The Pearl River Estuary is a large estuary with the best navigation conditions in China, but this does not mean that the Pearl River Estuary can run casually.

There are more than 100 large and small islands such as Wanshan Islands, Po Toi Islands, and Dangan Islands, and the waterways are intricate. The powerful Pearl River and the alternating monsoon winds create unpredictable currents here. The changing tides act on the reef and create a whirlpool undercurrent.

In this era, if there were no pilots, it would be a tragedy to rush into the Pearl River estuary. Beneath the calm surface of the sea lurks with rocky boulders and shallow dark sand, and under the irregular impact of strong winds, currents, and currents, ships that are not familiar with the course are waiting to be smashed on the reef.

From Macau to the icy seabed of Xiachuan Island, countless sailing ships are silent there all the time telling the difficulty of sailing at sea.

Every time I open the Portuguese Pearl River Estuary chart in front of me, I want to complain about the order. Chinese ships traveling to and from the Pearl River estuary do not need to be surveyed because they have too many pilots who are familiar with the waterways. But the Portuguese are also too bad, they have been mixed in Macao for almost a hundred years, and the hydrology of the small Pearl River Estuary has not been clear, which is really a shame for the predecessors of the navigators.

The Portuguese charts of the Pearl River Estuary were of terrible quality, and most of them were unusable. The Portuguese actually thought that the Wanshan Islands were an island belt that ran from northeast to southwest and extended for 20 leagues. Shou Xuan was shocked when he first saw this chart, and all the Portuguese captains knew nothing about the sea conditions at the mouth of the Pearl River. As soon as a ship entered the east of Lantau Island, the Portuguese would find their charts rubbish.

For 70 years, whenever the Portuguese got lost in the archipelago, they had to stop sailing, drop anchor, hoist the distress flag, and wait for the Tan people to row to rescue them. This has even developed into a regular business in the Pearl River Estuary, and the service of the Tan people is very good, they have mastered several foreign languages, and they are very fair in collecting money. Regardless of whether it was a Portuguese ship, a Dutch ship or a British ship, as long as they saw the distress flag of Yangyi, the Tan people could quickly rush to the accident site.

These Portuguese often couldn't even enter their own port of Macau, and their Galen ships were often blown by monsoons, currents and currents to Shangxiachuan Island in Xinning County, when in fact, the Portuguese originally wanted to lease Shangxiachuan Island instead of Macau Island.

The Portuguese could only sail entirely on the monsoon at the mouth of the Pearl River.

There are three ships entering and exiting the channel at the mouth of the Pearl River.

The westernmost is the Great Western Channel, which is also the main channel of the Pearl River Estuary, and the Portuguese have passed the situation in this waterway. At least they know that the monsoons, currents and currents from June to August in the Gregorian calendar open a door to the Pearl River Estuary, so they can reach the Port of Macao by choosing a breezy weather to approach the main channel outside the Pearl River Estuary to the east, marking Lao Wanshan Island, and then turning the rudder to the north, avoiding the Dahengqin Island on the west side of the channel. In other seasons, Galen ships would have had difficulty entering the Lingding Ocean due to the strong currents of the Great Western Channel.

The Great Western Waterway is the widest and deepest, but it faces many reef threats. The Portuguese did not do detailed surveys, they had to sail by experience, and the key was to grasp the timing of the rudder in each section of the voyage. If there is a mistake in the steering or bad luck, they have to retreat to Shimokawashima and try to do it again.

Because they only mastered the Great Western Passage, the Pearl River Estuary formed an iron law of monsoon for the Portuguese. From June to August every year, it enters Lingdingyang, and Guangzhou Huaiyuan Post will hold a grand Canton Fair. After the Canton Fair, the Portuguese returned to Macao for the winter, sailing out of the Pearl River estuary in February next year.

The easternmost part of the Pearl River Estuary is the Lung Kwu Waterway, located between Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island. At present, the commercial value of this waterway is not very large, and some special needs can be solved by small boats or paddle boats along the Longgu Waterway.

As far as Shou Xiang is concerned, since he does not know the sea conditions around Lantau Island, the iron law of the monsoon exists for him as well. Only 3 months a year can sail into the Pearl River estuary, and the shipping efficiency is too low.

In order to break this iron law of the monsoon, it is necessary to have complete control of the Lantau Channel, which is the pole between the Tai Western Channel and the Lung Kwu Channel.

