In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, in the South China Sea, the Dongfang armed merchant ship.

Li Zhaoji stood on the side of the ship, the rhythmic sound of the trumpet sounded in his ears, the distant sand island slowly disappeared into the horizon, a round of dawn soared on the boundless sea, and under his feet was a dirty armed sailboat, messy ropes and yellow, smelly canvas occupied all his vision.

Only the flag flying at the top of the mast is clean, with a striped merchant flag of four white and five red, and the St. George Cross on the top left, indicating that this is a seventeenth-century ship of the British East India Company.

Her name is Dongfang, but it is the hell of Li Zhaoji.

"Get back, dog mongrel!" The roar with a strong Hokkien style sounded like thunder in Li Zhaoji's ears, and a cunning and ruthless face appeared in front of Li Zhaoji. Li Zhaoji leaned back slightly, dodging his rough slap.

"Dare to hide!" The man pulled out the whip from his waist and was about to whip it, but was stopped by a man with a Portuguese accent in the stern: "Come here, high!" ”

Gao Jia, who was still fierce just now, had a flattering smile on his fat face, nodded and walked over. Li Zhaoji and his party of five were pushed off the upper deck, through a narrow passage, and locked into the damp and dark bilge.

"Damn Gao Jia, he's just a dog, Lao Tzu has a chance, he will definitely kill him." A voice rang out in the darkness, accompanied by the rattling of chains.

Li Zhaoji closed his eyes and leaned against the bottom bilge, knowing that it was the sailor Chen Liuzi who swore a bad oath, as an unlucky guy who had crossed over for three days, although he was occasionally in a trance, Li Zhaoji already knew everything around him.

This is an armed trading merchant ship that set sail from London, the ship named the Orient, although it bears the flag of the East India Company, but is not affiliated with the East India Company, but belongs to the Gertin Association in London, which is a British chamber of commerce dedicated to the trade between China and Britain, and even the King of England has a stake in it.

The Vostok was in a fleet of British East India companies, and because the commander was named William, this fleet was usually called William's fleet.

The bilge of the sailboat is the worst part of the ship, this place is full of dirty water that seeps in, the air is full of foul smell and humidity, the stuffy environment makes people breathless, it is not a place for people to live at all, except for a small amount of coal and ballast stones, not even the cargo will be stuffed here, and the people who are locked in are all death row prisoners without exception.

"yes, kill him, kill him!" Another voice echoed the low roar, and Li Zhaoji could hear that it was Liu Shun's voice.

Among the five people who were imprisoned in the bilge, Chen Liuzi and Gao Jia were Xiao, both of them were Chinese in Pattani, Nanyang Commercial Port, and there were more than 20 sailors on this ship, all of whom were Chinese in Pattani, and it was Gao Jia who cooperated with the British to deceive them, originally deceived thirty-four, and now six have died.

Chen Liuzi couldn't get used to Gao Jia deceiving his fellow countrymen and betraying his friends, so he angrily reprimanded him in person, and was chained by Gao Jia with shackles, deliberately torturing him to deter other Chinese sailors.

Liu Shun and the other two people are uncles and nephews, uncle Liu Mingde took Liu Shun and Liu Li brothers to the sea to do business, was to take the Dongfang back to Daming, and the business gains were coveted by Gao Jia and the British, seized their property, and stole the captain's property.

If these four people are caused by man-made disasters, Li Zhaoji is completely made by providence.

He was a naval officer, and he accidentally crossed over on vacation and woke up on the Vostok. Everyone didn't know how Li Zhaoji got on the ship, and they thought he was a pirate, and they were arrested in the bilge for three days.

"Uncle, what should we do?" Liu Li asked, compared to his brother, Liu Li was more timid.

Liu Mingde sighed: "I thought that if I took away our money, I should let us live." But I never thought that we would continue to increase our weight in the past few days, forcing us to work, and I was afraid that we would not be able to go back to our hometown. ”

Chen Liuzi hurriedly said: "Lao Liu, you are right, we are dead, instead of being humiliated by Gao Jia's dog, it is better to go out and turn against the red hair, kill his mother, kill one is enough, kill two to earn one." ”

"Yes, just do it, you can't be abused to death by them in vain." Liu Shun agreed.

After a while, Liu Mingde said: "It's okay, kill his mother, fuck his father!" ”

In the seventeenth century, there was no one who was good at sea, although Liu Mingde was in business, but if he didn't have such a ruthless spirit, how could he gain a foothold on the sea?

The four of you agreed on everything you said, and Chen Liuzi asked: "Brother Li, why don't you speak, is it possible that you don't dare?" ”

"You are also a mixed river dragon on the sea, how can you be cowardly at this time?" Liu Shun also asked.

Li Zhaoji didn't speak, not because he was afraid, but because he didn't want to die, he just wanted to live. Just as he was hesitating how to convince this group of desperate guys, Chen Liuzi suddenly pounced, choked Li Zhaoji's neck in the dark night, and said viciously in his ear: "Say, are you holding back the informant and changing your life?" ”

Li Zhaoji didn't expect this guy to be so ruthless, he said he would do it, but he was not easy to mess with, he hit Chen Liuzi in the lower ribs with an elbow, grabbed his wrist with his backhand, and directly grabbed Chen Liuzi and pressed him under him.

