After the two ships departed from Dayuan, they quickly parted ways.

The Alicante will continue south, heading south to Manila. The Yuandou went straight to Kenting Cape that night, and the next day it went around the bend and went straight to the coast of Taitung.

Compared with the west coast of Taiwan, which is often frequented by Fujian people, the east coast facing the Pacific Ocean is more desolate and primitive, with vegetation covering every inch of land, overgrown with trees, lush greenery, and majestic mountains.

Historically, the development of the Taitung area has also been slow: it takes a lot of courage to mix here, because it is inaccessible, many places are isolated, and it takes a lot of courage to face Pacific storms every year.

Since the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, the Portuguese have named many places on the world's shipping routes "Formosa".

In a way, this is a bit like the Michelin certification of later generations: any place named "Formosa" by the Portuguese must be a pristine area with beautiful natural environment; Because the word "formosa" means "beautiful" in Latin.

Later generations did not use this term, mainly because of its colonial overtones. In the era of the people, the official name of Taiwan and the strait in the colonizers was "Formosa" and "Formosa Strait".

......

After crossing the area of Nose Tou Reef where the Galen ship met at the beginning, 70 kilometers to the north, is the Taitung Plain. In later generations, the car could complete the journey in dozens of minutes, and the sand boat ran for most of the day under the headwind.

When you see the Taitung Plain, you will naturally see the Green Island on the sea in the east. Therefore, Pan Mingzhong was humming the "Green Island Serenade" at this time, while directing the Yuan Dou to dock at the mouth of Beinan Creek.

Beinan Creek is the largest stream in Taitung, originating from the Central Mountain Range. The Taitung Delta Plain is the Beinan River and several other streams, which have been alluvial over thousands of years.

Soon, the sand boat found a flat cove north of the mouth of Beinan Creek. After the ship was parked, Lei Jian was dressed in canvas overalls, fully armed, and led a group of sailors with guns, ready to get off the ship to engage in exploration.

"Sir, I have to warn you that the wild people here are very ferocious and difficult to deal with."

...... The thin-faced, blonde-haired first mate Samper led the interpreter to Lei Jian at this time.

Samper has had a fulfilling time on the Yuandou these days.

Although he was not allowed to approach the stern and the engine room underneath the stern, he still found many amazing places on the Yuandou.

Only by boarding the ship of the traverser can you feel the horror of being dominated by technology, which in Samper is called "the power of the devil".

Iron cylinders that hang from masts with loud roars from time to time, iron tools that strangely turn, pulleys on sail cables, rifles that can fire without an arquebus in the hands of soldiers...... All this made Samper feel like he was on the devil's ship.

There are also night flights. Although he was ordered to sleep in the cabin every night, as an old seaman, Samper only needed to stand on deck the next day to calculate last night's voyage from the familiar terrain of the Taitung coastline.

It made him shudder.

How did the Yuandou find its way in the dark and avoid the bright and dark reefs along the coast?

In the end, Samper can only attribute everything to the strange powers bestowed upon them by the pagan gods.

...... After hearing the first mate's evaluation of the natives, Lei Jian grinned. He understands Huang Mao's mood at the moment: the Spaniards have suffered a lot from the natives of Taipei and Taitung.

Patting Samper on the shoulder, Lei Jian put the AK in his hand on his shoulder, waved his hand to Pan Mingzhong, who was smoking in the machine gun nest, and then led the team off the ship.

Although there are many indigenous tribes in Taitung, it is not so easy to encounter on the desolate river beach in the 17th century.

The most important indigenous tribes in Taitung are the Ami and Beinan tribes. The Ami people have a large population, and the Beinan people are brave and good at fighting. There are also some indigenous tribes such as Rukai, Bunon, Paiwan and so on.

And Lei Jian's main task today is to map the terrain of the area around the estuary of Beinan River, and by the way, find iron placer mines, and do not need to go deep into any area with vegetation, so the safety is still guaranteed.

As for iron sand, there is no iron sand produced in Beinanxi in historical records, and this trip is just a passing.

In fact, until the team returned two hours later, there was no sign of aborigines on the riverbank.

"How's it going, have you gained anything?" After pulling the thunder sword on the pedal onto the boat, Pan Mingzhong, who was in charge of the housekeeping, opened his mouth and asked.

"I measured the terrain, but I didn't dare to go in the forest." Lei Jian said while packing up the digital camera he used to take pictures of the terrain in his hand: "Originally, looking at the landform here, I felt that there were conditions for iron sand mineralization, alas, it seems that I am still not good at learning and art, and the tutor didn't listen well to the class back then." ”

"Hehe, don't talk about it, the information is not there in the first place, can you still conjure it?"

...... As the two talked, the Yuandou officially ended its first exploration mission since sailing, and began to set sail slowly, regardless of the fact that it was late, and headed straight north.

After 20 hours of zigzag travel on the sea surface at an average speed of 2-3 knots, the Yuandou was already able to overlook the key target of this exploration, Xiuguluan Xikou, at noon the next day.

Xiuguluan Creek is located in one-third of the east coast of Taiwan, originating from Xiuguluan Mountain in the central mountain range. It belongs to Hualien County and is a tourist spot in later generations. There will be a rafting festival here every summer, a program of rafting along the stream, the first single-hole long bridge in Taiwan, the Dasheng Palace and the Natural Xiugu Shuyu Scenic Area.

