Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 694 Across the Ocean ([-])

On June 1648, 6, history will remember this day.

The sky was sunny, which made the heavily armed east coasters feel a little hot.However, the sea breeze on the periphery of this island in the southeast trade wind belt is not small, which finally made everyone feel less uncomfortable.Directly opposite the boat was a looming, intermittent landmass of coral reefs, some distance from the shoreline, so that a circular lagoon was formed between these coral reefs and the shoreline.

The hydrological conditions in the lagoon are unknown to everyone, so they dare not rush the "Explorer" into it.The current draft of the ship has reached nearly 4 meters. Without measuring the water depth and marking the channel, no one would dare to drive the ship into this section of the lagoon.

Three small boats were placed on the big ship, and the 34 expedition members led by Zhang Jinhua (two of them were stranded in Australia due to illness) were divided into two boats.Among them are those from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Communications, and the Ministry of the Navy. There are not many combatants, only about one-third of them, and the rest are inspectors.In addition, Lieutenant Given ordered his first mate—an Englishman from Pirates of the Caribbean—to take 2 fully armed sailors in a small boat and go ashore with the expedition to protect their safety.

The sailors raised the soft sails on the small boat, and under the blowing of the southeast trade wind, the boat immediately drifted forward slowly.They paddled their wooden oars carefully, adjusted their direction constantly, and finally sailed into the lagoon.The sea water in the lagoon is as bright as a mirror. Under the sunlight, it is almost blinding people's eyes.The transparency of the sea water is also very high, and you can even see some swimming fish near the coral reefs underwater.

"That's bonito! A very economically valuable fish. There aren't many of them in La Plata, but the price is very high. If you are interested, you can come here to fish at night, but I don't promise You will catch. In general, this is not a concentration of skipjack, or that there are very few fish here, I think you might as well put your interest in finding some black pearls, this is the island of Tahiti special product." Zhang Jinhua glanced at a young man who was staring at the bottom of the sea and said.

The young man's name was Liu Fubo, he was about fifteen or sixteen years old, he was wearing a navy summer short-sleeved uniform, and he was the eldest son of Navy Captain Liu Dafa.His mother, Adele, is a German-Swiss immigrant who is currently working at Dongfang County People's Hospital.Liu Fubo is a student of the nautical school, and there is still the last year of internship left. This trip to Tahiti with the "Explorer" is his final assessment.

Liu Fubo smiled after hearing what Zhang Jinhua said, and looked back from the seabed glowing with sapphire light, then subconsciously grabbed the 41-year-style steel bayonet at his waist, and asked in a low voice: "Uncle Zhang, what are you doing?" Will there be a fight?"

"Call me Captain Zhang!" Zhang Jinhua corrected the boy's address, and then explained: "Generally speaking, there will be no conflicts, but we are afraid of anything. After a while, the breastplate is not allowed to take off after landing. Everyone gathers together. At the same time, let’s salute first and then fight. These natives have a very low level of civilization, worse than those of the Kelandi, maybe they only use stones or wooden spears.”

Hearing that these people had a lower level of civilization than the Kelandi, the young man was relieved, and then sat quietly on the side of the ship, watching the coast that was getting closer and closer.

Soon, the three small boats entered the shallow water area, and the rowing sailors received the wooden oars on board, then jumped into the sea, and pushed the small boats onto the beach in the waist-deep water with the help of the wind.

Zhang Jinhua also went ashore under the heavy protection of several fighters. There was a soft beach under his feet, and a large area of ​​bushes in front of him, with some coconut trees occasionally mixed in, which surprised Zhang Jinhua.You must know that coconuts originated in the Malay region. In the 17th century, there were not many places with coconuts in the world, generally in Southeast Asia; Ocean currents and monsoons brought Malays to Madagascar.

In addition, whether it is Africa or the Americas, it is basically difficult to see this kind of thing now, because it has not yet spread on a large scale.There are coconut trees on the island of Tahiti. Perhaps this is enough to prove that the people here are close relatives of the people in the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia. It is they who brought the coconut trees across the ocean to this small island in the vast ocean.

After all the people on the three small boats gathered, Zhang Jinhua counted the number of people, and then announced to everyone: "Three things! The first thing is to build a camp. The standard is a temporary camp for field operations. —Well, this can be saved—everything is available; the second, to find a source of clean fresh water, which is more urgent, because the brethren on board are waiting for us; the last thing, Brown aboard Sergeant, you lead people to guard the technicians from the Ministry of Agriculture to inspect the nearby animals and plants, be careful not to go too far, and shoot as soon as there is a problem. Of course, try not to do anything if you can. Okay, that's all, Let's all split up and act."

