Chapter 191: Li Zhen's New Habits "Your Highness, according to the chart, there is half a day's journey ahead, and it is our target sea area."
The captain came with a chart and a sextant to report.
"I'll look at ......"
At this time, it was already nightfall, and another vest of Venus, Chang Geng, had already appeared in the west.
Li Zhen took the sextant and pointed it at Venus, got the data, and lay on the ground again, and after a series of complicated calculations, finally got his position.
After looking at the latitude and longitude of the target on the map, he nodded with satisfaction: "Yes, it's only more than fifty nautical miles, let everyone be careful, the closer you get to the island, the more reefs there are, this is an unfamiliar sea, let's try to be careful."
Also, it's already night, so don't leave tonight and find a safe place to stay overnight. ” "Yes, my subordinates understand."
The captain left, and with his efforts, he soon found a small island, which was really very small, only more than thirty zhang long and wide, not so much an island as a reef - but strangely, this was indeed an island, because there was mud on it, this was an all-mud island, at least Li Zhen didn't see the stones, there were even trees on it, and even trees poked their heads out of the surrounding sea, it should be said that this is a small island in the sea.
The situation is already obvious, this is a sinking island, the bare sea should be the last part of the island, Li Zhen does not know what caused the island to sink, it may be a change in the earth's crust, it may be a rise in sea level, or something else.
Li Zhen is not a geographer, he doesn't know the reason for the silence of the island, and he doesn't want to know, he only knows that he can't go up to the island, because the sinking island, what danger is on it, no one knows, Prince Li Zhen's golden body, even if he wants to go up, others will stop him.
But there is only one way to find what he needs, and there is only one way - to have someone else go up and find it for him.
Li Zhen has a hobby, that is, collecting specimens of various animals and plants.
This habit was not something he had at the beginning, but after Liu Renliang led the fleet back from Luzon and brought back a large number of native products, Li Zhen found that nearly half of them were things he didn't know, and it was obvious that some of these animals and plants he didn't know were particularly out of the way, and more of them were in the list of future extinctions.
It is also because of this that he germinated the idea of harvesting the world's cherished plant and animal specimens, and he plans to build a museum for these plants and animals to display the specimens for future generations - think about it, after a few hundred years, these animals and plants will be extinct, and no one in the world even knows about the existence of this animal and fauna, how sad is this?
Li Zhen is just a high-achieving student who studied machinery, and he was lucky enough to travel to the Tang Dynasty to become the emperor's son, he has nothing but a forward-looking vision, and he has no ability to protect these animals and plants that are destined to extinction.
It's just that although he can't protect it, he feels that he has the responsibility and obligation to make a herbarium for these animals and plants, so that even if they become extinct, they can leave their own traces in history - whether it is for Li Zhen, or for these creatures that are about to become extinct, or for future descendants, it is a matter of immeasurable merit.
What's more, with Li Zhen's current status, this kind of thing is just a gesture, as long as it is a mouthful, some people are willing to offer all kinds of cherished specimens, since things are so simple, and so meaningful, and can leave a good reputation, such a thing, why doesn't Li Zhen do it?
And on this sinking island, there must be plants that you don't know - on the desert islands in the center of the ocean, especially those isolated islands, decades or even hundreds of thousands of years may not be able to welcome 'guests' to stop, in order to reproduce, these islands have long formed an independent ecosystem (just like the African savannah, those almost dry puddles, the ecosystem in each puddle is almost independent, and the species in each puddle are different).
An island is an ecosystem, and each different ecosystem definitely has animals and plants that are different from the rest of the islands, and this is Li Zhen's goal.
Soon, several lifeboats were lowered and began to paddle slowly towards the small island in the sea.
An hour later, the lifeboat returned, and there was no one less, just three more plants.
One is a very tall tree, five zhang long, with a few people hugging each other, but there are not many leaves on it—such a big tree, there are only a dozen leaves on it, although these leaves are very large, but they are a little too shabby.
The fruit on it was only the size of a fist, and it seemed to be ripe, but no one dared to eat it, even if the doctor had assured that the fruit was not poisonous.
The second is a kind of grass, the size of a palm, fiery red, but according to the dialectic of the doctor next to Li Zhen, this is actually a very poisonous grass.
The doctor just took a drop of juice from the blade of grass, which was enough to poison the size of a whole fish tank - the fish in the hold of the Emperor, but these days Li Zhen and they carefully collected, there are all sizes, the largest is a shark, the result is still poisoned, even so, the medicinal properties are still not used up, it can be seen that the toxicity is violent.
The third is a shrub that has no characteristics, and the only characteristic should be considered fragrant - at least it smells good.
With these three plants preserved, the work of the fleet today is complete.
In fact, Li Zhen's actions are very dangerous, because no one knows what is on these islands, and if there are any deadly viruses or bacteria that they don't know, won't the people who return be infected?
And then infected a whole boatload of people, even Li Zhen was not protected?
However, Li Zhen also knows this kind of thing, so when these specimens are collected, he will not go to see them as soon as possible, and even the people who collect the specimens will be isolated, and they will not be released until a few days later, when they find that there is no symptomatic reaction - basically the virulent virus has a very fast onset except for a limited number of rabies and so on.
The sea at night is very calm, and there are not even waves, which is very rare and very magical in the sea that is said to have no wind and three feet of waves.
The people on the ship said that this must be the island that was about to sink to know His Royal Highness the Prince's actions, so they thanked His Royal Highness the Crown Prince for his kindness.
Regarding this kind of rumor, Li Zhen just smiled and ignored it, no need to ask, this must be from an undercurrent agent hidden in the sailors.