Chen Liuzi said angrily: "You have a fucking ability, why do you want to be a coward?" ”

"You want to die, but I don't want to die, if you are willing to listen to me, we will all have a chance to survive, at least we can pull the whole boat to be buried with us. The dog-legged Gao Jia and the group of red-haired devils, no one can escape! Li Zhaoji said lightly, his voice unusually calm.

Li Zhaoji's words gave everyone hope to live, and the first one to waver was Liu Li, who asked in a trembling voice: "Brother Li, can we really live?" ”

"Unless the red-haired devil wants to die with us, listen to me, and we can all live!" Li Zhaoji said in a deep voice.

Saying that, he had already let go of Chen Liuzi, Li Zhaoji saw that he did not resist, and beckoned them to come closer, Chen Liuzi was also a bachelor, and immediately said: "Brother Li, if you can lead everyone to live, everyone will listen to you, if you can't do it, let's go out next time, we will fight with them together." ”

"Good!" Li Zhaoji agreed to come down.

In the past three days, after he figured out the situation, he only thought about how to escape from the Vostok. Originally, he had planned to talk to Captain Johnson, believing that his status as a time-traveler was enough to show that he was different, and that his ability to speak English alone would be enough to earn a living.

But as a death row inmate who was held in the bilge and worked to death, Li Zhaoji had no chance to meet those people in the stern. Since the soft one has no chance, it can only come to the hard one, unite with Chen Liuzi and others, launch an armed riot, and seize the Dongfang.

"Chen Liuzi, you once said that this Dongfang was repaired in Pattani, and you also participated in the repair of the ship, but is it true?" Li Zhaoji asked.

Chen Liuzi gave a positive answer, and Li Zhaoji also said the plan in his heart.

Chen Liuzi had repaired the Dongfang and knew the structure of the ship, and Li Zhaoji had discovered that although this ship had eight six-pounder guns, it was still a merchant ship of Yahat, and it did not have as many layers as the Galen ship, and the upper floor of the bilge was the cargo hold, storage compartment, weapon compartment, etc., and Li Zhaoji's way to get out of trouble was to find the location of the weapon compartment in the bilge according to Chen Liuzi's memory, drill into it from the bottom up, seize the weapon compartment, and force the British to compromise by threatening to detonate the gunpowder and end up at the same time.

If the British refused, they simply detonated the gunpowder and perished.

When a few people heard this, they immediately felt that it made sense, and Chen Liuzi asked: "This deck is still made of four-inch thick square wood, and it is all hardwood, we have nothing to do with it, how can we break it?" ”

"So, let's go out and work and find a way to get some things, nails, porcelain tiles, and so on." Li Zhaoji said that in the dark, no one could be heard, and Li Zhaoji said lightly: "If you don't want to, I, Li Zhaoji, am willing to die with all my brothers, killing one is enough, killing two to earn one!" ”

The human heart is the most changeable soil, and once the seeds of hope are planted, they will take root and sprout immediately. When there is hope for life, no one will die generously.

Under the guidance of Chen Liuzi, Li Zhaoji successfully found the bottom of the weapon compartment, and then waited for the passage of time.

Wooden sailboats, even new ones that have just been launched, can leak. Under the main mast, there is a winch, when the winch is connected to the chain drain, the push of the winch can discharge the water that has penetrated into the bilge out of the hull, and Li Zhaoji, the five death row prisoners, is responsible for drainage, and only when he goes out to push the winch, can he have something to eat.

Every once in a while, Li Zhaoji would feel the surface of the water to determine the level of the bilge. The Vostok is still relatively new, and it only needs to be drained every half day, and some old ships even need to be drained all the time. "Get out, you bastards." Gao Jia's voice sounded through the bottom hatch, and Li Zhaoji and the others finally got the opportunity they had not seen for a long time.

Before dark, it is necessary to complete the drainage once. Because the Vostok had many sailors resting at night, pushing the winch would make a loud noise, which had to be done before dark.

"Go there and squat, look at something!" The five people got out of the bilge, Liu Shun was slapped in the neck by Gao Jia for raising his head, and the five people squatted under the stern of the ship under the coercion of Gao Jia, and a black and swarthy broken bucket was thrown in front of them, which was some dry cakes harder than stones, and half a bucket of rancid, barely called porridge.

The five of them divided the dry cakes, and each of them pretended to be honest, looking for an opportunity to see if they could get some sharp weapons. And from the stern floor, there was a jumble of conversation, and it was the young man on the ship who was learning how to determine latitude and longitude with the captain, who was a rough man, constantly swearing a few students.

Li Zhaoji smiled helplessly, but found that Gao Jia, who had nothing to do, was also laughing, which showed that he could understand English.

Immediately afterwards came a majestic voice, and it turned out that a small boat had approached, and a young man with blond hair had come up, and he had come to the stern and spoken to the captain. Their voices were not loud, and they were a little inaudible in the noisy boat, and Li Zhaoji took the opportunity to get closer, but found that Gao Jia was also closer, and he was also eavesdropping.

However, the two of them eavesdropped for a while, and their faces changed greatly, and Gao Jia fell directly to the ground, panting for breath and looking horrified.