Episode 112: The Prince of Shame

The destroyer "Blooding Snow" lowered the gangway. Two Japanese sailors stood on the gangway, holding flashlights toward the small liner below. Looking at the heads of the ship, they looked surprised and kept making exaggerated tone such "whoosh...oh...yo..." from their mouths.

A lower-level officer came over and scolded them with great majesty. The two sailors immediately asked to stand on both sides, lowered their heads and said forcefully:

"Hi!"

The lower-level officer held the flashlight and shone it downwards, while shouting loudly in Japanese, as if asking something.

Prince Ananta didn't understand Japanese, but he also guessed that this was asking "Who is the Siam Prince". He raised his head, wiped a handful of sea water and sweat, his pale face, tried to smile, and said in English as politely:

"I'm sorry, I don't understand your language... But what I want to say is that I am the legal crown prince of the Kingdom of Siam - Prince Ananta Mahidun. I was on behalf of the Kingdom of Siam to serve on the Ming Dynasty, but I encountered some trouble... To be precise, it was some very unfair encounters... Can you speak English?"

The lower-level officer on the gangway looked at him for a while, and then spoke a stiff English with a strong accent:

"My... English... no, your words... mine don't understand."

The prince's eyes turned black and he was almost vomiting blood. The poss for the past half day was considered vain. But he was cold, hungry and exhausted, and could not hold on. He smiled and gestured with his hands, gestured as a crown on his head. Later, he simply used his hands and feet, combined with Thai, and tried his best to show his identity and demanded to board the ship. But the Japanese subordinate officer refused to let him go down the gangway, pushed him down with his hands, and spoke Japanese loudly, while mixing with two simple English words:

“wait here!wait here!”

The prince understood that he was asking him to wait here first. He turned to look at the ship of female soldiers in the Ming Dynasty. They were now losing all their awe for him and were looking at him with a very contemptuous look. On the deck above their heads, many Japanese sailors were gathered, all of whom were raising the railings, laughing at his jokes, and also looking at the female soldiers on the ship, and laughing at each other.

The prince felt that his self-esteem was very hurt, so he stopped arguing, but instead sat on the boat with dignity and waited.

After a while, the Japanese soldiers on the deck stood straight and saluted. At the same time, a young Japanese master appeared at the entrance of the gangway.

He spoke to the following in his pretty skillful English:

"Who is His Highness, Prince of Siam?"

Prince Ananta quickly raised his face and said with a smile:

"I am!"

The master frowned and looked at him a few times, as if he didn't believe that His Royal Highness would be such a beggar. But he still said with a skeptical look:

"Since you are the prince... then please board the ship."

The prince was overjoyed and immediately jumped onto the gangway and grabbed the handrail. Pachae behind him also wanted to follow him, and the major shouted loudly:

"Stop! What are you doing!"

The prince quickly explained to him that this was his entourage. The Grandpa then reluctantly made Pachai come on.

The master ignored the prince on the deck for the first time, but climbed the gangway handrail and politely smiled at the female soldiers of the Ming Dynasty on the small liner below:

"Ladies, who do you speak English?"

One of the twenty-six or seven-year-old female captains said generously in English:

“I can speak English.”

Then she told the story of how these two people hijacked the ship. The master turned his face and looked at the prince with even more suspicion and contempt, and then smiled at the female soldiers:

"If this happens, will you have enough fuel for going back? If not, we can give you some."

"Of course enough!" the female captain said loudly, "Thank you!"

The master nodded, asked about their boat number, then stood on the gangway, set up a correct posture, bowed slightly, and said to her very seriously:

"I am the captain of the Destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Master Hideichi Oyama. Please tell your government that we are accepting this person on board. At present, we are only in the spirit of humanitarian assistance at sea, and there is no other meaning. As for this person claiming to be the prince of the Kingdom of Siam, we still need to verify it. I hope your country will not misunderstand. If this person is really a prince of Siam, our country may negotiate with your country through diplomatic channels. You may be asked to testify at that time. I hope you don't mind."

