Aztec Eternals

The Zaire River, the Congo River, the longest river in Black Africa. It runs from east to west, 10,000 miles long, 200 meters deep, and 20 miles wide at the mouth of the river. Since the formation of the Pleistocene, the Congo River has flowed turbulently for two million years. It completely witnessed the origin of human beings, gave birth to prehistoric civilization, and also preserved the last traces of dinosaurs.

And today, for the first time, it appears in the eyes of Western explorers, witnessing the advent of a new era.

The expedition leader, flagship captain Diogo Kang silently made a sign of the cross on his chest. Where there are rivers with fresh water, there are people and tribes. Where does this river lead? What is at the end? At this point no one knows.

The fleet first patrolled the river mouth for a while, but did not find any dangerous enemies or beasts for the time being. The sailor observed the distant cooking smoke and determined that it was necessary to go deep into the rainforest. Immediately, Captain Diogo Kang commanded the flagship and led the fleet into the mouth of the river.

"Bruno Kahn, measure the water depth!" commanded Diogo Kahn, the ship's king, sternly.

Bruno, a senior sailor, began to fasten the rope tightly to the plumb weight, and then threw it into the river. Paul is there to help. The rope sank quickly and soon came to an end.

"Captain, the rope is exhausted." Bruno reported respectfully.

"Tie the spare cable and continue to measure." The captain's will must be absolutely obeyed. On the sea, there are two contradictory iron rules, one is strict hierarchy, and the other is one person, one vote.

The sailors were busy for a while again, until the cable was added three times, the rope finally became soft, and the plumb weight hit the bottom.

"How many?"

"Three cables, uh, 230 meters!" Bruno counted with his fingers for a while before shouting in shock. He can do basic math, which is why the captain calls him to measure.

Two hundred and thirty meters! Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay. The depth of this kind of river even exceeded that of some offshore seas.

Captain Diogo Kang nodded silently. With such an astonishing depth, all ships in the world do not need to worry about running aground. He commanded the exploration fleet to go up the river to find the source of the cooking smoke. Along the way, the measured water depth remained at about 200 meters.

There are dense rainforests on both sides of the bank, and in the rainforest are flying birds, faint beasts, crocodiles pretending to be dead, and buzzing mosquitoes everywhere.

Brunolu looked at the mosquitoes on the river with disgust. They had already gathered into mosquito clusters visible to the naked eye, whistling like a whirlwind. The warm wind blows through the sailboats, bringing a fresh human scent, and the mosquitoes gradually approach, like bloodthirsty spirits.

"These damned tropical mosquitoes! One of them is as big as my finger, and I don't know how painful it will be if I get bitten!" Brunolu put on the noble hat tightly, tied up the neckline, cuffs and trouser legs, and hid his body in the In the robes of nobles.

"Hey, Brother Brunolu. As a man, he is not afraid of bloodshed and a knife, so why are you afraid of mosquitoes!" Paul was wearing a bunt carelessly, and drove away the mosquitoes with his hands indifferently. "I have some doubts now, if my sister follows you, will she be able to live a happy life?"

"Damn it, when your sister follows me, you'll know when the time comes! By the way, tell me, do the natives here have gold?" Bruno Lu looked at the smoke rising from nowhere, and the longing in his heart was like a cat scratching itch.

"There must be! But I don't know how much. Fodesse! Last time we worked all night, we ended up with two pieces of gold, which was not enough. Everyone almost started working." Paul also looked expectantly at the smoke in the distance. He subconsciously licked his lips, and touched the scimitar at his waist.

At this moment, a thin native warrior suddenly appeared on the bank of the river. He wore red feathers on his head, like a canopy of grass. Around the neck is a necklace of bones. These are the hallmarks of veteran fighters.

In his left hand, the native warrior held a long wooden shield half a person's height, and in his right hand he held a nearly two-meter-long spear. At the top was a palm-length and half-palm-wide iron spearhead. The fine iron gleamed coldly in the sun. He was only wearing a loincloth, but he spread the thick mud and dung evenly all over his body. Mosquitoes flew past him peacefully, and occasionally one or two landed on his hands, just like obedient pets. .

The indigenous warriors crushed the mosquitoes to death and threw them into their mouths. The tribes in the rainforest have a long tradition of eating mosquitoes, because there are so many mosquitoes that they can be kneaded into dough. Mosquitoes are the best protein supplement, and the source is far more stable than hunting. He looked at the huge boat on the river with some doubts, and the faint white man on the boat.

The priests of the tribe mentioned the boats floating on the water in various parts of the northwest, as well as the huge roaring weapons on the plateau in the far northeast. So, he knew it was a ship, not a beast. But such a big boat, with such a big two pieces of cloth, and white-skinned aliens?

Seeing the native warriors on the shore, Paul narrowed his eyes, picked up the early arquebus in the weapon barrel, and began to reload. Bruno next to him was a little puzzled.

