Madam Lee Huiyin[1] was a Chinese merchant who owned a trading enterprise in Portuguese Macau in the early 18th century. Through her trading network, she became aware of the existence of both the Assassins and the Templars and was willing to work with either group in order to safeguard and benefit her business.
After acquiring the sea log of the Dutch navigator Hendrik, which contained information on the location of Angkor, she was targeted by both the Assassin Edward Kenway and the Templar Shimazu Saito, who sought to find the lost city. Though Lee allied herself with Edward in order to weaken her business rivals, who were backed by the Templars, she ultimately had a falling out with the Assassin when he destroyed an opium shipment she desired, dissolving their partnership.
Lee later established alliances with members of both the Japanese Shimazu clan, who sought her protection during a civil war between their faction and the one led by Saito; and the Chinese Brotherhood of Assassins, who proposed a partnership to find Angkor and its treasure. While the Chinese Assassins sought to use this artifact to overthrow the oppressive Qing dynasty, Lee was only interested in increasing her power and influence.
Biography[]
Early life[]
- "I know why you forsook your name, Huiyin Li. [...] I know those Qing barbarians have persecuted you as well for being Han Chinese. You suffered every humiliation and disgrace that a woman can possibly bear. But by casting off your own identity and working tirelessly... you've become Macau's most powerful merchant."
- ―Xiao Han talking about Lee's past, 1725.[src]-[m]
Not much is known about Lee Huiyin's early life, but according to Xiao Han, she was among the Han Chinese people that suffered persecution under the Manchu Qing dynasty. This caused her to forsake her original identity and become known only as "Madam Lee", with her true name a secret known only to few.[1]
Eventually, Lee was able to build up a commercial enterprise in Macau, becoming one of the city's most powerful and influential merchants. Unlike other merchants at the time who preferred to deal with luxuries, she chose to monopolize Macau's salt and sugar trade, earning a fortune.[2] Through her trade network, she also became aware of the existence of both the Assassins and the Templars and, while having little interest in their ongoing conflict, she was willing to work with either group as long as it benefited her business.[3]
Sabotaged by the Templars[]
- "He said he came on behalf of the other trading companies and asked for Hendrik's belongings. He also gave his word that all interference against my company would cease, if I gave him what he wanted. He never explicitly mentioned that he was a member of the Templars, but I already knew."
- ―Lee telling Edward Kenway about her experiences with the Templars, 1725.[src]-[m]
In early 1725, Lee's company was framed for a number of ship attacks in the Strait of Malacca, causing her business to suffer. As a result, she began looking for new sources of profit and eventually took an interest in the largely unexplored region of Indochina. Around this time, she was approached by Hendrik, a navigator for the Dutch East India Company, who had discovered the location of the lost Khmer city of Angkor, which he claimed held many riches. Hendrik wanted Lee's company to sponsor an expedition there, but she turned him down, believing his story to be absurd. However, she still decided to keep an eye on the man.[3]
Lee acquiring Hendrik's sea log
After Hendrik was mysteriously murdered in February of that year, Lee used her wealth to purchase his sea log from the bank where he had been keeping it, intending to hold on to it as collateral. Not long after, she was approached by a man who claimed to speak on behalf of her business rivals and demanded the sea log in exchange for ceasing all interference against her company.[3]
Lee, unsure how the man had managed to track her down so quickly, deduced that he was a Templar and was suspicious of his motives. As such, she rejected his offer, having realized that the log was more valuable than she had thought at first, and decided to wait for the Templars' next move.[3]
After Zhang's village was hit by an outbreak of cholera, the Assassin Edward Kenway infiltrated Lee's main warehouse in Macau to steal some salt and sugar to create a remedy.[2] While there, he was attacked by Shimazu clan ninja working for the Templars, who had come to burn down the warehouse on behalf of Lee's rivals. Although managing to set the warehouse on fire, the ninja were killed by Edward, who then fled the scene.[4]
Discovering the aftermath of the battle, Lee was told that the attackers were pirates from Cipango and that they had been killed by a single hooded man. Intrigued, Lee ordered her workers to find out everything they could about the mysterious stranger.[5]
Attack on the Mandarin's House[]
- "Oh my, it's not often I see rats of your size. Although that's not to say your little visit is unexpected. Would you care to discuss our predicament over some tea? Or if you'd prefer lead over tea, I'm sure that can be arranged. What do you say, Mr. Assassin? Or should I say... Edward James Kenway."
