Chapter 15: Life-saving Grace
Ahead of the bow tilting toward the sea surface was a patch of pitch-black void.
They had been lifted to an unknown height by the surging waves, and below the waves was like an endless black abyss.
“Hold on!” Lin Qian half-squatted down, gripping the ship’s helm tightly with both hands.
In an instant, the Fuchuan ship crested the wave and plunged toward the void.
In a moment, the bow crashed onto the sea surface with a boom, wooden boards splintering and flying everywhere, the entire bow plunging into the sea as pitch-black seawater surged onto the deck.
Just then, the stern dropped, and the bow rose high out of the sea again.
The ship’s bottom smashed through the seawater, emitting a deafening roar, seawater carrying floating wood streaming down from around the deck.
The Fuchuan ship escaped from the jaws of death and floated up from the sea again.
The ship workers could hardly believe they were still alive.
“The wind has weakened, hoist half sail!” Lin Qian shouted.
The rope men struggled to climb up and hoist sail.
Then they crested over another dozen surging waves, the wind weakening considerably, and Lin Qian called for the sails to be fully hoisted.
After sailing for an unknown time, faint light appeared on the eastern sea surface, and the wind and waves gradually subsided.
After sailing south for another half hour, the sea was calm, the sun rose above the sea surface, and the sky for thousands of miles was clear as washed.
That world-destroying hurricane from moments ago seemed as if it had never existed.
Only the damaged bow and soaked clothes proved everything that had happened last night.
“Are we dead or did we survive?”
A ship worker asked in a daze.
“Bullshit, you’re the one who’s dead.”
The ship workers looked at each other speechless and slumped onto the deck one after another, like boneless lumps of meat.
As they looked at each other, smiles gradually appeared on the bewildered faces of the ship workers.
Only now did Lin Qian feel the after-fear; even modern sailboats made with countless high-precision materials would struggle to escape a typhoon.
In fact, this typhoon was within Lin Qian’s expectations.
The reason he set sail on the twenty-fifth of the third month was precisely because the weather matched the precursors of an approaching typhoon.
His original plan was to use the typhoon to shake off the Spaniards’ pursuit.
The Fuchuan ship, entirely wooden, was not prone to sinking, and Chinese lug sails resisted storms better than lateen sails, Bermuda sails, or soft sails.
As early as when loading cargo, Lin Qian was preparing to withstand the storm.
He didn’t have the cargo holds filled full, but instead had one layer stacked in each cabin close to the ship’s bottom, serving as ballast stones to effectively lower the Fuchuan ship’s center of gravity, preventing capsizing in the giant waves.
Influenced by the Coriolis effect, typhoons in the Northern Hemisphere rotate counterclockwise.
Therefore, when the wind direction on the sea surface shifted from southeast to northwest, Lin Qian knew they had entered the typhoon’s southwest quadrant.
And typhoon paths across East Asia generally moved from southeast to northwest.
So sailing south was Lin Qian’s quickest way to break away from the typhoon.
In other words, what Lin Qian did seemed thrilling and perilous, but was actually all within a meticulous plan.
Facing a typhoon, nature’s most violent force, to survive, courage alone or wisdom alone is not enough.
Recalling the wondrous sights like waterspouts and giant waves seen in the typhoon hours ago, Lin Qian felt as if a lifetime had passed.
Also due to excessive adrenaline secretion, now Lin Qian felt only his steering arms shaking uncontrollably, his whole body extremely weak.
He called a ship worker to take the helm and leaned against the stern rail to rest.
Facing the beautiful scene of the sun rising in the east, Lin Qian felt a cup of coffee would make it perfect.
Chen Jiao gazed at Lin Qian from afar, expression complex; others might not know the difficulty of crossing a typhoon, but he knew it clearly.
Legend had it that when the Three Treasures eunuch sailed to the Western Ocean, they too encountered a typhoon; the fleet was helpless and could only drop the peace anchor, burn incense to pray to the Heavenly Queen, waiting for the storm to dissipate on its own.
An act like Lin Qian’s, sailing through the storm, was simply unheard of.
Now recalling Lin Qian’s refusal to abandon cargo, tacking against the wind, and lowering and hoisting sails in the typhoon—all were prudent measures, without any recklessness.
Instead, he himself had publicly challenged Lin Qian, not only failing to help but desperately holding things back.
At this thought, Chen Jiao felt utterly ashamed and walked heavily to Lin Qian.
“Helmsman, I…”
Lin Qian patted his shoulder: “No need to say more, surviving is good enough. Go tally the casualties and losses.”
