More than ten nautical miles away, it is indeed a fleet, and this fleet is mainly composed of various ships of different sizes. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info These heads are relatively sharp and the tail is wide, and the two heads are high, and the two heads are the most favorite ships of all forces on the surface of the South China Sea, and the tonnage of this kind of ship can be large or small, and the manufacturing difficulty is not large, and the cost is relatively low. Because of their large length and width, they have the natural advantage of navigating smoothly on the sea. Although they have a weakness against wind and waves, at this time, it is enough for the Wu Dynasty maritime merchants who can only sail close to the coast to carry out offshore navigation, and it is a big deal to dock the ship. There are also some problems with these ships, such as the use of most of the hard sails, although they can get a certain advantage when the wind can be used, but the retracting of the sails is quite laborious, time-consuming, it is extremely difficult to repair after being damaged in battle, and it is difficult to extinguish after a fire. The biggest problem is that the shape of the ship is basically close to a rectangle when looking down, and the aspect ratio is relatively large, which is equivalent to a large shoebox, so it limits the bulwark of the hull not to be too high, so as not to cause the danger of unstable center of gravity. This also limits the ability to install artillery on the Fu ship, unlike the battleships of Medeno, the guns of the Fu ship can only be installed on the deck, if the gun window is opened on the bulwark, it is likely to be opened and fill it with seawater, so the guns on the Fu ship are generally very few, and the most is only eight tiger squatting guns, and they cannot fire together, so as not to cause the danger of unstable center of gravity.

However, it is not only maritime merchants who use Fu ships on the surface of the South China Sea, because this kind of ship carries more cargo personnel, and the speed in the downwind situation is not unacceptable, Zhong Bin once had a pirate fleet composed of more than 150 Fu ships and Guangzhou ships at the time of the decisive battle with Liu Xianglao, which shows the degree of favor of Fu ships among pirates in the South China Sea.

At present, the scale of this fleet is not small, and it is even more laborious to sail, you must know that at this time, the driving force of navigation at sea is only wind power, except for rocking. The wind doesn't blow in just one direction, and the strength of the wind doesn't blow the way you expect, so navigating in formation has always been a hassle. As the commander of a fleet, it is necessary to pay attention not only to the direction and the reef, but also to the direction of the wind and the current, especially at night, the lookout is almost lying on the bow of the ship and staring at the ocean in front of him to avoid danger such as running aground.

The Fu ship led by this fleet is a large ship of 400 materials, with a displacement of about 250 tons and a load of only 30-40 tons, and the current speed at sea is only about three knots. A yellow mast flag hangs on the main mast of the leading ship, which is fluttering in the direction of the bow of the ship in the wind and crackling, and above the mast flag is a red and yellow flag. However, although there was a light on top of the mast at this time, it was not clear what the pattern was on the flag between the swaying of the ship.

Several people on board were standing at the stern of the boat, holding a star-pulling board and looking at the North Star, occasionally comparing a rather old-looking chart.

"Big boss, our direction is not wrong, but can we really find American maritime merchants?"

"What else are you talking about American maritime business? Doesn't it mean that they have changed their claim to be Chinese? That should be called Chinese maritime business, right? ”

"It should be, according to the chart, it should be a few hours before you can reach the 'Oriental Port' that the maritime merchant said, and it should be at dawn when you should arrive."

"I heard that maritime merchant say that Dongfang Port just dredged the waterway not long ago, and I'm afraid it's not so easy to enter the port at this time, right? We have more than a dozen boats. ”

"I asked the captain, and he said that although the port of the East is not big, there are several trestle bridges that can accommodate multiple ships loading and unloading cargo at the same time, and our more than ten ships should not have much difficulty." In addition, I heard that there is another road connecting the port of Champa in Annam, if it is really impossible to load and unload at the port of Dongfang, it should be okay to go to the port of Champa. ”

"Yes." One of them, dressed in a slightly more luxurious manner, twisted his beard and nodded. "These Chinese are quite discerning, and the location of the Oriental Port is excellent, and if the maritime merchants want to go to the South Seas or trade with China, the routes they choose must pass through the Oriental Port. Not to mention the strange goods produced by the Chinese, even if they only built an ordinary port, they could provide fresh water food for the passing ships, and after several years of development, it could become a very large port. ”

"Master, we also checked the Chinese cargo on that ship, but it seems that it is not quite the same as the last time we traded with them."

The Chinese costume man nodded, "In the past, the seafood they sold should have been sold from the mainland, so the packaging was very exquisite. However, the seafood we saw this time should have been produced by the establishment of a workshop in the Oriental Port, so the packaging was slightly simple. However, I have carefully inspected the goods, and they are indeed high-quality. ”

"Yes, and it's cheap." Someone laughed. "I really don't know how these Chinese do it, such good goods are so cheap, if they are in Wuguo, I am afraid that they will not be able to buy it at ten times the price."

