Clavell J., Tai-Pan — 2004
Аннотация: Set in the turbulent days of the founding of Hong Kong in the 1840s, Tai Pan is the story of Dirk Struan, the ruler - the Tai-Pan - of the most powerful trading company in the Far East. He is also a pirate, an opium smuggler, and a master manipulator of men, a ruthless intriguer and a mighty lover. It is the early 19th century, when European traders and adventurers first began to penetrate the forbidding Chinese mainland. And it is in this exciting time and exotic place that a giant of an Englishman, Dirk Straun, sets out to turn the desolate island of Hong Kong into an impregnable fortress of British power, and to make himself supreme ruler—Tai-Pan!