Ironclad ship "Indomitable", cadet cabin.

"I can't live this day!"

"Tossing all day, another month like this, it's so dead!"

"I knew that staying abroad was so hard, it was better not to come!"

"Our Harbour Master School is taught by the French, so there are not so many stinky rules, how did it come to the British and become so tormenting? Besides, we have already learned some of the lessons, so why should we go to the English and suffer twice? ”

Lying on his bed, Wu Yingke listened to the other students secretly complaining, but he did not interject.

"What nonsense are you talking about? If that little foreign ghost slave hears it, it will inevitably be twenty push-ups again! ”

"Yes! That little foreign ghost slave is arrogant all day long, and he will be unhappy if he doesn't toss us for a moment, do you want to teach him a lesson? ”

"I think it's okay! A child cub, not as old as us, why do you ride on our heads and do a good job? ”

"Boss Du, you say, should we beat him up?"

Du Jipeng, who was called "Boss Du", listened to the words of the students, remembered the sins he had suffered in the past few days, and his face became gloomy.

Before Du Jipeng became a pilot student of the Ship Master Academy, he had practiced martial arts, and ordinary gangsters were not his opponents. He once went to the martial arts exam, but because the bow and arrow were not good, he was defeated, but at least the foundation of martial arts was laid, and once he went out and fought with thieves and beat the thieves away. Later, an officer of the defense battalion of the Fuzhou Youth Brigade saw that he had some ability, and he was well-versed in literature and ink. So he was put into the camp and became a small leader. But then he felt that he was not bored, so he used the excuse of going back to the path of the imperial examination. Discharged from the army again.

The reason why he was admitted to the Ship Master Academy was completely an idea of Du Jipeng when he was bored.

Maybe it was because he missed the years in the youth hostel defense camp, or maybe he was tired of the days when he was full of food and doing nothing all day, he saw that the Harbour Master Academy recruited students, no tuition, and free room and board, and he could become an official after completing his studies. On a whim, I signed up for the exam.

But he did not expect that he would travel all the way to the British warship. Suffer such a sin.

The two students who spoke just now, one named Liu Chuanjin and the other named Kong Dache, each of whom was admitted to the Ship Master Academy with a different purpose. For example, Liu Chuanjin's wish is to become a pipe belt. so that he can put on an official hat and go back to glorify his ancestors, and Kong Dache simply wants to fill his stomach, marry a mother-in-law, and give birth to a bunch of babies.

Among the students, Wu Yingke's identity is somewhat special, he is not like the three of them are all from Fujian, he is from Sihui, Guangdong, and once studied in a school run by Jesuit missionaries in the United States. He is proficient in English, but he cannot afford to take the imperial examination because of his poor family. I had no choice but to go out of the way and enter the Ship Master School.

"Hey, you dare to say such a thing, and you are found to be punished with twenty push-ups." Wu Yingke said coldly on the side.

Liu Chuanjin covered his mouth violently and stood aside helplessly. "Don't be nervous, I'm not an instructor." The young man, who was slightly taller than Liu Chuanjin, smiled and waved his hand.

Their instructor was a British officer named Jericho, and although he was also very strict with them, he was relatively old, unlike his deputy named Chen Wei, who was a little too harsh.

"Remember, this is not a good hall, but purgatory." On the first day of his arrival, Jericho roared at the twelve freshmen of the Qianguo Nation in front of him, and the flying spit stars were like a gust of rain. "If you want to be a glorious Royal Navy soldier, I promise you will make life worse than death every day."

"I'll have to be fed." Liu Chuanjin deliberately muttered in the Qianguo Hokkien dialect, but he heard it to the kid named Chen Wei.

"I'm afraid you won't even have the strength to eat." Kong Dache whispered, it doesn't matter what he said, he got into trouble.

"Speak privately without asking for consent, twenty push-ups!" Chen Wei glared at them angrily, "Why are you two sticking logs there?" ”

"Answering the instructor's voice like a sheep calling, punish twenty push-ups!"

"Chest and abdomen, can't even stand upright? Twenty push-ups! Right away! ”

"Look at your listlessness, didn't you wake up? Twenty push-ups! ”

"No grinding, you, you, you, and you, twenty push-ups!"

"Twenty push-ups! Need a reason? ”

After this tossing and turning, every time it was time to rest, the students lay on their backs on the bed, their eyes closed in infinite pain, and their hands and legs were swollen and painful as if they were about to crack. Although it was only a little more than a month, they felt that they had done all the physical work of their life.

"That bastard...... "Liu Chuanjin stuffed bread into his mouth.

Wu Yingke raised his head, "Actually, it's still good to exercise more, at least your body shape is much better than when you first came." ”

Liu Chuanjin muttered, carefully sticking the squirted bread crumbs with his fingers and sending them back to his mouth.

Kong Dache took out a bottle of rum from his bag and drank it himself.

