prosperous age

"Let's sail on, we're heading west.

Watch your sailing angle and don't get too close to the Philippines, as those Spanish would be happy to sink us."

Captain Drake stood at the bow and turned and shouted loudly to the sailors behind him.

"Yes, Captain. We don't want to go near the Philippines either."

The second mate behind him answered loudly.

As the sailors turned the capstan, the anchor was slowly pulled up from the sea along the chain, the ship's sails fluttered, and the Golden Hind sailed westward along the equatorial trade winds.

The Golden Hind was a three-masted galleon, named after the golden deer on the shield of its patron, Sir Haydn.

The "Golden Deer" has a total length of 22.88 meters, a length between two columns of 18.30 meters, a width of 5.80 meters, and a displacement of 120 tons. The ship is a three-masted galleon. In addition to the bowsail and mainsail, there are also topsails on the foremast and mainmast. A triangular sail is hung on the stern mast, and a spritsail is supported on the bowsprit. The ship carries 18 cannons and about 60 sailors.

Even though it was not an advanced armed merchant ship, the unsuspecting Spaniards were still confused by it.

In the waters from Peru to Panama, Drake robbed a Spanish gold ship and obtained 80 pounds of gold, 26 tons of silver and a large amount of gems.

And this is just one of the spoils of the Golden Hind. In fact, by robbing Spanish transport ships, the Golden Hind has now become a mobile treasury on the ocean.

Having already robbed enough wealth, Drake now only wanted to return to England safely and did not want to provoke the Spaniards again.

Just two days ago, they crossed the Pacific Ocean and arrived on this small island.

The name of this island is Boshu, which seems to be a name given by the Ming people. However, the people who often come here seem to be Spaniards, because Drake can have simple conversations with the residents on the island in Spanish.

As for the Ming people they were talking about, it seemed that they had not arrived for a long time.

"Captain, do you think we can reach Ming if we continue to go west?"

After the ship left Boshu, the second mate asked beside Drake.

"I don't know. Maybe if we continue to move forward, we will meet people from the Ming Dynasty."

Drake did not have a nautical chart of this area. In fact, during this voyage, they had to measure their position several times a day and record it in the logbook and nautical chart.

When these things are brought back to the UK, they will be important information for the UK to open up overseas trade routes.

Although he did not make a comprehensive record of the American continent, in fact, now in his cabin, he has roughly pieced together the appearance of the American continent, except for the missing northern part of the continent.

"If we can go to Ming and fill their positions, can we come here and trade directly with the Ming people in the future?"

The second mate's interest was obviously attracted by the Ming Dynasty mentioned by the islanders.

There is no way. Westerners all know that there is a wealthy country in the east of the continent. According to legend, this country is very rich and produces the most exquisite goods in the world.

For most Europeans, they can only buy exquisite goods from the East at extremely high prices through these vampires in the Middle Eastern countries.

Finding sea routes and conducting direct trade with the great Eastern powers has always been what European countries aspire to do.

And now, they have done it, but the benefits have all gone to the Spanish and Portuguese.

Ming Dynasty goods that now appeared in Europe could only be obtained from the Ottomans or purchased from Spanish and Portuguese merchants.

Drake could guess the second mate's thoughts. He wanted to go directly to the port of Ming Dynasty, at least to record the coordinates, so that British merchant ships would know how to reach Ming Dynasty in the future.

Drake wanted to do so too, but he was not willing to do so now.

There is no other reason. The things loaded on the ship are too valuable, and they don’t have much space to load Ming Dynasty’s goods.

Now, in addition to the water and food needed for the sailors to survive, the cabin of the Golden Hind was filled with gold, silver and gems, and the rest were spices that could be sold at a good price in Europe.

To ensure safety, they had to keep enough fresh water and food on the ship, as well as gunpowder and shells.

If they are greedy and want to load more goods, especially those from the Ming Dynasty, they may become fat sheep in the eyes of others, and end up getting nothing, or even putting their lives in danger.

“If it’s on the way, we can give it a try.

But if it's not on your way, I think everyone still hopes to get home safely this morning."

Drake whispered to his assistant, "Our enemies are not only the Spanish, we will probably come into contact with the Portuguese soon.

