Before Li Guoyong set off, the local hundred households had already told him about the general situation.

From Zhenghe Island to Africa, there are two places to supply fresh water in the middle, and it depends on luck to supply food.

One is the 'Treasure Boat Island', which later became the Sergy Islands.

When Zheng He passed by, he named it Baochuan Island, but did not stay in the Ming army, which was too far away from Aceh Province and relatively close to Africa.

Even in later generations, there were only more than 90,000 people in the Serds, and the inhabitants were mainly Bantu, Creoles (mixed European and African descent), people of Indo-Pakistani descent, Chinese, Anglo-French descent, etc., and the country was divided into 26 administrative regions.

At present, there are only Bantu people, that is, local black Africans, on Treasure Boat Island, and other races have not yet made a living here.

Then another supply point was Madagascar, where the locals were mainly Bantu, Arabs, and Mongols (Indo-Nissi), most of whom moved in from the 1st to the 10th centuries AD.

Now called Marga Island in the local language, at the end of the 14th century, during the Yongle period of Jianwen, there were already similar state organizations, but it was not until the 16th century that the dynasty was actually established.

These two places that can be replenished, the former is more than 4,000 miles away from Zhenghe Island, and the latter is more than 6,000 miles away from Zhenghe Island.

Li Guoyong considered the supplies on the ship, and it was the first time to go to sea, so he chose to go to the former Baochuan Island first, and then to Marga Island.

It's a long way, but it's safe.

On the way to Baochuan Island, the fleet suddenly encountered a strong wind, and the fleet was almost blown a little lost, but fortunately, Liu Baihu was experienced, and Li Guoyong also ran at sea all the year round, plus he was well prepared, and he had all kinds of things such as compass and compass, and he was back on track after going off track for a long time.

About 20 days later, Li Guoyong used a telescope to see a piece of land in the distance.

"Take it, take it, take it." Li Guoyong waved anxiously at this time.

Behind him, Liu Baihu and others brought over more than a dozen pictures.

This is all given by the Malacca Jinyi Wei Deputy Thousand Households and Chang Thousand Households.

Among them, there are four pairs of views of Hofune Island from four directions: south, south, west, and north.

Of course, if it weren't due east, south, west and north, it would definitely look different.

But there is still a certain hint effect.

Li Guoyong compared it slightly, the location is a bit remote, but it can be determined that it is Baochuan Island, which proves that they are not remote.

"It's Treasure Ship Island, hahaha." The boat was full of laughter and was quite happy.

At this time, Li Guoyong felt the benefits of the telescope, and with the telescope, they walked along the edge of the island to observe where they could dock, and at the same time they could see the situation on the island.

The fleet circled along the edge of the island for half an hour, and Li Guo's eyes lit up and saw that there were buildings high up in the distance.

"There's someone over there, let's see if we can dock."

They searched for a while longer, and finally found a place to land.

After going ashore, Li Guo ordered to find food and fresh water supplies, and at the same time look for the buildings he had just seen.

He looked for a high place, and saw through his binoculars that the building was about two or three miles away from them, and when he approached with more than twenty men armed with weapons, he found that this was a settlement, and there were many similar houses under the hillside.

The local houses were built with traveler's bananas and bamboo, and in order to prevent moisture, the houses were built on wooden stakes to isolate them from the ground, and the roofs were very steep, like the tree houses of later generations.

Their arrival apparently attracted the attention of the local natives, and in a short time dozens of natives and men appeared.

Most of the people brought by Li Guoyong were seeing black people for the first time.

On the other side, there were all local blacks, and they had no clothes on them, either banana leaves or animal skins.

Seeing that Li Guoyong was wearing armor and holding weapons, the other side was a little panicked.

After the two sides met, they were both using their hands and strokes, completely unaware of what the other party was talking about.

Liu Baihu saw a lot of dried fish, local fruits, and fresh fish hanging around, and couldn't help but bow his head and say to Li Guoyong: "It's better to kill them all and take everything away." ”

Li Guoyong hesitated, there were still many black children on the other side, he couldn't bear it, and shook his head: "I heard that they are short of salt and sugar, let's exchange salt and sugar with them, by the way, iron tools can also be used." ”

He brought a lot of things with him this time, and he planned to exchange them for shopping materials with the natives along the road.

