On this day of sailing, it was a bit unexpected, there were many large ships with advanced equipment in this small fishing village, but Sha Kun said that the salted fish lady designated them with the sailing ship, and gave it a loud name: the Undead! This rather deathly name does not match the Chinese yearning for peace and passage, and Wang Ling asked Sha Kun why he chose such a name, but he only explained that the salted fish old lady told him that the boat was originally called this name.

I don't know how many years have not been raised on the sea the symbol of the five-peak flag, once, this flag was dominant, rampant and invincible on the sea, it is a terrifying mark, even the most turbulent storm can not stop its progress.

Sha Kun said that Wang Ling was the owner of the ship, and that he was accompanied by only three sailors, three experienced sailors. They are three brothers of the same country, and they look like they are printed out of a mold, anyway, Lao Pi and the others can't tell who is who, plus Sha Kun, there are a total of four people.

Here, Wang Ling, Lao Pi, the poet Zheng Jiuwu and Li Xin, a total of five people, a total of nine sailing team, according to the normal distribution of this number is extremely tight, especially on the basis that they have no absolute sailing experience. This means that in the early stage, you need to be prepared to deal with all kinds of difficulties, and the supplies alone are enough to reserve for a week, and in this week, Wang Ling and the others become students, and Sha Kun plays the role of a teacher to give them all kinds of knowledge about navigation.

The purpose is very clear, according to the existing nautical charts to find the point marked on the map, roughly judge that it is in a certain area of the Central Pacific, the ancient nautical charts are not as clear as now, the crew only use the simplest instruments to complete the drawing work, so it will be a difficult voyage.

"On the sea, the most terrifying thing is not the storm, nor the beasts that hide deep in the sea," Sha Kun said: "It's loneliness, even if there are nine of us, you still feel boundless loneliness, and it can make people's emotions get out of control." Maybe it's three months, maybe three years, and we're nothing until we find this coordinate. ”

This sentence does not seem so unacceptable at first, but when it is repeated every day in the same color and full of all kinds of doubts, you will know that it is himself who affects a person the most.

originally thought that the salted fish lady would participate, it was the woman who made Wang Ling always want to see the true face, but after all, she was still as mysterious as the legend. It is said that this woman has dozens of hiding places all over the world, and she never stays in the same place for more than half a month, but she has been remotely controlling a huge scale of pirate activities behind the scenes, and such a person will naturally not run the ship herself. Knowing that she didn't come, Wang Ling didn't know why he was still a little lost in his heart, which was probably the curiosity of people.

"On the sea, each has its own way, each has its own rules, and pirates also pay attention to thieves and thieves." He pointed to the five-peak flag that had been raised and said: "Robbing evil does not rob good, robbing wealth does not rob poverty, robbing wealth does not rob life, these are three calamities and three non-robberies." ”

Lao Pi asked, "The salted fish is set by the old lady?" ”

Sha Kun shook his head and said, "No, it's fixed," he was referring to the flag, Wang Ling looked at the fluttering ancient flag, he couldn't have imagined that Wang Zhi, who was feared back then, was also a principled person, and no wonder the world's legends about him are still widely circulated to this day.

"Hanging this, aren't you afraid of being eye-catching?" Standing on the deck, Wang Ling looked at the busy Sha Kun and asked, "I mean, will there be any foreign warships on the high seas that will sink us as pirates?" ”

"No one will know the meaning of this flag," Sha Kun said: "Take it easy, this is not in the sixties of the last century, even if you encounter warships from other countries, you can leisurely sunbathe on it, and we have not engaged in illegal acts, don't really think of yourself as pirates, you, it's still far away." ”

To the west of this fishing village lies the vast Indian Ocean, where man has never forgotten to conquer since he began to invent seafaring technology, and no one dares to guarantee that he will be familiar with every inch of this sea, and no one has ever dared to guarantee that there are places on this ocean that he has not visited. A drop in the ocean, the simplest idiom describes the current situation after they sailed away from the fishing village, when the pale blue water gradually deepens in color, you will understand that people are too small here.

To the west, it is a traditionally active shipping route that leads from the Asian continent to Europe, and to the south, from Canton or Hong Kong, via Malacca to Singapore, across the Persian Gulf, to Europe; He also bypassed the Cape of Good Hope through Sydney and went north around the long coastline of Africa.

