Chapter 75 The End of 1482 AD 2 Explorer's Pillar
Chapter 75 The End of 1482 AD 2-The Explorer’s Pillar
Zaire River, Congo River, the longest river in black Africa. It runs from east to west, 10,000 miles long, 200 meters deep, and 20 miles wide at the mouth. Since its formation in the Pleistocene, the Congo River has flowed turbulently for two million years. It completely witnesses the origin of humankind, gave birth to prehistoric civilization, and also retains the last traces of dinosaurs.
Today, it appears for the first time in the eyes of Western explorers, witnessing the arrival of a new era.
The expedition leader and flagship captain Diogo Kang silently crossed himself on his chest. Where there are fresh water rivers, there are people and tribes. Where does this river lead? What's at the end? No one knows yet.
The fleet first patrolled the river mouth for a while and found no dangerous enemies or wild beasts for the time being. The sailor observed the distant smoke and determined that it was necessary to go deeper into the rainforest. Immediately, Captain Diogo Kang took command of the flagship and led the fleet into the mouth of the river.
"Bruno Kang, measure the water depth!" Diogo Kang ordered majestically. He was the king of this ship.
Bruno, a senior sailor, began to hurriedly tie the rope tightly to the lead bob and then threw it into the river. Paul was there to help. The rope sank rapidly and soon reached the end.
"Captain, the rope is exhausted." Bruno reported respectfully.
"Tie on the spare cable and continue measuring." The captain's orders must be obeyed absolutely. On the sea, there are two contradictory iron rules, one is strict hierarchy, and the other is one person, one vote.
The sailors were busy again. It was not until they added the cable three times that the rope finally became soft and the plumb bob reached the bottom.
"How many?"
"Three cables, eh, 230 meters!" Bruno counted on his fingers for a while before shouting in shock. He was able to calculate basic mathematics, which is why the captain called him to measure.
Two hundred and thirty meters! Everyone looked at each other in shock. The depth of this river even exceeded the depth of some offshore waters.
Captain Diogo Kang nodded calmly. At this amazing depth, no ship in the world would have to worry about running aground. He then commanded the exploration fleet to go up the river to look for the source of the smoke. Along the way, the measured water depth remained at about two hundred meters.
There are dense rainforests on both sides of the river, and in the rainforest there are flying birds, looming wild beasts, crocodiles pretending to be dead, and buzzing mosquitoes everywhere.
Bunoru looked at the mosquitoes on the river with disgust. They had gathered into clusters visible to the naked eye, making a whirlwind-like buzz. The warm wind blew between the sailboats, bringing with it the fresh scent of humanity. The mosquitoes gradually came closer, buzzing like bloodthirsty spirits.
"These damn tropical mosquitoes! Each one is as big as my finger, and I don't know how painful it will be if you are bitten!" Bunoru tied up the noble hat tightly, then tied up the collar, cuffs and trouser legs, hiding his body under the In the noble robes.
"Hey, Brother Bunoru. As a man, you are not afraid of bleeding or being stabbed. Why are you afraid of mosquitoes?" Paul looked carefree in a short jacket and used his hands to drive away the mosquitoes. "Now I have some doubts about whether my sister can live a happy life if she follows you."
"Damn it, wait until your sister follows me, then you will know! By the way, tell me, do the natives here have gold?" Bunoru looked at the smoke rising from nowhere, and the desire in his heart was like a cat scratching at him. itch.
"There must be! But I don't know how much. Fodesse! Last time we worked all night, and the result was only two pieces of gold, which was not enough. Everyone almost started working." Paul also looked at the smoke in the distance expectantly. He licked his lips subconsciously and touched the scimitar at his waist.
At this moment, a lean indigenous warrior suddenly appeared on the river bank. He wore a red feather on his head, like a canopy of grass. A necklace of bones surrounds the neck. These are symbols of veteran warriors.
