The Price of Honor

The air in Admiral Meng Tian's headquarters, once filled with the breezy confidence of victory, was now thick with a grim, suffocating tension. The sinking of the Tianjin Pride had been a single, brutal act, but its aftershocks were threatening to capsize his entire administration. He sat at the head of a long teak table, his face a stony mask, listening to the cascading reports of failure.

Mr. Tan, the Nanyang patriarch whose support was the bedrock of Meng Tian's strategy, looked ten years older than he had a week ago. His usual calm was gone, replaced by a weary anxiety.

"Admiral, the merchants are terrified," he said, his voice strained. "The attack wasn't just on one of your ships; it was an attack on our livelihood, on the very idea of stability you promised. Insurance rates for cargo leaving Batavia have skyrocketed. They are impossible to pay. Three more of our largest shipping companies have canceled their contracts this morning. They say your fleet can protect them on the open sea, but not in their own harbors. Our flow of vital resources back to the Empire—the rubber, the tin, the oil—it is slowing to a trickle. This sabotage, Admiral, is proving as effective as a full naval blockade, and we have not seen a single enemy warship."

Captain Dai, Meng Tian's zealous and hot-headed aide, slammed a clenched fist on the table, making the teacups rattle. His face was flushed with a mixture of anger and humiliation.

"This is British cowardice!" he spat. "They dare not face our fleet, so they resort to these cowardly, back-alley tactics! A show of force is needed, Admiral! A decisive response! We should impound all British shipping that passes through the strait. We must begin public interrogations of all known Dutch sympathizers and collaborators. We must show them that there is a price for such treachery! We must make them fear us!"

Meng Tian listened, his gaze fixed on a map of the harbor. He heard the tactical logic in Dai's words. A strong response was expected. It was the way of empires. It was the way of Yuan Shikai. A few public executions, a few dozen arrests, and fear would restore order. But it would be an order built on sand. His entire "soft power" approach, his painstaking effort to build a new province based on trust and mutual prosperity, was failing. The merchants' confidence was shattered. If he resorted to terror tactics now, he would be proving that his promises of a new, more honorable rule were nothing but empty words. He would lose the trust of the very people he needed most.

He was trapped. His honor demanded one course of action, his duty another. He could preserve his principles and watch his province collapse into economic chaos, or he could become the very thing he despised in order to save it.

He sat in silence for a long moment, the arguments of his subordinates washing over him. Then, he raised a hand, and the room fell quiet. "Your counsel is noted, Captain Dai. You are all dismissed."

The naval captains filed out of the room, leaving only Meng Tian and the old merchant. The Admiral rose and walked to the large window overlooking the strait, his back to Mr. Tan.

"A public investigation will yield nothing but more fear," Meng Tian said quietly, his voice heavy with resignation. "The men who did this were not amateurs. They left no evidence that a formal inquiry would find. But your network, Mr. Tan… your people are not a formal inquiry. They are the eyes and ears of every street, every dock, every tavern. They see everything."

He turned from the window, his eyes meeting the patriarch's. The easy camaraderie of their previous meetings was gone, replaced by a grim, unspoken understanding. "I do not need a public spectacle. I need a name."

The words hung in the air, cold and heavy. "Find me the man who bought the boat from the fisherman in the north harbor. Find me the man whose former employees still speak of their loyalty to the Dutch. Find me the name of the man whose hatred for the Great Qing burns hotter than his fear. Do it quietly. Use the web we have built. And when you have a name… bring it only to me."

Mr. Tan, a man who had navigated a lifetime of dangerous currents, understood the chilling implication immediately. This was not a request for information to be used in a court of law. There would be no trial. This would be a quiet, brutal solution, delivered in the dark, outside the bounds of any law or imperial edict. Meng Tian was asking him to help point a dagger. The old merchant gave a slow, grim nod. The price of stability had just become much higher. "It will be done, Admiral."

Days passed. The port of Batavia was a hotbed of whispers and fear. Qing marines patrolled the docks with a new, aggressive edge, but trade remained stagnant. Then, one evening, a messenger arrived with a sealed note for the Admiral. It contained a single name: Van der Meer. And an address.

That night, Meng Tian summoned Captain Dai, not to his grand office, but to a small, soundproofed storage room in the mansion's cellar. He gave the young captain his order, his voice entirely devoid of emotion, as if he were dictating a routine supply request.

"You will take a squad of your five most discreet marines. The ones who served with you in the boarding parties. You will trade your uniforms for the plain clothes of dockworkers. You will go to Batavia tonight. You will acquire the Dutchman, Van der Meer, from this address. There will be no witnesses. No sounds. The neighbors will see and hear nothing. Bring him to the secure warehouse at Pier Four. I will conduct the interrogation myself."

Dai's eyes lit up with a fierce, zealous fire. This was the action he had craved. He saluted crisply. "It will be done, Admiral!"

The scene shifted. A dark, moonless street in the old Dutch quarter of Batavia. A small house, its windows shuttered. The silence was broken by the splintering of a door frame, the sound instantly muffled. A brief, violent struggle within. A man's shout, cut short. Then, silence again. Dai's marines, moving with the brutal efficiency of predators, emerged from the house, dragging a gagged and bound figure between them. They vanished into the labyrinthine alleys of the port, leaving behind only a broken door and a sleeping street.

The final scene found Meng Tian walking along the dark, creaking timbers of Pier Four. The air was thick with the smell of salt, creosote, and stagnant water. He had shed his immaculate white admiral's uniform. He was dressed in simple, dark, functional clothing, the attire of a man preparing for dirty work. The principled commander, the honorable warrior who had shown mercy to his defeated enemies and preached a gospel of enlightened rule, was walking willingly into the darkness. He was about to use the very methods of terror and torture he had so openly condemned in his rival, Yuan Shikai.

He knew, with a certainty that settled in his gut like a cold stone, that he was doing what must be done to protect his province, to fulfill his duty to his Emperor. But as he approached the grim, corrugated steel walls of Warehouse Four, he also knew he was sacrificing a piece of his own soul to do it. The war was changing him, burning away the fine edges of his honor, leaving behind something harder, colder, and more ruthless.