Lu Ming

Chapter 197 Drifting Show
The two ships parted ways soon after setting off from Dazuo.

The Alicante will continue south to Manila.On the other hand, the Yuandou headed straight to Kenting Cape that night without stopping, and went northward the next day, heading straight to the coast of Taitung.

Compared with the west coast of Taiwan, which is often visited by Fujian people, the east coast facing the Pacific Ocean is more desolate and more primitive. Every inch of land is covered with vegetation, dense trees, lush greenery, and majestic mountains.

The development of the Taitung area has also been very slow in history: transportation is inconvenient, many places are isolated from the world, and every year we have to face the Pacific storm directly. It takes a lot of courage to get along here.

Since the age of great navigation in the 15th century, the Portuguese have named many places on the global route "Formosa".

To some extent, this is a bit like the Michelin certification of later generations: any place named "Formosa" by the Portuguese must be a primitive area with beautiful natural environment; because the word "Formosa" in Latin means It means "beautiful".

This term is not used in later generations, mainly because of its colonial color.And through the age of the people, the official names of Taiwan and the strait to the colonists were "Formosa" and "Formosa Strait".

After crossing Bitou Reef where the Galen ship met, 70 kilometers further north is the Taitung Plain.The distance that cars of later generations can cover in a few ten minutes, sand boats ran for most of the day under the headwind.

When you see the Taitung Plain, you will naturally see the Green Island on the east sea.So Pan Mingzhong was humming "Green Island Serenade" while directing the Yuandou to dock at the mouth of Beinan River.

Beinan Stream is the largest stream in Taitung, originating from the Central Mountain Range.The Taitung Delta Plain is the Beinan River and several other streams, alluvially formed over tens of millions of years.

Soon, the sand boat found a small flat bay north of the mouth of the Beinan River.After the ship was parked, Lei Jian was wearing a canvas overalls, fully armed, and led a group of sailors with guns, ready to disembark for exploration.

"Sir, I have to remind you that the savages here are very cruel and difficult to deal with."

The first mate Samper with a thin face and blond hair led the interpreter to Lei Jian.

Samper had a fulfilling life on board the Yuandou these days.

Although the stern cabin and the engine room below the stern cabin did not allow him to approach, he still found many surprising places on the Yuandou.

Only by boarding the traverser's ship in person can one feel the horror of being dominated by technology-in Samper, technology is always called "the power of the devil".

The iron cylinder hanging on the mast that roared loudly from time to time, the iron that turned strangely, the pulley block on the sail cable, and the rifle that could be fired without a match in the hands of soldiers. All these made Samper feel that he was on a devil's ship.

There are also night flights.Although he was ordered to sleep in the cabin every night, as an old seaman, Samper only needs to stand on the deck the next day to calculate the voyage last night from the familiar terrain of the Taitung coastline.

It made him shudder.

How did the Yuandou find its course in the dark and avoid the bright and dark reefs along the coast?

In the end, Samper could only attribute everything to the strange powers given to them by the gods of the pagans.

After hearing the chief mate's evaluation of the local natives, Lei Jian grinned.He understood Huang Mao's mood at the moment: the Spaniards had suffered a lot from the natives of Taipei and Taitung.

Patting Samper on the shoulder, Lei Jian put the AK on his shoulder, waved to Pan Mingzhong who was smoking in the machine gun nest, and then led the team off the boat.

Although there are many indigenous tribes here in Taitung, they were not so easy to meet on the desolate river beach in the 17th century.

The main indigenous tribes in Taitung are the Ami and Puyuma.The Amis have a large population, and the Puyuma are brave and good at fighting.There are also some indigenous tribes such as Rukai, Bunun, Paiwan and so on.

Lei Jian's main task today is to survey and map the topography of the Beinan River estuary. By the way, he will look for iron sand ore. It doesn't need to go deep into any vegetation area, so safety is still guaranteed.

As for iron ore, there is no iron ore produced in Beinan River in the historical records, so this trip is just to take a look.

In fact, until the team returned two hours later, there was no sign of any aborigines on the river beach.

"How is it? Did you gain anything?" Pan Mingzhong, who was in charge of housekeeping, opened his mouth and asked after pulling the Thunder Sword on the board onto the boat.

"I measured the topography, and I dare not go in the woods." Lei Jian said while packing up the digital camera used to take pictures of the terrain in his hand, "I originally looked at the landform here, and I feel that there are iron sand mineralization conditions. Alas, look It's still not good at learning, the instructor didn't listen carefully in class back then."

"Hehe, don't talk nonsense, it doesn't exist in the information, can you still conjure it?"

Following the conversation between the two, the Yuandou officially ended its first exploration mission since its voyage, and began to set sail slowly, heading north regardless of the lateness of the sky.

After zigzagging on the sea for 2 hours at an average speed of 3-20 knots, Yuandou was able to see the key target of this exploration, the mouth of the Xiuguluan River at noon on the second day.

The Hsiuguluan River is located on one-third of the east coast of Taiwan, originating from the Hsiuguluan Mountain in the Central Mountain Range.This place belongs to Hualien County and is a tourist spot in later generations.There is a rafting festival here every summer, a program of rafting along the stream, the first single-hole long bridge in Taiwan, the Dasheng Palace and the natural Xiugu Shuyu Scenic Area.

