Chapter 28 Changhua is here

Now, I don’t hide my own personal information, so I taught the use of the sextant. The use of the sextant is more convenient and accurate. Li Huamei sailed all year round and couldn’t put it down after trying it out.

"It's really rare to use something so useful." She was still a little reluctant when she returned the sextant to Chen Haiyang, "Can you sell it to me?"

"Let's go in the future." Chen Haiyang said, "We still have difficulties in making it ourselves."

"That lens is hard to make?"

"That's right." Chen Haiyang said while instructing the students to use it in turn, "It's not easy to polish the lenses yourself."

Li Huamei sighed: "Oh, you have so many good things, but you just refuse to sell them."

"Pay attention to the landing point of the light spot and hold it firmly. Right!" Chen Haiyang did not answer. What can be sold depends on the Executive Committee.

"I feel it." Li Huamei leaned closer to Chen Haiyang and said, "You know everything, but you just refuse to say it!" The distance between the two was so close that he could feel the woman's breath blowing to the root of his hair, and his skin couldn't help but feel the skin rushing. The original favorability became cold again. He did not answer, but shouted loudly to the students:

"Start to calculate the speed!"

When the students heard the instructions, they threw a small wooden board out of Sichuan in groups. One side of the board was wrapped with lead to make it stand upright after falling into the water. Another student held a retractable reel, connected it with the wooden board. The students who threw the board looked at the wooden board that fell into the water. When the small wooden board came out from the vortex at the tail, they immediately shouted:

"start!"

The student holding the scroll began to release the rope. The scroll turned rapidly, and the rope was constantly released. At the same time, the student holding the hourglass immediately turned over his hands, and the thin sand began to flow down quickly.

"Stop!" As the sand from the hourglass leaked, the timer shouted a command to stop. The lineman stuck the reel.

"3 rope joints!" The lineman reported according to the marking on the rope, "Now the navigation speed is 3 knots."

Chen Haiyang observed whether their movements were in compliance with the norms, and nodded: "Okay, next group!"

Li Huamei looked at them and said, "You must have learned your navigation skills from the British."

"Why?"

"This method is only used by British sailors."

The ship's speed is 3 knots, which is a normal speed during sailing. Although it is a little slower, it is safe. The Chinese navigation guide and sea charts in their hands are all drawn based on data from the 20th century, and the Hainan coastal situation in this time and space are still blank.

The sun gradually tilted westward, the wind began to increase, and the waves became stronger, and the speed was measured to reach 5 knots. Lin Chuanqing was worried about grabbing the walkie-phone hanging around his neck and asked:

"Open, look, how is the sea surface?"

"Everything is normal." The yellow claw, who was responsible for looking at the top of the mast, returned to the road. From the top of the mast, the viewing angle was extremely wide, and of course the swaying was particularly violent. From the top of the mast, you can see that there are many ships nearby, most of them fishing boats, and sometimes there are several large ships full of sails sailing. It seems that nothing is wrong.

"How is it? Can the above stand it?"

"It's okay, the scenery above is nice and the air is nice, haha." Huang Zhu was very adaptable.

“How is the cloud?”

“Algae cumulus clouds are moving from east to west.”

This means that the weather is normal and there will be no wind and rain.

"Ruan Xiaowu, climb up and look with Instructor Huang!"

The child named Ruan Xiaowu looked a little scared, so he left the line, grabbed the rope net on the mast and crawled up.

The first day passed smoothly. Under the breeze, the fleet walked about 40 nautical miles at a speed of 3 knots per hour. Because it was sailing along the coast, it was dangerous to run into a rock at night. At nearly 18 o'clock, Lin Chuanqing found a remote harbor on the shore to spend the night. He calculated the local latitude and longitude: 19°44’0”n, 109°9’0”e. After checking the map, he found that this place was the location of Yangpu Port in Danzhou.

Yangpu is one of the most deep-water ports in western Hainan. It seems empty and deserted in this time and space. The harbor is large, with some sandbanks across the river. You can see several sailboats berthed on the shore from afar and a small fishing village.

After putting down a rowboat to detect the water depth, determining the waterway and the berthing position, the Zhenhai put down the paddle hanging machine and dragged the Hangzhou behind to carefully drive into the port at a low speed.

Li Huamei stood on the stern building, looking at the churning water splash below: It turned out that the reason why they didn't load many guns was here. It seemed that it was not just iron ships, but wooden ships. This was something they could only do if they loaded something on the ship. And this thing should be in a cabin under their feet...

Wang Luobin decided to stay in Yangpu for one or two days, which is the most developed deep-water port in the western part of Hainan Island. In the future, the ports that the regime will focus on developing, so it is necessary to collect more information from here. Immediately ordered the commando to go ashore, control the form, and add some food and water.