At this moment, the estuary of Xiuguluan Creek presented in the Yuandou telescope, except for the green vegetation on both sides of the river, and the green Xibulan Island in the middle of the estuary, there is nothing.

In addition to the dense vegetation, it is still vegetation, and people want to vomit when they see it.

After the Yuandou came to the estuary, it found that the navigation conditions of Xiuguluan Creek seemed to be much more steep than that of Beinan Creek: not only did there be a small island in the middle of the estuary, but also because the channel was narrower, there were many messy reefs distributed in the estuary area.

This time, the Yuandou could not enter rashly, but opened its stance and prepared for a big reorganization - after stopping the ship and anchoring, the boat began to be lowered on the deck with a simple boom.

After the dinghy was lowered, Lei Jian brought six people aboard this time. Armed with baskets and shovels, lead blocks and ropes to measure the depth, guns, and digital cameras for photographing the terrain, they climbed down the soft ladder and began to paddle towards the mouth of Xiuguluan Creek.

According to the unwritten rules, if one of the traversers on the ship goes out, the other will definitely stay to preside over the overall situation, so Pan Mingzhong will stay in the stern compartment and not go anywhere.

Seven or eight minutes later, the dinghy had rowed to the vicinity of the island in the middle of the river and began to measure the depth of the water on the spot. On this trip, Lei Jian and the others must survey the routes that bypass the island on both sides on the left and right, so that other ships can enter in the future.

That's when the unexpected happened.

The lookout hand holding the Zeiss 10x mirror in the bucket first noticed the abnormality, and Pan Mingzhong, who heard the alarm, picked up the walkie-talkie and telescope on the table and ran out of the cabin.

After a few steps into the machine gun nest in the stern, Pan Mingzhong straightened up and began to look upstream of Xiuguluan Creek with a telescope.

What appears in the footage is a dozen canoes rushing down the stream.

Pan Mingzhong's hair exploded at this moment, and he quickly began to shout into the walkie-talkie: "Old Lei, the situation has changed, the speed is back, the speed is back, the speed is back!" ”

Thunder Jian's voice soon came from the walkie-talkie: "Roger, I'm turning around." What situation, repetition, what situation? ”

"Shut up! Turn around and come back! Pan Mingzhong didn't have time to explain at this time, so he took out the M9 pistol on his waist and first fired 3 shots into the sky to warn Lei Jian, and then turned his head and shouted: "Anchor, sail, gas stove ignition!" ”

......

The current situation is that the bow of the Yuandou is heading towards the north, and it is stopping at the mouth of Xiuguluan Creek, and the dinghy has turned around at this time and is rowing towards the sand boat.

Due to the relationship between the island in the middle of the river behind them, Lei Jian and they could not see the fleet killed from the upstream; Fortunately, Lei Jian is not a fool, he began to turn around as soon as he heard the alarm, and then after seeing the gun on the boat, he knew that the situation was not good, and he rowed faster.

Within two minutes, the natives in the canoes could be clearly seen through the binoculars.

These natives, naked and with various bits and pieces of bone and wood around their necks, were paddling wooden boats with oars. Some big men standing on the bow of the boat, waving the pikes in their hands, let out loud shouts from their mouths, showing off their strong pectoral muscles and the white mud camouflage on their faces.

...... Since the Turen's boat was going down the river, it was very fast, and Pan Mingzhong was impatiently estimating the distance between the canoe and the dinghy.

However, it is useless to be anxious, and the Yuan Dou can't do anything at this time. Although the anchor has been raised, the sails are not yet fully raised: they will not be able to move at full sail until the dinghy returns. As for the engine room, a few minutes is not enough time to get the propellers moving.

Eventually, just as the dinghy was back with the sandboat, the aborigines' canoe had already skilfully crossed the rocky tene at the mouth of the river, split into two streams, and emerged from the left and right of Xibulan Island.

Lei Jian, who was desperately climbing back to the deck of the Yuandou from the soft ladder, was snorting and panting at this time, looking at the natives hundreds of meters away in a daze. This gentleman was sweating at this time: it is estimated that he is frightened. You know, if it weren't for the telescope and walkie-talkie, he would have been doomed.

More than 10 canoes, more than 100 sturdy natives, he didn't know how many AKs in his hand could kill in a hasty encounter?

As soon as Lei Jian got on the boat, the sails began to be set on this side, and after a few more people climbed up the dinghy, the sand boat had already begun to drive diagonally towards the open sea.

Waving his hand to let the remaining three people on the dinghy quickly row the boat to the side, Pan Mingzhong pushed the thunder sword at this time: "What are you stunned about, go and use the machine gun?" ”

"Ah, oh, got it." After Lei Jian took two steps to the back cabin, the reflex arc finally came into play, and he was afraid of attacking, so he jumped to his feet and shouted: "Where did these grandsons come from?" I'm going to kill them! ”

"Dear Ray, these are the natives of the Kamalan tribe, and they often attack Spanish ships like this."

...... At the critical moment, the yellow-haired first mate Samper appeared again with the translator.

"Nonsense, the Kamalan people are mixed with Yilan, when did they come to Taitung?"

Thunder Sword shouted as he ran towards the machine gun nest.