The evening after meeting the four of them, I put a written letter in the military mailbox.

The military post, stamped with an "expedited" postage, was taken by express mail ship to Liaodong and sent to the office of the Chinese governor, Qin Xiangping.

I wrote in the letter my views and suggestions for the four people of the Ming Kingdom. Among them, Mao Chengzuo is the person I give the lowest evaluation.

This is not to say that he has the worst ability and the most rusty military skills, after all, these hard powers are not for me to comment on. I wrote in the letter that Mao Chengzuo has the lowest recognition of Australia and Song, and his speech and demeanor reveal a feeling of "although Australia and Song are technologically developed and the country is strong, my motherland is the Ming Dynasty".

However, I myself do not agree with this kind of "national integrity". To paraphrase a classic comment, "National integrity is very different from nationalism... This kind of integrity is mainly embodied in the scholars, that is, the scholars in the traditional Chinese sense... They received the favor of the imperial court and enjoyed various privileges, and some of the scholars who still had a sense of shame thought that they should be loyal to the emperor, and would risk their lives to defend the imperial court when it faced a life-and-death crisis... Later, the nationalist ideas of the Great Song Dynasty were widely introduced to the Ming Kingdom, and some civilized people called those who sacrificed their lives for the imperial court as people with national integrity..." (Note 1)

Well, there is such a thing as national integrity, of course, it is better to have it than not to have it. But we still have to distinguish between it and nationalism. The latter is a nuclear weapon in the era of cold weapons, and the former has no honor.

In the final analysis, the mainstream view of the Australian and Song dynasties is that national integrity is only the allegiance of China's vested interests to the imperial court that gives them benefits, not the unconditional love and loyalty of every natural person to his nation and culture.

This can also explain why when the Great Song Dynasty was destroyed by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, there was a cross-class national resistance movement across the country, while in the civil wars in Chinese history, only some bureaucrats and landlords died for the emperor Lao Tzu.

As for Ma Delong and Sun Yixing, their recognition of our Australia and Song is much higher, and I judge that Song and Ming are probably in the same position in their hearts.

Wu Jianzhong, I give him the highest evaluation. On the one hand, he had a good psychological quality and excellent combat quality before, and had about a year of practical experience in his homeland; On the other hand, it is his verbal expression and behavioral language that is the most natural when answering my questions, unlike Mao Chengzuo's subconscious resistance. Calling our country is also "Great Song" rather than "Ao Song".

At that time, I had a conjecture about this phenomenon, and what I saw and heard in China later confirmed the rationality of this conjecture. That is, the higher the original class, the deeper the feudal education of the Ming people, the deeper the recognition of the Ming court, and the greater the resistance to the Ao Song Dynasty; However, middle- and lower-class Ming people like Ma Delong and Sun Yixing and low-level Ming people like Wu Jianzhong, who were originally tenants, were easy to accept Ao Song.

Of course, this conjecture does not include the cowardice like the water is too cold, they just give me Ao Song as a Shunmin honestly.

Little did I know at that time that while I was still waiting for my departure in the city of North Bay, thousands of kilometers away in the Bay of Bengal, a naval battle that would kick off the Indian Ocean War was about to begin.

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"Navigator, report the coordinates!"

Wang Haomin held the binoculars in both hands, and gave instructions to the navigator beside him.

"We are currently at 6 degrees 30 minutes north latitude and 77 degrees 11 minutes east longitude, about 200 kilometers from the southernmost point of India," he said. The navigator replied.

"Yes, yes," Wang Haomin muttered in a low voice, "it is recorded that at 14:46 p.m. on February 27, 1629, the Portuguese fleet was captured at the relevant latitude and longitude. ”

The navigator on the side quickly recorded the captain's words in the nautical diary. This diary will be the recorder of the most exact time of the outbreak of the war in the Indian Ocean.

Looking at the Portuguese Eastern Fleet at the end of the ocean, which was still unaware of the way towards him, Wang Haomin slowly put down his binoculars, and the smile on the corner of his mouth became more and more obvious: "Pass the order, and the whole fleet will raise the battle flag." ”

The adjutant immediately ran to the corner of the cab and shouted to the upper floors with a hollow steel pipe.