The indigenous warrior's left hand held a long wooden shield half a man's height, and his right hand held a nearly two-meter spear. At the top was an iron spearhead that was one palm long and half a palm wide. The fine iron shone coldly in the sun. He only wore a crotch cloth, but he covered his whole body with thick mud and dung. Mosquitoes flew past him calmly, and occasionally one or two landed on his hand, like obedient pets. .
The indigenous warrior casually crushed the mosquito to death and threw it into his mouth. Tribes in the rainforest have a long tradition of eating mosquitoes because there are so many of them that they can be kneaded into dough. Mosquitoes are the best protein supplement, and the source is far more stable than hunting. He looked at the huge boat on the river with some confusion, as well as the vague white-skinned man on the boat.
The tribal priests mentioned the boats floating on the water in various tribes in the northwest, and the weapons that made huge roars on the distant northeastern plateau. So, he knew it was a boat, not a beast. But such a big ship, carrying two such big pieces of cloth, and white-skinned aliens?
Seeing the indigenous warriors on the shore, Paul's eyes narrowed, he picked up the early matchlock gun in the weapon barrel and started loading it. Bruno next to him was a little confused.
"Paul, what are you going to do?"
"Fodesse! The iron spear native with a head full of chicken feathers! This is a real hard blow, it can hit people quickly and hard. My last brother was just like this. Let me kill him while he is stupid now! It will also save the future. Encountered ashore.”
In less than half a minute, Paul finished loading and lit the match, just like a well-trained elite musketeer. He placed the matchlock on the side of the ship and began to aim with one eye.
"The captain hasn't spoken yet, don't be stupid!" Bruno pressed the matchlock eagerly to stop him.
"Let him shoot!" Captain Diogo Con had come to the side without knowing when. Perhaps, although his eyes were looking outside the ship, his ears always heard everything on the ship clearly.
Bruno obediently retracted his hand. Paul was stunned, looked at the captain's majestic face, his hands trembled slightly, and then he pulled the trigger.
Driven by the trigger, the metal hook pushed the matchlock into the firing port, and the matchlock immediately ignited the black gunpowder. In an instant, there was a huge roar, and a lead bullet was fired at an initial speed of 200 meters per second. The kinetic energy quickly turned into heat energy under air resistance. In less than a second, the hot projectile whizzed and hit the ground nearly ten meters away from the indigenous warrior, splashing a pile of mud.
"Good shooting!"
The captain nodded. The shooting deviation at a distance of nearly two hundred meters was less than ten meters. He was indeed an elite musketeer. Due to the lack of rifling, the accuracy of the early matchlock gun could only be maintained within a hundred meters. After the matchlock gun exceeded this distance, if you want to effectively kill, you can only rely on the probability coverage of large-scale shooting.
Hearing the loud noise and seeing the splashing mud, the native warrior subconsciously dodged backwards. He took two steps and hid behind a tree. He continued to wait for more than ten seconds, but did not hear the roar of the attack again.
He then stood up from behind the tree, facing the big ship on the river, waving his spear and wooden shield, roaring angrily and helplessly. On the deck of the sailboat, there was a noble captain in neat clothes with a sword, and a cruel sailor holding a matchlock and a short knife.
This picture is so symbolic! Under the witness of the Congo River, a new era has arrived! The same picture will appear again, in Angola, in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, in Mozambique, in Mombasa, in Somaliland, and then out of Africa, to the coast of the Red Sea, to India, across Sri Lanka, to the Spice Islands, across the Strait of Malacca, to the Philippines, to Taiwan, and finally to Japan and China.
When later generations open the world map and follow important routes to see a series of mountains, islands, straits, ports and colonies with Western names, they may feel nostalgic about the exploration and conquest that once took place!
Under the attack of European exploration ships and warships, America will be ruthlessly destroyed, and the colonists will take away everything in America. Africa will be cruelly plundered, and under the protection of tropical diseases, the colonists will stop outside the African rainforest.
