APTnovel Chapter 223: Safe Arrival
Chapter 223: Safe Arrival
Half a month later, a large group of young and middle-aged men set off from the town, led by Mu Ke, toward the East China Sea where the Dragon Boat Space City was scheduled to land. The group consisted of about 1,100 people: 100 guards carrying guns and arrows, 200 craftsmen such as carpenters, and 800 people who took turns pushing 200 two-wheeled wooden carts loaded with food, tents, and other supplies.
The journey is over 200 kilometers, and the plan is to arrive in ten days.
Along the way, there were tall, gloomy trees everywhere, and animals were almost extinct. Muko saw quite a few of the giant dragonflies that he had never seen before.
After traveling more than 150 kilometers, the group was blocked by a continuous mountain range. Muke convened a meeting of more than a dozen leaders to discuss the matter. They realized that going around the mountain range would take a lot of time, so they all agreed to go straight through the canyon.
As dawn broke, the group set off, with Muko leading fifty men at the head, followed by another fifty guards. The group entered a narrow, winding path, flanked by towering cliffs that felt like an insurmountable chasm. They proceeded cautiously and slowly, the two-wheeled wooden carts struggling up and down the slopes. Muko and his men had only traveled about three hundred meters when they suddenly heard a whistle echoing through the valley. Muko and his men immediately became alert, signaling to stay close to the cliff face. Suddenly, a rumbling sound erupted as large boulders tumbled down from the mountaintops on either side. The boulders descended faster and faster, crashing down into the valley and onto the carts. The carts creaked and groaned as they were smashed to pieces. Many were hit by the rocks and lay on the ground, unable to get up; some had their arms or legs struck.
The group began to panic, and many people retreated back, but arrows began to rain down from the mountain, killing or wounding those hit.
Muko and his men, clinging to the cliff face, began firing their guns fiercely up the mountain, successfully suppressing the enemy's arrow barrage. However, the enemy seemed to have been preparing for this for a long time; rocks tumbled down from both sides of the mountain, killing and injuring many more.
The group slowly retreated along the cliff face, with Mu Ke and others providing cover fire. The 760-plus people, including over 100 wounded, finally reached the canyon entrance. Inside the canyon lay over 330 corpses.
Muko and the others examined the arrows fired by the enemy. The arrowheads were made of rusty iron blocks, showing signs of being hammered.
More than 700 people gathered in the open field to discuss their next move. Some suggested taking a detour, others suggested returning to the town's base camp, and still others suggested traversing the canyon under cover of darkness.
Muko decided that he and his adjutant would each lead twenty guards to climb the cliff from both sides, seize the high ground, clear out the enemy, and protect the team as they passed through the canyon. Everyone thought this method was feasible.
The forty-two guards split into two groups and began climbing the mountain from both sides. Because the mountain was quite high and the trees were dense, it took them an hour to reach the mountainside. The guards rested for ten minutes before continuing. As they approached the summit, the guards tried to remain as quiet as possible. After a while, they sensed movement on the mountain. They all lay down on the ground and crawled slowly upwards.
Muko made a gesture, and the twenty guards began to spread out laterally, each about five meters apart. As they got closer to the summit, they heard a lot of human voices.
Muko fired a shot into the air, signaling to his teammates on the other side of the cliff to fire. The men on the mountaintop were startled by the gunfire. Over seventy people had gathered there. Suddenly, two arrows whistled through the air. Muko quickly dodged, and then the gunfire erupted, bullets whistling through the air. Enemies fell to the ground, some moving quickly enough to draw their bows, but before they could fire, they were mercilessly mowed down by the team. Because the mountaintop was an open area with no place to hide, the enemy was quickly wiped out. A few who managed to run down the mountain were caught up with and shot dead.
On the other side of the cliff, gunfire continued, and the situation was similar to that on Muko's side.
The battle lasted a total of twelve minutes before ending, and the mountain returned to its desolate state. Muko fired three shots into the air, and his adjutant on the other side also fired three shots into the air, signaling the end of the battle and informing the people below that they could cross the canyon.
