At about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the Fuqiang transport fleet came from Beiyin with a full load of supplies.

In Bai Xia'er's eyes, Zhu Fugui and Yin Susu reunited after a long absence, especially newlywed.

Chen Qiang was also very happy.

Because he was studying at the Royal Naval Division, his old classmate Zheng Catyu, as the captain of the Fuqiang, also came to Pattaya.

After resting for two days, Zheng Catfish will bring local products from Siamese villagers, such as tropical fruits, to the Udo.

There is currently the world's second only to the Ming Dynasty in the world's advanced fruit canning production line.

Of course, this position may be lost at any time under the strong impact of the strong hostile Duli.

In short, those tropical fruits will be canned as soon as possible and shipped back to Beiyin and Shenzhou, so that the people of the Ming Dynasty can also enjoy the expansion dividends of the empire's conquest of the South Seas.

In addition, a few days ago, the 18th Division of the Vanguard Division of the Ming Dynasty Division annihilated the Anglo-Indian Bangalore Division, but the troops suffered a heavy psychological blow.

Therefore, the command decided to arrange for them to go to Nara for some recuperation and rest.

It is hoped that Nara's Japanese-style kabuki, maiden munching on plum wine, and steamed rice senjin's delicious rice balls will soothe their wounds.

They will also be brought back by the Fuqiang fleet that has completed the delivery of supplies in two days.

So Zheng Catfish has a rare day and a half of free time.

In the only restaurant opened by overseas Chinese in Pattaya, Chen Qiang replaced wine with tea to wash the dust for his old classmates.

I have to say that Thai cuisine is influenced by both Chinese and Indian ancient civilizations, and its taste is still good.

Although there are often warriors in later generations who challenge the very dark looking Indian street food with a curious perspective.

The so-called everything can be mushy, but mushy is not necessarily unpalatable.

From the perspective of hygiene, after all, India straddles the tropics, subtropics, plateaus, lowlands, mountains and seas, abundant products, and thousands of years of trial and error, and its food taste is much stronger than that of most countries.

At least not in the way that the gastronomic Lowcountry Brits can match.

Of course, if you don't have a hygienic perspective, Indian snacks will have no soul.

Bacilli are born from the stomach and are the main attraction of Indian cuisine.

In contrast, Thai cuisine has a lot of mushy and uses a lot of curry and other ingredients, but it is obviously more suitable for East Asian dietary appetites.

And the food provided by this Ruyishun restaurant opened by overseas Chinese is more Chinese.

Drinking Siamese special black milk tea, fried basil pork mixed in slender jasmine rice, not to mention how enjoyable it is.

While eating and drinking tea, the two old classmates talked about the past when they studied in the University Hall of the Naval Division.

In fact, Chen Qiang and Zheng Catfish should be two people who can't beat each other with eight poles, and only the appearance of Daming will turn them into classmates.

Chen Qiang is the son of a tenant farmer in a ravine in Hunan.

If it weren't for the fact that he participated in the Xiangjun clan brothers returning to their hometowns to catch strong men for Li Hongzhang, and became the first batch of students sent by Xianghuai to the "Citi Country", Chen Qiang would have said that he would not have anything to do with the sea.

Zheng catfish is different.

He was born on the sea.

Zheng Catfish is not his nickname, but his real name.

As soon as such a name sounds, it is far worse than good names such as Fugui, Tianbao, Fushi, and Guifu.

It's also stronger than the dog leftovers and the second dog.

And the Iron Bull is of the same rank.

At first glance, it's not a scholarly door.

In fact, Zheng Catfish was born in the family of the Tan people.

The so-called Tan people are also known as Lianjia boat people, yachts, Baishuilang, Shu, etc.

They have spent their lives adrift on the water, making boats their home, and have a set of customs that are incompatible with the surrounding communities.

In contrast, the Tujia people who were forcibly separated, and the Tanka family distinction may be slightly more suitable for such a loss.

In this era, the Tan people were untouchable and could not intermarry with the Han people, let alone go ashore to engage in industry and commerce, or even the imperial examination.

