Outside the camp, as far as the eye can see, there are dense primeval forests, making the whole world look green. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info Lu Hu stood boredly on the edge of the camp burned out by the crew, occasionally walking out of the camp and into the forest.

He observed the trees in the primeval forest in the forest and found that none of them knew him.

It was a completely foreign continent, and the Han Chinese had never owned a piece of land here.

The sun was very fierce, Lu Hu wiped the fine sweat on his head, and finally simply picked up the towel on his shoulder to wipe his face, and couldn't help but scold: "This 'South America' is the same as 'Africa', December is actually the height of summer." ”

The expedition led by Lü Hu reached the Americas, and he is now on the east coast of South America at 10 degrees south latitude, in what was later the area of Salvador, Brazil.

Now the South American continent is already a colony of European countries.

More than 100 years ago, at the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese and Spanish colonists began to invade South America. In 1521, the conquistador Hernán Cortés wiped out the Aztec civilization in Mexico and founded "New Spain". In 1533, Francesco Pizarro captured Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and wiped out the Inca civilization in South America.

In fact, bacteriological warfare played a large role in the wars between Europeans and the indigenous people of South America. Europeans living on the Eurasian continent adapted to a large number of germs and lived peacefully with them. However, in South America, where the transverse width is very narrow, the variety of pathogens is very limited. After the Spanish and Portuguese landed in Latin America, viruses such as smallpox raged in Latin America, helping the conquerors of the Iberian Peninsula to kill indigenous tribes in large numbers.

In December of the 21st year of Chongzhen, Portugal had completely occupied the Brazilian coast, and Spain ruled the rest of the South American coast except Brazil.

In fact, Lu Hu's trip was not easy.

The first is that it is not easy to get the people who lead the way. There are many reefs in the ocean, and it is easy to run into the reef if you don't follow the channel that the predecessors have explored. Li Zhi sent people to operate in Macao for more than a year before he found a Han Chinese who was familiar with the shipping routes from Europe to Asia.

This Han Chinese followed the Portuguese ships to sell raw silk, and the ships that traveled between Europe and Asia for more than ten years were the assistant surveyors on the ships. Li Zhi spent a lot of money to hire this Han Chinese and lead the way for Lü Hu to the west coast of Africa.

The second was to evade the armed merchant ships and warships of the Europeans along the way.

In order to carry more cargo, the expedition was carried on three steamships instead of ironclads. Although the tonnage of the three steamers was also about five hundred tons, equipped with twelve eighteen-pounder guns. But compared to the Europeans' armed merchant ships with 20 guns, or even battleships with more than 40 guns, the firepower of steamships was slightly insufficient.

The so-called axioms only exist within the range of cannons, and on the high seas of this era, the law of piracy is entirely pursued. Seeing Lü Hu's merchant ships, many European fleets tried to come up and plunder.

Relying on the sailing ships with a much higher speed than the Europeans, Lu Hu dodged all the way and was not caught by the European fleet.

From Tianjin, it enters the South China Sea through Taiwan, crosses Malacca into the Indian Ocean, and bypasses the entire Indian subcontinent to the east coast of Africa. Head south from the east coast of Africa around the Cape of Good Hope and head north to Ivory Coast. From Ivory Coast all the way west, the fleet sailed directly to South America.

The Europeans were murderous colonizers who would sack Lü Hu's fleet at any moment. Countries along the route without colonizers are not good, and they will kill people and seize ships at any time. Therefore, Lu Hu did not dare to visit the famous port on this waterway. Along the way, the fleet was looking for supplies in small harbors and small fishing villages that were less populated.

After two and a half months of driving, Lu Hu's expedition team reached the wild continent of South America.

At this time, although the Portuguese nominally conquered all of Brazil, in reality the population of colonists in Brazil was small. With the exception of a few farmsteads near a few large cities, most of the Brazilian mainland is native forest. Lü Hu burned out vacant land at several landing sites in succession to build temporary camps, and no one found out by any Portuguese forces.

The sky was getting darker and darker, Lu Hu looked at the forest in the distance, and said anxiously, "Why hasn't the expedition team come back today?" ”

With Li Zhi's current naval strength, it is not realistic to conquer South America, and for Li Zhi, who is not short of land for the time being, this matter has no practical benefits. Lu Hu came to South America this time in search of rubber trees.

Rubber trees are important industrial raw materials and can even be said to be valuable strategic materials. Without rubber, many modern industrial products, such as tires, cannot be produced. For Li Zhi, who aspires to develop a modern industrial system, the lack of rubber is intolerable.

So Li Zhi sent an expedition.

The expedition began by trying to deal with the Portuguese, hoping to get rubber fruit through the Portuguese. However, the expedition soon discovered that the Portuguese colony was very hostile to foreign fleets and largely did not accept foreign ships. Lü Hu was shelled by shore artillery in both Portuguese ports.

In desperation, the expedition team had to search deep into the coast on their own.

However, Lu Hu's luck was good, he only changed five places, set up five temporary camps, and the search for rubber trees was impressive.

After the expedition sent into the jungle yesterday to deliver Tianjin fine cloth to the local natives, the local natives babbled as if there were rubber trees painted on rice paper in the woods near them.

Today, the expedition team brought some steel scimitars and Daming rice wine as gifts to the local aborigines, hoping that the local aborigines would take them to find rubber trees.

I don't know if I can harvest this precious rubber tree today and bring the seeds of the rubber tree back to Daming.

Lu Hu paced back and forth in the camp, anxiously waiting.

Finally, when night was about to fall, Lu Hu saw the expedition team returning with a full load.

Not only did the expedition return, but the indigenous Indians of the forest followed. The members of the expedition and the Indians were all flushed, apparently having drunk all the rice wine in the forest. Their backs were full of baskets of fruit, and some green branches and leaves.

"Captain, we've found the rubber tree!"

Lu Hu walked up quickly, walked directly behind the members of the expedition, and took out the branches and leaves from their baskets.

The leaves were three compound leaves, leathery and full, and Lu Hu broke a branch, and sure enough, he saw that there was a sticky milky sap inside.

Lu Hu looked at the fruits in the basket again. It was an oval-shaped capsule with a hard brownish-yellow shell on the outside, just as the prince had described. Lu Hu anxiously knocked a hard fruit, and saw that it was indeed a brown seed inside.

This is indeed a rubber tree fruit.

Lu Hu patted the members of the expedition on the shoulder and laughed.

The Indian chief next to him saw that Lu Hu was so happy, and thought that Lu Hu was going to eat this fruit. He pointed to the rubber fruit and desperately made a vomiting appearance, trying to make Lu Hu understand that this fruit was poisonous.