From the first month of the nineteenth year of Yongle to March, Yang Dao experienced a magical three months.

From the southernmost point of the South Continent of Dongzhou, along the coastline all the way north, the new world in front of him made him marvel all the time.

On the east and west sides of the Dongzhou continent, on one side of the continent are majestic mountains and deserts. On the other side, there is a flat grassland.

It is a bit like the Ming Dynasty, on the eastern coast of the Ming Dynasty, the terrain is flat, but the west is a plateau desert.

But unlike the Ming Dynasty, it is full of plains, forests, fertile land, and all kinds of exotic animals.

What surprised him even more was that humans didn't seem to be the masters of the land. Although there are many natives encountered here, but the scale of these natives is very small, many tribes are less than five hundred people, they live here with difficulty, and they have no interest in trading when they see the Ming people.

Or rather, they don't have a sense of trading at all.

These tribes were more primitive and more backward.

And the land they occupy is vast and boundless, and it seems to be even bigger than the original Ming Dynasty.

Since arriving at the North Continent of Dongzhou in June last year, it took them half a year to reach the southern tip of the South Continent of Dongzhou.

This distance alone has exceeded the distance from Daming to Nanzhou.

In such two large continents, only some natives survive, and a large amount of land is barren, which is really a tyrannical thing.

Especially after coming to the eastern part of Dongzhou, this feeling has become more and more intense, because there is fertile land everywhere, but only wild grass grows.

The living conditions of the natives in the west are even worse, but they already have civilization, but here in the east, there are real natives.

As an advance exploration team, Yang Dao had no idea of conquering this place, he just worked with his subordinates to record the terrain here, and recorded all the natives he encountered in detail.

At first, he was a little curious as to why the natives here preferred to live in the treacherous west rather than occupy the fertile plains.

But it wasn't until he came here that he found out the real reason.

First of all, this ocean, named the Atlantic Ocean by His Royal Highness the Taisun, is much smaller than the Daming Ocean, but it is windy and dangerous.

Their fleet, though all new-style ships, had been hit by more storms and waves than in the previous year during the three months of their voyage, and their ships had been damaged repeatedly.

None of their boats worked, and it was even more difficult for the natives' boats to sail here.

Secondly, although the west is barren, there is still a large area of land for cultivation. But here, wildlife far exceeds humans, and the living environment of humans is even harsher than in the west.

The main reason is that there are many swamps, grasses, rivers, and forests in this land, which leads to miasma and it is not easy to survive.

What Yang Dao didn't know was that all he saw was some fur.

The real reason is that the American continent is in a north-south direction, and the living climate and environment are very different, and the living conditions are different, which makes it difficult for human beings to adapt.

Moreover, although the natives of the American continent have no natural enemies, the development of civilization lags behind, and their numbers have never been able to rise, so naturally there is no pressure to survive.

In South America, in particular, the north-south direction and the inhospitable Amazon region in the middle make it difficult for humans to migrate.

The indigenous populations of South America slowly moved from the northwest to the southeast, mainly from Bolivia to the center of the continent.

However, the arrival of the white people in later generations changed the development trend here, and after the white people conquered the land, they found that there would be no population development after killing the natives, so they would migrate the blacks here in later generations.

At first, the indigenous people of South America lived mainly in the north and northwest, that is, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia.

And the natives living in Brazil and Argentina are pitiful. Although it is due to the fact that there are many miasma and animals here, it is mainly due to the slow development of their civilization, which has led to the lack of rapid population expansion.

Seeing such a large area of unclaimed land here, the spirits of the entire fleet were extremely excited. They know very well that when they return to Daming, this is a great achievement.

Traveling north along the east coast of the South American continent, except for the southern plateau of Argentina, which is only suitable for grazing, followed by the flat grasslands that stretch for thousands of miles and tens of thousands of miles.

Most of the area is ideal for growing food, but also for hunting.

Along the way, the soldiers of the fleet only need to go ashore to hunt for two days, and they can harvest enough meat to eat for half a month.

