June 19, in the northern waters of the Arafura Sea.

At this time of year, the southeast wind was very strong in the northern waters of Australia, and after the fleet was away from land, the Pride opened all the sails, so this flying clipper sailing ship with enough wind power was able to sail at an average high speed of fifteen knots, and the speed of the ship far exceeded that of the Nicole for a while.

In the evening of the same day, the flotilla turned northwest, rounded a huge peninsula, and headed for the second landing point of the voyage, the Kay Islands......

In the following three days of sailing, there was no danger, and the surprise was that the fleet encountered the first real hurricane since going to sea, fortunately, just when the hurricane was rushing towards the fleet, the weather radar and rich experience allowed Gu Jin to discover the danger in time, and he decisively commanded the fleet to turn to the northeast and find a bay near an unknown large island to anchor and shelter from the wind.

This time, Captain Gu didn't have any intention of "exercising" this group of crew.

Gu Jin was reluctant to let the people on this boat take any more risks, so he had to avoid hurricanes during the later voyages, because this was not a sailing training course, but a real business trip, so Gu Jin would never be easy to succeed, let alone take risks for no reason.

This is also the rule that Gu Jin emphasizes to everyone who participates in the voyage:

"As long as it is not a sure training, all at sea, any potential risks must be avoided, you are all going to be the captain of the ship in the future, a fluke or a reckless decision is sometimes a disaster!"

This is a sentence that Gu Jin often admonishes the students around him.

The hurricane came and went quickly, and the fleet took refuge in the bay for a day and night, and at last the sea calmed down, and the fleet, having quickly determined its position, headed again in the direction of the Kay Islands.

Because latitude and longitude are readily available, the fleet can simply determine its position and find the correct route accurately, which is the advantage of the traversers.

They now have accurate maps of all regions and seas of the globe, and they have a far advantage over those of this day and age who need luck and courage, and sometimes have to resort to the blind way of navigating the world.

On June 21, 1657, after half a month at sea, the fleet finally arrived at the Grand Cay Islands in the southern part of the Moluccas.

The Greater Cay Islands, including more than a dozen islands such as the Big and Small Cay Islands. The total land area is somewhat larger than that of the Wellesley Islands.

According to the plan, Gu Jin had the fleet approach the southern tip of the archipelago and land on an island called Little Cayi. This was a joint suggestion from the telegram from the Red House and from the Fire Pond Club.

The island is 1,500 kilometers from Mornington Island---- Little Cay is the name of the old world, and now, this island, which is 40 kilometers long from north to south and 10 kilometers wide from east to west, has a nice new name - Zixia Island.

Because, as the Pride surveyed the depth of the water and slowly sailed into the narrow bay in the southern part of the island, from the shore to the interior, it was full of purple flowers and plants.

Later, it was discovered that these flowers and plants were actually mutated varieties of purple lilacs, tropical violets, and purple morning glories.

These flowers and plants cover the entire island all over the mountain, and from a distance, under the optical action of the morning mist, it is like a purple mist covering the earth.

So I don't know who it was on the deck of the Pride, and blurted out the name Zixia Island, and everyone roared and shouted, so the name of the island was decided.

Later, the wharf in the depths of the bay and the town adjacent to it were also called Zixia Town, and finally the entire archipelago was officially named Zixia Islands, of course, this is another story.

Now, a fifteen-person exploration team is preparing for a landing aboard the Pride.

These fifteen people were divided into five groups, and like the Weipa landing operation, the team leader was Li Zhuxu and a few others. On the first day of the exploration operation, except for Zhu Beiguo's group, which was guarding the boat on the beach, all the other groups went ashore.

Zixia Island is really flat, although it is an island, but looking to the north, the sea of purple flowers is endless, butterflies are flying in the sea of flowers, birds are singing and fragrant, which is also dotted with patches of forests, the woods with palms and various tropical tall trees as the main body are like green islands above the sea of flowers, this scenery makes the exploration team members all feel breathtaking.

Different from the Weipa landing exploration, each group did not explore separately, but along a small river running north and south at the bottom of Zixia Bay, and the road was parallel to the north, and there were two lifeboats in the river, one in front of the other and one behind the river, and one group on each side of the river accompanied by walking, their goal was very simple and clear - to find the open-pit coal mine under the sea of flowers.

According to Mornington Island's telegram, the mine was upstream of the creek.

The five-way exploration did not go far, and at the end of the creek, the open-pit coal mine mentioned in the telegram was found.

Everyone immediately felt that the geological data provided by Anna was indeed very accurate, and its specific location was not only correct, but even the depth of the burial was clearly marked, which saved everyone a lot of things.

A few years later, the river was called the Heishui River, because the upstream of the river is the open-pit coal mine, the development of the coal mine destroyed the vegetation, coupled with the transportation along the river, the river water erosion, and finally the entire river was deposited a large amount of coal ash, not only the river water turned black, even the banks of the river were black and gray, until the authorities in the red mansion were really a little unbearable, and finally spent great efforts to remediate, and shut down the coal mine, the color of the river gradually returned to the original clear green. However, this is many years later.

However, environmental awareness was only a secondary reason, because another high-grade coal mine was found on the island, and as Anna told the travelers, the Greater Cay Islands were a treasure trove of resources, and later natural gas was discovered on the adjacent island of Great Zixia.

Well, that's another story.

Back on the morning of June 22, 1657, after the exploration team had walked for half an hour, Li Junming reported to the fleet on the walkie-talkie: The lifeboat team he led had found a lignite seam from the top section of the embankment cut by the river on the river bank, which meant that the coal mine was not far away.

Sure enough, the exploration team on both sides of the river walked a few kilometers further north, and the group abandoned the boat and landed on the shore, because they finally found the open-pit coal mine under a large field of purple flowers.

All you have to do is peel off the turf to see high-quality anthracite, which makes everyone very excited.

Also excited is Gu Jin, which means that Nicole's endurance will be greatly improved, of course, the premise is that there must be labor to dig coal here, but no matter what, there is no doubt that this island is indeed worth landing and occupying.

Now that the open-pit coal mine has been found, the main task of this exploration is complete.

In view of the fact that the whole expedition went smoothly and no traces of human activity had been found so far, Captain Gu, who was a little relieved, decided that the next step would be two tasks: exploring around the island and surveying the estuarine waters of the river.

The purpose of the former was to finalize the presence of indigenous people on the island, while the purpose of the latter was to determine the location of the wharf, which needed to be built since there was coal and a river where coal could be transported.

Over the next three days, the shallower draft Pride was sent out to explore around the island, and she carried out various exploration activities around Zixia Island and another adjacent island, which was only 50 kilometers away.

As for the Nicole left in the bay, the task was simple, several groups of people led by the first mate Xu Zhi carefully measured the estuary area of the river, and finally determined the location of the wharf.

The crew of the Pride landed six times in three days, and went two or three kilometers deep into land, and sure enough, they found no trace of human activity.

It seems that in the Old World, the islands were inhabited rather late.