This fleet jointly formed by Datang Western Company and Gerdes Trading Company is said to be a merchant fleet, but in fact it is an armed fleet!
There are hundreds of sailors above, all of whom are armed!
And if you look at their equipment, you will know why they are an armed fleet!
The fleet has a total of two cruisers and six armed merchant ships. The eight ships combined have more than 100 naval guns of various calibers and about 40,000 rounds of ammunition.
There are about 500 flintlock muskets and about 500 matchlock muskets in the fleet. There are more than one musket for each person. In addition, each musket has an average of 500 rounds of ammunition. 500 rounds of ammunition are enough for a musket.
Many large-scale battles have been fought!
In addition, there are about 500 sets of various types of plate armor such as full body armor, half body armor, and breast armor, which is enough to give everyone who is preparing for battle a piece of plate armor. Well, although most of them are breast armor, they are also plate armor.
!
In addition, there are also the close combat weapons of the Tang Army: hand grenades. The total number of ammunition prepared is about two thousand, which is enough to fight a large-scale battle!
With this strength, in fact, in the South China Sea, except for the Tang Dynasty Navy or the Portuguese fleet, it is basically impossible to encounter any opponents!
If you are brave enough, you can even sneak attack Malacca!
Of course, after the fight, the Portuguese will definitely go crazy, and maybe a war between the two countries will break out!
Nowadays, the senior officials of the Tang Dynasty do not want a war to break out with the Portuguese now. They hope to get a second channel for European trade before falling out with the Portuguese!
The fleet of Datang Western Company bears this responsibility!
Talking about going to Europe for trade is actually all nonsense. Gerdes really went to Europe for trade. The four merchant ships were filled with various goods, but the four ships and two cruisers of Datang Western Company carried
There are all kinds of supplies, except food and drink, which are all used for fighting.
The remaining two 680-type merchant ships, although they also carried some cargo, actually occupied less than a quarter of the cargo warehouse, and what were the remaining three-quarters of the cargo warehouse filled with?
?Or for food, drink and fighting!
These two 680 merchant ships are actually supply ships for these two cruisers!
From the composition of the four ships of Datang Western Company and the supplies they carry, we can basically make this judgment: This is not a fleet for trade at all, but a battle fleet purely to explore new routes and establish trading sites!
However, even Gerdes does not know yet that the two 680 merchant ships of Datang Western Company did not carry any goods for sale at all, and most of them were supplies.
But Guedes doesn't care. He is going to Europe anyway. On the way to Europe, he must break through the Portuguese blockade. During the process of breaking through the blockade, there is a high probability that a battle will break out. Datang Western Company is in the way.
He felt more at ease in the front.
After the fleet successfully arrived in Luzon, Ying Zihua sent people ashore and established a very crude supply depot on Mindao Island. When the local indigenous people rushed over shouting in various garbled and incomprehensible languages, they fired directly at them.
The bomb collapsed.
Then Ying Zihua left more than ten people to garrison this small fortress, letting them wait for the arrival of the second batch of domestic ships!
In order to plan this exploration mission to the west, it is naturally impossible for Datang Western Company to have only these four ships. The fleet led by Ying Zihua is just the vanguard. There will be ships coming one after another with armed personnel and cargo.
If something unexpected happens, the second batch of two Type 680 armed merchant ships will arrive in Mindao in half a month, and then bring with them at least a hundred armed company employees to guard the expanded trade supply depot.
After establishing a small supply depot on Mindao Island, the combined fleet quickly left and then continued southward. This time after going south, they will arrive in the eastern waters of Malacca.
At that time, they will choose whether to risk sneaking through Malacca and then cross the Indian Ocean, or continue south, then cross the strait between Sumatra and Java, enter southern Sumatra, and then head west across the Indian Ocean.
They are still unsure of the specific choice. Guedes suggested going south directly at that time, because there are two very conspicuous cruisers, so they definitely cannot go to Malacca. The Portuguese are not blind and can see them at a glance even on a rainy day.
Needless to say, these two cruisers will immediately dispatch a fleet to intercept them.
On the other hand, other merchant ships are okay and can sneakily try to pass through the Strait of Malacca. As for whether they will be intercepted, it depends on luck.
However, Ying Zihua was hesitant about this. He wanted to cross the Strait of Malacca directly, and then go north to Myanmar to establish a trading supply station, because in terms of geographical environment, Myanmar happened to be on the edge of Imperial Yunnan, and there was Imperial Yunnan.
The huge continent was under pressure, and even if the indigenous people in Myanmar were given the courage to refuse his request to establish a trading and supply station there.
