Chapter 47, the Eight Directions Wind and Rain Meeting Qiongya (1)

On the seventh day of the first month of the fifth year of Chongzhen, the southern Fujian coast of the Ming Empire, over the west side of the Taiwan Strait

Under the rising sun, the thin morning fog quickly dissipated, and the sky over the Taiwan Strait was cloudless, and the blue sky was as pure as a sapphire.

Under this clear sky, as the fog dissipated in the early morning, a group of huge and bloated aerial monsters were revealing their true faces little by little, piece by piece—more than 20 large airships that had just been urgently painted with the five-star red flag, the sickle party flag, and the August 1 military flag, like a large pile of cigars, white radish, and long bread, were forming a loose formation, flying along the coastline to the south. In the long, oval, semi-recessed pods with a row of small portholes, more than 700 heavily armed special passengers were carried.

- Due to the capacity limitations of the space-time gate, these large airships of different shapes are not the masterpieces of a certain cottage industrial power, but the 22nd century black technology toys purchased by Doraemon, and then urgently brushed some emblems: of course, because they are just toys, the expedition ships and other props that Laemon has used are the same, and even the models and specifications are not unified, so they can only rely on temporary replacement of the paint to maintain consistency.

Although these large, imposing and beautiful airships are slower than airplanes, they stay in the air longer and can carry more people and cargo. Moreover, once the engine loses power, the plane usually immediately turns into a pile of garbage, and the airship, even if all the engines are damaged, can stay in the air with its own buoyancy, and then slowly release the gas in the airbag for a safe landing.

Therefore, there were no airfields along the way, which was equivalent to the "enemy-occupied area" in the late Ming Dynasty, and the safety factor of using airships was much higher than that of airplanes. As for the worrisome storm and other problems, you can rely on Doraemon's mini weather satellites to monitor them in real time and avoid them - very fortunately, according to satellite cloud images, the entire eastern coast of China has been sunny and sunny in the past two days, and the strength of the northwest wind is also at an acceptable level, which is the most suitable weather for bloated floating aircraft like airships to set off on the road to the long voyage.

However, even though these airships come from a future world with highly developed technology, because they are only "toys", their technological content is not much higher than that of modern airships in the 21st century, except for the fool-like intelligent automatic operating system that even children can play.

At this moment, Wang Qiu was sitting on a silver-white airship at the forefront of the entire "air fleet", like the leader of migratory birds, leading more than 20 airships of all sizes to advance in the southwest direction at full speed. Relying on the automatic navigation adjustment of the intelligent system and the full propulsion of eight electric propellers, the cigar-shaped thick body of this airship glides comfortably through the blue sky like a leisurely dolphin.

For Wang Qiu, who has only obtained a small car license at best, driving an airship is a new and exciting challenge. But in fact, through the actual contact and experience, he found that this kind of intelligent airship is really not difficult to drive at all, basically easier than playing air combat games, as long as you enter a few general instructions on the touch screen, the next things can be handed over to the computer on the boat to automatically control and adjust - think about it, you also know, even Nobita, a "big toy" that can be operated by a primary school student, how can Wang Qiu, a college student, not be able to play?

In the belly of this airship, in a protruding pod about the size of an ordinary minibus, Senior Sister Ma Tong and Wang Meiling's mother were curiously leaning next to the aluminum alloy bulkhead, overlooking the scenery under their feet through the solid porthole, and at the same time casually opened a small slit in a small triangular glass window, and the cold winter wind with a slight chill suddenly blew in through the crack in the window, making a sharp whistling sound.

At this time, this huge airship formation was soaring over the southern Fujian coast on the west coast of the Taiwan Strait.

Looking down from the cockpit of the airship, the right side of the pod is an endless vast sea, the undulating waves are shining in the sun, and the left side of the pod is the land of southern Fujian, the green hills and fields, the pedestrians of all colors who stroll leisurely, the slowly wandering flat boats, the pavilions and pavilions with carved beams and paintings, and the temples hidden under the towering pines and cypresses, giving people infinite poetry, just like a pleasing landscape painting, which is so beautiful that it makes people feel intoxicated.

Then, the formation of airships soaring above this southern Fujian scenery was like a group of running bulls that broke into the garden, and all the poetry and leisure elegance were all disturbed—almost all of them were startled by these unheard-of aerial beasts, and then they scattered in all directions.

But when the people on the ground found that the behemoths in the sky did not seem to be dangerous, they no longer fled, but came out of the woods or huts, and propped up their boats from the reeds and the fjords, and followed the airships in the air as if they were looking at dioramas.

