For so many years, ships from the East Coast have secretly made their way to this secret intelligence station almost every six months to a year. Since the last time a flute boat ran aground and sank in the strait, the task has been largely done by passing steamers or even whaling ships, as they can lower their sails and sail at low speeds, which reduces the risk by at least half.

Three large battleships sailed slowly in the Strait of Magellan at a low speed of 3 knots, and the captain carefully watched the flow of the sea so that the ships did not deviate from course. As for the winds of the Age of Sails, this is no longer an insurmountable mountain for the people of the East Coast. Now in the Strait of Magellan, they can only be troubled by the changing direction of the sea and the bad weather (heavy snow, fog, icebergs).

Fortunately, the weather is good, and the ice floes that are common in the strait in winter are gone, and the number of foggy days is greatly reduced. In addition to the constant high winds, the swells have been greatly reduced by the twists and turns of the terrain, and in general navigating the Strait of Magellan during the season – especially if you are still flying a steamboat – is not a problem for experienced navigators. With enough care, they could safely cross the hundreds of kilometers of waterway into the Pacific Ocean.

But the people on the east coast had no intention of entering the Pacific, and after sailing to the west of the middle of the channel, they plunged headlong into the narrow channel between Lesco Island and the Brunswick Peninsula, and carefully sailed through the mountains for more than half a week before finally entering the open but calm waters of Otway Bay.

Due to the terrain and the mountains, the sea in Otway Bay is relatively calm, compared to the western section of the Strait of Magellan, where the westerly wind roars and the turbidity waves emptilate. At the same time, it is also a lonely world, a forgotten corner of the world. There is no trace of any civilization on the shore. Wild geese, jackals, foxes, vicuñas, otters, and seals are the vast majority of the "residents" here. If you're lucky. You can also occasionally see some Arakalu and Patagoni who are generally more than two meters tall on the shore. Other than that, it's just a desolate place.

After entering the Gulf of Otway, the three ships crossed the second narrow passage between Lesco Island and the Brunswick Peninsula into another, calmer sea, and docked near the East Coast Intelligence Station in the Levobold area on the right side of the water, which was already 5 March.

There are very few coastal shoals, and most of them are deep water, so boats can dock very close to the shore. Facilitates the transportation of supplies and personnel. A simple trestle bridge was built on the shore with thick logs, which allowed two ships to moor at the same time. On the shore, men in the black uniforms of the secret police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs ran over, with pistols strapped to their waists, followed by several Patagonian retinues more than two meters tall.

While waving to the sailors standing on the deck, they skillfully tied the cables thrown from the ship to the stakes on the shore and waited for the unloading to begin. There had been no ships coming from the mainland for eight months, and the station was in dire need of supplies: food, weapons, ammunition, spirits, tobacco, sugar, and everything else from the mainland. The Araukan guerrillas have visited here twice in the past year and have taken away large quantities of weapons and ammunition, hemostatic bandages, field food, warm clothing, and other materials. Of course, these Araukans are not taking things for nothing and not giving money. They also sent a large number of high-quality furs, seized Spanish gold and silver coins, various jewelry and works of art that were difficult to sell, some horses, and other things to offset the payment for the goods.

Lu Ming, who was wearing the navy's spring and autumn uniform, landed on the shore overgrown with weeds. A senior agent of the General Directorate of National Intelligence in charge of the intelligence station immediately stepped forward and saluted. Just kidding, there is only one officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel on the east coast today, and that is Lu Ming, the second person in the Navy and the commander of the First Fleet. Such a big man came to this secret intelligence station where birds don't, which made the local head of the city, Bilas, feel unreal for a while.

"Second Lieutenant Bellas, thank you for your contribution to the country." Lu Ming shook the hand of the head of the intelligence station, and said with a solemn face: "You have been stationed in this lonely and desolate place for more than three years, accompanied by danger, cold, and loneliness, although your contributions to the country cannot be made public for the time being, but one day, the people will understand your perseverance and sacrifice, and will understand your dedication, thank you." ”

Pilas was one of the first Swiss-French Calvinist immigrants to come to the East Coast, first mixed in the army and later recruited into the General Directorate of National Intelligence, where he served for many years in Bordeaux. After returning to China in '42, he was awarded the rank of second lieutenant after a short period of training, and then moved to Magellan Intelligence Station as a supervisor, replacing another veteran agent who had been serving there for many years, Luch, who was one of the first Swiss immigrants and trusted by his superiors.

