Chapter 135: The New World
The fire in the city was blazing, and the Qing soldiers braved the heat to carry water to extinguish the fire. Outside the city www.biquge.info there was a cool breeze, and the fire broke out in the city, which not only did not bring high temperature to the outside of the city, but brought a cool breeze.
The principle is actually very simple: a fire in the city, as the temperature rises, the air rises after heating, and the flame burns and sucks away the surrounding oxygen, which will form a whirlwind of flames, attracting fresh air in the distance, so that a burst of artificial wind is formed in the distance, and the Ming army barracks are close to the river, and there is a cool breeze sent from the sea.
How comfortable it feels to drink a cold beer and take a nap at noon.
When the fire was easily extinguished in the city, Wang Xinyu found something for the Qing army to do.
In the evening, trebuchets dropped all the animal carcasses they had collected over the past few days into the city.
The temperature in the castle, which has just passed through the fire, is very high, and the animal carcasses are thrown into the castle, so you can imagine what the consequences will be.
Wu Liuyi, the prefect of Fuzhou, yes, is Wu Liuyi, a native of Xuancheng, is a civil official, not the commander of the nine gates of the capital division in the February River novel, it is a military position, and the real Wu Liuyi is a civil official, and he has never been the commander of the nine gates at all.
Wu Liuyi, a fourth-year jinshi in Shunzhi, the word holy water, studied in Nanjing Guozijian at the end of the Ming Dynasty, was a typical literati, and had no connection with Wu Liuqi at all.
After all, he is a reader, and he still has a certain brain. Wu Liuyi knew that a large number of animal carcasses had fallen into the city, and the hot weather could easily cause a plague, so he ordered all the animal carcasses to be buried.
However, Wu Liuyi did not know that Wang Xinyu put so many animal carcasses into the city, and just burying them on the spot could not solve the problem, burying the animal carcasses in the city on a hot day, and the decaying objects produced by the carcasses would seep into the ground and pollute the groundwater. Today, the city of Fuzhou is completely dependent on groundwater.
"When it's dark, move the trebuchet, go to the other side, and throw the canister of fire tomorrow near noon." Wang Xinyu asked his soldiers to pass the order.
The reason why the trebuchet was moved was because the fired oil tank caused a fire, on the one hand, there was nothing to burn in the place where it burned today, and the second reason was not to start a fire above the location where the Qing army buried the animal carcasses, otherwise it would be equivalent to playing a disinfection role, which would destroy the original intention of throwing the corpses.
The auxiliaries who had slept all afternoon moved the trebuchet after the sun went down in the evening, and without the scorching sun, it was not too tiring to move the trebuchet. After moving the trebuchet to its intended position, the auxiliaries went to take a bath and sleep.
The next day, near noon, the Ming army threw oil cans into the city, causing a fire, so that the Qing army and the people had to brave the scorching sun and the heat of the fire to extinguish the fire.
After three days of torture, the Qing army and the people in the city complained bitterly, they did not even kill a single Ming army, but dozens of people were burned to death because of the fire, and hundreds of people fell because of heat stroke.
The sun was scorching in Fuzhou in the south, but thousands of miles away, a fleet sailed in the cold wind.
Zheng Jing has lived in Sakhalin for almost a year, and before that, he lived on Sakhalin Island to help Zheng Xi lay a good foundation and build bases such as Ezo Island, Sakhalin Island, and Trans-Khingan Mountains. That was also for the great cause of opposing the Qing Dynasty, and for this goal, he temporarily stayed to help his uncle, who had a grudge against him.
As more and more locals were recruited and Han Chinese were sent from other places, the Sakhalin horse ranch was completed, the Sakhalin brewery began production, the farmlands of Sakhalin and the Trans-Khingan Mountains were planted with crops, and the pastures and meat processing factories were put into operation, so there was no need for Zheng Jing to stay here to help his uncle, after all, this was not his territory, and the territory he was assigned was in the Americas across the ocean, so Zheng Jing set sail with the fleet and left Sakhalin.
The population that was preparing to emigrate to the Americas included 162 of Zheng Jing's own cronies and soldiers, plus their families, a total of 673 people, 30 employees of the Nanyang Company, 630 prisoners of the Qing army, and 519 men and women captured from various places, totaling more than 1,800 people.
The flotilla also carried wheat seeds, rice seeds and seeds of various grain vegetables, carrying piglets, lambs, calves, chickens, ducklings, river geese and other animals.
The farther north you go, the colder it gets.