According to the old chronicles of the Qing Dynasty, the Tan people "live in boats, take fishing as their business, float their homes and houses, and then the tide comes and goes, the rivers are dry and the sea is dry, and they inhabit everywhere." Each is divided into Hong Kong and Macao, and it is not overpowering. There are those who settle on the shore, and they are not businessmen, do not work, are accustomed to being lowly, and despise civilians. The Fujian people call it a curved hoof, and Xiao Qi's shape is also. Because its feet are bent, it is also commonly known as Qili Yunyun. Treat it like a slave, and it is cheap. ”

Zheng Catfish is such a child of the Tan people.

Originally, in his life, he should have been regarded as a pariah for the rest of his life because he lived on a low and cramped fishing boat all year round, resulting in bent legs.

However, because of the appearance of Daming, all this has changed.

At the beginning of the German and Wu Dynasty, that is, in 1864-1865, the Ming Dynasty was short of people.

In addition, the prestige of the Ming Dynasty has not yet been played, and the strength is insufficient, and immigrants from China still have to use the shell of the Citigroup Pig House to smuggle people.

This leads to the fact that recruiting immigrants is a difficult thing to do.

And the Tan people are obviously easy targets to recruit.

When Zhu Fugui was a child, his mother often used stories of the people on the boat to scare him, which is the residual memory of the Tan people in the southern region.

When he grew up, he learned about the history of the Tan people, which made Zhu Fugui have great sympathy for this ethnic group.

However, at that time, there was no discrimination against the Tan people in New China, and even the Tan people themselves did not know that their ancestors were Tan people.

This ethnic group is perfectly integrated into the Han people.

This is also the ideological source of Zhu Fugui's idea of not engaging in ethnic division within the Ming Dynasty after the crossing.

Everyone is a citizen of the Ming Dynasty, as long as they hold a Juka and have complete citizenship, why bother with each other?

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty absorbed a lot of Tan people and educated them.

And the highest achievement among these Tan people is none other than Zheng Catfish's uncle, Rear Admiral Zheng Baoguo, the first admiral of the Ming Dynasty.

Theoretically speaking, Zheng Baoguo's status is close to Qi Wenchang and Yin Weasel, but in fact, it is so bad that if you don't say 108,000 miles, it must be 107,900 miles.

Back then, Qi Wenchang smashed Yin Weasel into Yin Rat with a stone, but both of them later became Zhu Fugui's most relied on right-hand man in the army and the spy system, which can be described as a creation.

However, to this day, Yin Weasel still has not forgiven Qi Wenchang's sneak attack, and the two have never interacted.

Zhu Fugui believes that this is also part of Yin Weasel's lonely minister's plan.

Compared to these two generals that Zhu Fugui trusted.

Zheng Baoguo, the old admiral, is quite watery.

Water on the word "old".

How so......

When the Daming Sailor was first established, the main task was to drive a cement boat from the Tenglongshan Logging Factory to the Fengdu construction site to transport wood.

And Zheng Baoguo, as the Chinese worker with the best sailing skills at the beginning, naturally became the captain of this fleet, and then became the commander of the Daming Navy.

It can be said that he, the admiral of the water division, has more water than Li Yuanhong, the president of Wuhan.

What Zhu Fugui values is nothing more than that he is old, can sail, and is relatively calm.

In the first fifty years of his life, this old Tan man, who had dealt with fishing boats all his life, would never have imagined that he would be able to get rid of his lowly status as a Tan people, become a witness and participant in the establishment of the Ming Royal Navy, and even become an addiction to the emperor of Changzhou.

As the saying goes, the times make heroes.

When Liu Bang rebelled at the age of 48, he would never have imagined that he would ascend the throne and become emperor at the age of 54.

It's a pity that times have changed.

Gone are the days when you could be a general even if you were illiterate.

Today's armed forces, especially the navy, cannot go far without a good cultural foundation.

But Zheng Baoguo was already in his fifties at that time.

By the twelfth year of Dewu now, he is already a sixty-nine-year-old old comrade.

At this age, it is indeed more difficult to learn advanced nautical knowledge.

He was indeed quickly left behind by young people such as Wang Zhonghuang and Morishita in all aspects.

