When the boat sailed safely into the Yangon River, the members of the Ming clan on the boat stopped chanting Buddhist scriptures in their hearts, and many even blurted out directly that they must go to the Buddhist temple to worship after going ashore, in order to repay the Buddha for allowing them to reach the land safely.

Even the midshipmen of the Army and Navy Academies, who had always been dissatisfied with these timid and domineering clans on the road, did not laugh at them at this moment. The storm that had struck in the Andaman Sea three days earlier had made these young officers realize for the first time how terrible the storms and waves of the Indian Ocean really were, and how little individual power could be in the face of such a force of nature.

The Andaman Sea, which looks like a sapphire when the wind is calm, becomes so great that it seems to turn the whole world upside down. In such a storm, the sailing ship, which was already considered a large ship, was like a fallen leaf, which was manipulated by huge waves and fell from the crest of the wave to the bottom, and was sent from the bottom of the wave to the peak.

If the passengers of the ship are unable to hold themselves, they will either be injured by the collision with the ship's equipment, or they will be thrown out of the boat and disappear into the waves. The sailors on the ship, in such a situation, also need to divide their energy to control the ship and avoid the ship from capsizing.

It was the first time for Li Dingguo to experience such a thrilling battle, and every time the sailors in this field of vision moved, they were gambling with their lives. If you are not careful, you will either be swept off the boat by a broken cable, or you will be injured by a barrel or block that is not secured.

This is not the same thing as the land combat he studied in the military academy, at least their opponents are still flesh and blood people who know what fear is. These sailors are faced with the power of nature that will never be feared, and you will never see your hope of victory until the storm rests.

The courage shown by the sailors in this storm made Li Dingguo slightly change his attitude towards them, admitting that these people were not the hooligans and scoundrels who bullied the weak and feared the hard as he had in his impression, because they couldn't get along in their hometown, so they went to the sea to beg for a living. This distorted impression in Li Dingguo's mind naturally came from his former head of family, Xia Yunyi from Shanghai.

As an official family whose hometown is close to the sea, the biggest threat to them is pirates, especially the Japanese who once made the entire southeast people smell. And without the addition of the Ming sailors and ship owners, the Japanese would not have been able to reach the power that swept the southeast coast.

Although Xia Yunyi was not prejudiced against overseas trade, he was very uninterested in sailors and ship owners who went to sea. He believes that these people dare to risk their lives to go to sea to trade on ships, and once their business fails, they will not take risks and simply start trading at sea without capital.

Therefore, when business is going well, these people are good citizens and maritime merchants. But when they run into problems, these people are thieves who make money and kill at sea. Therefore, the state encourages foreign trade, because it is conducive to the country to draw wealth and various goods from overseas. But at the same time, the state should also strictly supervise these shipowners and maritime merchants to prevent them from causing greater harm at sea.

It is precisely because of Xia Yunyi's attitude that Li Dingguo has no good impression of the navy and sailors, not to mention that many naval cadet officers, including Zheng Sen, do have such and such relationships with the pirates who were recruited.

However, after this terrible storm, he finally changed some of his prejudices about the profession of sailor. Not to mention, people on the same boat rescued each other in a storm, and no one at that time would have distinguished who was in the army and who was in the navy. So when the fleet broke through the storm and entered the safety of Yangon Harbor, the young officers on both sides finally stopped being so-for-tat.

The fleet rested in Yangon Harbor for nearly ten days, partly to check the condition of the ships and to wait for good weather before going to sea. This season is the rainy season in Myanmar, and it basically rains every other day, sometimes for a day or two.

Therefore, even if the personnel of the fleet go ashore, they can basically only stay in the room and do nothing. However, for a young man like Li Dingguo, who couldn't bear the loneliness, after two days of quiet rest in Yangon, he couldn't help but wander around the city in the rain.

As a city converted from a fishing village, Yangon's location is actually quite good. The city is actually a plateau surrounded by three rivers, with plains to the east, south and west, and gentle Yangon Hills to the north. As a result, there is no water in the city after a rainstorm.

In this way, residents living in cities do not have to deal with sanitation and mosquito breeding problems caused by stagnant water. Don't underestimate this, Yangon is more livable than many of the surrounding areas in this day and age. For example, Chittagong and Kolkata, north of Yangon, have good port conditions, but because they are surrounded by swamps, they often have outbreaks of epidemics, and until now they have not been able to form the atmosphere of a commercial center city.

Yangon has only been built for four or five years, and the city's prosperity has faintly caught up with the prosperity of Saliem, which is just across the river. Of course, in the eyes of the newcomer Li Dingguo, the city is still too simple. Not only is it far inferior to the cities in China, but even the city of Malacca is not comparable.