The only thing they didn't complain about on the "Indomitable" was the food on the warship.

Because by now, the era of the British Royal Navy chewing hard dough biscuits and eating "zombie meat" the next day is over.

Since the British Navy began to dominate the ocean, a pound of hard biscuits a day began to accompany sailors, more than two centuries have not changed much, because the conditions on the ship are poor, there is no way to bake bread, only into the port to have soft bread, generations of sailors are gnawing hard biscuits to fight the enemy, hard biscuits have no technical content, as long as water, whole wheat flour, salt is dispensable, after all, salt will absorb moisture, not good for preservation, although there is no taste, but the nutrition is not bad, protein and calories are quite high, As merchants cut corners for more money, the British Navy had to bake their own biscuits and put the logo of the crown on the packaging.

Unlike loose and flavorful bread, hard biscuits are baked directly without fermentation and baked up to four times with almost no moisture, so to speak, bricks fired with flour. Each time, it must be broken and soaked in the soup until it is soft before eating. The advantage of hard biscuits is that they can be stored almost indefinitely in a dry environment. Many museums around the world have these things, but the Danish Maritime Museum still preserves what is said to be the world's oldest preserved hard biscuit, which looks like it was freshly baked.

Beer has long been a must-have for sailors. The British Navy had already provided sailors with a pound of hard biscuits and a gallon of beer a day when it was competing with Spain for supremacy at sea, but the drinking water kept in wooden barrels on ships would quickly deteriorate if not properly preserved, especially in warm waters, and soon all kinds of algae and insects would use the barrels as bathhouses, and this well-fed water could only be drunk by pinching the nose, in this case. With all kinds of reserves on board, wine is more important than anything else. Whether there is enough liquor in stock has become the primary concern of every captain and sailor, and it is not only for the pleasure of the crew in the harsh environment. Maintaining the necessary morale can also replenish some of the calories burned by daily high-intensity physical work.

Filling the ship with several large barrels, which was not a problem for several old British rivals, Spain, France, influenced by the Mediterranean climate, was sunny. The climate is warm. There is a long history of viticulture and winemaking, so you don't have to worry about going without wine. Britain, cold and damp, has never been a good place to grow grapes, and the yield and quality of wine cannot be compared, although beer is not the only option, and can be replaced by a pint of wine and a half pint of brandy or shochu, but most of the sailors can only rely on British beer to survive on the voyage, and the officers certainly do not treat themselves as they do to sailors, and they are always short of fine imported brandy and other fine wines.

Wine loses its original flavor during a long voyage. But it doesn't spoil, and beer is different. When the British Navy only circled the English Channel, the problem was not very serious, but when the interests of the distant Caribbean and the American colonies increasingly needed naval artillery to maintain, long voyages and spoiled beer could not be tolerated.

The British Navy soon found a wonderful substitute - rum. This spirit, which was first popular in the Caribbean, appeared with the rise of sugar cane plantations in the West Indies, which were a major source of income for sugar-hungry European colonists in the West Indies. Originally worthless molasses, fermented and distilled, it became a spirit that even the poor could afford. With abundant raw materials and low prices, rum became popular and soon became a major sideline of sugar cane plantations, and it was not long before captains brought this spirit that could be stored for a long time to ships, and in addition to sailors on merchant ships, pirates in the Caribbean could not do without this cheap and enjoyable rum.

After the British Empire snatched Jamaica, the richest city in the West Indies, from Spain, there was not much beer and wine on the island for them to splurge, so the British Navy's Supreme Commander had to reward his men with the looted rum. After that, the sailors quickly fell in love with the heavy-tasting liquor and got out of control. Rum is inexpensive and shelf-stable, taking up much less space in cramped cabins than beer, and over the centuries beer has been replaced by rum on ships. Soon after, half-pints of rum per day began to be officially included in the British Navy's daily ration, and rum made in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the British Virgin Islands, and other colonies under the jurisdiction of the British Empire continued to be supplied to the British Navy.

The traditional rum must reach 57 degrees to be qualified, and the sailors even invented a way to identify the quality of the rum, pouring rum on the gunpowder, if the gunpowder can burn normally, if the gunpowder cannot be ignited, then the sailors will start scolding the mother.

There is no entertainment on the ship, only the anesthesia of spirits can make the sailors forget their loneliness and loneliness for a while, but this brings another problem, compared to the light and tasteless beer, the rum is too strong, the nickname "killer devil" is not for nothing, half a pint of rum a day is enough to make a strong man dizzy. Drunken sailors often get into trouble, whether on a ship or in port. Not only does it affect the "glorious" image of the British Navy, but it is also easy to cause some accidents on a small and closed ship, and the terrible "nine-tailed cat" can never taste the flesh and skin of an alcoholic every day. To solve this problem, the British Navy experimented with a quart of water in the daily ration of half-pint rum. The taste of the water in the barrel is really not good for the mouth, and in order to improve the taste, sugar, lemon juice or lime juice are added. Although the sailors ended up with not a drop of rum, there was no way to store rum mixed with water for a long time, which was bad news for those who wanted to save it and drink it all at once.

