The Entrepreneurial Career of Pirates in the Late Ming Dynasty

This year, ironclad ships split the raging waves of the Cape of Good Hope, telegraph wires entangled the shores of six continents, and the colonists' crowns were repeatedly forged in blood and gold. This year, the dying Ottoman clutched the crescent flag and broke the third feathered arrow under the city of Vienna. In the Sultan's court, clocks and the Koran were placed side by side. For the West, now is the last supper for the carving up of the earth. For Daming, this was the heaviest night before waking up. At this time of strife, Su Mu landed in a warehouse in Malacca. With an abacus in his left hand and a musket in his right hand, he did not call himself governor or fly a national flag. He only used a set of double-entry account books and three iron-ribbed sailing ships to nail the first boundary stake belonging to the East in the Lombok Strait. The rice fields of Siam provide us with milled rice, and the oil wells of Sumatra pump out black gold. The fiords of New Zealand cut our timber, and the saltpeter mines of Chile filled the powder keg. Arabian horse farms tamed fast horses, and Ethiopian highlands sent coffee beans. As for the frozen soil further north, Siberian fur traders are reclassifying fur according to our price tags. In our sugar mills, from Java to the shores of Cuba, the centrifuge drums know the temperament of cane juice better than any colonial mill. Our fleet sets up beacons and pilots in every strait, without flying flags, but allows all passing merchant ships to recognize the string of Chinese codes. As for our banks, copper-engraved bills of exchange are being spread out along the monsoon routes, and interest rates are loaded with promises of payment that are more certain than in Amsterdam.