Liu Baihu couldn't bear it when he saw Li Guoyong, so he could only shrug his shoulders.

However, he still said: "Your Majesty said that even if we don't do these things, there will always be European countries coming to colonize them in the future, and they will only be even worse at that time." ”

Li Guoyong said: "We can exchange supplies now, if we kill them all, it may be extremely difficult to get supplies if Han people come over in the future." ”

"Well, the owner has a point." Liu Baihu had no choice but to say.

Li Guoyong stayed on Baochuan Island for two days, using two iron pots, a small amount of salt and sugar to exchange food with the Bantu people, and actually got a kind of food similar to sweet potatoes in later generations, Li Guoyong They haven't eaten it yet, and it feels very interesting after eating, Li Guoyong moved with his heart and asked them if they still have it, in which one?

But the communication between the two sides remained unchanged, and after rowing for a long time without results, Li Guoyong was in a hurry to go to South America, and he didn't have time to ink with them, so he soon continued to the south with the fleet.

In early June, Li Guoyong went to Marga Island, where Zheng He and Yang Lishan also came, and also erected a tall tower near the sea in the north of the island as a reminder.

When Li Guoyong passed by, he could still see part of it with a telescope, because the tower had already fallen halfway, and I don't know if it was blown by the wind or by the nearby natives.

Li Guoyong went ashore to continue supplying, and met the native again.

This area is rich in gemstones, and in later generations it is famous for its rich gemstone resources, the most important of which are sapphires, sea jade, and agate.

Li Guoyong still exchanged iron, salt and sugar for some gems, as well as rice bananas unique to Africa.

These gems were available early in the Ming Dynasty, and the merchants who panned for gold would come here to get them, and Li Guoyong exchanged them casually, mainly to supply grain and fresh water, and then continued to set off.

But this time, as soon as he went to sea, he encountered a strong wind, the wind was stronger than last time, and the two thousand boats also collided together, and several people fell into the sea, Li Guoyong had no choice, and hurried back to the island.

This time I stayed on the island for nearly ten days, and after repairing the boat, I set off again, but I lost a few people and my morale suffered.

Coming out for almost half a year, everyone felt the horror of the sea for the first time, this time they were lucky, they just went out to sea and encountered a strong wind, if they were sailing, far from the coast, it is estimated that they will be hit hard.

Ten days later, Li Guo's fleet reached Mozambique.

This was the farthest place in history where Zheng He's fleet could reach, but under Zhu Gaoxu, Zheng He later continued to look far and far away, rounding around West Africa.

It's much safer to get here, because you can go around the Cape of Good Hope along the African coastline later, and it's easier to resupply and less likely to encounter strong winds.

But the Cape of Good Hope is not easy to walk, because of the storm and the rough waves, it was first called Cape Storm.

Small boats can easily be overturned when passing by, and large boats are extremely dangerous.

But before the opening of the Suez Canal, the only way to go around the Americas from here was to do so.

The most powerful thing about the Cape of Good Hope is the 'Killer Wave', which is like a cliff in the front and a gentle hillside in the back, with a wave height of 15-20 meters, which is frequent in winter, and from time to time it is accompanied by a rotating wave caused by polar winds, when these two waves are superimposed, the sea conditions are even worse, and there is a strong coastal current. When the waves and currents meet, the entire surface of the sea rolls like a boiling pot, and ships sailing here are often shipwrecked, making the Cape of Good Hope the most dangerous part of the world to sail.

At this time, the Ming Empire was probably the only one in the world who knew that this kind of murderous wave was the most occurring in winter under the light of Zhu Gaoxu's traverser, so Li Guoyong's fleet arrived here in the summer, effectively avoiding the peak of the murderous wave.

In mid-July, Li Guoyong's fleet passed through the Cape of Good Hope and came to West Africa.

(End of chapter)