Great Tang Southern Emperor

284 chapter

When Saren arrived at the Spice Island, he was warmly received by the long-awaited governor of the Spice Islands, Zhang Jianzhi, and the thousand left-behind soldiers held a bonfire party for them...

After three full days of carnival on the island, in the end not only everyone in the fleet joined in, but also the natives who could speak Chinese—at that moment, Saren finally felt that Datang’s The mind of dialing and the eclecticism unique to Han culture.

At this moment, Sa Lun finally returned to Datang completely, but his inner obsession has not been eliminated - that is to fight back to Rome, go back and ask those who betrayed him, why did they give up themselves in the first place?But at that time, my identity will be the great Captain Saren, standing above their heads and shouting loudly, while those who betrayed me will be my captives, kneeling at my feet and begging for mercy.

After the carnival, Saren unloaded all the supplies brought by the fleet, and then returned with nothing but a fleet full of spices. He knew the preciousness of spices too well, not only in Datang, but also in the Tang Dynasty. If these spices can be sent to Europe, the price will be even crazier.

"Okay, alright, Lord Saren, this is all right." Navigator Qi Bin is an old man on Li Zhen's fleet, and one of the people who followed Li Zhen to the Spice Islands last time. In fact, he was in Saren's fleet. Among them, there are not many people like Qi Bin. After all, it is the first time for Sa Lun to run so far, and it is also the first time to come to the Spice Islands. If there is no guide who is familiar with the road, Li Zhen is afraid that he will get lost.

"It's not too bad, what's the matter?" Saren turned from anger to joy, and asked about the business.

Qi Bin said: "It's like this. Just now I looked at the sky and it's not normal. According to my estimation, there should be a tropical air mass forming 150 kilometers in front of us, with a speed of [-] kilometers per hour. That is to say, we We must find a safe haven within an hour, otherwise we will be caught in the tropical storm, and then..."

This is the role of navigators. If it is an inexperienced fleet, how can they foresee a storm a hundred kilometers away?Only when the storm comes into their view can they find out, but what's the use then?

"Why didn't you say it earlier?" Saren was shocked. A storm group of [-] kilometers per hour is enough to tear his fleet into pieces. If he can't find a safe haven, he will really die. He is dead, his revenge has not been reported, and he has not returned to Rome, so he cannot die.

"Captain Sa Lun, calm down." Different from Sa Lun's anxiety, Qi Bin seemed quite calm: "As a captain, you have to trust your navigator. When do you think I panic?"

"Do you have a way?" Saren looked at him in surprise.

"That's right." Qi Bin didn't hold back anymore: "I took a look at the surrounding water flow, and it's a typical flow around the island, which means there must be islands nearby."

"Huh... I was shocked, why didn't you say it earlier? Oh, God bless you." Saren immediately breathed a sigh of relief. It was a gift from heaven to be able to touch the island before encountering a storm. Saron began to talk about his God again.

"Captain Saren, I saw the island." Qi Bin suddenly jumped off the watchtower and shouted.

"Great, I saw it too." Saren was overjoyed, watching the black spot directly in front of him through the telescope.

"Order the fleet to slow down... Wait a minute, what is that..." Just as Saren slowed down the fleet, he suddenly seemed to see something moving on the island in front of him, and quickly separated from the entire island Come……

"not good……"

Three days later...

Sa Lun slowly opened his eyes, and the ship doctor who was waiting beside him immediately exclaimed: "Captain Sa Lun, are you finally awake?"

"What's wrong with me? Ah~" Saren wanted to get up, but immediately a sharp pain came from his chest, which made him scream out involuntarily.

"Captain Sa Lun, are you awake?" Qi Bin rushed in when he heard the voice inside, and was pleasantly surprised when he saw Sa Lun who had woken up: "Great, we have the backbone when you wake up, You have been in a coma for three days."

