On January 12, 1677, with the steam boom, the last box of special food supplied by the officers produced by Dafeng Food Company, was sent to the deck, the originally empty cabin of the Andes was now filled with nearly a hundred kinds of goods including matte tea, coffee, cocoa, biscuits, canned food, Virginia high-quality tobacco, various medicines, dyes, floral cloth, wool, clocks, and musical instruments.

These things are mainly to supply the large number of people on the east coast of the Three Feudatories of the Far East. Most of the people on the east coast are soldiers, technicians, officials, merchants, crew members and their families, rather than to supply local residents. Although in the past decade, more and more locals in Ningbo have begun to tend to consume on the east coast.

There were five other ships set out with the Andes Vulture, two of which belonged to the Sun Chunyang Transportation Company, and accepted the entrustment of the Army Department to transport two ships of military funds to the Far East; the two belonged to the Immigration Department, were special ships for immigration, each carrying dozens of women and children. They were the families of East Coast officials or engineers working in the Far East. In addition, their limited cabins also carried a lot of supplies sent to colonies along the way such as the Turtle Islands, Tahiti and Rabaul, and even bundles of steel bars under the bilge; the last ship was also a ship under the flag of Yuxing Kingdom, named "Acacia Mu", which was a foreign merchant ship bought at an auction, with about 300 tons. It is currently full of standard rails and was entrusted by the Southern Railway Company.

The dock officials flexibly shuttled back and forth on several ships, checking various outbound documents one by one, including certificates for settlement of various port fees, cargo insurance certificates, export tariff payment certificates and identity documents, which were basically routine. Moreover, when checking the "Andes Guard", he, who was a retired officer of the Nantie Road Protection Brigade, bowed to his original training officer Xu Xiangdong, and then let them go.

The total tonnage of the six ships is nearly 4,000 tons, and the scale is already quite impressive in the Pacific Ocean. After enjoying the last lunch made of fresh food, the six ships raised their sails and left the docks in turn, then sorted out their formations on the sea, heading north along the strong Peruvian cold current, and arrived at Xuanwu Port in the Turtle Islands on February 16, namely the Port of Bacsol Moreno in later generations.

The Turtle Islands are located in the tropical region, thousands of kilometers away from the Spanish Guayaquil Court District on the mainland, so they have always been rarely visited. The Spaniards have been operating in the Americas for more than 100 years, and only a few missionaries and explorers have climbed the island in the 16th century. Then they gave up because the island lacked fresh water and no resources and never came again.

During the last East-West War, this archipelago was occupied by the East Coast Navy and served as a temporary material transfer station, a ship repair institute and a field hospital. After the war, the East Coast people did not completely withdraw. Instead, they expanded the small ship repair institute built during the war, and also built lighthouses, warehouses, cities, forts, military camps and other facilities. The intention of long-term occupation was very obvious. The main reason is that the geographical location of this archipelago is too important. If the east coast ships travel north to mainland China through the Pacific Ocean, this island is a very good intermediate node. It can supply fresh water and food to the ships, take care of the wounded and sick, repair and maintain the ships, and even avoid the bad weather at the sea. It is of great use.

It was precisely for this reason that after the war was discovered by the Spaniards that the East Coast people had blatantly occupied the Turtle Islands, they had been trying to drive the East Coast people out of here for many years, so they rejected all the exchanges of interests proposed by the East Coast people regarding the sovereignty of the Turtle Islands. In the end, the East Coast people became popular and directly pointed out whether the sovereignty of the island must be attributed to the Kingdom of Spain, because there was no evidence of Spaniards on the island. On the contrary, the activities of the East Coast colonists were spread across three islands in the archipelago. Therefore, after the local executive committee found that the Spaniards were shameless, they simply authorized the Southern Railway Company to choose a port in the archipelago to build a colonial base. The Southern Railway Company was not vague and directly announced that it would open the wartime camp that had already had a certain foundation into a port city, called "Xuanwu Port".

