Not a Chandelier, but a Chandelagon
Once his talk with Hwi-yeom was finished, Michelangelo went straight to find Baek Beon.
“Hey, eunuch.”
“You’re the only one who addresses this humble servant that way, Master Mi.”
Baek Beon grumbled in pure disbelief. Michelangelo merely shrugged.
“What of it? I lived with my neck held high even in front of the Pope. I’d rather rip my own balls off than bow my head to a eunuch.”
“Could you at least do something about that ‘eunuch’ talk?”
“Fine. Pretty-boy gigolo, then.”
Baek Beon pressed a hand to his forehead. The old saying about a newborn pup not knowing to fear a tiger fit this red-haired barbarian perfectly.
Even the Provincial Administration Commissioners, Regional Military Commanders, and Surveillance Commissioners—the highest powers in an entire province—would never dare treat him with such insolence.
Ignorant Western barbarian.
With superhuman patience he swallowed the rage boiling up inside and forced a smile.
“Yohohohoho~ I’ll take that as a compliment on my good looks. So, what business brings you?”
“I need you to tell me the structure of the Forbidden City.”
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Fortunately Michelangelo had not suddenly developed a burning desire to assassinate the Emperor. Only after hearing the sculptor’s explanation—that he needed to know the strength of the mounting points and the internal architecture where a chandelier weighing tens or even hundreds of kilograms would hang, so he could craft one that was both safe and beautiful—did Baek Beon finally return the inner energy of the Guihwa Treasure Canon he had been circulating back down to his dantian.
“Hmmm… Nothing would be as certain as seeing it with my own eyes, of course…”
This was not a matter of receiving an envoy from the Western barbarians. They wanted to let a lowly craftsman into the Qianqing Palace?
Baek Beon’s furrowed brow showed no sign of smoothing out.
“Impossible. No matter how high I take this request, it will never be approved.”
“Damn, you sure know how to put on airs.”
Michelangelo spat on the ground and stormed straight back to Hwi-yeom to vent his spleen.
“I’m not doing it.”
“Excuse me?”
Hwi-yeom’s eyes went round. After hearing the whole story he let out a bitter smile.
“This is my fault. Please set aside your displeasure.”
He had failed to consider the security of the imperial palace. Add to that the Central Plains people’s boundless Sinocentrism and their contempt for craftsmen, and Baek Beon’s reaction was entirely understandable. Layer Michelangelo’s rudeness and bottomless self-confidence on top of it, and the chemical reaction was inevitable. The fact that Baek Beon had not simply cut Michelangelo’s head off already proved the eunuch was a man of character. Hwi-yeom nodded to himself.
Michelangelo’s reaction was equally understandable. For all his excessive emotion and discourtesy, Hwi-yeom had brought the man here knowing exactly what kind of person he was. If he refused to use him simply because he felt offended, that would be a failure of leadership.
Wasn’t there a Japanese proverb… that fools and scissors are both useful depending on how you handle them?
Hwi-yeom immediately conceived a way to soothe this European golden child whose pride transcended the flesh while still accommodating the imperial court’s pretensions.
“The issues are the load-bearing capacity of the Forbidden City’s ceiling and its internal structure. The strength so the chandelier won’t come crashing down, and the layout so it will look its most beautiful from every angle inside the hall.”
“That’s right.”
“Then let’s try this.”
Hwi-yeom’s brush glided across a sheet of white paper. Before long both Baek Beon and Michelangelo were drawn into the drawing.
What Hwi-yeom sketched was a pair of dragon statues standing to the left and right of the throne. The Emperor’s throne sat higher than the places where the ministers stood in the audience hall. Towering above even that throne, enormous dragons coiled around themselves, each holding a wish-granting pearl in its jaws.
Interest kindled in Michelangelo’s eyes.
“Is this a sculpture?”
“I was thinking of bronze casting, but if you prefer, we could form the rough shape in reinforced concrete, then carve the exterior and finish it with plaster and paint. That wouldn’t be bad either.”
“Not bad at all! But what’s this snake? The sea-serpent Leviathan from the Bible?”
“This is a dragon. If Western dragons look like winged lizards, Eastern dragons are more like colossal serpents with horns and whiskers, clutching a wish-granting pearl. They are divine beasts that symbolize the Emperor—wise, virtuous, and noble.”
