When the main fleet on the expedition to Batavia began its initial voyage, the combat readiness program provided a great opportunity for the fleet to quickly become sufficiently reinforced and trained upon its return.

At the same time, the expeditionary fleet returned in the summer and still had three months to recuperate and re-prepare, which also raised the morale of the team when it returned to the south. When the officers and soldiers visited their relatives after the return of the fleet, Xiao Xuan certainly did not prohibit talking about the great victory in Nanyang that had achieved a big victory this time, of course, what was more credible was that there was no obvious difference in number between those who went out and those who returned, which finally dispelled many people's doubts. When the team returned a few months later and prepared to sail to the southeast along the wind direction of winter, many people in Nanjing also warmly bid farewell in the port area. Many of the families of the new entrants are no longer as worried as they used to be.

There was no shortage of foreign wars in the entire history of the Central Plains, but foreign wars left most people with not good memories. Compared with the surrounding ethnic minorities, the Han land, where the ruling class and even the elite had more convenient internal colonial conditions, had many factors that corrupted the army or hindered the formation of combat effectiveness from a very early stage. The cultural characteristics of an agrarian civilization were not very conducive to the formation of a sufficient class of generals. At the same time, the poverty of the surrounding wilderness made the benefits of war significantly low. All these have invisibly hindered the support of all strata of society for foreign wars. This habitual view has not changed significantly even after the expedition against the West a few years ago, and it is only now that things seem to be different. Because the benefits and rewards brought by the attacks of these people clearly exceed the benefits gained by their relatives not participating in the war.

In this way, in the farewell of the people along the coast, when the winter of October in the tenth year of Chongzhen was approaching, and the wind direction was mainly northwesterly, the mighty fleet sailed into the ocean when the waves began to surge near the winter.

It was only because the general tonnage of the 60 main armoured ships and the 60 accompanying ships participating in the expedition was not too small, and because the personnel themselves had gradually adapted to the sea during the expedition after a certain amount of training, that they did not feel unbearable discomfort when they first embarked on the expedition.

Under the leadership of the special sailors and crews who have quite experienced in sailing across the Pacific routes, the ships have gone from the cold winter in the south of the Yangtze River to the tropical ocean with completely different sunshine and temperature and even water vapor in only half a month or so under the condition of tailwind. In fact, there was no perfect navigation equipment such as a sextant in the whole era, and many experienced sailors not only observed the position of the stars in a specific season, but also roughly judged the dimension by feeling the climate at different latitudes and different seasons.

The speed at which the fleet traveled at sea seemed to be on horseback and carriage, especially when passing by some islands, and it seemed that previous experience began to give the illusion that at such a speed it should soon be able to reach the other side. However, after the fleet sailed along the current of the tropical windless zone for about a month, it seemed that it did not encounter land, and an accurate rough estimate based on previous experience surprised many people, and before they knew it, the fleet seemed to have sailed along the exotic ocean for about 10,000 miles, but it was still difficult to reach the other side effectively. If it weren't for such a route, in the past few decades, not only Westerners have walked, but also many Chinese have walked along this route, or even traveled back and forth, it is really difficult for people to have the courage to make such a big gamble and adventure.

Under such circumstances, Wang Yuan could not help but admire the courage of those who had been inferior to the East in shipbuilding technology and even in long-distance sailing experience, and started a real transoceanic voyage.

However, the long voyage finally seemed to be coming to an end, and at some point the rainy days that would have been on the tropical voyage for three days had begun to disappear, and the weather at sea, though still warm in winter, was getting drier.

After about three months of sailing along the wind direction and ocean currents since leaving Quanzhou, the fleet finally crossed a distance of more than 20,000 miles, and came to a land that did not look like an island. ”

What Wang Yuan did not expect was that in the original estimate, the fleet still needed to sail a long distance to the south until it bypassed the New World, and then sailed north for tens of thousands of miles, or even far more than ten thousand miles, before it could encounter the fleet in the enemy's hinterland. After all, according to the geographical cognition of the New World that he learned from Xiao Xuan, the east should be far richer than the west.

However, what Wang Yuan did not expect was that when the fleet sailed along the coast and there was still a certain distance to the south, one morning the fleet had just sailed not far, and the child on the reconnaissance hot air balloon quickly slid the communication canton down the silk cable: "Along the southeast of the coast, about sixty miles away, a large enemy fleet was found, and it is estimated that there are at least about 100 large ships sailing, of which one-third of the ships seem to be in the shape of warships, and there should be about 100 auxiliary small and medium-sized boats in addition to this." , the total scale of the sea forces is not much inferior to the size of the opponent encountered in the naval battle near Batavia ... ”

The distance of about sixty miles is actually not far from the sea antenna, and Wang Yuan at this time also quickly made up his mind: "While they don't have much real understanding of us, let all ships and teams form battle formations and prepare to face the battle!" Again, don't sail too fast and see how the enemy reacts to us from afar! ”

At least half a year has passed since the decisive battle in the South Seas, and if the remnants of the enemy had sailed as soon as they escaped, it would have been possible to reveal the situation and news of the battle at that time. However, Wang Yuan felt that the wind direction and ocean currents at that time might not be favorable, so he decided to use the previous tactics to gamble.

(End of chapter)