And in those densely populated port towns along the coast, the sudden appearance of such a large group of air monsters attracted many onlookers, when the airship swept over a certain town, the ground was simply empty alleys, accompanied by all kinds of noisy shouts, some people knelt on the street and prayed silently, and some people rushed out of the house or climbed to a high place, countless heads moved with the trajectory of the airship, this scene is really spectacular.

Ma Tong and Wang Meiling were very interested in this, not only lying on the floor and looking down with binoculars, but even occasionally taking the initiative to make some noise, throwing some firecrackers and other things down, or scattering shiny confbits of colored paper in the air, and using the smoke pipe to puff out long colored smoke, and then happily watching the ant-like crowd below run and riot thinking that "monsters are angry", just like those naughty children who teased crickets.

It's like throwing a bone and watching a pack of wild dogs fight for food, just a leisure farce to pass the time.

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On the other hand, rather than watching the movements of these Ming Dynasty people with telescopes, Wang Qiu and Professor Guo were more impressed by the abnormal climate along the way.

“…… Hey, is this the so-called Xiaoice period at the end of the Ming Dynasty? Looking at the ice and snow on the shore along the way, I couldn't even figure out whether this was China or Russia

It's hard to imagine what a real ice age would look like if it was still like in a Xiaoice period."

Feeling the biting cold wind blowing in through the crack in the window, Wang Qiu muttered while looking at the navigation map on the screen.

In short, as far as Wang Qiu saw with his own eyes, the Xiaoice River period at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which buried the luck of the Ming Dynasty, is indeed worthy of its name - the airship formation traveled all the way south from Vladivostok, not to mention the Jiangnan water town that should have a warm climate, and at this time it is a thousand miles of snow and wilderness. Rivers and lakes are covered in ice, and farmland and tidal flats are white. Even the areas of Wenzhou, Ningbo, and Zhoushan, where snow rarely falls in later generations, are actually covered in silver and covered with snow. Even further south, the Fuzhou region is covered with snow everywhere. And in the 21st century, it never snows in Fujian.

It was not until further south in the area of Quanzhou and Xiamen, that is, where the airship formation was currently located, that the traces of ice and snow had basically faded on the land, or at least there were no large patches of snow to be seen. However, the surface temperature still hovers around freezing, and the bitter cold wind is like a knife, making it impossible to feel that you are not far from the Tropic of Cancer, and you will soon enter the tropical ......

“…… If it is a real ice age, then the polar glaciers can stretch from the Arctic Ocean to Hunan and Jiangxi, and even the Philippines and Vietnam will have heavy snow in winter," Professor Guo replied with a frown, "...... But even in this Xiaoice Age, the civilized world of the entire earth is already choking enough - the nomads on the steppe have been plagued for many years, and if they don't go south to rob, they will starve to death. The peasants in North China have not harvested a grain for almost eight out of ten years, and they will starve to death if they do not rebel. And the decaying Ming Dynasty government does not talk about organizing disaster resistance, but is still intensifying the disaster victims to death... Now it's not the worst, in a few years, the entire Central Plains will be full of white bones and no people, and the social order in the north is that the landlords rely on the lives of the grass people to barely live, and the grass people can only eat each other's flesh and gnaw the bones, or kill themselves with Guanyin soil, this kind of hellish society has no productive constructiveness, only by eating people and being eaten to maintain, more cruel than the colonial plunder of the West in the future, how can it be maintained? ”

“…… In fact, the situation of Daming is already very terrible now, I used to organize reclamation in Liaodong before, but I tried all kinds of methods, but the crops in the field still have no harvest, and I can only rely on supplies from the rear to live. In addition to Liaodong, the entire nine-border land from Gansu to Datong was also frozen everywhere, and there was no harvest, and the military households either fled or starved to death, and the rest had to rebel, and the border defense of the empire had completely collapsed......"

Huang Shi, the only one on the boat wearing the armor of a Ming Dynasty general, couldn't help but come up and sigh the bitter scriptures, "...... The situation in the interior is equally bad, and those gentlemen who are full of benevolence and morality actually do not regard the grass people as human beings at all. There are so many natural disasters that the government and the gentry do not provide disaster relief, and even intensify their expropriation, but they only know how to take away the last grain of wheat from the peasants' families, and never know how to organize production to fight the disaster. Ordinary peasant families were forced to sell autumn grain to pay off their debts at a low price, and then they had to borrow usury to make a living in the spring, and if the cycle continued, they were already on the verge of not dying

Ironically, the lower-class bureaucrats and landlords of the Taiping War in the late Qing Dynasty at least knew how to maintain their rule by force in the face of a surging peasant uprising. And now the group of civil officials in the Ming Dynasty is simply a shame in Chinese history, the knives have been put up to the neck, and they are still bent on treating them as dead professionals, and would rather be looted by rogues and Tartars than allocate a tael of silver to the army......"