Originally, they all thought that this nautical chart should belong to the traditional Silk Road, as early as the Qin Dynasty was recorded, to the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, the use of sails greatly increased the distance of sailing, and in the Sui and Tang dynasties, from Guangzhou through the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, to the Persian Gulf countries, the route was the longest ocean route in the world at that time.

However, the sea is not as wide as the land, and the width of a waterway can span dozens of miles, and the regions and countries that pass through it are innumerable, and even those who travel here all year round will make new discoveries.

"There is a reason why the salted fish lady gave up the modern ship with advanced equipment and chose this wooden sailing ship," Wang Ling said: "The navigation route derived from modern instruments is relatively fixed, and these old antiques in our hands are the opposite, it is very likely to take us to places that modern people rarely visit, and only in those inaccessible places can there be secrets that have not yet been discovered." ”

Lao Pi nodded and said: "What you said makes sense, and there is another point, she has many good hands but only sent four people, and she still assists us novices, I think this is also the reason." Because an experienced seafarer chooses what he thinks is the right route according to his usual instincts, she simply leaves this captain to you, this woman is really not simple, she is gambling with us. ”

Wang Ling said with some self-deprecation: "But she can afford to lose, but we can't afford to lose, she can find the next Wang Ling to continue gambling, but what about us?" I dare say that if we showed any dissent to escape, Sha Kun and the three brothers would never have been so polite. ”

There is naturally a legitimate reason to go to sea, and with the resources of the salted fish old lady's black and white, they have handled a seemingly reasonable identity, a group of gulet enthusiasts, under the pretext of free sailing, to travel around the world. As Wang Ling gradually began to familiarize himself with the ship, the speed from three or four knots at the beginning soon rose to seven or eight knots, and Sha Kun said that with the structure of this ship, it could even approach twenty knots at the fastest when the wind direction was right, which was about two knots faster than the fastest speed of modern merchant ships.

So in the first week, in the South China Sea, where Shakun looked like nothing more than a backyard pool, Wang Ling and the others had an "intern" attitude, and according to speculation, the area they wanted to reach should be a hidden location somewhere in the northern Indian Ocean. The diagram is not marked by traditional latitude and longitude, but is a relatively complex composition that combines the changes of the stars and the seasons, most of the route can be guessed by the combination of rectangular and compass, and the stars at night.

In short, they need to abandon all modern nautical knowledge and try to repeat the experience of the ancients, because these things are gradually lost, and when we have more convenient solutions, experience will be replaced by technology. The best thing about standardization is to reduce the error rate, but great discoveries often come from inadvertent mistakes.

This kind of life is new and exciting for them, so the loneliness that Sha Kun spoke of was not reflected at all in the initial time. God helped, the wind was smooth, the weather was fine, and the time until stumbling out of Malacca into the Indian Ocean was a pleasant experience.

And it was during this period of time that the relationship between Li Xin and Wang Ling also quietly changed, and the tacit understanding between men and women made it clear to anyone with a discerning eye, of course, most of the time Li Xin was in charge of logistics, serving tea and water to these gentlemen, and being responsible for three meals a day. In the initial period of time, considering safety and lack of experience, it was basically mainly sailing during the day, and at night Wang Ling usually studied the stars with Zheng Jiuwu, and the compass given by Cheng Ye would not turn at all, so it was thrown into the corner from the beginning, using a new compass given by Sha Kun.

The change came on the seventh day of sailing into the Indian Ocean, and when they woke up in their sleep that morning, the sea was covered with a fog that was different from what they had encountered before on Xuanwu Island. Usually the fog on the sea surface will gradually dissipate within an hour with the light, but that day they waited for three hours The fog has not dispersed, and the fog gradually began to appear colorful colors, such as the light is constantly refracted in it, this phenomenon is also called "prism fog", which is dispersion, which means that the air pressure is in a very low state, which means that a big storm may come at any time.

"We need to find a place to take shelter," Sha Kun was very clear about his identity, and when he said this, he still suggested it: "Find a leeward side and take shelter, we are not far from the coastline now, we should be able to find an island for shelter nearby, the fog will slowly dissipate in an hour, storms usually arrive in the next two hours, we are very time-sensitive!" ”