Taylor showed a look of sudden realization, thanks to Marco Polo's travels, in the eyes of medieval Europeans, the East was a magical El Dorado, this legend lured groups of Western adventurers to risk their lives to sail through thousands of miles of waves. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info Tian Lai Novel.2 They opened up more and more land and sea frontiers, but there was no trace of the legendary El Dorado, but this did not extinguish their desire to find the "El Dorado" wealth, but made them more and more enthusiastic about gold, in the hearts of these people firmly believe that in a certain unknown land, there must be a hidden legend of the "El Dorado".

Thinking that he had guessed the secret of Lin Heshui, Taylor's enthusiasm for work suddenly became high. He began to look at the charts, calculating the route and the time it would take. Lin Heshui also brought a group of Han Chinese sailors to fill the vacancy on the "Oak". At Taylor's request, all kinds of supplies needed for the voyage were brought aboard the ship. In addition to his busy work, Taylor was still on the side of the bay near the Moon Gate, where there were two galleons that were nearly completed, and it was not difficult to tell from the appearance that they were in the Gallion style, and the sailing ships under construction were full of craftsmen and officers dressed in Spanish-style clothing, and it was clear that the Ming Empire and the Spaniards were on one side in the war against the Dutch.

As the preparations drew closer to completion, Taylor's curiosity became more and more difficult to suppress, and although he knew that it might be better for him to keep a secret, there was still an invisible force in his heart that drove him to knock on the side of the Lin River, as if he would be closer to the "El Dorado".

"Lord Lin! Will these two ships sail together? ”

"No, there's only one!" Lin Heshui replied: "We don't have enough sailors to operate this Western-style sailing boat, and there are also two sand boats to facilitate walking in shallow water." ”

"Sure enough, it's not for the sake of hunting seals, that gold mine should be located next to the river in Inner 6!" Taylor was secretly worried in his heart, but his face pretended to be disapproving: "Sand boat? Do you mean a couple of boats over there? The resistance of such ships to wind and waves is very poor, and it is not suitable for going to sea! ”

"Yes, but we can sail along the coastline this time, not the ocean!" Lin Heshui nodded, as the son of a maritime merchant, his view of the sand boat was similar to that of Taylor: "But the place we are going to this time is going upriver to the river, if we all use your plywood boats, I am afraid that it will run aground at that time." ”

"I guessed right!" Taylor was secretly happy in his heart, but his face pretended to be noncommittal: "Can you tell me the purpose of this voyage?" ”

Lin Heshui glanced at Taylor and said with a smile: "Mr. Taylor, now is not the time for you to know, please be patient." ”

Taylor suppressed the ecstasy in his heart, snorted coldly, and stepped aside. Lin Heshui looked at his back and said with a smile: "This Taixi devil is not small in curiosity. ”

Five days later, when everything was ready, Taylor took command of his Oak, departed the Grand Crew, and headed north, with him a newly-built galleon, two sand ships. To his surprise, Lord Lin Heshuilin, who claimed to be the master of the Lifting Rank City, also boarded the "Oak", and he was accompanied by thirty well-equipped guards. But it only added to Taylor's confidence in the correctness of his own speculation - it wasn't for a few sealskins that the seemingly high-ranking adult could risk the storm himself.

Probably because he had been on the ground for too long, Lin Heshui felt a little uncomfortable when he first boarded the "Oak". Taylor hurriedly gave up the captain's room to the other party. Lin Heshui lay on the bed and fell asleep in a daze. He did not know how long it had been, but he was suddenly awakened by a shouting outside, and he hurried out of the cabin, only to see a dozen sailors standing on the side of the ship shouting something. He hurriedly shouted to Taylor on the ship's floor, "Is something happening?" ”

"It's a whale!"

"Whales?" Lin Heshui hurriedly climbed to the ship's building, only to see that about a mile or so away from the starboard side of the boat, he could faintly see the jets of water spurting, the exposed fins, and a deep chirping sound in the air, as if an excellent baritone was singing something. If you take into account the distance, this whale should be two-thirds the size of the "Oak", which is really incredible.