A few minutes later, a red flag painted with a golden dragon was raised by sailors next to the navy flag of the white apocalypse on a blue background fluttering in the wind, dancing with the wind of the Indian Ocean.

Soon, the first formation of the Indian Ocean Fleet of the Republic of Australia and Song, consisting of three battleships, four cruisers, and seven destroyers, all hoisted their battle flags, the hard sails were blown up by the sea breeze, the battleships and cruisers equipped with steam engines raised the power of the steam engines to the maximum, billowing black smoke began to rise on the sea near the equator, and the blue water was stirred up by the propellers under the water surface to bubble up.

Thirty kilometers away in the ocean, Rear Admiral Francisco noticed the figure of a huge ship in the sky.

"What's that? Was it the fleet of the British? He turned his head and asked the adjutant.

The adjutant raised his monoculars to look at it and replied, "General, that's the navy of the Republic of Australia." ”

Francisco muttered a few words, his blue eyes looking impatiently to the side, and waved the captain to continue sailing. These hateful yellow-skinned monkeys began to appear in the waters of the Spice Islands decades ago, and fought dozens of naval battles in more than half a century, squeezing the empire deep into the Southwest Pacific to survive in Burma and Bangladesh.

The adjutant did not put down the binoculars, but continued to look at it for a while, and suddenly nervously pulled Francisco: "General, general!" He said in a hurried tone, "Look, the fleet of the Ao Song Dynasty has hoisted the red flag!" ”

Francisco frowned and looked at the adjutant who was holding the telescope in one hand and his arm in the other, and seemed very dissatisfied with his impolite behavior: "What does it mean to hang the red flag?" ”

The major general, who had just arrived from Europe, did not understand why the adjutant suddenly became agitated.

"That's, that's..." The adjutant put down his binoculars and turned his head to look at the major general, his eyes were already red with excitement, "That's the battle flag, Ao Song is going to declare war on us!" ”

Francisco looked at the adjutant fixedly, and his head "buzzed". Beside him, the captain's room was already in chaos, and through the binoculars, he saw the crew of the Ao-Song fleet making noises like mosquitoes and flies, which made the rear admiral more and more confused.

"How's the second formation?" Wang Haomin asked the navigator .

The navigator glanced quickly at the charts in the captain's chamber and replied, "Now they should be to the south of us, and if we remain still, they will probably find the Portuguese in three hours." If the Portuguese had run west, the time would have been shortened. ”

Wang Haomin couldn't help but smile with satisfaction. This operation to intercept the Portuguese Eastern Fleet was carried out jointly by the Governorate of Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean Fleet Command. After receiving urgent information from the intelligence officers stationed in the Ottoman Empire, the governor and fleet commander, who had already coveted the weakened Portuguese colony, hit it off, on the one hand, they sent fast mail ships to the mainland, and on the other hand, they mobilized the main force of the Indian Ocean Fleet at full speed, divided into two formations in the south of the subcontinent to seek opportunities to annihilate the Portuguese who had been exposed.

"Very well, it looks like I'm going to come out on top this time." He laughed with white teeth. "Speed up, stay in formation as originally planned, and don't let the Portuguese drag until the sun goes down."

At this time, Rear Admiral Francisco, who had barely calmed down, propped up the table with his hands, stared at the Ao-Song warship that was only the size of an ant, and squeezed out words from between his teeth: "Why do they know our location?" ”

The adjutant shook his head sweatingly: "I don't know, they can't know!" ”

The major general grabbed the adjutant by the collar and shouted with red eyes: "I know! I don't need you to tell me this nonsense! ”

He pushed the lieutenant away, turned his head and yelled at the captain, "Can we retreat?!" ”

The captain turned his head to look at the first mate holding the rudder, and the first mate turned his head and shouted as he drove the boat: "Can't run!" We are driving head-on now, and if we turn around and the speed cannot be increased, we will definitely be caught up in two hours! ”

Francisco glanced at the clock, it was less than 3 o'clock, and if he was caught up before 5 o'clock, there would be at least two hours left to fight, which was no different from rushing head-on now.

He suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, and his voice calmed down: "Then so be it." ”

"Raise the Z-flag, order the transport ships and accompanying merchant ships to retreat westward, the destroyers divide half to cover, and the rest ... The rest of the line sped up to the front, as the front of the battle line! ”