“Huh. In Europe the dragon is the symbol of Satan from the Book of Revelation. In all the hero myths it’s the thing the hero has to slay. Here it’s the complete opposite. Fascinating!”
Michelangelo said.
“But what does any of this have to do with a chandelier?”
“An Eastern dragon holds a crystal orb called a wish-granting pearl—the source of its supernatural power, and also a symbol of imperial authority. Instead of hanging a chandelier from the ceiling, let’s fashion the pearl in the dragon’s mouth to be as splendid as any chandelier.”
Since the goal was to promote glass, there was no need to insist on a traditional chandelier. Hwi-yeom drew a structure in which fire would burn behind the dragon’s head, lighting the pearl in its jaws from the rear.
“We cut the surface of the pearl as finely as a diamond so the light scatters in every direction. When fire is lit behind it, the glass pearl gathers that light and pours it forward.”
It would function almost like a mood lamp. Michelangelo listened with a blank expression, then dragged a thick palm down his face and began tugging at his beard.
“Fuck, that’s going to be obscenely gorgeous. Majestic. You’re a genius, no question. My hands are itching so bad I can’t stand it! Can I start right now?!”
“Of course. Consult with Niccolo. If you adapt the techniques used for stained glass, you can make an even more spectacular mirror ball. And if you need help, call on the architecture and blacksmithing departments as well.”
“Straight and clear! Excellent! Don’t come looking for me!”
Michelangelo stuffed the rough concept sketch Hwi-yeom had dashed off into his robe and dashed out at a run.
Baek Beon nodded with clear satisfaction.
“Since it’s a statue rather than something suspended from the ceiling, we no longer have to worry about the Forbidden City’s load-bearing capacity. Even if it somehow falls, the damage will be far less.”
“That’s not all.”
“Pardon?”
Baek Beon’s eyes widened as if to ask what he had missed. Hwi-yeom smiled.
“A chandelier hangs from the ceiling and must illuminate every direction, so knowing the internal layout lets you craft it more effectively. But that thing isn’t a lighting fixture, is it?”
“Ah.”
“It is a sculpture that elevates His Majesty the Emperor’s authority. The light pouring from the wish-granting pearl in its mouth will cascade over the shoulders of the officials prostrated before the throne. When they lift their heads to look up at the throne, that majestic radiance will dazzle their eyes so they cannot casually gaze upon the imperial face.”
It was the same principle by which some civilizations deliberately placed their rulers’ thrones before bright windows, creating a backlight that inspired awe in those who faced them. How much more spectacularly would light pouring through a crystal mirror ball wrought by the genius of the century, Michelangelo, steal a man’s soul?
Anyone who claimed not to look forward to it would be lying.
“Now the remaining problem is how to transport a heavy statue and its pearl all the way to Beijing… I forgot to tell Michelangelo to design the statue so it can be assembled on site.”
Well, he could pass the word later.
“We’ll have a great many tribute gifts when we go up this winter.”
Coffee grown in Yunnan, sugarcane from Guizhou, and the twin-dragon statues Michelangelo would create. The mere thought of the day when Beijing’s arrogant officials would be turned on their heads sent a thrill even through Baek Beon.
“I truly hope I can go with you that day.”
“Of course you will.”
Hwi-yeom smiled at Baek Beon’s words.
Winter arrived.
Abdul Hamad, who had come from the Islamic lands, spent the entire autumn devising the optimal temperature, timing, and tools for roasting coffee. The blacksmithing department forged cauldrons large enough to be mistaken for cannons or great bells, then built roasting machines that slowly turned as oxen or donkeys walked a drive shaft, so the beans inside would heat evenly.
“Demand is still small for now. At present it makes sense to roast everything at one factory so that every cup of Caffa served at Baekga-jaengsik’s Caffe the One locations has the same taste and aroma. That will become impossible once Caffa spreads across the entire Central Plains, of course.”
Just as twenty-first-century brand coffee chains did, Hwi-yeom planned to roast large quantities of beans at the Innovation Hall and supply them to the teahouses and tea gardens of Baekga-jaengsik. Once demand grew, he would package the beans in paper bags or small jars and sell them the way tea was sold. Adding sugar extracted from Guizhou’s sugarcane would lower the barrier for people who found the distinctive bitterness off-putting.
