Chapter 382 - At Sea

The convoy sailed continuously for eight days. Besides Dr. Zhong being severely seasick and bedridden, the journey was uneventful.

“The Spanish Whore” had a small displacement, so its stability was relatively poor. It would rock with even the slightest wind and waves at sea. Zhong Lishi hadn’t been out to sea much since D-Day and was not used to it. Fortunately, Zhong Xiaoying did not get seasick and took care of him throughout the journey. Because Zhong Xiaoying was also on board, Liu Zheng and Fang Jinghan felt it was inappropriate to continue sharing a cabin with Dr. Zhong. Although Xiaoying repeatedly stated it was fine, they still moved to the crew’s common cabin to sleep in hammocks.

On the morning of the ninth day, the fleet became particularly tense. A signal came from the flagship: all ships were to enter a state of alert.

The number of gunners at the gun positions and sailors on lookout increased. “The Spanish Whore” itself was very small, and once preparations for battle began, the cabins became even more chaotic. Soldiers and sailors rushed back and forth, the grunts of those carrying cannonballs and gunpowder could be heard, and the non-commissioned officers shouted orders in a pretentious manner.

Liu Zheng had long been “bored to death” in the cabin. Hearing that there might be some action, and that it was a calm day, he invited Fang Jinghan and Dr. Zhong to the deck to have a look.

Dr. Zhong had been at sea for several days and, under the careful care of his adopted daughter, had already adapted to sailing. When he heard there was an alert at sea, he initially didn’t want to go up. But then he thought that this small, dilapidated ship had neither armor nor an oak hull several inches thick, so it wasn’t necessarily any safer below deck. If he was looked down upon by these two “Han chauvinists,” it would be inconvenient for his work in Taiwan in the future. So, he pretended to be unfazed and followed them up, but he had already put on the Yuanlao-exclusive steel helmet.

The officer on watch did not stop them, and they smoothly reached the deck. On deck, the sailors were at their stations. The gun covers had been removed, but the ammunition had not yet been loaded. From the deck, one could see the entire convoy sailing through the waves. Swift two-masted patrol boats, catching the wind, quickly weaved through the fleet.

Although the convoy was not large, it was enough to excite Dr. Zhong, who was seeing the magnificent sight of the Yuanlao Senate’s naval formation at sea for the first time. He held onto the ship’s rail, greedily taking in everything on the sea.

What he didn’t know was that these two-masted patrol boats were not the ones that had set out from Lingao. A few days ago, in the waters east of Hong Kong, the escort fleet sent by the Lingao Coast Guard had already detached and returned. Now, it was the patrol boats of the First Fleet of the Navy that were providing the escort.

Liu Zheng and Fang Jinghan were no longer interested in these things. They pulled Dr. Zhong up to the quarterdeck, where the captain was observing with a telescope.

This ship was assigned to the long-range exploration team, so Liu Zheng was very familiar with the captain. The captain’s name was Chen Song, a white-bearded old man. He was an old sea dog who had sailed for many years, had been to the South Seas more than a dozen times, and had also been to Taiwan, Siam, Japan, and other places. He had captained ships for merchants and had also engaged in “business without capital.” He was very familiar with the sea conditions and had originally retired to the countryside in Guangzhou. After the Australians bombarded Guangzhou, he saw that the sea dogs who had defected to the Australians were all doing very well. Although he had some savings at home, he still felt his family’s foundation was too thin, and his few sons and grandsons were not promising. So he came out of retirement, and his whole family came to Lingao to seek refuge with the Australians. Before long, he became a captain due to his familiarity with the sea conditions. Because he was too old for regular service, the navy placed him in the reserve and made him the captain of “The Spanish Whore.”

Although this old man was over sixty, he was still remarkably healthy. As soon as he saw Liu Zheng and the others, he greeted them with his thunderous voice, “How’s my ship? Is she taking good care of you, old man?”

“She’s alright, just a bit old like you…”

“Old is good, it cools the fire,” the old man said with a squint and a chuckle. He was wearing a shabby naval uniform with the rank of a reserve navy lieutenant. The uniform was worn properly, but the top two buttons were undone, revealing the homespun undershirt beneath. He wasn’t wearing the standard-issue naval shirt.

“What’s wrong? Is there an enemy?”

“No,” Chen Song put down his telescope. “We’ll be arriving at Dagou soon. This is the most dangerous part of the route. If Zheng Zhilong or the red-haired devils want to intercept us, this is the most likely stretch of the journey.”

This area was the only way to the shipping lanes of Dayuan, Bengang, and Kaohsiung. For the past six months, the Yuanlao Senate’s fleets had been constantly passing through. If the enemy intended to intercept them, this stretch of the journey was the most suitable place.

For this reason, every convoy sailing through here would raise its state of alert.

Dr. Zhong knew this was just a routine procedure, and his slightly panicked mood immediately calmed down. At this point, he felt his steel helmet was very conspicuous, and the sun was blazing down, quickly making the helmet scorching hot. He quietly took it off.

To cover up his embarrassment, he asked, “Have Zheng Zhilong and the Dutch made any moves?”

