The Age of Discovery: Chinese cuisine swept across Europe

After a brief stay in the bay to replenish food and fresh water, the group set out on their journey to continue their exploration.

The locals rely entirely on their own supplies. There is no fruit as a staple food, so they can only hunt and fish to supplement meat and fish. In order to better preserve the food, they will simply process the food, smear salt on the meat, smoke it with fire, and then hang it on the boat to dry. This is less likely to spoil than directly smearing salt and drying it, and the flavor is also better.

It's just so salty that it makes you choke. Fortunately, everyone is not idle. They often need to adjust the sails, maintain the ships and weapons. The naval officers and soldiers also have to train on the ship. They are always busy. In addition, the weather is hot, so they sweat even more. Otherwise, if they always eat salty food, it would be strange if their bodies don't have problems.

Min Xi originally wanted to go directly to South America from Australia, but now he is a little pessimistic about the situation, because Australia is currently unable to provide them with enough food supplies. From Australia to South America, there is the huge Pacific Ocean in between, and he is not sure whether they can support themselves to the South American continent by relying on meat alone.

I don't know what the situation is like in the southeast of Australia. That is the most suitable place for human habitation on this continent and also the place with the most concentrated indigenous people. I don't know what the productivity of the indigenous people there is like, but most of them still live a primitive life of gathering and hunting.

All the places they passed through were barren lands. Not to mention people, even plants and animals were scarce. Except for Min Xi and Yun Ji, everyone on the boat believed that this was a barren land that was not suitable for human survival. The only value of such land to the Ming people was the gold mine. If they could not find the gold mine, then this continent would be meaningless to them.

The fleet continued to sail south along the west coast of Australia. As the latitude increased, the climate finally changed. The scenery on land that they saw from the ship also finally changed, and continuous green mountains appeared in their field of vision.

The fleet arrived at a bay that day. After discussing with Yun Ji, Min Xi decided to resupply here and led the ships to the shore. There was also a river in this bay, and the water flow seemed to be quite abundant.

After they moored the boat and came ashore, Min Xi looked at the familiar vegetation and realized that the climate conditions were similar to those where they discovered the Golden Mountain, which was a tropical savanna climate.

"This is a great place! With so many kangaroos, there must be emus as well. There should be people living here too." A captain had just come ashore when he saw several kangaroos staring at them curiously. He couldn't help but grin. The vegetation here made him feel familiar and it felt much more intimate than Port Hedland.

"The environment here is similar to that in Jinshan. Go and see if there are any wild fruits you recognize." Min Xi instructed everyone.

When everyone heard that there were wild fruits to eat, they became excited and were ready to go find some wild fruits to eat. They were really tired of eating bacon and wanted to change the taste.

Yun Ji reminded them: "Bring weapons, there might be indigenous people living here, try not to conflict with them."

Min Xi said to Yun Ji, "Seventh brother, let's go to the other side and see if there is any seafood." When the boat just came over, he noticed that there was a large reef on the other side of the bay. Where there are reefs, there must be seafood.

"Okay." Yun Ji rowed the boat and went to the other side of the bay with Min Xi.

As soon as he reached the reef, Min Xi shouted excitedly: "Haha, I told you there's good stuff! They're all big abalone, big conch, and big oysters. We're in for a treat tonight!"

Australia has always been a place with vast land, sparse population and abundant resources. Even in the era when he lived, seafood resources were extremely abundant, let alone this era.

The rocks of this reef were full of huge abalone, oysters and barnacles, and there were huge sea urchins in the water. Min Xi drew his dagger and began to pry up the abalone.

Although Yun Ji and Min Xi had traveled to many places together, they had rarely gone to the sea together except for hunting. He knew that abalone, conch and oysters were edible, but this was the first time he had seen barnacles and sea urchins: "Can these things be eaten?"

Min Xi pried off a barnacle and put it to his mouth: "Try it and see if it's fresh."

Yun Ji looked at the barnacles on his lips. Out of trust in Min Xi, he licked it carefully, then raised his eyebrows: "It's really fresh."

"That's right! This thing looks so ugly and not very big. If it weren't fresh, who would eat it?" Min Xi said with a laugh.

"What about this one with thorns all over its body? Can it be eaten?" Yun Ji looked at the sea urchin covered with sharp thorns and didn't quite believe that it could be eaten.

Min Xi said: "It is definitely a good thing. You won't be wrong if you trust me."

Min Xi took a sea urchin and placed it on the reef. He cracked open its shell and took out the sea urchin roe. He ate half of it himself and then handed the rest to Yun Ji: "Try it."

Yun Ji ate it hesitantly, then nodded: "It's really good, very delicious."

"This is perfect for steaming eggs. But eggs are hard to find. I wonder if they can find emu eggs. It's also good to grill them. They taste good no matter how you cook them." Min Xi said with a smile.

"It's such a treat to follow you!" Yun Ji said with a smile.