"What's going on? How did I become like this? What happened?" Saren finally noticed his situation. Now he was wrapped up like a mummy. Under the white gauze, Saren was clearly Feeling the existence of the board, his right hand was wrapped around his body, only his left hand could move. The sharp pain in his chest told him that his injury was not minor, and he might even have injured his internal organs. If this is the case , then I have to lie down.

But when Saron recalled what happened before, he found that his mind was in chaos. He only had a few minutes of memory, but he couldn't remember what happened three days ago.

Hearing Sa Lun's questioning about what happened, Qi Bin's expression suddenly sank, but he still comforted him: "Captain Sa Lun, since you woke up, you should take a good rest, your injury is serious and you need to rest... …You don’t have to worry about other things for the time being. We are out of danger, and the enemy is blocked by the storm. We are already safe, and it is enough for you to recover from your wounds. Don’t worry, I will keep everyone safe brought back to Lingnan."

"What the hell happened..." Upon hearing this, Saron knew that something must have happened to the fleet, and he was very anxious, but at this moment, a burst of messy information suddenly came out of his mind, and his whole mind suddenly exploded , The severe pain directly made Saron faint.

"...You take good care of the captain, hide this matter first, and don't let him be stimulated again." Seeing that Sa Lun passed out, Qi Bin breathed a sigh of relief. Hearing this bad news, I'm afraid he won't be able to bear it.

After ordering the ship's doctor, Qi Bin walked out with a sullen face, came to the deck, saw the surrounding situation, but he sighed deeply - only to see that the original majestic Kuohai has lost its original style , the brand-new hull is covered with patches, and the deck is full of potholes and cracks, which can be said to be severely damaged.

The most important thing is that the size of the ships that originally guarded the Kuo Hai has been reduced by more than half, and the remaining half is also devastated.Among them, the two fourth-tier battleships and one third-tier battleship escorting on the left and right have disappeared, and it is not known whether they are still there.

In addition to the Kuo Hai, most of the other [-] vertical and horizontal merchant ships in the fleet disappeared, and the remaining ones including the Kuo Hai were only seven ships in total, and each of them was no more injured than the Kuo Hai. The sea number is lighter, and one of them is already half sunk on the sea surface, and can only barely continue sailing by being dragged by other ships.

All of this has proved one thing-that is, this fleet has experienced a terrible naval battle, and the enemy's combat effectiveness is not weaker or even stronger than them, otherwise with their strength, they will never be able to defeat them. so tragic.

Chapter 926

Chapter 285 A Heavy Loss

Such a large loss, all of this has proved one thing-that is, this fleet has experienced a terrible naval battle, and the enemy's combat effectiveness is not weaker or even stronger than them at all, otherwise with their strength , it will never be so tragic.

In fact, this is indeed the case, and Saren's fleet has indeed suffered a terrible attack.

The things that Saren saw three days ago that seemed to be separated from the island were not other things, but warships one after another. In terms of number, they were no less than the fleet. Although the overall size was not as large as that of the Saren fleet, but After all, this is just a merchant fleet, and it is not of the same order of magnitude as the opponent's warship.

It was too late when the fleet discovered these, and what greeted them was a rain of arrows.What's even more unfortunate is that, as the captain of the fleet, Saren was shot through his right shoulder by a bed crossbow arrow no thinner than a spear during the first wave of attacks. Fortunately, his injury was only pierced, not Death, but even so, Saren fainted in the first wave of attacks.

Saren fainted, and as his deputy, Qi Bin took over the command (Qi Bin was not only the navigator, but also the first mate of the fleet) and continued to fight the enemy, but the enemy obviously came prepared, and the Saren fleet It is another commercial fleet. Although it also has escort forces, it is only a third-tier battleship and two fourth-tier battleships, as well as the crossbows and sabers on the merchant ships. Compared with the enemy's attack like a storm, Such a little power is really a drop in the bucket.

Soon, as strands of rope were looped around the hull, the terrifying boarding battle began.

