Deng Zilong's long-thinking fleet, together with Zhao Shizhen, had been stranded on Tierra del Fuego for more than two months.

There is no volcano on the island, and the name comes from the bonfires that Magellan saw lit by the island's natives.

"At the equator, the farther north you go, the colder it gets, and the farther south it goes...... Suck! also the colder. ”

Zhao Shizhen wrapped himself in a thick and poorly sewn original camel skin jacket, snorted his snot, and said to the fleet officers sitting in a circle around the charcoal brazier in the shack with a clay pot of hot tea: "And the seasons are different in the north and south, the north is three feet freezing, and the sun is shining in the south; The sun is shining in the north, and the south is freezing. ”

The fleet sent by him and Deng Zilong met on Tierra del Fuego, to be precise, he set off first and arrived at Tierra del Fuego first, and found that he could not get through, so he had to go ashore; The fleet behind could not continue to move forward after passing here, and just happened to see their ship stranded on the shore and covered with snow, so they followed it.

They set sail on the wrong day.

It was supposed to be the season from spring to summer, but here it was from autumn to winter, seeing the undulating mountains turn white, and they were wearing thin summer clothes, but they could not bear the cold, and they could no longer hold it back home, so they could only go ashore to avoid the long winter.

Zhao Shizhen's entourage fleet was full of siblings, but only six ships in the fleet with Deng Zilong's three Dingjia fleets were in a state of full readiness.

They had a lot of baggage, but they didn't have warm clothing.

Fortunately, there are also aborigines on Tierra del Fuego, although several tribes do not seem to be very smart, but they are strong and kind, because neither Spain nor Portugal has stayed here for long, and they have not found any gold and silver goods, so they have not been enslaved and harmed, so they are willing to help Zhao Shizhen and other people in distress.

The protocamel is a four-legged mammal widely distributed in Peru, Chile and other places, with a tall body with powerful limbs and extremely fast running, although it has no hump but has hooves similar to camels, as the Spaniards call this animal, while their counterparts on Tierra del Fuego have thicker fur to protect against the cold.

They are almost everything that the aborigines who live here, and their houses are shacks with a few logs of wood, and they are counted as inhabitants with original camel skin; Their food was the flesh of the original camel, which was roasted and eaten to fill them; Their weapons consisted of the bones of the original camel, the legs, the sticks, and the arrowheads and spearheads made of the broken bones of the bone marrow.

Zhao Shizhen and the banner army are not exempt from vulgarity, except for the original camel and rabbit, they can't find other animals with thick fur that can keep them warm, here the snow-capped mountains are stacked, the lakes are dotted, but there is no shortage of food.

Of course, food is scarce for the Aborigines, and large animals like seals are hard to kill with bony arrowheads, and even less intelligent in hand-to-hand combat, but this is not a problem for birds.

"There are three tribes on the island, the tribes in the west were driven from the northern continent by the Westerners, the tribes in the south of the island are short and the most primitive, and the aborigines who live in the northeast are tall and strong, and they are not afraid of the cold, they only need to wear camel skins to fish on the ice barefoot for an hour or two."

Zhao Shizhen said with a smile: "They live in the northeast and are actually called southerners. ”

To be precise, they call themselves Saikonans or Selkenans, and although they have faces similar to those of the Mongols, they are extremely strong, and the average height of adult males is five feet six inches, and any man with painted clothes is half a head taller than Zhao Shizhen.

The smallest unit of mechanics can only be compared to the women of the Sekonan, and the victory or defeat is still between five and five.

With their strong physique and hardy physique, the officers from Beiyang planned to recruit some heroes from the Saikonan tribe.

"How's our house going?"

Zhao Shizhen, who was frozen, didn't even dare to come out of the shack for half a month, and he was assigning this and which one to assign in the house all day long, even if he went back to the boat to get some paper and pencil and other small things, he had to do it for others, and he wrote a thick stack of books about what he had seen and heard about this trip.

Fortunately, the Beiyang Fleet has a complete military medical system, and the ship's baggage also has medicines, which allowed him to pick up a life, otherwise he could neither get warm nor proper medical treatment in this kind of place, and the calligraphers of the Ming Dynasty would explain that this land was called the 'end of the world' by the Spaniards, and would always be accompanied by glaciers.

Is it so dangerous to send a beef?

"It's almost ready, but I'm afraid I won't need these wooden courtyards."

Even after the establishment of Beiyang, the captain who led the team to operate the ship has always been the old department transferred from the Nanyang Military Government, which is nothing more than the Beiyang Flag Army as a gunner and sailor, and then slowly trained as a captain.

Fleet Admiral, no one in the three Beiyang Banner Army has yet been able to climb to this position, and this time is no exception.

The leader of the fleet is Sun Ao, in the past, when Chen Mu was a thousand households in Xiangshan, in addition to Deng Zilong, he was another deputy thousand households.

In terms of qualifications, this guy is higher than Zhao Shizhen, but he is very responsible in front of the mechanics unit...... Those who follow Chen Mugan will always encounter opportunities and merits, and they don't talk about qualifications here.

Talk about luck.

"The Seconans say that in a month the glaciers will begin to melt, and at most in September the fleet will be able to set sail for Argentina in the Viceroyalty of Peru, and from then there the road further north will be easy," he said. ”

Saying that, Sun Ao opened the original camel skin jacket, this kind of original camel jacket from the Saikonan people is actually a long piece of skin, like a quilt, at least in Sun Ao's eyes, it can't be regarded as clothes, and the way to wear it is also very easy, that is, open your hands and grasp the two horns, and then cross your arms in front of you to wrap them.

He took out a small notebook from his bosom, rummaged through the information he needed, and said: "On the coast of Argentina, there is an abandoned town called Buenos Aires, which means the city of Maria's downwind, because the garrison is always attacked by the aborigines, so it can only be abandoned. ”

"They now live in Asunción, two thousand miles north of Shunfeng City, along the river, which means Maria Flying City...... Deng Shuai's meaning was to let me leave two hundred households in Shunfeng City in the past to map the surrounding terrain. ”

"It will take a month for the courtyard and barracks to be repaired, and if you don't live for two months, you will have to leave, and these houses will be abandoned."

"It could have been left to the Sekonans, but they don't."

Sun Ao spread his hands and said: "They don't have a village, they don't farm, they don't care if they chase the original camel, these houses are useless to them; The land suitable for cultivation in this area is almost thirty miles away, and there is no need to teach it how to grow it. ”

"But it's a port." Zhao Shizhen took over and said: "We have been stuck here this year, and the fleet in the future will still be stuck here, there will always be people who miss the time, and it will be useful if it is repaired." Plant the flag here, put the stone tablet here, and tell the Sekonans that this is our port, that we, including the Sekonans. ”

Saying that, Zhao Shizhen sighed helplessly as he watched everyone wrapped in camel skin quilts, and said, "Wait for the next time, send someone over to teach them how to make clothes, this thing is too skinny, and it's not too warm to ventilate around." ”