Although Chen Jiao was more than twenty years older than Lin Qian and nominally the elder brother, at that moment he had no thought of acting superior as an elder, instead willingly following Lin Qian’s orders, nodding and walking away.
“We actually crossed the typhoon.” Catherine muttered to herself incredulously, looking at Lin Qian with a complex expression.
Spain was the world’s foremost sea power nation, and every young person dreamed of sailing the seas.
Catherine had been obsessed with sails and the sea since childhood, hoping one day to gain supreme glory on the ocean like famous navigators Dias, Columbus, and da Gama.
Because women were not allowed on ships, she dressed in men’s clothing every day.
No one was willing to teach her navigation, so she went to the shipyard to learn every week by herself.
All along, she believed she had mastered all the knowledge needed for voyages, lacking only an opportunity.
But facing the typhoon, she realized how far short she fell.
In the gale and pouring rain, her limbs went weak and her mind blank.
When plummeting from the wave crest, she even fainted briefly.
If not tied to the mast, she would surely have been buried in the sea by now.
Not to mention her—even captains of the oldest noble bloodlines facing such a violent Southeast Asian typhoon would meet certain shipwreck and death.
And this crude yellow-skinned pig pirate had actually barged through the typhoon unscathed.
She clearly remembered Lin Qian’s figure roaring orders to the crew amid the surging giant waves.
Although she couldn’t understand his words, the firmness in them briefly dispelled her fear, like a beam of light piercing leaden clouds.
After resting a moment, Lin Qian’s limbs gradually regained strength, and he began supporting himself on the ship’s rail to inspect the ship’s body.
Wherever he passed, all crew members held their breath, gazing at him intently, eyes full of fervor.
Some ship workers who had been talking gradually lowered their voices as he neared, eyes fixed on Lin Qian.
To the ship workers, whether the Sea Dragon King rolled over or the Third Matron raged, it was a deadly peril with no survival.
When the wind and waves were fiercest, many were too scared to move a step, already considering themselves dead inside.
Yet Lin Qian had snatched the lives of everyone on the ship back from the Sea Dragon King’s grasp.
Such a deed was simply unheard of.
The ship workers were mostly extremely superstitious; had they not lived and eaten with Lin Qian on the ship, knowing he was mere mortal flesh, some would believe he was Mazu’s emissary.
“Chen Bo, your forehead is injured? There’s still some trauma medicine in the hold…” Lin Qian asked concernedly when passing the cook.
As a result, Cook Chen Bo knelt directly and prepared to kowtow.
Lin Qian stopped him: “What are you doing?”
Chen Bo: “Helmsman, this life-saving grace… Old Chen remembers it!”
As soon as he spoke, many surrounding ship workers reacted and moved to kneel.
Lin Qian couldn’t stop so many and accepted the collective bow, then said loudly: “We’re all on the same ship, sharing life and death—we’re brothers. There’s no need for brothers to kowtow thanks. Everyone, stand up.”
Those making a living on ships were strong-willed folk, rarely sentimental; hearing this, they felt at ease and stood one after another, respect for Lin Qian even greater in their gazes.
Lin Qian sent people to tally the ship’s losses.
Moments later, someone reported: “Helmsman, it’s clear: the storm swept away two brothers, the bow is badly damaged, otherwise no losses.”
“Mm, for the deceased ship workers, record their names and deliver consolation silver to their families when possible.” Lin Qian ordered. “Come, let’s check the bow.”
The Fuchuan ship’s bow is flat, without a bow sprit, lacking one spritsail compared to the galleon.
But precisely so, bow damage had little effect on navigation, merely seawater leaking into the cabins through the gaps.
Lin Qian called Mute Huang to lead people in simply repairing the bow, first blocking the gaps, with thorough repairs after docking.
Then Lin Qian inspected the cabins; most cargo holds were intact.
Only one or two cargo holds soaked in seawater, their cloves and cardamom basically ruined, but the silver ingot and silver coin boxes intact.
In total, losses were just over a thousand taels of silver, well within acceptable bounds.
After all, this voyage’s most important cargo was not cloves or cardamom, nor silver ingots or silver coins, but that Spanish woman on the mast.
At this thought, Lin Qian instructed the ship workers to repair the leaking cargo holds and salvage the soaked goods.
He himself left the cabins and walked toward Catherine.
Approaching, Lin Qian’s gaze sharpened, a playful smile on his face.
Before him was a scene of tremendous visual impact.