On the bodies of babies in American civilization and the flesh and blood of children in African civilization, the young European civilization is growing rapidly, growing step by step into a giant that overcomes everything at a speed ten times that of the past thousand years.
They will have larger ships, better muskets, and various cannons installed on the ships to seek the wealth of the world. Then they will further strengthen their own strength and establish a more efficient killing system until the cannons are placed at the doorsteps of Asian countries.
The final European giants occupied the entire world and brought the world to destroy each other's wars, just like heading towards the dusk in Norse mythology. Everything is like an eternal cycle, heading towards a long-predicted fate!
If no one changes, all the "memories" of Xiu Luote will continue to repeat. History flows like the Congo River, carrying an irresistible trend of the times, sweeping towards the future of different races, and thus determining the rise and fall of five hundred years!
Watching the roar of the indigenous warriors facing the sailboats and muskets, Captain Diogo Kang frowned.
"Not afraid of big ships, nor muskets? Good iron weapons, strong desire to fight, this is a professional warrior. With such a huge freshwater resource, there must be a large tribe with heritage nearby!"
"Boatswain! Keep an eye on the sailors, and don't go ashore privately! Before you figure out the strength of the indigenous tribes here, put away your bandit attitudes!"
Diogo Kang majestically scanned the sailors, and his sharp eyes stayed on Paul's fierce face for a moment, until the other party lowered his head, and he continued to inspect his subjects. Everyone bowed their heads and obeyed. The flag officer sent out a flag signal to inform other fleets to "be cautious and station."
The fleet patrolled upstream for a day, and everyone spent another day on the boat until they saw the first village. Following the fleet, dozens of tribal warriors had been attracted to the river bank, and there were also six or seven indigenous warriors wearing feathers on their heads.
Diogo Kang sent Bruno and the Fon translator to present gifts of glass beads to the village elders, and the elders also gave feathers and some food in return.
This place also belongs to the Niger-Congo language family. The Fon people speak the Fon language in the language family, and the tribes here speak a type of Congo language. The Fon village elders invited priests, and the Fon translators were able to communicate with the priests reluctantly, and then the two sides conveyed to each other.
Bruno looked at the village elders' gold bracelets and headdresses, with uncontrollable desire in his eyes. But looking at the dozens of iron spear warriors behind the elders and hearing the reply from the Fon translator, he could only put his desire in his heart.
"This is the land ruled by Mwene Kongo, who is blessed by the gods. The great chief has hundreds of tribal villages. The twelve priests of voodoo listen to the orders of the gods. One hundred warriors guard the kingdom of the gods! Foreigners, I accept your friendship and return the greetings of the gods."
As he said, the village elder handed over a large piece of wrapped skirt tree leaves. This kind of leaves is somewhat like the palm trees in southern China, and the texture is very tough.
If the tribal elders are not lying, then there will be an unexpectedly powerful indigenous kingdom here, far from the loose and weak tribes of the Gold Coast.
Bruno took the leaf, which was a plant leaf he had never seen before. He smelled the long strip of leaves, which had a special fragrance. He looked around and saw that many natives were wearing grass skirts woven from this kind of leaves. And when he finally opened the leaf with great expectation, he found that there were small balls of baked mosquito cakes inside!
Bunulu was disgusted. He rewrapped the leaf and put it away, but with a bright smile on his face. Since the other party had enough military force, the two sides also had a foundation for friendship.
The meeting ended in a friendly and sincere atmosphere, and then they said goodbye to each other. The tribal warriors surrounded the village elders and watched the big ship and the white-skinned foreigners leave enthusiastically.
After boarding the ship, Bunulu reported the results of the first meeting to Captain Diogo Con. Everyone was surprised to hear that there was a powerful indigenous kingdom here.
