As soon as the ocean-going exploration fleet led by Song Tao left Manila Bay, the Dutch Merchant House had already received the news. A Dutch merchant fleet also left Manila in the early morning and headed south.

Behind the prosperity of Manila, there are many spies of Western colonizers hidden, but the Luzon Homeland Security Agency has not effectively screened them. Manila is in the midst of an upswing in economic development, and there are a lot of businessmen from all over the world who come to Manila every year, which makes it difficult to identify.

Manila's departments are well organized in the management of ordinary businessmen, but they are not able to deal with those experienced professional intelligence officers. Now the main task of the Far East is to the outside world, so Zhou Billy and Ding Xinghao are both arranged in the Ministry of Intelligence.

In fact, the most important reason is that from top to bottom in the Far East, except for Zhou Billy and Ding Xinghao of the Ministry of Intelligence, they are all disgusted with the surveillance within the control area, let alone attach importance to it. Moreover, the Far East has been staying in the deserted Vladivostok, and so far it has only occupied Liaodong, basically without a threat from the outside, and there is no sense of urgency for internal security.

Inside the Far East, there are immigrants with Liao people as the main body, and they are all centrally managed, and there is basically no floating population. So the concept of internal security has not been formed. Even though the Ministry of Intelligence is now focusing on external intelligence networks, it ignores threats from within the control zone.

Manila is the only open city in the Far East, and the company's only homeland security department is located here, with nearly 100 personnel monitoring key locations on a daily basis.

In the past two years, Manila has been active in Manila with many British, Dutch, Portuguese and other countries and regions, and they have collected a lot of valuable information, so to speak, these Western colonists are very familiar with the various situations in Manila and even Luzon.

However, because of the lack of foreign professional intelligence personnel, the Far Eastern Intelligence Department has only set up intelligence agencies in Batavia, Banten, Colombo, Goa, and other places.

Therefore, the Far East did not respond positively to the infiltration of several Western colonial powers, after all, they all entered Manila as overseas merchants, and the Far East had no intelligence sources in Europe, so it was impossible to identify these merchants.

Song Tao's ocean-going exploration fleet sailed all the way to the south at full speed with the help of the strong northeast monsoon, and Song Tao decided to use Colombo as the first port of supply for safety. So they didn't stop at ports in Java, Kalimanthu and Sumatra, and sailed out of the Strait of Malacca and headed straight for the Indian Ocean.

The six sailing ships of the Ocean Exploration Fleet have undergone earth-shaking changes in speed and handling performance through the improvement of the Vladivostok shipyard, and the use of a large number of modern sail rigging, the speed of raising and lowering sails is several times that of the sailing ships of this era, and the number of sailors is only half of the previous ones.

In particular, the bottom of the ship is painted with asphalt and anticorrosive paint, and copper plates are laid, so that the resistance of the bottom of the sailboat is reduced a lot, and the speed of the ship is naturally faster than that of the sailboat of this era. By the time Song Tao and the others sailed out of the Strait of Malacca and into the Indian Ocean, the fleets of several merchant houses following the fleet had just arrived in the waters near Kalimandu, and it was already a few days away from Song Tao's ocean-going exploration fleet.

After several convoys anchored in Batavia, they reported the situation to the Dutch East India Company. The governor of Batavia attached great importance to this and hurriedly sent a clipper to chase it in the direction of India. But after such a delay in a few moments, Song Tao's fleet was already ahead of the road for several days.

A bunch of white-skinned people are sighing, in a narrow sea like the Strait of Malacca, they can definitely intercept these sailing ships in the Far East. The sailing ships and artillery of the Far East are the things that several countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal want to know the most. Why is the Far Eastern Fleet so strong, and it always wins all battles on the surface of the East Asian Ocean.

There must be a reason for this, so they have always wanted to spy on information in Manila, but it is a pity that the warships in the Far East are not anchored in Manila Port, but have their own military port, which is heavily guarded in peacetime, and as long as someone dares to approach the 500-meter red line on the sea or land, they will be killed and sunk on the spot.

Later, they spent a huge amount of money to get the actual news, it turned out that the Far Eastern Company consisted of two systems, civil and military are completely two systems, and the two systems are operated independently in peacetime.

This news made the whiteskins depressed, and they have been trying to figure out various means to get information about the military in Manila. But it has always had little effect.

The appearance of this fleet in the Far East made the intelligence officers of several countries very excited, and they immediately decided to try to intercept this fleet in the complex waters of the Strait of Malacca at any cost. After all, this is the Dutch sphere of influence, and even if it is to sink the ships of the Far East, the Far East Company does not know.

The interception of even a ship in the Far East will give them first-hand information on the warships of the Far Eastern Navy. Who knew that the Far Eastern Fleet was too fast, and they did not resupply in the traditional ports of Java and Sumatra, but rushed all the way out of Malacca.

The captain of the flagship ship of the Ocean Exploration Fleet is the experienced Van Pitt, and the co-captains of the other warships are also an experienced Dutchman, and the sailors of each ship are mainly former pirate warriors, supplemented by Dutch. Therefore, although the fleet's experience in long-distance voyages is insufficient, the main posts of captains and warships are still filled by experienced officers and men.

The journey of the fleet out of Malacca was very smooth, and everyone was in a good mood. Song Tao and a group of people from the fleet headquarters stood on the deck, facing the salty and wet sea breeze, enjoying the joy of the voyage.

Hong Shulei, director of the Fleet Civil Affairs Committee, said with a smile: "I didn't expect this road to be really smooth, if only this road could be so calm." ”

Ding Xinghao, who was next to him, shook his head and said solemnly: "This is impossible, the average depth of the Indian Ocean is 3839.9 meters, excluding the average depth of the sea is 3872.4 meters. The maximum depth is 9074 meters. This is an indispensable storm, and we must be mentally prepared. ”

Song Tao was in a good mood, but he was instantly lost by Ding Xinghao, and he said angrily: "Old Ding, you can't make us happy for a while, it makes everyone nervous." ”

Everyone was amused by Song Tao's words, and they didn't take Ding Xinghao's words seriously. But in the evening, the weather suddenly changed, dark clouds and storms followed, and the sea seemed to be boiling, and several sailboats tossed and turned on the rough sea.

It wasn't until the next morning that the storm subsided. Ding Xinghao is also nicknamed "crow's mouth" by everyone, and as soon as he said that there would be a storm, it was fulfilled immediately.

The fleet rushed out of the storm, and everyone began to check the situation of the ships, and with the loud reports of the non-commissioned officers of various posts, the flagship captain Van Bit turned around and reported to Song Tao: "Your Excellency, the Pioneer is in good condition,"

Song Tao and everyone on the deck breathed a sigh of relief. Van Bit said with a smile: "Such a storm is nothing in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, even a sailboat of one or two hundred tons can easily survive." ”

Hong Shulei, who was grinning beside him, shook his head and said, "I was almost tossed to death last night, and if I encounter a bigger storm again, I doubt that I can survive it." ”

Song Tao said with a smile: "I've been on the ship for a long time and I'm used to it, who let the people from your civil affairs committee not come when the fleet was trained at sea, and now we know that it's uncomfortable, and we have long been used to it." ”

At this time, Ding Xinghao said: "Our current location should be in the waters of the Bay of Bengal, near India and Ceylon, which are also frequent pirates, in addition to storms, we must be careful of pirates." ”R1152