Section 48 The men on the boat

Then he went to the Planning Institute and applied for lead, tin and antimony. These are the three necessary metals for casting lead characters. Especially for antimony, without antimony, the use of lead characters will not only be greatly reduced, but also shorten the life span.

"It's better if you have bismuth." Zhou Dongtian vaguely remembered that this kind of thing was also needed for casting lead characters.

"Bismuth certainly doesn't. Lead and tin can. Antimony is slightly more difficult. Wude said.

The reason why it is a bit difficult to say is not that there is no antimony in China, on the contrary, there are many antimonies in China in this time and space, whether it is ore or metal products. The problem was that people at the time confused antimony with tin. The largest antimony mine on Shijie, the tin mine in Hunan, was mined in the Ming Dynasty, and it was thought that this was a tin mine at that time, so it was given such a name.

Since there is no concept of antimony, Guangzhou can only say that it wants to buy tin when buying antimony, and as for whether it is tin or antimony to buy, it has to be shipped back for metal composition analysis.

"To date, no antimony has been bought." "But the Guangzhou station has already sent people to Hunan to buy antimony." If you're not in a hurry, just wait a few days. ”

Antimony is also useful in the manufacture of pyrotechnics, in addition to making lead characters. The combination of several needs led to the Guangzhou station eventually sending a special procurement team -- and the long-range exploration team also sent people -- to Hunan. By the way, I will go to Jiangxi and Hubei to see if there are any non-ferrous metal minerals that have been developed in this time and space. Several provinces in the Huguang region are large mining provinces.

"Hehe, don't you just come to me, I have antimony here." When Zhou Dongtian came to Zuihou to talk about the casting of lead characters in the Ministry of Metallurgy, Ji Wusheng smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"You have?" Zhou Dongtian came to the spirit.

"It's a bit of a private thing." Ji Wusheng nodded, "There aren't many of them." This thing can increase a little bit every three or five times, and there aren't many of them. I'm too lazy to report every day, and I want to just accumulate and report together. Antimony is not rare anyway, and no one suspects that I will embezzle. ”

He took him to a warehouse in the non-ferrous metal workshop of the Ministry of Metallurgy, where a dozen antimony ingots were lying in the warehouse, and a dozen or so boxes filled with fragments of antimony blocks that had not yet been recast, all of which were small in size.

"Where did you get it? Didn't you say you hadn't bought antimony? ”

"It's true that I haven't bought it, but there is antimony in the money." Ji said silently.

There is a long-term task in the non-ferrous metal workshop under the Ministry of Metallurgy, which is to melt and refine the copper coins and scrap metal objects collected from various channels. Whether it is copper coins or all kinds of scrap copper and rotten iron, they are actually alloys, containing various non-ferrous metals, which can be recovered after purification.

"The most recovered are all kinds of small copper coins minted privately, which the locals say are mixed with a lot of lead, but in fact not only lead, but also tin -- and by the way, there are also a lot of antimony."

As for daily utensils, pewter and tin ware are the majority, and many of them are antimony mixed with tin. In this way, the antimony was recovered in bits and pieces.

"It's not much, but it should be enough." Ji Wusheng said, "If you are useful, I will immediately report the number to the Planning Institute." After the formalities, it is done. ”

"It's a little less, it's enough for the time being." Zhou Dongtian thought that since he had already sent people to purchase follow-up antimony, it would come in a steady stream.

After solving the problem of casting materials, he handed over the rest of the casting process and printing press manufacturing to a group of engineers in the machinery factory to deal with - they would choose the best movable type printing machine solution according to the data.

Zhou Dongtian put forward only one requirement: it is best to design two different printing presses, one small machine that can use the worker's hand or animal power machine, and the other is a large machine that uses machine power. The former he planned to put it on the territory of the Ming Dynasty to set up a printing house in the future. Especially Nanjing. Zhou Dongtian was already preparing to re-enact the past of Leizhou in Nanjing, crushing the engraving and printing industry in Nanjing's Sanshan Street in one fell swoop, and establishing a new printing empire. The latter, of course, was used in the Occupy Zone of the Traversal.

He asked the Planning Institute for a batch of apprenticeship places after "purification", and prepared to send them to Hu Qingbai to study.

"These apprentices don't need to be taught anything else, the key is to teach them to read. It's not that the 800 commonly used characters will be over, but at least 3,000 Chinese characters must be recognized. Zhou Dongtian said, "And you have to recognize both simplified and traditional Chinese." ”

"Good fellow, you're asking too much. How much do you have to learn in three months? Hu Qingbai smacked his tongue, "You have to raid the cramming and corporal punishment education." ”

"Whatever you want. If corporal punishment of female students is enough for teachers to attend classes with full emotion, they can also opt for female apprentices - to be stronger, I pointed to them for pencil writing. Zhou Dongtian said, "By the way, you must also understand pinyin, pinyin must be good"

The main reason for knowing pinyin is to facilitate the detection of words. If there is a cast-and-row machine, this requirement can actually be dispensed with.

Zhou Dong rushed to Skade again and asked to sign up for the "Jiangnan Trade Delegation". The purpose was, of course, to investigate the printing industry in Nanjing.

