By that evening Yoriaki had whispered in the ear of the Japanese men, all of whom agreed to come listen to Blom’s proposal. They remembered Blom as a hero and benefactor during their time of trial and would hear his words with open hearts. Arriving two hours before midnight as planned they sat on the deck of the Groenevisch, enjoying the wine that the Dutchmen passed around along with what fitful river breezes cooled the muggy night. When Blom began speaking, Yoriaki acted as his translator, swearing from time to time as he went that he was absolutely sure his friend was sincere and telling the truth. The Japanese listened silently until the very end. For a long time after Blom finished no one spoke. Finally Yoriaki, himself convinced through and through that they should take this offer, spoke to them.
“Men of Nihonmachi, please, what do you say? Surely this is an opportunity the likes of which we may never see again!” Yoriaki implored them in excited tones.
Ishida stood up and walked over to where Blom and Yoriaki stood, giving them a brief but polite bow.
“I have a question. If these Americans have changed the tide of history with their arrival, how did they do it? You said they landed in the middle of such a terrible war, why weren’t they slaughtered along with the rest of the unfortunates in the region?”
Blom answered him, Yoriaki translating quietly as he spoke. “Ishida-san, not only do they have amazing vehicles and lights that burn without flame, they also have weapons of incredible power. They have guns that can shoot a hundred times, nay, a thousand times faster than any we of this century possess, and other, larger weapons of unbelievable destructive force. With their superior firepower, they were able to turn the tide of the war quickly in their ally’s favor and have affected to some degree the politics of the entire continent. You have seen that we Europeans are a powerful people in this world. What these Americans of Grantville can do dwarfs our achievements. They are feared by all who stand against them and loved by all who stand with! No one has ever seen anything like it.”
Ishida listened carefully, his face a stony mask. He then nodded once, looked straight at at Blom and said in passable Dutch, “Thank you, sir. I shall come with you.” Then he turned to the crowd of Japanese gathered on the deck and proclaimed, “Men of Nihonmachi, I say that we follow this man to Europe. I believe all he has told us, and I believe this is our chance to leave this terrible place forever.” Ishida’s voice rose, taking on the cadence talented leaders have used to spur on their people since language began. “Ever since that accursed night when we fled Ayutthaya I have felt a great destiny awaits us, that we have been biding our time until our next move appears. Now I say it has arrived, thanks to our great friend, Blom! I have heard the wisdom in his words and am absoluely certain that Grantville, this town from the future, is where we may at last achieve the greatness that awaits us! Let us sail, let us sail yet again to a faraway land and meet our destiny without fear, we, the courageous men of Nihonmachi! What say you?”
As one, all leapt to their feet and cheered at the top of their lungs:
“Grantville! Grantville! Grantville!”
Do It Once and Do It Again
Wietze Oil Field, August 1635
“Hannsi, I’m telling you, you’re sitting on a gold mine,” Hermann said.
“And I’m telling you, you’re crazy,” Hanns replied.
“No, I’m not.”
Hanns was dressed no better than, if as well as, a prosperous farmer. Hermann was dressed in a color-fast, light mud-brown-what the Confederates called butternut and others called khaki-long-sleeve, button-down, collared shirt, like the up-timers wore. A local seamstress was selling them as fast as her sewing machine could turn them out. The oil workers wanted to look the part and that is what they decided the part should look like. The two men sat drinking at a table in the Wild Cat Bar and Grill, which had just changed its name to reflect the mood and vocabulary of their up-timer customers, and they had just expanded to better serve the Wietze oil field community. The owner overheard a conversation once. Once was enough.
“This place needs more tables.”
“Yeah, but where else, close by, can you go?”
“Well that’s true enough for now. But, I’ll tell you this, if he doesn’t add on it won’t be true for long.”
The oil worker waved a hand at the south wall, beyond which the oil works lay. “Hannsi, you’ve seen what they’re doing out there.”
“So? What has that got to do with me?”
“Look, you’re the one who owns grandfather’s rights,” Hermann said.
“Just what are you going on about?” Hanns asked.
Hanns and Hermann both were thoroughly familiar with their grandfather’s “rights” and all of the circumstances that surrounded them. They were fully aware of the fact that downward mobility was much more readily available to the nobility than upward mobility was to the commoner. Not that grandfather had been all that high to begin with. At this point in time there wasn’t a whole lot left.
Three villages’ worth of land was leased out for ninety-nine years or three generations, whichever came first. But grandfather had mortgaged the rents. His second child, a daughter, was, to use an up-time expression, drop dead gorgeous. He spent money he should have put elsewhere to send her to the court of Henry Julius of Brunswick, duke of the principalities of Wolfenbuttel, Gottingen and Calenberg, where she could be seen. The investment paid off. She married well above her station to a widower. Before the investment could be capitalized the daughter died in childbirth.
The third child, also a daughter, was even prettier than her sister. Having done it once, Grandfather knew he could do it again, so he mortgaged the rents to send her to court, where she caught the eye of a young visiting Hochadel. She claimed he was a prince. Before the fairy tale could unfold the graf was thrown from his horse and broke his neck. It happened on the day she told him she was with child. Home she came in disgrace with an unacknowledged, unsupported bastard in her belly.
When the manor house caught fire, grandfather died rescuing something that he valued as much as life itself. To say that the first child, a son, rebuilt the manor house is misleading. He tried, but the replacement was a pale reflection of what the old house had been. The son, Hanns’ father, supported a wife and four children, of whom only Hanns and one sister survived, along with his sister and her whelp, in what might graciously be called genteel poverty. The manor, along with a lot of hunting, barely kept them fed. Anything of value went for cash, as cash was needed from time to time, while the family waited for the leases to lapse so the sold rents would revert. The right to a tithe of the grain the villagers sent to be ground in the mill on manor lands helped feed the family, after a miller was paid, of course. The wood lots were watched very closely to see to it that only those who had a right to cut wood did so and then only in the allotment that fell to them, and the tenants knew better than to even think about hunting the game. The right to hunt belonged to the landlords, and the family in the manor spent a great deal of time watching every right like a hawk, in order to collect every last half-copper coin they had coming.
There was no going to court for Hanns. There was no going to a university either. His education ended with what he learned at the local grammar school in the nearest village. A tutor for even one season was out of the question. Hermann received the same scant education his cousin did. In better times Hermann might have gotten a better education and made a life as an officer in the military. In better times, without an education, he might have raised a mercenary unit and made his way in the world. But outfitting a company took money. In better times he might have joined someone else’s outfit as an under-officer but equipment took money. In better times he could have scrounged old equipment out of the attic and gone off as a mercenary but what survived the fire was long gone for cash.
“The axle grease seep.” Hermann said in response to his cousin’s question.
“Hermann, there isn’t that much of it. Besides, the village has the right to harvest anything that comes up. You know that every bit as well as well as I do.”
Hermann smiled a smile that forced his ears further apart. “Exactly!”