"Xie Lu and Chief Lu are concerned, the brothers are quite accustomed to being here, and the salary subsidy has also been paid to the family members on time, so everyone has no worries. The surrounding indigenous people, the Lady Arakalu and the Patagoni, are friendly, and we have established some level of trade ties with them to strengthen our relationship. At present, ten Patagoni are employed as handymen in the station, who are mainly responsible for carrying goods and raising livestock. These people, plus our people, there are 28 members of the entire intelligence station, and all of them are here. Blas carefully reported to Lu Ming.

"Hmm." Lu Ming nodded, and then walked towards the intelligence station, which was only more than twenty meters away from the dock. The houses of the intelligence station are all made of wood made of local materials, Lu Ming looked at it, the houses are very simple, they are basically made of logs, and the bark on some of the wood has not even been removed. The roof of the house is covered with a thick layer of thatch, and there are two layers of rain cloth on top of the thatch to protect it from moisture. Sure enough, the conditions here look tough.

Ten Patagoni stood on the pier and stared at the tall ships moored by the trestle and the dense cannon windows on it. They had been living with the people of the East Coast for a long time, and naturally they knew the power of the cannons in those cannon windows, so they were all dumbfounded when they saw three of these war beasts coming at once. Over the years, the artillery they had sold to the Araucan guerrillas was only five or six guns at full capacity, and they were all small-caliber guns, which were nothing compared to the nearly two hundred heavy guns on the three ships in the harbor.

"Tall, strong people." Lu Ming said approvingly, "The Patagoni are indeed very tall, they can be used as heavy infantry or grenadiers in the future, and they will not scare people to death with their height of more than two meters when they go to the battlefield." ”

The Patagonians, Aracalou and some Ona people living on both sides of the Strait of Magellan are staggering in height. Especially those of the Patagoni, who are generally above two meters. In 1615, a European measured the skeleton of a dead Patagonian and concluded that it was 3 meters tall. In 1790, Faulkner met a tribal chieftain who was 2.15 meters tall.

The first European navigators who met the Patagoni described it: "They had well-developed chests and forearms, ran faster than horses, ate a basket of black bread at a time, and drank half a bucket of water in one sitting." ”

The Ona people, close relatives of the Patagoni, are generally recorded to be over 1.75 meters tall for men and 1.7 meters for women, far surpassing Europeans and Asians at this time.

Before this, Lu Ming was also a little unconvinced, but after seeing it at this moment, he really believed that these aborigines living on both sides of the Strait of Magellan and Southern Patagonia were so tall and muscular, it was incredible. Unfortunately, after the Europeans invaded their homeland, their population declined rapidly and the entire nation eventually dissolved due to massacres, looting (the Europeans robbed them of their grazing sheep) and disease.

"The least one of these people has been employed for two years, so he can be regarded as our more reliable helper." Pyras explained. As he spoke, the ten Patagoni expertly unloaded boxes of supplies on the docks, and judging by their tall stature and knotted muscles, it seemed that these weights were not much of a burden to them.

Lu Ming nodded slowly as he listened, and then he suddenly seemed to remember something, and asked Pilas, "Are there Araukans here?" ”

"No, they usually come to us once a year in late December, and not at other times, so it's hard to say when they'll come. Maybe that would have to be asked to the Spaniards, because it was the Spaniards who were at war with them, not us. ”

"What is their level of fighting? Will you be able to win the battle against the Spaniards? ”

"Their level was uneven, some of the old partisans from the old Vicente era were very good, but the young men who had been recruited in the last two years were far behind, and they were not strong enough to support them in a head-on fight with the Spaniards. Their base camp was not far from here in the city of Araucan (Puerto Natales), where our men had been there several times to help them repair artillery and train recruits. But the main force of their guerrillas was not usually in the city of Araucan, but in the series of broken islands to the south of Chiloe Island and the adjacent land, where many fugitive slaves who could not bear the enslavement of the Spaniards cultivated and grazed, and were their natural source of soldiers. It was also easier to raid the Spanish strongholds, so Araucan was just a stronghold for their families. "Bilas was deeply involved in a lot of the Araucan guerrillas, so he was familiar with the inside story.

"Good. Second Lieutenant Bilas, the state has now given you an important task, which is to send people to the city of Araucan, try to get in touch with the guerrillas, and then ask them to increase the frequency and intensity of their sorties in an attempt to eliminate more Spaniards. To that end, we're going to give them more newer weapons, such as flintlock rifles, large-caliber field artillery, armor, and more, which we're bringing this time. This is a matter of the country's strategic layout, are you sure that it will be done? Lu Ming looked at Bilas's weather-beaten face and said slowly.

Pyras was silent for a long time before he affirmed, "They rely on us a lot, and they shouldn't be too resistant to this matter. Moreover, I have a way to get them to agree, don't worry, Chief Lu. (To be continued......)