Captain Diogo Con fell into thought. Now the fleet only had 150 sailors and soldiers, and a few missionaries. If there is really a powerful kingdom upstream, once a reckless sailor clashes with them, the exploration fleet will inevitably suffer heavy losses. After thinking for a moment, the captain decided not to take any more risks and to complete the important business first.
"The fleet returns to the estuary!"
The flagship raised the flag signal of "Follow, return", and the fleet easily turned around on the wide river and returned to the estuary in the west.
"Damn it! Disgusting black natives, pagans who deserve to go to hell!"
Bruno took out the leaf bag given by the village elder with a look of disgust, and raised his hand to throw it into the river. But then he saw the strange shape of the leaves. The scholars of the Sintra Palace seemed to be collecting new plant specimens? It seems that they also offered a high price.
Bruno thought about it, then unfolded the leaves, threw the mosquito cakes inside into the river, and then folded the skirt leaves and stuffed them into his arms. He did not notice that since he brought the leaves with him, the number of mosquitoes following him on the way back was obviously reduced by 90%.
"Hey, brother Bruno, is the village elder wearing a gold headband? I saw it flashing on the boat." Paul's eyes flashed with desire, and he came over to ask.
"Don't think about it. It is said that there are 10,000 warriors with iron spears here. If there are a few hundred of them, we will have to die here. Tenho saudades! Not only a gold headband, but he also has a gold bracelet!" Bruno answered seriously at first, and then fell into frustration.
"Fodesse! Ten thousand warriors?! Fodesse! Bah, what a devil full of lies! The kingdom has at most 30,000 uneven troops, and he said there are at least one-third of the kingdom here?" Paul widened his eyes and shouted loudly, obviously not believing it.
At this time, the Kingdom of Portugal had a population of 1.5 million. Based on a 1:50 ratio of soldiers to civilians, it was only 30,000 troops. Cavalry will consume many times more food supplies than infantry.
Bruno shrugged. In fact, he didn't believe it, but the captain had already ordered to return. The two could only look at the village in the distance and fall into the melancholy of Portuguese men.
Another day of return, the fleet returned to the mouth of the Congo River where it flows into the South Atlantic. Captain Diogo Cão found a suitable harbor near the mouth of the river, and the fleet anchored here.
Then, the sailors began to land and set up camp. Captain Diogo Cão, dressed in aristocratic clothes, was dressed neatly and looked solemn. Because today was a special day.
Captain Diogo Cão found a high ground near the river. He ordered the sailors to use a small boat to transport a padro, an explorer stone pillar that had been prepared long ago. The top of the stone pillar is a cross representing God, and below the cross is the shield emblem symbolizing the Portuguese royal family, and below is the inscription that was carved just yesterday.
"By the grace of Almighty God and with the support of the great King Joao II of Portugal and Algarve, Diogo Cão, son of a nobleman, first discovered the Congo River and its basin on August 28, 1482. He dedicated this rich land and people to the great Kingdom of Portugal, and the royal family has the absolute right to this land promised by God! This right is beyond doubt! Pray to King Afonso V who embraces the Kingdom of God! Pray for us!"
This stone pillar symbolizes that Portugal first discovered and occupied this land. As for the original owner of this land? The weak indigenous kingdom was not recognized by the civilized countries of Europe. For Westerners, this is just a no-man's land!
When the night fell, the bonfire was lit. More than a hundred sailors and soldiers on seven ships gathered together. The priests on board lit candles for prayer. Today is a special day, the first anniversary of the former King Afonso V embracing the Kingdom of God.
The sailors actually have no feelings for the king, and it doesn't matter whether to commemorate or not. But the real masters of the fleet are the nobles who are loyal to the king. Everyone dressed in formal attire, followed the priest's instructions, and began to pray for the king and themselves.
"Holy Saint Alfonso,
my great king whom I worship,
Please pray for us!
The glorious Trinity in heaven.
"
"In the light of Almighty God,
Please grant me a living faith,
to think wisely about all people, things and events.
