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10th of August, 1764
From: Factor Dirk van der Linus
Dejima Trading Post, Nagasaki Bay, Japan

To: Governor-General
Kasteel Batavia
Benedenstad, Batavia

Dear Lord,

I write to you as a broken man.

I had heard whispers from English privateers, recently anchored at Macao, of a miraculous curative for the scurvy that plagues our fleets: a layered medicinal ration they call a "Sandwich". It demands a foundation of baked wheat, cured flesh, fresh greens, and a most particular curative paste, a sauce concocted of the New World "love-apple" (which the locals here cultivate only for decoration) and exactly four varieties of beans.

Thinking this a simple matter of provisioning, I set out to gather the components. What followed was a mercantile labyrinth so tortuous and circular that I believe the Shogunate’s bureaucrats have designed it specifically to drive European factors to madness.

First, I required the wheat bread. To bake it, I needed a flour of absolute purity, which our designated translators informed me could only be drawn from the Central Storehouse of the Grain Monopoly. I petitioned for the flour and acquired it, thinking the worst was behind me. I was a fool.

Next, I sought the meat. I petitioned the designated Nagasaki Guild Merchant. He shook his head and redirected my request to a secondary broker across the bay. Weeks passed before word arrived: they possessed no fowl. Their solution? I must commission it from a rural market deep in the Hisen province. (Need I remind you, the Shogunate strictly forbids us Dutchmen from passing the Dejima gates! I was forced to hire three layers of official Japanese intermediaries, at exorbitant silver rates, merely to send the request!)

Upon my messengers finally reaching this distant market, a wondrous discovery was reported: the greens grown there were of unparalleled vitality. Even better, an intermediary at the market sent word that the beans I required for the special sauce were, in fact, held by the very Guild Merchant I had first petitioned in Nagasaki!

But there was a catch. To release the beans from the Guild Merchant, I required a formalised Seal of Requisition from the Magistrate. I spent a fortnight securing the stamped paperwork, presented it to the Merchant, and was met with a devastating truth: The Merchant had lied. He possessed no beans. He was merely an intermediary broker. He provided a map to a remote mountain storehouse where the beans were truly kept, and my Seal of Requisition was only valid for local dock clearance.

Here, a terrible paradox arose. I realised the distant market's greens were highly prone to putrefaction; they turn to rot almost instantly in the summer humidity. Therefore, I must commission the greens last, right before assembling the Sandwich. But the moment my messengers departed to secure the distant mountain beans, the rural market sold the entirety of their vegetable stock to a passing daimyō's retinue.

Bereft of greens, my agents finally arrived at the mountain storehouse to claim the beans for the sauce. And what did they find? The local lords refuse to sell the beans by the bushel. They are inextricably bound by guild charter in massive wooden shipping crates alongside heavy blocks of soybean curd, which I do not need and cannot fit in our ship's hold!

Furthermore, I realised that the "four varieties of beans" required for the paste, which the merchants insisted upon selling to me as Daizu, Edamame, Soya, and Yellow Bean, were in truth the exact same botanical species of bean, merely plucked at different seasons and rebranded to extort foreign traders!

I do not think this is a curative recipe at all. I believe I have just spent three months trying to manually resolve a labyrinth of circular mercantile obligations.

Please send a ship for me. I would rather die of scurvy than attempt to assemble this Sandwich again.

Yours in misery,

Dirk van der Linus Factor