When the Tang Western Company sent the second fleet to India, three ships were moving in the wind and waves at the southernmost tip of distant Africa.

This is the southernmost point of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope!

The fleet led by Ying Zihua actually arrived at the Cape of Good Hope ten days ago, but they had long heard that the Cape of Good Hope was very dangerous to sail due to strong winds and waves, so they first found a small port nearby for rest and maintenance, and then waited for about ten days, and only set off again after the wind and waves were slightly lighter today.

But even though today's storm is a little smaller than usual, it is still very big.

Rao is that they have experienced wind and waves, but in the face of such wind and waves, they still seem to be a little afraid from the heart!

In the face of this force of nature, Rao is their ships are advanced enough, but they are still far from enough!

The boat was blown by the strong wind, constantly jolting in the waves, Ying Zihua firmly grasped the railing with both hands, and looked at the huge waves ahead with his eyes closed!

In the face of the huge waves, his fleet cannot dodge in any way, otherwise the end will be even more miserable, and they must bravely rush forward against the waves!

Huge waves hit one wave after another, causing the three ships to rise high and then fall heavily, and the huge force made the ships squeak with a piercing and unpleasant creak, as if they would completely fall apart in the next moment.

They continued this voyage for half a day, and after half a day, the wind and waves gradually subsided, but then Ying Zihua received a report that when resisting the wind and waves just now, a sailor was knocked over by the wind and waves and fell into the sea.

Hearing this news, Ying Zihua was expressionless, just nodded slightly!

This is the second year that his fleet has been at sea, and his crew has lost dozens of people along the way due to injuries, accidents, and wars.

Now the crews of these three ships are basically dissatisfied.

But that still couldn't stop him from going to Europe!

This voyage, no matter what, I have to go to Europe and open up European routes!

And after crossing the Cape of Good Hope, the rest of the road was much easier, and they only had to go all the way north along the west coast of Africa to reach Europe.

When the time comes, it will be possible to go to the Mediterranean coast or the Atlantic coast.

In addition, although most of the ports on the west coast of Africa are now under the control of the Portuguese, it does not mean that all places are under the control of the Portuguese.

In fact, in this era, the Portuguese's control of the European routes to East Asia was mainly concentrated in their numerous supply ports, as well as the construction of several forts and garrison fleets, rather than that they actually included large swathes of African territory.

Especially on the west coast of Africa, the living conditions are harsh, and most of the area is not suitable for Europeans, so for a long time, the Portuguese and other colonizers were limited to some coastal strongholds.

The reason why the shipping routes were monopolized was because the Portuguese did not allow merchant ships from other countries to enter their ports for replenishment, and would let warships patrol and plunder the merchant ships of other countries.

If there is no supply port, then it will be very troublesome for the long-going fleet.

It can only be sneaky, or find some small ports for resupply.

This is also the reason why the Spaniards will also send fleets to East Asia, but the scale has not been able to grow, the reason is simple, that is, there are no supply ports.

At the same time, it was also the reason why it was so difficult for the Tang Western Company to go west, if it was at normal speed, they should have arrived in Europe a long time ago, but now they have just bypassed the Cape of Good Hope.

This is because the supplies along the way cost them a lot of time!

But in any case, they have finally bypassed the Cape of Good Hope, and if they continue north, although it will be more difficult to go some way, the further north they go, the easier it will be, because at that time, they will be able to find more neutral supply ports.

Ying Zihua led the fleet to continue towards Europe, and in the foreseeable few months, his fleet will appear in Europe, and by that time, it basically means that Datang Western Company has opened a route to Europe for the first time.

Although the voyage was still very immature, and there were not many supply ports along the way, and it was also in danger of being attacked by the Portuguese and many other countries or pirates along the way, the route was opened anyway.

Behind them, a large number of merchant fleets of the Tang Western Company will go to India, Africa, and Europe to trade, earn huge profits, and at the same time will continue to consolidate and expand the supply ports and establish colonies.

Once the route is up and running, it will bring huge profits to Datang Western Company.

However, even if the European route is operational, it will take time, and for the time being, the main trade route of Western companies is still mainly India, and in the medium term, it can expand trade in West Asia, Northeast Africa, and the east coast of Africa.

At the same time, in Jinling City, the eight-year examination of Xuanping is about to begin!