The common feature of the Dangan and Lantau waterways is that the waterways are narrower, but the water is deeper, and there are few reefs. The Portuguese were occasionally carried into the waterway by currents, and when there were no pilots, they had to stop their boats and wait for rescue.

The first half of the stretch channel was mastered by the Chinese people very early. Both the Guide to the Fa and the Examination of the East and West have descriptions of the Rope Channel, which can guide ships to navigate, but there is no sea passage on Lantau Island that can provide a reference.

If there were no Lantau Channel, even after entering the Stretch Channel, it would still have to enter the Great Western Channel, and only half of the channel would be useless. To break the iron law of the monsoon, you can only rely on yourself to keep the order.

It is not the goal of order for one or two ships to enter the Lingding Ocean under the guidance of the Tan people, and it is not enough to even achieve the degree of "Sending the Wind to the Wind", which cannot be used as a military chart, and the order requires that the captain of the Federation who has never crossed the Pearl River can also drive the Galen warship in and out of the Pearl River estuary in the whole monsoon.

It was not easy to achieve this goal, and the draft of Galen was more than twice that of the junk, which meant that the two major waterways of the Pearl River estuary had to be completely mapped, and the water depths, reefs, and shoals of each section were all marked on the map. On an annual basis, the impact of different wind directions and tides on ocean currents and currents is recorded in detail.

It will be very painstaking surveying and mapping work, and it will take years or even decades to record.

Wang Huizhi, who had just arrived from Hong Kong Island, was very puzzled by the pursuit of order, and Lin Cha, the chief soldier of the Guangdong Naval Division, did not have many warships, and in Wang Huizhi's view, if it was a special need such as smuggling, he had a way to let the junk ships bring the goods they needed from Guangzhou through the Longgu Waterway or the Dangan Waterway, or even a route between the islands that no one knew about.

Shou Xian just smiled and did not directly answer Wang Huizhi's question. "Lord O, I need your help in this matter. In the first batch, I will send 10 students and their teachers to Lantau Island, and I need you to take care of them during this time. ”

Wang Huizhi didn't ask any more, "Don't worry, I will send a boat to them, and I will definitely let them complete the errand you assigned." ”

Shou Order's glass filled his glass with golden wine, "Thank you very much." ”

"It's too much to say thank you, and without the help of the lord of the country, I can't take Lantau Island."

Shou Xiang and Wang Huizhi gently clinked glasses and drank them all.

When Wang Huizhi left Taiwan, there were not many places he could go. The Chaozhou area was Zheng Zhilong's territory, and western Guangdong was the territory of the Tan people and Chinese pirates who relied on Annam's protection.

Wang Huizhi can only choose the Pearl River Estuary. At this time, there were many pirates at the mouth of the Pearl River, and the more famous ones were the four pirates surnamed Ma Xuansheng, Shi Bi, Xu Guixiang, and Zheng Tingqiu, the white flag pirates Huang Xin and Lin Fang, the red flag pirates Liang Biaoxiang, Liu Longsheng, Xu Guolong, and the Tanmin pirates led by Zhou Zhen, Zhou Yu brothers, and Li Weirong.

Compared with their counterparts in Fujian, the pirates at the mouth of the Pearl River were not very professional, nor did they have many political ambitions, but they were too numerous to form a grand alliance of pirates like Fujian. Pirates at the mouth of the Pearl River are content to charge protection fees, and they usually have regular business operations on shore. has never set off a monstrous wave like Zheng Yiguan, Liu Xiang, and Li Kuiqi.

To the east of Lantau Road, between Lantau Island and Hong Kong Island, the island's Lung Kwu Waterway was originally home to a group of eight thieves, i.e. pirates who robbed passing boats. Wang Huizhi relied on the arms given to him by the order, subdued these eight thieves, and occupied Lantau Island for many years.

"Lord O, I still have something to trouble you."

"Lord, please speak."

Shou Zhi got up and called Cai Yuanding and Shen Yan, who were waiting outside the house, in.

Let the two sides introduce each other, and say in order: "The lord of Da Ao helped me send them to Guangzhou City." There are arrangements in the city, you can just take them ashore. ”

"How many people are there?"

Shen Yan: "Eight people." ”

"It's a small thing, it's easy to do."

Wang Huizhi did not ask Shen Yan and his entourage what they were doing in Guangzhou, which had nothing to do with him.

In fact, Shen Yan didn't know what to do when he went to Guangzhou, he only knew that Zeng Ying told him to listen to Cai Yuanding when he arrived in Guangzhou.

