When the first European Vasco. Reach. When Gamma set foot on the shores of the Indian Ocean in 1498, India's position as the heart of the Kingdom of Portugal's break with the Ottoman Empire's monopoly on the spice trade in the East was established. It has also become one of the lands that has had the most far-reaching impact on the world's political, economic and military map in modern history.

In 1510, Albuquerque, the commander of the Far East Fleet of the Kingdom of Portugal, completely defeated the Punjab king, who ruled Goa, and Goa became the core hub of the Portuguese kingdom on the East India route, not only with a large number of garrisons, but also made Goa the political capital and naval base of the Portuguese Indian colony.

Subsequently, Goa was used as the center of colonial rule, connecting a series of colonial points on the east and west coasts of India, forming a monopoly trade chain that could not be interfered with by others, of which Calicut was one of the most famous colonial ports. Because the Portuguese navigator reached. Gamma and Zheng He of the Ming Empire both landed here and died here.

Trade and cultural transmission from the East and the West all met here, and later generations could see various cultural traces of Portugal, Eastern China, England, the Netherlands, and France. The result is a unique historical atmosphere in Carikart.

The famous Indian calico produced here, like the cotton cloth produced in the Ming Empire, is dwarfed by the exquisite patterns and workmanship of the old earthen hat textiles in Europe, and once the local European textile merchants refused to bring in such oriental fabrics that were easy to steal their business, and even the letter "calico" in the English calico comes from the name of the city.

Interestingly, in order to resist these beautiful fabrics that Europeans love and hate. In their essays, the young English writers of the early 17th century listed these Indian calicos as slanderous objects along with the cheap cotton fabrics of the Ming Empire because they were fabrics that "made English women look lewd and frivolous".

13 April 1622, Portuguese Indian colony, Port Carikat.

On the outskirts of Kalicut, where coconut palms, chestnuts and Borneo trees are widespread, smoke billows from cooking in a vast camp fenced with wooden fences. Countless men and women dressed in Ming Dynasty attire walked in and out of wooden huts or tents, carrying wooden basins to the nearby river to wash their clothes, or carrying bowls to eat.

After joining up with the Spanish fleet from Manila. The European fleet of 44 ships arrived in Gokali in early April to rest, and the more than 4,700 Ming Dynasty refugees on board finally got to the ground.

The ship's hygiene regulations, detailed by Yan Xiaosong, were strictly enforced by Portuguese or Spanish captains. Each sailboat with an average capacity of 100 people will provide boiling hot water for the daily use of Ming Dynasty immigrants, and special equipment will be issued to collect and dispose of manure and urine, and some Ming Dynasty fishermen with rich sea experience also volunteered to serve as life guides at sea.

In the European slave trade in the 17th century, sailboats with a displacement of more than 200 tons could stuff more than 200 slaves, and the mortality rate of slaves was as high as 10%~60%. In addition to being directly proportional to the length of the voyage, the mortality rate is also highly dependent on living conditions. There were several black slaves crowded into one square meter, and the sanitary conditions were so poor that the disease spread almost at a rate that could not be handled.

The agreed cost of 500 Spanish silver dollars includes the most basic guarantee of living conditions on board. According to Yan Xiaosong's words. At the destination, every loss of a Ming Dynasty immigrant meant 500 Spanish silver dollars in the soup, and the Portuguese or Spanish captains who were bound to pay for it were almost like porcelain to every Ming Dynasty person on their ship.

Even so, after leaving Macau for more than a month. Still, there were dozens of deaths, most of which occurred after boarding the Kalicut, which belonged to the people who were not adapted to the water and soil or contracted fever. In addition to isolating patients, drinking a lot of boiled sweetened and salted cold water to replenish body fluids and electrolytes, and collecting leaven foods to improve his diet, Yan Xiaosong really has no other way to fight the most unfathomable diseases of this ancient era. …,

For the current result. The Portuguese captains actually exclaimed "good luck", it seems that the death toll of a large number of people on long-distance transportation is far lower than their estimates, Yan Xiaosong also sighed helplessly while secretly rejoicing.

Caricut had been resting for more than a week, and with the exception of some Ming refugees who had already had a general idea of the direction of their fate, many were only informed of their final destination after departure. From the moment these Ming refugees stepped on the boat, they were in tears, and some of them even stayed in the east all day like a nervous disorder.

The Portuguese captains are already urging because if they don't set off again, they will miss this year's monsoon. Yan Xiaosong was also a little annoyed by this warning, because it was not that he didn't want to leave, but that basically more than half of the Ming Dynasty immigrants refused to board the ship. The strictest thing is that some of the young and strong men also spontaneously gathered and used the sharpened wood they found, which showed faint signs of armed resistance, so that the Portuguese soldiers guarding around the camp felt like they were facing a great enemy.

