Chapter 487

In the seventeenth century, the broad surface of the Pearl River was over ten times wider than in later generations — a boundless expanse. In later times, the Sea Pearl District south of Guangzhou City, covering ninety square kilometers, was in this era merely a few islands dotting the river.

So there was good reason the ancient people of Guangzhou called the Pearl River the "Sea Pearl, Pearl Ocean" — because once you left the city gate, you faced over a hundred square kilometers of open water, and calling it a sea was no exaggeration at all.

"Splash—" With a sound of water, Yu Sibao thrust his head up from the river's surface.

Yu Sibao's current position was on the Shizi Ocean stretch of the Pearl River's middle reaches. The channel here had already passed Humen, and both banks were scattered sandbars; the sandbar villages of later generations had still not yet formed.

After surfacing on the river, Yu Sibao did not linger. He turned and swam back toward the stern. In a few strokes, he grabbed hold of a rope ladder and clambered aboard, panting heavily.

Anchored and stopped on the river was a flat-deck barge.

The barge "Barrier Breaker" had its own power system and was fitted with all manner of equipment — a special-purpose vessel designed specifically for clearing obstacles in inland waterways. At this moment, the Barrier Breaker had dropped anchor on all sides and sat steady in the middle of the river.

Yu Sibao, a youth, had come to Taiwan together with his father Yu Chengde. Earlier, the Yu Clan had relied on Yu Sibao's diving skill to salvage silver from a sunken ship, and later killed the local thugs who had kidnapped a Yu Clan girl, ultimately leading the entire village to flee and throw in their lot with Grand Commandant Cao.

In the present day, Yu Chengde was already a successful boss of a fishery company, while Yu Sibao, gifted with extraordinary natural talent and superb diving ability, had been recruited early by the Port Authority and become a professional diver.

Yu Sibao had already been in Guangdong for half a year on this trip. Previously, after Cao the Regional Commander opened the Huangpu Military Port and the Huangpu Special Zone in Guangdong, he had come with a ship to the Pearl River Estuary and begun clearance work.

The clearance work requiring divers was, naturally, the reefs on the river. In this way, over half a year, Yu Sibao and his crew had worked their way from the Pearl River Estuary all the way to the Shizi Ocean in the river's middle reaches.

In this recent period, the Barrier Breaker's target was Scabby Head Reef on the Shizi Ocean.

Scabby Head Reef was true to its name — like the scars on a scabby head, it was not a single rock but a whole cluster of submerged reefs.

This cluster of submerged reefs lay right in the middle of the Shizi Ocean, a treacherous position, now hidden, now visible. Any boatman not native to the area could easily fall victim, and over the years it had often caused shipwrecks. This time, Yu Sibao's mission was to deal with this cluster of submerged reefs.

"Well? Got it all figured out?"

The moment Yu Sibao climbed over the gunwale, Boatswain Lao Tian had his men strip off his equipment, then wiped the water from his diving suit and wrapped him in a large scarf to keep warm.

After gulping down a mouthful of warm tea from a cup beside him, Yu Sibao nodded excitedly: "Uncle Tian, the positions are all figured out. Next trip down, I'll set the charges!"

"Be careful. If there's trouble, pull the safety line." Lao Tian was a middle-aged man in his forties, his face lined, his expression perpetually worried, as though nothing ever set his mind at ease.

"No problem — just watch!"

And so Yu Sibao rested for half an hour. After that, he put his diving goggles back on, shouldered the compressed air cylinder, and descended the ladder into the river.

This time, going into the water was even more dangerous, because in addition to the safety line at his waist, he also had to carry a thick fuse and the explosive pack attached to the end of that fuse.

The pack containing diatomite explosive inside and the fuse were both sealed and waterproof. The fuse's inner core was black powder, the second layer was waterproofing, the third layer was a cotton-thread reinforcement layer, and the outermost layer was waterproof lacquer.

Because black powder carries its own oxidizer, under normal conditions, as long as it can be lit above water, it can continue burning underwater. Of course, the prerequisite for all this was that Yu Sibao could securely install the explosive at the base of the reef.

The barge's current position was a little over ten meters upstream from the submerged reef. After Yu Sibao entered the water, the safety line was also controlled to this distance, allowing him to sink just enough to reach the base of the reef.

Straining to control his body in the current, Yu Sibao moved slowly, like a spaceman, to the base of the reef. At a hollow he had previously marked, he pressed the explosive pack gripped in his right hand into place.

Next, he steadied his breathing, then drew a short cord from his waist and patiently secured the explosive pack. After checking it over, the young man grinned behind his protective goggles — never before had he imagined that in this world there could be a bottle that let a person breathe underwater, and oh yes, that it could even compress something like "air" inside.

Stepping back two paces, Yu Sibao tugged the safety line twice. At this, the boat, having received the signal, began slowly reeling in the line with a winch, and Yu Sibao, holding the line, returned to the bow without effort.

The next moment, when Yu Sibao removed his goggles, gave a thumbs-up, and nodded, the captain ordered the detonation. Very soon, a flame followed the fuse into the water. After an agonizing wait of several dozen seconds, with a tremendous "Boom—", a white column of water two or three meters high erupted from the river's surface, accompanied by some small black stone fragments.

The Port Authority workers, long accustomed to such scenes, were already at the stern. Once the water column and gravel had all fallen back into the river, Boatswain Lao Tian patted Yu Sibao affectionately on the shoulder a few times, then gave the order: continue the underwater survey.

Because the Transmigrators could not produce a complete set of explosive equipment and consumables capable of electrical detonation underwater, they could only use this dangerous method to clear reefs. The fuse could only handle one pack at a time and could not set off multiple charges simultaneously, so after the explosion just now, the men on the boat could not be certain this reef had been completely shattered, and thus had to continue the underwater reconnaissance.

Entering the water at this moment was equally dangerous, because the reef might be in a precarious, tottering state and could collapse and injure someone. So this time, Yu Sibao brought a powerful light and began his inspection keeping some distance from the reef.

The final result was quite good: the pillar-shaped reef had split into several pieces and collapsed onto the riverbed. This meant the mission was accomplished. Yu Sibao then continued forward along the riverbed, arriving at the base of the next submerged reef to begin surveying.

After busying himself like this for another quarter of an hour, Yu Sibao returned to the boat once more. Because steadying his body in the river current was enormously draining, after coming aboard this time, Yu Sibao could not enter the water again for the next several hours. He could only rest while another diver took over the work.

Just as the young man was cradling a vat of hot soup and sitting leisurely at the stern enjoying the scenery, the Fuyuan fleet arrived from downstream.

"Huh? Didn't the big ships just go down this morning? How are they back so soon?"

Seeing the blue-and-gold big ships in the distance, the workers on the boat were a bit puzzled: "Today's training time is awfully short?"

"No, no — that's not the Zhenman!"

The next moment, sharp-eyed Yu Sibao instantly leapt up from the deck, waving vigorously toward the distance and shouting: "It's our new ship, a new ship!"