The outer walls of the city are still wooden fences and filling, which can only deal with thieves with cold weapons, and it is estimated that one shot can be shot through in the face of warships equipped with artillery. Although the layout of the interior of the city is not bad, the streets are too wide and straight, which is completely unfavorable for the defenders to defend. If a strong enemy is attacked from the sea, it will probably have to rely on a few buildings on the high ground north of the city to support each other.

As for the population of the city, although there are already thousands of residents, the proportion of Ming people is less than 20%, which is comparable to the population of other countries, but far less than the locals. In Li Dingguo's view, this is also a rather unstable factor.

After going around for two or three days, he visited the small city of Yangon, but Li Dingguo patronized and measured Yangon's military defense capability, and he didn't remember what special products the city had.

In Zheng Sen's eyes, Yangon is a different story, although there are many locals here, the Arakan people who believe in Islam are completely incompatible with the Burmese and Mon people who believe in Buddhism, and there is no sign that the two sides have been in the same country. And for the first time in his journey from Nanyang, he came across a city where non-Muslim believers were in the majority, which surprised him.

In addition to the religious situation in the city, Zheng Sen's main concern is the business situation in the city. Although this season may not seem conducive to foreign merchant ships, the shops in Yangon City are still full of specialties from all over the Indian Ocean.

Although Zheng Sen just walked around, he also found that the variety of goods here is not much less than that of Malacca City, but the goods from Daming are less than half of the total, and in the east of Malacca City, it will not be less than sixty percent. In second place are goods from mainland India, followed by goods from Myanmar and finally some goods from the South Seas and Europe.

Whether it was Li Dingguo or Zheng Sen, after they visited the city, they all subconsciously decided that Yangon was really the first point west of Malacca City. If a European or an Indian wants to get into the Strait of Malacca, they must first get to Rangoon and get logistical resources there. Similarly, if the Ming wants to cross the Strait of Malacca and exert influence in the direction of the Indian Ocean, then Yangon is also a most important support point.

It was indeed a fortunate thing that the Ming Dynasty was able to occupy this place first and set up a governor's palace to govern the Burmese region. As for what they had heard after they came ashore, the small clash that broke out between the governor's palace and the Mon chieftain, neither of them took it to heart. If the generals of the Ming Dynasty had to be good gentlemen overseas, then this Yangon city might not have been established at all. Then when their storm-ridden fleet arrives in Rangoon, it will be up to them to see if they can repair their ships and supply them with food and water. Putting the lives of the Ming soldiers in the hands of others is undoubtedly the biggest irresponsibility to the Ming soldiers.

While these young officers were wandering around, Lieutenant Colonel Li You, the deputy of the mission, as the actual person in charge of the mission, was not idle. In the past few days on the shore, he mainly communicated with Su Yue and Wang Jiayin, and learned from them about the situation around Burma, the situation in India, the movements of the Indian Governorate led by Tang Wang, and some geographical and cultural conditions. Compared with the information he had, it was obvious that these two people had more information in their hands and more up-to-date.

When the weather finally began to clear and the Ming fleet finally continued its journey, the fleet had almost doubled in size. Some merchant ships that were originally stranded in Yangon, after hearing that the Ming fleet was going to continue north to the Indian mainland, asked to pass with the fleet.

After all, in the Bay of Bengal to the north, it is now a pirate's paradise. However, with the influx of Ming forces, the pirates in this area no longer dare to attack merchant ships flying the flag of the sun, moon and stars. And now this Daming fleet, which is only preparing to go north, in addition to four merchant ships, there are two warships to escort it, and it is obviously safer to follow them north.

After consulting with the fleet commander, Li You decided to allow the merchant ships to follow the fleet, but also warned the owners of these ships not to flee without permission when they encountered pirates, otherwise they would be regarded as pirates' internal response and attacked by warships.

Perhaps the bad luck had been shaken off in the Andaman Sea, and the fleet went quite smoothly for the rest of the voyage. Except for a day or two of drizzle, most of the time it was a sunny day with a slight west wind. After a two-day stay at Chittagong, the fleet continued its journey west to mainland India along the endless mangrove forests of the Bay of Bengal.

After four days of sailing, at the end of the mangrove forest finally appeared a large lake with no end in sight, which was the mouth of the Hooghly River, a large estuary shaped like a trumpet. About 160 kilometers up the river is Port Hooghly. On the opposite bank, 10 kilometres downstream of Hooghly Harbour, the area surrounded by the villages of Calikata, Sudonuti and Grepindapur was the land given to the Ming by the Mughal emperors, the new port and trading city known as Kolkata.

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