Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 997 Heroic Spirit
"Is there nothing else left except this porcelain?" Wang Fuzhi asked.

The old man told him that the tombs of their ancestors were nearby, and if Wang Fuzhi and the others wanted to see them, he could take them there. As for the other things, almost none of them were left after such a long time, otherwise the young native would not have regarded a broken porcelain as a treasure.

"In that case, thank you for your help." Wang Fuzhi and Zheng Hongkui exchanged glances and thought that since they were already here, even though they had not received any information from the tribe, it would be good to go and see the cemetery where their ancestors were buried. Maybe they could find something they needed there.

The old man readily agreed, and after drinking the water, he took them to a cemetery not far away. Their tribe was different from other local tribes. The dead would be buried and cemeteries would be set up. This custom was similar to that of the Ming Dynasty.

When they arrived at the place, they saw that the cemetery looked very desolate. At a glance, there were only a few mounds of different heights. Wang Fuzhi took a look and asked the old man directly where the tombs of their ancestors were. The old man led them forward, through the cemetery in front to the innermost place, pointed to a pile of mounds that looked to be many years old and said that this was the tomb of their ancestors.

Wang Fuzhi and Zheng Hongkui stepped forward and took a closer look, but too much time had passed and the tombs had become connected. In addition, Africa has a special climate with dry and rainy seasons. These tombs had been severely damaged after more than two hundred years. In many places, they could not be seen as tombs at all. Except for the slightly raised mounds, they were no different from ordinary land.

They looked around carefully and were disappointed because they didn't see any tombstones that could prove the owner of the tomb. Maybe there was no good stone here, or maybe the tombstones had been damaged for too long. Without this thing, how could they tell?

"Let's go. They're just a few random graves. We can't be sure whether the corpses are still inside after all these years. It seems like we've come here in vain." Zheng Hongkui smiled bitterly and shook his head.

Wang Fuzhi nodded slightly, with a look of disappointment on his face. They turned around and prepared to go back. Just as they were walking back, Zheng Hongkui's left foot was tripped by something and he almost fell. Fortunately, he was good at martial arts and quickly steadied himself. However, the trip caused a dull pain in his toe. Zheng Hongkui cursed angrily and looked at the ground subconsciously. Just when he thought it was a stone that tripped him, he was suddenly stunned, rubbed his eyes with his hand, then squatted down quickly, reached out and picked up a palm-sized thing from the mud on the ground.

"Brother Ernong! Come and see! What is this!" Zheng Hongkui hurriedly shouted to Wang Fuzhi.

Wang Fuzhi turned around when he heard the voice and saw Zheng Hongkui half-squatting with something covered in mud in his hand with a look of joy on his face. He turned around and hurried over to ask what was going on and what he had discovered.

"Look!" At this time, Zheng Hongkui had wiped off the dirt on the outside of the thing with his hand. As the dirt faded away, the palm-sized thing in his hand revealed a rusty brown color, and beyond the rusty brown color, there was also a faint metallic color revealed.

"Let me take a look..." Wang Fuzhi took it quickly, and his hand sank slightly: "Is this... an iron plate?"

"Not only is it an iron plate! It's also a military waist badge!" Zheng Hongkui corrected, his face full of excitement.

He was different from Wang Fuzhi, Zheng Hongkui was a general of the Ming Dynasty, while Wang Fuzhi was a civil official. As a military officer, Zheng Hongkui was very familiar with the things in the Ming Dynasty army. This thing might not be distinguishable in the eyes of ordinary people, but Zheng Hongkui knew what it was as soon as he touched it. The reason was simple, because this was a waist badge used by junior officers in the army. According to the rules, the other party's name, military position and other information were recorded on it. This waist badge had long been rusty. If Zheng Hongkui had not accidentally tripped and noticed it, no one would have noticed its true origin.

"Badge? Military badge?" Wang Fuzhi asked in surprise.

Seeing Zheng Hongkui nodded seriously, Wang Fuzhi looked carefully at the badge in his hand. Although most of the dirt on it had been wiped off by Zheng Hongkui, it was still stained with a lot of dirt. Moreover, it was badly rusted after being buried underground for many years, and the words on it could not be seen at all.

Wang Fuzhi quickly asked someone to bring a water bag and poured water to clean the waist badge. After washing away the dirt and debris on the outside, he was sure that it was indeed a military waist badge. But it was too rusty and many places were rusted. Wang Fuzhi thought about it and asked for a dagger. He carefully scraped off the rust on the outside of the waist badge. This took half an hour. Finally, when part of the rust was scraped off, he could barely recognize the pattern and a few vague words on it.

"Town X guard, X warehouse X household X, General X, Chen XX..."

These were the only words that could be distinguished from the badge, as some of them were completely invisible. But when these words were read out by Wang Fuzhi, the expressions of both him and Zheng Hongkui changed greatly, with joy mixed with excitement and disbelief.

"Zhenhai Guard! Taicang Hundred Households Office! General Chen...!" Zheng Hongkui blurted out.

