It is said that in 2000, the Swedes found an ancient Swedish ship in the strait, and quickly organized domestic experts to prepare for salvage research. The Danes didn't know how the news was known, so a Danish diver sneaked into the icy bottom of the sea and put a replica of the Danish crown on the deck of the ship. This annoyed the Swedish government, and although the crown was quickly identified as a modern imitation, it was disgusting. It's like when the Chinese government salvaged a Song Dynasty shipwreck in the South China Sea, it suddenly found a portrait of a South Korean president in the shipwreck.

"They were merchant ships from Copenhagen to Edinburgh, loaded with dried fish, furs, resin, beeswax, copper, tin, beeswax and staves in exchange for local wool and woollen wool." As the Golden River was about to enter the waters of the two-cargo, and ships flying the Red Cross flag could be encountered on the surface of the sea every day, Hong Tao couldn't help but be curious, intercepted a very Nordic slurry sailing ship, and then dragged Friedrich II up from the bilge as an interpreter, so as to avoid a massacre and figure out their trade routes and cargo. These Norsemen were indeed fierce, and when they encountered a huge sailing ship like the Golden River, they were still not convinced, and each of them had an axe and a shield in his hand, and if the emperor had not repeatedly emphasized that he would not rob, those axes would have been thrown up.

"I'm not going to Copenhagen, I can't guarantee your safety, not even my own!" When Hong Tao proposed to go to Copenhagen and let the emperor pay his respects to the hometown of his ancestors, Friedrich II very firmly rejected the suggestion. It seems that he still knows a lot about the urine nature of his ancestors, and these people probably won't recognize him as a relative.

"Then you can help me tell them to look for the trademark of the mouse head. I'll be back next year. Will bring more wine. Swap with them! Hong Tao felt that what the emperor said was also a little reasonable, there is no chivalry here, and if you don't deal with it with a word, you may start fighting, and it is really not safe to go ashore. If you say that you are the emperor, you have to be believed. But Hong Tao couldn't come in vain, he gave the captain of the merchant ship two jars of rum, and then made a point of emphasizing the trademark. For the Nordic people who are addicted to alcohol, high rum is the essence of the elixir. Even if you don't have anything to change, you can change some slaves and go back to Carl as a soldier. There is no harm in having good relations with them, because Beihai itself cannot take care of it for the time being, and there will be no conflict of interest with their country.

Further north along the west coast of Norway, the temperature is getting colder and colder, and the sails are frozen to a plank when you wake up. The sailors on the ship were also a little overwhelmed, they were used to tropical life, although they had also been to Bohai Bay in winter, but the temperature here was obviously much lower than that of Bohai, and several crew members began to have low-grade fever due to the problem of keeping warm. The bottom of the boat also began to slowly seep water. It seems that the safety limit of the Jinhe is only 70 degrees north latitude, and if you go to a higher latitude, you will not dare to guarantee the safety of the ship.

"Don't look at it. You can't take it with you, the guy is only one percent out of the water, and it's useless to ask for so many ice cubes, and it's all melted before you can get home. Like all southerners who had just seen ice and snow, Friedrich II was very interested in icebergs, and every day he took time out of his day to go out on the deck and touch around with his binoculars, shouting at every sight of an ice floe, and sometimes asking sailors to take him in a dinghy to see it, and then knock some ice back and put it in a barrel to hide it in the dissecting room of the cabin. He had a good time, but Hong Tao was very uncomfortable, it was summer, and a lot of ice floes drifted south along the current, and the Jinhe had to become a Titanic if he was not careful.

"What an amazing place, with such a big block of ice! You've been here, or how do you know? Friedrich II was cowered in the sailor's fur trousers, his nose was as cold as a carrot, his snot was running out of his beard, and he held a piece of ice in his hand, and licked it from time to time.

"As my teacher told me, there are many teachers in the place where I was born, and they have traveled the whole world, but unfortunately my hometown was flooded by the sea, and I only learned a little bit." Here it is again, Hong Tao has made up this set of nonsense all the way to Europe, it should be regarded as the most upscale lie in history, right? Both the emperors of the East and the West have been deceived by him, and they don't know how many years they will be deceived.

"It's a shame you didn't bring their books out?" The emperor didn't seem to question Hong Tao's lies, in fact, it was the most logical to say this, or he couldn't explain why Hong Tao, who was about the same age as him, knew so many things. In reality, many things are like this, and often lies sound the most reasonable, but telling the truth seems very untrue.

