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Chapter 1316 Eastern Expedition 2
After the Ming Emperor invented the sextant, the marine clock, and sealed cans, disease and getting lost were no longer major problems. However, typhoons could never be predicted by technology or equipment and depended entirely on luck.

If they caught up with the typhoon, were in a relatively advantageous position, and made the right judgment in advance, they might have escaped unscathed. On the contrary, no matter how hard they tried, even the most elite fleet of the navy would have suffered shipwreck and loss of life.

The Maritime Administration began keeping statistics more than ten years ago and found that dozens of ships sink every year due to bad weather in the waters of East Asia, South Asia and the Indian Ocean alone, not including coastal fishing boats with too small tonnage.

So is it just a matter of waiting to die when you encounter a typhoon? No, you can still try to avoid it with experience and luck. If you make the right choice and have good luck, the chances of survival are still not low.

First of all, a typhoon will not come suddenly. Usually, there will be obvious signs tens to hundreds of kilometers away from the center of the typhoon. Experienced sailors can make more accurate judgments through visual observation and other phenomena.

At this time, you should make a decision on how to avoid the typhoon area. Of course, the farther away the better. The safest option is to find a nearby shelter and anchor, and then set sail after the typhoon passes.

The second is to avoid the typhoon's path, which is a very profound art. It is necessary to accurately determine the typhoon's path, and then calculate the ship's speed based on parameters such as wind speed, wind direction, and ocean currents, and then decide which direction to go around, or simply turn around and run.

If one of the parameters is not calculated correctly, it is possible to run into the typhoon area. At the very least, the ship will be damaged, but it can continue to sail after repairs; at the worst, the ship will be destroyed and people will die, or no one will be found alive or dead.

The expedition fleet included experienced old sailors who had served for more than ten or even twenty years, as well as officers with strong observation skills and accurate calculations. They soon came to the conclusion that they could avoid the typhoon by changing the route to the northwest.

But Settle still chose the safest way and immediately ordered everyone to return to the Wake Island base and set sail again after the typhoon passed.

Because the merchant ships in the fleet lack large-scale formation sailing training and are unable to maintain a consistent speed in high sea conditions, abnormal situations such as getting lost or colliding can easily occur.

If the ships were loaded with cargo, Settle could take the risk, even if he lost a few ships. However, now the ships were loaded with army soldiers, if a few ships sank, a thousand soldiers would be gone.

The Navy Staff could understand, but the Army Staff was not necessarily so understanding. If they took this fight to the Emperor, they would not get any good results. It was definitely a case of improper command.

However, Settle still underestimated it. A large-scale fleet is not only a skill in formation, but also requires training in turning around. When the ships received the notice from the flagship that they had to turn around and return to avoid the typhoon, they immediately became very nervous.

Some immediately lowered the sails, slowed down and turned the rudder; some just turned the rudder without lowering the sails or slowing down; some turned the rudder to the right and some turned left. They had completely forgotten all the content of the formation sailing training that they had received since the assembly in Japan. All they could think about was how to get their own ship out of danger first. They didn't care whether others lived or died, it was none of their business!
Even with the warships' warnings and the navigators' guidance, the chaos could not be stopped, resulting in a major accident in which three cargo ships collided. The escort fleet had to brave the strong winds and heavy rains and send small boats to evacuate the personnel on two of the ships to the warships before the typhoon approached.

They left Wake Island in high spirits, but returned dejected and wet less than ten hours later, with casualties. This made Settle go berserk, and despite the dissuasion of the base officers, he held a trial meeting on the dock. After a thorough investigation, it was proved that the three ships that collided did not follow the instructions of the navigator and the lookout, and did not wait for the fleet's orders before turning the rudder, lowering the sails, and slowing down. Then the captains and helmsmen of the three ships were hanged on the dock.

It is not enough to just die. After the typhoon passes, the Wake Island base will send a communications ship to report the details to the Naval Staff, which will then notify the countries where the three ships are located, arrest the families of the captain and helmsman, and send them all to the naval base to serve lifelong hard labor.

The charge was the murder of Ming soldiers. Due to the collision, 9 army soldiers were missing and more than 20 soldiers were injured to varying degrees and could no longer fight and had to stay on Wake Island for treatment.

The cause of all these bad consequences was that the captains and helmsmen of the three cargo ships did not abide by the formation discipline of the Ming Navy and arbitrarily changed the speed and course. According to military law, failure to obey orders and causing casualties is equivalent to murder.

As for whether the military law of the Ming Navy can be applied to the citizens of other countries, it is not a question that Setel needs to consider, nor can it be determined by axioms. Whether it is suitable or not depends entirely on the comparison of the strength of both sides.

Whoever has the bigger fist is right, and the weaker party cannot resist or even talk back. This is the only axiom that has never changed in human history, and every human civilization does this, regardless of region or race.

The law of the jungle seems to be invented by humans to describe animal instincts, but in fact it is an accurate evaluation of human behavior itself.

Animals eat animals, or animals eat plants, just to maintain life. Few animals will kill for fun after they are full. For the same or different species that invade their territory, they usually intimidate and drive them away.

But humans are different. After eating a full meal, they still think about the next meal, the meal after that, and every meal next year, the year after, and decades later. To this end, they will collect and kill as much as possible, even if some of it is wasted. In human terms, this is called foresight, which is worthy of praise.

It is not enough to just eat enough, but also to eat well. Only the tastiest part of an animal is eaten, and only the freshest part of a plant is eaten. The rest is either thrown away or used to feed livestock. Humans have also given this behavior a name, called wisdom.

In fact, the reason why humans and animals parted ways on the road of evolution and eventually gained an absolute advantage is indeed due to foresight and wisdom, or greed and selfishness.

"Commander, will this cause dissatisfaction among other captains and sailors and lead to disaster?" The garrison officers at the Wake Island base had no right to stop Setel's reckless act of making decisions without asking for permission, but they could express different opinions.

In his opinion, there was no need to make this matter so bloody. They could first coax cargo ships from various countries to transport the army to the destination smoothly, and then arrest the people and hand them over to the Naval Staff for interrogation. The top leaders would decide how to deal with the aftermath, whether to release, kill or sentence them to hard labor, and it would have nothing to do with the fleet commander.

(End of this chapter)