The Ming army would not treat anyone badly in terms of food, regardless of the soldiers and men.

In addition to rice porridge, the daily meal will also be accompanied by a piece of sweet potato, fish soup (Luzon is close to the sea, there is no shortage of fresh food), and tropical melons and fruits are also rationed.

At the same time, Liu Yu also ordered people to take out the internal organs of marine fish and boil cod liver oil, which has a miraculous effect on the treatment of night blindness.

At the same time, the intake of all kinds of melons and fruits made the sailors and soldiers of the Ming army basically not suffer from scurvy.

This surprised even Gore, because sailors who sailed the sea all year round were extremely susceptible to scurvy, such as the sailors of the East India merchant fleet, which basically showed signs of scurvy, but Gore never found it among the Ming soldiers and sailors in these days.

This amazed Gore and puzzled.

In fact, it is true that Chinese sailors rarely get scurvy, and Western sailors such as the Spaniards and English in the same period often died of scurvy.

The reason for this is that later generations have attributed the credit to the fact that there are bean sprouts and tea leaves on Chinese sea ships, and there is vitamin C.

For example, when Zheng He went to the West, he planted bean sprouts on the ship.

In fact, bean sprouts are useful, but to save the lives of sailors in the Ming and Qing dynasties because of bean sprouts, it is complete nonsense.

Bean sprouts have VC, but the content is not high, only 8 grams per 100 grams, and bean sprouts will seriously lose nutrients when cooking, that is to say, basically a day to eat enough pounds of bean sprouts to barely have an effect, you must know that bean sprouts consume a lot of fresh water.

How scarce is fresh water on the ship, and let the bean sprouts compete with the sailors for water to drink, so do you still need to live?

The reason why Zheng He went to the West and even the Ming Qing Dynasty basically did not suffer from scurvy in the next few hundred years was because Chinese merchant ships basically went to the South Sea, and from Fujian and Guangdong, they basically sailed along the coasts of Southeast Asia.

Even if it is from Taiwan to Luzon, the clipper voyage is only a little more than a month.

Basically, fresh water and tropical fruits can be replenished on the coastal land.

Southeast Asian coastal fruits such as citrus were the key to keeping South Sea sailors free from scurvy.

After all, citrus and other tropical fruits are rich in vitamin C, and at the same time, the Nanyang merchant fleet can dock once every ten days and half a month, so naturally it will not get scurvy.

But Western sailors were different, there was no Suez Canal at that time, and if you wanted to get to the East, you had to go around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, cross the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

It will take several years to come down this way, and it is all the ocean at a glance, and it is not necessary to see the land for seven or eight months, and in this case, the Western sailors who cannot get land supplies are naturally sad, after all, VC can only ensure the consumption of the human body for forty days, and after forty days, scurvy and so on all come.

So don't think that Chinese sailors can't get scurvy because of how smart the Chinese in ancient times were, knowing that bean sprouts and tea could be prevented, relying on them is not enough.

The Chinese sailors relied on the geographical conditions of the South Seas, which allowed them to stop and go, and they could get supplies of vegetables and fruits on the shore every ten days and half a month.

At the same time, Western sailors sailed for several years without the opportunity to dock on land for supplies, and it was already a gift from God to be able to run into an island in the ocean.

Wandering on the ocean all year round and not getting fresh vegetables and fruits is nourishing, so there is such a high mortality rate.

Therefore, later generations were complacent that Ming Qing Shuishou would not get scurvy, and Western sailors would die a large number of people because of scurvy.

They would never have thought that the reason why Chinese sailors in the Ming and Qing dynasties did not get scurvy was because they were comfortable and could not get it at all.

Just in Europe, navigators crossed the Atlantic, discovered the American continent, and sailed the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope.

From Columbus's discovery of the American continent to Magellan's voyage around the globe.

European navigators and sailors who gradually emerged from the ignorance of the Middle Ages used their courage and courage to conquer the oceans, discover the new continents, and conquer one indigenous tribe after another.

The sea conditions have been extremely difficult due to the long years of sailing.

Even diseases such as scurvy and lack of supplies often lead to the death of a shipload of sailors.

But that's it, did the Europeans abandon the ocean?

The Ming government was unable to make ends meet due to financial constraints, so it gave up going to the West.

Europeans, however, never abandoned the ocean because of diseases such as scurvy and the harsh natural climate that led to the death of a large number of sailors.

The merchants of the Ming and Qing dynasties went to sea like a little daughter-in-law out of the boudoir, twisting and pinching and docking at the shore for ten days and half a month to replenish supplies.

European navigators have already braved the waves in the Atlantic, Indian and even Pacific Oceans, ushering in the Age of Discovery.

It can be said that they exchanged the blood and sweat of several generations for hegemony for hundreds of years to come.

And what about the Ming and Qing dynasties?

Even small Southeast Asia was not taken, and even the nearby island of Luzon was taken by the Spaniards.

How far are the Spaniards from Luzon and how far are the Chinese from Luzon.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Spain massacred China on a large scale in Luzon five times, did the Ming and Qing dynasties send troops?

One shirks prevarication because he has no money, and the other even thinks that the people outside the country should be slaughtered.

Then don't blame Europe for conquering the world.

The cause of all this was planted as early as the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Therefore, when he saw that many of the sailors of the East India Company and even the Spanish merchant fleet were suffering from scurvy, Liu Yu had an indescribable feeling in his heart.

There was both admiration and pity for these sailors.

So when Gore asked intentionally or unintentionally, Liu Yu replied decisively: "GodKnows"

When Gore heard this, he was stunned at first and then laughed.

Liu Yu naturally knows that vitamin C can effectively prevent and treat scurvy, and he also knows that citrus lemons and other citrus are rich in vitamin C.

Westerners in this era naturally didn't know what vitamins were, although some Western captains did find that fruits such as citrus could prevent scurvy.

However, it was not popularized and promoted, and Western sailors often ate all kinds of jerky, so the merchant fleet could not necessarily see the land for most of the year.

Even if I told them that fruit could be prevented, there must be no good way for them to store fruit for a long time.

Most importantly, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, two million sailors died of scurvy during the Great Voyages of the West.

Two million, knowing the centuries of rule of the Spanish colonies on the island of Luzon, there were no more than 10,000 Spanish colonists on the island.

This is also the reason why thousands of soldiers of the Ming army dared to come to Luzon.

Such a staggering death toll also proves that the glory of the Western Age of Discovery also greatly limited the conquest of the world by Western colonizers.

Imagine a year and a half of a journey for a merchant ship sailing from Spain to cross the Atlantic, round the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean, and then cross the Indian Ocean to Luzon.

In the absence of land supplies for a long time, diseases such as scurvy can kill most of the crew members of a merchant ship, and when the crew arrives at their destination, the fresh water on the island is rich in various parasites, which can cause the sailors to suffer from diseases such as malaria.

As a result, the mortality rate of Western sailors during the Age of Discovery was quite high, as was the case with the Spanish colonists who came to Luzon in the fifteenth century.

For the Western navigators who were tormented by scurvy, Liu Yu was very happy to see it.

This is undoubtedly a great constraint on the colonization of various continents by Western colonizers.

Gore is just an East Indian businessman, so he naturally doesn't know these little ninety-nine in Liu Yu's heart.

The previous inquiry was just a casual remark, and I didn't pay much attention to it.