However, at the mouth of the Amazon River, when they landed, they did not expect such a harsh natural environment in the local area, and as soon as they landed, they breathed miasma.

Although they have a variety of medicines for miasma, and no one dies from miasma, local crocodiles, piranhas, and even ants and leeches can easily take human lives.

The 400 men who landed searched for two days and lost 20 men, and the others got on board in a panic, and almost failed to bring back the corpses of their colleagues.

Stumbling all the way, or thrilling, or dull, or nervous, or boring. It took the fleet three months to finally reach the northern peninsula of the southern continent (Guajira Peninsula, Colombia), which His Royal Highness had marked on the map of the Great Sun Taisun.

It is said that Magellan discovered a super large peat mine here, and the fleet had long since run out of peat, and the rest of the journey was cut down and dried to provide power.

Moreover, Yang Dao has also found that the size of the wave is also very different from the consumption of peat, in this high-wind and dangerous Atlantic, the consumption of peat is more than 30% more than in the Ming Ocean.

So when he was bored on the boat, Yang Dao also studied the relationship between it, using his not so-advanced mathematics to calculate the force cancellation between wind and waves and power.

Coming to the north of Nanzhou, the wind and waves here are obviously much smaller. At this time, there were still two months before the meeting with Yixin's general soldiers, and half a year before the meeting with Di Pingxia.

In other words, if they can find the peat mine and stock it with peat, they will have a short vacation to recuperate.

Moreover, the northern part of Nanzhou is much richer than the southern part of the country, and there are many tribes living here, and these tribes are full of friendship with them.

Although their fleet was not mainly for trade, the internal superintendent also sent a delegation of thirty people, plus more than 100 indigenous young people recruited from along the way, they formed a trading team.

Everywhere they went, despite language barriers, they were able to quickly reach trade agreements with the local natives with words and actions.

Gold is really abundant here, and in many tribes, even children wear gold collars around their necks.

Many children are willing to exchange a gold collar for a piece of sugar cube.

Of course, these people in the prison would not be so tasteless, and would rather take out a hundred pieces of sugar in exchange for a gold collar weighing nearly a catty.

There is also the bright glass beads, which are the favorite of the local natives, and they are very happy to be able to exchange a gold collar for a string of glass bead necklaces.

The ship arrived at a tribe called Marazufe, which was later known as Maracaibo, one of the world's largest oil bases.

However, in this era, it was just an ordinary small tribe, because it was surrounded by swamps, and the development here was far more backward than other places.

Malazurfe means in the local dialect where snakes abound. As soon as the Ming soldiers came ashore, many people hurriedly returned to the ship in fright.

There are too many snakes here, and the local tribes are not afraid at all. They mingled with snakes and fed on them, and many of their utensils were also made of snake bones.

Yang Dao had witnessed a huge snake bone, twelve or thirteen meters long, as thick as a bucket, enough to swallow a person, and was regarded as a divine object by the natives here.

It was less than two hundred miles from the peat mine marked by His Highness, but the natives had never seen a white stinkman in a boat.

This made Yang Dao a little puzzled, where did those white-skinned stinky people land from in the beginning?

When they entered the bay of the peninsula, they had already carefully surveyed it, and the eastern side of the peninsula was shallow, and it was not suitable for landing, could it be that they landed from the other side of the peninsula?

Another Qian President Han Jin, who graduated from Yulin Weixue with Yang Dao, said: "Brother Yang, we have a map and a globe given by His Royal Highness, so naturally we have a target wherever we go. And at the beginning, those stinky people, who had no map, relied on groping, perhaps regarded the two peninsulas at the mouth of the bay as small islands, and missed the bay. ”

Yang Dao nodded and said, "Then let's continue to move forward, bypass the peninsula, and land from the north side." There are too many snakes in this tribe, and they are in a bit of a panic. ”

After two days' work, the fleet reached a bay on the northern shore of the peninsula, a deep-water harbor, and only eighty miles from the marked peat mines.

Although it is only March, the climate here is hot, and the four seasons are like summer.

The area around the bay is also home to a number of indigenous tribes who fish in shallow waters in wooden boats that can accommodate up to ten people.