"It's supposed to be a right whale, this kind of whale always has three or four whales moving together, but it's strange that they rarely go to such low latitudes!" Taylor said this and shook his head: "What a pity! ”

It was the first time for Lin Heshui to see such a huge sea creature, and he hadn't recovered from that shocking feeling, so he couldn't help but ask in shock: "It's a pity? What's the pity? ”

"You can whale hunt!" Taylor laughed: "Whale baleen, whale meat, whale fat, and whale wax can all be sold for money, and when I went to Greenland waters, I could catch dozens of these whales at a time, and I could earn at least a few thousand gold ducats." It's a pity that we don't have all the necessary weapons for whaling on board now, so we have to let them go. ”

"Can a whale of this size be killed?" Lin Heshui's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Naturally, you can!" Seeing the appearance of the opponent who had always had the upper hand, Taylor felt a sense of superiority in his heart, and he smiled: "If you are interested, I am honored to tell you the story of my work on a whaling ship." ”

"Good, good!" Lin Heshui hurriedly asked his subordinates to fetch a bottle of wine, and the two of them drank while listening to Taylor's story while drinking on the boat.

"When I was a half-grown child, I was doing chores in the tavern at the docks. It was a gathering place for sailors, and I heard many stories about whaling, and many people in my hometown relied on it for food. When I got on board at the age of fourteen, because I was light, my first job was to be a lookout on the mast, and it was there! Taylor pointed to the cabin at the top of the mainmast: "When I saw the whale spewing water, I rang the bell and shouted 'start spraying' with the loudest voice. At this time, all the sailors who were not on duty climbed the mast or the sail line to look for the second jet of water from the whale. You know, we're all unpaid—"

"No salary?" Lin Heshui interrupted Taylor's recollections: "Then what do you live on?" ”

"Yes, all the whaling ships in our country do not pay a fixed salary, and the sailors take a cut of what they get from each voyage. If you think about it, whaling is a dangerous errand, and if you only have a fixed salary, then the sailors will not work hard when it is critical, and only by linking their income to their harvest can they catch whales. ”

"You're right! So what's next? ”

"Where did I just go? That's right, whales squirt. When the sailors saw that the whale was spraying water a second time in the direction of the bow, we lowered the two-pointed whaling boat into the water, and the man jumped into it, along with all the tools needed: a barrel containing a whaling rope about 1,200 feet long; Harpoons, javelins, buoys, and more. When everything was ready to be heard, they went out, rowing with maximum force at first, but slowly and quietly when they got closer, for the big ones usually refloated within a hundred yards of the last jet, and could not startle them. ”

"How long can it stay underwater?"

"At least three quarters of an hour, it's an hourglass and a half!" Taylor gives an easier explanation: "Sometimes it's a little longer, sometimes it's a little shorter, and then it comes to the surface and takes about a half of an hourglass to breathe." At this time, we have to lean over quietly. The helmsman sits in the bow and throws a harpoon – the injured whale immediately dives into the water, sometimes striking the surface with its tail. It will dive and dive, and it will pull the whaling rope out so fast that it will grind the bollards into smoke, and you will even throw water on them so that they will not burn. When it could no longer hold its breath and rise to the surface again, the men in the boat could stab it with a javelin, which was six feet long and half the length was a sharp iron point. Aim for the back spines of its broad fins, where the heart beneath. At this point, it will struggle, jump wildly, and if you are unlucky, it will hit it by its tail and the boat and you will be smashed. I know of an experienced guy who kills a whale in one go, but it's rare, most of the time it takes a lot of time, and it dives and floats and dives and floats and floats and it drags you for a dozen miles in the wind, and even then, sometimes it breaks free from the rope and escapes with injuries. Speaking of which, would you like to hear how we handle our prey? ”

