Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1081 First Voyage

Let's go back in time to a month ago.

On the night of August 1655, 8, at the end of the Battle of Jiangxi in Central China, a group of people held a low-key farewell ceremony under the night sky at a certain pier in Akkeshi Port, Ezo.

There were more than 650 people who were sent off on two ships, one of which was a 400-ton flute-shaped transport ship rented by a Japanese company, and the other was a [-]-ton Galen ship "Penguin" ( I don’t know if people in the northern hemisphere know this kind of creature), built in Kushiro Shipyard, under the guidance of those technicians from Cavite, hundreds of people groped and built it, and it took more than half a year to complete it.

In addition to the more than 500 people (both men and women) on board the two ships, there were also a large number of agricultural tools, seeds, dry food, cured meat, spirits, cotton clothes, medicines, livestock, fishing gear, weapons and other things necessary for settling down. The purpose is self-evident—maybe the ordinary peasants on board are not very clear about it, but the students of Heishui Transportation College, Wei Boqiu's apprentices, confidantes (mostly from intelligence personnel), and some sergeants are vaguely aware of it. Some know it, but it's all their voluntary behavior, so naturally they won't go outside and talk nonsense.

Chen Shuo, the general manager of the Japanese company, who has always been very busy on weekdays, also took the time to come to Akkeshi Port today. At this moment, he is standing in the shadow of the corner, looking at the fleet that is about to sail away, and silently wishing them smooth sailing--it should be said It's all said and done, the materials that need to be allocated have also been obtained secretly through various channels, and the company's accounts have also been balanced. Next, let's look at them, young men who are on a long voyage.

Half an hour later, as Wei Boqiu's second son, Wei Mingxing, boarded the ship's deck, the two ships pulled anchor and raised their sails, and slowly left the peaceful Akkeshi Port, heading for the open sea.Chen Shuo silently smoked a bag of cigarettes, then got on his horse, and left Akkeshi Township with his entourage, heading towards Kushiro Port.

Sailing on the sea is boring and long, and it is full of extreme dangers, especially when this sea area is known as the devil sea area and you are not very familiar with the sea conditions. Go to the Dragon Palace as a "guest" and sleep forever in the cold and dark North Pacific seabed.

Following the ocean current and southerly wind, the two sailboats headed northeast along the coastline of the Thousand Islands.They are already familiar with this part of the voyage, because they have sailed secretly several times before and accumulated a lot of experience and data.To be honest, this voyage is not very dangerous, especially in summer, when the weather is mild and the waves are not too big. The only factor that interferes with the voyage may be frequent sea fog, but this is not an insurmountable difficulty.

On August 8, the two ships stopped in the waters near Ocean City on Paramush Island, one after the other, and went ashore to draw some fresh water.After a short rest, the next day, the two ships pulled anchor and left the anchorage. After adjusting the yards, they quickly caught a strong northwest wind. The knowledgeable sailors smiled at each other. Although the future is still unpredictable, as long as there is With a westerly wind, they might reach the fabled destination called "Alaska"—the premise is that such a place really exists on the other side of the sea.

After pulling anchor and setting sail, they quickly left the main route (the route to Heixiazi Port on the Kamchatka Peninsula) that fishing boats often travel on the east coast, then adjusted their course, and resolutely moved east. Arrive at your destination as you wish.

On September 9th, after sailing eastward for only five or six days, the wind and waves gradually increased. From time to time, the two ships were thrown up, down, up again, and down again by huge waves. Like a butterfly, it will be lost in the infinite power of nature at any time.

"I really don't know how the Spaniards survived." Wei Mingxing stood pale in the captain's room of the 650-ton flute-shaped ship "Baobab", and subconsciously muttered: "This route is fucking Can people leave? Oh, I really admire those Spanish sailors, I really want to die. Everyone, I am not afraid of shame, I really regret it now."

Everyone in the captain's room is close friends with Wei Mingxing, and many of them grew up together when they were young. When they heard this, some people sighed: "The Spanish route is more southerly, but the wind is weak there. It may take a long time to drift on the sea, and it is easy to get lost. In this regard, it seems to be inferior to the route we take. But the problem is that although our route is going fast, the wind is high and the waves are rough. God knows what will happen on the way. What."

A big wave hit the ship outside, and the broken water splashed fiercely on the glass window of the captain's cabin, making a series of muffled noises.There are already sailors running around on the deck. They are wearing raincoats coated with rubber liquid, carrying water pump pipes on their shoulders, and carefully grabbing all the fixed objects around them to ensure that they will not be thrown into it by the violently shaking hull. The sea (that would be death without life)—although all the scupper holes on the ship have been opened at this time, there is still a lot of water splashed into the cabin, which must be drained immediately with a pump, and all of this can only be done by people Do.

"Since we've already boarded the pirate ship, what else is there to say? Let's all work together and try to get through this difficult route together." A fellow who was severely seasick said weakly, "This time everyone really It's a desperate attempt, if you can't find the coastline of the northern New World again, I think it's all dead."

Everyone had different expressions when they heard the words, but since they were all on the same boat at this time, they naturally couldn't say anything else, they could only move forward together, breaking through would be a brand new world, if they couldn't break through, they would be buried in the belly of a fish ,have nothing to say.

Beginning on September 9, the wind and waves weakened slightly, which seemed to indicate that the weather at sea was improving, but the tragedy was that the visibility gradually deteriorated: the hull of the "Penguin" that had been sailing behind the "Baobab Tree" It appeared and disappeared in the mist, which forced Wei Mingxing to order to reduce the speed of the ship and reduce the distance between the two ships, so as not to be separated at sea.