Recalling the arrogant face full of disdain and contempt of the military generals treated by the civil officials of the imperial court, as well as the disgusting attitude of "the credit belongs to me, the black pot is on your back, and the food and salary are your own", Huangshi is a nameless fire in his belly, and he is angry.

“…… That's because you mistakenly regard them as officials, Comrade Xiao Huang, if you regard these gentry and talents of the Ming Dynasty as religious gods, you will feel that their style is not unusual at all - is there any religion in the world that does not cheat money and food and then cheat people to die? ”

Professor Guo touched his beard and said disappreciatively, "...... If you think about it carefully, what crimes have been committed by Aum Shinrikyo and modern American cults that these scholars in the Ming Dynasty have not done? To put it bluntly, they are actually no different from the ancient Japanese ministers and those Brahmins in India, aren't they all typical of self-esteem, but they have no power, and only know how to work hard to die? ”

“…… Well, you're right, the Confucian scholars of the Ming Dynasty in these years are indeed very similar to those gods, obviously they don't have any skills, but they feel so good about themselves...... First of all, he felt that no matter who won the country, these noble scholars were first-class people, and they could drive the lowly martial artists to be on an equal footing with the king; The second is that he feels that he is born with the power to evade taxes and become a traitor, and no one can touch it. The third is that they are not obliged to endure each other for the sake of the country, but the country should worship itself as an ancestor - isn't this the same virtue as the living Buddhas in India and Tibet? ”

Huang Shi was stunned for a moment when he heard this, but then quickly pondered, and couldn't help but show a wry smile, "...... It would be strange to hand over the country to such a professional who feels super good about himself but has no sense of responsibility at all, and it is strange that it will not become a tragedy."

“…… In fact, the big banker conglomerates in the United States in later generations are also developing in this direction, and no matter how bad the situation in the country is, their interests must not be touched. Even if we cut relief money for the poor and food stamps, we would use tax dollars from the treasury to support Wall Street. It can be seen that any unproductive group that wields power, whether they are gods, Confucian scholars, or bankers, can quickly hollow out the cornerstone of a country from within, and let the once great empire decline and fall into the streets with great humiliation and ......"

Professor Guo said with a little emotion, "...... In contrast, even the militarism of the martial arts is much stronger than this method, and at least the use of swords and guns to plunder wealth from foreign countries, from the perspective of the country, it can be regarded as a special form of 'development of production,' from the perspective of the country. ”

“…… Ahem, that's all for now, now that we're not far from our destination, we should make some preparations. ”

Wang Meiling, who had been overlooking the scenery on the ground, stood up from the observation window on the bilge floor, raised her head and said, "...... Speaking of which, this time we tossed around in Vladivostok for a full week, which was a lot of delay. During this period, did Guo Yi, who continued to stay in Guangzhou, leak anything to make the senate of the traveler in Lingao County, Hainan Island, find out that something was wrong? Or even dealt with by the intelligence agencies over there? ”

“…… I'm afraid you're a little worried, Mom. According to the secret telegram sent by Guo Yi using Doraemon's magical props, the Guangzhou side is now as usual, and it has not attracted any attention from the Lingao Senate. Because the joint diplomatic expeditionary fleet of Australian and American crossers from Batavia had arrived at the port of Bopu in Lingao County five days earlier, followed by a large number of Dutch, British, French, Portuguese, Spanish and even Danish merchant ships - more than 20,000 uncontrolled foreign populations poured into Lingao at once, and soon there were many riots. The Senate of the Travelers is not enough to devote all its energy to maintaining law and order and diplomatic negotiations, where can it take care of Guo Yi, a marginal person who was left behind in Guangzhou? ”

Wang Qiu muttered disapprovingly while adjusting the airship's altitude and course on the touch screen, "...... Besides, although we were a little worried when we first left, we thought about it carefully and found that 'Boss Guo's father came to Guangzhou to see his son, this kind of ordinary family matter, even in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty, does not seem to be a big news worth talking about. Even if someone goes to Lingao from Guangzhou, they may not mention it, and even if they talk about it in a place like a teahouse hotel, I'm afraid that no listener will care—because from a human point of view, this matter is really too ordinary. Today's Daming has neither a news media nor a paparazzi. When this matter reaches the ears of those who have a heart, they don't know that it will be the Year of the Monkey.