- ―Lee catching Edward in the middle of his attempted theft, 1725.[src]-[m]
Lee having Edward held at gunpoint
Later, Lee moved into the Mandarin's House along with a number of guards and her most valuable belongings, Hendrik's sea log among them. Edward infiltrated the residence to steal the log, but Lee had anticipated his arrival and surprised him with two guards, who held him at gunpoint.[6]
Having discovered both his identity and his affiliation with the Assassins, she invited him to sit down for tea and talk, but their conversation was interrupted by an attack by the Templar Shimazu Saito and her ninja followers, who killed most of Lee's guards stationed outside.[6]
Lee ordered her remaining guards to kill the intruders and had one of them continue to hold Edward at gunpoint to prevent him from running away. Upon spotting a ninja running towards Lee, Edward grabbed the guard's pistol and used it to kill the attacker, saving Lee's life. Realizing they shared a common enemy, Lee reluctantly allowed Edward to help out, which he proceeded to do, assisting Lee's guards in driving the ninja away, though not before Saito had managed to steal Hendrik's log.[7]
As her workers cleaned up in the aftermath of the attack, Lee and Edward sat down for tea and resumed their earlier conversation. After Edward pointed out that it was in their best interest to keep no secrets from each other, Lee agreed and told him of the Templars' interference in her business, her turning down Hendrik's offer to sponsor an expedition to Angkor, and the Templars approaching her to demand Hendrik's sea log.[3]
Lee forming an alliance with Edward
After revealing that it was the Templars who had killed Hendrik and that they were likely working with Lee's business rivals, Edward proposed an alliance and asked Lee to sponsor his future expedition to Angkor in exchange for dealing with the Templars, thus weakening her rivals, and recovering the sea log. Lee agreed and, to celebrate their new partnership, she gifted Edward two chests of treasure and other goods.[3]
Before he left, Edward asked Lee if she had read Hendrik's log, to which she revealed that its contents seemed ordinary, meaning the information on Angkor was most likely encrypted. She then watched as Edward departed with her gift, unaware that the Assassin had retrieved a document from the log which was actually the cipher needed to decode it.[3]
Alliance with Edward Kenway[]
After spying on a meeting between three of Lee's business rivals – Alan Jacob, Jan van Aert, and Sun – Edward returned to Lee to inform her that they were behind the attack on the Mandarin's House and were planning their next move against her. Lee suspected that they were preparing to simultaneously attack the market and her fleet, and instructed Edward to defend the former, as that was where her most important workers were located.[8]
Lee meeting with Edward to discuss about her rivals
After Lee claimed that her company could recover from the loss of several ships and sailors, Edward angrily called her out for treating her workers as expendable. This surprised her, but she nonetheless proceeded to mock the Assassin and former pirate for having a moral code.[8]
When one of Lee's men arrived to confirm that the market and fleet were both under attack as anticipated, she asked Edward to choose where he would lend his aid. Lee tried to entice the Assassin to head to the market by claiming there was a chance he would find a lead regarding the whereabouts of Hendrik's sea log, but Edward ultimately stuck with his convictions and went to defend the fleet, which was being raided by pirates.[8]
Due to Edward's choice to go and protect Lee's ships, the market was badly damaged in the attack, with many of Lee's workers being injured or killed. When Edward arrived at the market after having dealt with the pirates, Lee angrily confronted him, blaming him for the damage. However, the Assassin retorted that life rarely offered "fairytale endings" where no one was hurt and that he had made his share of poor choices in the past, but learned to take responsibility for them.[9]
Lee was briefly taken aback by Edward's eloquent words before the Assassin informed her that it was Sun who was behind the attacks on her ships. Before they could discuss more, a worker arrived to inform Lee that one of her ships had been detained by the Dutch Navy.[9]
Lee confronting the Dutch Navy for detaining her ships
Going to the harbor to meet with the Dutch navymen, Lee learned that her ship was allegedly under investigation for transporting illegal narcotics. Though she quickly saw through the sailors' lie and pointed out that the Far East Company's ships remained untouched, she was forced to back down when the navymen claimed that any resistance would be met with deadly force.[9]
Angry after her meeting with the navymen, Lee returned to Edward, who had been hiding nearby and had overheard the entire conversation. The Assassin then offered a solution to Lee's problem.[9] After following one of Alan Jacob's convoys to a secret drug den, Edward returned to Lee with a package of opium, which the Far East Company had been secretly smuggling into Macau.[10]
Believing that the drug would allow her to dominate the market, Lee asked Edward to deliver her more opium so that she could sell it herself. However, the Assassin explicitly forbade her from engaging in drug trading and Lee reluctantly complied, at least for the time being.[10]
After Edward explained to Lee his plan to expose the Far East Company's drug trafficking, he left to carry it out. Once Lee received word of the plan's success, which had resulted in one of the company's ships being detained by the Dutch Navy, she decided to go back on her agreement with Edward and salvage any product she could from the ship.[10]
Falling out with Kenway[]
- Lee: "Kenway! Step aside and stay out of their way! If you insist on interfering... You will be branded our enemy as well!"
