Chapter 1582 Return Home

The eighteenth day of the twelfth lunar month in the fourth year of the Wanli reign is a day worth remembering forever in the history of the Chinese nation.

The Ming Dynasty's long-distance fleet set sail on September 8th of the first year of the Wanli reign. After a full thousand days of adventure, it finally completed its round-the-world voyage and returned to its departure port, Shanghai Pudong Port!

This time, the total distance of the circumnavigation was 89,200 kilometers, 28,760 kilometers more than Magellan's voyage. The fleet traveled through Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, a total of five continents and three oceans. How magnificent! !

Lin Feng also became the first female navigator in world history to complete a circumnavigation of the world.

Considering that Magellan was killed by the natives in Cebu, the crew had to sail back for the rest of the voyage. So Zhao Hao unceremoniously put the title of "the first navigator to lead a team to complete a circumnavigation" on her head.

Of course, the crown comes with its weight, and the crew also paid a heavy price. Because of illness, accidents and war, one hundred crew members could never return to their homeland.

In the past three years, many crew members' parents died, their wives fell ill, and their children were born, and they were all unable to be present. It can be said that when they left, they experienced many hardships, and when they returned, they experienced many regrets that could not be made up for.

In fact, it is their families who have a harder time. During the thousand days and nights of their journey, their parents and wives have endured so much.

Life is not so bad, even if you are an ordinary crew member, your family will be taken care of by the group.

But there are many things besides daily life that one must face. Especially in the last year or so, the fleet's return date had passed, but there was still no sign of the fleet. So rumors spread everywhere, all kinds of unpleasant things came out.

Especially those who firmly did not believe that the earth was round and were full of fear of the lifting of the maritime ban, even gloated and spread the news that they had sailed to the edge of the earth and fell directly into an endless abyss, and would never be able to be reborn.

At first, everyone just thought it was a joke, because the group said that the fleet was so large that even if something happened, there would be no one to report it. So no news was actually the best news.

But as time passed, there was still no news of the fleet's return from the group, and the situation began to change.

More and more people believed that the fleet would not return and that the crew members were dead. As a result, the old parents cried all day long; the wife was teased as a widow and was urged by her brothers to remarry; the land and property were also coveted by the brothers of the same clan, who said they were worried that the woman would remarry and fall into the hands of outsiders.

As for the child being bullied and called a fatherless wild kid, that is not worth mentioning.

Over the years, the family members have endured no less than the crew members, so the group decided to pay to bring them from all over to Pudong to welcome their loved ones back from the long voyage and give the crew members a surprise. Then they will attend various grand celebrations together. Most importantly, spend a reunion year together.

Although it costs a lot, it is what they deserve.

~~

Jiangnan is the group’s headquarters, with a population a hundred times that of Luzon and the citizens having the highest level of education.

In order to make better use of this round-the-world voyage to inspire the people of the Ming Dynasty, especially the young people, to have a thirst for knowledge and exploration of the world and lead China into the Age of Exploration, the group has spent a lot of effort on popular science since the fleet set out, hired people to write storytelling and drama, and printed a newspaper called "Global News" that continuously introduced what was seen and heard along the way, which has aroused the attention of Jiangnan citizens to the Age of Exploration.

Although there was basically no movement last year, as soon as the group received the news from Luzon, it immediately started to publicize it with great fanfare, wishing to let the entire Ming Dynasty know that our ship was fine and that the earth really was round!

With all the publicity, who wouldn't want to witness the historic moment of the fleet's return? Who wouldn't want to see if Captain Lin Feng was a man or a woman? I heard that even the daughter of the Prime Minister and Mr. Zhao's wife were on the ship, so I had to take a closer look.

As a result, thousands of ships of all sizes gathered at the Yangtze River estuary that morning, and the shores of Pudong and Chongming were filled with people watching the excitement.

When the fleet passed the 1,500-meter-long dike at Wusongkou and entered the Huangpu River, Pudong and Puxi were already crowded with people, with no end in sight. The crowds on both sides extended all the way to the Pudong wharf more than ten miles away, with at least a million people!

Although wherever the fleet passed through on its return journey from Luzon, the people lined the streets to warmly welcome it and cheered and sent it off, the crew members were still shocked by the grand scene before them.

No one expected that this sea voyage would touch the hearts of hundreds of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty.

Well, actually many people came just to watch the fun. But when they saw the scene of the crowd welcoming and the stars praising the moon, and were in such a fanatical environment, they all had a strong impulse -

A man should be like this! Go to sea, go to sea, go to sea!

When the fleet docked at the Pudong Wharf on the riverside, firecrackers blasted, gongs and drums roared, dragon and lion dances were performed, and the people shouted wildly and intoxicatedly. The atmosphere was extremely heated.

Before the ship was moored, some sharp-eyed crew members saw their parents, wives and children. They were so excited that they burst into tears and waved and shouted to them desperately. They wished they could jump off the ship and hug their long-lost relatives.

The family members on the shore also recognized their sons and husbands one after another, and they cried, laughed, waved and shouted vigorously. The celebration site instantly turned into a large-scale family recognition scene.