I don’t know what the Portuguese attitude is towards us having English ships here.”

After being reminded by Drake, the second mate also realized that they were still in danger.

Just because of the comfortable life on Boshu Island in the past two days, he almost forgot that they were still thousands of miles away from their country.

They could not be too careful before returning to Europe.

"You are right, Captain."

The second mate nodded in agreement.

The Golden Deer continued to measure the position of the ship and tried to avoid the Philippines. Finally, it passed less than a hundred nautical miles south of the Philippines without encountering any Spanish patrol ships along the way.

In fact, during this period, the Spaniards were already isolated and powerless in the entire Pacific Ocean because they had no rivals and had expanded so much territory.

Apart from limited strongholds, the Spanish actually had very little control over the occupied land.

Except in Mexico and the Philippines, there are very few armed forces left.

This is also the reason why they were able to rob small Spanish strongholds with a single ship, as many of the Spanish people left in those places only had 10 to 20 people.

The ship continued to move southwest, and when they discovered an island again, according to a nautical chart stolen from a Spanish ship, Drake suspected that they had arrived at the Spice Islands mentioned by the Portuguese.

Continuing to sail along these islands, Drake was so nervous that he couldn't sleep for the past few days, fearing that he would accidentally encounter the Spanish or Portuguese.

For unfamiliar waters, this feeling is infinitely magnified.

"Captain, there is a strange big ship ahead."

Drake endured it for three days, but finally couldn't take it anymore.

Letting the second mate continue to lead the ship forward, he returned to the cabin to rest for a while.

Unfortunately, he only had a short time to rest and was woken up just after lying down for a while.

"What big ship?"

When Drake heard the report from his subordinates, his heart suddenly tightened.

"I don't know. I've never seen such a large ship before."

The sailor said, "The second mate asked you to go up there and take a look. It might be a big ship of the Ming people."

Drake felt relieved when he heard that they might have encountered a Ming Dynasty ship.

Come to think of it, whether they are Portuguese or Spanish, their ships are actually similar to the ships they are on, so it is impossible for the sailors not to recognize them.

Only when they encountered a ship of Eastern type would they say it was a very strange large ship. After all, Ming Dynasty ships had never reached Europe.

Drake walked quickly, and a moment later he was out of the cabin and on the deck.

"Captain, there's the boat."

The second mate saw Drake and immediately pointed him in a direction.

Drake took out a telescope and looked over. It was indeed a large ship he had never seen before. According to his estimation, the other party's ship seemed to be slightly larger than the Golden Hind.

After careful observation for a while, Drake was sure that the ship was not very powerful. There were no gun portholes on the hull, and he could only vaguely see that there seemed to be cannons on the deck.

As a pirate, the first thing he thought about when he saw another ship was whether he could attack it. But Drake reacted quickly.

Well, in this far Far East, it’s better not to make enemies easily.

"Lean closer."

Drake ordered.

In fact, the nautical charts they seized had run out in the past two days, and they were now moving forward completely by trial and error.

Yes, the nautical charts found on Spanish ships only allowed them to get here, with the locations of Hawaii and the Philippines marked on them.

Unfortunately, their ship seemed to have deviated from its course, or the coordinates on the nautical chart were wrong, and they did not arrive in Hawaii, but instead passed through there and reached Bosu.

Now that he finally saw other ships, Drake just wanted to get a map of the surrounding area from the other ships so that they could leave here as soon as possible.

Soon, two heavily guarded ships slowly approached each other.

Perhaps because their ship type was a common European one, the other party did not realize that they were neither Spanish nor Portuguese.

However, people on the opposite boat still shouted at them in Portuguese.

"Captain, they are really Ming people."

Hearing the shout from the other side, the second mate said to Drake with some excitement.

As a successful pirate, being proficient in multiple languages ​​seems to be a necessary skill.

In fact, most sailors these days can speak two or three foreign languages.

Europe is too small. Although their languages ​​have their own characteristics, they are generally not much different.

"Tell them we are British."

Drake clenched his fist, then unclenched it and spoke to the second mate.

Now, they still flew the Spanish flag on their ship, which was the flag they obtained after looting a Spanish merchant ship.

The intention of using such tactics was to confuse the Spanish Navy's warships, which was also the main reason why the Golden Hind was able to travel across America.

