February of the sixteenth year of the Tang Dynasty.
Starting from the Luzon Bay, we set sail on the southwest monsoon, traveled eastward along the Kuroshio Tide in the Pacific Ocean, and finally arrived in Central America, traveling more than 10,000 nautical miles and lasting six months, and finally saw the coastline.
There is the pilot ship of the Zhang family, although the road is difficult, but fortunately there is no miscarriage. encountered storms several times, but also successfully escaped, and did not fall into the windless zone.
According to the crew, the windless belt is very scary, the ship enters the windless belt, and it may take a month or two for the wind to come, and there are few ships that can wait that long.
All the way east, stop and go, ride the wind and follow the current, the road is quite smooth.
Because there were more islands on the southern route than on the northern route, although Li Shimin's fleet sailed for six months, the supply was relatively smooth.
The crew said that it would only take three months to come back, and that it would save a lot of time to sail directly with the current.
Along the way, Li Shimin's fleet set foot on an unknown number of oceanic islands.
At first, when he went south from Luzon and experienced countless islands, he thought it was the Fuso Ocean.
It turned out later that it was only the Luzon Islands, the Bo Ni Islands, the Makassar Islands, the Java Islands, and the Spice Islands.
None of them went out of the South Seas.
And these islands add up to tens of thousands, but they have all been classified into the fiefdom of the Zhang Chao family.
Li Shimin knew for the first time that Zhang Chao's fief was so big, and he couldn't help but scold his mother several times, saying that Zhang Chao was a liar.
He did not go to Australia, and parted ways with his son Rich's fleet in the Spice Islands.
All the way to the east, sometimes there is not a single island in sight for ten days and a half or even longer.
They landed on the islands as much as they could, sometimes to escape the storm, but more often to replenish fresh water.
It is also in order to be able to get down to earth on the island and soothe people's emotions.
The sea voyage was very difficult, especially when he brought too many people and animals, the cabin was dense and compact, there was no room for movement at all, and the personnel had to take turns on the deck to breathe.
Although they have to scrub the deck on deck, many people are even willing to take on this job all the time, just to be able to breathe fresh air on the deck, but even this idea is a luxury.
Every time he landed on an island, Li Shimin would add it to his chart, he would also name the island, and he would have craftsmen erect stone monuments on the island.
After leaving Nanyang, Li Shimin asked everyone on the ship to re-observe the chronology.
In the first year of Kaiyuan, it was restored to the fourteenth year of Zhenguan, and the second year of Kaiyuan was the fifteenth year of Zhenguan.
The islands in the ocean are too small.
Even more barbaric and primitive than Luzon, Li Shimin could not communicate with those natives.
Every time he went ashore to replenish fresh water, he would take people to hunt, hunt some of the island's novel game, and also dig some of the island's fruits and plant stems.
Most of the animals and plants, as the navigators know, many of these people have traveled back and forth to this route four or five times.
The island they landed on, in fact, these people have been here before.
In the past, they also tried to communicate with the natives, but to no avail.
So later, they did not interfere with the river water with the natives well water, but Li Shimin still hoped that these people would become his people.
Everywhere he went, he carved stone monuments and declared these islands to be the territory of the Tang Dynasty.
Then they had to send someone to invite the natives to come and meet them, and the natives were afraid of it, so they saluted first and then soldiers.
However, there is no difficulty in communication, and many navigators can speak some Mayan and Yin words, but they can't speak the words of those small island natives, so they can only rely on gestures.
Li Shimin rewarded the natives with some things such as cloth and porcelain that he brought, and then gave them many official titles.
The big island has a prefecture, the small one has a county, and the smaller one has a township.
Then appoint those indigenous chiefs as state governors, county magistrates, township chiefs, and so on.
However, the natives did not ask for the emperor's reward in vain, and they were very merchandising, exchanging many of the cassava and other things they planted.
There are also some natives who do not know what to do, refuse to surrender, and do not accept rewards.
Li Shimin was furious, sent troops to attack, and also conquered many natives by force.
He took the young men and women aboard the boat and headed east.
Stop-and-go.
For six whole months.
Even the New Year was spent at sea.
When he finally saw the coastline, Li Shimin almost burst into tears, thinking that he had been floating on the sea all his life.
"Your Majesty, on the opposite side is the west coast of Central America, where there is a horseshoe-shaped bay in the depths of the mountains, which is a natural harbor.
It was the territory of the Mayan city-states, but we had been here a few times before, and we had a good relationship with them, and each time we traded with them in silk, porcelain, etc., and the relationship was quite good.
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"There are three pilot ships, just in case of an accident with the ship, there are other pilot ships, so that this fleet will not be lost in the sea, after all, even if there is a chart, it is difficult to go right.
The Maya were landowners in Mesoamerica.
They have a long history and belong to the jungle civilization.
Today, it has its own language, script and religion.