Then he also wanted to establish several trading supply stations on the eastern coast of India.
On the one hand, it is for the vast trade market in India. On the other hand, if there are no trade supply stations on the Indian coast, with the current speed of ships and the supplies they carry, it will be difficult to directly cross the Indian Ocean to reach the east coast of Africa. The risk is too high.
Big.
There must be supply stations to provide supplies on the way across the Indian Ocean, otherwise, European trade will be empty talk!
If we go around the strait between Sumatra and Java, let’s not mention whether we will be intercepted by the Portuguese there, but the distance alone is a long way. If we want to go north to Myanmar at that time,
It was relatively far away. At that time, it was better to cross the Indian Ocean directly and then go to Ceylon Island. Well, although Ceylon Island is now in the hands of the Portuguese.
The choice of route represents risk, so whether it is Gerdes or Ying Zihua, they are not sure at the moment. They can only take one step first and see what happens next.
Just when Ying Zihua felt that it was a bit difficult, an officer from a young military camp found him, and then responded to Zihua mysteriously: "After arriving in the eastern waters of Malacca, I need a ship!"
"You need a ship? Are you kidding me? Even if you are an employee of our Datang Western Company and have the rank of captain, you can't say that you need a ship if you want a ship!"
But at this time, the officer of the young military camp took out an envelope and a seal. When he saw the seal, Ying Zihua was surprised: "Are you from the Military Intelligence Department? Aren't you from the Navy? This name
Is it true too?"
The young officer nodded: "Yes, I am the deputy station of the Nanyang Station of the Military Intelligence Department. Of course, I am also a retired officer of the Navy. Wang Shanxi is indeed my real name."
Ying Zihua took the seal and envelope with doubts, and then there was a letter in the envelope. This letter was handwritten by the chief of the Royal Assets Section. He did not give the detailed reason, but just asked Ying Zihua to support their military affairs.
The work of the Military Intelligence Department is to dispatch a ship to follow the command of their Military Intelligence Department official, that is, Wang Shanxi. There is no need to ask anything, just follow the arrangements of the officials dispatched by the Military Intelligence Department!
After Ying Zihua carefully confirmed the authenticity of the seal on the letter and the letter paper, he then checked the young officer's identity in detail, and finally confirmed that the letter was genuine and that Wang Shanxi was really from the Military Intelligence Department.
These spies are really everywhere. Before he came here, he had never thought that the officers under his command were actually people from the Military Intelligence Department, and their positions were quite high.
Since people from the Military Intelligence Department had something to do, and there was a personal letter from the Chief of the Royal Assets Section, he didn't bother to ask why. He really couldn't understand what these people who were involved in various espionage, assassination and other conspiracies thought!
Who knows why they want the ship? Maybe they want to assassinate the king of an indigenous kingdom, or find some pirate treasure, or simply want to find the elixir of immortality for His Majesty!
So Ying Zihua just asked casually: "Where do you plan to go then?"
Wang Shanxi from the Military Intelligence Department still said with a mysterious face: "It's inconvenient to say this, but I will definitely not be in the same direction as you by then!"
They are not always in the same direction as them, so they are not going east, and it is estimated that they cannot go north. That is the way back, so they are going east? I heard that there are some islands in the east, but I heard that there are
The natives are quite ferocious and will eat human flesh raw. Now even the Western barbarians dare not go there. What are they doing in the islands to the east?
As for going further south, it is south of Java Island, and what else is there to the south of Java Island? There is probably nothing except the vast ocean!
Ying Zihua used to be an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was very familiar with world geography. He knew very well that on the world map officially published by the Tang Dynasty, and even on the internal map, the map with the highest confidentiality level, south of Java Island was blank.
A piece of it!
Ying Zihua made some guesses and didn't know what these people were going to do!
If it's a war, it's definitely not the case, because they only need one ship, and each ship can only carry more than a hundred people at most. If there are more people, it can accommodate them, but long voyages can easily lead to insufficient supplies.
What can a mere hundred or so people do here?
After guessing again, Ying Zihua couldn't guess what they were going to do, so he simply stopped guessing. He might even be asking for the elixir of immortality for His Majesty!
Naturally, Ying Zihua does not. Wang Shanxi and the others also shoulder heavy responsibilities, and this task is still very arduous and requires a high degree of confidentiality.
They received a secret order from Li Xuan to find the legendary Australia!
When Li Xuan taught geography knowledge to the students at the Young Army Camp and the Royal Institute of Technology, he basically mentioned it in other places, but he did not mention Australia!
At this time, Australia only existed in Li Xuan's mind, and now, Wang Shanxi wanted to find it!