Just because of his qualifications, he was mixed up with the Maori brother as the governor of Maguan.

When Wajima was recovered, the Maori elder brother became a Maori father-in-law, and after running a school in Fengdu and working as a public servant, Zheng Baoguo officially retired as a rear admiral.

Chen Qiang and Zheng Catfish chatted, and the topic naturally also talked about Zheng Catfish's uncle.

Zheng Catfish drank the bitter black tea, and couldn't help but say abruptly: "Uncle, uncle, my uncle, where are you, my nephew misses you......"

·

The twelfth year of Dewu, November 11, 1874.

Drake Passage. (pictured)

At the beginning of the 16th century, Spain occupied the South American continent, and in order to cut off the trade between other Western countries and Asia and the Americas, they blocked the Strait of Magellan between the South American continent and Tierra del Fuego, and strictly prohibited the passage of ships from other countries, making the Pacific Ocean a private sea of Spain.

The Strait of Magellan was discovered by Magellan during his voyage around the world, and was considered to be the only shipping route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

Later, Drake, a British slave trader and pirate, stumbles upon Drake Strait while he is on the run from the Spanish Navy.

Of course, this strait will have a more famous name in the future, called Shaobao Strait.

This is a common question in the junior high school geography exam.

True or False: The Shaobao Strait got its name because Li Hongzhang Li Shaobao was the first to lead a fleet through here in an organized manner, and became the first person to land in the Antarctic of the Ming Dynasty.

Answer: False.

Because the word "Shaobao" in the Shaobao Strait does not refer to the title of prince Shaobao issued by the pseudo-Qing Dynasty.

As the Tang Guogong of the Ming Dynasty, Li Hongzhang would never admit such a statement.

"Shaobao" is actually the character of Li Hongzhang, Li Shaoquan, and the then commander-in-chief of the Navy of the Southern Tang Dynasty, General Zheng Baoguo, each take the second word to compose.

In order to commemorate them, for the great feat made by the Chinese Miao descendants in the process of spreading branches and leaves and spreading all over the world, the strait they passed through was named Shaobao Strait.

But at this moment, Li Hongzhang faced the iceberg floating in the distance, and finally couldn't help asking: "Brother Baoguo, is this really Tianzhu?" Will Tianzhu have year-round ice condensing into mountains? ”

Zheng Baoguo no longer has the appearance of a few weeks ago.

He pulled out his reading glasses and looked them up and down against the chart.

"Almost, almost, Tang Guogong, please don't be impatient, since the Francois giant Columbia was able to find India to the west, then we can naturally find India to the east, after all, the earth is round......"

When Li Hongzhang heard this, his blood pressure instantly reached more than two hundred.

But he couldn't have a seizure.

After all, although he is the so-called Guogong, in terms of identity and status, he is far inferior to the Taishan Beidou of the Ming Navy in front of him, a retired rear admiral.

It's like the king of the Li family in Korea back then, and he was also at the level of a prince according to his rank, but in front of the three rank masters of the Heavenly Empire, isn't he still a fart?

The heavenly officials of the state are fundamentally different from the barriers.

In the future, even if Qi Wenchang, Mo Bai and others are just marquises, they will not be enough to see as a duke.

In front of him, Li Hongzhang estimated that by the time the Ming Dynasty was officially knighted, an earl would not be able to run away no matter what.

He would never dare to contradict such a person.

Even Li Hongzhang once suspected that the retired rear admiral was deliberately fooling himself and taking away detours.

Behind him may be the will of the Son of Heaven.

He's ordered to fight!

But at least one thing is true.

He, Li Shaoquan, also studied a little astronomy and geography.

I knew that this world was not a round place, but that the earth under my feet was a sphere.

Since it is spherical, it will eventually be possible to walk a few more days.

In that year, the British invaded China, from Guangzhou to Tanggu, all the way to find the weak link of coastal defense, so that the Qing army was exhausted, thus forming a local situation of fighting more and less.

Li Hongzhang also intended to conquer India in this way.

So the fleet carried a lot of fuel, enough to last ten months.

However, the food of the fleet had to be rationed.