The fleet sailed all the way along the coastline, and at one point got lost, once turned into an icy bay, found that there was no way, turned back and continued north.
During the voyage, the ship's draftsmen constantly used the sextant to locate and draw out the charts.
"We've walked a lot of wrongful ways, there's a very big peninsula here, and we're sailing around the peninsula completely, and we've made a whole circle!" When leaving the huge peninsula, Zheng Jing's confidant Huang Zhao said with a disheartened face.
Zheng Jing couldn't hide his answer: "Although we have wasted a lot of time, we have surveyed a huge peninsula, which is the territory of our Ming Dynasty!" It's worth it, too! In that case, let's call it the Survey Peninsula! ”
Later, when the map was sent to Wang Xinyu, Wang Xinyu was stunned: Surveying the peninsula? How is it so similar to the name of Kamchatka later in real history? That's a coincidence, isn't it? In this case, it is still our Chinese name, which is called the Survey Peninsula.
The fleet sailed for seven days, turned into a bay, turned around for a long time, and finally continued its voyage north.
Due to the inaccuracy of Wang Xinyu's simple nautical charts, the fleet did not turn eastward after passing through today's Bering Strait, but continued north, and as a result, sailed into the Arctic Ocean. Sailing fast to the edge of the ice, Zheng Jing realized that something was wrong, so the fleet turned around and sailed south.
When passing through the strait again, Zheng Jing unceremoniously renamed the strait that was supposed to be called the Bering Strait to the Zheng Jing Strait, and since then there has been no Bering Strait, only the Zheng Jing Strait.
Zheng Jing's fleet entered what would become Alaska, which was already the American continent. However, Alaska is too cold, and in the sixth month of the lunar calendar, it is extremely hot in the country, and it is still cold here. The temperature at night is about four degrees, and during the day it is more than ten degrees, which is very cold for southerners.
"It's so cold in the summer, isn't it even colder in the winter here? We should continue south! Zheng Jing decisively did not set up his first stronghold in Alaska, but chose to continue sailing south, looking for a warmer place to land.
Along the way, the coastline along the way was as if it was cut by a knife, and the cliffs reached the sea, and Zheng Jing didn't have a place to land. But obviously, it was a very large continent, and it had been sailing for many days and still had no end in sight.
Huang Zhao picked up the simple map drawn by Wang Xinyu: "It seems that General Wang did not lie to us, this is a very large land, no smaller than our territory of the Ming Dynasty. ”
"It's big, it's big, but I can't find a landing site until now." Zheng Jing sighed.
I don't know how long the voyage lasted, but the fleet came to a warmer place, and it was a bay.
"Let's go in from here! Take a look inside, and maybe there's a landing site inside. Zheng Jing asked his own soldiers to convey the order to go down.
The fleet turned into the bay, which was very large, and according to Wang Xinyu's sketch, it seemed that there was an island outside. In fact, it was an island, and its later name was Vancouver Island, but the name of Vancouver Island did not appear again, because Huang Zhao immediately named this island and called it Huang Zhao Island.
This bay is huge, and later Vancouver and Seattle are in it, which is the border between the United States and Canada in later generations, but now they have become the territory of Zheng Jing.
When the fleet arrived at the location of Seattle in the future, Zheng Jing looked at the large harbor and flat land here and said, "This is really a good port!" We're here to land! ”
Seattle became the city of Hongxu, where Zheng Jing's fleet landed.
Ming officers and soldiers and civilians landed ashore and began to build camps and earthen cities, and the soldiers and civilians began to build Zheng Jing's first stronghold in the Americas.
"Horses! Lots of wild horses! Suddenly, someone pointed to the horses in the distance and screamed.
"Mustang?" Zheng Jing's eyes glowed, but in the blink of an eye, he dimmed again, and he seemed to be a little disappointed, "Didn't my brother-in-law say that I heard the Taixi people say that there are no horses in this new world?" Why are there so many wild horses here? Did we go somewhere, or did he just say nonsense? ”
Hong Xu laughed and said, "He hasn't been here, how can he know about the situation here?" He must have been wrong! Our people have calculated the distance, and there is nothing wrong with this being the New World! From now on, this will be our territory! ”
The wild horses did not seem to be very afraid of people, and when they saw the humans appear, the horses ran towards the sea, standing more than a hundred steps away from the people, looking at these people curiously.