Fortunately, the sailors on board were very brave. After all, they were transformed from fishermen who dared to compete with the sky. Therefore, these sailors put out [-]% of their strength to fight against the gangsters.

However, courage is not enough to fight this kind of thing. Facing the tide of enemy attacks, the fleet suffered heavy losses.In the end, the fleet broke contact with the enemy only after the three battleships were broken.

However, the enemy didn't seem to intend to let him go. The fleet on the opposite side quickly separated and entangled the three warships. The rest rushed up like ants. After all, they are small boats, not only are they more flexible, And the speed is faster in a short distance, the fleet has just turned around at this time, how can it run faster than these small boats?

And just when despair was falling, an unexpected turn of events occurred—the storm that Qi Bin expected to appear within two hours, appeared on time...

Thinking of what happened that day, Qi Bin couldn't help but tremble all over. That time he really felt the horror of nature, and it was at that moment that he suddenly understood that the so-called man can conquer nature is just the arrogance of some ambitious people In other words, nature looks down on some people, which creates the illusion that they can conquer nature. However, when the natural disaster really strikes, he will understand how insignificant the power of the individual is in the face of the catastrophe.

For that storm, Qi Bin didn't know how he should look at it, he didn't know whether he should be grateful for its appearance, or hate that it appeared too suddenly.

Indeed, because of this storm, the fleet successfully separated from the enemy and successfully avoided a death situation, but it was also this storm that caused heavy losses to the fleet—the entire battle for the previous two hours The fleet only lost a few hundred people, but after this storm, there were originally a large fleet of 150 large and small ships, and the remaining ships were less than half of the expected time.

"Boss Qi, our losses have been counted." Qi Bin looked at the tragic situation around him, and he couldn't help sighing in his heart. What about confession?

Just when Qi Bin was worried, He Lian, the second mate of the fleet, came over. The loss of the fleet was too serious, and it took He Lian as the second mate two days to collect the specific statistics.

"How is the situation? How much is our loss?" Qi Bin's heart sank, and he could tell from the first officer's watch that the loss this time would not be much smaller.

"The situation is very pessimistic. You'd better be mentally prepared." He Lian sighed and began to report the loss this time: "This time we took a total of 150 large and small ships to sea, including three frigates. In order to break the rear, all of them have been destroyed. in the middle of the sea.

There are a total of [-] vertical and horizontal merchant ships, nine of which have lost contact, and three of them have been confirmed to have sunk, and the remaining ones are not expected to be in good condition. hurt.

There are 23 state-level medium-sized merchant ships in total, [-] of which have been confirmed to have sunk, and [-] have lost contact. It is unlikely to survive. The remaining [-] ships are still there, but they also suffered heavy casualties. The one that was intact was the Yongzhou. Because it was on the edge of the storm, it was pushed out by the wind pressure and was not seriously damaged. It reconnected with the fleet yesterday. The rest were all injured, and some of them even had to rely on Other ships can only sail by dragging, and the keel of Dingzhou, which was the most damaged, even had cracks. We are ready to give up.

Because of the low wind and wave resistance of the small boats, their losses were as high as more than [-]%. In fact, there were only [-] small boats that could escape the storm, and the losses were also heavy. "

"..." Although he knew that the loss this time would not be too small, Qi Bin did not expect that his loss would be so large. After the storm, only one third of the 150 ships remained. It was too tragic .

After a long silence, Qi Bin asked expectantly: "What about the number of casualties? How about our casualties?"

"This..." Knowing what Qi Bin meant, but as the first mate, He Lian knew that he had to tell the truth at this time.

"Come on, I can take it."

Closing his eyes, He Lian said a number that even made his heart tremble: "We have a total of 8000 crew members on this voyage, and now there are only less than [-] people left. Most of them are injured. One thousand and eight people..."

"Pfft!" Hearing this number, Qi Bin spurted out a mouthful of blood, and fell slowly on the deck.

"Lord Qi Bin..." He Lian was shocked: "Boat doctor, come quickly, Master Qi Bin has fainted..."