Under the candlelight, Yuwen Wen looked at a sketch. The painting was painted by members of the expedition team. The painting was a sea ship sailing on the sea, at least thirty miles from the coast, and this sea ship was made of straw poles.

Yes, a sea ship woven from countless bales of straw.

At that time, Zhou's sea ships were located in the waters near the equator, and land could be seen in the southeast, while several sea ships made of straw poles were fishing in the offshore areas.

These fishermen are naturally local fishermen, and their hulls are made of straw poles, but each boat is not small in size and looks like a banana tree.

The size is similar to ordinary fishing boats along the Central Plains coast, so when the crew of the Zhou Kingdom Expedition Team saw clearly that these ships were not built on wooden boards but were woven from straw poles, they could not believe their eyes.

Because it is located in the equatorial area, the weather is hot, and the local indigenous fishermen have a slightly darker complexion and are dressed differently than in the Central Plains. After the expedition team expressed their kindness by giving away colorful glass beads, they carefully boarded this straw boat and studied it carefully.

It was discovered that these ships were made of reeds, probably tied up the reeds into bundles, and then weaved them to form the hull.

Although the indigenous fishing hulls were woven with reeds, they could maintain the necessary strength and did not require iron nails at all. The sails had hard sails woven with reeds and soft sails made of cloth.

The cloth is cotton.

The wefts of cotton cloth are quite dense, and it can be seen that it is qualified cotton textiles. Either the areas where these fishermen belong to have certain cotton spinning capabilities, or these people can buy cotton cloth of good quality from elsewhere through transactions.

Such discovery surprised the Zhou Dynasty's expedition members because everyone did not expect that there was actually cotton in the far east area thousands of miles away, and the local natives actually had cotton cloth.

The other party's navigation skills are also incredible: they are unable to build wooden boats, but they can use superb weaving techniques and use reeds to weave sea boats that can fish offshore. Larger boats can even carry nearly twenty people.

The natives were shocked by the sudden appearance of sea ships, but because the uninvited guests gave them beautiful gifts, they enthusiastically invited the Zhou Kingdom expedition members to land and visit their settlements.

Although the language is not clear, the two sides communicate by making gestures and drawing patterns, at least they have a good start.

Through a period of exchange, the expedition team members learned about the daily lives of local people. The other party’s settlement was made of wooden fences as walls, without words, knots and ropes to record things, and had some pattern symbols similar to the function of text.

Because the settlement is near the sea, it is mainly due to fish harvest and fruit collected on the shore, and prey is used as food sources.

At the same time, cotton cloth is obtained through trading with fished sea fish and inland settlements.

This settlement seems to lack iron tools, and mostly uses stone axes, stone knives, stone spears, and stone horns, so it is very popular for the iron products that the expedition team sells and gives away half-sold.

But even so, the opponent's weapons are good.

There are stone axes, stone spears, bows and arrows, spears, big sticks, and a kind of rigging for throwing stones. Throwing stones is used as a means of long-distance killing, which should be a stone catapult.

This kind of stone caster is a small woven cloth bag with a rope tied to each end. When using it, put the stones of appropriate size into the woven bag, and then use the two ropes to pull the woven bag up and throw it around in circles.

After rotating for a few times, loosen a rope, and the stones in the woven bag flew towards the target at a very fast speed and a very strong force.

How powerful can it be?

A member of the Zhou Kingdom expedition team stood at about 30 steps with an iron knife in his hand. A local stone caster threw up a woven bag and then "put the stone". The stone quickly and accurately hit the iron knife in his hand, shocking him out of his hand.

A skilled stone-cat master who uses this weapon to launch stones can cause effective damage to armorless people or prey within about thirty steps. If he hits an unprotected head, his skull will probably be smashed by the stones.

The people, objects and scenes seen by the expedition team turned into sketches, showing Yuwen Wen the customs and customs of a coastal area in the distant New World.

This area, near the equator, Yu Wenwen judged that it was probably the west coast of southern Central America and northern South America. This hospitality settlement made a living by fishing and hunting. According to sporadic news obtained from preliminary exchanges, it seems that there is a large coastal city in the south.

How big a big city is, different standards will be explained differently.

Perhaps in the eyes of this ordinary settlement, the city is indeed very large, but after the Zhou Kingdom expedition team went there, they might find that it was just a larger village.

Yuwen Wen put down his sketches, kept them carefully, and looked at the American sketches he drew, and was in a good mood.

The expedition team took more than a year to finally open up the situation. Since they could encounter settlements and decent small towns, it means that further communication is possible.

The coastal areas may be remote areas. If you go deeper inland and you may come into contact with more prosperous cities, then decent trade can be carried out, even if there are only tribal or tribal alliance-level civilizations on the American continent at this time, it would be great.

During his lifetime, he only wanted to bring some specialty crops from America back to the Central Plains, and at the same time, he guided the right direction for exploring America.

What is the right direction?

It’s very simple. North America and the west coast of South America each have a “wall of sigh”, that is, the north-south Rocky Mountains (North America) and the Andes (South America).

If the Central Plains Exploration Team came from the West and insisted on challenging these two walls, it would only make the head beaten and bloody.

The Central Plains fleet's voyage of 20,000 miles across the sea was finally reached, but after finally reaching the shore, it still had to cross the mountains to the east, which was extremely difficult.

If you can't find a rich immigrant place in the New World, or you can't find large mines such as gold and silver, and you can't trade with local indigenous peoples, tribes, and countries, such a long voyage will be a huge loss.

No one did a loss-making business, so America became useless for the Central Plains.

The great route gradually declined, just like Zheng He's voyage to the West in the early Ming Dynasty. After changing the emperor for a few years, no one supported such a long voyage.

Such an ending was not what Yu Wen Wen wanted to see, so he had to point out the direction for the confused expedition team, pass through the gap between the two "walls of sighs", and enter the vast new world behind the wall.

The gap is Central America. As long as you break through the isthmus of Central America, you can enter the "East Sea" of America. There, you can walk north to the North American Plain, and to the southeast to the tropical rainforests and plains of South America.

The vast North American plains are enough to feed a large number of the remaining population in the Central Plains. The tropical jungle of South America is filled with countless strange flowers and plants, rare birds and animals. There are special crops such as cinchona rubber, cocoa, and tobacco.

This is the huge treasure house hidden behind the two walls, and it is the precious "legacy" left by Yuwen Wen to his descendants.
Chapter completed!