The female captain nodded and asked:

"We don't mind. Can we leave?"

"Please."

When the captain saw the Grand Secretary's gesture, he didn't need to translate it. He turned the rudder and quickly left the Japanese destroyer and drove towards the west.

The female soldiers on the ship were squealing excitedly. Several of them were muttering:

"That ship doesn't look like the 'Snow-Blowing' class... Have you noticed it?"

"That's right... the boat name paint looks like it was just painted..."

"Yeah yeah……"

...

After the prince and Pachae got on the ship, they were soon "invited" into a closed cabin under the deck. Then Captain Oyama nodded to them coldly and said in English:

"You are wronged and you will rest here first. When the meal starts, I will send you a serving."

Then he closed the hatch door with a "bang" and pinned it outside.

The surroundings suddenly became quiet, with only a small lamp above the head emitting a dim light.

Pachai was so angry that he almost kicked the door with his feet and cursed. Then he complained to the prince, saying that it doesn't matter what Pachai was, but His Highness was the prince of the Kingdom of Siam after all, how could he be treated like this?

The prince sat on the ground, leaning against the bulkhead, and seemed calm. In fact, he was so hungry that he was dizzy and anxious. He opened his eyes and looked at a bunch of salted fish hanging above his head. He reached out to tear off a large piece and stuffed it directly into his mouth. He chewed it hard, showing a comfortable expression. Pachae was stunned, and immediately learned something, tore off a large piece of salted fish and started to bite it hard.

Although the salted fish was dry, hard and fishy, ​​the two of them tasted like a delicacy at this time, and they forgot about the other party's rude treatment.

After a while, the prince took a breath and said slowly:

"It's normal. Now they don't believe in my identity at all. How do you expect them to treat us? What's important now is that we have escaped from danger and are safe... If we suffer a little grievance, we will suffer a little grievance... We have even drilled the coal piles of trains, what else can this be? But what I'm worried about..."

"What is your Highness?"

"I'm worried that we're too optimistic... Japan may not be willing to mess with this muddy water."

As he said that, he translated the last few words that Captain Weishan said to the female soldier of the Ming Dynasty on the gangway to Pacai. Then he said slowly:

"Now the Ming Dynasty controls the Strait of Malacca, Japan's oil bloodline, and other trade bloodlines, which is equivalent to being in the hands of the Ming Dynasty... I am worried... unless Japan is really ready to fight with the Ming Dynasty, it may not offend the Ming Dynasty because of us."

Pachai was stunned and began to feel sad. He didn't understand the same thing, why His Highness the Prince said this and that sometimes. He didn't understand international relations, but he knew what Japan would be, which was directly related to the life and death of the two. If it was as the prince said now, Japan would not offend the Ming Dynasty for His Highness and return them to the Ming Dynasty, then they would have no place to die.

But Pachae still forced himself to smile, trying his best to comfort the prince and comfort himself:

"This... Your Highness, after all, he is just a small captain, and what he says doesn't count... He stands at the bow of the ship and says those few words to represent the attitude of the Japanese government? No... Your Highness, we still have to see what the attitude of the Japanese government is..."

After Pachae said this, the prince nodded, no longer thinking about this uselessness.

The two observed the environment they were in. They were both unfamiliar with the structure of the warship and did not know which part of it was. However, the cabin had no windows, and there were dense pipes and wires on the top of their heads, and pipelines and instruments on the bulkheads. The cabin was filled with rice, potatoes, pumpkins, bundles of dried seaweed, and all kinds of dried salted fish, dried squid and dried octopus were hung on the top of their heads.

The next door seemed to be the kitchen. You could vaguely hear the sound of cutting vegetables next door with steel plates on your ears. There were two or three people humming the tune of the Japanese fishermen's net. You could still hear the sound of the cabin door opening and closing loudly, and the sailors shouted loudly, moving something out, as if it was a rice bucket. The cooksmen agreed loudly and laughed. Anyway, they were all in Japanese, and the prince didn't understand a single word.