Someone started singing the song "Mom, We're Back from the Voyage" again, which soon triggered a chorus, and the singing was even more heartfelt than the last time in the Dongmen Strait.

The crew members burst into tears. It was not until this moment that they suddenly realized that no fame or fortune was more important than returning home safely and reuniting with their families.

~~

On the pier, between the colorful pavilions one after another, the yellow earth pavement and the red carpet covered the ground, and countless flowers and colorful silks decorated the celebration platform.

In addition to the group's senior executives headed by Jiang Xueying, the Yingtian Governor Wu Shilai also led Susong Military Preparations Director Niu Mowang, Suzhou Prefect He Wenwei, Songjiang Prefect Jin Xuezeng and other important figures from Jiangnan all came to show their support.

However, Zhao Hao has always disliked joining in such fun, and now all the officials in Jiangnan are his own people, so there is nothing to socialize with.

So he left the scenery to Lin Feng and the crew members on the long voyage, and he and Zhang Xiaojing quietly got off the Liu Daxia first, and took a small boat to the farthest pier away from everyone's sight to land.

On the pier, there were Li Mingyue, Ma Xianglan, Qiaoqiao and his seven children waiting to greet them.

As soon as the women met, they hugged each other excitedly and cried loudly, scolding Xiao Zhuzi for being cruel. They didn't care about Zhao Hao for a while.

Master Zhao stared at his seven children.

Come, let daddy take a good look.

The only older ones were three sons and one daughter, naturally Shixiang, Shiqi, Shifu and Xiaotang. They should all be five years old.

The one who is not so good is Shili, who is almost four years old.

The youngest pair of twins, Shiwei and Xiaobei, are less than one year old.

Zhao Hao was dazzled by the cute little dolls.

They are all cute, but I can’t tell which is which…

When he was a child, he couldn't tell the four, five, and seven Calabash Brothers apart. Later, when he became a teacher, he also turned the seven disciples into Calabash Brothers to satisfy his own evil taste.

Unexpectedly, he became the father of Calabash Brothers. Young Master Zhao exclaimed, "What a great guy!" It is true that if you keep thinking about something, it will definitely come true.

Fortunately, I am not a fan of Saint Seiya...

The kids were much simpler, all of them kept calling him daddy and father. None of them were shy, and I don’t know if it was because their mothers educated them well, or because there were too few fathers and the little ones were afraid that they wouldn’t get enough…

Except for the two youngest ones, of course.

"Oh, what good kids." Zhao Hao kissed them one by one, and then used the simple method of elimination to pick up his eldest daughter and fourth son.

As for the eldest, second and third children, he really couldn't tell them apart, so he could only let them watch from the side.

Young Master Zhao smiled and asked his children in his arms, "Xiaotang, Shili, do you miss your daddy?"

"I thought about it." The two children said in a baby voice.

"How much do you miss it?"

"It's something to think about..."

~~

The family then boarded several luxurious carriages and, taking advantage of the empty streets and the busy roads, returned to Jinmao Garden in Lujiazui... That was the Zhao family's residence in Shanghai.

The 'Benz' luxury four-wheeled carriage produced by the Shanghai Carriage Factory ran on the smooth cement road with almost no bumps.

Li Mingyue and Zhang Xiaojing were in the same car. They were both good girls who even had one man. After being separated for such a long time, they naturally had a lot to talk about.

"Mingyue, you are so amazing. You gave birth to another pair of twins, a boy and a girl." Zhang Xiaojing said with great envy.

"Of course, this is our family tradition! Maybe it will be the same even if we have another child!" Li Mingyue was so proud. "That will really make Xueying's nose crooked."

Although she is already a mother of four children, she only cared about giving birth to them and not raising them, and never fed them a sip of milk. As a result, not only has her figure remained the same as when she was a girl, but even her temper has not changed much from when she was a girl.

She has always been resentful about the fact that the eldest son of the Zhao family was born to Jiang Xueying, so she can only overwhelm the other party by outnumbering him.

"You, why are you still like a child? You should behave like a princess." Zhang Xiaojing said with a wry smile.

"Hey, it can't be changed. My mother is already the eldest princess, but she is still the same as before..." Li Mingyue blushed and quickly changed the subject:

"Xiao Jing, you have to hurry up, or else the kids will be late."

"Yes." Zhang Xiaojing nodded shyly.

"How about this. When we have a company meeting later, I suggest giving you the 'shared mount' for exclusive use for a few months so that you can concentrate on the big things first..." Li Mingyue suggested righteously.

At this time, the carriage left the concrete road and went onto a gravel road, and the carriage began to shake a little.

"Ugh..." Zhang Xiaojing suddenly covered her mouth and started to dry heave.

"What's wrong? Are you carsick?" Li Mingyue asked hurriedly, patting her back. Then she thought, how could she get carsick when she was at sea for more than three years and she didn't even get carsick?

So there is only one possibility.

"Good fellow, it seems I don't have to worry about it anymore..." The little princess couldn't help but exclaimed: "As soon as you met, you really got down to work."

ps. Damn, I just finished one chapter, I'll keep writing, you can read it tomorrow morning...

(End of this chapter)