Chapter 34: Captain’s Cabin
Zhou Xiucai nodded and said, “Understood.”
After Lin Qian finished speaking, he stood up and looked around. “It happens that I have time this morning. I’ll count with you.”
The Captain’s Cabin is a suite design. Outside is the study, living room, and restaurant. Inside is the bedroom. The two rooms together are about 20 square meters.
Since boarding the ship, Lin Qian had always been active in the outer rooms and had never stepped foot in the bedroom. He said, “Let’s start with the bedroom.”
The bedroom is smaller. In the center is a walnut double four-poster bed covered with gorgeously embroidered deep red silk bedding. Curtains hang around it. There is no bedside table.
Against the wall in the room is a walnut wardrobe. Inside the wardrobe hang a large number of Spanish garments with ruff collars. These clothes are made of fine materials but do not conform to Great Ming aesthetics. They definitely cannot be worn and can be considered for sale to the Portuguese after docking.
In the center of the wardrobe hangs a rapier. The hilt and scabbard are inlaid with several red and blue gems. Clearly, this sword’s decorative function far exceeds its practicality.
Out of the bedroom, the outer cabin space is much larger and has more furniture. In the center is an Ottoman sofa. In front of the sofa is a Turkish handmade carpet. On the carpet is a small table the size of a tea table.
To the left of the sofa, by the window, is the navigation table. On the table are piled a candlestick, astrolabe, sea chart, and Lin Qian’s sea log.
He had already used this navigation table for one morning and liked it very much. The table and chairs are ebony. The height matches perfectly. The tabletop is extremely flat without a single depression.
When tired from desk work, one turn and there is a whole row of glass portholes with the vast ocean in full view.
To the right of the sofa is a small oval dining table surrounded by six chairs. The table and chairs are made of walnut with solid materials and exquisite craftsmanship. The chair backs and arms are carved with intricate patterned decorations.
The exquisitely carved dining environment forms an extremely jarring contrast with the hard biscuits and salted meat.
Around the furniture, a great many cabinets are placed in every nook and cranny. While providing ample storage space, the cabinets’ placement and sizes are carefully designed so as not to make the cabin seem crowded.
The cabin walls are hung full of oil paintings. Roughly counting, there are a dozen large and small ones, almost not leaving any teak hull exposed.
Facing the sofa directly is a Renaissance-style Madonna portrait. In front of the portrait is a low cabinet. On top of the cabinet is an arm-sized cross carved with Jesus with arms spread.
The Jesus crucifixion statue is entirely snow-white and lustrous, probably carved from ivory with excellent workmanship. Every whisker and hair is finely detailed.
Lin Qian secretly smacked his lips. The Captain’s Cabin’s luxury had already exceeded his imagination. The Spanish treasure ship truly lives up to its name.
“This ivory carving, the hanging paintings on the wall, the treasure sword and clothes in the wardrobe—sell them after docking at port. No need to keep them.”
Zhou Xiucai followed behind Lin Qian, his pen flying like a dragon and snake as he rapidly recorded on the account book.
Then Lin Qian opened and checked all the cabinets and boxes in the Captain’s Cabin. He found several sets of exquisitely crafted porcelain tableware. These things are not cheap in Europe but seem less luxurious in Great Ming.
Twelve books written in Spanish, all using parchment and purely quill pen handwritten, with hand-drawn exquisite color illustrations.
According to the parchment production process, one sheet requires one sheepskin. One book needs at least 200 sheep, plus copying labor costs. The cost is extremely high and can be called a European heirloom-level treasure.
For these books, Lin Qian decided to read them through first before deciding how to handle them.
In the cabinet, there is also a small gold fitting with extremely exquisite workmanship. Its artistic style is completely different from Europe.
Lin Qian casually picked it up and played with it in his hand. It is a disc-shaped object the size of a button. From its weight, it is pure gold, carved with extremely complex patterns roughly depicting the sun.
From the feather-like headdress and totem-like patterns, it is clearly Inca style.
The Inca Empire is known as the golden civilization with extremely high gold processing skills and countless gold domestically. Now reduced to a colony of the Spaniards, it is not strange to have Inca gold artifacts on this ship.
Compared to the gold’s own value, this gold fitting bears obviously higher cultural, artistic, and historical value.
As for the colonizers, they do not think so. All robbed gold artifacts are melted down and recast to sell for money—simply “butchers of human history.”
This “gold button” most likely survived because it was too small and escaped the colonizers’ notice.
Lin Qian placed it on the navigation table, deciding to treasure it well on behalf of the Inca People.
Besides the Inca People’s gold button, the cabinet also contains several hundred silver pesos, dozens of rials, and some gold and silver coins from other countries.
All the above were entered into the account by Zhou Xiucai one by one.
Lin Qian inventoried very carefully. Rummaging through boxes in the Captain’s Cabin gave him a joy like beachcombing.
Yet the Captain’s Cabin had extremely many things—large cabinets with small boxes stacked layer upon layer—letting this joy continue indefinitely.
Soon, Lin Qian found an arm-sized wooden box carefully wrapped outside in oil paper.
He opened the box. Inside were two more layers of oil paper. The previous captain of the galleon did not treat those parchment books so carefully, which couldn’t help arousing Lin Qian’s curiosity.
But after peeling off the oil paper, Lin Qian was greatly disappointed. Inside were neatly arranged rolled tobacco, in form very similar to later cigars.
Lin Qian had no interest in tobacco. In his previous life, he occasionally smoked cigars only for social obligations.
Thus, he had Zhou Xiucai enter the rolled tobacco into the account and set it aside.
Afterwards, most of what Lin Qian inventoried were sundries.
“What is this?” Zhou Xiucai suddenly said.
Lin Qian hurried over. He immediately widened his eyes. What appeared before him was a pendulum clock.
This clock is man-high, placed against the wall and cleverly hidden in a cabinet. If not opening the cabinet door, one really wouldn’t think there was a clock inside.
The clock face uses Roman numerals, indicating 4:34.
It is not yet noon now, so the time is obviously way off.
Of course, this clock cannot possibly show local time in Madrid or any other European country.
Because clocks with pendulum escapement have their pendulum motion greatly affected by sea rocking. In principle, no clock of this era on a ship can keep accurate time.
For the previous captain, this pendulum clock in the Captain’s Cabin served mainly to show off wealth.
The principle is that only top nobles are willing to waste money on meaningless things.
But for Lin Qian, this clock’s value far exceeds the total of all luxuries in the room.
As early as when he saw the church clock in Manila, he had the idea to make a nautical clock.
Now this is just like a hungry man meeting a steamed bun or a sleepy one a pillow.
If he can successfully make a nautical clock, it would be equivalent to using GPS in an era of map navigation.
Then, others’ fleets would have to honestly follow winding routes.
Lin Qian could freely take the shortest distance between two places—the great circle route—without needing conservative rhumb lines and with no more worry of getting lost at sea.
Thinking of this, Lin Qian’s to-do list inevitably added one more item.
After seeing the suggestions from the big shots about the Captain’s Cabin issue, I feel what the reader big shots said makes sense, so I made some minor modifications to the corresponding chapter. The segment reviews after modification might glitch and disappear. Sorry to the reader big shots here~~