The resources here were so abundant that they were easy to get. Soon, they filled the boat and sailed back to the other side. A cook was cooking on the shore. When he saw them coming back, he asked, "Sir, what did you do on the other side?"

Min Xi smiled and said, "I went to find some delicious dishes for you."

"What is it?" The cook ran over curiously, "Wow, is this an abalone? It's so big!"

The cook picked up a giant abalone and said, "This abalone is so big. How many years has it grown? Can you bite it?"

"What's so hard to chew? Just cut it into smaller pieces. I'll do it." Min Xi rolled up his sleeves and decided to cook himself.

Such fresh seafood, of course, can not be wasted, steamed, charcoal grilled, stir-fried, soup, all kinds of flavors should be tried. And the people who went out to pick wild fruits did not disappoint everyone, not only brought back wild fruits, but also brought back emu eggs, so the sea urchin steamed egg was also realized.

In the evening, everyone finally had a comfortable meal, and after the meal there were wild fruits as side dishes. We were so satisfied.

After dinner, everyone lay on the beach and enjoyed the sea breeze.

Someone suggested: "Sir, this place is really nice. Can we stay for two more days and pick up more abalone and sea urchins and dry them to take on board?"

Min Xi replied: "Sure, I plan to sail upstream tomorrow to see if there are any gold mines nearby."

Yun Ji turned around and asked Min Xi: "Didn't you say that we could wash the sand in the river to see if there is any gold mine here?"

Min Xi yawned and said, "Yes, let's try it tomorrow. If we can find gold in the river, our goal will be clearer."

The next morning, everyone rushed to the reef to collect seafood. Both the crew and the navy officers grew up by the sea and were very passionate about collecting seafood.

Min Xi and Yun Ji did not go fishing, they led the craftsmen to the river bottom to fish for gold. This situation is actually a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, because the chance is too small.

They decided to take six basins of sand from the river bottom to wash. If they couldn't find gold in all six basins, they would stop. They still had to go upstream to see, but they wouldn't have to find a gold mine before leaving. If they could pan for gold sand, they would have to find the gold mine before leaving.

It's no wonder that they were very lucky. When they scooped up the fourth basin, they found gold sand at the bottom of the basin. Although the gold sand was very small, it was enough to prove that there was a gold mine upstream of the river.

So after breakfast, Min Xi and Yun Ji took the craftsmen on a journey to find gold mines. This time they brought more than 20 people, eight or nine boats, and were fully armed, because the climate conditions here were obviously suitable for human life and they might encounter local natives. They had no ill will towards the natives, but who knew what the natives thought.

In order to determine the location of the gold mine, they had to scoop up sand from the bottom of the water and wash it every time they walked a certain distance.

When he was about to stop to scoop up sand for the third time, Min Xi discovered a terrifying existence. He actually saw a crocodile on the other side of the river! He almost forgot that there were crocodiles in Australia!

Min Xi was terrified and quickly reminded everyone: "Be careful, there are crocodiles! Row the boat away quickly, don't go into the water, and don't take river sand. There are beasts in this river that can eat people!"

"What is it?" Yun Ji had never seen a crocodile before. He looked in the direction where his finger pointed and saw something at the water's edge swimming towards the center of the river at a moderate speed.

"We have crocodiles in the Ming Dynasty too. They live in the Yangtze River and are called Yangtze alligators, but they are much smaller than this one. They eat fish and also hunt various animals by the water. Their skin is very thick, so shooting is basically useless. Swords and knives probably won't be able to cut through them in a short time. Leave quickly, but don't panic. They can only open their mouths to bite, and their movements are not very fast." Min Xi calmly directed everyone to row away.

When everyone heard this, they rowed their boats and left quickly.

After arriving at a safe place, Min Xi explained the basic situation of crocodiles to everyone and told everyone how crocodiles hunt. As long as they are more careful and do not provoke them at will, crocodiles do not pose a big threat to humans.

After hearing this, Yun Ji arranged for a boat to go back and remind the people in the camp that there were crocodiles in the river. He asked everyone to be extra careful when taking a bath in the water, not to go into the water after dark, and not to sleep on the beach. Everyone should go on the big boat to sleep.

After discovering the crocodile, everyone became extra careful about the rest of the journey. They kept their eyes scanning the river surface and river bank, and left quickly without stopping if they spotted any crocodiles.

Perhaps because this river is a seasonal river and the flow stops during the dry season, the crocodile population here is not large. They have discovered more than a dozen crocodiles one after another.

Because of the crocodile incident, the number of times they panned for gold along the way decreased, but whenever they had the chance, they would still use something to scoop up mud and sand from the bottom of the river to wash it. The further upstream they went, the greater the chance of finding gold, and the greater the amount.

In the evening, they found a place that looked safe and went ashore. They tied the boat to a tree on the shore and camped away from the river at night. This is because crocodiles are amphibians and they will also crawl onto the shore to hunt in order to fill their stomachs.

The night watchmen are arranged to change shifts more frequently because of the concern that fatigue and negligence may lead to safety hazards.