At this moment, the estuary of the Xiuguluan River, which appeared in the telescope of the Yuandou, has nothing but the lush green vegetation on both sides of the river, and the green Xibulan Island in the middle of the estuary.

In addition to the dense vegetation, it is still vegetation, and people feel sick when they see it.

When the Yuandou came to the estuary, it found that the navigation conditions of Xiuguluan River seemed much more dangerous than that of Beinan River: not only was there a small island in the middle of the estuary, but also because the channel was narrower, there were many messy reefs. Distributed in the estuary area.

This time, the Yuandou could not enter rashly, but opened up its posture to prepare for the whole process—after the ship stopped and anchored, a simple boom was used to lower the boat on the deck.

After the boat was lowered, Lei Jian brought six people aboard this time.With baskets and shovels, lead weights and ropes for measuring water depth, guns, and digital cameras for taking pictures of the terrain, they climbed out of the boat along the ladder and started paddling toward the mouth of the Xiuguluan River.

And according to the unwritten rules, if one traveler on the ship goes out, the other must stay to take charge of the overall situation, so Pan Mingzhong will just stay in the stern cabin and not go anywhere.

Seven or eight minutes later, the small boat had rowed near Hexin Island and began to measure the water depth on the spot.On this trip, Lei Jian and the others had to measure the routes around the island on both the left and right sides, in case other ships would enter in the future.

Just then, an accident happened.

The lookout with a Zeiss 10x mirror in the watchtower first noticed the abnormality, and Pan Mingzhong, who heard the alarm, picked up the walkie-talkie and binoculars on the table and ran out of the cabin.

After climbing into the machine gun nest on the stern building a few steps, Pan Mingzhong straightened up and began to look at the upper reaches of the Xiuguluan River with a telescope.

Appearing in the shot are a dozen canoes rushing down a stream.

Pan Mingzhong's hair exploded at this moment, and he quickly shouted into the walkie-talkie: "Old Lei, the situation has changed, speed back, repeat, speed back!"

Lei Jian's voice quickly came from the walkie-talkie: "Got it, I'm turning around. What's the matter, repeat, what's the matter?"

"Shut up! Turn around and come back!" Pan Mingzhong didn't have time to explain at this time, he took out the M9 pistol on his back and fired 3 shots into the sky to warn Lei Jian, then turned his head and shouted: "Heave the anchor, pull the sail, and ignite the gas stove!"

The current situation is: the bow of the Yuandou is facing the north, and it is stopping horizontally at the outlet of the Xiuguluan River, while the small boat has already turned around and is rowing towards the sand boat.

Due to the relationship with Hexin Island behind them, Lei Jian and the others couldn't see the fleet that came down from the upper reaches; fortunately, Lei Jian was not a fool, he turned around as soon as he heard the alarm, and after seeing the guns on the ship, Knowing that the situation is not good, the row is faster now.

Within 2 minutes, the natives on the canoe could be clearly seen through the telescope.

These natives, who were naked and covered with various bone and wood ornaments around their necks, were paddling the canoe with oars.Some big men standing at the bow of the boat waved the spears in their hands and shouted loudly, showing off their strong chest muscles and the white mud camouflage on their faces.

Since the natives' boat was going down the current, it was going very fast. At this moment, Pan Mingzhong was impatiently estimating the distance between the canoe and the boat.

But it's useless to be anxious, Yuandou can't do anything at this time.Although the anchor has been drawn, the sails cannot be fully drawn yet: the boat can not move at full sail until the boat returns.As for the engine room, a few minutes wasn't enough to get the propeller going.

Finally, just as the small boat returned to the sand boat, the native canoes had skillfully passed through the rock formations at the mouth of the river, split into two strands, and emerged from the left and right of Xibran Island.

Lei Jian, who desperately climbed back from the ladder to the deck of the Yuandou, was panting heavily, looking at the natives hundreds of meters away in a daze.This gentleman's head is sweating at this moment: I guess it's because of fright.You know, if it weren't for the binoculars and the walkie-talkie, he would probably be finished.

There are more than 10 canoes and more than 100 strong natives. He doesn't know how many can be killed by the AK in his hand in a hasty encounter?
As soon as Lei Jian boarded the boat, the sails began to be raised, and after a few people climbed up on the small boat, the sandboat had already started to sail towards the open sea.

After waving his hand, the remaining three people on the small boat hurriedly rowed the boat aside. At this moment, Pan Mingzhong pushed Lei Jian: "What are you doing, go use the machine gun?"

"Ah, oh, I got it." After Lei Jian took two steps towards the rear cabin, the reflex arc finally worked, and he was afraid of attacking him, so he jumped up and shouted: "Where did these grandchildren come from? Lao Tzu Kill them!"

"Dear Lei, these are natives of the Kavalan tribe, and they often attack Spanish ships like this."

At the critical moment, the yellow-haired first mate Samper reappeared with the translator.

"Nonsense, the Kavalan people are from Yilan. When did they come to Taidong?"

Lei Jian shouted while running towards the machine gun nest.

(End of this chapter)