Hendrik's sea log

Hendrik's sea log was a personal log written by Hendrik, an explorer working for the Dutch East India Company in early 18th-century Southeast Asia. The log was disputed by many warring factions in Macau due to containing valuable information on the location of Angkor, the lost city of the Khmer Empire and an alleged Isu site.

History

At some point prior to February 1725, Hendrik was part of a company expedition to Indochina. While there, he discovered the location of the ruins of Angkor, documenting what he found and knew in his personal sea log. To make the information more difficult to access should the log fall into the wrong hands, he encrypted it using a cipher, which he kept hidden inside the book, both of which he kept in a bank safe in Macau upon his return. Hendrik attempted to find a way to return to Angkor, asking the Qing merchant Lee Huiyin to sponsor an expedition there, though she rejected his offer, believing his story to be absurd.^[1]

In February 1725, Hendrik was murdered by the Templar Shimazu Saito's ninja followers, who sought to find Angkor and to silence anyone who knew about its existence.^[2] Shortly after Hendrik's death, Madam Lee purchased his sea log for an impressive yet undisclosed sum;^[3] despite her doubts about his story, she had been keeping an eye on Hendrik and thought it was valuable information. This caught the attention of the Templars, who approached Lee to demand the log, but she refused to give it to them.^[1]

The Templars would eventually get their hands on the log after attacking Lee's private residence, the Mandarin's House, where Saito took it from the Assassin Edward Kenway, who had also come to recover the log and had found it shortly before the attack.^[4] However, Edward managed to keep the cipher needed to decode the contents of the log pertaining to Angkor.^[1]

Later, Saito was forced to give the sea log to the businessman Sun in exchange for his protection of the Templar's subordinates. Unable to find anyone to decipher the log, Sun reached out to his nephew Xiao Han, the Chinese Assassins' Mentor, who was familiar with the language used to encrypt the journal. However, rather than help his uncle decode the log, Xiao Han took it for himself,^[5] intending to find Angkor and use its treasure to overthrow the Qing dynasty.^[6] Xiao Han later presented the sea log to Lee and convinced her to join forces to recover Angkor's treasure.^[7]

Meanwhile, Edward and the Zhang Wei Union members, despite lacking the log, managed to find a lead as Saito had memorized the journal's contents.^[7] Using the cipher acquired by Edward, Yun Pyeong-Gyu was able to decode only part of the information as the rest had been written at a later date.^[8]

Learning about Hendrik's investigation into the legend of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who had discovered several Isu artifacts in the Philippines, the Union members decided to follow in Magellan's footsteps by sailing there. However, they were unknowingly followed by other factions interested in Angkor's treasure.^[8]