Dirk Struan

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Dirk Lochlin Struan is the fictional main character of James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan. Tai-Pan is a Chinese term that loosely translates as "supreme leader" (in the book, although that's not the accepted translation in real life), and Dirk is the Tai-Pan of his trading company, named Struan's. The Scotsman is known as the Tai-Pan, and his company the Noble House, for his is the richest and most powerful trading company in all Asia. He is a tough and clever man with great vision and determination. A man of extremity, Dirk is capable of tremendous love and terrible hate. He will stop at nothing to protect his home, his family, and his company.

Struan began his career as a powder monkey on board an English ship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and from then on he remains bound to the sea. Eventually he finds himself working for the British East India Company in China, under the command of his future nemesis Tyler Brock. He suffers ruthless punishment from Brock and makes a holy oath to someday destroy him. On a fateful night their ship runs aground on a reef and sinks. Struan, then only 14 years old, swims ashore and finds his way back to Macao, the center of trade in Asia. From this point on Struan works only for himself; he begins by pirating Chinese "junks" and uses them to make the highly dangerous opium runs up the Chinese coast. From here he expands his shipping business and eventually masses a fleet of clipper ships and a large fortune.

But Tyler Brock also escaped from the shipwreck, and began his own company, Brock and Sons. The two fictional men become powerhouses in the historically accurate trade industry of 19th century Asia. But Dirk is (almost) always a little stronger, a little smarter, and a little richer than his nemesis.

The enmity between Struan and Brock is a prominent theme in Clavell's Asian Saga. It is something that is passed down through the generations and is never really resolved. This is largely due to the fact that Dirk Struan dies in a typhoon before he can fulfill his oath to destroy Tyler Brock. Both men leave many children, legitimate and illegitimate, who take up their fathers' mantles and continue the battle. Thus begins a vicious cycle which lasts many years. The final result being the last descendant of Tyler Brock, Quillan Gornt, dies in a boating accident over 120 years later. After this accident there is no one from the Brock line left to threaten the Noble House.

Dirk Struan had several children, including Culum Struan, Winifred Dunross and Gordon Chen.