There is also a bonus. Thanks to the addition of lemon juice and orange juice, the sailors were healthier and the probability of scurvy was reduced. Rum is distributed twice a day, at 12 p.m. and 6 p.m., and once at the end of the day, making it the happiest time of the day for busy sailors.

Although the rum is drunk by everyone. The British Navy's rules still cling to beer. Beer is the only option for offshore activities in England and other places where beer is available, even during the first three months of ocean voyages, and the sailors of the British Navy on errand in the Caribbean are proud of their regular access to rum, while sailors in other regions have no such palate, and even if there is a sufficient reserve of rum on board, the captain and the chief of affairs will guard against the drunkards on board like thieves. No one can drink without permission.

There is wine and of course there is meat, on British warships. Barrels of cured meat were essential in the holds, and beef or pork was cut into four pounds or so and salted in oak barrels, where there was no other way to keep meat at sea longer than salt. Therefore, the marinated hard beef and pork can only be a taste, that is, salty, and the days of salted meat alone are a bit monotonous, but fortunately, the ship's chief is authorized to provide fresh meat at a convenient time, and it is not difficult to do it in his own port, and he can replace the salted meat with three pounds of lamb a week, and the sailors have mixed feelings about these salted meats, on the one hand, the taste of these corned beef and salted pork is not flattering, and it is also worthy of the name to be called "salt horse meat" and "zombie meat". But they have been living on these things for many years at sea, and over time some sailors have actually eaten and even expressed resistance to fresh meat (of course, it is not entirely to blame the sailors for their heavy tastes, and here is also due to the infamous English chefs).

Now, with the advent of the Navy's steam age, the British navy's food situation has changed dramatically, not only is there an abundant supply of freshly baked bread and fresh pork and beef, but even fresh vegetables are not as scarce as before.

And for the poor scholars of Qianguo who often do not have enough to eat, one of the biggest temptations of the Ship Master School and studying abroad is these foods.

On the first day on the warship, the 12 Qianguo cadets all fell in love with fluffy bread and rum, as well as large chunks of beef.

Seeing that these people didn't wait for the meal time to start eating, they began to munch again, Wu Yingke smiled bitterly, although he felt such a shame, and he also understood why Chen Wei, who was also a Qianguo, looked down on them and always did not pretend, but he didn't say anything.

He was also born in a poor family, and he also experienced starvation in his childhood, so he can understand the appearance of these companions.

The whistle sounded again, Wu Yingke jumped up from the bed, Du Jipeng's movements were also very fast, and the two people who were eating scolded, hid the uneaten food, and rushed out.

The slanting sun stretches the figure into a slender figure, and for the students who sweat profusely every day, summer arrives unconsciously.

"Tonight's training session is cancelled." Chen Wei looked at the students and said coldly.

Hearing his words, the faces of several Qianguo students couldn't help but show joy.

Although it bordered on numbness, it was still exhilarating to hear such a sentence from the mouth of a mean instructor.

Chen Wei's face immediately distorted, "You can be so proud of evading a training session?" Shame on me you guys, you're the most incompetent guys I've ever met. The order just now is cancelled, and we will meet in place after dinner. Disband. He turned around and left.

The cadets scattered in frustration.

"Crazy, crazy." Liu Chuanjin, who was standing next to Wu Yingke, muttered.

"Forget it." Wu Yingke patted his companion on the shoulder, "At least he still let us eat." ”

"Hopefully he won't make us so tired that we vomit all dinner." Hearing Wu Yingke's words, a short little fat man's face turned a little pale.

Several people silently watched the instructor's distant back. Someone walked past them with a cold snort, and the setting sun dyed his short black hair red. Wu Yingke recognized it, it was Lan Jianshu's figure.

In the canteen of the "Indomitable", the rugged British sailors bravely launched an offensive against the food on the plates than the quiet Qianguo cadets in the corners, and sometimes the word cruelty was more appropriate. A few uniformly dressed waiters walked back and forth in the passage between the long tables, and in addition to training, the cafeteria used some high-ranking sailors to manage and maintain order.

Taking advantage of the administrator's inattention, Li Dingxin quietly sat down beside Wu Yingke with a plate. "You know what? Training sessions for several other teams have also been cancelled tonight. ”

"Where did you hear that?" Du Jipeng, who was sitting opposite, asked.

"Rest assured, my sources are absolutely reliable." Li Dingxin smiled, he touched Wu Yingke with his arm, "Do you know why?" ”

Wu Yingke shook his head.

"Don't sell it." Du Jipeng said impatiently.

"Martial arts classes start tomorrow." Li Dingxin gave the answer. (To be continued......)

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