I will offer you my sincere devotion,
to use my temporary body to elevate my eternal soul,
as you once chose.
The love of Jesus makes me bathe in holy fire,
I long for his sacraments,
and burn with passion to spread his glory.
"
"Through your powerful intercession,
help me to fulfill my duty to God,
Save myself and the world!
Infinite faith in the Virgin Mary,
Protect the purity of my soul,
bless every day of my life,
Keep me from mortal sin,
Obtain for me the grace of a happy death.
Amen.
"
“O God, seeker of peace and great piety,
Glorified Saint Alfonso of Portugal,
He took the land from the heathen,
Through his efforts,
We create the glory of God,
Therefore they are called children of God.
through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
an eternal God,
Reign forever!
Amen.
"
“Heavenly Father, thank you for the wonderful gifts you have given us,
Thank you for providing the example of Saint Alfonso, Portugal.
Regardless of hardships and tribulations,
We will always be loyal to you.
Offering you this new land and the Lamb!
Through the powerful intercession of Saint Alfonso,
We beseech you for your protection and glory,
We implore you to grant us wealth and strength,
Let us find our way to the East,
Let us find the kingdom of mighty King John,
God's people will unite,
Let the glory of God shine in the world!
For 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will
To be called children of God. ’
We ask all this through Jesus Christ,
Looking forward to eventual peace.
Amen.
"
“Pray for us and bless St. Alfonso.
In order to make us worthy of the promises of Christ.
San Alfonso, Portugal,
Pray for the strength of our country.
Saint Alfonso, please pray for us!
Saint Alfonso, please pray for us!
Saint Alfonso, please pray for us!
"
Although Alfonso V was not canonized, this did not prevent the king's people from praying for him with the rituals of a saint. In the devout Middle Ages, every Catholic believer had the natural obligation to spread religion. They must become a flame, bringing light to the world and burning away all impurity. What is unclean? In this cruel era, the meaning is self-evident.
More than a hundred nobles, sailors, soldiers and missionaries shared a night filled with tranquility and joy. They dedicated the land on the Congo River to God and found inner satisfaction and comfort in this land far away from their hometown. They also made their own requests to God, while firmly believing in God's protection.
They seemed to have returned to their peaceful hometown. Of course, there won’t be so many mosquito swarms that stay up all night and stay up all year round in my hometown.
Early the next morning, Captain Diogo Kang was ready to set off. He wanted to continue moving forward and explore the sea route to the south. Diogo Con took only six ships, leaving one at the mouth of the river, and gave the remaining ships an important mission.
"Bruno Kang! I leave you 20 people and a ship. You have to get in touch with the indigenous kingdom upstream! As the son of a noble, you can temporarily represent the kingdom. Remember, maintain good relations with powerful tribes, Get as many maps and information as you can, and find out about King John’s country! After the mission is completed, stay at the mouth of the river and wait for my return. God bless us!”
Captain Diogo Kang gave a serious order. He ordered the sailors to use their lives to complete the land exploration.
"I obey your orders, my dear captain. God bless us!"
Bruno was so excited that he almost burst into tears. This was a hero's mission. He will represent the great civilized Kingdom of Portugal and make the first contact with the backward and barbaric Congolese natives!
Captain Diogo Kang nodded, and he took one hundred and thirty people on the road. Six Calavia sailing boats nimbly left the river mouth and headed for the unknown south. There, waiting for them was a new land, the coast of South Angola.
Bruno took Paul and the sailors on an exploratory sailboat. Surrounded by mosquitoes, they headed back up the Congo River.
I wrote a lot without realizing it. I am really filled with emotions about the rise of the West! The Great Navigation affected and changed the destiny of the entire world, sacrificed America and Africa, and brought about the true rise of Europe. There are still one or two chapters to conclude the voyage and return to the protagonist. The prayer here is adapted from the Portuguese prayer of St. Elizabeth. If there are any believers, I would like to apologize. Finally, please support me!