Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 200 Lost Ship
Ding Cuilian stood on a high slope near the pier, looking at the boundless blue sea. She was speechless for a long time, but her eyes were full of anticipation.

After a while, the child in her arms woke up and cried loudly. She came to her senses and reached out to pat her daughter gently, humming a nursery rhyme to calm her down.

"Be good, sister, don't cry, don't cry. ... We'll wait here for Daddy to come back. ... When Daddy comes back, he'll bring some candy for you and your brother."

"...The wind is strong, let's go back." Liao Wumei glanced at her and said expressionlessly.

"Wait a little longer, maybe they will come back today." Ding Cuilian still did not give up and continued to look at the sea.

"Our man may... never come back." Liao Wumei's eyes were already wet.

"No, they will definitely come back." Ding Cuilian's heart felt as if someone had suddenly tugged at her, causing her to feel a piercing pain. Tears as big as beans immediately flowed uncontrollably. "Maybe... they were delayed along the way."

She hugged her still crying daughter tighter in her arms, her face pressed against hers, sobbing softly.

"Go back, there are older children at home who need us to take care of them." Liao Wumei stretched out her right hand, wiped her face hard, sniffed, and was about to turn and leave.

"He will definitely come back! He will... come back..." Ding Cuilian was crying uncontrollably and kept kissing her daughter in her arms.

Liao Wumei glanced back at the distant sea, smiled sadly, reached out and pulled the shawl on the child in Ding Cuilian's arms, and whispered, "What good can we do by staying here? If they wanted to come back, they should have returned to Shixing Port more than half a month ago. This little girl is less than a year old. Don't let her catch a cold and get sick. ... Go back. You can wait at home."

Upon hearing this, Ding Cuilian wiped away her tears, hugged her daughter tightly, followed her, and slowly walked towards the city.

On the hillside where they left, there were still several women wiping their tears and looking out to sea, as if they were also hoping that their relatives who had traveled far away would return soon.

Some people even kneel on the rocks and kowtow to Mazu in silence.

At this time, it was late October, and autumn was in full swing. The leaves were gradually turning yellow, the temperature was starting to drop, and the crop harvesting work in various places was coming to an end.

After the "Polang" returned to Qiming Island on September 9, three immigrant ships belonging to Xinzhou Huaxia and four Portuguese ships also entered Shixing Port on October 15.

During this year's immigration season, the fleet brought back a total of more than 2630 Ming Dynasty immigrants, bringing the population of Xinhua to more than 9300, and the number of is just around the corner.

However, just as everyone was cheering for having so many immigrants again, they suddenly discovered that the "Journey", which had set out at the same time as the "Breaking Waves", had not returned yet.

The "Polang" had an extraordinary speed due to its special hull shape and sophisticated industrial design. In order to save the immigrants on the ship from suffering during the journey, it did not choose to accompany the "Zhengtu" and returned to Qiming Island at the fastest speed.

However, even if the "Zhengtu" left behind was slower, it should have returned to Xinzhou with the immigrants after two months.

But surprisingly, even after the seven subsequent Chinese-Portuguese immigration fleets arrived at Shixing Port, it still did not return.

At first, everyone thought that the "Zhengtu" might have encountered a storm and been blown off its intended course, causing it to unexpectedly miss its deadline.

But as time went by, the "Zhengtu" still had not returned to Qiming Island. People began to become anxious from the initial worry, and finally a terrible thought arose in everyone's mind.

The "Zhengtu" is likely to have crashed!
If this is true, then Xinhua not only lost an important immigration ship, but what is even more distressing is that there were three time travelers, four trainee naval cadets, more than sixty skilled sailors, and more than three hundred Ming Dynasty immigrants on board.

In the past few years, the time travelers have been developing smoothly. Not only have they intercepted three Spanish "treasure ships" and captured more than one hundred experienced Spanish sailors, they have also seized gold, silver and supplies worth more than 700,000 to 800,000 pesos, which enabled them to obtain relatively abundant "capital" in the initial stage of development.

Later, they colluded with local smugglers in America and built a trade and smuggling channel for Eastern goods, which provided the time travelers with a stable channel to obtain funds, thus ensuring the progress of subsequent immigration activities.

Three years ago, they successfully persuaded the Portuguese in Macau to help transport immigrants to the New Continent at an extremely high price, allowing the time travelers to have thousands of immigrants in a very short period of time, greatly alleviating the problem of manpower shortage.

