On the vast sea, a three-masted ship loaded with tea leaves from the Ming Dynasty sailed southward on the wind and waves.

After the ship was loaded with goods in Guangzhou, it added some fresh water, rice, vegetables and fruits to Qiongdao, and continued its voyage along the coast.

The ship is the merchant ship of the Jinghai Firm, because it has the background of the Five Loyal Army, and the firm has a shipbuilding workshop, so it has developed particularly rapidly, and there are 100 merchant ships operating in the South Seas, if it were not for the lack of sailors and boatmen, the scale of the merchant could have been even larger.

For the merchants, the ship is not a problem, Qiongdao has not yet been developed, there are many giant trees suitable for shipbuilding, and hundreds of thousands of sea ships can be built in a very short time, but sailors, shipwrights, and pilots can not be cultivated in a short time.

Wang Yan has been running Guangdong for three years, and he has cultivated such a few people.

Along the way, the ship did not encounter any big wind and waves, although it was not a tailwind at this time, but since the Song Dynasty, China has mastered the sail technology of "the wind from all directions, only the head does not enter", which means that as long as it is not against the sky, the wind from the other seven directions can be adjusted to make the ship move forward by adjusting the sail.

The wind blew sideways, blowing the sails loudly, the sailman adjusted the sails, and the ship drifted a little, about a swaying sail.

At this time, the sailors on the lookout looked vigilantly out to sea, and the sailors were gathered on the deck, armed with weapons, not only swords, but also muskets and rockets, and twelve franc cannons on board.

Wang Yan had previously allowed merchants to equip merchant ships with firearms, and other merchants were still worried about training, but Jinghai merchants did not have this kind of melancholy, and most of the guards on board were retired soldiers from the army, or pirates from the sea, and they were very skilled in equipment.

With these people joining, the Jinghai merchant has become a Daming maritime merchant on the sea, and he began to occasionally do a vote at the earliest, but they still have some bottom lines, and they are all grabbing cargo ships from Xiyi or Nanyang countries.

On the deck, the pilot is a showman, named Wu Shizhao, in his thirties, from Leizhou, who has repeatedly failed in the examination, and his family is broken, in order to support his family, he was forced to give up the imperial examination and join the Chamber of Commerce, and he has always been a little unwilling in his heart.

This pilot work, to be able to read charts, understand monsoon tides, know astronomy and geography, can use the art of the ocean, it is difficult for ordinary people to learn, so anyone who is proficient in these is the treasure of the Chamber of Commerce, and the remuneration is extremely high.

Wu Shizhao took the advantage of being a scholar, and was somewhat proficient in arithmetic, and soon learned these, and the Chamber of Commerce also gave him a very high salary, so that he could catch up with Qipinzhi County, but he was not here, and he still wanted to be named on the gold list one day.

Although Guangdong has undergone great changes in recent years, people's concepts are still changing very slowly.

In the corner of the deck, a person carrying a war knife and a bow and arrows on his back was a retired soldier of the Five Loyal Army, named Han Hua, who had just retired and was arranged to enter the Chamber of Commerce and be a guard leader.

He stood behind Wu Shizhao, looking at the compass and nautical chart in his hand in a daze, obviously wanting to learn, but Wu Shizhao was unwilling to hand him over, looking up at the sky by himself, and silently estimating the location of the ship in his heart.

Suddenly, Wu Shizhao put away the chart and compass, turned around and walked to the boss of the boat, Han Hua saw a trace of loss in his eyes.

The boat boss also had a Miao knife hanging from his waist, and he was standing on the ship's floor, looking at the sea with his eyes blazing, at this time Wu Shizhao had already walked to the bottom of the ship's building, and shouted directly: "Shopkeeper Fu, the ship seems to have passed the sea outside the city and is about to enter the Gulf of Siam." ”

When the captain heard this, he couldn't help but tighten his belt, took off the Miao knife, then pulled out a section and inserted it back, raised his head and shouted to the sailors on the bucket, "Wang Fugui, it's almost time to reach Heyi's territory, give Lao Tzu some cleverness!" ”

On the lookout bucket of the mainmast, a tanned sailor with oily skin immediately replied: "The shopkeeper puts his heart in his stomach, and the seabirds flying in the sky can even count the hairs of the small ones!" ”

The Dutch took control of Malacca and blocked the passage of Ming merchants to Tianzhu, so they had to transport their goods to Chumphon Province, the narrowest part of the Malay Peninsula, in Siam, and hand them over to local merchants for resale.

This is equal to the benefits of trade, and it was divided in half by the two dealers, which was a great loss to the merchants of the Ming Dynasty, so they always thought that they could open up Malacca and enter the Tianzhu trade.

The Gulf of Siam was no longer under the control of the Ming Dynasty's naval divisions, and Siam basically had no coastal defense at all, and it was considered a zone without royal law.

The pirates and the Dutch knew that the Ming Dynasty merchant ships wanted to transport goods here, so they often plundered the Ming merchant ships in this area, and the maritime trade took great risks.

The sailors wanted to take a place to anchor ships in Champa in order to expand their influence to the Gulf of Siam and ensure the safety of the trade routes.

At this time, the sailors and guards on the ship listened to the conversation, and the atmosphere immediately became tense, and they all cheered up, and the gunners got up and brought out a bucket of medicine from the cabin, and loaded the Franc machine with ammunition, and the guards picked up the weapons around them, or squatted to make simple fire pots, and the captain of the ship walked to the side of the ship and looked at the sea.

Wu Shizhao didn't seem to care much about this, he didn't really fit into the crew, and after doing his job, he sat down on the cargo and read the book.

Han Hua walked to Wu Shizhao's side at some point, "Wu Xiucai, if you encounter a thief ship and the sword has no eyes, you will go to the warehouse to hide." ”

Wu Shizhao knew that Han Hua wanted to learn the art of foreign stars, but he was all about the imperial examination, and he didn't look down on a group of Qiu Ba, so he didn't want to talk to them more.

"Thanks for the reminder!" Wu Shizhao responded coldly, and then lowered his head to read the book again.

Han Hua stood for a while, no more, smiled a little embarrassedly, walked to the side, one of his guards saw it but was very dissatisfied, threw the half-tied rocket in his hand on the deck, and stood up, "A sour Xiucai, what's the big deal, who do you think you are, it's bigger than Your Highness's shelf~"

Han Huaman stepped forward a few steps and stopped his subordinates, and at this moment, on the lookout of the main mast, Wang Fugui suddenly shouted down: "Shopkeeper, there is a boat ahead!" ”

Hearing the sound of the guards and sailors on the deck, they all stood up, and the captain of the ship immediately stuck his knife in his waist, hurried down the building in a few steps, walked under the mainmast, and climbed directly to Wangdou.

After a while, the captain of the ship arrived at Wangdou and asked, "Where is it?" ”

Wang Fugui pointed to it, the boat boss held Wangdou with one hand, and built a pergola on his forehead with the other, and looked in the direction pointed by Wang Fugui, and sure enough, he saw several sails leaking out of the sea level in the distance.

Some of the people below ran to the side of the boat to look, while others raised their heads and waited for the boss of the boat on the bucket to explain the situation.

At this time, the gathering was too far, the boat boss looked at it for a while, but he couldn't see it really, and he couldn't distinguish between friend and foe, he looked at it for a while, put his hand down, and then said to the people below: "Be prepared, adjust the sail first, and seize the upper hand!" ”

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