"I was on the ship at the time, and the ship also sank in a great storm, and it was the people of my country who rescued me from the sea, and in order to repay them, I became their leader." Hong Tao also said that he was addicted, and when he talked about the miserable place, he had to make his tone more desolate, and he almost lost crocodile tears.

"God will bless their ......" Friedrich II was really moved by Hong Tao's description, and his original enthusiasm was gone, and he threw the ice in his hand to the side of the ship, rubbed his hands and walked towards the hatch. I don't know if Hong Tao's words reminded him of the feeling of not being cared for by his parents since he was a child, anyway, he was very lonely when he looked at his back.

The Golden River made a direct U-turn in the waters of western Norway, and sailed back to the English Channel at high speed by the northeast wind, and briefly surveyed the waters east of England along the way. As for the whole picture of the British Isles, the Golden River alone cannot complete the surveying and mapping work, so it will have to wait for more ships of the Golden River Bay system to come and do this work while doing business, and there is no need to make special arrangements. It is the job of each navigator and second officer to establish marine hydrographic data, whether they are on a warship or a merchant ship, they will record the data of each voyage and send it to the Jinhewan Library, where there are special personnel responsible for counting these data, and finally summarizing them to Hongtao. Hong Tao's task is to turn this data into nautical charts when he is sailing, which is more and more detailed and accurate.

At the end of June, the Jinhe returned to the port of Rena, saw off the emperor, picked up Luo Youde and Hong Salamander, and a bunch of gifts from Friedrich II to Hong Tao, and began to return after making supplies. The first stop was Fort Karl, but Carl was not there, and he went out to sea with a converted whaling ship, only Yellow Cliff and his Malacca were still wandering around the bay. When the Malacca went to the port of Ceuta to replenish, Hong Tao inspected Karl up and down again to confirm that there were no hidden dangers missing, so he arranged for the 50 craftsmen who stayed on the ship, and left a letter for Carl, which was nothing more than a reminder not to go too far to the sea, not to run around in normal times, and to wait patiently for him to come back with a new warship next year.

In early July, the Golden River and the Malacca left Karburg in pairs, burrowed out of the Strait of Gibraltar, turned south, and disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, Carl's whaling ship was dragging a whale northward more than thirty nautical miles east of the Golden River, but unfortunately on the sea, this is the distance between the two boundless, and no one found anyone, so he staggered by. This miss may be a year or two, or it may be a lifetime, and this is the life of a crew.

After forty days of sailing, the Golden River and Malacca returned to the port of Cape Town, where they stayed for only two days for supplies, and then Hong Tao hurried out of the small kingdom of the Governor of Medini with the fleet and set out on his journey home. In the past two days, Hong Tao rearranged the work of Martini for the next half year or so. The first is to mine gold, whether it is digging or sifting from the river, anyway, the gold is very much, the more the merrier. The second is the expansion of the docks and shipyards, as well as the construction of two batteries and a lighthouse on Signal Hill, which must be completed by May next year, when the Grand Fleet will dock there. Finally, there is the agricultural project, vigorously develop sugarcane cultivation, enough food to eat, and then start to produce white sugar and rum, as much as you can get, Europeans' preference for sweets is not a star, and the demand for alcohol is also unimaginably strong, these two things alone are enough to make a fortune. As for the silk, porcelain, tea, spices, cosmetics and other goods are high-end goods, can not be trafficked too much at one time, must reflect the scarcity of high-end goods, otherwise the price will plummet, the gains outweigh the losses.

The manpower problem for the development of these projects was left to Medini, whether it was to grab, rob, buy, or exchange, without affecting the stability of Cape Town's rule. Whatever people complain about, Hong Tao promised to carry it for Medini, as long as he lives for one day, he will never let others trouble Medini because of this matter.

The voyage from Cape Town to Golden River Bay was generally smooth, and there were no extreme weather and sea conditions, but there was one thing that made Hong Tao break out in a cold sweat, infectious disease! It could be dysentery, it could be cholera, or it was vomiting and diarrhea. This situation first happened from the Yellow Cliff ship, this guy was so bold that he didn't report to Hong Tao at the first time, and when there were more than ten patients in a row, he panicked and had to notify the flagship.

The contagion was eventually brought under control, but the methods used by Hong Tao were very cruel. He put all the sick people in the bilge of the Malacca, strictly disinfected and quarantined, and no one was allowed to come into contact with them except for sending someone to bring them food. Moreover, all the fresh water and food on the Malacca were thrown into the sea, and more than 400 people on the two ships lived on the Jinhe for their lives, and they were not even allowed to catch seafood.

(To be continued.) )