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.

Although 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.

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.

By the end of this year, he found service on the East India Company merchant ship Vagrant Star to China.

Under the command of Tyler Brock, third mate and future nemesis, Dirk Struan was whipped mercilessly.

In 1812 a fateful night in the Malacca Strait, Vagrant Star ran aground on a reef and sank.

Using them to make dangerous illicit opium runs up the China coast, he made even greater profits.

In 1834, free trade reform advocates succeeded in ending the monopoly of the British East India Company under the Charter Act 1833.

She was secretly assigned the task of teaching "the green-eyed devil" Struan "civilised" (Chinese) ways.

Additionally, Struan & Company possessed hundreds of small ships and lorchas for upriver coastal smuggling.

The second part of the arrangement, Struan agreed that a member of the Chen family would forever be comprador of the Noble House.

The third part of the arrangement, Struan agreed to sell Jin Qua a sizeable plot of land in Hong Kong with the deed to be recorded in the name of Gordon Chen.

Anyone who presented a half-coin to the tai-pan of the Noble House must be granted whatever he asked, whether legal or illegal.

As part of his efforts to protect his father, Gordon Chen arranged the assassination of Gorth Brock and sought a cure for May–May's malaria.

The first half-coin of Jin Qua was presented to Dirk Struan by the pirate warlord Wu Fang Choi.

Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock left many children, legitimate and illegitimate, who take up their respective fathers' mantles and continue the battle.

Clavell originally wanted the novel to span from the establishment of Hong Kong until the present day but when writing it decided to end the novel on the death of the first tai pan.

He did so much research it gave him the idea to write a trilogy; in particular he later wrote a novel set in 1963 Hong Kong, Noble House.

[9] The New York Times said the book was not as notable as King Rat but was "almost an archetype of pure story telling... undoubtedly grand entertainment... hordes of readers will revel in Tai Pan.