"Paul, what are you going to do?"

"Fodesse! Iron spear native with chicken feathers! This is a real hard stubble, fast and hard, my last brother is so bad. Let me kill him while he is stupid now! Save the later Meet ashore."

In less than half a minute, Paul finished loading and lit the matchlock, just like a well-trained elite musketeer. He put the matchlock on the ship's side and began to aim with one eye.

"The captain hasn't spoken yet, don't be stupid!" Bruno eagerly pressed the matchlock gun, trying to stop it.

"Let him shoot!" Captain Diogo Kang came to the side at some point. Perhaps, although his eyes were looking out of the ship, his ears could always hear everything on the ship clearly.

Bruno shrank his hands obediently. Paul was taken aback for a moment, looked at the captain's majestic face, his hands trembled slightly, and then he pulled the trigger.

Driven by the trigger, the metal hook pushed the match into the fire door, and the match immediately ignited the black powder. There was a huge roar in an instant, and a lead bullet was fired at an initial velocity of 200 meters per second. The kinetic energy was quickly turned into heat energy under the air resistance. In less than a second, the hot bullet hit a land nearly ten meters away from the native warrior. On the ground outside, a canopy of mud was splashed.

"Good marksmanship!"

The captain nodded. The shooting deviation at a distance of nearly 200 meters was less than ten meters. He was indeed an elite musketeer. Due to the lack of rifling, the accuracy of early matchlock guns can only be maintained within a hundred meters. After the matchlock gun exceeds this distance, if it wants to kill effectively, it can only be covered by the probability of large-scale shooting.

Hearing the loud noise and seeing the splashing soil, the native warrior subconsciously stepped back. He galloped in two steps, bowed and hid behind a tree, and waited for more than ten seconds without hearing the roaring attack again.

Only then did he get up from behind the tree, facing the big boat on the river, waved the spear and wooden shield in his hand, roaring angrily and helplessly. And on the deck of the sailing ship, there are neatly dressed noble captains with swords, and cruel sailors holding matchlock guns and short knives.

This image is so symbolic! Just under the witness of the Congo River, a new era has come! The same picture will appear again, in Angola, in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, in Mozambique, in Mombasa, in Somaliland, and then out of Africa, to the coast of the Red Sea, to India, across Sri Lanka, to the Spice Islands, across the Straits of Malacca, To the Philippines, to Taiwan, and finally to Japan and China.

When later generations open the world map, follow the important shipping routes, and see a series of mountains, islands, straits, ports and colonies with western names, they may have some feelings about the adventures and conquests that have taken place!

Under the attack of European expedition ships and warships, America will be ruthlessly destroyed, and the colonists will take away everything in America. And Africa will be brutally plundered, and under the protection of tropical diseases, the colonists will stop outside the African rainforest.

On the corpses of American civilized babies and the flesh and blood of African civilized children, the juvenile European civilization is growing rapidly, growing step by step into a giant that conquers everything at a speed ten times that of the past millennium.

They will have larger ships, better guns, and various cannons on board to claim the wealth of the world. Then strengthen your own strength and establish a more efficient killing system until you put cannons at the gates of Asian countries.

The final European giants occupy the entire world, bringing the world to destroy each other's war, just like the evening in Norse mythology. Everything is like an ancient cycle, towards the fate that has been predicted!

If no one changes, all Shulot's "memories" will continue to repeat themselves. History flows like the Congo River, sweeping towards the future of different races with an irresistible trend of the times, which has determined the rise and fall of five hundred years since then!

Seeing the roar of the native warriors facing the sailboat and muskets, Captain Diogo Kang frowned.

"Aren't you afraid of big ships and muskets? Good iron weapons and a strong desire to fight. This is a professional fighter. With such a huge freshwater resource, there must be a large tribe with inheritance nearby!"

"Bosun! Keep an eye on the sailors, and you are not allowed to go ashore privately! Before you find out the strength of the indigenous tribes here, put away all your bandit postures for me!"

Diogo Kang scanned the sailors majestically, and his sharp eyes stayed on Paul's fierce face for a moment. He didn't continue to inspect his subjects until the other party lowered their heads. Everyone bowed their heads in obedience. The flag officer played the semaphore and told other fleets to "caution, stay on guard."

The fleet patrolled upstream for a day, and everyone spent another day on the boat until they saw the first village. Following the fleet, dozens of tribal warriors have been attracted to the river bank, and there are six or seven indigenous warriors wearing feathers.

Diogo Kahn sent Bruno and the Fon interpreter to present gifts of glass beads to the elders of the village, and the elders returned feathers and some food.

This place also belongs to the Niger-Congo language family. The Fon people speak the Fon language in the language family, and the tribe here is a kind of Congo language. The village elders of the Feng nationality invited the priest, and the translator of the Feng nationality could barely communicate with the priest, and then the two sides conveyed to each other.

Bruno looked at the gold bracelet and headdress of the village elder, with unquenchable longing in his eyes. But looking at the dozens of iron spear warriors behind the elder, and hearing the reply from the translator of the Feng clan, he could only put his longing in his heart.

"This is the land ruled by Mwene Congo, blessed by the gods. The great chief owns hundreds of tribal villages. The voodoo twelve priests listen to the orders of the gods. One hundred warriors guard the kingdom of the gods! Aliens People, I accept your friendship and return the greetings of the gods."

As he spoke, the village elder handed over a large piece of wrapped skirt tree leaves. The leaves are somewhat like palm trees in southern China, with a very tough texture.

If the tribal elders are not lying, then there will be an unexpectedly powerful native kingdom here, which is far from being comparable to the loose and weak tribes on the Gold Coast.

Bruno took the leaf, a plant leaf he had never seen before. He smelled the long strips of leaves, which carried a special fragrance. He looked left and right, and many aborigines were wearing grass skirts woven from leaves. And when he finally opened the leaf full of anticipation and took a look, it turned out to be a small, baked mosquito cake inside!

Bruno Lu felt extremely disgusted. He rewrapped the leaves and put them away, but with a big smile on his face. Since the other side has enough force, the two sides also have a basis for friendship.

The meeting ended in a friendly and sincere atmosphere, and then they said goodbye to each other. The tribal warriors surrounded the village elders and watched the big boat and the white-skinned alien leave with enthusiasm.

On board, Bunolu reported the results of the initial meeting to Captain Diogo Kahn. Hearing that there is a powerful native kingdom here, everyone was surprised.

The captain, Diogo Kang, was lost in thought. The current fleet is only one hundred and fifty sailors and soldiers, and a few missionaries. If there is really a powerful kingdom upstream, once reckless sailors clash with them, the exploration fleet will inevitably suffer heavy losses. After thinking about it for a moment, the captain decided not to take any risks, but to finish the important business first.

"The fleet returns to the estuary!"

The flagship raised the semaphore of "follow, return", and the fleet turned around easily on the wide river and turned back to the western estuary.

"Damn! Disgusting black natives, pagans who deserve to go to Hell!"

With a look of disgust on his face, Bruno took out the bag of leaves given by the elders of the village, and raised his hand to throw it into the river. But then he saw the strange shape of the leaves. Scholars at the Palace of Sintra appear to be collecting new herbaria? It seems that a lot of money has been paid.

After thinking for a while, Bruno unfolded the leaves, threw the mosquito cake inside into the river, folded the leaves of his skirt and stuffed them into his arms. He didn't notice that since he took the leaves with him, the number of mosquitoes following him had decreased by 90% on the way back.

"Hey, Brother Bruno, did that village elder wear a gold headband just now? I saw it twinkling on the boat." Paul's eyes were full of longing, and he leaned over to inquire.

"Don't think about it, it is said that there are ten thousand warriors with iron spears here, if you come here for a few hundred, we have to explain it here. Tenho saudades! Not only the gold head ring, he also has a gold bracelet!" Bruno was serious at first The answer, and then fell into the frustration of not being able to get what you want.

"Fodesse! 10,000 soldiers?! Fodesse! Bah, what a liar! The kingdom has at most 30,000 uneven troops, and he said there are at least one-third of the kingdom here?" Paul widened his eyes and shouted Yelling, obviously disbelieving.

At this time, the Kingdom of Portugal had a population of 1.5 million, and based on the military-to-civilian ratio of 1:50, it was only 30,000 troops. Cavalry also consume many times the food supply than infantry.

Bruno shrugged. He didn't believe it either, but the captain had given orders to return. The two could only look at the distant village and fell into the melancholy of the Portuguese man.

Another day's return journey, the fleet returned to the mouth of the Congo River into the South Atlantic Ocean. Captain Diogo Kahn found a suitable harbor by the mouth of the river, and the fleet anchored here.

Then, the sailors began to land and set up camp. The captain Diogo Kang, who was dressed in aristocratic attire, was well-dressed and solemn. Because today is a special day.

Captain Diogo Kahn found a high ground near the river. He ordered the sailors to bring in a padro, the explorer's pillar, which had been prepared in a small boat. At the top of the stone pillar is the cross representing God, below the cross is the coat of arms symbolizing the Portuguese royal family, and further down is the inscription carved just yesterday.

"By the grace of Almighty God, and under the patronage of the great King João II of Portugal and of the Algarves, Diogo Congo, son of a nobleman, first discovered the Congo River and its basin on August 28, 1482. He put This rich land and people are dedicated to the great Kingdom of Portugal, and the royal family has the absolute right to this land as promised by God! This right is unquestionable! Pray for King Alfonso V who embraces the kingdom of God! Pray for us!"

This stone pillar symbolizes the first discovery and occupation of the land by Portugal. As for the original owner of this land? Weak native kingdoms are not recognized by civilized countries in Europe. To Westerners, this is no man's land!

When night fell, bonfires were lit. More than a hundred sailors and soldiers from seven ships gathered together. The chaplains on board light the prayer candles. Today is a special day, the one-year anniversary of the embrace of the Kingdom of God by the former King Alfonso V.

In fact, the sailors have no affection for the king, and it doesn't matter whether they commemorate it or not. But those who really control the fleet are, after all, the noble children who are loyal to the king. Everyone dressed in formal attire, obeyed the priest's guidance, and began to pray for the king and themselves.

"Holy Saint Alfonso,

My great king,

Please pray for us!

That glorious Trinity in heaven.

"

"In the light of Almighty God,

Give me living faith,

Think wisely about all people, things and events.

I offer you my sincere devotion,

Uplift my eternal soul with an ephemeral body,

As you have chosen.

Love for Jesus puts me in the holy fire,

I long for his sacrament,

Burning with passion to spread his glory.

"

"Through your mighty intercession,

Help me fulfill my duty to God,

Save myself and the whole world!

Infinite faith in the Virgin Mary,

Bless the purity of my soul,

bless every day of my life,

Keep me from deadly sin,

Obtain for me the grace of a happy death.

Amen.

"

"O God, seeker of peace and great pious,

Glory to St. Alfonso of Portugal,

He took the land from the heathen,

Through his efforts,

We create the glory of God,

Therefore they are called children of God.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

In the unity of the Holy Spirit,

an eternal God,

Reign forever!

Amen.

"

"Father, thank you for the wonderful gift you have given us,

Thank you for the example of San Alfonso, Portugal.

No matter the hardships and tribulations,

We will always be loyal to you.

To you this new land and lamb!

Through the mighty intercession of Saint Alfonso,

We implore your protection and honor,

We beseech you for wealth and strength,

Let us find our way to the East,

Let us find the kingdom of mighty King John,

The people of God will unite,

Let the glory of God shine on the world!

For 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will

called children of God. '

We ask all this through Jesus Christ,

Looking forward to the ultimate peace.

Amen.

"

"Pray for us and bless Saint Alfonso.

In order to make us worthy of the promise of Christ.

San Alfonso of Portugal,

Pray for the strength of our nation.

Saint Alfonso, please pray for us!

Saint Alfonso, please pray for us!

Saint Alfonso, please pray for us!

"

Although Alfonso V was not canonized, this did not prevent the king's people from praying for him with the ritual of a saint. In the pious Middle Ages, every Catholic believer has a natural obligation to spread religion. They must become flames, bringing light to the world, and burning away all impurities at the same time. Why unclean? In these cruel times, the meaning speaks for itself.

More than a hundred nobles, sailors, soldiers and missionaries shared an evening of tranquility and joy. They dedicated the land of the Congo River to God, and gained inner satisfaction and comfort in this land far away from their hometown. They also made their requests to God, and at the same time firmly believed in God's protection.

They seem to have returned to their peaceful hometown. Of course, there would not be so many mosquito swarms that stay up all night and all year round in my hometown.

Early the next morning, the captain, Diogo Kahn, was preparing to set off. He would continue on to explore the sea route to the south. Diogo Kang took only six boats, leaving one at the mouth of the river, and gave the remaining boat an important mission.

"Bruno Kang! I leave you with 20 people and a ship. You have to get in touch with the native kingdom upstream! As the son of a nobleman, you can temporarily represent the kingdom. Remember to maintain good relations with powerful tribes, Get maps and information as much as you can, and find out about King John's kingdom! After the mission is completed, stay at the mouth of the river and wait for my return. God bless us!"

Captain Diogo Kang gave a serious order, and he ordered the sailors to use their lives to complete the land exploration.

"Follow your orders, honorable captain. God bless us!"

Bruno was so excited that he almost burst into tears. This is the hero's mission. He will represent the great and civilized Kingdom of Portugal, and make the first contact with the backward and barbaric Congo natives!

Captain Diogo Kang nodded, and he set off with one hundred and thirty men. The six Calavia sailboats nimbly sailed away from the river mouth and headed for the unknown south. There, what awaited them was a new land, the coast of South Angola.

Bruno took Paul and the sailors, driving the sailing ship for exploration. Surrounded by mosquitoes, they headed up the Congo River again.

I wrote a lot without knowing it. It is really full of emotion, the rise of the West! The great voyage affected and changed the destiny of the entire world, sacrificed America and Africa, and brought about the true rise of Europe. There are one or two chapters to end the plot of the voyage and return to the protagonist. The prayers here are based on the Portuguese St. Elizabeth's prayers. If there are believers, I would like to apologize here. Finally ask for support!