In the two months at the beginning of the year, there was basically no major event in the entire Tang Empire, and the only thing that could be regarded as a major event was the meeting.

On the Liaodong side, it is still stable, and under the severe cold, the Tang Army has no plan to launch a large-scale offensive at all, and intends to wait until after the beginning of spring to launch an offensive.

On the Nanyang side, although there is a colonial war, to be honest, this little in Nanyang is nothing compared to the entire empire, and it is far away, and it will not be able to deliver the news in time for a while.

This is why the Empire gives great power to local administrators in the rule of overseas territories.

Mei Jiachuan, the governor of Luzon, has the power to wage war against the local natives, of course, if the specific battle is to be carried out, it is still the military, and Mei Jiachuan has no right to intervene in military operations.

At the same time, this power to wage war is limited to the natives in the jurisdiction of Luzon!

And not in the name of declaring war or something, but in the name of bullet pressure!

After all, the current Tang Empire included the entire Luzon Islands into Luzon, and these natives in the state naturally regarded as a rebellion or something, and waging war against them was regarded as suppressing or purging bandits, not a declaration of war against foreign countries.

But even so, it can be seen that the administrative officials of the overseas territories have great power.

This is also a matter of no choice, the road is long, the transportation is not convenient, and the communication is backward, Mei Jiachuan cannot report to Jinling City, and then start a war against the indigenous people of Luzon, in that case, it will take at least half a year, how long will it take a year.

In this way, relatively speaking, in Jinling City, although they keep an eye on the affairs of Nanyang, there is nothing to deal with, just look at the reports of Mei Jiachuan and the garrison generals.

The war in various places is generally calm, and there are no large-scale natural and man-made disasters in the spring, on the whole, in the spring of the eighth year of Xuanping, the Tang Empire seems relatively calm, and people who don't know still think that it has entered the period of cultivation and recuperation after unification.

However, this is not the case!

However, the external expansion, on the whole, did not have much impact on the internal empire and the political structure of Jinling City.

What the officials were more concerned about was not the expansion of Nanyang or the war in Liaodong, but the examination of the eighth year of Xuanping!

The imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty was held once a year, from the county examination in various places, to the hospital examination, and then to the meeting examination and the palace examination, all of which were once a year, giving students full opportunities!

And this year, the reason why officials are paying more attention to the entrance examination than in previous years is that this year's examination will be different from previous years' entrance examination.

At the beginning of the year, the Son of Heaven officially ordered the Ministry of Rites to redesign the examination questions and further increase the content of science.

Further increase the content of science is nothing, but after further increasing the content of science, there is a great change in the reform, at the same time, more importantly, this time the examination, not only in Jinling City to hold the examination, but also in the four provinces of Zhili at the same time to open the examination points, it is expected to admit 20 Jinshi, 20 doctors, after the examination, in order to avoid the Jinshi in the hometown, when the time comes these four sub-examination points in the Jinshi, Doctor, its position will be several other provinces.

At the same time, the grades of each Jinshi and Doctor are the same as those of the candidates in the Jinling City Entrance Examination.

Obviously, this is a pilot!

The new round of reform of the imperial examination carried out by the Son of Heaven, but this reform, strictly speaking, did not harm the interests of the scholars, on the contrary, it also increased the number of admissions, which was also welcomed by the Son of Heaven.

Of course, they didn't know that Li Xuan was also preparing to gradually reduce the grades of new science and technology scholars and doctors in the next few years.

The situation of becoming a positive seven-grade in the first exam will become a thing of the past in the near future.

Moreover, although this reform is in the name of the examination score center, in fact, Li Xuan carried out the reform according to the national and provincial examinations of later generations.

Moreover, the follow-up reform will be to move towards the selection of grass-roots officials, and even the lowest level of officials from the ninth grade, rather than the current one, mainly selecting middle-level officials.

In this way, it can be regarded as completing the imperial examination reform in Li Xuan's mind!

Originally, a few years ago, Li Xuan's reform direction for the imperial examination was another way, that is, to maintain the township examination and the general examination of the imperial examination unchanged, but to increase the scale of the promotion of people, and try to use the township examination to become the provincial examination, as the main way to recruit provincial officials.

But obviously, he underestimated the power of the imperial examination tradition, and underestimated the desire of the world's scholars for the fame of the scholars!