A Dutch warship appeared in front of him. Cheng Bi immediately ordered the fleet to change direction and adjust its course when it was about to enter the strait to avoid the Dutch.

The main ship was hung with a flag. On each merchant ship, the boss of the ship immediately shouted urgently, "Control the sail, steer, target the southeast!"

The sailor on the deck quickly pulled the sail cable. On the rudder, the strong sailor turned the rudder plate and the rudder plate at the stern of the boat. Under the impact of the sea water, the hull tilted to one side and turned to the southeast.

In the distance, on ten Dutch warships, the commander of the Dutch fleet, Kau, took out a thousand-mile mirror and was observing the fleet of the Merchants and Shipping Company in the distance. In the circular vision, merchant ships were adjusting their direction.

"His Excellency Commander, the merchant ship of the Merchants Company wants to avoid us!" a Dutch officer next to him reminded.

Kaowu put down the Qianli Mile Mile and sneered: "The Chinese want to transport goods to India themselves, which seriously damages the company's interests in the Far East. The senior management feels that the Chinese fleet will not allow the Chinese to pass through Malacca and must teach them a lesson. Perhaps only the destruction of the entire caravan can the Chinese understand the dangers of maritime trade and understand that they are not suitable for navigation. In the future, they will obediently hand over all the goods to the company for sale."

Malacca is an important channel for East-West exchanges. The Dutch defended Malacca and blocked Donghai Town in the South Ocean, making it impossible for Donghai Town to enter the Indian Ocean. If the goods from Donghai Town are sold to India, they can only pass through the Dutch.

Of course, the fleet of Donghai Town can be detoured, but in this way, the cost will increase, and the Dutch will not be able to compete with the Dutch.

Kaowu handed Qianlijing to his subordinates, put on a high hat, and ordered: "Fleet pursues!"

Above the sea, twenty armed merchant ships of investment companies sailed along the south coast of Sumatra, and ten Dutch warships followed closely.

The armed merchant ships of China Merchants Shipping Company are equipped with artillery, but each ship is not equipped with many equipment, only about six to seven gates, which are mainly used to load goods and conduct normal trade.

Armed merchant ships travel together, only need to ensure that ordinary pirates and Western barbarian ships cannot threaten the fleet.

After all, the purpose of investment companies is trade, not robbery.

The Dutch armed merchant ships had more than twenty artillery pieces, and the warships had fifty or sixty artillery pieces. One or two appeared, but the fleet was not afraid. Ten ships appeared, which was a special situation. The fleet could not compete with the firepower and could only escape from war.

At this time, on the deck of the merchant ship, sailors kept moving boxes of goods out of the cabin and throwing them into the sea to reduce the weight of the ship to get rid of the Dutch behind them.

The Dutch were able to dominate the sea because their ships were fast and loaded, so they could stand out in the fierce competition in Western Europe.

The armed merchant ships of the Merchants and Shipping Company are also imitating the Dutch merchant ships, and are equipped with fewer artillery, and are originally not slower than those of the Dutch vessels, but the ships are full of goods and treasures exchanged from East Africa and India, so the speed is much slower.

Seeing that he could not get rid of the Dutch fleet, Cheng Bi had no choice but to order to abandon the cargo and increase the speed.

On the sea, two fleets chased each other, sailing for four or five days. Whenever the Dutch warship was about to catch up with Cheng Bi, the merchant ship would abandon the cargo, gradually distance it and get rid of the Dutch.

On this day and night, eighteen merchant ships continued to ride the wind and waves on the sea.

Because the fleet had not walked through the south coast of Sumatra and was not familiar with the sea water traces and ground, two merchant ships sank after hitting the reef, and the other stranded in the shallows and captured by the Dutch, so there were only eighteen sea ships left and they were still sailing.

At night, Cheng Bi stood on the boat building and was worried. The fleet had not walked through this route. He had heard from the Portuguese merchants that in order to avoid Malacca, they had walked through this route. They did not know whether the fleet could pass smoothly and return to the Ming Dynasty.

On the main mast of the flagship, there is a bright sun and moon flag, flies in the night wind, looking at the sailors, looking at the surrounding sea with a nervous expression.

Pilot Ji Mengchen was holding a chart and a compass, observing the sky, pointing out the direction for the fleet's navigation.

At this time, Ji Mengchen's expression suddenly changed, and he walked to Cheng Bi in panic and said in horror: "Sir, Beichenxing is gone!"

Ji Mengchen is from Jiangyin, with the name Huiming, and his reputation may not be obvious, but if you talk about his uncle, everyone will know it.

Ji Mengchen is the nephew of Xu Xiake, a geographer in the Ming Dynasty. Xu Xiake died of illness in his hometown on the eve of Jiashen. The 2.6 million words of information he wrote were compiled by Ji Mengchen and compiled it into "Xu Xiake's Travels".

After Zhao Ming learned about this, he paid the money to publish the Commercial Press. When he established the Merchants Shipping Company, he transferred Ji Mengchen, Xu Junquan and others to the company, hoping that they could contribute to the shipping company's overseas exploration.

Cheng Bi was stunned when he heard this and hurriedly looked up at the location of the North Pole Star in the north. The North Pole Star, which should have appeared there, disappeared.

Ji Mengchen panicked: "In recent days, the fleet sailed southeast, and Yu found that the height of Beichen was getting lower and lower. The night before yesterday, Beichen was almost parallel to the sea surface. I didn't expect it to disappear today. All the techniques of Yu's navigation, except for the compass, are the star-pulling technique. The navigation direction is determined based on Beichen, the sun, and the moon. Now that Beichen has disappeared, the fleet will find it difficult to grasp the direction, and Beichen has disappeared. This is an unprecedented phenomenon!"

The North Star is a bright star close to the sky of Beitian. It is almost opposite the axis of the earth. All positions are almost unchanged. It is called Beichen, Zigong, and Ziweiyuan. The ancients believed that the God of Haotian lived here.

Traditionally, people believe that the North Star has extraordinary significance. The Analects of Confucius says, "Politics are governed with virtue, just like the North Star, where they live, and the stars arch them."

"Guanxiang" records: The North Star is in Ziwei Palace, and it is called Beichen, which is the most respected star in the sky. Its new star is the pinnacle of the sky. The sky is endless, but the pole star remains unchanged. Therefore, it is said: "When it is located, all the stars are arched."

The Beidou was considered by the ancients to be a system of the order of heaven and earth. The center of the transformation of heaven and earth and all things are also the imperial star. It has remained unchanged in ancient times. Once the Beidou shifts or the Beichen is dim, it is often considered a bad statue of heaven, either foreshadowing disasters, or foreshaving the fall of the emperor and changing dynasties.

Therefore, when Ji Mengchen and Cheng Bi discovered that the Beidou disappeared, they were both extremely shocked.

After a shock, Cheng Bi barely calmed down. At this time, he had no time to think about the prejudice of Beichen disappearing, a more realistic question that required him to immediately consider, "If Beichen is not seen, can he use other stars to navigate?"
Chapter completed!