Struggle in the Steam Age

"My lord, our journey this time is much smoother than expected. The New Shaw Island should be in front of us." The captain took out the sextant and chart and checked it, and said to Lawrence with a smile on his face, " According to the current situation, we should be able to reach our destination by noon."

After all, the captain had neither been a captain nor been here before, so in this era without GPS navigation, being able to reach the destination on time or even a little earlier is already a very powerful thing.

At the same time, being able to arrive at the destination on time also shows that he is lucky. In this era, luck is an indispensable part of life at sea, especially it is even more rare to be able to sail so smoothly as a captain for the first time. So now the captain seems to be in a very good mood.

As time went on, the ships got closer and closer to the islands. At the same time, the appearance of the island also appeared in everyone's eyes: the whole island is like an upside-down straw hat, which is an image that is obviously high in the middle and low on both sides. And the highest point in the middle should be the Blue Mountains at an altitude of 2700 meters.

The reason why this mountain is called Blue Mountain is also very simple, because the whole mountain is all rocky, so the vegetation is very sparse and the mountain below can be seen. So it looks blue from a distance. Hence the name of the mountain.

As for why there are so many mountain peaks on the surrounding islands, it is normal for only this mountain to have a name on the general navigation chart. The dark blue peaks of the mountains do look a little different. And the person who named it the first place marked it on the map because the distinctive color of the mountain can be used for navigating by navigators.

As the fleet approached the island further, Lawrence found that more than a dozen islands, large and small, appeared beside the big island. According to the map handed to Lawrence at the time of the canonization, these islands are actually some outlying islands of New Sauer Island, which also belong to Lawrence, the Earl of Sauer.

But the problem is that these islands look very desolate now, and even a few islands seem to be less than one meter above the sea surface, and they may be submerged under the sea when the tide rises. It's more of a reef than an island.

"—There are more than 60 small islands around New Sauer Island, and only three of them have fresh water. Therefore, they are almost worthless. Similarly, the surrounding sea area is relatively barren." After seeing those small islands, Lawrence immediately I remembered the specific information about these small islands written on the information.

But when he raised his binoculars to look at several small islands, he could confirm that the people who wrote these records were probably just hearing about certain situations and then recorded them as facts.

Because he found that there were two small islands with relatively high altitudes in his sight, with large groups of seabirds flying around, and there were also many bird nests on the islands. According to the knowledge instilled by the God of Knowledge last time, these birds should be birds that are not very good at long-distance flying, and it is impossible for them to fly thousands of kilometers at a time like the albatross.

In other words, there must be a large-scale fishing ground nearby. It's not just a barren ocean around it as shown in the data.

But think about it, such a large island often rains, so there must be a lot of organic matter on the island that will flow into the ocean with precipitation and surface water flow, so it is normal to attract fish.

As for another resource, struvite, which may be produced after birds gather, it is estimated that there will be no such thing here. After all, struvite needs a dry climate to accumulate little by little. Just look at the island of New Sauer not far away. The lush tropical jungle, normal people can see that the precipitation in this place is definitely not small.

"I'll go up and have a look." Nora got out of the cabin at this time and quickly flew high into the sky. As her flying altitude continued to rise and her position changed, Lawrence, who shared her vision, saw a pear-shaped The big emerald green island just floats quietly on the sea, and there are some inconspicuous small islands around it.

However, because of the large size of the island, Lawrence can only see a part of the big island near the east coast. But on the coastline of at least fifty or sixty kilometers in this field of vision, they only saw two small villages.

"It feels like this island is a bit too deserted and uninhabited." Nora said directly to Lawrence after landing from the sky, "It looks like there are no more than 1,000 people living on such a long coastline."

"That's because the people on this island are mainly concentrated in the north of the island, but we are now in the southeast of the island." Butler Baier said to Nora. As a well-informed elder, he probably Guess Nora's identity. And treat her as Lawrence's sister in daily life. "Because there are more flat lands in the west, and there are also more convenient water sources."

"So that's the case! I see, Grandpa Bayer." Nora said and nodded slightly to Butler Bayer. "Then shall we drive the boat directly to Tanas Town, the largest town on the northern island, to join the others?"

"Of course not." Lawrence said at this time. "We have all kinds of tools and materials on board, so there is no need to go to Tanas Town to waste time. As for the others, I have already contacted them with the telegraph on the ship, and they will directly contact you. The boat went south to meet us."

The whole fleet first sailed westward for a while, and then turned 90° to the north and headed north after sailing to the westernmost edge of the island. At around 12:00 noon, they came to the interior of a natural bay.

In the north of this bay, a peninsula several kilometers long protrudes directly into the sea, and on the peninsula is a small mountain range of two to three hundred meters, which can just block the strong winds and huge waves blowing towards the coast.

After the fleet entered the bay along the channel at the top of the peninsula, a vast plain appeared in front of everyone. At the southernmost end of the plain, a river with a width of more than 150 meters at the sea estuary separates the plain from the hilly area further east, and at the same time provides a large amount of fresh water for the entire plain.

According to Lawrence's visual inspection, the entrance of the harbor is about 800 meters wide, and the interior is a calm bay with a depth of 2.5 kilometers and a length of 5.5 kilometers. The most wonderful thing is that there happens to be a reef about two thousand meters away from the entrance of the harbor, which can block the wind and waves from the open sea.

"It's such a good place." Lawrence sighed, and the retainers around him also nodded with satisfaction.

But in many cases, there will always be a little flaw in a perfect thing. For example, when the boat sailed into the bay through the gap, I saw a few poop-yellow goblins sticking fish on the beach or going directly into the water to catch fish with their hands. But when they saw the big boat entering the bay, they ran into the woods behind the beach and disappeared.

At first, Lawrence thought it was the goblins who saw the bad situation and wanted to escape, but what he didn't expect was that when all the ships entered the bay and sent the first batch of landers to the shore, a group of goblins suddenly came out of the woods under the leadership of the leader. He rushed out, apparently wanting to annihilate the earl's guards who had just landed.

"This should be a tribe of goblins." Lawrence, who was standing on the side of the ship, looked at the group of goblins through the binoculars and said, "It seems that they are trying to prevent us from firing by taking advantage of the fact that they are mixed with our people. It's really cunning. "

"But it's not worth worrying about, my lord." Steward Bayer also held up his binoculars and replied, "These goblins are just ordinary goblins, and there is only one goblin warrior who can fight. Although our guards only have this group of goblins." 1/3 the number of goblins, but under the command of Joseph Knight, we will surely win a brilliant victory."