As soon as the landed Ming soldiers came ashore, they were regarded as gods, and many tribal people came to bow down.

Because of the hot climate, most of the men and women here are defenseless, but they are covered with a straw curtain between their crotches, and even the woman's breastfeeding things are hugged outside.

However, they paid special attention to the headdress, and everyone had ornaments on their heads, as well as on their necks and wrists, and there were ornaments made of shells and gold.

These Ming soldiers have gradually become accustomed to the nakedness of indigenous women, but when they get here, they are still a little unbearable.

These women, the nudity is in a little too much.

And in the past few months, they have been busy surveying the water conditions along the coast, the borders of the mainland, and the soldiers have been holding back for months, and they can't hold back when they see these smooth-skinned and plump women.

Han Jin was also a little overwhelmed, and set his eyes on the sturdy woman under the ship, and said softly: "Brother Yang, for the sake of peat, the fleet will rest here for a month!" ”

Yang Dao shook his head with a smile and said: "Since there are indigenous people living on the shore, there must be no miasma, the waves here are flat, the water is deep, and it is also suitable for stationing." In this way, this time to find peat mines, I will personally lead the team, and Brother Han will stay here to garrison. ”

Han saluted and said, "Obey!" ”

The natives of the West Coast Zone, after nearly a year of training, are now the mouthpieces of the inner prisons. They may not necessarily understand the language, but they will be able to communicate with the locals in a matter of time.

The two sides quickly reached a consensus on trade, and everything the Ming people brought was what they wanted. In particular, those steel knives and daggers were regarded as treasures by the local natives, and they were willing to exchange them for the same weight of gold.

The Ming soldiers are also particularly favored by the local natives, and here is the same as Dongying, with the custom of changing species. Many husbands willingly gave away their wives, thinking that they would give birth to children like Ming soldiers.

The Ming soldiers rested in the area for five days, and many nearby tribes sent women they thought were the most beautiful to borrow from the Ming soldiers.

But they were unwilling to sell women to the Ming people, nor were they willing to collect money.

The climate here is warm, life is easy, and many tribes are very large, but there is no existential crisis. So they don't want to sell women, they only want to borrow seeds.

This is the opposite of the south of the southern continent, because the environment there is too harsh to feed too many people.

The soldiers of the fleet were simply a little happy, but after Yang Dao tempted him with more tribes and more women in front of him, those soldiers barely bothered to cheer up and follow Yang Dao inland.

They were accompanied by a thousand sturdy men selected by the local tribe, pulling the fifty remaining carts and following Yang Dao and them.

For the natives of the Americas, who don't know how to make round objects, the board car is simply black technology. Seeing that the cart was loaded with thousands of pounds of food and could move forward, they were all stunned.

When the Ming offered to send 500 men to help transport the peat, and then the carts belonged to them, they agreed without saying a word.

For a primitive tribe, these fifty carts were a huge fortune.

Yang Dao didn't regard this eighty miles of land as a difficult task at first, in his mind, no matter how difficult this road is, it can be reached in two or three days.

But as he reached a vast swamp, he began to worry.

The swamp was difficult to transport, and the carts full of peat could not pass through the swamp, so they had to send people to find peat ore first, and at the same time find a more solid road.

It took them five days to find a way out of the swamp. On the side of the former army, when they came to the place marked on the map, they saw black peat exposed on the outside before they had excavated.

The Selehon Coal Mine, which will be rated as one of the world's top ten coal mines in later generations, occupies nearly 50 square kilometers of land and is the world's best open-pit coal mine.

However, the excavation did not go well, because their arrival alarmed the pythons here. When a ten-meter-long python raised its head high and flew four people away with its tail, all the natives fled in fright.

The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were also stunned, and hundreds of people fired muskets in panic, but the giant python was killed, and dozens of soldiers themselves were wounded.

Now, no one dares to dig coal.

(A few busy days, the New Year is over, and the normal update will resume tomorrow, and I will try to make up for the arrears slowly.) ）

()

.。 m.