Although the Maya civilization has developed a peculiar process, with a population of millions and hundreds of large and small city-states throughout Central America, they have never had a powerful and unified empire like China, Greece and Egypt.
They liked to build huge stone monuments in the city's squares, carved with statues of past rulers, and also built pyramids in the jungle.
They were mainly agricultural, supplemented by fishing and hunting, and there were wars between the city-states.
The previous adventure fleet had formed trade relations with the Maya, and various commodities in the Central Plains were very popular with the Mayan city-states.
"In the interior, there is a powerful Mayan city-state of Tikal, which was founded by a king called Jaguar Claw more than 300 years ago, and today, it has become the most powerful Mayan city-state, their royal city covers an area of more than 100,000 acres, the royal city has more than 50,000 inhabitants, and there are more than 3,000 sacrificial pyramids, controlling thousands of miles of territory, with a population of more than 2 million."
The capital of this city-state had a ditch two zhang wide and high walls.
"The more powerful city-states here are Mirador in the north, Theotivakacan in the center, etc., all of which are not weak."
Li Shimin frowned at these awkward city-state names.
"What does this Tikal mean?"
"If it is translated into the meaning of the Tang Dynasty, it should be the land of sound."
"The Land of Sounds, then the Valley of Echoes" "Your Majesty, they are in the jungle."
The news he knew still surprised Li Shimin.
It turned out that Zhang Chao told him that Central America was not suitable for a foothold, and he didn't believe it yet.
Now I do believe that it is indeed very powerful to have a city-state with a population of 2 million, or even a country with a population of 50,000.
It seems that this place really doesn't have a foothold for him.
There are more than 200 city-states of all sizes, and in his understanding, the city-state should be regarded as a divided king, similar to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
There are more than 200 city-states of all sizes, and this kind of place can be typed out by dogs' brains, and they can't stay.
Karamukel, Karakol, and Palenk are all powerful states in the central and western regions.
Karamukel even once allied with Karakol to defeat Tikal and take away the hegemony of the Mayan city-state for nearly a hundred years, until Tikal has regained his supremacy.
This Karamukal also has a vast territory and a large capital, and the name of this city-state means snake in Maya, so it is also known as the Snake Dynasty.
"Are these big states all inland?"
"The states in the central interior are the strongest, and there are also strong states in the west and north.
The western state of Palenque is on the west coast, but more than a thousand miles south of us, and the nearby state is not very large. ” These Mayans preferred to live in the jungle, where they built cities, dug canals, and cultivated fields.
When a huge sail fleet of more than 100 large ships, loaded with nearly 30,000 people, entered the port of Acapulco, there was not even a single person to greet them.
Although this port is a natural deep-water port, there is no city near the port, and there is no commercial port.
The Maya liked to live in the jungle, and no one built a city on this seaside.
No one is even fishing here.
The flotilla landed without the slightest hindrance.
"It was recorded that on the second day of the second month of the sixteenth year of Zhenguan, the dragon raised its head.
I led an expeditionary fleet to Central America and landed in the harbor of the city-state of Acapulco without resistance. ” "This port should be named the Far East Port."
The distant eastern ports of the Tang Empire.
Several historians who followed Li Shimin's side immediately held pens in their hands and recorded all of them.
Li Shimin has a team of historians around him, and he thinks that he is creating history, and these are enough to record.
The fleet docked, just as it had landed on those small islands in the sea.
A group of soldiers went to reconnoiter the situation in the surrounding twenty miles, and a group of soldiers went hunting within ten miles.
Another group of people arranged to fetch fresh water and collect wood, and others went to collect wild fruits.
Li Shimin called a navigator.
"You take a group of people, a batch of silk and porcelain, and tea and glass mirrors, etc., and go to this Akabang.
Tell them I'm coming, talk to them, I'm willing to trade with them. ” The captain went inland with a group of men.
Batches of crew members disembarked, and Li Shimin even asked people to take his beloved war horse down to drink water and eat grass.
When he set out from the Central Plains, he brought thousands of horses, and he also suffered a crime along the way, and the time was too long, and thousands of horses died, which made him feel extremely distressed, this was his cavalry.
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Wu Meiniang got off the boat with the child in her arms, and she looked at this place with some novelty.
"The Central Plains in February is still cold in spring, but here it is like a Mayday."
Li Shimin looked at his son Li Hong, who was still asleep, and said with a smile, "I heard that this place is like this all year round. ” "It's finally time to America."
Wu sighed.
"But before we arrived in the United States, there is at least seven or eight thousand miles to go north from here."
Wu smiled, "We have come here from the Central Plains, and we have come over the vast sea for thousands of miles."
Now, as long as you sail along the coast, seven or eight thousand miles is nothing, at least you don't have to worry about losing your way, or having nowhere to take shelter in a big storm, and you are not afraid of running out of fresh water and food. ” "Hahaha, that's a good point, the ocean has crossed over, what is there to worry about in this last stretch of the road." t1706231537: