Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 51 Sailing
April 1626, 12, sunny.

Midwinter has arrived and everything has returned to silence.

Then, on this day, the "Wavebreaker" raised its sails again and prepared to set sail. More than 60 crew members stood by the side of the ship and waved goodbye to the people on the shore.

This time, they will be led by several former naval instructors to embark on the longest-distance voyage to date.

The "Breakaway" will follow the strong northwest monsoon, along the west coast of North America, all the way south, and choose an opportunity to land again and raid the coastal port towns of Spanish America to plunder the large amount of gold and silver coins needed by the immigrants.

After "collecting" enough money, the "Breaking Waves" turned around and entered the vast Pacific Ocean, sailing westward along the North Equatorial Current, passing through the Philippine Islands and arriving at the coast of Ming Dynasty.

Afterwards, the "Breaking Waves" will choose a suitable port of call, go ashore, recruit immigrants, and purchase supplies.

All these matters must be completed before June next year to avoid missing the best time to return during the monsoon.

The entire journey may exceed 25,000 kilometers, taking eight months round trip, and enduring countless storms and countless obstacles, just to open up the route to the Shenzhou mainland, to facilitate the subsequent continuous immigration from the Ming Dynasty, to enrich the strength of the time travelers, and then lay the foundation for the long-term development of Qiming Island.

If everything goes smoothly on this trip and the relevant nodes are opened up, then the time travelers will officially start a grand immigration operation.

Every winter, during the off-season, they would sail to Mexico to hunt and earn some money. Then, with the money, they would go to the coast of Daming to recruit immigrants and various craftsmen and artists, and buy some daily necessities, and finally return with a full load.

This cycle repeats itself over and over again, constantly accumulating people's strength, consolidating the foundation, and ultimately forming healthy development, continuously improving strength, and serving as a long-term plan.

During this voyage, the "Break the Wave" installed six cannons on the deck, giving it a certain attack power.

In order to place these six cannons, the time travelers brainstormed and came up with various plans. Finally, after much effort, they built a row of platforms in the middle of the deck and installed sturdy wooden gun turret bases, so that the positions of several cannons were slightly higher than the sides of the ship, thus obtaining a certain shooting angle.

Of course, with such weak firepower, it can only deal with some unarmed merchant ships or scare fishing boats. If it encounters a Spanish armed galleon, it may not be enough.

However, if the "Break the Wave" dared to approach the Spanish armed galleon without fear of casualties and used its own defensive advantages of being made of steel to engage in a bombardment with it, it would not be vulnerable.

However, fighting with others is exactly what the "Break the Wave" wants to avoid at all costs.

It’s simple, the capital is too small, and I dare not throw chips out casually!
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On December 12, the "Break the Wave" sailed to San Diego Bay and docked again near Coronado Island for a short rest and to replenish fresh water.

The next day, the "Break the Wave" set sail again and continued south.

On December 12, it crossed the Baja California Peninsula and sailed to the southeastern waters of Mexico.

However, at this time, the "Break the Wave" did not sail towards the coast, but continued to sail south, apparently heading towards the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru.

Yes, after careful screening and careful consideration, the target of this raid will eventually be Manta, a town on the coast of Peru.

Manta is located on the banks of the Chalapoto River, more than 160 kilometers southeast of Guayaquil and about 1400 kilometers from Lima. Hundreds of years ago, Manta was the settlement of the Indian Manta tribe.

After the Spanish destroyed the Inca Empire in 1532, they quickly extended their colonial influence to the Pacific coast.

In the 16s, the first Spanish colonists broke into Manta and, after massacring thousands of local Indians, established a colonial outpost there and exercised colonial rule over the surrounding areas.

A Spanish sailor who had been to the place said that although Manta was established not long ago, it developed extremely rapidly as a key supply port for Spanish treasure ships.

After more than 40 years of development, the town has begun to take shape, with certain industries and commerce, and a population of about 600 to 700 people, more than half of whom are Spaniards and their descendants, and the rest are mostly mixed-race and relatively docile Indians.

It is reported that there is no formal Spanish colonial army stationed in the town, only a small number of militia forces.

It may be that the place is relatively close to the two important cities of Guayaquil and Panama, and can get their support at any time. In addition, the constant flow of merchant ships docking here for supplies made the local municipal colonial officials feel completely safe, so they did not spend too much effort to build a port battery.