This is a covert operation, and there were many similar cases in Jinyi Wei Shen Yan back then, so it's no wonder.

Shou ordered Wang Huizhi to bid farewell at Haikou, and the Guangzhou Action Team and the Pearl River Estuary Surveying and Mapping Team left Qiongzhou with his boat.

—————

Twenty days later, a huge fleet sailed into the port of Yangpu in Danzhou.

The transport fleet consists of a merchant fleet of 81 large modified Cantonese ships, of which 62 are federally owned carriers and 19 are Siamese Chinese merchant ships.

Escorting the transport ships is the main force of the Commonwealth Home Fleet. The cruisers Nanhai and Lima hoisted full flags and led four frigates and four notification ships to escort the open sea of Yangpu Port.

The Confederation Star Bird Flag and the Bundu Navy Flag were waving in the wind at the top of the mast, and the fleet opened all its cannon doors, and more than 100 light and heavy cannons and long guns showed their powerful force to the outside in a straightforward manner.

Excellence foredeck. Although she was over the age of six, Zeng Ying was excited like a child at this time.

At the port of Yangpu, the convoy unloaded 60 Indian Katiawa stallions, 100 4-pounder and 6-pounder cannons, and 100 tons of saltpeter.

In exchange for it, the 180,000 quintals of sugar, brown sugar and rock sugar that the Lei Qiong Second Mansion has hoarded so far. Among them, the 80,000 quintals of Leizhou sugar deducted by Zeng Ying were not robbed by him, and the cost price of the purchase had to be returned to the businessmen after the purchase. Zeng Ying's hoarding plan has not yet been fully completed, the sugar squeezing season has long ended, and the unfinished part needs to be worked on in the second half of the year.

In the earth-shattering salute, Shou ordered to say goodbye to Zeng Ying, "Zhongcheng, please believe that we will be able to hold Qiongzhou." ”

Two lines of tears flowed from the corners of the old man's eyes, "In the corner of the southern sky, I swear to defend it for the country." ”

……

The South Sea Command Module.

Commander of the convoy Grenville. Collingwood, Captain Philip of the Lima. Edward, Captain Thomas of the South Seas. Mellot, with the captain of the escort army, Carl. Langemann sat around the round table.

Shou Xiang first asked the Army, "Carl, how many people did the Army transfer in the end?" ”

Cal. Langemann: "Your Excellency, the army is very tight, and the military budget is not much. Only 3 second-class companies went out with the army, and there were 4 volunteer companies. ”

The second-class company is a compulsory soldier company, which can be said to be a recruit who has just completed primary training, but what is the matter with the volunteer company?

Langemann smiled, "Your Excellency, you have brought back a lot of loot from your previous voyages back from China. This time, the scale of our dispatch was so large, several leaders of the Meng nationality in China and many old brothers gathered more than 400 people to hand over to me, all wanting to make some money. ”

Collingwood: "The Catholic community also sent 100 people, and if we didn't control it, I'm afraid there would be more." ”

So that's the case, Shou Xuan glanced at the officers, "Do you think so too?" ”

The excited expressions on the faces of several people told the answer. Taiwan's three giants have made some fortunes in the past few years, which is the envy of China.

It's a bit stressful to keep orderly. Regardless of the population that will inevitably emigrate every time, the grain transactions between Taiwan and the two banks in Nanyang, and the dispatch of these warships and officers and men in front of him means that he has to earn 100,000 taels of silver on the mainland before he can give an account of his past.

The battleship formation was reassigned and divided into combat detachment and escort detachment.

The Guardian takes the Nanhai as the flagship, and Harris is the first captain of the flagship, that is, the chief of staff of the fleet.

Thomas Mello served as commander of the squadron of frigates of the combat fleet, the flagship was the Baiyunshan, and the captain of the Nanhai was replaced by Gardner.

The combat detachment includes 2 cruisers, 4 frigates, 1 notification ship.

Collingwood took the frigate Yuexiu as the flagship, and led the Storm, the Excellence and two notification ships to form a transport fleet to directly escort the detachment.

After the regrouping of the fleet, it sailed out of Yangpu Port and turned northwest through the Qiongzhou Strait.

Three days later, the notification ship Tanjiang, located on the outermost side of the right flank of the fleet, fired its guns and hoisted the signal flag.

Orderly pulled out the binoculars in the stern.

"Enemy ships are in sight."