Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 14 New Questions

"Oh, my God! There's such a big sailboat here!"

When the "St. Louis" spent two days and went through all kinds of twists and turns to finally enter the Shixing Port hidden in a cape bay, the "Wavebreaker" quietly anchored there really shocked the Spanish sailors.

They originally thought that the "St. Louis" they were driving was a rare giant ship in the Pacific Ocean. It was 450 meters long, meters wide, and had a full load displacement of tons, which almost exceeded most ships in the Eastern Waters.

However, their ship inevitably looked dwarfed by the Wave Breaker, being half its size.

This ship, also a three-masted vessel, was similar in width to the St. Louis, but its length exceeded eighty meters, giving it a more slender form. Furthermore, the entire hull was constructed of an unknown type of wood; it was smooth and neat, with a metallic sheen.

What is even more surprising is that its three masts are much higher than those of a normal sailboat. There is also a long, oblique secondary mast at the bow, which is thought to be able to pull up a larger sail and increase more wind power.

At this point, the Spanish sailors finally confirmed their suspicions that the group that defeated and captured them was definitely not a group of primitive and ignorant local natives.

They must be colonists from a certain country or region!
Unfortunately, the "St. Louis" not only regarded them as stupid natives, but also blatantly organized its men, landed on the shore, and tried to conquer and massacre this powerful colonial territory.

They occupied this unnamed island, they had advanced and sharp muskets, they were well-trained, and they also built a wooden fort with a certain defensive capability.

And now, we can see their huge and highly advanced sailing ship here again.

Their strength far exceeds that of the "St. Louis"!
However, when they saw our "St. Louis" invading, why didn't they use this big ship to attack us?

As several thick ropes were thrown down, the people on the shore immediately took them and wrapped them around several large trees. Using a winch, they struggled to pull the "St. Louis" towards the shore.

"Get off the boat, get off the boat!"

When the ship stopped, all the Spanish sailors were driven off the ship to wait for the final decision of their fate.

It can be seen that this group of people with oriental faces should be considered civilized people. They should not be like the barbaric natives in the legend, who would kill them all and then cook them like prey.

However, as their captives, they naturally would not be treated well.

There is a high probability that you will become their slave or indentured laborer, undertaking all kinds of heavy labor until you are exempted by their imperial decree.

However, being alive is a gift from God.
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"Were you a carpenter?" Chen Rui looked at the Spanish sailor in front of him and asked loudly in his broken Spanish.

"Yes, sir," Adro Papu Gomez answered humbly, bowing.

"Well, very good." Chen Rui lowered his head and carefully recorded in his notebook, "Okay, your current number is 34. You must remember this number. From now on, when it comes to daily check-in, work, meals, sleep, and rest, you must wait until your number is called before you can do anything. ... Otherwise, you will be whipped. ... If you don't respond three times, you will forfeit your meal for the day. If you don't respond five times, you will receive three lashes. If you don't respond ten times, hmm, you will be beheaded! Do you understand?"

"I understand... I understand." Gomez nodded quickly in response.

"Okay, go ahead and gather over there." Chen Rui pointed in the direction of the infrastructure team.

“…” Gomez bent down and bowed, then walked quickly over there.

"What did you do before?... Do you have any special skills?" When a Spanish sailor walked up to Chen Rui in an orderly manner, he continued with the routine questions.

"Sir, I used to be a shepherd. Uh, my specialty... besides cleaning the decks and operating the sails, I guess my only skill is raising livestock. Oh, and by the way, I took care of all the livestock and poultry on the St. Louis."

"Okay, got it." Chen Rui took note, then assigned him a number, repeated the warning just now, and then pointed him to the housekeeping team.

After all the Spanish prisoners were taken in, their identities were identified and their expertise and skills were registered so that they could be arranged reasonably and the manpower of each "project team" could be enriched.

In fact, not long after the "Breaking Waves" travelers settled on Qiming Island (now Vancouver Island), in order to build a base and plan for long-term development, all travelers had conducted a comprehensive human resources survey internally, found out the skills that everyone was good at, and implemented simple group management.

Those who knew or understood a little about agricultural product cultivation were temporarily assigned to the agricultural group. They tried to cultivate and plant the few remaining potatoes, vegetables and other crops on the "Breaking Waves". At the same time, they tried their best to identify wild fruits and fungi in the jungle and provide everyone with side dishes as much as possible.

Those who knew a little earthwork were assigned to the Infrastructure Team, where they tried to build a primitive brick kiln to see if they could produce the first "manufactured product," establishing a stable base for the entire group and providing the necessary infrastructure materials. Those who knew nothing were assigned to the Logging Team, the Fishing Team, the Hunting Team, and the Construction Team. Each team had their own responsibilities and worked together. To gain a foothold in this time and space, everyone had to contribute their all.

In just three months, the "Breaking Waves" crew cut down hundreds of trees, cleared a large open space, and then built this simple wooden village and several wooden houses on the open space.

In fact, according to construction requirements, freshly cut wood must be dried naturally in the shade or in a suitable kiln before it can be used. Otherwise, the damp wood will deform, bend, rot, and become susceptible to insects in the future.

However, due to the urgency of the matter, the time travelers are currently only building a number of simple wooden houses for temporary residence, and they do not require them to last for too long.

In their development plan, everyone's housing in the future should be brick and stone structure, beautiful and grand.

Brick making is not some high-tech thing. You just need to build a small earthen kiln, find some clay, make bricks, dry them in the shade and then burn them directly. It is very simple.

Think about the bricks and tiles that many farmers used to build houses in the 1970s and 1980s. They all made them themselves.

It doesn’t matter if there is no cement, you can build a beautiful brick house with ordinary mud.

At worst, we can just build a two-story house and that will be enough.

The initial plan was perfectly formulated, but its actual implementation was extremely difficult.

Because there are too few people who travel through time and space.

Just cutting wood and building the log house took up more than half of the manpower and took nearly two months.

There is no way, the tools are too backward.

There were no electric saws or tug-saws, only a few axes and daggers, and the wood was cut and cleaned manually.

Even so, after chopping hundreds of pieces of wood, those axes became dull and were sharpened again and again, and finally they were all unusable. They could only barely build a few rows of wooden houses and surround them with a fence, which looked like a base.

Without their main logging tools, the time travelers focused their main energy on building earth brick kilns and collecting firewood.

The former is naturally for firing bricks, building more airtight and solid houses, and necessary protective walls.

The latter provides sufficient fuel for the earthen brick kilns, enabling continuous brick production.

Without refractory bricks, we could only start from the initial clay kiln and upgrade slowly.

First, some ordinary bricks were fired, and then a simple small brick kiln was built. Then came the process of selecting soil, mixing mud, making blanks, drying them in the sun, firing them, and finally taking them out of the kiln, producing the first batch of "industrial products" of this era - red bricks.

When the Spanish galleon "San Luis" invaded, the camp had only produced more than 30,000 qualified red bricks, and the planned warehouse was only half built.

Moreover, in order to deal with the Spanish attack, the time travelers also used a large number of bricks for fortifications, which really wasted a lot of materials.

Now that this small-scale and low-intensity war has ended, the interrupted camp construction has resumed.

What was even more gratifying was that the camp suddenly added more than fifty strong laborers, which immediately alleviated the stretched human resources a little.

Naturally, the development speed can also be faster.

However, a new problem also emerged before everyone.

The rate of food consumption increased dramatically, and the smoked meat and salted fish originally stored for the winter were decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye.

(End of this chapter)