You should know that the pirates in England and the Netherlands usually only target Spanish treasure ships or merchant ships carrying large amounts of cargo. If they go ashore to plunder, they will choose a prosperous and wealthy port as their main target.

Even if one spends a lot of effort to capture a port town like Manta with less than a thousand people, one will not be able to loot much gold, silver or other supplies.

In March 1579, English pirate Francis Drake, leading a group of pirates aboard the armed merchant ship "Golden Hind," successfully captured the Spanish treasure ship "Carfugo," seizing over half a million pounds worth of silver bars and fourteen chests of gold and silver coins. This not only brought him immense fame, but also sparked the envy of many of his fellow seafarers. Consequently, pirates truly seeking to make a fortune generally avoided plundering ordinary coastal towns, believing it was simply too unprofitable.

Those few dollars are not enough to compensate for everyone's hard work.

If you want to rob, you have to choose a high-value target!

Only the "Breaking Waves" was not picky and just wanted to make some money so that it could rescue people from the Ming Dynasty, so it set its sights on this small town.

At three o'clock in the afternoon on December 12, the ship arrived at a harbor more than ten kilometers northeast of Manta, dropped anchor and waited for the arrival of evening.

With the successful experience of last year's raid on the Mexican town of Banderas, the "Wavebreaker" planned to do the same. Under the cover of night, it would sneak into the port of Manta, break into the town at a rapid speed, and then disarm the soldiers and confiscate their money.

Harvey lay on the bed, closed his eyes, and tried hard to fall asleep.

Once a raid is launched on the town, the whole night will inevitably be spent in tense and busy "work".

Even at dawn the next day, they would not have a chance to rest and had to seize the time to control the town and collect money.

Unlike last time, Banderas Valley is a remote Mexican town with not many merchant ships coming and going, so they can plunder with confidence for several days before returning.

Manta is located on Spain's busy trade route. If we don't move quickly enough, we might be blocked on the shore.

Therefore, this action must be swift and powerful. After staying for three days at most, they must immediately escape to the sea to avoid being pursued by the Spanish.

If, last year, he followed the Chinese to plunder the coastal town of Mexico, he still had some hesitation and wavering in his heart, and a vague sense of guilt for hurting his Spanish compatriots.

But this time, there was no ripple in his heart.

Having already joined the bandits, oh, no, it should be said that they have surrendered to the Chinese, there is no turning back for all the Spanish sailors including myself, and our fate is tied to theirs, rising and falling together.

No matter what, they must do their best to help the Chinese people accumulate strength and grow stronger as quickly as possible.

Only in this way can all of them have a good home and a good future.

Perhaps he was brainwashed, or perhaps he was truly impressed by the creativity displayed by the Chinese people. Harvey had a belief that all of them would be able to gain a foothold on Qiming Island, and then through unremitting efforts, develop a grand foundation.

I still remember that when they captured us last year, Shixing Fort was just a very simple wooden fort, which showed that the Chinese had just settled here.

But in just one year, the entire camp underwent tremendous changes. Not only were seven or eight brick and tile buildings built, but small handicraft workshops such as brick kilns, blacksmith shops, lumber yards, paper mills, flour mills, oil presses, fish processing plants, and fur tanning plants were also built one after another.

Although these small workshops are operating intermittently due to a shortage of manpower, they have basically met the living needs of all residents to a certain extent.

In addition, China also partially modified the matchlock guns seized from them, adding flintlock devices to turn them into flintlock guns that are faster to operate.

No one knew how they reprocessed those barrels of gunpowder to further increase their power and raise the effective shooting range of the musket to more than 120 meters.

If they had not considered that several cannons were needed to enhance the attack power of the "Wavebreaker" on this trip, they would even have planned to use a few cannons for experiments, just like modifying the matchlock gun, to carry out so-called "structural optimization" on the cannons to improve shooting accuracy and range.

It was obvious that they seemed to be really capable of modifying artillery, and the many professional terms they used left the Spaniards confused.

Even Pablo, the skilled blacksmith in Shixing Fort, could not figure out how to cast and improve cannons.

All of this proves that the Chinese people have extraordinary creativity.

Perhaps, in a few years, they will really be able to create a new world.

And we, as participants and witnesses, will experience this great process firsthand.

(End of this chapter)