"Yes," the Chinese costume man nodded again, "This is indeed something that I am very puzzled about, if these goods are produced in my martial country, not only will the size be difficult to control, but I am afraid that the quality of the goods will also be far behind." If you don't exclude the waste, I'm afraid you won't be able to make it at ten times the price. I really don't know how these Chinese produce so many goods. And listening to what the maritime merchant said, the seafood in this Oriental Port is almost as much as you want, not only by sea, but also by land, there are a large number of merchants who come to purchase, and there is no limit to procurement, which really makes me wonder about it. ”

"I'm afraid it's a demon law, right?" Someone on the side said weakly. "Listening to what the maritime merchant said, there are quite a few Chinese ships in this eastern port, which can move freely on the sea without sails and oars, and there are people who can sit on them and trample on their own vehicles, how can this kind of thing be explained if it is not a demon law?"

"Demon law?" Whispers were heard from several people. There are many sects of various religions in the country of Wu, although it is not like the slaughter of witches in ancient Britain, but they are still afraid of the demon law and stay away, at this time, since someone has proposed the demon law, it naturally makes these people a little worried.

"What's more......," the man continued, "I heard from the maritime merchant that there seems to be thaumaturgy in Dongfang Harbor, and you can know that a ship is coming from seventy or eighty miles away, and you can send a ship to intercept it, and I am afraid that you should also know that we are coming." ”

"And this?"

"Isn't it? How could anyone possibly detect a ship seventy or eighty miles away? ”

"It's not impossible." The man in the costume sighed lightly and said, "A few months ago, I dealt with the big leaders of the Chinese maritime merchants in Mingzhou City, and at that time we still had a misunderstanding, they once used a flying artifact to track me down, that artifact can fly in the air, up and down, left and right freely, not like a bird at all, but like a bee. Even with such a strange artifact, it is not impossible to find out where we are from eighty miles away. ”

If Du Yande was here, he would definitely be able to recognize this person in Chinese clothes at a glance, this is Xu Wei, the initiator of the kidnapping incident in Mingzhou City. Since Xu Wei successfully wholesaled a large number of strange goods from the Crossing Group, the Zheng Group has successfully made a lot of money from these strange goods, including flower water and cool oil. Although toilet water and perfume cannot be compared, it is better than the low price, and it is quite popular in the purchase of Medeno merchants. Cool oil is even more popular, you must know that the Maidno people have been adrift at sea for hundreds of years, fleas on sea ships have always been a major problem for seafarers, not to mention the sea cities that have been floating at sea for hundreds of years, these small iron boxes of cool oil are just used to deal with fleas are excellent medicines, put a little on the bitten bag, it can be quickly eliminated, and there will be no wound breakage, bringing them unimaginable convenience.

But when the Zheng family's fleet returned to Nanyang a month ago, it told Xu Wei something that he couldn't believe, several seaport cities in Annan already had cool oil sold at this time, and the quantity was very large, the price was cheap, and the cool oil they brought couldn't be sold at all, if it weren't for other sea goods, I was afraid that they would lose miserably. And what made them feel incredible was still to come, they continued to go south to the city of Nicaea of the Klovhans, but at this time there was already cool oil in the city of Nicaea, although the price here was close to the price they sold, but because of the large supply and the market was squeezed, still not much can be sold, and the Klovhans have just suffered a great defeat in Annam, with nearly 10,000 dead and wounded, and they have not been able to plunder any treasure, so they cannot trade at all.

Listening to the barbarians of Clovhan said that they suffered a crushing defeat under the port of Champa, more than 10,000 troops and tens of thousands of Dingkou went to attack the port of Champang, but only a few thousand people returned, although the Dingkou on hand changed a lot of food, but on the way back encountered the plague, plus the Maidno people stuck the ships transporting personnel, extorted a large amount of food from them, at this time Clovhan simply did not have enough food to feed his people, everywhere he saw the Klovhan people were slaughtering Dingkou to reduce their food consumption. Not to mention that the Klovhan people have been killed and injured by nearly 10,000 people, and their vitality is greatly injured, and there will not be much strength to invade the north in a few years, and the women and children of the Klovhan who died at home are looking for the leaders of various tribes at this time, looking for them to ask for food and pensions, many tribes have even died in the process of attacking the north, and now they are being made such a fuss, it is simply a mess of porridge, and the careerists of several tribes have organized a rebel army to prepare to attack the city of Nicaea to seize food and military power, these southern barbarians are destined to have a bad year.