James ordered several rounds of cannon fire.
The range was too great, and accuracy—never reliable to begin with—became all but impossible to guarantee.
Not that he cared. He wanted to make a show of force, to vent his fury.
Had his crew been fit for land combat, he would have marched ashore himself to take a turn through the place.
"It seems next time I come, I'll need to bring some infantry with me!"
When the bombardment ended, James prepared to depart. His cargo had all been sold, and he had taken on a load of local goods to turn another profit back home.
Then he would fill the holds again and return here in a few months.
As for the consequences of the shelling—what consequences could there be?
He had seen the warships of the southeastern court. They were wooden vessels, the lot of them—the kind he feared a stiff swell might simply smash to splinters on the open sea.
Did they have the nerve to come looking for trouble?
If they did, then let them stay on the ocean floor forever.
James settled into his sofa and savored a glass of wine from home.
A moment later, an attendant burst in, pale with alarm.
"Mr. James, this is bad—a great number of warships are bearing down on us, heading straight for us by the look of it!"
James's expression changed at once. "Who are they? Those damned English? The Dutch? Someone else?"
"We can't tell. The flag they're flying—we don't recognize it. Some kind of beast's head we've never seen before."
"Send someone out to ask who they are and what they want!"
Before long, a smaller vessel set out toward the approaching fleet.
It was rammed and capsized outright by one of the great ships.
James understood then—these were not visitors who came in peace. They had come for war.
"Our numbers look about even. If it's a fight they want, then a fight they'll get!"
"Return fire! Open the guns!"
Boom—
The two fleets crashed into each other in a general melee.
With forces roughly matched, the outcome of the battle would not be decided quickly.
Sea battle is not like land battle.
A naval engagement is like two armored knights who can only strike each other with their fists—high endurance, heavy defense, slow movement, and blows that land with less than fatal force.
The sheer mass of these hulls meant that tremendous punishment had to be absorbed before any vessel was truly finished. Gunpowder was still weak enough that even a cannon of twenty or thirty centimeters' bore, hurling a solid iron ball, could do no more than modest harm. A great ship absorbing a single shot was like a foam box pricked with a toothpick—how many pricks would it take to bring it down?
Seeing the two fleets so evenly matched, James had been full of confidence at the start. Even if things went badly, he told himself, he could always withdraw safely.
Two hours later, he no longer thought so.
His face had twisted into something ugly, and sweat gathered thicker and thicker on his brow.
"Sir, one of our ships is sinking. Nothing to be done—the captain has had to run her toward shore."
"Two more won't hold out much longer either."
That shore belonged to the southeastern court—to the Xinguang District of Long City. And when all was said and done, it belonged to Long City.
"Why? Why is this happening?" James seized his second officer by the collar and roared into his face.
"Sir, their ships are somewhat sturdier than ours, their guns somewhat more powerful, their speed somewhat greater…"
A little here, a little there—add it all together and it was no longer a little of anything. It was a generational gap.
James released the man's collar in helpless resignation. "Do we have any chance of escape?"
"Sir, there might be a slim chance…"
A slim chance again! James kicked the second officer to the ground and slumped helplessly onto the sofa.
Another two hours passed, and two more warships had no choice but to head toward shore. The alternative was sinking to the bottom of the sea. Survival instinct gave them no other choice.
James's fleet ceased firing, and white flags broke out across every mast.
Wolf Soldiers boarded the flagship where James stood.
James straightened his collar, determined to keep up appearances even in defeat.
"I am a nobleman of the Kingdom of France. I would ask that you—"
Crack. A Wolf Soldier drove a rifle butt into him and sent him sprawling, then waved a hand.
"This is the one who ordered the shelling of Xinguang District? Like an old birthday god swallowing arsenic—he must be tired of living. Take him back!"
When James was brought before Ming Cheng, his legs gave out beneath him and he sank to his knees.
Because Ming Cheng's very first words were: *You dared to shell Xinguang District. How would you like to die?*
The fleet James had commanded—warships and cargo vessels together—was defeated in full. All hands across every ship numbered some eight thousand souls.
Of these, roughly three thousand were white men: the officers, the soldiers, the men in charge.
Some five thousand were Black, serving as sailors and as slaves.
There were also a handful of East Asian men, among them the interpreter, who had wet himself in terror.
All eight thousand were convicted of war crimes and sentenced to ten years of penal labor. After those ten years, they would regain their freedom.
Most importantly, Longcheng had captured this entire fleet—warships and cargo ships alike—worth a considerable fortune.
The money was almost beside the point. Longcheng was short on people at present, its shipyard still modest in size, its productive capacity limited. This captured fleet would serve the city well.
The eight thousand prisoners were transported to Longcheng aboard their own vessels and thrown into the Longcheng prison.
"No—you cannot do this to me! I am a nobleman! A *nobleman*!"
"Well, would you look at that—so this is what a foreign devil looks like? My, aren't they pale."
Ming Cheng, mindful of James's rank, ultimately decided against putting him to death.
Executing a nobleman carried consequences that could ripple wide.
Better to wait, then—and see just how much gold his family would send to ransom him.