After almost a day of replenishment, the fleet set out on its journey again, but this time in the favor of Lady Luck and encountered the Indian Ocean monsoon.

Friedrich received assurances from Benny Erbin that Bagamoyo had enough coal and supplies to feed him.

Overjoyed, he ordered the fleet to set off; With the help of a duplex steam engine and a hybrid of sails, it reached its destination in less than six days at an ultra-high speed of 20 knots.

Bagamoyo is the oldest city in Tanzania, but the Slave Fort, which can be described in a variety of architectural styles, may have been more appropriately called a town to Europeans at this time.

As far as the eye can see, there are not only old European-style buildings, but also aborigine-style straw huts, simple style houses directly pasted with mud, and even halal-style temples and some temples that are not like them.

But in general, it can be summed up in three words: old, old, and broken.

The local European merchants were visibly miserable, dressed in completely secluded Rococo or Regency-style clothing.

The men were dressed in exaggerated and complicated clothes, leather heels and wigs, as if they had traveled from the 18th century.

The women's dress was also very pretentious, but it was not much in line with the mainstream European style of 1842, but it was still far from the fashionable Vienna.

And they seemed to carry a strange smell on their bodies, even if they were a few meters away from the group, Franz and his party could smell it.

Da Shishanyin looked in disbelief at the European women who walked nearby, after all, her classmates in Vienna even wished to soak in the water all day and use all kinds of flower petals and spices to marinate the flavor from top to bottom.

But from the appearance of these women in front of them, it is easy to conclude that they don't even seem to want to wash their heads. To her surprise, sweat, tears, bird droppings, and all sorts of strange stains on their clothes were visible; The smell of "intoxicating" on the body can discourage a teenager who is pregnant with spring.

The harbor was crowded with people of colourful skin, who clearly welcomed the arrival of the Austrian ocean-going fleet; Due to the rise of the port of Mombasa, Bagamoyo's business is also declining day by day, and there is no doubt that the port is dying.

Franz and his entourage also noticed the strange phenomenon that there seemed to be a large number of Arabs on the docks, and there were even slave ships carrying entire ships out of the port.

When Benny Erbin and his men stepped out of the following transport, the whites on the dock let out a loud cheer, and at the same time the Arabs next to them immediately became vigilant, and even some merchant ships left the harbor directly.

Both Franz and Friedrich knew that their actions must have been motivated by fear of reprisals from the whites, so they rushed to report to their masters.

However, this will not affect your own itinerary, after all, the fleet is only here to replenish supplies, and it will leave this place of right and wrong in two days at most.

So they didn't think it would cause them any trouble, but the two of them began to plan the future of the port.

Franz felt that Bagamoyo would inevitably become an important fulcrum for the empire in East Africa, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal.

Of course, in his dream, if all goes well, the ultimate goal is to connect it with the Congolese colony to form a trans-Central African supercolony.

The "pragmatist" Friedrich, on the other hand, considered Bagamoyo to be a good fit for what it was necessary to be a military port; Natural barriers and decent depth will cause more problems for the attacker.

But its limitation is also obvious, that is, it is not big enough; If a large fleet were to be stationed here for a long time, it would be small, and once the number of ships on the attacking side doubled, the advantages and disadvantages of attack and defense would be completely reversed.

Friedrich preferred Daressalam, which was still a small fishing village at the time, to Bagamoyo, where the water level was deeper, with more space and ideal depth.

But Dar Ray Salaam was still a poor and unrecognizable village, and it could take 3-5 years to fully develop it into a fully functional port, and up to 10 years before people realized its superiority.

Daressalam, located at the mouth of the Rufu River, was the capital of Tanzania in later generations, but at this time it did not yet show the advantage of a deep-water port; And building a port from something to nothing is never easy.

While their minds were still immersed in thought, boxes of weapons and black powder were brought ashore, and batches of supplies and coal were brought aboard.

However, in order to prevent accidents, Friedrich still ordered all officers and soldiers not to stay on the shore or go deep inland.

Everyone is hoping that nothing will go wrong and affect their plans to leave the city tomorrow morning when the supplies are completed, after all, the rest of the journey will be faced with the most difficult level of the voyage - the Cape of Good Hope.

Until this time, Franz and his party did not realize that they had been deceived, and everyone was anxiously looking forward to the arrival of dawn and the start of the next day's journey.

As the sun rose, Luca Maceninia, a lookout on the Venezia, the flagship of the Austrian Imperial Mediterranean Fleet, got up punctually at 4:30 a.m., as usual, to take over from his companion at five o'clock.

The first rays of the morning sun were particularly harsh, and Luca Macheninia, who had very good eyesight, soon saw that there seemed to be some small black dots approaching where the sun was rising.

This is a very unusual situation, because there are so many black dots that it looks like a huge fleet. As a sharp-minded lookout, he realized that this was a precursor to conflict at sea, but he could not confirm this fact himself.

(Lying or misrepresenting military information in the military is a very serious crime.) ）

"Marcheno! Come and see what that black piece in the distance is? ”

Luca Macheninia called out to his companion on the watchtower, but received no response. According to common sense, this sleepy guy should be lazy, after all, his own ship is anchored in the harbor, and it is almost time for the changing of the guard.

But just as he decided to bite a few bites of bread in the shadow of the watchtower to replenish his energy before changing the guard, a drop of unknown liquid fell on his head.

Luca Maceninia touched it casually, and the sticky and warm sensation was, judging by his years of experience, a piece of fresh bird droppings.

"It's good it didn't fall on the bread." Luca Maceninha was overjoyed, and just as he was about to wipe the bird droppings on his pants, he noticed a trace of red liquid dripping down.

"The guy up there is dead?" He looked at the watchtower in disbelief, but the people on it did not move, and then remembered the large number of black spots in front of him that he had detected, and immediately shouted, "Enemy attack!" Enemy attack! Enemy ships are coming! ”

Luca Macheninha shouted as he climbed towards the watchtower.

"Marcheno! Rosa is still waiting for you to go back and marry her! Damn it! You still owe me 20 florins. ”

How he wished it was just a prank by his stupid friend, but the reality was cruel. A crossbow arrow pierced Marcello's eye and pinned him firmly to the mast, and Luca Macheninia picked up the binoculars, and he saw a whole fleet of sails coming towards them.

"To the northeast, 20 nautical miles, enemy attack! Enemy attack! ”

Based on experience, he judged that the other side was less than 20 nautical miles away from his own side (some book friends must have felt that 20 nautical miles was too far, and there must be no problem in discovering the enemy situation so early).

But in fact, the steam warships of this era can easily start for 2-3 hours, not to mention other combat work such as anchors.

(End of chapter)