After a while, a soothing warship suddenly sounded on the ship, and then the whole ship began to play pleasant Western orchestras, which was very nice. Pachae was surprised, but he didn't expect that the Japanese warship would play Western music. The prince closed his eyes and murmured:

"We're almost having a meal... It is said that this is a tradition of the Japanese Navy. When eating, Western music must be played on the warships."

Sure enough, a sailor opened the door and came in after a while. He looked like a cook. The sailor wore an apron on his uniform, a hand towel tied on his forehead, and was sweating heavily, but he was still wearing a military cap seriously. There were a few words embroidered on the circle of the cap: The Imperial Japanese Navy.

The cook looked at them curiously, without saying a word, but put two lunch boxes in front of them, and then went out and locked the door.

Both of them were so hungry that they picked up a box of big food without saying a word. This is a typical Japanese sailor ration: a piece of fish, two slices of seaweed, a few pickles, and two rice dumplings. Although it was not a good thing, the two almost ate their tongues.

...

In the bridge command room, Xiang Xiaoqiang was holding a lunch box and ate steamed hairtail fish very comfortably, while listening to Captain Zhang Mingyu reporting the situation below to him.

"Well...so," Xiang Xiaoqiang asked, "The prince hasn't found any flaws yet?"

Zhang Mingyu smiled and said:

"He probably couldn't find it. We did a lot of play, and we didn't let him wander around on the boat, but locked him in a cabin... where he could see any flaws? Even the cabin was carefully arranged for an hour, and the things piled up were commonly used in the kitchens of Japanese warships."

He smiled again:

"And thanks to the Japanese agents brought to the adults...especially the 'Captain Oyama', haha, he is really familiar with the Japanese Navy and knows that when eating on the Japanese ship, he still has to play Western music. I don't even know this. Our Ming Navy does not have this tradition."

He nodded to Xiaoqiang, and suddenly rang again, and asked:

"By the way, what are the pipes, instruments and other words in that cabin? What are the Chinese characters... are they common Chinese characters in Japanese? Will it be misleading?"

Zhang Mingyu breathed a sigh of relief and smiled:

"Don't worry, we have checked this. There are no Chinese characters on the pipeline in that cabin, they are all letters, and they are basically internationally used. There are a few Chinese characters on the dashboard, but they can be completely understood as Japanese Chinese characters. The prince does not understand Japanese, so he can't tell it."

Xiang Xiaoqiang felt relieved, nodded, and looked at Xiuxiu again:

"What do you think? Are there any flaws?"

Xiuxiu shook her head too.

"Okay," Xiang Xiaoqiang put down his lunch box, walked to the porthole, looked at the dark sea outside, and said, "Then we will act according to the pre-plan. This is just the beginning. Whether we can succeed depends on how we perform the following drama, of course, the IQ of His Highness the Prince. The most important thing is to make the prince think that we are a Japanese ship. Then the next drama on land will be easier to act. It is easier for him to believe it... Turn around, go west, the place has been arranged."

"yes."

Zhang Mingyu also stood up and sent orders down. The left rudder turned to the west. Kuimulang... No, the destroyer that has now been painted as "Blossoming Snow" turned the ship, and the bow of the ship was overturned with white waves, heading towards the direction of the Daming coast to the west.

...

In the cabin below the deck, Prince Ananta and Pachae obviously felt the hull turning and speeding up. At this time, there was a sound of footsteps outside the door, and then the cabin door opened.

Captain Oyama was wearing a snow-white Japanese naval dress, snow-white leather shoes, snow-white gloves, and a Western sword hanging on his waist, standing respectfully at the door.

The prince stared at him, and a good premonition arose in his heart.

Sure enough, Captain Oyama stood up straight, then bowed deeply, and said respectfully in English word by word:

"Your Highness, I don't know that Your Highness, the prince, was very rude when he arrived at our ship. He deserves death. I hope Your Highness forgives his crime."
To be continued...