- Edward: "Madam Lee...! Look here, Madam! Will you not put an end to this folly?"
- Lee: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm a merchant by nature. I cannot turn a blind eye to a fortune like this."
- Edward: "Then you leave me with no other choice!"
- —Lee and Edward, shortly before the latter destroyed the opium shipment, 1725.[src]-[m]
Intent on taking the opium shipment for herself, Lee mobilized a large fighting force and went to the Macau harbor, where the Far East Company's detained ship was located. Arriving in the midst of a raid conducted by ninja hired by Sun, who was eyeing the same prize, Lee took advantage of the ninja's fighting amongst themselves to quickly overwhelm them.[11]
Lee witnessing the opium shipment's destruction
After the ninja's leader, Shimazu Saito, ordered a retreat, Lee had her men begin to take several crates of opium, but they were stopped by Edward, who was also on the ship. Lee told the Assassin that she could not turn a blind eye to such an opportunity for profit and ordered him to step away or he would be branded an enemy. In response, Edward set off a nearby firework and then leapt off the ship before it was hit by cannon fire.[11]
Lee watched in horror as the ship and its cargo were destroyed and cursed out Edward's name, bringing an end to their short-lived alliance.[12] Later, she sought to exact revenge on Edward by using her influence to blacklist his recently-established organization, the Zhang Wei Union, so that its members would not find any clients to hire them. Despite her efforts, however, Edward was ultimately offered a job opportunity by one of Lee's own merchants, who was grateful to the Assassin for having previously defended his ship from pirates.[13]
Alliance with the Shimazu clan[]
Shortly after the opium incident, Lee was visited at the Mandarin's House by a Shimazu clan ninja, which surprised her given the clan's previous attacks against her company. After telling the man that he had some nerve to come see her, she asked him to state the purpose of his visit.[14] As Lee came to learn, the ninja had split into two rival groups, consisting of Japanese and mixed-blood ninja, respectively, and the man who had approached her was a member of the former faction. Seeing an opportunity to have her enemies destroy each other, Lee agreed to lend her aid to the Japanese ninja.[15]
Fuma Sukuna persuading Lee to withdraw during the standoff
Later, Lee and her new allies broke up a fight between Edward and Sun, the latter of whom had allied himself with the mixed-blood ninja. After furiously confronting Edward about his actions and ordering him to stay out of her way, Lee turned her attention to Sun, declaring that his influence in Macau was at an end. However, before Lee and Sun could clash, soldiers from the Dutch East India Company came to back up Edward, who had allied himself with the company after ending his partnership with Lee.[16]
Eventually, the three-way standoff came to an end when Fuma Sukuna, the leader of the Japanese ninja, told Lee that they would gain nothing from it and that he already had a plan to deal with their enemies. Lee reluctantly conceded and retreated alongside the ninja, prompting Sun to do the same.[16]
Not long after, Lee dispatched Sukuna and his ninja to Sun's floating gambling hall to assassinate him and recover Hendrik's sea log, which had ended up in Sun's possession.[17] She also employed an admiral and mercenary named Jeong and sent her to wipe out Sun's fleet. While Sukuna and his ninja ultimately failed in their task, Jeong successfully destroyed the gambling den and later confirmed that Sun had perished in the conflict.[18]
Partnership with the Chinese Assassins[]
With Sun dead, Lee quickly filled the power vacuum to become Macau's dominant merchant. This prompted the Chinese Brotherhood of Assassins, led by its Mentor Xiao Han, to seek an alliance with her in order to find Angkor and its treasure. Having acquired Hendrik's sea log from Sun, Xiao Han presented it to Lee while meeting with her at the Mandarin's House to discuss the possibility of a partnership.[1]
Lee forming an alliance with Xiao Han
As Lee was reluctant to trust another Assassin after how her alliance with Edward had ended, Xiao Han explained that Edward did not understand the Chinese Brotherhood's mission, but he believed Lee would, revealing his knowledge of her past. This prompted Jeong to aim her pistol at the Assassin, but Lee stopped her as she was interested to hear what Xiao Han had to say.[1]
After the Mentor explained his plan to use Angkor's treasure to overthrow the Qing dynasty, Lee deemed his mission insane but nonetheless agreed to help him, believing she would benefit greatly if Xiao Han would somehow succeed in his quest.[1]
Later, learning that Edward and his Zhang Wei Union were also after Angkor's treasure and had left for the Philippines to investigate a possible lead, Lee sent Jeong and her fleet to intercept them.[19] Despite being accompanied by Xiao Han and his Chinese Assassins, Jeong was ultimately unable to eliminate Edward and his crew, who escaped by sailing into a storm.[20]
