Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 76 "Take You to a Heavenly Blessed Land"

On July 1627, 7, after more than 30 days of sailing, the "Break Wave" crossed the Japanese archipelago and reached the waters of degrees north latitude. Its speed suddenly increased and it sped towards the east.

Several huge sails caught the weak westerly wind at the right time, and then followed the Kuroshio Current, constantly breaking through the waves.

The sea breeze was howling, and the waves kept hitting the hull, stirring up white waves.

The sails swelled like an eagle spreading its wings and soaring, pushing the ship at a speed of 13-15 knots.

Seagulls circled around the ship's side, making sharp calls, as if they were enthusiastically greeting the lone sail in the ocean.

The sun hangs in the sky, shining on the sea, and the waves sparkle like countless gems shining in the sun.

The salty sea breeze blows on people's faces, making people feel extremely free and refreshed.

The sailors on the ship were busy, either adjusting the sails or steering the ship. Everyone was silently contributing his or her own strength to the smooth sailing of the ship.

In the distance, the sea and the sky meet in a vast expanse of blue, endless and boundless, making everyone on the boat feel their own insignificance and helplessness.

Two young immigrants carried a corpse and slowly climbed up from the bottom cabin. Then, under the guidance of a crew member, they came to the side of the ship and were about to throw it into the sea.

"Dad..." A boy of about eleven or twelve years old suddenly rushed over and grabbed the dead man's arm.

"Huh?" Mo Tianhai looked at the scene in surprise, not knowing how to respond for a moment.

"Don't throw my father into the sea to feed the fish..." The boy knelt on the ground and pleaded with tears in his eyes.

"Your father... is dead?" Mo Tianhai felt sad.

"Please, don't throw my father into the sea..." The young man looked at him pitifully.

"..." Mo Tianhai sighed slightly, stretched out his hand and helped the young man up, "There is a dragon palace in the sea, it's like a fairyland. When your father goes down there... he will enjoy a happy life."

"You're lying! ... There's nothing in the sea except water!" The young man's tears kept flowing, his expression extremely sad. "My father died, couldn't he have a complete end? ... If you throw him into the sea, I'll never see him again!"

“…” After hearing this, the two young immigrants looked at each other in confusion.

Who doesn’t want to leave an intact body after death so that future generations can worship him during the New Year holidays?

If we throw this into the sea, it will be eaten up by fish and there will be nothing left!
However, on a large ship, a corpse cannot be left in the cabin.

It was fine when we first went out to sea. Although half of the immigrants suffered from seasickness, their bodies were still able to hold on.

Then, after sailing for more than ten days, people began to fall ill one after another and became unable to get up and move.

Most of them were refugees and beggars gathered before departure, although the "Break the Wave" postponed its departure time for several days to give these immigrants in extremely poor health time to recuperate.

But how can three to five days of nutritional supplements make up for the body that has been depleted for more than ten or even dozens of years!

Immigrants began to die a few days ago.

As of today, four bodies have been pulled from the cabin and thrown into the sea.

Military medical officer Dong Xinping looked extremely solemn after a rough inspection of the immigrants' situation in the lower cabin. He believed that the situation of some immigrants was not very optimistic.

The "Breaking Waves" is a sailing training ship. When it was first designed and built, it did not have dedicated cargo holds for transporting goods and passengers.

For this trip to the continent, the "Break the Wave" had its bottom hold slightly modified before departure, with some equipment and pipelines removed and many partitions and shelves added in the hope of transporting more cargo and immigrants.

Even the cabins where the crew lived were modified to increase living space in order to accommodate some special immigrants (women and children).

The wardrobes, bookshelves, storage racks, and electrical equipment in the crew cabin were all removed, and then a few wooden boards were laid out and a blanket placed on them to create temporary beds.

After the renovation of the original six- and eight-person crew cabins, the number of people accommodated has more than doubled.

As for the previous functional cabins such as bathrooms, dining rooms, fitness rooms, and entertainment rooms, they have all been converted into immigration cabins and are now packed.

In addition, the "Break Wave" also carried a large amount of cargo, including cotton, sugar, rice, spices, iron, lead, tin, medicinal materials, porcelain, wool fabrics, as well as various hand tools, farm tools, seeds, etc., totaling about 400 tons.

This made the ship even more crowded, with cargo and people spread everywhere, leaving almost no room to step.