Beginning on September 9, the weather quickly became severe again, with violent storms covering the sea area.At this time, the westerly wind that had been patronizing everyone before disappeared, replaced by a messy and changeable wind direction. As a last resort, the two ships could only remove most of their sails, and then drifted along the ocean current at a speed of two knots. . The hull of the "Baobab" began to leak water in many places in the past two days, but the gaps were quickly filled by sailors, and the situation seemed to be under control.

On the 17th, the bad weather quickly disappeared again, as if it had never appeared, of course, the sailors and passengers on the two ships certainly did not think so.Someone lit a fire on the deck to dry clothes, shoes, bed sheets and so on. The weather is too cold and the ship is wet everywhere. It was certainly the beginning of a nightmare - but luckily so far, all but a few are healthy.

"Maybe we will arrive soon." On this day, the captain Jonathan, who has been taciturn, said, "I saw the outline of the land, but I am not sure if it is the northern New World. I tend to think it is not, because the voyage is wrong. Before that A storm delayed us a lot of time. We should not have arrived there so soon. I have used a timer (mechanical clock) to measure many times. Our daily speed has been recorded before, but even according to the most optimistic algorithm , we should still be a certain distance away from the Northern New World at this time."

"Follow the outline of the land you see, no matter where it is, it's a good sign." Wei Mingxing listened to the northwest wind whistling outside the window, and said in a slightly frustrated tone: "Even if we don't If we can successfully reach the northern New World, then this piece of land may become our last refuge. By the way, Captain Joe, have you seen what kind of land it is? Is there vegetation on it?"

"I saw it when the ship was blown wildly by the strong wind that day. It's not very real, but I'm absolutely sure that there are vegetation on it, and it looks like a dense forest, which may provide us with food." Captain Jonathan thought After thinking about it, he said: "I think your opinion is correct, sir, we should indeed walk along these lands or islands."

The next few days were unexpectedly calm, and the two ships continued eastward at a normal speed of 4 knots. On September 9th, they saw the outline of the land again. Wei Mingxing secretly recalled His father once gave him a hand-drawn map, thinking that this might be an island in the Aleutian Islands, and their ship was likely to be sucked into the southern edge of the Bering Sea in a storm before, which is really terrible!

On September 9, a sudden storm hit the two ships again. When he saw the huge waves surging on the sea, Captain Jonathan immediately asked the ship to turn around and go south to the islands to find shelter—they I have figured out that the so-called land outlines I saw before are actually a series of island groups, and they have been following a fixed latitude line for the past two days, keeping a suitable distance from the island groups. It's not wise to go on, so we can only go south to take shelter from the wind.

Wei Mingxing agreed to Captain Jonathan's request, and then ordered the "Baobab Tree" to hoist the signal flag, one behind the other with the "Penguin". In what appears to be a fairly tortuous bay (meaning that the power of the waves is greatly weakened), it is considered to have escaped a disaster-but unfortunately, the "Penguin" seems to have run aground on a shallow bank because of rushing too hard I don't know what to do next.

The storm lasted for four full days before it ended. In the early morning of September 9, when the long-lost sunshine once again filled the entire deck, everyone who had been tortured by the storm for several days finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Check the ship, and then send someone to the 'Penguin' to see if it can float up from the ground when the tide is high. It's really cold, damn it, why is it the north wind?!" Wei Mingxing suddenly turned pale. Change, said a little at a loss.

"What? The north wind?" Captain Jonathan's complexion became a little dignified, and he said in a guessing tone: "Could it be the season when the north wind prevails? Oh, our luck is really bad. It's ten miles away. There are still a few days left in the month, and this sea area will be taken over by the north wind? Impossible! With the north wind, this sea area will be shrouded in huge waves. Any ship sailing in this sea state will have no chance of surviving. More than [-]%. Sir, what should we do? The situation of the 'Penguin' is not very optimistic, maybe it is about to abandon the ship..."

"Send someone to see where this is, and what is there on the island. Be careful, maybe we can only spend this winter here. This doesn't match my plan in advance. It's really terrible! Wei Mingxing threw his boots in the water on the deck, sighed and said, "In addition, send someone to monitor the wind direction at any time. I need to know the wind direction every hour."

Perhaps because of Murphy's Law, the last thing Wei Mingxing and others didn't want to see finally happened.From September 9th to October 27nd, there was a strong north wind for six days, and according to the report of the sailors who went out to investigate, the wind and waves in the open sea were frighteningly strong. The sailor must be the son-in-law of the Dragon Lord.

"It seems that we are really going to spend the winter on this island." Wei Mingxing stuffed the simple outline map of the island (only the surrounding area) drawn by the sailors into his pocket, with a rather sad expression on his face.

They were now at latitude 53° 53' north (which is not difficult to predict), no doubt somewhere in the Aleutian Islands.After comparing the secret map his father gave him, Wei Mingxing now suspects that their location is likely to be an island marked as Cod Island (Amakenak Island).Since the island is called "Cod", then maybe there are extremely rich cod in the waters near the island, which can bring us enough food under normal circumstances, but now it is October, and the white waves outside are raging, fishing?Are you kidding me?Don't be ridiculous!

"Let's check the supplies. The things shared by the two ships should be moved ashore as soon as possible. It's best to build a temporary warehouse to store them as soon as possible. Of course, don't forget to build a house for yourself. I just don't know if the bay here freezes in winter. If it freezes, the ship may be damaged, which is a troublesome matter, should we find a way to tow the ship to the sea and run aground?" Wei Mingxing thought hard, this winter is destined to be extremely difficult for them.

(End of this chapter)