"There was no delegation to Jiangnan. There were only trade expeditions to Liaodong and Southeast Asia. Those who went to Jiangnan were the people who opened the trading station. Are you going? ”

"I'm going," Zhou Dongtian affirmed.

"Okay, but you have to talk less when you go, and everything on the road must be under command."

"No problem, I'm mainly going to see it. And soon after. ”

The news of the formation of two trade expeditions, the North and the South, moved the hearts of many people who were interested in expatriation. Many people are discouraged by the training to be sent to Daming, but there is no need to "Daming" when sent to Southeast Asia or Liaodong, especially in Southeast Asia, not only can you enjoy the tropical style, maybe you can also soak a few foreign girls, and more than a dozen people who signed up for the Southeast Asian expedition team came at once.

The purpose of the Southeast Asia expedition was to conduct a thorough survey of the situation in Southeast Asia. In particular, the information of the Dutch was collected. According to the assessment of the Foreign Intelligence Service: the Dutch are the most threatening European opponents of the crossing group. Therefore, the investigation of the Dutch East India Company was made a matter of urgency.

Lando took a sip of spit, and the spit flew to the dark sea, and it was instantly gone.

He was unemployed, and unemployed for a long time. Ever since he had gone on an unsuccessful expedition with Aragonés, he had not been able to find a new job.

After Aragonés' ship and Liu Xiang's fleet reconciled, he once again tried to gain a foothold near the mouth of the Pearl River, and Gelanzani instructed him to secretly interfere with the fact that they did not succeed at all. Liu Xiang just wanted to use the Spaniard's shili to attack Zheng Zhilong and warn him not to "cross the line", and didn't want to really let them get any foothold.

As a result, Aragonés fought with Zheng Zhilong's men as the main foreign aid in Liu Xiang's fleet in a confused encounter. In terms of performance, the performance of the Countess Scarborough was quite outstanding, with the help of the tall hull of the galleon and the superior artillery fire, Aragonés fully satisfied his desire for combat performance and taught the "Chinese barbarians" a hard lesson.

But when Zheng Zhilong's fleet began to release the fireboats, Aragonés had no choice but to turn around and flee, and if he lost the galleon, it would be over. As a result, the ship's cobbled together crew left the Countess Scarborough stranded in a hurry, and was immediately besieged by countless "junk ships". The sailors of the Zheng family swarmed up, and in a moment they killed the Malay sailors on the deck who had lost their fighting spirit. Just as Aragonés was about to die in Huangquan, Liu Xiang's boat finally saved his life. However, the Countess of Scarborough, the noble "Spanish lady", was trained in Bopu and completely became a prisoner of Zheng Zhilong.

Lando almost died in the chaos, in fact, Aragonés was able to get his allies to come to the rescue thanks to the VZ68 submachine gun that Lando hid on his body, he hid in the back mast, and constantly harvested the Zheng sailors who rushed up with point shots, and the enemy was afraid of the heavy fire to stop. A group of Zheng sailors then mounted cannons on the deck and prepared to bombard the rear mast. Landau shot them one by one with a submachine gun, and finally stopped the attempt.

After being saved, he thanked God again and again. Lando had never been a devout believer, and in his more than ten years as a mercenary, he had never encountered such a dangerous and desperate situation. If Liu Xiang's men didn't come to the rescue, he would be trapped in that ship, and he would not be able to use his great ability, either Zuihou would be cut into several pieces, or he would be forced to jump into the sea - most of them would be drowned alive.

"I should have gone to Manila early to make trouble."

Weiss? Lando Italian-American, 35, volunteered in the Bosnian War, first for the Muslims and then for the Croats. After the war, he and a few partners engaged in small-scale arms smuggling. As soon as the business picked up, he lost his hands in Iraq, lost most of his goods, and Zuihou was still being pursued on his own soil. In desperation, he took Zuihou a little bit of goods and prepared to go to Thailand to sell them to local gangsters.

Just one day before their arrival, they were suddenly hit by a strange storm in the South China Sea - one minute the sky was clear, the next minute the wind was blowing, and it felt like the ship was being sucked in by a whirlpool. Lando even vaguely remembered that the sky in the distance was still blue, and there were no storm clouds. Then they all lost their memories.

By the time he woke up, there were only three of the five people on the boat. One of them is dead. Landau tried to continue sailing, but found that the GPS navigation system had become a blank and all the data was zero. All navigation equipment was useless, and even the radio was a dead silence, except for the hissing of electricity. Even the Inmarsat phone lost its signal.

The remaining two were tested on a sextant to prove that they had deviated more than 500 nautical miles from their original course. They were surprised by the statistic – the charts showed that they had reached a point not far from Dongsha Island.

This made Lan Du and the others panic, Dongsha Island is the territory of the Taiwan army, there are marines on it, if their own ship is inspected, no country's king is allowed to smuggle weapons, how can this be mixed? Moreover, Taiwan is more loyal to its own motherland than it is to its own motherland, and if it is caught, it will definitely be transferred back. A few federal felonies plus no parole for many years, and he will have to live in an orange jumpsuit for the rest of his life.