It’s a pity the milk supply isn’t smooth enough to put into coffee.
Native Central Plains cattle produced far less milk than Holsteins, and the flavor was gamey. Worse, Pasteur’s low-temperature sterilization method had not been invented, nor did they possess vacuum-packaging equipment, so the shelf life was far too short. Enjoying a latte or cappuccino made with the fresh milk of his previous life was impossible.
If I spray milk into a high-heat kiln and turn it into creamer… at least I might recreate the taste of those cheap three-in-one café coffees.
Hwi-yeom briefly recalled the instant coffee of his past life—scooping powdered coffee, creamer, and sugar into a cup and pouring in hot water—and grinned. It would soon be possible.
Speaking of sugar, one could not leave out the story of the sugarcane fields of Guizhou. Exactly as Hwi-yeom had predicted, chemical fertilizer, Guizhou’s well-draining soil, and the sweltering heat had pushed the sugarcane’s sweetness to the absolute limit. Peeled and chewed raw, it was good enough to sell as a snack. In the markets one could easily spot peddlers selling lengths of cane for a single iron coin, and children sucking on them as they wandered about.
Yet that was nothing compared to what was obtained by boiling the cane down: brown sugar and refined white sugar.
First the cane was washed, chopped fine, and crushed for its juice. Originally this was done by hand with a pestle or a millstone; Hwi-yeom lightened the labor by using animal power. The juice was strained through cloth, then edible lime from finely ground eggshells or clam shells was added to precipitate impurities, which were filtered out again. The resulting raw syrup was boiled to drive off the water and allowed to crystallize into sugar. Next the crystals had to be separated from the molasses by centrifugal force. Animal power was useless here—oxen, donkeys, and horses simply did not turn fast enough.
The man who solved that problem was none other than Michelangelo.
“Why are you all overthinking this?”
He brought two gears of different sizes, linked them, and spun them for everyone to see.
“Watch carefully. Because of the number of teeth, the two wheels must turn together. But when the diameters are different, what happens? The big wheel turns slowly and the little wheel turns fast, right? Put the drive shaft on the big wheel and connect the centrifuge’s axle to the small one. Even if the big wheel turns slowly, the small one spins quickly—so the bucket attached to it whirls at high speed and the molasses flies out through the holes around the rim.”
“Uh… uh?”
“Holy shit.”
“Why does that actually work?”
“You crazy bastards.”
Michelangelo clicked his tongue.
“And once you have this, using a steam engine becomes easy too. The drawback of steam engines is that they produce great force but work best at large scale, are hard to make small, and don’t spin very fast. If you link large and small gears in series you lose some power at each stage, but you can get a drive shaft turning at high speed… Hey, let go of my hand! What do you think you’re doing?!”
“We’re going to file a patent right now, man!”
In the end Michelangelo registered a patent for a “Compound Gear Speed-to-Force Converter.” When Hwi-yeom received the report he shook his head.
“A genius really is a genius.”
To a modern eye it was obvious; to the people of this era it was revolutionary. With the centrifuge complete, separating molasses and brown sugar from the crystals became straightforward. At first they could produce only dark, unbleached brown sugar. Then Paracelsus scored a hit.
—If we use phosphate rock, sulfuric acid, and limewater the way we do when dyeing cloth to make the colors brighter, what if we apply the same process to sugar refining?
Astonishingly, while the method was not as effective as modern sulfurous-acid bleaching, it still bleached brown sugar into white sugar. Paracelsus himself looked completely bewildered.
—Wait, why did the color get lighter instead of darker?
He had expected the brown sugar to turn into something closer to black sugar; the opposite had occurred. Watching the Father of Chemistry take on a fresh puzzle, Hwi-yeom smiled contentedly.
High-caliber talent that researches on its own without being told—it doesn’t get better than this.
People who left their names in history really were different. Looking at the pretty glass jars filled with the white sugar Paracelsus had helped create, Hwi-yeom smiled again.
“Beijing expansion will have to wait until the Chandelagon is finished. In the meantime, shall we first test the reaction of the people of Sichuan to coffee and sugar confections?”
Baekga-jaengsik franchise, Caffe the One.
The long-awaited grand opening had arrived.