The Spanish naturally knew the behavior of the East Coast people. Although they hated the Southern Railway Company's direct slap in the face, they would definitely not be able to let the East Coast colonists leave the Turtle Islands by mouth alone, and they still have to use means, including force. But the problem is also here. With the pitiful strength of the Spanish Lima fleet, they are really powerless to restore the Turtle Islands, let alone even if they have a few large ships, they will be afraid that the Third Fleet of the East Coast people will retaliate in the future. So things went on and on. After the stalemate was long, fewer and fewer Spanish people were willing to run for the sovereignty of the Turtle Islands. By 1677, some missionaries in the two major governors of Peru and New Spain were still running around and appealing, but unfortunately no one responded to them, which was also pitiful.

Now, with the number of colonists on the east coast of the archipelago officially exceeding one, five hundred and thousands, the skeleton of the ship repair industry has not only been supported, but also agricultural output is also very considerable. With the number of passing ships on the Pacific route every year, Xuanwu Port can easily provide many foods including wheat, corn, vegetables, fruits, salted fish, beef and mutton. A small reservoir has even been built on the island (this is very critical for tropical islands with low precipitation), which has made many people including the South China Sea Transportation Company, the Sun Chunyang Transportation Company and the Third Navy Fleet very satisfied.

Another thing that is even more exciting is that this archipelago is far away from the mainland and too rare to travel, so it has never spread the malignant tropical disease like malaria. After the arrival of the East Coast colonists, perhaps because of the small number of people, or because of luck, no carrier of the malaria parasite is sucked by mosquitoes, causing the mosquitoes on the island to spread the disease. In short, this archipelago with a large area is a very good overseas supply colony. Its only disadvantage is that it is drought and hot, which makes large-scale agricultural reclamation impossible, and it can carry not a large population.

The formation of six ships sailed into the port one by one, and suddenly filled the small Xuanwu Port. If other ships entered the port at this time, I'm sorry, I can only anchor the waters of the harbor, and then transport personnel and supplies back and forth through small boats.

Xu Xiangdong and his confidant entourage went down to the shore for correction. Since Xuanwu Port has not been officially handed over to the government, the Government Council will allocate 200,000 yuan to compensate, which is considered as "buying" the port and affiliated industries, so local officials are still employees of the Nan Railway Company, so Xu Xiangdong and others were treated well, which made some technicians in the team who were dizzy for the first time voyage in the team finally take a breath.

The rest on the Turtle Islands only lasted for three days. When the mechanics of the island's shipyard repaired several boats roughly repaired (replaced some boards and sewed some canvas), the six boats set sail again. They sailed slowly to the southwest for a short while. After capturing the ocean currents and faint crosswinds, they adjusted their course and headed westward. Because the weather along the way was sometimes good and sometimes bad, it took them more than a month to arrive at Jinhua Port, which was under the jurisdiction of the Tahiti Development Team.

Jinhua Port is the largest city on Tahiti Island and the only city. It is currently managed by the Tahiti Management Committee, and Han Xiangdong is the director of the Management Committee. The development of Jinhua Port in recent years can only be said to be careless and can steadily supply a certain amount of specialty products to Australia and other places, mainly coffee, sugar, vanilla, dried fruit and black pearls. The only thing worth criticizing is probably that the population in the jurisdiction of this Management Committee has dropped rapidly.

The main reason is that the growing plantation economy in the local area was too fierce to squeeze the natives, and they were overwhelmed and died in large numbers. For this reason, Han Xiangdong, director of the Tahiti Management Committee, instructed them to temporarily stop this behavior and not to expand the scale of the plantation at will, and instead invest valuable manpower in other aspects, such as the cultivation of grain, vegetables, fruits, etc.

The arrival of Xu Xiangdong and others caused another sensation on the island, because it means that a large number of goods from the outside world will flow into the local market. At this time, it is also a traditional festival on the island. Residents will come to the port from all over the countryside to celebrate and celebrate. Even many slaves who have not yet had formal status captured from other islands have a rare time to be able to be merciful and have a day or two of their spare time to control.

Han Xiangdong is also a second-generation man. Many years ago, he served as deputy director of the Tahiti Management Committee. After Zhang Jinhua returned to the local high school to be promoted to the executive committee, he naturally acted as the director, leading the entire island, and also controlled some surrounding islands or coral reefs. This position is undoubtedly prominent and super boring. If it weren't for a shortcut to promotion, he, Han, would not be too lazy to waste here.

Therefore, when Xu Xiangdong brought him a lot of books, newspapers, and magazines from the local area, and talked about many local news and anecdotes, the relationship between the two quickly became established, so that they all began to call each other brothers. After drinking two drinks, Han Xiangdong even said that if the Nantec Company was interested, he could participate in the Tahiti trade and he could make the decision to give preferential prices to local specialties. Even the Rabaul Management Committee was not unable to help contact us, and everything was easy to talk.

Xu Xiangdong thanked the others for their kindness and said that he would seriously consider the feasibility of this kind of trade. Then, after seeing that the ship was almost renovated, he waved goodbye to Han Xiangdong and took the remaining five ships (an immigrant ship affiliated to the South China Sea Transportation Company did not hit the reef when entering the port due to strong winds and sudden swells, and sank outside the harbor, so most of the personnel were rescued in time). He set off the anchor in turn, left Jinhua Port, continued to sail westward, and arrived on April 30, 1677 to anchor near the Port of Noumea, the southernmost tip of New Caledonia Island in the later generations.

According to the plan, they will leave a batch of key supplies for the East Coast team that set up the expedition camp here, including daily necessities, weapons, drugs and some exploration equipment. The size of this team is about 100 people, one-third are engineering and technical personnel from the Ministry of Geology, and the remaining two-thirds are armed personnel sent from Australia to protect them.

Their main task is to build a solid small stronghold here, and then rely on this to continuously expand into the inland areas to find nickel ore with mining value. Judging from the latest information, the situation is still relatively optimistic, because the technicians on the East Coast were excited to find that this large island, which is beyond imagination, is almost entirely composed of nickel ore, and any mining pit is found casually. It is expected that when they finally sent this report back to their homeland, the East Coast people's colonization of this island will be greatly accelerated so that as many nickel ore can be mined as soon as possible and sent back to their homeland.

Although Xu Xiangdong had no direct business connection with them, he still encouraged him and gave the box of wine he carried with the boat to the expedition team. For those who were fighting on the front line and making great sacrifices for the development of the country, Xu still had a little respect in his heart, and et was not stingy to express his appreciation to them.

After leaving New Caledonia, the five ships did not delay, but continued to sail northward towards the jurisdiction of the Rabaul Management Committee. To be honest, this journey was quite difficult because it was in the season and the changing wind directions, and the ocean currents were slightly chaotic. Therefore, although the distance was not very far, they still wandered on the sea for a full month and a half before arriving at Rabaul Port.

This port was the last supply point for their trip, so each ship carefully inspected and replenished it on the ship with a lot of fresh water, fruits, vegetables, live poultry and live livestock, and even a lot of spirits that are not prone to decay and deteriorated. During the five days of rest, Xu Xiangdong did not have the intention to wander around, but focused on writing a report until the day of departure arrived: June 24, 1677.

After spending a long time crossing the equatorial windless belt, the next voyage became much more convenient, because the strong southeastern wind blew on the sea, which was very conducive to northward navigation. But unfortunately, they still lost a ship in the ocean east of the Philippines, a ship belonging to Sun Chunyang Transportation Company was loaded with arms: more than 9,000 flintlock rifles or heavy combs sank into the sea. The same sank also included four thousand printed cloths, two thousand five hundred military tents, two hundred guns of various types, and a large number of shovels, pickaxes and other hardware products. The losses were heavy, and the East Coast Insurance Company was bleeding again.
Chapter completed!