Before setting sail again, he first had to repair the steam boilers of the five merchant ships that he had captured.
The steam boilers on these five merchant ships had all received special attention from the old captain during the battle before they were captured. They were basically completely destroyed. After being captured, Feng Chou stored the entire fleet into Qiankun Pagoda and repaired the magic-energy propulsion systems of the five merchant ships. However, Feng Chou gave up on repairing the steam boilers.
This was because the steam boilers had been too badly damaged. Moreover, the ship had been in the vast sea at the time and had not been equipped to repair the steam boilers. Of course, it was easy for Qiankun Pagoda to repair the boilers, but there was no way to cover up the lie after they were repaired.
He pulled out all the goblin engineers under Captain Haddock. As a former member of the Blackwater Pirates, Captain Haddock originally had many goblins under him. However, in the end, not many of them followed him to the Northern Continent. There were only 13 of them.
Of these thirteen goblins, apart from the three who were engineers, the others more or less knew some engineering skills.
Apart from these thirteen goblins, the old captain also had an intermediate human engineer under him. He had originally been in charge of maintaining and operating the steam engines under the old captain. When the old captain retired, this engineer who was over fifty years old had retired with him. He had been recruited by the old captain again.
When Feng Chou used Qiankun Pagoda to gather talents, he had also put in a lot of effort to gather more than twenty low-level human engineers.
These people were barely qualified to participate in the boiler repairs.
Apart from that, there were originally some low-level human engineers on the five merchant ships. Although many of them had been lost in the boiler explosion, they could still gather more than twenty.
After gathering more than fifty engineers, and with the help of the large engineering constructs, Feng Chou felt that there should be enough manpower.
He steered one of the merchant ships to the only dock in the corner of the docks. As if by magic, he found more than ten sets of magic welding torches, magic-energy lathes, small magic-energy forging presses, and other necessary machines and tools to repair the steam engines from the Pioneer Knight's cargo hold.
In fact, these tools were all made by Qiankun Pagoda and placed in the warehouse of the Pioneer Knight.
With a complete set of tools and the help of large engineering constructs, the group of engineers spent more than a month repairing the steam engines of the five merchant ships.
While the engineers were repairing the ship, Feng Chou brought 2000 sets of + 5 magic equipment to the Green Dragon Tribe. He selected 1000 high-ranking Green Dragon Warriors and equipped them with + 5 magic equipment.
Feng Chou was worried that the defense of the Green Dragon Island would be insufficient if he took away a thousand high-grade green dragon descendants. Therefore, he used another thousand sets of + 5 equipment to arm the remaining thousand high-grade green dragon descendants in the tribe.
This way, even if Feng Chou took away a thousand elites, the strength of the Green Dragon Tribe would not decrease.
Feng Chou would assign the thousand Green Dragon Warriors to the various warships as melee fighters to strengthen the combat power of the warships.
The Green Dragon descendants were the same as the Green Dragons. They had dual attributes of water and nature and were very suitable as sailors. Amazon and goblin captains liked to hire Green Dragon and Black Dragon descendants as sailors.
With these 1000 high-grade Green Dragon descendants armed to the teeth, Feng Chou could not only free up a portion of his sailors to become cannoneers, making use of the advantage of the number of cannons on the merchant ships. He could also greatly increase the melee combat ability of the fleet.
After a month of rushing work, the housing problem of the seven thousand citizens was basically solved.
The first to be completed was the school in the northeast corner of the town. The school was a large courtyard with simple dormitories around it. The front half was a simple classroom, while the back half was a large field.
All 2000 youths were settled in. Half of Feng Chou's original apprentices were transferred to the school as instructors.
The other half of the apprentices, especially the scholar apprentices, were all appointed as officials of the territory and placed in various construction sites.
After the completion of the school, the stonemasons and carpenters led the citizens to build a large number of simple bungalows in the town. In a short month, more than a thousand simple bungalows had been erected around the town and the reservoir castle. The citizens had finally gotten rid of their tents.
After settling everything on the island, Feng Chou led the fleet away from Green Dragon Island and headed toward the Southern Continent.
There was less than thirty thousand kilometers left between Green Dragon Island and the Southern Continent. However, these thirty thousand kilometers were the most dangerous part of the route in the Southern Continent. This was because these waters were the territory of the Bloodsail Pirates.
The Bloodsail Pirates were a group of cruel Amazon pirates. It was said that these pirates had the support of the first successor of the Amazon Queen, the Amazon Eldest Princess.
The Bloodsail Pirates were not as sturdy as the Blackwater Pirates. Their firepower was not strong, and most of their ships were sailboats. However, the Amazons' sailboats could not be treated as ordinary sailboats.
The Amazons' sailboats were not large in size. Most of their hulls were made of extremely sturdy magical wood, and the masts were at least middle-grade magical wood.
The female Amazon warriors could summon and control storms as long as they reached high-grade.
They could control storms and propel the sailboat, allowing the sailboat to achieve a terrifying speed that exceeded that of a magic-powered steam-powered hybrid ship.
The Bloodsail Pirates usually adopted the wolf pack tactic when raiding. A group of small Amazon sailboats, propelled by the hurricane, would surround the merchant ship from all directions.
Once their sailboats approached the enemy ship, the high-grade Amazon warriors would ride the hurricane and fly onto the enemy ship, engaging in a cruel battle to seize the ship.
