”

In other words, someone was deliberately disposing of Lahan’s communications. If he was trying to tell them something, it would explain why he’d sent Maomao these riddling letters. A backup plan in case he didn’t reach Jinshi, the message conveyed in a way that only Maomao and her companions were likely to notice.

“It was still pretty lucky we spotted it,” she said.

“It sure was! Without you and Lahan’s Brother putting your heads together, you’d never have figured it out. And imagine if you’d eaten Lahan’s letter before you noticed!”

“I’m not going to eat any letters,” Maomao said. Sometimes she didn’t understand Chue’s jokes.

“Maybe not, but Miss Chue’s goats sometimes do.”

“You’re still trying to raise those goats, huh?”

“Yes! Thanks to them, I can drink nice, fresh, funny-smelling milk anytime I want.”

“You don’t make it sound very appetizing. Every time I see goat meat at dinner, I think maybe your friends finally met the butcher.”

“The momma goat had a baby and gives milk now. The kid is a boy, so he can be the husband of the third goat. As for the daddy goat, he went on a very long trip to a faraway place. They come, they go—but there are always three of them. Daddy Goat will live forever in Miss Chue’s heart...and stomach.”

Which all seemed to work out to such: one of the goats had been eaten. Maybe that was the animal Tianyu had been practicing his dissection on.

“Now! Maybe let’s get back on subject.”

“Yes, please,” Maomao said. If she entertained all Chue’s digressions, it would be morning before long.

“About that coal—it seems I-sei Province did mine some, although only a little bit.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed! But that was almost twenty years ago. There are no records of any recent mining operations.”

Still, what an intriguing thought.

“Let me guess—there are no records left from twenty years ago?” Maomao asked. The suppression of the Yi had occurred seventeen years past, during which time much of the era’s paper trail had been burned.

“You’re exactly right! Our suspicion is that there was someone among the suppress-ees who was in charge of the coal mining.”

“Well, that doesn’t help us much, then. But there must have been some people who did the actual mining, right?”

“Yes, but you know, what happens to people after a major conflict like that, who can say? The mine never yielded that much, anyway, so it was abandoned...”

“But in that case—”

“...Or anyway, it would create some very enticing opportunities if people believed that was true,” said Chue. Now, this was a striking turn in the conversation.

Chue went on: “Miss Maomao, did you know that Master Gyoku-ou invited Master Jinshi and the old-fart strategist to have a little chat?”

“No. And I don’t want to know,” she said firmly.

“I gather that Master Gyoku-ou suggested starting a war against another country.”

“You don’t much care what I think, do you, Miss Chue?”

“Miss Chue believes information should be shared with the right people!”

This information, however, was decidedly not something Maomao wanted to hear. It was clear why Chue had come to Maomao’s room at night, though—if the quack doctor heard about this, he would have been very distraught.

“Now, which country do you suppose Master Gyoku-ou suggested fighting?”

“I can’t hear you,” Maomao said, pressing her hands to her ears.

Chue grinned and tickled her.

“Hey! No fair!” Maomao flopped helplessly onto the bed and Chue jumped on her, pinning her down. So much for plugging her ears. Chue whispered to her: “He’s not after Hokuaren. It’s Shaoh he’s after.”

I didn’t want to hear that!

No, she would have preferred not to know—but now that she knew, she had a question.

“Why Shaoh? I would have thought attacking them would do us more harm than good. Setting aside the fact that attacking other countries is completely stupid to begin with.”

“Good question. One benefit is that if we capture the nearest city, it comes with harbors. We’d have free use of the sea lanes, and that’s worth a lot. Importing crops would be much easier.”

True, perhaps; yet to Maomao, it didn’t sound like enough.

“Plus, considering what Shaoh did to us last year over the shrine maiden, we have a ready excuse. All the more so if the Moon Prince, whom they wronged more than anyone, were to lead us.”

It might look like a good excuse outwardly, but hadn’t there been a lot of behind-the-scenes dealing? If the former shrine maiden were willing to provide information, they might indeed gain some extremely useful intelligence on how to attack Shaoh—but did Gyoku-ou know that the shrine maiden was still alive? Surely not.

