That night, 115 orphans of all sexes aged 8 to 15 from the House of Mercy were transported by carriage to the Pride, and the children were personally sent by Ingres herself, and Captain Sun and Captain Gu led the crew to meet them on the docks, and then the children were transferred to the Nicole, and then placed in separate cabins for men and women.

The children were each given a separate bed, bedding, clothing and shoes, as per the standards of the crew, followed by a bath and a delicious supper, and Ingres and her group of grandmothers were involved in all the placement process, and they were curious about everything on board the Nicole, especially the superior living conditions on board......

And in the small square of the pier where the Pride docked, it has been in a state of crowds.

In the past few days, the news that the fleet of Australians and Piedmont was going to leave the port of Macao spread very early, and when Sun Lao and they got off the ship to contact him, there were already many street vendors who came to the pier to set up stalls to sell things, and when they came back in the afternoon, the dock was already bustling and crowded, and Sun Lao and the others had to abandon the car and walk far away to reach the gangway of the Pride.

In this makeshift market, you can sell everything, but mainly fruits, vegetables and other snacks, which is not uncommon in Macau, as long as there is a slightly larger fleet of ships arriving or before leaving, a certain scale of market can be formed on the docks, but this time the scale is unprecedented.

In fact, the Casa Princess and the Archangel in Pimont are also very lively, but in terms of liveliness, it must be the Australian's pier that is the highest, because this side has the strongest spending power.

The day before leaving, there are no groups of Australians who come out for sightseeing on the streets of Macao, they no longer seem to be far away from their boats, but on the wharf, there are still a group of Australian "little monks" who will get off the boat from time to time to purchase, in the eyes of Macao citizens, these people are handsome and golden, and they are a little embarrassed to spend money that generously makes the locals earn.

Now, the deck of the Pride is full of makeshift fruit baskets and all kinds of bags, which contain all kinds of things, food and play, since the crew came to this new world, only this is the first time to really come into contact with the "civilized world", and finally have some sense of reality about this era and society, so they are curious about everything, and they want to take everything in their hands to play with it, it is conceivable that when they return to Mornington Island, it must be a lot of big bags and small bags, This is the same concept as many people who buy a lot of souvenirs when they travel to a foreign country.

On the afternoon of the day when the fleet was about to leave, Sun Lao and they had just come back from their errands, facing the congested dock square, several people had to get off the carriage and walk, when they were shuttling through the crowd, they found that there was a circle of citizens not far away, and people were pointing and talking about something.

"Hey...... Old Sun, look over there! ”

Xu Zhi next to him whispered to Sun Lao and them.

A few people slowed down and looked up, and found a small sedan chair and a two-wheeled mule cart parked next to the ramp of the Pride by the dock, and the colorful sedan chair was parked next to the indigo hull, which was very conspicuous.

Under the flower umbrella next to the small sedan chair, a woman with plain makeup was talking to the three little girls, and the young woman with plain makeup reluctantly held their hands, and the woman took out a small square handkerchief with red edge and green background as she spoke, and kept wiping her tears.

Zhu Beiguo whispered to Sun Lao next to him that the woman was Lipingyuan's mother Sang, surnamed Yang, and those three little girls were the little girls that Yue Chu and the others took back to the boat.

Sun Lao glanced at it and replied in a low voice, I guessed, Li Junming next to him pouted and said, Didn't you see the other three standing next to you?

"Who?"

"Yue Chu, they!"

"Huh! Aren't they still in confinement? ”

"It was released in advance this morning, Captain Gu said that someone needed to work on the deck, in fact, everyone knew that it was Captain Gu's soft heart, and he heard that Lipingyuan's mother came to see her daughter, so she released them to meet ......"

Xu Zhi explained.

"Does the son-in-law see his mother-in-law?"

"That's pretty much it......"

"yes, this is the end of the world, and I don't know when we can meet......"

At this time, Li Junming suddenly sighed.

