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Text Chapter 445 You actually arrived in Australia?

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    Li Min decided to go to Taiwan again. This time he took his whole family to the island for vacation. He also met the fleet exploring the sea route and asked about where they had been and what strange species and customs they had seen.  ?

    However, Li Min did not sail on the Qiwang this time, but on a newly built steamship named Tainan by Yifan Steamship Shipyard. It was the first steamship on the route from Dengzhou to Shanghai to Taiwan.  Three steamships, the first two steamships were named Keelung and Penghu respectively, both named after cities on the island of Taiwan. This was also their maiden voyage, and they were chartered by Li Min.

    The Tainan is much smaller than the Qiwang, but its speed is much faster than the Qiwang. If you take this ship to Taiwan, it will only take a few days. It is not like the previous round trip.  It will take more than a month.  Originally, Li Min wanted to transform the King of Qi into a steamship, but due to some technical limitations, the steamer could not drive a large ship like the King of Qi. Even the steamships produced by Yifan were small and medium-sized ships.  , According to Yifan, it is estimated that it will take several years of craftsmanship accumulation to produce a steamship of the size of Qi Wang.

    It is precisely because the steamship is a bit small, and although it is fast, it is much more dangerous than other large ships when encountering wind and waves, so Li Min did not ask Yifan to build a special steamship for him, even if  Li Min would not take a steamship when going to sea unless necessary. After all, safety comes first in everything, and he has always been a person who cherishes his life.

    But this time Li Min had to take a steamship, because Lu Wan's fleet was about to arrive in Taiwan, and only the speed of a steamship could allow him to catch up with the fleet.  However, Wen Xin and the others did not consider safety issues like Li Min.  They only felt that the steamship and the train were both driven by steam engines.  And the speed was astonishing, much faster than the ships they had taken before.  So they all urged Li Min to buy one for the palace so that it would be more convenient to travel in the future.  The result naturally made Li Min smile bitterly.

    The entire Tainan ship was chartered by Li Min, so there was no need to go to Shanghai anymore, and it headed directly to Taiwan Island. However, the destination this time was not Keelung City, but Tainan City. Although it was smaller than Keelung City,  The city was established later, but it developed very quickly.  In addition, Tainan faces Nanyang, and its geographical location is better than Keelung. Therefore, there has been a trend of latecomers catching up, and now it has become another major port city on the island of Taiwan.

    Li Min and the others were lucky. In summer, a season when typhoons are most common, they did not encounter too many waves along the way. Only when they were about to reach Taiwan Island, they encountered the tail of Taiwan. As a result, the entire steamship  The bumps were severe.  This made Wen Xin and others, who had long been accustomed to the smoothness of King Qi's account, exclaimed that it was too much.  However, the two children Chou Chou and Li Qi were not affected. On the contrary, the more the boat rocked, the more fun they had, in Chou Chou's words.  It's like sitting on a rocking bed, it's so fun.  As a result, Li Min was completely speechless after hearing this.

    After passing through the stormy area, the Tainan quickly arrived at Tainan City.  It¡¯s a coincidence that this is the Tainan¡¯s maiden voyage.  The first stop is also Tainan City. It seems that this ship is very destined to Tainan.

    When Li Min arrived in Tainan.  Lu Wan and his exploration fleet were still on the way. After all, they had to rest in Manila for a few days, so they were delayed. Otherwise, they would never have arrived in Taiwan later than Li Min.  When Li Min arrived in Tainan, Yan Bei, Wang Kuang, and Cui Yu also rushed back from Linyi and were preparing for the grand ceremony to welcome the fleet's return.

    When Li Min arrived in Tainan City on the morning of the third day, Lu Wan and his fleet finally arrived outside the port of Tainan City.

    Li Min and Yan Bei both attached great importance to this fleet exploring the sea route, especially the news from Lu Wan through Manila officials, telling them that the fleet had made a big discovery this time, which made them even more excited.  In order to show their grandeur, this time they specially took a boat to welcome the return of the fleet outside the port.

    Lu Wan and the others were all excited when they saw Tainan City, especially those crew members whose families were in Taiwan. They were eager to return home. However, when they saw His Highness King Qi outside the port, he greeted them personally and even  Such grandeur made them even more excited, and even made them less homesick.

    "Boom~boom~boom"

    When Li Min and Yan Bei's ship entered the port with Lu Wan and their fleet, the salute that had been prepared on the dock immediately sounded, and then amidst the exciting music and the cheers of the merchants who spontaneously came to greet them  , Li Min and Yan Bei, one on the left and one on the right, welcomed Lu Wan off the boat.  Although Lu Wan declined in every possible way and did not dare to accept such a heavy gift, Li Min insisted on doing so, so Lu Wan had no choice.