"Boss, they say they are from Anerea."

At this time on the Dafu ship, a crew member who was fluent in Portuguese and Spanish spoke to his boss beside him.

"Elias, who are those people?"

The ship owner asked curiously.

"I don't know. It's probably a country in Europe. Spain and Portugal are two countries in Europe."

The sailor must have had contact with the barbarians, so he knew what they called Europe.

In fact, "Oloba" as the translation of Europe refers to the western region west of the Mediterranean Sea. Its etymology comes from the Semitic word "Ilib", which means "the place where the sun sets".

When the Yi people came to the East, they used this word to refer to the area where they lived.

This naming method is related to the geographical division centered on the ancient Mediterranean civilization. At that time, there was no concept of seven continents, so their general name for the East was Asia.

What the sailors call "An'eria" is actually the phonetic translation of the country that the second mate on the opposite side calls himself.

Later Chinese people all said "the British Isles". In fact, this may be the wrong word. "The Three Isles of Britain" may be China's understanding of Britain in the late Ming Dynasty.

At that time, the United Kingdom was a kingdom formed by the merger of England, Scotland and Ireland. Judging from the official organizational structure of China, it should be judged as three kingdoms.

As word of mouth spread, "Sandao" eventually became "Sandao".

"England" should be translated as "England" in later generations.

Although they were not familiar with each other, the two boats were gradually moving closer and began to communicate.

In Drake's words, they became a lost British merchant ship that somehow arrived at this place.

And from the words of the ship owners on the opposite side, they also confirmed one thing, that this should be the Spice Islands mentioned by the Portuguese, because the Ming people on the opposite side came here to buy spices, and then transported them back to the Old Port to sell them to Portuguese merchants.

"Mr. Captain of the Ming State, I wonder when you will return to the Old Port. Can you take us with you?

Perhaps we can find a sea route back to Europe from there."

Drake needs to get out of here now and get to the Indian Ocean.

Once he reached the Indian Ocean, he knew how to get back to Europe.

It can only be said that the success of Magellan's fleet's circumnavigation of the world was too sensational, and almost all European merchants knew the sea route around Africa.

As long as we can reach the Indian Ocean, we can go west to reach Africa, and then go south to return to Britain.

In fact, Europeans of this era, especially the British, were not unfamiliar with Africa, especially North Africa.

Although both are Mediterranean coastal regions, their level of development is definitely not comparable to that of Central Africa and West Africa.

Many Europeans have long gone to North African cities to make money and do business.

"You can call me Master Bao. I'm a businessman from Jiugang. I can take you to Jiugang."

The Ming merchant seemed easy to talk to and agreed to Drake's request immediately.

"I wonder how far is the Old Port you mentioned from here?"

Next, Drake communicated directly with Master Bao and learned some information about the Old Port.

However, after learning that it would take thousands of miles to sail from Jiugang to Ming Dynasty, Drake decisively gave up the idea of ​​going to Ming Dynasty.

It was too far away, and his ship was already full of gold, silver and treasures, so there was no need to take the risk.

"I thought of Old Port. I wonder if Captain Bao can introduce me to the officials of the Ming Dynasty. I have a letter from Queen Elizabeth of my country to the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty."

Drake said to Master Bao.

"No problem. The current commander of Jiugang is Lord Chen Lin. I will take you there so that you can meet him.

But you said that Queen Elijah wrote a letter to the emperor."

At this point, Master Bao's eyes changed slightly as he looked at Drake.

No matter how stupid he was, he could at least guess that the identities and purposes of Drake and his crew were not simple.

Seeing this, Drake knew it was difficult to hide the truth, but he had plenty of excuses.

"I am actually an envoy sent by the Queen to the Ming Dynasty. However, we only have five ships, and the others are all lost in the storm because Spain and Portugal have blocked the shipping route."

Drake spoke up.

"Haha, I can understand that."

Master Bao just chuckled at this moment. In fact, after communicating with Europeans, they knew that there were many countries in the West, and now the profits from maritime trade were monopolized by Spain and Portugal.

"If you have enough supplies on board, we can leave now and return to Old Port. We have already purchased the goods."

Master Bao said. (End of this chapter)