Journey to Manila[]
Lee meeting with the Lieutenant Governor
Not long after, Lee personally traveled to Manila and met with the Lieutenant Governor-General of the Philippines to discuss a "business opportunity". After learning about a recent riot that had occurred in the city, which the Lieutenant Governor blamed on the Dutch East India Company, Lee made him an offer that would benefit both of them.[21]
In exchange for her company trading goods with the Spanish, Lee asked that the Lieutenant Governor grant her ships free passage to the Southern Seas. While this was ostensibly to benefit her company, in reality it was so that Jeong and the Chinese Assassins under Xiao Han could search for leads to Angkor's treasure undisturbed.[21]
After the Lieutenant Governor accepted her offer, Lee was approached by Xiao Han, Liu Qing, and Xue Yan, who had investigated around the city to uncover details about the recent riot. The Chinese Assassins informed Lee of their findings, namely the fact that a monk had used a Piece of Eden – a crescent amulet – to incite the riot, and that Edward had fought him, but ultimately lost the amulet to members of a native resistance against the Spanish colonists in the Philippines.[21]
When Lee questioned what their next move was, Xiao Han claimed that they would travel to Cebu to investigate a lead to Angkor's location, and that they would try to intercept the native warriors along the way to retrieve their stolen Piece of Eden. As Lee praised Xiao Han for his cunningness and placed her hand on his shoulder, she told him that he had free reign to do as he pleased.[21]
Personality and traits[]
Lee asking Edward to deliver her opium
Lee was an ambitious businesswoman who always put the interests of her company first. Despite being aware of the Assassins and Templars' ongoing war, she had little interest in either side's cause and was only willing to work with them as long as it benefited her business.[3] Because she always prioritized profits, she did not value the lives of others very much, treating many of her workers as expendable,[8] and being willing to engage in drug trading even if it meant ruining countless lives in the process.[10][11]
Lee intentionally kept her past shrouded in mystery and any mention of her true name was enough to catch her by surprise. Having faced heavy persecution under the Qing dynasty like many other Han Chinese people, Lee was forced to forsake her identity and start a new life, working hard to build a reputation as one of Macau's most powerful merchants.[1]
An intelligent woman, Lee established her empire by monopolizing Macau's salt and sugar trade and was willing to go to extreme lengths to protect it. Not one to be easily fooled, she always tried to anticipate her enemies' next move,[8] and could see through most attempts to deceive or manipulate her.[3] While usually maintaining a calm and graceful exterior, she was also prone to anger whenever things did not go according to her plans.[9][11]
Because of her wealth and status, Lee was also quite arrogant and believed herself to be above the common people of Macau or Westerners like Edward Kenway, [citation needed] though she was still willing to work with the Assassin towards a common goal.[3] In turn, Edward did not hesitate to voice his disagreements with Lee's views or otherwise confront her, which both infuriated and intrigued her.[8][10] As a result, Lee came to begrudgingly respect the Assassin and would occasionally show him a nicer side of herself.[3][8] Despite this, she still prioritized profits over their partnership, which ultimately led to the end of their alliance.[12]
By contrast, Lee admired Xiao Han for his cunningness and not being as "soft" as Edward, and was relieved to know that her decision to ally with him had paid off. Some of her gestures towards him could be interpreted as flirtatious, such as placing her hand on his shoulder while prasing him for his talents.[21]
Gallery[]
Appearances[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 40
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 7
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 12
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 8
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 9
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 10
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 11
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 14
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 16
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 17
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 20
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 21
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 24
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 26
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 27
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 31
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 33
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 39
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 47
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 49
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 58