Quickly started the engine and headed out to sea, but the magnetic compass and Tacan navigation systems were completely out of order. The hands on the compass disk rotated slowly in circles, and it was impossible to point due north. Lando and the others complained bitterly, and in the midst of the chaos, the fishing boat sailed to a deserted island, and the oil was running out.

It was on this desert island that Lando first realized that something strange or terrible had happened to him. He used a sextant and nautical charts to calculate countless times, proving that he was on Dongsha Island.

But not to mention Taiwan's marines, there is no trace of an army stationed there at all -- Lando has been to many desert islands, and as long as someone has lived on the island for a long time, it will inevitably leave traces. If an army had been stationed, it would have left more traces of artificiality - at least a reinforced concrete cistern, and the foundations of the barracks posts would have been preserved. But there are only a few traces of the local fishermen who once visited.

The electronics were all silent. The radar screen was completely blank -- Langdo knew that the area around Dongsha Island was a route to Taiwan, and there should be many cargo ships passing by. However, the radar showed only a very small number of small reflection points that appeared to be fishing boats.

No one can explain this problem. Lando could only assume that his sextant was inaccurate.

After some discussion, the two surviving men decided to abandon the ship - the fishing boat was out of fuel and had some ammunition on it. They first disposed of the bodies of their companions, then packed up the ship's belongings, opened the sea valve, and sank the ship carefully. The location was carefully chosen so that it could be easily picked up later - he envisioned that he would be back in a few months.

On the way, the wind and waves hit the sea, the rowboat capsized, and he was rescued by a strange group of fishermen - the tattered fishing boats and strange appearance made him think that he was somewhere in Indonesia, zuihou, he was sent ashore in a daze, and he was escorted by men with spears and armor - and it was then that he realized that he had encountered the unthinkable.

After a series of tosses, he was finally handed over to a man who looked like a European priest. The priest inquired about his origin in several languages, and he finally understood one, Italian.

From Father Anders, Landau learned that this was "the 3rd post-Jesus Birthday after ≡ Lord's Birthday."

When he woke up, he had already arrived in Macau. Lando, after staring blankly at the street scene, still admits the reality - a man who eats at gunpoint will never admit defeat to the environment. He immediately reverted to the more or less forgotten Italian, and with his limited knowledge of history, Lando knew that this English-speaking person was not welcome with the Portuguese.

Lando, who slowly made his way by running errands for Father Anders, claimed to be the son of a rural aristocratic family in Parma, Italy, and had volunteered in the Balkans - the latter was true, and the former was not entirely bragging: Lando's grandfather was born in this village, and he was very impressed with a dilapidated aristocratic family in his village, and often talked about it with little Lando. The so-called children of the Parma family that Landau created were based on this family. Even the coat of arms was plagiarized and slightly modified.

The only thing that's a bit of a problem is the English that often blurts out. Landau had no choice but to claim that he had been a prisoner of the British, and that he had spent several years in England. As to how an Italian could have been a prisoner of the British, Lando had no choice but to continue to make up nonsense that he had served the Catholic king of Spain - as is not uncommon among the Italians, who were captured by the British in a campaign to support the Irish.

However, when he talked about it, he insisted that he was only going to fight for the sake of food, and not to admire King Bixia. He had a definite sense that the local Jesuit leaders valued the interests of the Portuguese far more than their Spanish kings.

But it is still difficult for a modern man to live in 17th-century Macau, he has almost nothing, and the most terrible thing is that everyone doubts his origins.

Fortunately, Landau had a little knowledge of history, and he experienced the fanaticism of religion when he was paying for war in Bosnia. Knowing that it would be better to show a little religious fanaticism, or else the clergy would soon take him to the barbecue because of his misfits.

So Lando had to go to church every week for Mass - he had been baptized as a Catholic as a child, but never as an adult - and he had gone to confession from time to time, and the Friday fast was strictly enforced. When the forty days of Lent came to him, Lando experienced for the first time the feeling of extreme hunger, and the days when he ate only one meal from morning till night and could not eat meat were not something that modern people could bear. For almost a month, he felt weak and had to live on foul-smelling salted fish and eggs every day.

Aside from this deadly fast, life in the 17th century was nothing short of a nightmare. There were pesky parasites everywhere, and it was hard to get a bath - not even the backcountry of North Africa where he had been, and many of the smaller cities there had very good steam baths. There is no fresh food, and salted meat and salted fish make up the main part of the meal. Red wine that travels thousands of miles is rare and expensive, and tastes like vinegar. He sometimes eats in Chinese restaurants — though the taste is completely different from what he eats in Chinatown, and most of it is fresh vegetables and meat.

The sanitary conditions were frightening, but fortunately he was well-informed and patient. The most frightening thing is the toilet, and after visiting once, Lando decided that he would rather go to the suburbs to find a bush to solve the problem than go to the toilet in the official residence, and he found that most people, whether Chinese or European, have no concept of hand paper. He had to spend his earned money to buy paper to solve the problem - and paper was expensive here.