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Chapter 783: Desolate Cape of Good Hope
“Tsk…hiss…Wang Chengen, write this down. After returning to Beijing, inform the General Staff Headquarters that all naval officers above captain should be sent to the Haihu Division for training in batches!
Huang Nanping, although you are a pirate, you are a little too kind-hearted. When thinking about external issues like this, you must think of people as being even worse, as bad as possible, otherwise you will easily suffer a big loss.

Well, whether to build a naval base here or not needs to be carefully considered with the Naval General Staff. Let’s not discuss it for now. Right now, you need to work with the captains of each ship and Captain Rodrigo to come up with two plans for me.

The content includes how to identify the possible intentions of ships, how to deal with possible naval battles, how to deal with negotiations with indigenous people after landing, etc.

Here are the flags and tokens of the Dutch East India Company. They have had many exchanges with the local indigenous villages and are said to be able to cooperate. But we must also be prepared for the other party to not cooperate. Submit the plan to me within ten days. "

Seeing that he could not explain it in a few words, Hong Tao began to realize that there was still something missing in the training of senior officials. It was not enough to just teach them how to use new weapons in combat, but also to provide them with political economics education.

Officers, especially naval officers, will be the minions of the empire in the future. They must have a broad perspective while commanding operations. They cannot always wait for the emperor to give orders. The communication situation does not allow this.

But these are all later stories. The most critical task at present is to occupy the Cape of Good Hope and find a suitable place to build a port and fortress.

Hong Tao had never made up his mind about where to build the port. Cape Town was certainly one of the most familiar and suitable choices, but the problem was that according to the description of the Dutch, the bay they occupied was not Cape Town, but was further east.

So the question is, should we go to Cape Town to start anew, or take advantage of the Dutch's preparations and choose another place?
Both have their pros and cons. If you choose Cape Town, you will encounter problems in communicating with the indigenous people. Unless you kill them all, it will take a while to reach a level of mutual trust. Take it slow... there is not enough time.

Choosing a location paved by the Dutch would make the problem of the indigenous people easier to solve, and perhaps some additional labor could be obtained. However, whether the local area had the geographical conditions to build large ports, fortresses and reserve shipyards remained a mystery.

So we can only make two preparations, first go to the Dutch to see, and if that doesn't work, then go to Cape Town. Anyway, this trip can't be in vain, at least there must be an armed fortress to pave the way for the next voyage.

The rest of the voyage was unremarkable. They passed through Mauritius and Madagascar, and they still had to map out the exact points. The officers and soldiers were a little tired of searching ashore.

In the early morning of 22 days after leaving the Chagos Archipelago, the mast lookout rang the bronze bell loudly, and the continent was discovered ahead.

Yes, it was a continent, a real continent. In order to confirm that it was a continent and not an island, the two lookouts held up their marine telescopes and watched for a quarter of an hour before ringing the bell to report.

"Is this Africa?" Hong Tao was woken up from his bed because it was not yet time for his shift change. He jumped up and rushed onto the deck in his flowered shorts, took the telescope handed over by Huang Nanping, and at the same time received the question.

"Yes, this is Africa, or to be more precise, the tip of southern Africa. If we sail northward for about a month and a half, we will reach Rodri's hometown, Spain, which is the southernmost tip of the European countries."

Hong Tao couldn't really tell if it was the African continent just by looking at the coastline, but there was one thing that confirmed it to him. It shouldn't be called a thing, but an animal, a penguin stumbling on the reef.

There lives a kind of penguin near the Cape of Good Hope that is somewhat different from the one in Antarctica. It is very small, with a black beak, black chin, black feet, and a black pattern on its chest. It is called the ringed penguin.

If you can't see clearly, there is another way to distinguish them. Just rush over to scare them, and then you will hear hundreds of donkeys braying. If you catch up with the mating season of ringed penguins, you will definitely not be able to sleep within a kilometer. It's like being in a sea of ​​donkeys, and they are still shouting donkeys.

Not only Hong Tao and Huang Nanping were looking through binoculars, but most of the sailors on the deck and the sailors on the mast also gathered on the starboard side, leaning on their hands to look at the coastline. Africa is a large continent. They had all learned about it in geography textbooks, but it was the first time they saw it with their own eyes, so they were particularly curious. "Your Majesty, are those flying things in the water fish or birds?" Wang Chengen was much happier. He also had a telescope, so he could see clearly and asked questions quickly.

"It's a bird with feathers on its body, but it can't fly. It's better at swimming and makes a living by catching fish in the sea."

"Your Majesty is unparalleled in the world in your erudition! Does he have a name?" Wang Chengen had no doubt about the answer given by the emperor. In addition to admiration, he wanted to know more.

"Uh... I don't think there are any. How about you give them some names?"

Hong Tao wanted to say penguin, but then he thought, the place names are based on the later generations for easy memorization, and we can't copy the plants and animals as well. After all, I have traveled through time once, so I must leave more traces in this space.

"Hehehe... Thank you, His Majesty, for your grace. Let's call them Enniao. Let's let them remember the emperor's grace!" At this moment, Wang Chengen gave a 100% interpretation of what it means to be unlearned and what it means to be shameless.

"Okay, it's a good bird, remember it!"

Hong Tao was not disappointed, but breathed a sigh of relief. He found some confidence in Wang Chengen. It turned out that he was not the only one in the world who couldn't come up with a name, there were many people like him!
They said they had reached the Cape of Good Hope, but the coastline at the southern tip of South Africa was too long, and the fleet arrived at False Bay four days later. They saw Table Mountain in the north from a distance, then turned the ship around and followed the coastline from west to east to find the bay the Dutch had mentioned.

Unlike what I imagined, according to the map Cohen gave, it took only more than one day to sail eastward along the coastline and dock twice before we successfully found the so-called Mossel Bay. If calculated in a straight line, it is only more than 1 kilometers away from the Cape Town Port in later generations.

Why did the Dutch choose Mossel Bay instead of Cape Town? Cohen said that this place was discovered by the Portuguese more than a hundred years ago. Since then, there have been continuous exploration ships and merchant ships from Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and England arriving here, and they have become familiar with the locals and are easier to communicate with.

Why not build a permanent port here? Cohen didn't say, but Hong Tao could guess that it was not that they didn't want to build it, but that they couldn't afford it.

The local natives were very backward, living in straw houses, and had never seen bronze ware, let alone bricks. It was difficult to train qualified craftsmen in a short period of time, whether by bribery or military conquest, let alone help with crafts such as construction.

Bringing craftsmen from Europe... I'm afraid no one has ever thought of this. Including the craftsmen and the army, there must be at least a thousand people. How can we maintain the supply of these people so far from Europe?
Spain only had about 2,000 soldiers stationed in the Philippines. It was not because they did not want to send more, but because they could not afford to support them. If there were no locals to enslave, they could not even support 1,000 people.

The most important thing is that this place cannot generate short-term benefits. Apart from the many seals, penguins, dolphins, seabirds and whales, nothing else is valuable. There is nothing you want.

In this day and age, long-distance sailing is a very dangerous job and an industry that is very much looking for huge profits. The sea routes of European countries are all built on the basis of making huge profits. Without sufficient benefits, no one would invest a large sum of money in infrastructure construction.

If we have to say that it is capable, only Spain is barely qualified. Unfortunately, it put 90% of its energy into South America. It is more profitable to dig silver directly than to do any business. Even a king would know how to choose.

If gold mines were discovered in the coastal areas of South Africa, there would definitely be people who would come to build a port. Moreover, they would have to fight over the ownership of the gold mines. In the end, it all comes down to two words: profit!

(End of this chapter)