Wah keuih ji … said Punhyqua, and the linkister began to translate: ‘My master ask: from who you hear new mandarin come to Canton?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Bahram shrugged. ‘But it is true?’

‘He say: surprise you hear so soon. No one know for sure anything, except that Emperor has called Governor of Hukwang province to Beijing: his name Lin Zexu …’

Although he was not personally acquainted with Lin Zexu, said Punhyqua, he knew a good deal about him for he too was from Fujian province. He came from a family that was poor but highly respected, having produced many reputed officials and statesmen. Lin was himself a brilliant scholar, and had passed his Civil Service examinations with distinction at an unusually early age. Rising quickly through the ranks of officialdom, he had earned a reputation for exceptional ability and integrity: not only was he known to be incorruptible, he was one of the few men in the realm who was unafraid of expressing opinions that ran contrary to the views of the Court. Whenever there was a serious problem – a flood, an uprising of disaffected peasants, a breach in some essential dike – it was to Lin that the government turned. Thus it happened that while still in his forties Lin Zexu had been appointed to one of the most coveted posts in the country: the governorship of Kiangsi province. It was there, apparently, that he had had his first encounter with British opium smugglers.

‘Mr Moddie remember a ship call Lord Amherst?’

‘Yes,’ Bahram nodded. ‘I remember.’

Bahram recalled the affair of the Lord Amherst with exceptional clarity because he had himself been involved in it, in a small way. It had happened six years ago: the Lord Amherst was one of many British ships to be sent to forage along the northern coast of China, in the hope of finding new ports through which to funnel opium and other foreign goods into the country. The British had long chafed against the constraints that were imposed upon them by the Chinese authorities, and of these none was felt to be more restrictive than the rule that compelled foreign traders to limit their activities to Canton: the thinking was that if only some means could be found of circumventing this regulation then the volume of trade could be vastly expanded.

The Lord Amherst’s mission was thus to try to establish links with people who might be inclined to subvert Chinese laws and regulations. It was a risky task, but the potential for profit was very great; the merchants who succeeded in entering these new, virgin markets were sure to earn enormous rewards. By virtue of his standing in the community, Bahram was one of the few non-British merchants to be invited to invest in the venture, and since such an opportunity could not be allowed to go begging he had added fifty crates to the Lord Amherst’s cargo.

But the mission had not gone well. Hit by bad weather, the Lord Amherst had been forced to take shelter in a Chinese port. When asked by the local authorities what their ship was doing so far north, the officers had said that they had been blown off course while sailing from Calcutta to Japan; a perfectly reasonable answer, except that they happened to be carrying pamphlets, printed in Chinese, that left little doubt of their actual intention. The officers had also taken the prudent precaution of lying about the ship’s name, so that in the event of a protest from the government the East India Company would be able to deny ownership – but this too had not turned out too well, for somehow the Chinese officials, in their usual bothersome way, had succeeded in ascertaining the facts.