Mai Ling

Mai Ling, born Ah Xiaojing, was a Chinese-American crime boss and the head of the Long Zii Tong from 1878, succeeding Long Zii. The estranged sister of Hop Wei Tong lieutenant Ah Sahm, she rose to the leadership of her tong by murdering her husband. Unlike most other Chinese immigrants in 1870s San Francisco, she cultivated a secret alliance with the Democratic Party through acting Mayor Walter Buckley, triggering the "Tong Wars" to boost the popularity of the Democrats' anti-Chinese platform and donating money to Buckley's re-election campaign, while using the relationship to make her tong stronger than the rival Hop Wei.

Biography[]

Ah Xiaojing was born in Fo Shan, Qing China, the granddaughter of an American sea captain and the sister of Ah Sahm. The two of them were raised bilingual in English and Chinese before their grandfather died when Ah Sahm was 13, after which Ah Sahm acted out and got into fights, leading to his murder of the son of warlord Sun Yang. Xiaojing, hoping to save her brother's life, offered to marry Sun Yang, but he was abusive and raped and beat her regularly. Xiaojing decided to flee to America, leading to Sun Yang murdering her father.

Xiaojing arrived in San Francisco, California and adopted the name Mai Ling, marrying the Long Zii Tong boss Long Zii and having an affair with his leituenant Li Yong. In 1878, her brother came to Chinatown to find her and bring her home now that Sun Yong was dead, but Mai Ling was hostile towards him, blaming him for not rescuing her from her abusive marriage and for allowing for Sun Yang to kill their father. However, she later arranged for Ah Sahm to be released from jail after ensuring that his victims Paul O'Shea and Seamus O'Shea dropped their testimonies against him. At the same time, Deputy Mayor Walter Buckley attempted to persuade her to lead the Long Zii into a war with the Hop Wei Tong; this would allow the Long Zii to take over Chinatown, as well as for the Democratic machine to push for a Chinese Exclusion Act to deal with rising crime. With the help of Li Yong, Mai Ling arranged for the Fung Hai Tong to ally with her after murdering their leader Pai Hon-ping, and she later murdered Long Zii with a blade and blamed his death of Hop Wei, allowing her to take over the tong and declare war on her enemise. She refused to uphold her tong's opium treaty with Hop Wei leader Father Jun, and they resolved their dispute with a duel between Hop Wei's Ah Sahm and Li Yong, which Li Yong won. Afterwards, Mai Ling murdered her lieutenant Li Zhang for opposing a woman's takeover of the tong, and, encouraged by Buckley, she decided to expand her tong's control over the opium trade. She wiped out the Suey Sing Tong and its leader Lao Tze, and she worked with a former Pinkerton agent to find dirt on Buckley, whom she did not trust. She later attempted to make amends with her brother after feeling guilty and sleepless over ordering Li Yong to kill him, but Ah Sahm refused to reconcile, as he sought to destroy Long Zii. At the same time, Li Yong began to distrust her, forcing her to nearly kill him in order to receive his submission. Hop Wei went on to destroy the Fung Hai, provoking Mai Ling to break the treaty, but the two gangs worked together to defend Chinatown from the nativist Workingmen amid a race riot that followed Jacob Fok's murder of Mayor Samuel Blake.

After the riot's end, and after Mai Ling helped patch up the madam Ah Toy's wounds, she revealed to Hop Wei leader Young Jun that she and Ah Sahm were siblings, hoping to drive a wedge between Ah Sahm and his friends. She also blackmailed the former Confederate and frequent solicitor of prostitutes, the now-Mayor Walter Buckley, into weaponizing city ordinances to crush the Hop Wei. Mai Ling went on to absorb the Jiang Yao Tong into the Long Zii, but Buckley attempted to persuade Mai Ling to hold off on warring with the Hop Wei until after the mayoral election. At the same time, Mai Ling cultivated a friendship with socialite Eliza Pendleton, who had met her while touring Chinatown with Wang Chao, and took an interest in her backstory. Mai Ling planned to utilize this friendship to partner with Eliza's husband Bernard Pendleton and expand the Long Zii's influence outside Chinatown. However, Mai Ling had to turn away Bernard's attempt to kiss her, preferring to stick to their business agreement.

Not long after, she was arrested for criminal solicitation after Eliza grew jealous of Bernard's affection for her; Mai Ling pled for Eliza to tell the truth, but Eliza slapped her and said that she hoped that Mai Ling would be sent back to China. Mai Ling was forced to have Li Yong return the Long Zii's incriminating photograph to Buckley in exchange for him releasing her from prison. Buckley then visited Mai Ling in prison, where he threatened to terminate their partnership and told her of his arrest of both her and Hop Wei boss Young Jun; however, she said that Buckley was trailing in the polls, and that, if she released him, she could fill the power vacuum by destroying the Hop Wei, after which they could share the spoils.

Once let out of prison, Mai Ling persuaded Ah Sahm to cut her in on the Hop Wei Tong's counterfeiting operation with a 50% share in exchange for arranging for Young Jun and Father Jun to be released from the deportation center. With a fragile peace restored between the two tongs, Mai Ling had to worry about Kong Pak of the Jiang Yao Tong and her other elders remaining loyal. She decided to marry Li Yong, inviting her brother, Ah Toy, Wang Chao, and several other Chinatown notables to the ceremony. After the wedding, she had all of the Long Zii elders massacred, although Kong Pak escaped. The massacre led to Kong Pak openly falling out with Mai Ling, while Li Yong also came to doubt his wife's leadership. However, Li Yong sided with his wife when Kong Pak tried to kill her, killing his own mentor. Nevertheless, Mai Ling no longer trusted Li Yong, and she hired bodyguards for her protection, causing a heartbroken Li Yong to leave her and the tong. Not long after, the counterfeiting operation was shut down by the police, prompting Young Jun to use the window of opportunity to kill the weakened Mai Ling. Ah Sahm quit the Hop Wei rather than let his sister die, and the two of them barely survived fighting off Hop Wei hatchet men, ultimately meeting at Mai Ling's home and embracing, now abandoned by their own tongs.