"Hmph...... Look at that guy, that respectful attitude, it's really like a son-in-law seeing his mother-in-law......"

Xu Zhi's nostrils squirted in response.

"Did you see it, but also helped unload the goods, so consciously took on the role of son-in-law!"

"yes, I don't usually see them work so hard...... Sure enough, he is a good son-in-law. ”

At this time, not only the people in the square, but also the crew on the deck of the Pride, also ridiculed one by one.

At this time, Yue Chu ** Zhou Rui and the three of them of course couldn't hear these discussions, they were sweating profusely to help the two little guys get off the mule cart, and after a while, there was a pile of things on the side of the car, large bags of bags, boxes and bamboo baskets, which contained clothes and some things for getting by, as well as a large number of snacks and various local snacks, and even fruits and vegetables, and one of the cloth bags was also filled with fresh bean sprouts......

"Yo he, it seems that the girls have a good relationship with their mother San!"

"That's right, people's hearts are flesh and blood, and they grew up watching from a young age, and when they are separated, they don't know when they can see it......"

"Don't be stunned, don't you see a pile of things piled up on the ground? Hurry up and put the boom! ”

At this moment, Li Sanduo in the cockpit poked his head out and shouted to a group of melon-eating people on the deck, which made everyone's discussion stop a little.

At this time, Sun Lao, who was walking in the square, suddenly remembered something, and he turned back to Xu Zhi and Zhu Beiguo and instructed:

"Xiao Xu Xiaozhu, you two went over to talk to that one called Yang...... Say hello, you must tell them, we will come to Macau often in the future, they will meet again, and it is no problem if you want to go to Australia to see your daughter in the future, this separation is only temporary, don't let her cry there and wipe her tears, it's the same as a life and death parting, the impact is not good......"

…… The bustle of the dock square faded with the completion of the Pride porterage, and by nightfall, the square finally returned to silence.

However, in the second half of the night before the Pride departed, another batch of tightly wrapped cargo was hoisted into the Pride cabin.

This is a package sent by the Zhong family, and it contains something that only the two parties to the transaction know: one hundred and twenty Hongyi Franc flintlock pistols.

The Dutch flintlock musket was the best and most technologically advanced individual firearm of its time, and of course it was a relatively rare firearm, as the Dutch themselves were not fully equipped.

In addition, there were 300 quintals of high-purity nitrate and lead in this shipment.

In order to obtain the most precious large glass mirrors and the most expensive large glassware, the four Chinese businessmen reached an internal agreement with the Australians, the content of which was that in the future, if the Australians had any new goods, they would give priority to the four Chinese businessmen, and the four Chinese businessmen would show their talents and provide the Australians with some goods prohibited or restricted from being sold on the mainland or in other countries.

Obviously, this batch of goods of the Zhong family belongs to this nature.

For example, copper, iron, lead, saltpeter and **, etc., and the flintlock pistol in this batch of goods is the latest goods imported by the Zhong family from Annan, and after inspecting the goods, Sun Lao traded the largest more than 100 glasses and glass saucers in the cabin to the Zhong family......

The purchase of flintlock pistols came from a special telegram from the Red Mansion, and Sun Lao and the others just complied without asking too much.

The telegram was sent by Wang Xue on behalf of the mechanical group, and the message was just a few simple explanations, saying that the mechanical group planned to use these gun samples to complete a concept, according to Ren Ke, who was more familiar with the situation, the mechanical group was recently developing a new type of flintlock pistol, which was an unprecedented innovation, and it was actually a flintlock pistol with a rear load, and it was rifled, and its performance was much better than the most advanced Dutch flintlock pistol of this era.

Ren Ke said that this is the starting point of the research and development of firearms in the mechanical group, and their final plan is to use completely localized processing equipment, on the basis of realizing metal fixed ammunition, with the British Enfield rifle or the German Mauser rifle as a reference model, mass production of qualified single-shot bolt-action rifles within five to ten years.