The bad emperor of Tang Dynasty

It is said that the passage of the Apis merchant ship through the Strait of Malacca is the most dangerous voyage. Seeing the serious eyes of Captain Abbas standing on the tip of the ship, Guo Nuan couldn't help feeling a little heavy.

On the third day after leaving Chenla, after the merchant ship set sail, it encountered a strong north wind at dusk, mixed with the terrifying weather of thunderstorms, and under the shadowy clouds in the distance, huge tongues of fire pierced through the sky. sea ​​surface.

"Is there anything more shocking than the wrath of nature?" The fat man almost peed his pants when he was shocked by the lightning bolts rising from the sea.

This sad ship is like a lonely dead leaf. It is swaying on the sadistic sea, and it may be overturned and sunk by Lang at any time.

A few times, the waves even crossed the guardrail deck and poured into the two compartments below. This time, it was good, soaking several thousand kilograms of cargo, and the more than ten kilograms of ambergris imported from Chenla were all fucking broken. This made Abbas very anxious, and he was so angry that he just wanted to scold his mother.

It is worth more than 7000 taels of white silver. As for the tobacco, it was eroded by sea water. Abbas thought that when the weather was fine, he might be able to make up for it by drying more than 1000 catties of tobacco on the deck. The top quality tobacco soaked in water can only be used as a third-class product.

During the thunderstorm and the dark night, because the canvas buckle rope on the mast was torn, a sailor volunteered to climb to the top of the more than ten meters high mast with lightning and heavy rain. He was about to tie the cable, but unexpectedly A gust of wind hit, and he slipped and fell into the rough sea. When everyone hurriedly salvaged him, fortunately, the sailor survived despite being knocked out by a large amount of seawater and continued to have a high fever for several days. .Abbas lamented that this voyage, in addition to losing money, almost cost his life, there were so many accidents.

After surviving waves of waves, the cliff-like wall of water slanted straight down. The turbulent momentum of this side almost overturned the whole ship. While everyone was still in fear, after dawn, the horizon overlapped There was a slight light of fish belly white behind the thick clouds, but the weather was not clear yet, and the rain had just stopped.

Oh my god, Abbas exclaimed, and led everyone who had been hiding in the cabin all night to run up to the deck to look around.

"Is there anything worse? What the hell did God send us to?" The fat man looked around at clusters of jet-black rocky reefs protruding from the sea, and there were some shoals.

"Well, the compass is useless, the direction is messed up." Guo Nuan looked down at the compass in the palm of her hand, the pointer trembled on clusters of black reefs and slowly stopped moving.

"What's going on?" Pei Pei hadn't slept all night, and he just got up from the mat early in the morning. His delicate face looked a little sluggish, and he was a lot haggard. Guo Nuan asked curiously.

"I guess the reef in front of me is a magnet. This has disturbed my precious compass. If we lose our direction, we may be trapped in this sea area." Guo Nuan sighed.

Not only did they lose their way, but after the crew counted the losses on board, the captain announced with great concern that the heavy rain yesterday nearly tore the ship apart, and three large wooden barrels containing more than 2000 gallons of fresh water were placed in the cabin under the violent shaking. Dumped, leaving more than 100 gallons of fresh water in the bottom of the bucket, which is not a good situation.

"Isn't there still more than 100 catties of Cumberland raisins and a few small barrels of Tunisian olive oil on board, plus two hundred catties of honey wholesaled from the Guangzhou wharf, and cheese made from Turkic Tartars... We can still let us go without fresh water. More than a dozen people happily stayed on the ground for a month..."

Fatty looked at the frustrated faces of everyone, and he couldn't help muttering in a low voice because of his carefree nature. Guo Nuan, who was next to him with sharp ears, immediately turned his head and gave him a big chestnut, and whispered to him silently: "Fatty As long as you are a foodie, now is not the time to tell jokes..."

"That's right, I, Fatty Zhang, didn't say anything wrong. Back then, the half-barrel of rum and wine shouldn't have been sold at the Chenla Wharf Merchant Store. Now it's good. I got thousands of taels of silver in vain, and the fresh water was gone. Do you want to drink the northwest wind? Otherwise, you can use wine instead..."

The fat man rubbed his head, giggled for a while, and couldn't help moaning. It turned out that he was worried about Captain Abbas's good wine, and he was a little dissatisfied that it was sold out in Chenla at once.

"What now?"

"Ghost knows what to do, let's go back to sleep first."

Guo Nuan murmured to himself for a while, then yawned lazily, looking at the barren sea around him, the tsunami last night made his whole body sore and limp, he couldn't hold on anymore, the most important thing now is to sleep, no matter what It's useless to be anxious, Guo Nuan thinks that we should get enough sleep first.

At noon, after everyone had a quick lunch to fill their stomachs, an emergency meeting was held immediately.At noon, a fat man with dried salted fish was bubbling in his mouth, staring blankly at Kong Kong's absent-minded look, with his mouth open, brewing saliva, he was short of water, and like everyone else, he only got half a bamboo cup of water today.

But fortunately, everyone decided to draw lots by the boat, and Abbas drew a random direction, and the boat then slowly sailed in the shallow reef waters.After crossing the black magnetic rock reef, the boat came to Hongcao Island. The sea water is about seven or eight meters deep. The underwater is a bluestone chaotic beach full of ravines. It is quite clear. The underwater is covered with red seaweed and kelp. , the crew used a net bag to fish into the water, hey, they caught more than a dozen small miscellaneous fish that were two fingers wide.

Everyone saw these little fishes being silly, and they put their hands into the water, and they would come to them curiously. They were not afraid of people at all. Everyone picked up wooden buckets, wooden basins and other containers to fish them into the water, and after a while, they caught them. It weighed seventy or eighty catties.These can solve everyone's food, no need to eat salted fish.

A lot of red grass and blue kelp were also caught, filling two large oak barrels, fish and fresh vegetables, and a basket of oysters picked on the dewy stone pier. Salty and thirsty, I picked up a white-striped fish, and casually tore apart a big fish like a primitive man in everyone's dumbfounded eyes. After removing the spines of the fish, I picked out a delicious pink fish and put it in my mouth. To eat, pry open the hard oyster shell with iron teeth and copper teeth, and dig out a clam meat for seasoning.

Living at sea for many years, sailors often eat delicious fish and shells raw, but the way the fat man eats is too barbaric, which is really shocking.

But fish are not afraid of people, this phenomenon clearly illustrates a problem.Not only the experienced captain Abbas discovered this serious matter, but even Guo Nuan, a native of the inland Central Plains who had no knowledge of navigation, was keenly aware of it.

"Abbas, tell me, the fish here are close to people and are not afraid at all. It seems that no one has ever visited this area, let alone merchant ships. It is estimated that fishermen have not fished here for 100 years. "

There was a trace of anxiety in Guo Nuan's words, and he revealed the crux of the problem in one sentence.Abbas was still smoking the dry tobacco he brought from the Mediterranean with a calm expression. After slowly exhaling a white smoke ring, he patted the railing of the boat vigorously. This detail showed his inner irritability.

"Yes, it seems that this damn thunderstorm has dragged our merchant ship into unknown seas, at least no one has sailed before, I'm afraid the next voyage is dangerous and unpredictable—"

(Sorry, there was a thunderstorm yesterday, the power went out, the computer almost broke down, and a chapter was interrupted. Readers, please forgive me, and I have to review the final exam and do experiments recently, and I am a bit busy)