The harsh winter of the third year of Wanli came as scheduled, but the Ming Dynasty expeditionary force in North Asia felt the severe cold here as early as three months ago.

Although they had traveled a long way, the cold part of the vast continent was so great that the entire expeditionary force thought they would spend their lives here.

But at least Magui had a much better winter than last year.

In May, his men established their first port at the eastern end of the Heishui Ya Islands, which connected Wangxia Prefecture with North Asia's Merica, in the territory of the Jurchen envoy Lubu, who had helped them with a population of nearly 1,000 people from hundreds of clans.

However, it was actually just a small outpost with five igloos and two wooden trestle bridges, named Xia Lugang, and two small Jurchen soldiers stationed there.

Both the size and location of the port determine that the harbor is only a guide route and has no other strategic significance, because the vicinity of this small port is only accessible by ships in summer, and at other times it is sometimes affected by ice floes, and sometimes it may not be accessible at all.

The port that Magui really erected was in the bay of nearly 700 miles northeast along the coast of Xialu Harbor, called Meiwan, which does not freeze even in winter, but there are very few beaches suitable for the bay, and the expeditionary force searched for a full thirty-six days before finding an area on the beach where cargo ships and warships could dock.

The harbor was originally named, but it was called Majiagang when the expeditionary force settled, and the surviving officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force can now understand how difficult it was to acquire land here to show their ancestors.

No one is left with the original wishful thinking, they just want to live here, because it is more difficult for them to give up the land that is at their fingertips.

The vast beaches of Majiagang lack a good harbor, but there are large areas of tidal mud, and a little further from the coast there is fertile land suitable for growing food; From the bay, there are many marine fish that can be hunted, and there are many lakes scattered inland, and the fat geese and ducks and the birds that inhabit the area serve as an abundant meat reserve.

In the northwest, there are Jurchens who call themselves the Ya Ni I, and Ma Gui prefers to take them on the Ya Nian Division.

The tribes were scattered between the mountains and forests and lakes in the west and the north, and most of them lived hunting, and several tribes attacked them when they passed through and were exterminated and appeased, and more tribes established relatively good relations with them - in fact, even Majiagang was guided to him by these 'Jurchens'.

Ma Gui has gradually felt strange, there should not be so many Jurchens in the world, but the elders are all the same, calling them Han people is too high-minded, and calling the Mongols is too far, and the most similar savage Jurchens seem to wear clothes than them.

However, General Ma is very good at dealing with problems, he wrote these things into a long letter, carried them on his body, and waited for the Ming army looking for them to come and send them back to Chen Mu in Tianjin, and asked him to name these people.

On the third day of the first month of November, the zodiac said: It is advisable to travel, enter the house, and be buried.

A funeral is being held in Majiagang, which will be sent by Magui himself.

The reason for the incident was that Chen Mu sent people to search for Ma Gui after he became the minister of Beiyang, and asked him to continue his mission, and the search team followed the footprints they left on Shuihu Peak all the way south, and after finding them, they left some materials and delivered a map of the East recorded in the past Yongle period.

The name of the map is "The Tribute Map of the World", the map was made in the sixteenth year of Yongle, Chen Mu himself has doubts about the record of this map about the east, the map says that there are bison on the back like a camel, or that the North Asian Molijia natives are more accustomed to riding and shooting, but how much can create a little possibility for Ma Gui, so he sent someone to Ma Zongbing.

The location on the map is not clear, and the level of mapping back then is not as good as now, Ma Gui sent five Jurchen banner soldiers to the northeast to look for bison and horses on horses and deer, and the wild horses really found it, looking like a little donkey on his back and being powerless and unable to carry people.

Although the bison was really found, the two banner soldiers who came back alive and were frightened insisted that they had not found the bison, saying that it was a monster with a long body and a thick back, and that it was a conspiracy for the Yanian people to let them settle here, and that the monster would kill them.

A monster has not yet fallen down, more than a dozen monsters riveted and stomped, two banner soldiers rode fast, and the other three rode deer slowly, and were trampled to a bloody blur after being knocked to death.

Later, Ma Gui sent someone to bring back the corpse, and a team of 100 households walked for eight days, and searched in the same place for several days, found the frozen corpse, and found the bloody bison carcass not far away, and it took longer to come back all the way - the huge bison was too heavy.

The coffin was put into the ground, Ma Guili worshiped in front of the grave, and then frowned and led people to see the cattle corpses brought back by the flag army, they have become accustomed to life and death parting, especially after landing in North Asia Melica, some people starved to death, some froze to death, some fell into the mud and some drowned in the sea, but this was the first time someone was killed by livestock.

His men were dwindling and fewer, and apart from a few small bannermen stationed on the western coast of North Asia, there were only two hundred and seventy-three of his men, temporarily settled in the port that bears his name.

Like the plans of those cities in the country, this harbor city of Majiagang also had its own walls at this time, which were made of locally cut wood. In addition to the three warehouses used to store goods, the middle near the beach is a vacant school yard, and on both sides are the demarcated neighborhoods, and only two streets of earth huts are now erected, temporarily covered with leaves, mud and wooden planks, which look very rudimentary.

However, Magui had already built a tiled field in the north of the city, and soon they would have enough tiles to prevent the roof from leaking.

The carcass of the bison was placed on the school field, and several circles of flag troops gathered around it, and people only dared to watch from a distance but did not dare to touch it closely, for fear that this behemoth would come back to life and collide and kill people.

Ma Jin pushed everyone away, kicked the bull's head, compared it with the ox's tail with a measuring stick, counted it one foot at a time, turned his head and said to Ma Gui: "The body length is ten feet three inches, and the shoulder height is six feet nine inches. ”

"Heh, I only saw a piece of food weighing thousands of pounds." Ma Gui didn't care about this, he stepped forward and wanted to lift the cow leg, but he could only lift one cow leg, Panasonic clapped his hands and said: "Pick up the skin and chop it off, it is estimated that it will not be eaten after being frozen for more than a month, but you can weigh how many catties this thing is, in the end, this is just a cow." ”

"The Beiyang ships can go directly to Majiagang, calculate the time, there will be a new fleet coming over this month, they will bring cattle, sheep, horses, cloth and craftsmen, rations and grain, and more flag troops, I will write to Chen Shuai again to ask for some pounds of Francophone cannons, don't worry, these big cattle can only be live targets."

"After the New Year, the fourth year of Wanli is a good year, we can cultivate our own fields, we can raise our own livestock, and the flag army that stays in the Yanian tribe should also teach a few natives who can speak Chinese, and do some business with them, more people and larger land, Majiagang is just the beginning, next year, we will continue to march east!"