Global colonization began with Ming Dynasty pirates.

The next morning, when Lin Hao came out of the captain's cabin in the stern, he was surprised to find that the boys had already gotten up.

"Why are you guys up so early? It's not my designated wake-up time yet." Lin Hao looked at the boys who were already busy on the deck with surprise, and looked eastward in confusion. The sun was still below the horizon, and there was only a faint light, but the boys had obviously been up for a while.

"Reporting to the young master, we discussed it last night and decided to get up early today to try to master the boat handling skills as soon as possible." Lin Yi stepped forward and loudly reported to Lin Hao.

"Wow, not bad, that's ambitious, but there's no need to push yourself so hard. You should balance work and rest." Lin Hao took the toothbrush and water from Lin Si and started washing up.

Half an hour later, it was fully light. Everyone had finished breakfast and then continued north under Lin Hao's command.

The place where everyone stayed last night was an unnamed island, but if you go further north, you will reach the Greater and Lesser Western Islands, and further north, you will reach Twin Peaks Island.

Lin Hao planned to go north around Xiyang Island, and then head south from the east side of Xiyang Island back to Dongluo Island.

After a full day of drills yesterday, the young men are noticeably more proficient today, and the veteran sailors are intervening less and less. I believe that soon the young men will be able to take on the role of sailor on a Fujian-style ship.

Under Lin Hao's command, the group changed direction from east to west, and today they also incorporated wind-fighting training.

The term "headwind" refers to sailing against the wind. When a sailboat sails with the wind, it experiences a parachute effect. This is quite simple; just pay attention to the wind direction and the direction of travel.

However, driving against the wind utilizes Bernoulli's principle, which makes the operation much more difficult.

As we all know, when a sailboat is sailing against the wind, the sail acts similarly to an airplane wing, and the sail needs to bend to create the Bernoulli effect to generate power.

Western-style soft sails rely on a certain angle of attack to inflate the sail and create a curved surface for sailing against the wind. In contrast, Chinese hard sails, due to their rigid surface, find it difficult to inflate with the wind, and in principle, their ability to catch the wind is inferior to that of Western soft sails.

The advantages of Chinese rigid sails are efficiency and safety. Under the same unit area, the sail surface utilization efficiency of rigid sails is much higher than that of soft sails.

Meanwhile, when encountering a sudden storm at sea, in an emergency, a rigid sail can be secured by simply cutting the rigging with an axe, which can generally prevent the ship from capsizing due to the sails. In the event of a sudden storm, a soft sail requires sailors to risk being thrown into the rough seas to climb up the mast and furl the sails little by little.

The sails on the Fujian ships were naturally Chinese-style hard sails, specifically the square sails commonly used in the Ming Dynasty, rather than the fan-shaped sails improved in later generations.

Therefore, operating this Fujian-style ship against the wind kept the boys extremely busy, but fortunately, their usual physics classes were not in vain. After understanding the principles, they naturally became faster and faster at getting started.

"They've mastered the art of sailing against the wind so quickly!" Liu Aniu and the group of sailors stared at the young men as if they'd seen a ghost. They knew that sailing against the wind was usually the domain of experienced sailors, and it was a skill that ordinary people rarely learned.

But they watched as these people became quite adept at it in just over an hour. Although they were still clumsy and flustered, the boat was still sailing against the wind, which meant that they had mastered the skills that had taken them years to develop in just one hour.

A sense of absurdity welled up in everyone's hearts, and at the same time, they secretly regretted that they had been teaching too fast. This could be dangerous in the future. But the young master was watching from the side, so they couldn't hide anything from him. Now they could only hope that the young master wouldn't abandon them.

In reality, they were completely overthinking it. Lin Hao had gone to great lengths to train these people, not to make them sailors—that would be a waste. He hoped that each of them would be able to command at least one warship in the future, not the large, immobile Fujian-style ships of the Ming Dynasty, but large battleships with three or four decks and hundreds of cannons like those of the West.

However, Lin Hao believed that the best captain must start from the bottom. If someone has not even personally practiced basic navigation, then what right do they have to be a captain? They would only harm the entire crew.

They practiced for another hour, and by then it was noon, and the sun was getting increasingly hot.

"Alright, that's enough for this morning. Ah Niu, lead everyone northeast to the northern bay of the Atlantic island. We'll have lunch there, and then head back from the east in the afternoon." Lin Hao saw that the training was almost over and prepared to end the voyage.

I've basically mastered everything I need to know. All that's left is to practice more, and there's plenty of time to work on that later.

To the northwest of the Atlantic Island lies a vast bay, a perfect place for rest and relaxation.

However, just as the group was about to approach the bay, Lin Qi shouted from the top of the Fu ship, "Young Master, there are two ships coming from the north. They have a very shallow draft and don't look like merchant ships."

Lin Qi's words startled everyone. If it wasn't a merchant ship, it must be pirates. No one expected to encounter pirates at this moment.

"Young master, there's a group of pirates on Twin Peaks Island to the north. It should be them. We'd better stay away. We don't have any cargo on board, so they shouldn't be chasing us."

Liu Aniu offered this suggestion to Lin Hao.

"Brother Aniu, you're right. Pass the order to avoid them and move to the west."

Lin Hao didn't want to provoke the other party at this time, after all, his own strength was far from fully recovered. It wasn't a good time to provoke new enemies.

Following Lin Hao's command, the entire Fujian ship began to head west, clearing the way for the eastern route.

"Brother A Niu, are you familiar with the pirates of Twin Peaks Island?" Since Lin Hao planned to become a pirate in this area, he had collected some information about the pirates of Twin Peaks Island, but he only knew their names and didn't have any more information.

"I'm fairly familiar with him. The pirate leader of Twin Peaks Island is called Zhou Daye. His characteristic is just like his name: his eyes are a size larger than normal, making him look very strange. This guy should have started his career around the same time as me, but he is cruel and can be ruthless to both civilians and his subordinates. He's doing quite well in this area."

"What is their strength? How many ships and how many people do they have? What is their combat capability?" Lin Hao continued to press.

"Their strength isn't weak; they're considered average among small pirate groups. They have two ships and a few dozen men. Their fighting ability is decent. They clashed with us once in the past, but we repelled them, and they haven't bothered us since. However, back then they only had one ship; their strength has increased considerably in recent years."

"Since they haven't provoked us since then, it seems they're pragmatic. It looks like there won't be any conflict this time, which is good news." Lin Hao breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't much cargo on his ship, and the other party knew their strength, so they probably wouldn't come looking for trouble.

However, no sooner had Lin Hao finished speaking than Lin Qi's voice came from the upper room, "Young Master, the enemy has turned around too, they're coming towards us!"

"Heh, what great news! Do you really think we're pushovers?" Lin Hao was furious. They had tried to avoid us, but the other side had turned around in return. The meaning behind this was quite clear.

"Brother Aniu, have your men take over the helm and sails. You'll be in control of the navigation from now on," Lin Hao decisively ordered Liu Aniu, then addressed everyone else.

"Everyone, listen up! Prepare for battle! Lin Yi, Lin Er, each of you take five men down to the cabin and bring out all the equipment. Since they're so stubborn, let's show them what we're made of. Give them a good beating!"

War is no child's play; death is a common occurrence. Although he was reluctant to lose his newly trained men, the consequences of retreating would be far more severe. For now, he had no choice but to take a gamble. Lin Hao believed that the young men he had personally trained, even if they lacked experience, were not to be trifled with by any group of pirates.