Wang Fuzhi nodded silently. Although the handwriting was barely recognizable, Zheng Hongkui's supplement was correct. According to records, Zheng He set out from Nanjing, and the accompanying troops were divided into two parts, one was the guards in Changle, Fujian, and the other was the Zhenhai Guards in Taicang. This waist plaque was enough to prove that Zheng He's fleet had indeed been here, or that a ship in the fleet arrived in Mozambique for special reasons, and the soldiers on the ship might have stayed there because of illness or other reasons.

After that, Zheng He's fleet left and never returned, and the soldiers who stayed in the area had no way to cross the ocean back to the Ming Dynasty. They had no choice but to settle down here, marry local women, have children, and have survived to this day.

Closing his eyes, a scene of the soldiers of Zheng He's fleet settling down, living, farming, and reproducing here flashed through his mind. Wang Fuzhi felt very uncomfortable. He glanced at the badge in his hand, and then looked at the barely discernible graves. Wang Fuzhi straightened his clothes and bowed solemnly to the graves.

The same was true for Zheng Hongkui, who was a senior military commander of the Ming Dynasty and the admiral of the navy. He felt more deeply than Wang Fuzhi. He even thought that the appearance of this waist badge might be the manifestation of the heroic spirits of these ancestors. Otherwise, how could such a coincidence make him stumble? This revealed the past that had been sealed for two hundred years?

Seeing them like this, Adolf looked puzzled, and only after asking did he understand what was going on. When he learned about this, Adolf also widened his eyes in astonishment, subconsciously stretched out his hand to make the sign of the cross on his chest, and kept calling out the name of God, learning from Wang Fuzhi and others to pay tribute to these Ming soldiers and ancestors who died in a foreign country.

Afterwards, Wang Fuzhi and Zheng Hongkui discussed and decided to offer sacrifices to these ancestors to honor their spirits in heaven. They sent people back to the port to fetch the sacrificial offerings, burn incense, and hold a formal sacrifice.

After the sacrifice, Wang Fuzhi looked at the descendants of his ancestors who were not much different from the local natives, and felt very uncomfortable. He asked people to send some food and utensils to the old man who brought them here, and also gave the old man some local currency, thinking that he had done his best.

On the way back, Zheng Hongkui couldn't help but ask Wang Fuzhi, since it has been proved that these people are the descendants of their Ming Dynasty, why don't they give them more things, or even find a way to send them back to Ming Dynasty? After hearing this, Wang Fuzhi shook his head and said something to Zheng Hongkui.

"If they are Chinese, they are Chinese. If they are barbarians, they are barbarians. Although these people are descendants of the Ming Dynasty in terms of blood, they have been in the barbarians for so long that they have long forgotten who their ancestors were. Even their language and writing have not been passed down. They are no different from the local barbarians."

"If that's the case, why bother asking them to return to Ming? Besides, even if they do, it won't be a good thing for them. This time, I'm afraid it was caused by the heroic spirits of our ancestors. If we offer sacrifices to our ancestors and bring back this waist badge, their heroic spirits can follow us back to Ming without any regrets."

"As for these people, let them stay here. This is not a bad thing. And what we gave them today is enough. Giving them too much is not a good thing for them. As the saying goes, peace is a blessing, and so is the unknown?"

"I've learned something!" Zheng Hongkui suddenly realized and bowed to Wang Fuzhi sincerely. He had been thinking about this before, and Wang Fuzhi thought more deeply. It was indeed as Wang Fuzhi said, this arrangement was the most appropriate.

Wang Fuzhi later recorded what happened in Mozambique in his "Red Star Over China". On his way back, Wang Fuzhi made a point to stop here again and visited the tribe where the Ming survivors lived to burn incense to their ancestors.

In addition, when Wang Fuzhi left, he asked someone to erect a stone tablet in this tribe, on which was engraved the true origin of the tribe, explaining that Zheng He's fleet had once come here, and left some soldiers here to multiply and eventually integrate with the local people.

This stone tablet was erected at this place. As time went by, the story gradually spread. Not only were the Portuguese in Mozambique surprised when they heard about it, but even other Europeans who came here were also very interested in this story and would come to this tribe specifically to see the descendants of the Ming Dynasty soldiers.

Many years later, ships from the Ming Dynasty also came from the far east, paying tribute to the ancestors of Zheng He's fleet and taking proper care of their descendants. Because of these reasons, the lives of these descendants gradually became much better, and because they carried the aura of the Ming Dynasty and had the identity of descendants of the Ming Dynasty, their lives gradually changed greatly compared to other natives.

More than a hundred years later, this tribe gradually grew stronger. By actively learning the culture of the Ming Dynasty and the knowledge of Europe, it formed a different tribal culture that was a blend of the East and the West. They were all proud to be descendants of the Ming Dynasty, and became a new tribe that was completely different from the local indigenous tribes, gradually stepping into the civilized world again.

Even a long time later, several descendants returned to their ancestral hometown on Ming Dynasty ships and received a warm reception from the Ming Dynasty. When they returned, their sense of identity with the Ming Dynasty became stronger and also affected the subsequent development of the tribe. After another hundred years, with the decline of the Portuguese colony, this tribe actually produced an extraordinary figure who established a country based on the tribe, and regarded himself as a Ming Dynasty person, bringing earth-shaking changes to this land.

(End of this chapter)