Gone are the days when those squires ate two cans a day.

Li Hongzhang was just about to give the order, when he suddenly looked at the sailor and shouted: "There are islands ahead, and there are many Roshan moving on it!" ”

When Zheng Baoguo heard this, he hurriedly raised the clairvoyant mirror to look at it, and then shouted: "This old man knows, this old man knows!" ”

He happily shook Li Hongzhang's hand and said with a smile: "I said why is it so cold here, Lord Li, we are here at Bear Island, those Roshan are delicious sea elephants!" ”

·

Zheng Baoguo's judgment was, of course, wrong.

Because they are located close to the South Pole and not near the North Pole, they are almost at opposite ends of the globe from the naval base established by the Ming in the Aleutian Islands.

Zheng Baoguo saw that the island was not Bear Island, but Elephant Island, and the Roshan he saw was naturally not a walrus, but an equally huge Antarctic elephant seal.

Male Antarctic elephant seals are the largest pinnipeds, while females are slightly smaller than walruses.

In short, as an animal blind, it is difficult to distinguish between these two kinds of marine mammals with boiling meat.

Of course, for hungry sailors, there is no need to distinguish.

These large, oily, and clumsy creatures are the best source of food.

Along the way, Li Hongzhang saw many icebergs, but in fact, these icebergs were not "ice that does not melt all year round" as he said.

These icebergs were broken off from the Antarctic ice sheet and floated here.

The temperature in the Strait itself is not low, and the temperature of the sea is close to three degrees in the coldest months.

It's November, which is the warmest time in the Southern Hemisphere, so a lot of icebergs are melting and drifting, not because of the local ice.

Li Hongzhang and his entourage, who landed on Elephant Island, have already written history.

Because Koh Chang is part of the South Shetland Islands, which are part of Antarctica under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, sovereignty over the islands is not recognized or disputed by the contracting parties and is open to non-military uses.

But at this time, Li Hongzhang will not care about the "Antarctic Treaty" that has no bullshit.

After a long voyage, I finally saw land.

Li Hongzhang ordered Liu Mingchuan and others to raise the bright sun and moon and the earth here, and the partridge flag of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and at the same time play the "Duke Li Music", burn incense to the sky, and announce to the sky that this island with an area of 0.01T, about the size of 8 Hong Kong Island, is the first overseas territory of the Southern Tang Principality.

Of course, it is impossible for such a small broken island to settle so many gentry.

But everything is difficult at the beginning, a good start is half the success.

The Huai army took spears and bayonets and killed more than 500 elephant seals at one time, and organized a grand banquet.

And this Antarctic island, in fact, is not much cold.

In the middle of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the temperature on Koh Chang can reach 8 degrees Celsius.

It can only be said that it is slightly cold, but it is not cold.

In fact, in terms of latitude, although it is Antarctica, it is even lower than the latitude of Iceland.

And, like Iceland, it has a strong oceanic climate, with warm currents passing along the coast in winter, westerly winds blowing from the surface of the warm currents, and warm and humid air currents, so winter temperatures are much warmer than those in the center of the continent and the east coast of the continent at the same latitude.

Furthermore, Koh Chang is less than 500 kilometers away from the Great Wall Station in later generations.

As the first scientific research station established by China in Antarctica, the Great Wall Station did not go deep into the hinterland of Antarctica, but on a long and narrow peninsula, which also has a strong oceanic climate, and the conditions are not as harsh as the world imagined. (pictured)

In the summer, the maximum temperature at the station can reach 13 degrees Celsius.

When the winter is the coldest time, the average temperature is minus six or seven degrees, and the extremely cold days can reach more than minus 20 degrees, which is not much colder than the winter in the Northeast.

In short, the fleet of the Southern Tang caught up with the good time and arrived at Elephant Island.

Zheng Baoguo was very disappointed when he found out that this was not the Ming Dynasty's naval powerhouse in the North Pacific, Bear Island.

However, based on the experience of Bear Island, he also suggested that Li Hongzhang establish a supply depot on Elephant Island.

After the replenishment, the Southern Tang army would continue eastward, looking for India.