Chapter 197: Drifting Program

After departing from Dayuan, the two ships quickly parted ways.

The Alicante would continue southward, its destination Manila. The Yuan Dou, however, raced nonstop for Kending Cape that very night, then rounded the bend northward the next day, heading straight for the Taitung Coast.

Compared to Taiwan's western shore, which Fujianese ships frequently visited, the east coast facing the Pacific Ocean was far more desolate and primeval — every inch of land blanketed in vegetation, trees growing in dense thickets, lush and verdant, with towering, majestic mountains.

Historically, the development of the Taitung region had also been very slow: transportation was poor, many places were cut off from the world, and every year it faced Pacific storms head-on — making a living here required a great deal of courage.

Since the beginning of the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, the Portuguese had named many places along global sea routes "Formosa."

To some extent, this was a bit like a Michelin certification of later eras: any place the Portuguese named "Formosa" was invariably a pristine zone of beautiful natural environment, because the word "Formosa" means "beautiful" in Latin.

Later generations stopped using the term mainly because of its colonial overtones. But in the era the Transmigrators now inhabited, the official names used by colonizers for Taiwan and the strait were precisely "Formosa" and the "Formosa Strait."

After passing the area around Bitou Reef, where they had previously encountered the galleon, another 70 kilometers north lay the Taitung Plain. A journey that later automobiles could cover in a few dozen minutes took the sand ship, against a headwind, the better part of a day.

Seeing the Taitung Plain naturally meant seeing Green Island on the sea to the east. So Pan Mingzhong, humming the "Green Island Serenade" to himself, was now directing the Yuan Dou to pull ashore at the mouth of the Beinan River.

The Beinan River was the largest river in Taitung, originating in the Central Mountain Range. The Taitung Delta Plain had been formed over millions of years by the alluvial deposits of the Beinan River and several other streams.

Soon, the sand ship found a flat cove just north of the Beinan River's mouth. Once the ship was secured, Lei Jian, dressed in canvas work clothes and fully armed, led a group of rifle-toting crewmen, ready to disembark and conduct surveys.

"Sir, I feel I must warn you — the savages here are very fierce and extremely difficult to deal with."

The lean-faced, blond First Mate Sampel, accompanied by the translator, now approached Lei Jian.

Sampel had been having a very eventful few days aboard the Yuan Dou.

Although the stern cabin and the engine room beneath it were off-limits to him, he had still discovered many astonishing things on the ship.

Only by personally boarding a Transmigrator's vessel could one feel the terror of being dominated by technology — in Sampel's mind, all technology was uniformly labeled "the power of the devil."

The iron tube hanging from the mast that periodically emitted a tremendous roar, the strange rotating iron device, the pulley blocks on the sail rigging, the rifles the soldiers carried that fired without any matchcord... all of this made Sampel feel he had boarded a devil ship.

And then there was the night sailing. Although every evening he was ordered to sleep in the cabin, as an old seaman, Sampel only needed to step onto the deck the next day to deduce the previous night's course from the familiar terrain of the Taitung coastline.

This made him shudder with dread.

How did the Yuan Dou find its heading in the dark and avoid all the visible and hidden reefs along the coast?

In the end, Sampel could only attribute everything to a strange power granted to these heretics by their god.

Hearing the First Mate's assessment of the natives, Lei Jian bared his teeth in a grin. He understood the blond man's state of mind: the Spanish had suffered greatly at the hands of the natives in Taipei and Taitung.

Patting Sampel on the shoulder, Lei Jian slung his AK over his back, waved to Pan Mingzhong, who was smoking in the machine gun nest, and then led his team off the ship.

Although there were quite a few native tribes in the Taitung area, they weren't so easy to encounter on the desolate river flats of the 17th century.

The main native tribes in Taitung were the Amis and the Puyuma. The Amis had a large population, while the Puyuma were fierce and skilled in battle. There were also other tribal groups such as the Rukai, Bunun, Paiwan, and so on.

Lei Jian's main task today was to survey the terrain around the mouth of the Beinan River and, incidentally, look for iron sand deposits. There was no need to venture deep into any vegetated areas, so safety was still reasonably assured.

As for iron sand, historical records showed no iron sand production from the Beinan River — this stop was just to take a look along the way.

In fact, by the time the team returned two hours later, no sign of native activity had been found on the river flats.

"So, any gains?" asked Pan Mingzhong, who had been left in charge, as he pulled Lei Jian back aboard from the boarding plank.

"Just did some terrain surveying. Didn't dare go into the forest." Lei Jian stowed the digital camera he'd been using to photograph the terrain and said, "Originally, looking at the landforms here, I felt the conditions for iron sand ore formation were present. Ah, seems my skills are still lacking — I really didn't pay enough attention in my advisor's lectures back then."

"Heh, don't give me that. The data never showed any deposits here to begin with — you think you could just conjure some up?"

With this exchange, the Yuan Dou officially concluded its first survey mission since setting sail. It began to slowly get underway and, heedless of the fading daylight, headed straight north.

After zigzagging across the sea surface for 20 hours at an average speed of 2–3 knots, by noon the next day, the Yuan Dou could already make out the primary target of this survey mission: the mouth of the Xiuguluan River.