Even if the Amazon Warriors did not use the Thunderstorm Theurgy, ordinary human warriors were not their opponents. Not to mention, this kind of profession could control the thunderstorm. When a high-level Amazon Warrior exploded with all her strength, she could make an ordinary weapon carry the thunder power equivalent to a level-5 spell. Even if it was a + 4 magic armor, under the power of such an explosion, it would be pierced through in two hits. Even if it was a + 5 magic armor, it would not last long under such an explosion weapon.
Although Feng Chou did not think much of the + 5 magic equipment, in fact, even in Alvendell which was rich in magic equipment, + 4 magic armour and + 5 magic weapons were the main equipment of most high-grade warriors. Those who could wear + 5 magic armour were the more experienced high-grade warriors.
After all, even in Alvendell, a + 5 magic equipment was worth more than 150,000 crowns. This was the official price for limited purchases. In the black market, it would not be strange if the price was doubled.
150,000 crowns was enough to buy a knight's manor even in the vicinity of a big city like Casablanca.
Of course, high-grade warriors who had the courage to venture to the southern continent could easily obtain a + 5 magic equipment as long as their luck was not too bad.
But the problem was that even a + 5 magic armour was not safe in front of the Amazon warriors. The Amazon's explosive weapon only needed to come into contact with the weapon and it would be transmitted through the weapon's shield. There was no way to defend against it and there was no way to avoid it. Moreover, the frequency of the Amazon warriors' electric attack was very high. Under such saturated power and high frequency attacks, even a + 5 magic armour would not be able to sustain the attack and the magic defence would be pierced.
Once the magic defence of the magic armour was pierced, the electric attack would be able to penetrate the armour and cause fatal damage to the warrior inside.
Once a group of high-grade Amazon warriors boarded a human merchant ship, it would be a disaster. The Amazon warriors would cause a storm on the ship that would make it difficult for the people to open their eyes and stand firm. In such a harsh environment, the human warriors would find it difficult to move, but the Amazon warriors were like fish in water. They waved their terrifying explosive weapons and slaughtered crazily in the chaos.
Even the equally ferocious Goblin Blackwater Pirates avoided the Amazon pirates. This could be seen from the looting sites that both sides occupied.
To the pirates of the southern continent, the merchant ships from the northern continent were of course more profitable.
Therefore, for the next part of the sea route, all the merchant ships were trembling with fear, as if they were treading on thin ice.
Feng Chou's fleet sailed northeast from Green Dragon Island. After entering the ocean current, they turned east and sailed.
After sailing east from Green Dragon Island for about seven thousand kilometers, the fleet would encounter another archipelago.
This archipelago was larger than the Dylan Archipelago, with more islands and a longer distance.
The direction of this archipelago was basically the same as the southern equatorial ocean current. The head of the archipelago was located slightly north of the middle of the ocean current. After extending eight or nine thousand kilometers to the east, the tail of the archipelago was located slightly south of the southern equatorial ocean current.
In this chain of islands, two-thirds of the islands had fresh water, and many large islands had excellent natural harbors.
Unfortunately, the merchant ships passing by did not dare to replenish their supplies on these islands.
This was because not only did the Bloodsail Archipelago not have a supply port, but there was also a terrifying hunting ground for the Bloodsail Pirates.
That's right, this archipelago was called the Bloodsail Archipelago, because it was the hunting ground of the Bloodsail Pirates.
Further east from the Dylan Archipelago, one would enter the area directly under the influence of the gods of the southern continent. Once the official forces of the northern continent entered this area, they would be attacked by the gods and would not be able to establish themselves.
Therefore, after passing through the Dylan Archipelago, there were no more supply fortresses. There were only traps that used the water source of the islands as bait.
All the merchant ships that came to the southern continent were very clear about this point.
Fortunately, in recent years, because they had realized the importance of trade, the Amazons had begun to suppress pirate activities. The Bloodsail Pirates were not as rampant as before.
More than ten years ago, there were thousands of long and narrow flying scissors sailing ships in this area of the sea. They cruised around like a pack of wolves hunting for food, forcing the merchant ships to take a detour.
When the Bloodsail Pirates were at their most rampant, they simply hunted outside of Manta Harbor, almost cutting off the trade between the northern and southern continents.
Feng Chou led the fleet far away from the Bloodsail Archipelago, carefully passing through more than twenty thousand kilometers of sea in one breath. Fortunately, they did not bump into a single Bloodsail Pirate ship.
Of course, this was not surprising. Although the Bloodsail Pirates were known as the Thousand Sails Pirates, it was impossible for them to seal off an ocean current zone that was more than three thousand kilometers wide. Moreover, after Feng Chou entered the area where the Bloodsail Archipelago was located, he simply left the ocean current zone to the south.
Even when the Bloodsail Pirates were at their most rampant, they did not have the ability to seal off this route. Their madness outside of Manta Harbor only destroyed the Amazons' own trade, benefiting the tieflings in the south.
After the fleet reached the coast of the southern continent, Feng Chou led the fleet south for some distance. In the southern part of the Amazon Kingdom, more than two thousand kilometers away from the coastline and away from the coastal ocean current route, he anchored the ship at a deserted island.
Captain Ling led the other ships to wait for his news on the deserted island. Feng Chou led Captain Haddock to drive one of the five merchant ships towards Manta Harbor.