The Li family's fleet of five battleships first set out from the Qiantang River in Hangzhou. After reaching the open sea, they sailed south along the coast of the Great Ming. They stopped in Quanzhou to resupply, then made another stop in Macau, which the Portuguese had leased, where they resupplied and spent a day making repairs.
After Annie and the Li family fleet had left the Portuguese staring in shock, the five terrifying, towering warships—steel-framed and wood-planked—sailed south in full view, flying the flags of the Great Ming and the Li family, and headed toward Southeast Asia on their voyage across the Western Seas.
The Portuguese probably couldn't wrap their heads around how the Great Ming Empire, with its capital already conquered by a mob of refugees and the dynasty on the verge of collapse, had still managed to assemble such an astonishingly powerful fleet. And not only was the fleet not staying behind to defend the Great Ming's rule, it was heading straight south, bearing down on the waters of Southeast Asia!
They had no idea what the people of the Great Ming were up to. So the best they could do was immediately write several secret letters and dispatch a fast ship to carry the news to important ports in Southeast Asia, such as Jakarta and Malacca, so the governors there could prepare.
Normally, even if they sent a small, fast merchant ship to deliver a message, it would never be able to outrun the five clipper-style battleships under Annie's command. But...
Unfortunately, the auspicious little girl who captained the ship and served as grand admiral wasn't much of a navigator. Thanks to her irresponsible and utterly haphazard directions, the fleet quickly lost its way. They had been only a few days from Jiading Harbor, but sailed