In order to prevent epidemics and infectious diseases during the voyage, these immigrants stayed in the cargo yard temporarily rented at the dock for at least five days to check and observe whether anyone was carrying the source of infection.

In fact, the two hundred or so refugees and beggars who were gathered at the back were not physically fit for a long sea voyage. They were too weak to survive the turbulent waves of the Pacific Ocean.

On the ship, due to the poor riding conditions, many immigrants not only cannot get enough rest, but also cannot get more nutritional supplements.

However, the refugees and beggars struggling on the brink of death were still determined to follow the "Breaker" to their new home.

In Guangzhou, if refugees like them had no one to help them or give them alms, many of them would die quietly on the streets and then be dragged to mass graves outside the city to become food for stray dogs.

Even if they could get some food occasionally, it wouldn't last long.

If it is autumn or winter and a cold dew comes, they will freeze to death in the corners of the walls or under the eaves.

With the help of this group of "Nanyang merchants", they finally had a full meal, slept well at night, washed themselves, and got clean clothes.

As for following them to Southeast Asia, no one objected. Since it was impossible to survive under the Ming Dynasty rule, it would be better to try their luck overseas.

Moreover, over the past hundreds of years, countless people from coastal areas such as Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have gone to Southeast Asia. Why are they the only refugees who can't survive?
As long as you can survive, anywhere can't become your home.

Therefore, after careful screening, more than a hundred refugees who were still in good health were selected and stuffed into the cabin.

"Big brother, it seems that we are not heading towards the South Seas, right?" Liu A Shui slowly moved in front of a crew member and asked carefully.

Zhang Chunlei was watching the two immigrants dragging the crying boy off the deck. He was feeling deeply moved when he suddenly heard someone talking beside him and turned to look over.

"What did you say?"

He didn't understand a single word of the gibberish Cantonese.

"Hey... big brother, I mean, where are we going now?" Liu A Shui slowed down his speech, straightened his tongue, and spoke word by word.

"Given your age, I'm not worthy of being called your elder brother!" Zhang Chunlei looked at this Ming Dynasty "ancestor" and said with a smile, "The direction we're going is naturally east. You can roughly tell the direction by looking at the sun."

"Uh..." Liu Ashui hesitated for a moment, then said boldly: "To go to Nanyang, shouldn't we go south?"

"Hey, do you know where Nanyang is?"

“…” Liu Ashui’s mouth twitched.

What is Nanyang? Isn’t it the side of the ocean south of our Ming Dynasty?

Besides, we boat people have lived on the water for generations, so how could we not know the ocean currents and directions?

After setting sail from the Lingdingyang, the large ship headed northeast. A few days later, it passed through Ryukyu (in the Ming Dynasty, Taiwan was called Xiaoliuqiu), and then continued to sail northeast.

It was originally thought that the other party wanted to go deep into the ocean, avoid the obstruction of the southeast monsoon, choose a more suitable ocean current, and then choose an opportunity to go south to the South China Sea.

However, unexpectedly, the ship went all the way east without stopping or changing its course, and it seemed that it had no intention of going south.

I still remember that when these "Nanyang merchants" recruited them, they claimed that they would take them overseas and change their fate of living on the water.

They can buy houses on the shore or settle down permanently on land, and their children and descendants do not have to inherit the boat people's business.

What's more, they can be allocated large tracts of land, their children can enjoy free education, and they will completely get rid of all the taboos and restrictions of the Tanka people and will no longer be discriminated against and excluded by the world.

To be honest, they were very moved by this promise and were extremely yearning for it.

Although many Tanka people are still hesitant about this, fearing that they will be deceived by them, abducted overseas, and become slave laborers with an even more miserable fate, living a life worse than death.

They also worried that these "Southeast Asian merchants" might be part of a pirate force that would use sweet words to seduce them into becoming pirates and eventually turn them into cannon fodder in the enemy's battle line.

However, Liu Ashui and more than 30 other boat people still gritted their teeth and believed them.

If you win the bet, the fate of yourself and your descendants will change drastically.

After sailing for more than twenty days, they saw that the direction was getting more and more wrong, and they couldn't help but start to worry.

Where will these "Nanyang merchants" take them?

"When did we say we were going to Southeast Asia?" Zhang Chunlei said with a smile, "We're going east, to a blessed land bestowed by heaven, a new home. There, the fate of all of you will be completely changed."

(End of this chapter)