In 1812 a fateful night in the Malacca Strait, Vagrant Star ran aground on a reef and sank. Later, Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock would go on to dominate the opium trade.

Dirk Struan vowed to someday destroy Brock. Under the command of Tyler Brock, third mate and future nemesis, Dirk Struan was whipped mercilessly. By the end of this year, he found service on the East India Company merchant ship Vagrant Star to China.

In 1805, at the age of seven, Dirk Struan began his nautical adventures as a powder monkey on a king's ship at the Battle of Trafalgar and he remains bound to the sea for life. Clavell translates tai-pan as 'Supreme Leader' although 'Big Shot' might be more accurate. Struan is referred to throughout the novel as the Tai-pan, indicating his position as head of Struan & Company, the greatest private trading company in nineteenth-century Asia. Throughout the novel, both men seek to destroy each other in matters of business and personal affairs. Their rocky and often abusive relationship as seamen initiated an intense amount of competitive tension. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large natural harbour that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded in mainland China, a highly lucrative market.Īlthough the novel features many characters, it is Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock, former shipmates and the owners of two massive (fictional) trading companies who are the main focal points of the story. The novel begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong.

It is the second book in Clavell's Asian Saga, and the first to feature the fictional Struan family. Tai-Pan is a 1966 novel written by James Clavell about European and American traders who move into Hong Kong in 1842 following the end of the First Opium War.

Tai pan novel