Chapter 1574 Origin of Species

[Correction: The thing seized in the previous chapter was whale oil, not soybean oil. At that time, America had not yet introduced soybeans from China. There were only kidney beans, which were edible but could not be used to extract oil.]

By the time Lin Feng finished his work, several days had passed, but Zhang Xiaojing was still immersed in the scientific expedition.

"What's the point of these things?" Lin Feng asked boredly while sitting cross-legged on the back of a super-large tortoise.

"How can it be boring? There are tropical penguins, turtles that can carry people, blue-footed ducks, colorful lizards, and birds that can blow balloons. How interesting!" Zhang Xiaojing smiled as she drew a picture of a water bird:

"Everything here is so fascinating, even this cormorant."

"The wings seem to be underdeveloped, what does that mean?" Lin Feng patted the turtle shell under him and said, "I think this stew will be very nutritious, right?"

I wonder if she is talking about the turtle or the bird?

"It's the wings that are interesting." Zhang Xiaojing rolled her eyes at her and automatically filtered out the last sentence, "It turns out that the wings of this 'weak-winged cormorant' are also very well developed, and it is also a bird that is good at flying. Otherwise, how could it fly here from the mainland?"

"Oh?" Lin Feng teased the tortoise's head with a branch and asked with some interest, "Then how did it become like a bird?"

"Because there is abundant food here, they settled down. Since they no longer need to fly to get food, their wings gradually degenerated during the long evolution, making them lose the ability to fly." Zhang Xiaojing pointed to the groups of weak-winged cormorants squatting on the reef and said: "Accordingly, their legs and claws have evolved to be large and powerful, and their beaks have become thicker and longer, making them better at fishing in the sea."

"Degeneration, evolution? It's so mysterious." Lin Feng was amazed and said, "Xiao Jing, you are really good at imagining."

"That's not what I said." Zhang Xiaojing lifted a strand of her hair and said proudly, "It was your master, my husband, who saw in this 'living biological evolution museum' that the animals and plants here have become very different from their counterparts on the mainland in order to adapt to the natural environment. He realized that 'survival of the fittest', and after returning, he wrote 'The Origin of Species'!"

As she spoke, she stood up and pointed at this world full of exotic flowers and plants, rare birds and monsters with endless enjoyment, saying: "This is the holy land where the great 'theory of evolution' was born!"

"Theory of evolution?" Lin Feng stuck out his tongue and said, "I've never heard of it."

She spoke as if she had read several of her master's books.

"Because the book has not been published yet. And the viewpoints are too shocking, he firmly refuses to admit that he wrote the book." Zhang Xiaojing laughed and said, "He insisted that it was written by a man named Darwin. I said I had never heard of such a surname. He said very seriously, yes, Vincy..."

"Pen name. I have many masters. It seems that there is also a pen name called Niuzi." Lin Feng scratched his head.

Zhang Xiaojing gradually couldn't laugh anymore, her eyes turned red, and she squatted down and cried.

"What's wrong? Are you blinded?" Lin Feng quickly jumped off the turtle's back, squatted beside Zhang Xiaojing and asked.

"I miss home and your master..." Xiao Zhuzi said while wiping away tears.

"I want to, too." Lin Feng muttered, "But we can't go back yet."

"Why?" Xiao Zhuzi looked at her with red eyes.

"Because of this." Lin Feng took out a crumpled letter from his pocket and handed it to her, saying, "This was found in the Vice King's Suite at Xiao Ming."

Zhang Xiaojing took it and opened it. It was a letter written by the King of Spain to the Vice-President of Peru last fall.

Although the letter was in Spanish, she looked effortless in doing so.

In the letter, Philip II complained to his viceroy that because the treasure fleet was hijacked, the bankers of Venice and Florence refused to extend the debt, and the royal family was unable to repay the debt, so he had to declare financial bankruptcy and default on their debts.

So Philip II instructed his two viceroys in America not to send this year's treasures to Europe.

Since you have already defaulted on your debt, you should continue to delay for a few more years, so that the creditor loses his temper. When the creditor can no longer bear it, he will take the initiative to offer generous conditions such as waiving the interest or even discounting the principal.

This was not the first time that Philip II had declared bankruptcy; he was already a very experienced deadbeat.

But that doesn't mean he'll feel any better.

Although no banker dared to demand repayment from the king of the most powerful country in Europe, this would be a devastating blow to the royal family's credibility, and it would be much more difficult to raise debts again.

Unless there could be another great victory like the one at Lepanto to quickly restore the royal family's reputation, no one would be willing to continue borrowing from the royal family.

So Philip II approved the "Sander Report" submitted by Velasquez, the vice king of New Spain, and brazenly decided to launch an expedition against the Ming people who dared to invade the Philippines. The minimum goal was to recover Luzon; the intermediate goal was to occupy Guangdong Province of Ming Dynasty; the highest goal was to attack Beijing, capture their little emperor, and force the entire Ming Dynasty to surrender!

As long as they can defeat that great Eastern power, Spain will completely establish its position as the strongest in the world. Capital always admires the strong, and they are always willing to flow to the strongest!

To this end, Philip II has established a special committee in Madrid to further review and formulate a detailed plan for attacking China from the aspects of policy, strategy, tactics, action plan, logistics mobilization and public opinion propaganda.

