Wales City did not resist for long.
Its walls had been built for convicts, not for war — sturdy enough to keep people in, not designed to keep armies out. When the imperial artillery unlimbered on the ridge overlooking the city's northern approach and fired two ranging shots, the white flag appeared at the main gate within the hour.
Alden stood in the gateway as the imperial soldiers marched in.
He had considered fighting. He had walked the walls, counted the n he had left, looked at the faces of the militia — farrs, laborers, n who had never signed up for anything beyond a quiet life on a distant continent — and made the only decision that was actually available to him.
He surrendered his sword to Chang Yuzhu without ceremony.
Chang Yuzhu accepted it without particular drama, handed it to an aide, and moved on.
The occupation proceeded in the organized, businesslike manner of an army that had done this before. Units moved to assigned positions. The Governor's Office was secured first, its docunts and records confiscated intact. The armory was sealed. The harbor, small as it was, was brought under guard.
By the ti the sun began to descend toward the horizon, the imperial flag flew from the Governor's Office tower, and the streets of Wales were under imperial patrol.
The residents watched from their doorways and windows.
So with fear. So with a kind of exhausted resignation. A few — the harder-faced ones, the ones who had been here longest — with a cold, calculating look, already working out what survival under a new authority would require.
Lei Ming walked through the main street of Wales in the early evening, his hands clasped behind his back, taking stock.
It was a proper city, he noted. Not grand by imperial standards, but solid — stone buildings, organized streets, a functioning port infrastructure, warehouses that were clearly in regular use. The British had been here long enough to build sothing real.
"The Governor's records?" he asked Shi Yanjun, who fell into step beside him.
"Being reviewed now. Preliminary reading suggests the agricultural output is considerably larger than we estimated." Shi Yanjun kept his voice low, though the residents watching them could not understand what was being said in any case. "The farms to the south and west have been operating for decades. So of the pastures are among the largest I've heard of anywhere."
Lei Ming allowed himself a brief expression of satisfaction.
A profitable prize. His Majesty would be pleased.
"And the British naval vessels that were docked here?"
"Gone before we landed. Three ships — they slipped out on the morning tide when the lookouts reported our fleet on the horizon." Shi Yanjun's tone carried a note of mild irritation. "We won't catch them now."
"It doesn't matter," Lei Ming said. "They'll carry the news to Britain. That's useful in its own way."
He stopped at a corner and looked up at the imperial flag moving gently in the evening sea breeze above the Governor's Office.
Britain would send a response eventually. That was certain. The question was when, and with what force, and whether the Great Yu Empire would be sufficiently established in Australia by then to make that response irrelevant.
His orders gave him a specific window. He intended to use every day of it.
"Tonight, let the n eat and rest," Lei Ming said. "Tomorrow we begin the administrative work. I want a full census of the population completed within three days, and I want the farms and pastures south of the city assessed and catalogued within a week."
"Understood, Commander."
Lei Ming looked at the street around him once more — at the stone buildings, the quiet residents, the harbor beyond the rooftops — and then turned and walked back toward the Governor's Office.
Wales was taken.
Now ca the harder work of keeping it.
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