From the telescope, the Yangpu coast was very deserted, but there was a fishing village on the shore. The special investigation team led the naval team to board the shore by rowing boat and immediately rushed into the village. There were only more than ten families in the village, and more than half of them had run away. As soon as they saw strange ships entering the port, the local fishermen ran away, leaving only a few old and weak. When they saw them coming, they bowed one by one. Fortunately, what they said was still the words of the Lingao. Only through the local recruited naval soldiers knew that they were begging not to burn houses and grab boats, and if they wanted fish, just take them.

Xiong Buyou from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs comforted them with kind words, saying that he had just gone ashore to replenish some water and food, and paid for everything according to the price. He also gave some sewing needles and gifts such as sugar to soothe several old men. The rowboats here were transported to the ashore one after another: the travelers who had been struggling for a day would have recovered a little. The seasickness felt over and the appetites were recovered. So they all had their plans to go ashore. Some people also proposed to go ashore to hunt and start meat. Then they saw if there were fish, vegetables, eggs and other things in the village to purchase. Wang Luobin thought that he would have to delay in Yangpu for a day or two, so it would be better to let everyone go ashore.

After the naval forces arrived ashore, they quickly controlled the entire village, and those who had already escaped did not care about him. They quickly built a temporary residence with tents and barbed wire next to the fishing village, and at the same time, they sent an observation post on the nearby high ground, which was temporarily settled.

Amateur hunters conducted a disheartening hunting operation on the shore. The local area is called "three more": there are many wastelands, many stones, and many cactus. With these three more, there are basically no hares to be eaten, so there are naturally no wild vegetables. After a long time of spin, they basically returned empty-handed.

That night, Chen Haiyang had to continue to discuss astronomical measurement technology with Li Huamei in the middle of the night. She demonstrated on the spot how to use the quadrant instrument. The students were surprised to see that the data obtained by the meter was so big that the difference between the sextant instrument was so big. Although the error rate was less than 5%, less than 0.1 degrees, the conversion length was 9 kilometers. On the vast ocean, this error was enough to cause many fatal errors. No wonder early sailors preferred to sail along the coast - after all, the measurement of landmarks on the coast was more accurate.

The next day, the exploration team conducted a survey of part of the harbor, the Navy measured the water depth and selected several berths. The surrounding natural environment survey concluded that the local area was very barren, basically there were no large natural rivers, and it was difficult to draw water. There was sparse arable land and fewer trees.

"If the industrial water problem can be solved, it will be a good place for industrial development, and it will not occupy farmland or damage the environment." Wang Luobin lamented after a field investigation, "The environment is already poor enough."

Early on the third morning, the fleet continued to set off. After a few days of such stop-and-go inspection activities, finally at noon on the fifth day, the ship arrived at the mouth of the Changhua River. Here, the Changhua River was divided into two north and south rivers into the sea. The Nanjiangkou was called Sanjiagang, and the Beijiang River ran around the county town and entered the sea south into the sea. It was closer to the county town. It is the main port of Changhua County.

However, from Lin Chuanqing's telescope, Wuni Port in Beijiang is obviously not suitable for mooring. There is a large area of ​​silt. Except for some small fishing boats, there is no shadow of a ship docking.

Li Huamei is quite familiar with the hydrological conditions here: "Rely on Sanjiagang, 200-foot boats in Wuni Port will be stranded."

So the fleet stopped at Sanjiagang in Nanjiang. When the ship entered the harbor, it saw several villages on the shore, and some broken walls. It seemed that it used to be the military's base, but now it is abandoned.

Spring is the dry season, and the flow of the Changhua River is very small. The river channels are drying up there, revealing the snow-white fine sand and withered aquatic plants on the riverbed. The Changhua River is a plain on the north bank. Most of the vegetation on the riverside has been greatly damaged, forming a dry tropical savanna environment similar to African grasslands. There are sand dunes in many places, which are far deep into the mainland.

At the end of the plain is a group of continuous hills, with dense vegetation, with an eye-catching height of about 200 to 400 meters. The southern bank of the Changhua River is also a plain with paddy fields and a city faintly - it should be the Changhua County Town of the Ming Dynasty.

"Where is the Haiwei Town quartz sand mine mentioned by Mr. Wen?" Bai Guoshi asked. Haiwei Town quartz sand mine is the key target of this exploration. The local quartz sand has a silica content of 99.8%, an iron content of 0.1%, few impurities, uniform particle size, which is rare in the country and has extremely large reserves.

"Isn't that?" Wang Luobin pointed to the snow-white sand on the beach in the distance.

"Where is Haiwei Town? There should be a town-"

"It's 1629 now."

Wang Luobin ordered the boat to be put down, and several people from the exploration team drove the sampan to the beach. Not long after, they got a few vine baskets from the beach and came back. Wang Luobin pinched some and looked at it carefully. The sand in the center of his palm was as white as snow in the sun - it was such a good thing! Of course, he knew the goods. Such good quartz sand was too wasteful to use as wine bottles and mirrors. It could also be used as circuit fuses, display screens and other raw materials.
Chapter completed!