In the clear sky, the turbulent and tumbling sea, a fleet of ships is slowly draining away, out of the fleeting trail of the first line, in the monotonous scenery with only the two colors of the sky and the sea, all show the insignificance and helplessness of this human creation,

Only when you look closely, you can find that the full sails and the rattling masts that are being pulled are jumping over the peaks of one wave after another with the greatest strength.

In the undulating and swaying, the white waves and foam that constantly beat the hull of the ship and make a trembling vibration, and the flocks of gulls chasing around the boat, like shallow clouds, float over the fleet, all remind us of the unpredictable reality of the sea

We were on a group of ships transporting heavy loads, and as a backup for this time, there were about 20,000 people of different numbers, scattered among dozens of large and small sea boats, half of which were unarmed recruits who were supplemented by front-line soldiers.

However, as my subordinates, most of them have no lack of experience in crossing by boat, so their mental condition seems to be acceptable, except for the group of people who have come from martial arts, including Xin Jiaxuan, their faces are almost pale, and they can only lie down or sit, drinking some sugar water from time to time to slowly get used to it.

In contrast, the recruits recruited by Dongsandao were miserable, and it was said that their boat was so foul-smelling that the cabin was almost a sea of vomit, and some people vomited and vomited, and they fell headlong into the sea, and they couldn't get it out.

As one of the harshest living conditions in the Age of Discovery with Chinese characteristics, the sailor's sea ship can undoubtedly be selected as the top few, and even once ranked above the black-hearted plantation owners who treated cheap feudal slaves as consumables.

The first thing a ship did as soon as it came ashore was that a sailor with a heavily armed sailor went to pull sheep and raise people's heads, hooligans and ruffians and scoundrels, and even prisoners in prisons.

Therefore, for a long time, these fleets of sailors who sailed away became a gathering place for all kinds of scum and lower limits, and it was not until the decades before the establishment of the Southern Dynasties that this view and prejudice were slowly reversed due to the influx of a large number of Nantou people into the mountains and a sufficient source of Chinese people. Therefore, among the sailors, there are also many so-called descendants of the northerners.

But in any case, as a hard-hit area for skin diseases and chronic arthritis, there is no shortage of miraculous rumors and anecdotes such as rats smoked to death by the stench, wonderful maggot biscuits, barrels of soup filled with crustacean protein deposits, meat products that look like real wood and stone are useless, and so on.

In contrast, what I provided to the Marines was really a conscientious product of good quality and low price, at least with the ingredients of real meat or substitutes, and thus offended the interests of many traditional sailor underwriters and merchants, and caused a lot of trouble.

Because the first expedition, the sea channel has been cleared by the escort sailors, so this time there is no use of the sailor's troop carriers, but directly requisition low-cost civilian ships to undertake the task of follow-up transportation, so there are both large and small ships, of course, the ride comfort, the bigger the better, if unfortunately assigned to a smaller ship, then you can fully experience the fun of the sea roller coaster.

For example, the Flying Fish ship I am in is one of the best, and it is also the most economical general-purpose ship type between Tiannan Prefecture and Guangzhou, which can carry cargo and passengers.

Regardless of the living conditions, it could carry up to more than 500 people, or more than a thousand stone of goods, and if it was used for slave trade, it could be loaded even more, as long as it was regularly watered and fed.

Therefore, this time, more than 300 people and their accompanying baggage were loaded, which was already extremely crowded and noisy.

Of course, as the chief officer, I could have a separate cubicle at the stern, and although it was just as noisy because of the proximity to the rudder, at least there was a little bit of privacy and personal space, and the others had to rest like sardines in the dirty air in the lower cabin.

So I will go down to the cabin from time to time to check, although there is no substantial improvement, but it can play a psychological role. Although there are cooks on board, they can only meet the needs of a few people for simple hot food, so most people can only nibble on rough cakes soaked in water, and barely maintain their appetite with a little pickle.

In contrast, my family's own conditions are better, according to the minimum amount of each person, bring a handful of plums, a little tea powder, if in a piece of seaweed or fish floss-flavored compressed rations, and can be used to soak in water, non-commissioned officers and above every five people also have a jar of salted candied fruit and hard erection enema,

For most of the voyage, there were no clouds, and the skin of the people who ate the fruit and dried in the sun was red and stinging, and then they were numb and unconscious by the sea breeze, and the next day they found that a layer of dead skin had receded.

But I still insisted on taking them on the deck to take turns to exercise their balance and physical fitness, and the team formed a formation and watched the air to get used to it, and then on the fourth day, I and a few people were already on the deck, shooting seagulls with long guns to practice, and by the way, we drank the seabird soup that didn't taste very good, because the bird meat was too woody and tough.

Although there were only 1,500 troops with me in this dispatch, the impact and follow-up seemed to have far exceeded my expectations.

In fact, after the news spread, many visitors came at once, including even wealthy merchants and seafarers from the rich areas of East Borneo, but they valued this Tiannan expedition as an investment or risk speculation.

This is also the predecessor of the Southern Dynasty, the historical tradition and practice of the Nanhai Governor's Mansion to open the sea for hundreds of years.

Because, of course, the battlefield is a sword and arrows without eyes, but there is also no lack of large-scale, one day on the loose consumer group, if lucky, the source of goods is almost no capital robbery, and after a good relationship, it has monopoly and profiteering. In particular, the slave trade business that was developed abroad in the early days.

It is more about the enormous benefits that can be achieved by maintaining a longer relationship with the garrison after the war, and in the redistribution and reconstruction of local land and property.