“I’ve run this route several times in the last six months. A few ships have indeed approached occasionally, but they haven’t done anything,” Chen Song said nonchalantly. “They wouldn’t dare. The Dutch, not to mention, their ships are small but look decent. As for Zheng Zhilong’s ships, they are so dilapidated, one cannonball would probably make them fall apart.”

None of them said anything. It was clear that neither Zheng Zhilong nor the Dutch wanted to show a hostile attitude. They used old, small ships for reconnaissance, clearly intending to avoid any accidental conflict.

Dr. Zhong took this opportunity to ask about the effectiveness of the current method of determining position at sea.

Due to the lag in the development of marine chronometers, the current naval formations mainly adopted the method of a lead ship for navigation. A ship equipped with a quartz watch from the old world served as the lead ship, and the flagship was also equipped with a clock as a backup.

For more important ships, the captain was directly issued a mechanical wristwatch from the old world, but this was limited to a very small number of ships.

However, this method was not reliable. Mechanical watches could stop, and the lead ship could get lost or sink in a storm. Therefore, for most ships under the command of the Yuanlao Senate, the “lunar distance method” was used to determine longitude.

Simply put, it involved using a sextant to observe the distance between the moon and the sun to determine the ship’s longitude.

In 1514, the German astronomer Johann Werner discovered through observation that the relative position of the moon in the sky changed every moment, moving about one moon diameter per hour. He assumed that the observed behavior of the moon was the same everywhere on Earth. As long as one observed the moon from two different places and accurately recorded the time it moved to a certain position, one could calculate the longitude difference between the two places.

But this “lunar distance method” required an accurate and complete star chart. In the old world, it took astronomers decades to observe and draw this. However, for the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Yuanlao Senate, which stood on the shoulders of giants, this was not a problem. With existing astronomical data, computers, and astronomical software, Dr. Zhong easily produced accurate star charts for both the northern and southern hemispheres, and then calculated the “Lunar Distance Tables” for each year starting from 1631. Thus, in 1632, the Ministry of Science and Technology published the “Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris,” which listed the relationship between lunar distance and longitude for the entire year of 1632, and also included a special slide rule. With the slide rule and the almanac, sailors could calculate the longitude in 20 minutes, and the accuracy was within an acceptable range.

However, Chen Song had some reservations about this method—because the lunar distance method required considerable mathematical ability. Although Dr. Zhong had introduced a special slide rule and tables, which greatly simplified the calculation, it was still a bit difficult for most captains, who were mostly illiterate. Fortunately, most ships currently sailed on traditional routes and did not have a great need for precise longitude calculation, so they managed to get by. Ships going to Taiwan and Jeju Island were all equipped with naval cadets to serve as navigators, responsible for calculation and navigation.

While Captain Chen was complaining, a signalman came to report that a signal had been received from the flagship: an “unidentified vessel” was sailing three nautical miles away from the formation, and the escorting patrol boats had already gone to inspect it.

Zhong Lishi picked up his Russian binoculars and looked in the direction the captain pointed. Sure enough, there was a lone large Fujian junk ship on the sea, and a nearby two-masted patrol boat was rapidly approaching the target.

The other party clearly had no intention of resisting and soon lowered its sails. The marines from the patrol boat boarded the Fujian junk and began to inspect the entire vessel.

The sailors on board were all dressed as people from the Ming Dynasty, and they spoke with a genuine Southern Fujian accent. The marine sergeant looked at the ship’s owner who came out to greet them; they all looked like Ming people.

After questioning, it was learned that this was a Fujian junk ship from Quanzhou to Dayuan, carrying Fujian indigo and sugar, as well as more than two hundred Fujian immigrants—the Dutch, in order to obtain labor and increase tax revenue, offered good rewards to ship owners who transported immigrants.

The inspection also proved that the ship’s owner was not lying. Besides trade goods and immigrants, the ship also carried some daily necessities. Although there were a few native cannons and some gunpowder and lead shot for self-defense, there was nothing unusual. Therefore, after the inspection, the patrol boat let them go.

The bowing and scraping ship’s owner watched the patrol sailboat skim over the waves and quickly catch up with the fleet that had already gone far, a gleam of light in his eyes.

“The Spanish Whore” was slowly towed into Kaohsiung Harbor by a tugboat—the name “Dagou” was deemed too “vulgar,” and the Government Administration Council had ordered it to be changed to “Kaohsiung” according to the name from the original timeline.

This bridgehead in Taiwan, the Standing Committee of the Yuanlao Senate had originally suggested in a meeting to establish “Taiwan Prefecture” or “Taiwan Province” in Kaohsiung, but the Government Administration Council believed that the control over Taiwan was currently limited to the Kaohsiung area. The entire southern part of Taiwan had not yet been unified. It was too early to directly establish a “prefecture” or “province.”

The final decision was to only establish a “city” in Kaohsiung. The “mayor” of this city was a Yuanlao named Wei Bachi.

At this moment, he was sitting under the eaves of the customs house on the dock, preparing to welcome the arrival of the Yuanlao.