In addition, according to Guo Yi and Comrade Huang Shi, there should not be any indigenous intelligence personnel in the Lingao Senate to monitor the veterans of the traverser - because this attitude of distrust of one's own people, if it is poked out, it is easy to be misunderstood as the prelude to the Supreme Executive Committee's secret plan to carry out a major purge within the traversers, when everyone is in danger, and the cohesion of the entire team will be dispersed, so what's the matter? ”

- In the era of feudal dynasties, the speed of information circulation was very slow. In the absence of specialized news media such as newspapers, the information that ordinary people can obtain through hearsay is often months or even years in advance, and the amount of information is very limited.

For example, in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, when Li Zicheng waved his army to besiege Beijing, the capital was lost on March 29, and Emperor Chongzhen was martyred in the coal mountain. But then it was not until April 17 that the Ming Dynasty's capital of Nanjing received this news.

-- The safety of the capital, the life and death of the emperor, and other major news that the whole world is concerned about, and the relatively convenient canal and sea route through Guò took nearly a month to spread from Beijing to Nanjing. Then the vast majority of insignificant little things, Yu Crisp can't tell where the incident happened at all.

For example, the scandals and scandals of modern movie stars may be able to spread around the world in an instant by relying on online media. But at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the romance of those romantic talents in the Qinhuai River in Nanjing was probably no longer known when they arrived in Huguang and Shandong.

Even in this time and space that has been greatly changed by many travelers, the "Lingao Daily" founded by Hainan Island travelers has appeared, but the content is also biased towards editorials, policy propaganda and popular science knowledge, and the news only occupies a very small space, and there are no permanent reporters outside Hainan Island. Therefore, with the exception of a few major events in the world that have been happening for a long time, the news page of Lingao Daily mainly publishes only local events, and its timeliness is almost tragic by modern standards. Fortunately, "Lingao Daily" has no competitors in this time and space, so it has not been criticized.

Therefore, in the week after contacting his father and later government departments, Guo Yi's life in Guangzhou was still very peaceful. Except for a few acquaintances who talked about it a little during their New Year's greetings, Yiqiē was as calm as usual — no one took it seriously.

However, this false calm caused by the lag in information has also come to an end at this moment.

-- The "great collision of heaven and earth", which was postponed for a week by the trip to Vladivostok, is coming today.

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Although Marshal Huangshi once asked the airship formation to land in Quanzhou so that he could pick up his wife and daughter, Professor Guo, as the supreme commander at the scene of this operation, refused his request after a short period of thought - the most important thing now is to complete the task, not to cause trouble: such an air formation suddenly landed in the sky over the Ming Dynasty city in the 17th century, and God knows how much unbelievable chaos will be tossed.

So, after more than two hours, the huge airship formation finally arrived at the southern end of the Pearl River estuary, the Hong Kong naval base under the jurisdiction of the Senate of Lingao Traveler, and made the first real contact with this crosser force in southern China, which immediately provoked a huge riot - accompanied by the alarm bells, the signal flares that roared into the sky, and the hoarse shouts, more than 20 "cigar smoke", "white radish" and "long bread" appeared on the blue sea and green mountains, and slowly paraded in the blue sky and white clouds. It can be called covering the sky and covering almost the entire sky for a while.

Most of the ants on the ground were dizzy at the sight of so many huge ships flying through the sky, and they climbed to the top of the mountain, the rooftop, the bell tower, the lighthouse, and the mast to see it—even though they had entered the age of steam in advance with the help of the traverser, it was still an incredible dream to soar through the clear sky. The few sober people tried to communicate and make contact with each other, just like modern people who encountered alien flying saucers—Wang Qiu, for example, noticed that at the top of a watchtower on the ground, someone was trying to wave two flags, not knowing what signal was being sent.

“…… The guys on the ground seem to be sending us flags, and I don't know what, because I've never learned this thing - but there should be some Navy guys on board on the next few airships, do you need to ask them on the radio? Professor. ”

Overlooking the noisy chaos on Hong Kong Island, which looks like an ant's nest being flooded, Wang Qiu asked Professor Kwok with interest.

“…… It doesn't have to be so troublesome, although I don't know the navy flag language, but I think I know that this must be asking us for identity or something. ”

Professor Guo pursed his lips, "...... Now it's time to show our identities - Comrade Xiao Wang, immediately draft a clear code telegram and send it out at the usual frequency of Lingao County traversers to tell these guys who don't know anything that we have come."

“…… Uh, how should I write the specific content of the message? Wang Qiu asked while using the touch screen of the bridge to call up the communication software.

“…… Well, let's just say: we are the Chinese People's Liberation Army, we will take you home" Professor Guo thought for a while and replied.