In fact, these wild horses were not wild horses, but Spanish Andalusian horses, after the Spanish colonists came to the American continent with war horses, many horses were lost, or their owners were killed by indigenous people, or they died of disease, and many horses became ownerless horses.
Originally, there were no horses on the American continent, but because of the horses of the Spaniards, a large number of wild horses were born.
More than 160 years have passed since the arrival of the Spaniards in the Americas, and they have brought a large number of war horses with them and created a large number of wild horses to breed.
"Good horse!" A Ming soldier who was originally a prisoner of the Qing army's Mongolian Eight Banners looked at these horses, and his eyes were straight. These horses are tall, not to mention taller than Mongolian horses, and even the Don hippos of the Rakshasa people are not as tall as these horses! These wild horses have shiny coats, tall horses, and each one of them is a good horse.
The Mongol's name was Suzhl, and when he saw the horses, he couldn't move.
"My lord, I am willing to go and catch a few good horses for my lord!" Su Rile stepped forward to ask Zheng Jing for instructions.
Zheng Jing naturally likes good horses, he knows that the Mongols are born good riders, natural horse trainers, so he nodded and said with a smile: "You go and catch a few more horses!" It's best to catch the head horse, so that all the horses are ours! ”
Anyway, the grassland here is very large, and the horses have endless food, so Zheng Jingcai will not dislike the horses.
"All good horses! These horses are much better than the Rakshasa horses that my brother-in-law paid a fortune for! When the time comes, get a few horses and send them to your brother-in-law so that he can see them! Hahaha! Zheng Jing smiled proudly.
In fact, these Spanish Andalusian horses are no better than the Don Hippopotamus if they run long distances, the Don Hippopotamus is a hybrid of the European horse and the Mongolian horse, although the body size is not as tall as the European horse, the sprint speed is not as fast as the European horse, and the load capacity is not as good as the European horse, but the Don Hippopotamus has the same endurance as the Mongolian horse and is suitable for long-distance running.
And these European horses have fast sprints and large loads, but their endurance is still far inferior to that of the Don hippos.
The Mongol Surile rode a Don hippopotamus and rushed towards the herd of wild horses. He wants to make a great contribution today and get Zheng Jing's appreciation.
Su Rile's vision was very accurate, and he recognized the first horse in this group of wild horses at a glance, as long as the first horse was subdued, the whole herd would be honest and obedient.
The head horse at the head is a very tall, shiny fur, slightly blackish brown-red horse, the horse's mane is a little white, and there is a white mark on the forehead, which is a good horse at first glance.
Mustang saw someone riding after him, turned around and ran. However, the wild horses were not afraid of the humans, and after running for a while, they threw Surile behind, stopped again, and turned their heads to look at the riders behind them, not knowing whether they were sympathizing with their fellow riders or laughing at the inability of humans to catch up with them.
Surile chased after him, and the wild horses once again spread their hooves and ran, and with the speed of the Spanish war horse, once again left Surile far behind on the Don hippopotamus.
"Good horse! That's fast! "The more he saw good horses, the more he wanted to conquer them.
The Don hippos have good endurance, the Spanish horses are fast, and the two sides chase after me, and this group of wild horses seems to be trying to tease humans, but they are unhurried, as if they are playing Surile. But after all, Su Rile is a warrior who grew up on the grassland, he knows the characteristics of wild horses, horses want to amuse people, as long as people play with them, they can eventually trap the horse.
Perhaps the head horse felt that it was still far away, and that the stupid human could not catch it at all, but when the distance between the two sides reached thirty paces, it did not have time to run away, and Surile suddenly accelerated and rushed up.
"Whoosh" a sleeve flew out and accurately put it on the head of the wild horse.
The wild horse noticed that something was wrong, and spread its hooves and ran as hard as it could, but its stamina had been almost exhausted, and then the advantage of the Don hippopotamus came out, and Surile caught up with the wild horse, jumped from the horse, and jumped on the back of the wild horse.
The horses neighed, and the wild horses jumped desperately, trying to shake off the man on horseback. But no matter how the wild horse jumped, Surile just clung to its mane. After a fierce fight, the wild horse finally became less manic and gradually accepted the man on his back.
The head horse was subdued, and the group of horses honestly followed Su Rile back to the sea. There were more than a hundred horses in this large herd, each of which was a tall European horse.
"Hahaha!" Zheng Jing danced happily, "Okay! That's great! Worthy of the Mongolian warriors! He brought a large herd of good horses to the domain! Come on, give me a reward of 1,000 taels of silver! (To be continued.) )