"Friends, get on board! Life there will be much, much better than here! ”

"A loving God will not give up on you! We have excellent captains and sailors! ”

"I swear to God, what I say is all true!"

In the midst of the refugees, Caterina, dressed in a Hanfu palace dress, kept walking around the crowd to persuade her, under the protection of a group of Portuguese soldiers, but her slightly jerky Chinese and obviously different foreign trade were barely responded.

"This little lady is really grinding, I don't believe it! I'm going home! ”

"Shhh

"No, didn't you say that you would go to the foreign countries to divide the fields and houses?"

"Do you believe what the ghost says? Hey, I regret it now, if I knew that I ran so far this time, I would not have left Daming even if I starved to death! ”

The crowd was constantly muttering, and many of them were vigilantly and indifferently withdrawn as Caterina passed by, not intending to listen to each other at all.

Standing in the distance, watching his fiancée exhausted and persuading his blood compatriots in history, Yan Xiaosong suddenly felt that he was not too wishful thinking.

"Your Excellency, I remind you once again that if you don't set off again, you will miss the direction of the wind! We will have to abandon the safest route, or wait until after October, and the captains cannot afford to lose time! If they refuse to board again, we can use the army to forcibly drive them up! ”

General Ricardo, the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese fleet, stood to the side in a huff, showing a subtle sense of disgust at the eastern civilians in the distance.

"Please pay attention to the tone, I appreciate your efforts in this matter, but my government will pay them more than two million Spanish silver dollars, which in theory will be worth more than your entire fleet!"

Yan Xiaosong frowned, and he was also unhappy.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you and these civilians, but we only have a maximum of a month left, or ......" At this time, Ricardo no longer talked to the other party about these words, but said coldly and walked away.

Hey, do you want to give up half of the people in Caricut? Yan Xiaosong was distraught at this time, and when he saw from afar that his fiancée was still tirelessly trying to persuade those Ming Dynasty refugees, he felt that he had thought too simply.

At night, Yan Xiaosong took Caterina and walked in the camp expressionlessly, the Ming Dynasty refugees who passed by avoided as if they had seen ghosts, and a few people with indifferent and numb expressions turned a blind eye and walked directly past the two.

"Yan, isn't there any other way? Why don't they take our word for it? Caterina was very aggrieved and attached to Yan Xiaosong, very sad about the fact that no one took care of her voice after spending most of the day today. …,

"Forget it, leave early tomorrow morning, and stay in Carikat if you don't want to!" Yan Xiaosong gritted his teeth and made up his mind, which surprised Caterina deeply.

In a small shack somewhere in the camp, three Ming Dynasty men lived, one of them was a middle-aged scholar with a slightly chubby body, and the other two were thin young men about twenty years old.

The refugees around the pot of hot porridge outside the wooden shed were finally gone, Chang Kun sat up straight, touched the straw mat beside him, and found that the coconut shell he picked up at noon was gone.

"Little brother, can you borrow another food bowl?"

Since he was forcibly separated from his wife, concubines and daughters, and then stuffed onto the ship in a daze, except for a change of clothes package and a few books, Chang Kun didn't even have a broken bowl for rice around him, and almost every day he could only rely on borrowing other people's wooden bowls or simply asking the crew to fill something to eat.

"Sir, you have to use it!" Without any delay, Qiao Yan directly handed over the wooden bowl he had been carrying for a long time.

Yu Shan, who was on the side, suddenly stretched out his hand and pressed Qiao Yan's hand holding the wooden bowl: "Qiao Yan, this scholar borrows our bowl every day, and he never washes it when he uses it, why do you borrow him again?" ”

"If Chang Kun can get out of this predicament, he will definitely repay him in the future!" Chang Kun's face flushed, and he hurriedly smiled with a smile on his face.

"Okay, Yu Shan, people are scholars, how can scholars do these things?" Qiao Yan let go of his companion's hand very seriously, and sent the wooden bowl over respectfully.

"Then I can also write my name, count me as a scholar? Qiao Shi, you can also help me wash the dishes in the future! Yu Shan smiled slyly, rolled to the corner where he slept, and stared blankly at the roof of the wooden shed, "Qiao Yan, do you think we can go back in the future?" I'm afraid my mother will never see me again......"

The place that those sea strongmen said at the beginning was really a paradise? Without answering his companion's question, Qiao Yan walked out of the wooden shed and looked to the west. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to (.) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation. )