After everyone heard the news, they began to busy themselves with their own affairs. Zhang Jinhua sat on the beach with Zhang Xiaomaza, lit a pipe for himself, and smoked comfortably.This is a gentle slope, and to be honest, it is not a good landing point. There are green plants everywhere. Zhang Jinhua can only recognize coconut trees, and the others are common tropical tree species, but he does not know them at all.

After smoking for a while, the few people who went out to find the water source returned first. They found a small stream behind a gentle slope with clear water.But they didn't dare to drink it, for fear of some parasitic infection, so they returned to report first.Zhang Jinhua asked them to make a semaphore to let Lieutenant Ji Wen on the "Explorer" send someone ashore to fetch water, and then continued to sit there to rest.

Everyone is very skilled in setting up the camp. First, a group of five or six people cut down some small shrubs of medium thickness, and then began to drive piles and pull barbed wire.Considering that this is a tropical place with abundant precipitation, the rainproof and drainage functions cannot be left behind.In short, under the busy work of a group of people, a rough camp finally took shape in the evening.

The experts from the Ministry of Agriculture who went out to inspect the flora and fauna also rushed back before sunset. Judging from their expressions, it seems that the most important sugar cane for the people on the east coast has not been found yet.But they found another gadget and presented it to Zhang Jinhua.

"Lemon!" Zhang Jinhua weighed the yellow fruit in his hand, and said to himself with some surprise.He heard about Tahitian lemons before he set off. It seems to be the only triploid produced by natural reproduction in nature. It is moderately sweet and sour, and its nutritional value far exceeds that of Burmese species. It is definitely the best among citrus fruits. best.

"Remember those places. When we return to the voyage, we will dig up some plants that look better and take them back, and plant them in large quantities on Xinhua Island." Zhang Jinhua ordered several experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, "I will send people to Helping you. Tahiti is such a blessed place. It seems that any kind of fruit will produce wonderful changes after being planted here. Now I can’t wait to find out where the sugar cane is. Everyone is tired today. Get a good night's rest, and tomorrow we will send a few more groups out to explore the surrounding area thoroughly."

Dinner started half an hour later, with jerky meat as hard as a stone and soup made with pickles, and the staple food was dry pancakes.The officers got some extra fresh fish, which the sailors caught in the afternoon when they were bored measuring the water depth of the channel.After eating, everyone started to pack up the camp and dispatch sentries, and then the whole camp fell into silence after nine o'clock on time. Everyone fell asleep under the mosquito-proof gauze under the sound of the waves on the sea and the cool sea breeze at night.

Nothing to say all night.On the second day, the inspection operation started again. This time, everyone's exploration distance will be farther and the scope of exploration will be larger.Two of the larger (fifteen or sixteen) well-armed teams may still be camping outside. They will march inland along this seaside plain, looking for native sugar cane, and seeing if they can find it by the way. local natives.

Zhang Jinhua sat in the camp as usual.At this time, all the No. 90 people on the "Explorer" have gone ashore except for a dozen people who stayed behind, and further strengthened the camp. In addition, they continued to send quite a lot of people to measure the water depth and mark the waterway inside and outside the lagoon.The days passed quickly in this comfortable atmosphere, and when the hour hand reached the day of June 6, the two teams that went to the inland area for exploration and investigation also returned in turn.Thank goodness none of them are downsizing!

And not only did not reduce staff, but their number seemed to increase a bit.Who are those brown-skinned people with flower covers on their heads, wreaths around their necks, and "clothes" woven from coconut leaves?Are the natives of this island?Well, it looks like they didn't show any malice towards us, so many things will be much easier.

After questioning the returned expedition team members, they learned that these people were indeed aboriginals on the island of Tahiti. They met the expedition team of the East Coast people in the wild, but both sides were very restrained and did not show any hostility.These aborigines who have lived on the island for thousands of years and the expedition team even exchanged gifts with each other. The people on the east coast gave them glass products-although it is very vulgar, although people in the civilized world give this stuff , but I have to say that this is a very magical gift for the primitive people; while the aborigines gave the people on the east coast a kind of tropical fruit, Zhang Jinhua looked at the few pieces of white fruit held by the expedition team members The flowery thing is the Tahitian sugarcane that everyone has been looking for for a long time!

(End of this chapter)