Although the plan is still being refined, it has been basically determined that an expeditionary force of 25,000 people, including 12,000 Spanish army soldiers, will be organized to fight in the Far East on an invincible fleet of 50 large sailing ships!

Because the warships sailed too far from Europe to Asia, they might have lost more than half of their warships by the time they reached Luzon. Even if they were built in Havana, they still couldn't avoid the two gates of hell, the equatorial doldrums and the Strait of Magellan, and the situation would not be much better.

Therefore, Philip II ordered that in addition to the fleet departing from his homeland, all the shipbuilding craftsmen in the American colonies should be conscripted to go to Acapulco, Mexico, to build the latest Spanish galleons. The royal family would also hire 2,000 experienced shipbuilders and cannon casting craftsmen from Europe to go to New Spain for support!

Philip II ordered the two viceroys to try their best to seize more wealth from the colonies and send it all to Mexico as the cost of shipbuilding. The shipbuilding matters were coordinated and arranged by the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Viceroyalty of Peru also had to do its best to raise military supplies for the upcoming expedition.

"No wonder there is so much food on the ship, it turns out they are military rations." After reading it, Zhang Xiaojing suddenly realized.

With so much copper in it, of course it was going to be shipped to Mexico to be cast into cannons.

Zhang Xiaojing looked at Lin Feng with understanding and asked, "So what you mean?"

"Yes. I like to take the initiative!" Lin Feng nodded heavily, and with lightning speed, he grabbed the tortoise's long neck. The old tortoise was stunned, probably not knowing how to deal with this situation, and stood there motionless.

"How can we wait until the Spaniards are ready? We are already at their doorstep. If we don't go and take action against them and set them on fire, how can we justify the love... protection... that Master has shown me?"

"You'd better let go quickly, the turtle is foaming at the mouth." Zhang Xiaojing rolled her eyes.

This mobilization went extremely smoothly. The team members who were looting like crazy on the west coast of America were full of enthusiasm for looting... no, for serving the country. They were completely different from the listless group on the east coast.

So after some rest and preparation, the fleet left Devil's Island, which had been renamed Treasure Island, and headed towards Acapulco, 2,000 kilometers away.

~~

The port of Acapulco is located in a deep, semi-enclosed bay and is the best port on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

Originally it was just a small fishing village with less than 1,000 or 2,000 people. But since the trans-Pacific sailing trade began ten years ago, Acapulco, as the terminal of the sailing ships, has rapidly prospered.

Although the two countries entered a state of war since the year before last, the miraculous thing is that the galleon trade was not cut off, but the trading location returned to Cebu.

Both Prince Zhao, who represented the Ming Dynasty, and Viceroy Velasquez, who represented Spain, were very rational people. They knew that the galleon trade was vital to both sides. One thing is one thing, war is war, and it is a bastard not to make money.

Moreover, both sides were worried that as the situation inevitably deteriorated, it would eventually jeopardize the trade level. They both tacitly increased the intensity of the transaction, and the more money they made, the better.

So from the summer of 1574 to now, the trade volume between the two sides has quadrupled...

But don't think that if the trade dependence between the two sides is high, the other party will tend to coexist in a friendly manner.

In fact, from the moment they received the news of the fall of Luzon, the arrogant Spanish clamored for revenge. If it weren't for the Pacific Ocean, their army would have reached the gates of the Ming Dynasty long ago.

So their anger for revenge turned into motivation for shipbuilding. Over the past year or so, the entire American colonies, the two northern and southern viceroyalties, had been pouring funds, manpower and material resources into Acapulco, going all out to build a powerful fleet of large sailing ships.

Vice King Velasquez also temporarily moved his headquarters from New Mexico to Acapulco and personally supervised the construction on site to prevent corrupt bureaucrats from enriching themselves and cunning craftsmen from cutting corners!

Under his personal supervision, everything went very smoothly. Standing on the balcony of the Vice King's residence halfway up the mountain, facing the gentle sea breeze and looking out over the bay, one can see that the huge shipyard has already taken shape.

Huge lumberyards are already filled with giant logs shipped from Guatemala and Panama.

Next to the lumberyard, the sound of sawing and chopping can be heard day and night. Those are the carpenters cutting the large logs into usable boards.

Six huge dry docks were built on the seashore, and shipbuilders from Veracruz, Havana, Bogota, and even the Iberian Peninsula were working day and night to build six 1,000-ton warships. Two warships had just been laid down, and the framework of four warships had been completed, and they would be ready to be launched by the end of the year.

Inside the busy shipyard, there are countless craftsmen’s workshops, busy manufacturing nails, sails, cables and cannons... Each type of work is very complicated and requires the manufacture of a large number of tools and mechanical equipment first.

In the past year, the craftsmen have basically spent their time on manufacturing and debugging these devices. But once they are completed, they can get twice the result with half the effort and make up twice the wasted time.

For example, if cables are made purely manually, only a few dozen meters can be produced in a day. However, after using machines, a group of workers can easily produce 2,000 meters a day! The efficiency can be increased by more than ten times!

"This is the world-leading European technology!" His Royal Highness was filled with pride. "This is the powerful mobilization capability of the Spanish Empire!"

In less than two years, a powerful Pacific Fleet will be born here!

And I, the Vice King of New Spain, Velasquez, will personally lead this fleet to complete the expedition to the Ming Dynasty as my farewell performance!

Just wait, Master Zhao, your death is not far away!

ps. The next chapter will be in a quarter of an hour.

(End of this chapter)