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Chapter 781 Baptism of the Ocean

"Hehe, I hope you can still be so optimistic in two days." Hong Tao took a puff of cigarette, turned his head towards the sea, and answered lightly. This is called a frog in a well and a summer insect cannot talk about ice.

After sailing in the Sea of ​​Japan and the South China Sea for several years and experiencing several strong winds and waves, I thought I had experienced the temper of the sea. However, I did not know that compared with the ocean, the Sea of ​​Japan and the South China Sea are just a small puddle.

There are many people in the navy who think like the navigator, and it is useless to talk to them. Because their cognition comes from personal experience, which is more real than seeing it with their own eyes, and then they take it as the truth and no longer believe others.

It is often said that the more you see, the more knowledgeable you are, but it is difficult to define what it means to be more knowledgeable. Compared with the common people of the Ming Dynasty, the navy officers and soldiers must be considered to have seen more, so they began to talk about things that were not even half full. If you want to change their minds, it is useless to talk about it, you have to experience it yourself.

The Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean are the three largest oceans in the world, each with its own temperament. As the third largest, the Indian Ocean is relatively easy to get along with. It's not that it has a good temper, but it has a regular temper, and you will know how to avoid it after you get familiar with it.

So what is the temper of the Indian Ocean? To sum it up with Hong Tao's experience, the upper body is fiery and gentle, while the lower body is cold and violent.

With the equator as the waistline, the temperature in the North Indian Ocean is above 20 degrees all year round, much higher than the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. In summer, from May to October, there are southwesterly winds with high precipitation; in winter, from November to April, there are northeasterly winds with low precipitation, and it is often sunny for more than ten days.

It is easy to have a gentle illusion and start to have wild thoughts, such as unbuttoning your belt and strolling down your lower body. At this time, you will find that the wind direction has changed. In summer, the wind blows from the southeast, and in winter, the wind blows from the northwest. The lower you walk, the stronger the wind and the lower the temperature.

When we touched the knee of the Indian Ocean, the sea suddenly became like a boiling pot, with force 5 gales and huge waves coming one after another. The wind was from the west all year round, blowing from the knees to the ankles, and the temperature dropped to less than degrees, which was a great test of the quality of the boat and the driving skills.

This is why Hong Tao abandoned the throne, which was not particularly stable, and took the navy to the Cape of Good Hope even though he made up lies and conspired. People who are not familiar with this sea area may be complacent because of the smooth journey, and then dive into the westerly belt and never get out again.

Hong Tao said more. One day later, the expedition fleet encountered a storm just after crossing the equator. At noon, the blue sky turned into sunset within half an hour. A strong northwest wind swept across the sea, bringing up white waves like hills, hitting the hull and breaking into thousands of water splashes, hitting people's faces like pebbles.

The Han-class warships with a displacement of 500-600 tons are like fallen leaves in a lake in front of nature. In addition to lowering most of the sails to protect the masts, leaving the bottom sails to provide power to maintain the course, the rest can only rely on God's will. At this time, anyone who shouts "my life is in my own hands, not in the hands of God" will really be thrown overboard by the sailors.

"Another one! Another one... This time it's a swordfish! Hahahaha... The bigger the wind and waves, the more expensive the fish... Those who want to eat fish for dinner can make an offer, starting from one silver coin!"

But there was one exception. Relying on his status as an emperor, no one dared to use force against him. He used the thinnest sail rope as fishing line and cut the hardest and heaviest wood into the shapes of two-foot-long small fish as bait. He tied himself to the stern and insisted on fishing despite the storm.

Fish in the sea are cheap bones. When the weather is fine, at most a few colorful, ugly, and bad-tasting sea wolves and swordfish are caught, and basically no one is interested. When the storm comes, big fish come with it. After lunch, we have been catching fish in different ways. Not only are the fish big and of good variety, but they are all delicious and have delicious meat. It is usually difficult to catch tuna and swordfish.

Then the emperor went even further and announced that the fish caught would be auctioned off to sailors below the rank of 100 households, and officers were not allowed to touch them. Just now, another three or four-foot-long swordfish was hooked by its sharp mouth and was dragged like a dead dog on the sea surface a hundred meters from the stern of the ship, with its dorsal fin raised high and struggling fearlessly with all its might.

With the emperor's liveliness on the rear deck, the officers and sailors, who were already at a loss and even a little scared by the storm, were gradually infected and tied safety ropes and moved along the side of the ship to help pull up the fish. Some sailors even bid against each other to add a strong dish to the monotonous dinner.

Fear has a characteristic: it requires concentration. The more you think about it, the more fearful you become. The more you concentrate, the more afraid you become. When your attention is distracted, the fear will slowly dissipate. When this energy passes, the dark sky and the surging waves don't seem so scary anymore.

This is exactly what Hong Tao wanted. He was unable to use words to educate others to forget their fear. He could only use his own actions to invisibly infect others, temporarily distract their attention, and help the sailors who were entering the ocean for the first time to overcome the threshold of fear and improve their resistance to nature.

As for whether you are afraid or not, what does it matter if you are afraid? What does it matter if you are not afraid? In front of the angry nature, there is no difference between being afraid and not being afraid. Life and death are completely beyond human control.

What humans can do is to find ways to ignore the danger in front of them, and draw energy from it to enrich their beliefs, forge their fragile nerves, and use reason to force themselves to ignore it, and then evolve to the state of seeing death as home. To put it bluntly, they are deceiving themselves.

幸亏是在降水量很少的冬季，否则这场暴风雨很可能会持续好几天。入夜之后风暴逐渐减弱，最终风平浪静。放眼四周，1、2、3、4、5……9条船只剩下6条还在肉眼可视范围之内，剩下的3艘不知所踪。

"Commander, the course has been blown off course by 2 degrees by strong winds. The fourth assembly point is in the southwest, about 90 kilometers." The chief lookout stopped talking nonsense. With a piece of fine cotton wrapped around his head, he reported the results of his observation of the starry sky with a listless look.

"Go to the assembly point... Is the fish delicious tonight? Remember next time, the thicker the safety rope is, the better. If you want real safety, the rope should be short, and you have to tie two of them!" Looking at the only wounded person on the boat, Hong Tao had to give him a few words of advice.

This guy was quite courageous, and was the first to go to the stern to help him pull the fish. But he had a poor sense of safety, and he was also a bit clever. In order to facilitate his actions, he made the safety rope more than two meters long, and as a result, a big wave rolled onto the deck and directly knocked him away.

At this time, the overly long safety rope became a lifeline, and the force of the water flow carried the man up and down. Fortunately, the helmsman was quick to hold his feet tightly, otherwise he would have died if his head was hit anywhere.

(End of this chapter)