"Please keep talking! I'm interested! ”

"That's it, we tow the dead whale to the side of the boat and tie it tight. If it's a calf, we cut off the top of their head, which is the upper part of the head, because the cetacean wax is there, and drag it to the deck; If it is a large whale, we turn its head in the direction of the stern, and now we make a cut in front of the fins, pull the blubber and put it on the hanging stake, and tie it to the screw of the big mast. Then the sailors climbed onto the whale's carcass, cut a three-foot-wide spiral on the whale oil with a knife, and on a large whale, the whale oil was about a foot thick, and then lifted them up with a twist while tilting and rotating the whale's carcass. The people on the deck chopped the whale oil into pieces and threw it into the oil boiling pot, so that the oil could be boiled out, and the remaining oil residue could be used as fuel, and when the whale oil was finished, we could dispose of the whale's head, open the skull, and scoop out the contents of the whale's head, we called it whale brain oil, which was liquid at first, and it would solidify when it was put in a barrel. ”

"What can this be used for?"

"Best candles, my lord! White candles, as white as your porcelain, and burn without any smell and no smoke! You can be as beautiful as you want! ”

"Isn't there anything else besides that?"

"No, whale meat is as delicious as beef, but unfortunately it rots quickly, and whale bones, and sometimes ambergris can be found in the whale's intestines, of course, it depends on luck!"

"Ambergris?" Lin Heshui's eyes lit up: "Have you ever seen this?" ”

"Yes, once I saw it!" Taylor nodded: "A smooth round lump, without a specific shape, when you first take it out, it is mottled and veined, dark gray, some like wax, the smell is not good, but after a while the color will become lighter, and it will become very hard, and the taste will become very fragrant." ”

"Sounds like a lucrative deal?" After listening to Taylor's words, Lin Heshui's eyes showed a look of yearning. Taylor nodded: "Yes, whaling is a very lucrative business, but it is also very dangerous, we usually come out in early April and arrive at the edge of the sea ice after a month, the whales come in mid-May, they leave in mid-June, and in this month we have to fill the barrels on the boat, and if we don't do it we have to go west along the Greenland coastline, along the ice floes, and we can do it until August." At this time, the weather is getting cold, the sky is getting dark, and it's time to go home. Of course, it all has to be based on the premise that your ship is not crushed by the ice and your people are not eaten by the bears. And anything can be born when whaling, and once we met a fin whale, and the sailor stabbed it with a harpoon, and it dived into the water, and the people in the boat asked for buckets and buckets of rope, and I suspect that the whale dived a full mile underwater, and when it came to the surface, the sailors of the ship stabbed it with a javelin, and it was all over. The guy was bleeding, waving his tail fin, and swam southwest like a racehorse. The people on board cried out for help—we only saw the whaling boat being dragged away as fast as possible, leaving only a trail of white water, and we wondered why they didn't cut the rope—perhaps the rope got tangled in a man's leg, and half of his body fell into the water, and his companions did not dare to cut it; It is also possible that the rope got tangled around a loose board of the ship - for whatever reason, after a while they were dragged out to sea, under the ice, six people in all, and we have not found a trace of them, not even a single fur hat that floated up! ”

Lin Heshui gasped and asked, "You just said the ice, but what about the south?" Whales in the south aren't so scary, right? ”

"Do you mean sperm whales? It has terrible jaws that can easily bite your whaling boat in two without feeling it itself; It will dive, jump and smash you to pieces with its tail fin when it struggles! And the seas near the equator were the territory of the Spaniards, who would put us in cells and kill us with nooses and yellow fever. And, of course, the most common situation at sea, lack of water, lack of food, and sepsis. ”

Hearing this, Lin Heshui looked at Taylor with a completely different gaze from Fang Cai, and finally he poured Taylor a glass of wine, raised his wine glass and smiled: "I'm glad you can tell me so many interesting things, you are really a brave person!" (To be continued.) )