Perhaps all of this went too smoothly and eventually exhausted the good luck of the time travelers.

First, in August last year, under the very strict epidemic prevention and sanitary conditions of the travelers, a smallpox epidemic broke out in the Indian tribe near Guangfeng Fort.

Although the time travelers urgently vaccinated thousands of immigrants with cowpox, preventing the epidemic from spreading widely within the control area, the surrounding Indian tribes, which had not implemented epidemic prevention and control measures, suffered a severe disaster. Although the time travelers did not conduct a detailed statistics on the specific losses of the Indian tribes, conservative estimates suggest that the death toll from the smallpox epidemic may have exceeded 4,000.

The population of almost every tribe has decreased by 30% to 40%. In some tribes where the epidemic is extremely serious, only one in ten people remains.

If it weren't for the arrival of more than 2,000 new immigrants last year, who filled some of the labor gaps in a timely manner, some of the matters being promoted in various aspects of Xinhua would probably face the dilemma of having no one available.

It was precisely because the Indians lost a large number of people last year that when Xinhua dispatched troops to encircle and suppress the "rebellious" Indians a month ago, it did not kill indiscriminately and use bloody massacres to intimidate all Indian tribes.

Every human resource is precious and should not be wasted easily.

Just when the time travelers had formulated many ambitious development plans and were ready to let go, vigorously immigrate, and strive to promote industrial and agricultural production, they did not expect that in May last year, a Spanish exploration fleet reached Qiming Island.

In this way, Xinhua's existence has been exposed to the Spaniards.

It can be predicted that once the Spanish exploratory fleet returns to Mexico and reports the situation there to the Spanish American colonial authorities, they will definitely face an attack from their army.

Even if the Spaniards did not know the Chinese allusion of "next to the couch", the sudden appearance of an unknown force in the Pacific coast of North America would inevitably arouse their fear and vigilance.

America, but it’s the Spanish America!

What's more, the time travelers have repeatedly attacked Spanish merchant ships and coastal town ports, which constitutes a serious provocation to the Kingdom of Spain.

Therefore, the Spaniards will definitely come to kill us.

In order to cope with the impending military threat, the time travelers had to readjust their development plans and transfer their already very limited resources to armaments.

It can be said that this has disrupted (delayed) the development pace of the entire New South Wales to some extent.

In addition, the Indian labor rebellion that occurred in Fort Sunning a month ago caused a hint of unrest among the Indian tribes in and around the area.

If the "counter-insurgency" action had not been decisive and swift, and the handling measures had not been appropriately conciliatory, after punishing the "ringleaders", the rest would not have been investigated too deeply, and the working conditions of Indian workers would not have been slightly improved and enhanced afterwards, and the "ethnic conflict" in its infancy would have been eliminated in the end.

After all, in future battles against the Spaniards, we will still need to rely on the strength of these Indians.

The Indian "rebellion" had just been put down, and just as the people of Xinhua were happily welcoming the arrival of a new batch of immigrants, the "Zhengtu" ship failed to return on time.

When this situation occurs, there is a high probability that the ship has encountered a shipwreck and both the people and the ship have been lost. It is very sad to hear about it.

During the four years of immigration, the number of travelers gradually increased from one ship at the beginning to four ships. With the addition of several Portuguese ships, the scale of immigration increased year by year, and the development speed far exceeded everyone's expectations.

During this period, immigrant ships traveling to and from the Pacific Ocean all had smooth sailing. Although they experienced countless storms, they were all safe and sound in the end, which made a group of atheist time travelers silently worship Mazu in their hearts.

Fortunately, the Queen of Heaven blesses us!

However, this immigration season encountered an accident, and the "Zhengtu" was lost, resulting in the loss of extremely valuable talents and ships.

"After dealing with the threat from the Spanish, we might as well build a statue of Mazu on the hillside." Luo Zhenhui saw several family members of the "Zhengtu" crew kneeling on the beach, devoutly worshiping the sea god from afar, and sighed slightly in his heart.

"...Okay." Wang Jiarong, commander of the port artillery, glanced at the mountainside where he pointed and nodded silently in response.

"In a few days, we will bury their clothes and hats in the Martyrs' Cemetery." Luo Zhenhui was silent for a moment, then turned and walked towards Shixing Fort. "When the time comes, we will pay them the highest respects and let future generations remember their heroic names forever!"

(End of this chapter)