The Xiuguluan River was located one-third of the way up Taiwan's east coast, originating from Xiuguluan Mountain in the Central Mountain Range. This area fell under Hualien County and was a tourist destination in later times. Every summer there was a rafting festival, with a program of drifting along the river to view the scenery. It boasted Taiwan's first Single-Arch Long Bridge, the Dasheng Temple, and the Xiugushuyu Scenic Area.

But the mouth of the Xiuguluan River now presented in the Yuan Dou's telescope held nothing but a swath of lush green vegetation on both banks, plus the emerald Xibulan Island in the middle of the river mouth. Nothing else.

Nothing but dense vegetation, and more vegetation — enough to make one sick.

Upon reaching the river mouth, the crew of the Yuan Dou found the navigational conditions of the Xiuguluan River to be considerably more treacherous than those of the Beinan River: not only was there an island blocking the very center of the river mouth, but the narrower channel also meant a chaotic scattering of reefs throughout the estuary area.

This time, the Yuan Dou couldn't just barge in. They assumed a full-scale posture of preparation — after dropping anchor, they began lowering a boat using the simple davit on deck.

Once the boat was in the water, Lei Jian took six men aboard. Carrying baskets and shovels, lead weights and ropes for sounding depth, guns, and a digital camera for photographing terrain, they climbed down the rope ladder into the boat and began rowing toward the mouth of the Xiuguluan River.

By an unwritten rule, whenever one Transmigrator left the ship, the other had to stay behind to take charge. So Pan Mingzhong remained in the stern cabin, not going anywhere.

Seven or eight minutes later, the boat had reached the vicinity of River Heart Island and began taking depth soundings on the spot. Lei Jian and his team needed to survey both the left and right channels around the island to prepare for future vessels entering the area.

Just then, the unexpected happened.

The lookout in the basket, armed with a Zeiss 10x scope, spotted the anomaly first. Hearing the alarm, Pan Mingzhong grabbed the walkie-talkie and binoculars from the desk and dashed out of the cabin.

Scrambling up into the machine gun nest on the sterncastle, Pan Mingzhong straightened up and aimed his binoculars upstream along the Xiuguluan River.

What appeared in the lenses were over a dozen dugout canoes rushing downstream along the current.

Pan Mingzhong's hair practically stood on end. He immediately yelled into the walkie-talkie: "Old Lei, situation's changed! Get back here fast! Repeat, get back here fast!"

Lei Jian's voice quickly crackled back through the walkie-talkie: "Received, turning around now. What's the situation? Repeat, what's the situation?"

"Shut up! Just turn around and get back!" Pan Mingzhong had no time to explain. He drew the M9 pistol from his waistband and fired three shots into the air to warn Lei Jian, then turned his head and bellowed: "Weigh anchor! Hoist sails! Fire up the coal furnace!"

The current situation was this: the Yuan Dou's bow was pointed north, and it was lying broadside across the mouth of the Xiuguluan River. The boat, meanwhile, had already turned around and was rowing back toward the sand ship.

Because of River Heart Island behind them, Lei Jian and his men couldn't see the fleet charging down from upstream. Fortunately, Lei Jian was no fool. The moment he heard the alarm, he began turning around. Then, seeing the warning shots fired from the ship, he knew things were bad and rowed even faster.

In less than two minutes, the natives in those dugout canoes were clearly visible through the binoculars.

These natives, their bodies completely naked and necks draped with an assortment of bone and wood trinkets, were paddling their wooden boats. Some brawny men standing at the prows, their genitals exposed, brandished spears in their hands, shouting loudly from their mouths, displaying their muscular chests and the white clay camouflage painted on their faces.

Since the native boats were moving with the current, their speed was extremely fast. Pan Mingzhong was now anxiously estimating the distance between the dugout canoes and the boat.

But anxiety was useless; there was nothing the Yuan Dou could do right now. Although the anchor had been raised, the sails couldn't yet be fully hoisted — they had to wait for the boat to return before they could set full sail. As for the engine room, a few minutes wasn't enough time to get the propeller moving.

In the end, just as the boat reached the side of the sand ship, the natives' dugout canoes had already skillfully threaded through the chaotic rock formations at the river mouth, splitting into two groups and emerging from either side of Xibulan Island.

Lei Jian, who had scrambled desperately up the rope ladder back onto the Yuan Dou's deck, was now panting heavily, staring blankly at the natives several hundred meters away. The man's head was drenched in sweat — likely from sheer fright. He had to admit, if not for the binoculars and walkie-talkie, he would probably be dead by now.

Over a dozen dugout canoes, more than a hundred elite native warriors — in a sudden, unprepared encounter, how many could he have taken down with the AK in his hands?

The moment Lei Jian was aboard, they began hoisting the sails. After a few more men had scrambled up from the boat, the sand ship was already slanting away toward the open sea.

Waving for the three remaining men in the boat to quickly row it aside, Pan Mingzhong shoved Lei Jian. "What are you spacing out for? Get on the machine gun!"

"Ah, oh, got it." Lei Jian took a couple of steps toward the stern cabin before his reflexes finally kicked in and a wave of belated terror hit him. He jumped up and shouted, "Where the hell did these bastards come from? I'm gonna kill them all!"

"Esteemed Lei, these are Kavalan natives. They often raid Spanish ships like this."

..... At the critical moment, yellow-'haired' First Mate Sampel appeared again with the translator.

"Hu, the Kavalan hang around Yilan. Since when do they come all the way to Taidong?"

Lei Jian shouted as he sprinted toward the Machine Gun Nest.