open sea

Chapter 768 Turtle Island
Little Wanli would never have imagined that his order would set off a frenzy of light weapon design in the entire Ming Empire. At this moment, he only wanted to fulfill his promise, at least to send it to the Beiyang Banner Army on an expedition to Asia this year. Some new guns.

As for how difficult it is, how much loss, and what problems there are, the emperor doesn't care, he just ordered someone to send him the account books of the internal treasury in recent years.

After simple mathematical calculations, from the briquettes accumulated by his father during the Longqing period and the filial piety of this year's clan prince and county king, even if the expenses of the past two years are subtracted, little Wanli knows that he still has more than 93 taels of silver.

It is not a problem to spend less than 2 taels to make some new-style thorns for the Beiyang Banner Army.

The emperor has gone astray. He is using the money from the inner treasury and people from the inner court to make weapons for the banner army of the Ming Dynasty, which is affiliated to the Beiyang Military Mansion—bypassing the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of War. This is a very strange thing. .

The duty of the Bing Zhan Bureau is not like this. Their duty has always been to build ordnance for the emperor's guards and Jin Yiwei, regardless of the affairs of the outer court.

In fact, Xiao Wanli didn't know why. Compared with putting the silver in his hand into the Ministry of War, it seemed that investing in Beiyang's career made him feel more value for money.

It may be because the silver is invested in the Ministry of War, it is just invested, but if it is invested in Beiyang... those places that are more or less painted red on the map of the world will make Wanli feel that what he is doing is not just painting those lands red.

He did more for his army, and he could do more.

In the Forbidden City, the little emperor often unfolded the map, imagining the incomparable stormy seas in the sea, sailing all over the world with his huge and mighty fleet.

It's just the fact that it's often not so good.

In the endless sea, there is an archipelago in the ocean two thousand miles away from the Viceroyalty of Peru on the west coast of Asia. The island is full of high mountains and rugged rocks everywhere. The Spanish bishop of Panama discovered this uninhabited island 43 years ago and named it Las Encantadas means Devil's Island in Spanish.

Because there are huge turtles on the island, it is also called the Galapagos Islands, which means the island of giant turtles.

The isolated and inaccessible islands were especially popular in the sixth year of Wanli.

After being ordered to attack the Western Fleet, the Peruvian Forbidden Fleet and the Deng Zilong Fleet encountered a storm while sailing. Unlike the Deng Zilong Fleet, which can disperse the fleet at any time and sail to Panama, Chen Ju cannot let the fleet be separated.

To die or to live, they must be with the Nantang ship.

Traveling through the torrential rain for six days made the fleet deviate from the voyage, and stayed away from the stormy sea with the curse of the forbidden army in the storm.

Chen Ju wore a wingless black gauze on his head and looked through the binoculars.

Compared with the time when he went out to sea from Acapulco, his image has long lost the majestic and heroic hair. The scarlet python robe is stained with large areas of salt stains printed on the map, and the hair under the hair scarf has also lost its luster and is very dry and listless.

Although it was only six days, it seemed like a year to everyone in the fleet. Some people fell into the sea and lost sailors, ships collided and damaged the sea, and supplies were scattered and nowhere to be found. Nightmarish experiences plagued the fleet Every lucky one.

Including Chen Ju, who once boarded the deck in the wind and rain after losing contact with Deng Zilong's fleet.

The heavy rain stopped, and the fleet was embraced by the sun again. Chen Ju gritted his teeth tightly, tilted his head slightly, his nose fluttered, and his brows were frowned so that his eyes narrowed into a line.

He tried his best not to cry, losing his composure in front of his subordinates.

Just now, the Nantang ship with one mast broken put down the communication boat. The fleet with a staff of nearly [-] had only six warships left. Jing Jun is also missing.

"The rest of my life, this is more bitter than sea water."

Floating in the waves, they only wanted to keep the Nantang ship, but they lost more if they really kept the Nantang ship... Chen Ju hoped that those ships would make wrong choices at that time and follow Deng Zilong.

Liang Bozhen, the captain from the Nanyang Military Mansion, saw that Chen Ju was in a bad mood, and he said with relief: "Chen Gong can think about the best, maybe they follow General Deng, at least we are still alive."

Chen Ju turned his head, stared at Liang Bozhen for a moment, and said, "When you were in Nanyang, did you do the same?"

Liang Bozhen nodded slowly. They are familiar with hydrology in Nanyang, and they can't avoid such risks. He said: "I haven't experienced it in person, but I have heard about it. If there is a storm, send it to the Ministry of War. They often pay more attention to the silver on board, who cares about whether there are soldiers floating around——what a big osprey.”

In the sky in the distance, a big bird seven or eight feet long with its wings spread out quickly swooped down, caught the swimming fish and flew into the sky, which made Liang Bozhen extremely happy. He hurriedly said to Chen Ju: "It's not far from the land!"

This is a kind of common sense, but common sense may not be accurate, sometimes there are exceptions, and the exceptions are mostly after the storm.

Fortunately, they encountered no exceptions. After being pushed by the waves and wind for three days, they finally saw the island in their vision, followed by the archipelago, which was only known to the Spaniards as Devil's Island, and opened a corner to the Ming army.

Entering this sea area made the Ming fleet no longer worry about running out of food without luggage—the north-south ocean currents converge here, making this a natural fishing ground, and the marine life is extremely rich, whether it is tuna or moray eels are very easy to catch, equipped with binoculars The general can even see seals and small red crabs lying on the beach in the distance.

Looking from a distance, the big island alone overseas is lush and lush, and black boulders are irregularly distributed on the beach. If you look closely, the stones are not black, they are just soaked in sea water, but the animals lying on the stones are very black and big. There are so many lizards that the scalp is numb, and these big guys are lying on the stones that can almost be exposed to the sun.

Lizards were exotic beasts in ancient times, and they were often carved on knife handles by ancestors in more distant times, because this kind of animal, commonly known as a four-legged beast, had a "ghost head and bloody sex" and was placed on the knife handle.

The Forbidden Army fleet lacked water, and had to go ashore to repair the ship, but at this moment they obviously didn't have enough plans to go to war with the swarm of lizards.

In desperation, the four damaged warships could only anchor in the offshore, and the forbidden army rowed to the shady coast with small boats nearby. The cavalry of the Shenshu Battalion, who had been trained to patrol, led the only remaining horses, and led by the general Luo Shangzhi Spread out along the coast to explore the situation of the island.

At the same time, two intact [-]-material gunboats also set sail around the island from the east coast, and thoroughly investigated the island by dividing their troops by land and water.

Only at this time, Chen Ju's heart really relaxed. He lay flat on the deck regardless of his image, closed his eyes under the blue sky and white clouds, and felt the sea breeze blowing across the freeboard and his red eyelids.

Until he heard the sound of cannons in the distance, pulling him back to the human world that you are fighting for.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)