“One more thing. Everyone’s on edge right now, and it makes people prone to violence. If we can point that anger away from our leaders and toward another country, wouldn’t that be helpful? Think of all the people who lost their jobs because of the swarm. How many of them have become bandits? Just imagine what the old fart could do with ‘pieces’ like that to deploy in battle.”

It was hardly an uncommon reason to start a war. But Maomao was nobody’s fool. “I thought Shaoh was supposed to be a neutral country. If we invade, Miss Chue, won’t other nations be mad at us?”

“I should think so. Hokuaren in particular would take it hard. You could argue that if we can seize the harbor in one fell swoop, we might manage things somehow, but we would still have a rough time of it. And it would cost a lot of money!” She sprang to her feet. “But what if, say, there was a mountain with a coal mine on the western edge of the province?”

“The western edge...”

On the border with Shaoh, in other words.

“Coal doesn’t get used a lot in Li, but it’s an important fuel resource in places without much timber,” Chue said.

“That’s what I’ve heard.” She didn’t know firsthand; she’d never used the stuff herself, but a fuel that could be used without needing to make charcoal would certainly have its uses. “They say it stinks when you burn it, though, so people don’t like it as much as charcoal.”

Luomen had used coal during his studies abroad. Burning it produced secondary products that were poisonous, but could also be medicinal. If it was too much trouble to mine the coal, however, there was no point. Yes, the former empress regnant had banned logging, but even so, charcoal remained a better and cheaper fuel than coal.

“Wow, really? What does it smell like?” Chue asked.

“I mean, I haven’t smelled it myself, but I’m told it’s acrid. They say if you smell it once, you’ll always recognize it. I guess the only way to know for sure would be to burn some ourselves.” Maomao stayed seated on the bed and watched Chue.

“Hoh! Well, suppose there was a great deal of coal that could be extracted from the Shaoh side. What if we could import that with our newly obtained sea route? What if Shaoh didn’t even know there was coal there, or what it was worth? Although... To be fair, I doubt they really don’t know what it’s worth.”

That would change the equation: whether or not there would be a profit. Whether or not to go to war.

“If there were some other way to use coal too, that would change things even more—but let’s set that aside.” Chue mimed putting an object to one side.

“Now I understand why Lahan told me to look for it...” Maomao was suddenly very tired.

Lahan had found out, somehow, that there was coal in I-sei Province. He’d found and examined records and materials about the province, whatever was left in the central region—and he had discovered that officially, there had been no mining.

This is completely different from the overreporting of the crops.

If the visitors from the central region learned about this, it really would be trouble.

So have they been mining the coal without informing the government?

It would certainly explain how there were enough resources to provide for farmers in times of poor harvest. Moreover, it would be hard to believe that such a thing had been done exclusively on Gyoku-ou’s personal initiative.

Maomao broke into a very unpleasant sweat, but Chue looked as cool as could be.

“Miss Chue,” Maomao said.

“What is it, Miss Maomao?”

“Tell me... All of this is strictly within the realm of speculation, isn’t it?”

Never act on an assumption was Maomao’s motto. Now of all times seemed like a moment to heed her old man’s advice.

“Yes, it is. But there’s some very compelling evidence,” Chue said, dashing Maomao’s hopes. “Mining is a very dangerous activity, so we believe that initially they used lots of slaves. Weren’t the surviving Windreaders enslaved?”

Maomao didn’t say anything. Knowing Chue’s information network, she might already have talked to some of the former miners. For that matter, she might well be aware that Gyoku-ou’s mother was herself a former member of the Windreader tribe.

“If your kinfolk were in serious trouble, wouldn’t helping them be an excellent justification for...well, almost anything? You’d be a do-gooder. On the side of right! It might even explain the destruction of the Yi clan seventeen years ago.”

Maomao barely heard what Chue was saying. Her head was full of a single thought.

“Miss Chue.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Does Master Jinshi believe that there’s a benefit to be had here? Is he going to war?”

Chue just smiled and answered her with a question of her own. “Do you think he could?”

Not on his own. It wouldn’t be possible.

Chue smiled again, and almost as if she could read Maomao’s mind, said, “It’s times of peace—and only peace—that make the Moon Prince the great man he is.”

Was that a compliment? Maomao wasn’t sure—but it did make her feel a little bit better.