    After Lu Wan and all the crew members disembarked, on this pier, under the gaze of the surrounding people, Li Min personally hung a gold pioneering medal on Lu Wan's chest, and there were also several silver pioneering medals.  Medal, award??Feng Shijie, Liu Kata and other important figures in the fleet were given. As for the ordinary crew members, each of them also had a bronze medal.

    This was something that the entire fleet had not thought of beforehand. After all, this route opening operation was just a private operation organized by the Slave Catching Association and did not go through the official process. Therefore, Lu Wan and the others did not expect to receive the Opening Up Medal, especially since he  It is said that only a few people except Vice Admiral Lu Qing have received the gold medal on the chest. It can be said that this medal not only represents courage and wisdom, but also represents the contribution made by the medal owner to the Age of Discovery.

    Li Min naturally also knew that Lu Wan and the others were only sailing this time to open up a slave-catching land. However, as soon as this route was opened, in addition to bringing a large number of slaves, it would also attract other merchants to go south along this trade route.  They brought endless amounts of goods and money, so he awarded the Pioneering Medal to the people in the fleet.

    After the welcoming ceremony at the dock was completed, Li Min held a banquet at the newly built King Qi Courtyard in Tainan City and entertained the crew members. Moreover, Li Min and Yan Bei put down their pretensions and personally toasted the crew members. This made  All the crew members were surprised and happy, and they respected the King of Qi who was famous all over the world.

    After greeting the crew outside, Li Min and Yan Bei came to the main hall of the other courtyard. Sitting here were the more important figures in the fleet, such as Lu Wan, Feng Shijie, etc., and even Erhanzi and Picked Up  Curly Hair of Nugget Gold is also here. Although Curly Hair is not an important person, his luck is so incredible. Just that piece of Nugget Gold is enough to make him a little rich man, and Li Min heard that he  After his deeds, he was specially invited to come in and drink together.

    At the beginning of the banquet, everyone sitting in the main hall was still a little restrained, even Lu Wan. After all, he used to be just a small pirate on Taiwan Island, and now he is just a member of the Slave Catching Association. Although he was far away in the past,  I have met Li Min once, but I have never drank with Li Min like today.

    Li Min could naturally see the restraint among the people sitting there. He winked at Yan Bei, and the other party immediately understood and started to make some little jokes with Li Min, speaking in a very casual tone.  Wang Kuang and Cui Yu, who were next to them, also felt the restraint in the scene, and began to joke with Li Min like Yan Bei.

    With the guidance of the three of them, and the fact that Li Min talked and laughed without any airs, Lu Wan and the others relaxed. Coupled with Li Min and the others' deliberate guidance, Lu Wan and the others began to talk more.  The scene became even more lively.  Among them, Feng Shijie had an intersection with Li Min before, and now his sister Feng Shuyu is still in Li Min's palace, waiting for him to redeem her with money. However, the situation is not right now, and Feng Shijie cannot speak.

    After three rounds of drinking, everyone had almost eaten. Li Min began to ask Lu Wan where he passed along the way, what kind of dangers did he encounter on the way, etc.?

    Lu Wan was already prepared for Li Min's inquiry. He nodded to Feng Shijie, who immediately picked up a box from his side, opened it gently, and took out a chart made of white silk.  Then he presented his hands to Li Min.

    Li Min asked someone to take it over, and then opened the chart and found that the piece of white silk was one meter square, marking Taiwan Island as the starting point, recording the southward route of Lu Wan and the others, and marking all the islands they encountered on the way, and  Around the white silk, the longitude and latitude are also marked, which can be said to be a very accurate chart.

    "Your Highness, the islands marked on this chart are all the islands we passed. However, during our voyage, we found that there are many islands on this route. The islands we encountered are only a very small part of them, but this is not the case.  Relationship, with the development of this route in the future, more and more islands will be discovered, which can be slowly added at that time. In addition, there will be text and graphic materials recording the topography, vegetation, and native people of these islands. However,  Because there are too many documents, we haven't had time to move them off the ship yet. If His Highness wants to see them, I will have them delivered tomorrow!" Lu Wan explained.

    Li Min nodded after hearing this, and began to lower his head to carefully look at this chart that cost many lives.  Yan Bei was the instigator of this incident, so he was naturally very concerned about the contents on the chart, so he put down his wine glass and came over to look at it with Li Min.  As large merchants, Wang Kuang and Cui Yu naturally understood the value of the new route, so they all came together to watch.

    And Li Min's gaze started looking down from Keelung Port on Taiwan Island, then passed through Manila, and then went southeast around Borneo. At this time, he finally entered the Spice Islands and followed the islands all the way south until the bottom of the route, the end of the route.  Pointing to a large island with only one-third of the coastline drawn, even though it was only one-third, when Li Min saw this unknown large island, his whole body was shocked, and he blurted out to Lu Wan in shock.  : "You actually arrived in Australia?"
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