Cai Liao, the old minister in charge of the Borneo Association, unsurprisingly became my general contractor, and then split it into sub-items, paid to accept the manpower of all parties, and contributed money and materials to form a small mixed caravan, and brought his own sea ships to follow him.

As soon as I have good news sent back in Tiannan, there will be more people who will form a group to go over and brush up on the copy, yes, it's looking for business opportunities.

In fact, a small half of this boat group is a merchant ship that follows up with various names, as the world's first sea port, the business atmosphere and complex engraved in the bones of the Cantonese people can be seen.

Then the day before departure, I unexpectedly saw the little fat man Zheng Zhou who came to visit,

"You want to be my military merchant? ……”

I asked, surprised.

"Don't you know that all the rights and interests belong to the Borneo Association......

"The little one doesn't dare to ask for too much, but I just hope that I can follow it and put a name on it......"

"There will be no ...... that conflicts with the interests of the domain."

The business he wants to do does not conflict with most people, that is, the old business of catching and killing people. And the battlefield is undoubtedly one of the best sources.

With the sound of trumpets and the sound of cannons on the shore, my memories were interrupted, and it also reminded us that after several days of sailing, we had arrived at our preliminary destination, and the green coastline of Tiannan Prefecture was in sight.

Based on my previous homework,

In the Qin and Han dynasties, it belonged to Xianglin County under the fetters of Rinan County. Until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xianglin County Gongcao's son District Kui killed the county order to claim himself as the king, the beginning of the construction of the city state, spanning hundreds of years, after the ups and downs of several dynasties, and finally with the Taixing period, the surrender of the Zhuge clan of the king of Linyi Huan, it became the hinterland of the Nanhai Governor's Mansion.

Tiannan Prefecture is located in the Jiujiang Plain, an important town in the essence of the Jiujiang Plain, the Jiulongjiang Plain, as the name suggests, is an alluvial plain formed by the nine tributaries of the Chishui River (Red River) flowing out of the sea.

It is mainly composed of three major parts of the Qianjiang Plain, the Houjiang Plain and the Tongtamei Plain, between the Qianjiang River and the Houjiang River is thousands of miles of fertile plain, the river canals are dense like spider webs, and the small boat is the main means of transportation.

To the north of Qianjiang and to the west is the Tongtamei Plain, which is actually a swampy area, with a vast ocean in the rainy season, the water depth is several feet, and the water is knee-deep in the dry season, rich in lotus, lotus root and floating rice with high yield;

With the abundance and prolific land of the two rivers and three plains, it is easy to gather millions of households, and almost everywhere are granges and plantations, and the towns and villages are densely populated and prosperous.

Therefore, even in the later generations of my time and space, it was the richest region in South Vietnam, and it was also a world-famous rice-producing area, where 6%-70% of South Vietnam's agricultural population was concentrated.

In addition, it is not surprising that Tiannan Prefecture itself, located at the critical point of the two rivers and three plains, is the hub of the Chishui (Mekong) estuary delta, and an important coastal sea and land transit point of the Indochina Peninsula, so it is not surprising that it was directly classified as the direct leader of the state, and then arranged for one of the four major public families to guard it for a long time.

We entered the Vung Tau Port, which belongs to Jianzhou, and is also one of the three ports on the periphery of Tiannan Prefecture.

Outside the low walls of the port city, there are dense mud and straw houses, mixed with stilted bamboo houses, occasionally mixed with beams and timber elevated like round towers, Zhu depicts the Buddhist temple decorated with gold and bronze tops, which looks full of a certain tropical style and the charm of the foreign Buddhist country.

In the port city, it is full of all kinds of eaves and black tiles, bucket arches of typical Tang style buildings, arches standing in the market, high-rise buildings in the market, and high-walled mansions with continuous houses, all of which show a certain taste since ancient times.

It was another chaotic time to organize the landing, and only then did we find out the vast majority of the people from the surging crowd and the chaotic shouts and greetings, and then find the battalion officer to arrange the lodging place, and take the ship's license plate to unload the baggage and livestock.

In the end, there was still a shortage of some supplies, and one of the large animals died, which could only be used as a meal, and the others were a little sick, and they needed to recuperate for a while before they could be used again.

But no matter what, I still set up my flag behind the battlefield for the first time.

The flag that was held high in the wind was full of a certain handmade taste, and it also attracted a lot of attention,

In addition to the basic banner of "Longzhou Regiment Left", I also have to have a personal logo, as a parallel flag of the Chinese army, at least until the means of instant communication are popularized to the squad platoon, the various representative numbers and banners, as well as the corresponding command flags, have always been active on the stage of history.

As for what flag is good for individuals, in a small area of the house, some kind of democratic vote was held. In the end, it was decided that it was this kind of thing that was a bit of a trick, five ink balls with one large, four small and half rings.

It is to let each of them draw a pattern, and then repeatedly revise it and are not satisfied, and finally angrily smear it out of the heart, and in the end it is left, it looks like a cat has just stepped on the paw prints, and then Cui Juanting, the only one who can point to female red, hurriedly embroidered the edges with gold and red silk threads, which does not look like the product of graffiti.

Well, no one will recognize it but me, it's a cat's paw flag, I consoled myself.

Although I personally feel that the scale of selling shade is slightly higher, but mixed with at least a dozen regimental training, volunteers, township soldiers, volunteers, etc. in different places, those colorful flags, are a little less eye-catching.

I even saw a scorpion that was obviously hand-painted crooked, or a so-called horse-head flag that looked like a wild boar, which made me feel a lot more balanced.