Muko looked at the enemies lying on the ground and noticed that they were all quite strong, with dark skin, and their clothes were mostly pieced together from scraps, with many patches. Looking at the more than seventy corpses, Muko shook his head.
Muke and the others looked down into the canyon below the cliff and saw that the team had already entered the canyon. More than 600 people began to sort out the broken two-wheeled wooden carts and start to put them back together. There were still more than 120 wooden carts available. The goods were then gathered onto these wooden carts, and for the goods that could not fit, people took turns carrying them.
After Muke and his group passed through the canyon at the summit, they led their guards down the mountain.
The three groups met at the canyon exit around noon. After eating and resting for an hour, they continued on their way. After walking about ten kilometers, the road ahead became flat and open, and everyone was overjoyed.
Four days later, these people arrived at the east coast. Mu Ke led his men to cut down trees and bamboo in the forest four kilometers from the sea. Using the same method as at the plains town base, they first laid a four-kilometer-long log track, then transported the wood and bamboo to the coastal outpost via the track. Even the scraps from the large trees were utilized, used to build simple wooden huts, rafts, arrows, and spears. The trunks of the large trees were used to build boats, and the bamboo was made into rafts. More than seven hundred people worked tirelessly. Because they needed to rescue others and themselves at sea, swimming was an essential skill for these people. In their spare time, they went to the beach to learn to swim. It was mid-April, springtime, so the weather was good, and the temperature had already risen; these people did not feel any physical discomfort. This was also the reason why Chu Tianxiong chose to launch one hundred spaceships in mid-to-late March; he certainly had to consider the climate on Earth.
Resting on the shore at night, everyone gazes at the brightest "star" in the sky—the dragon boat space city where their ancestors and they once resided. While chatting, they recount stories they've heard from their grandparents and parents about Earth two hundred years ago: tales of a beautiful homeland long ago, stories of the Western Lands, the Eastern Lands, and other smaller nations, and of course, the horrific global nuclear war. Many sigh with melancholy, contemplating the future of humanity.
More than 700 people have been on the east coast for four months and have built more than 200 wooden boats and more than 4,000 bamboo rafts.
According to the East China Sea navigation star map previously drawn by the Dragon Boat Space City, Mu Ke and others knew that the sea area where the Dragon Boat Space City landed was about 15 kilometers away from the east coast. Based on the speed of rowing and wooden boats towing bamboo rafts, plus rest time, they should be able to reach it in a day.
One night, on the coast of the East China Sea, relying on the night's star positions and the star map of the East China Sea area drawn by the Dragon Boat Space City for late August, more than two hundred wooden boats towing more than four thousand bamboo rafts set off.
At 4:00 AM on August 22nd, the first year of the new Earth era, Speaker Chu Tianxiong issued the order for the space city to land in the East China Sea.
The Dragon Boat Space City began its descent towards the East China Sea.
The fleet, which had been waiting for kilometers away from the planned crash site, saw a huge, smoking object fall from the sky.
The dragon boat space city began to separate head and tail. The centrifugal thrusters at the tail started to activate, and the tail of the space city decreased its falling speed, while the head of the space city plunged into the sea, creating huge waves.
The fleet saw a low wall of waves about one kilometer ahead. After the sea level returned to normal, the fleet began to accelerate forward in preparation to rescue the compatriots in the space city.
The tail of the space city continued to descend. When it was eight kilometers above the sea, more than four hundred large wooden boxes were launched from the front of the tail. The boxes were wrapped in layers of waterproof film. Inside the boxes were frozen animal and plant genes, seed banks, tools, food, and scientific and engineering technology data.
At an altitude of four kilometers above the sea, the space city launched more than three hundred huge white rectangular boxes. These white boxes were made of high-strength polymer plastic, and each plastic box carried more than two hundred people.
A white rectangular plastic box and a large wooden crate floated on the sea, about 600 meters from the crash site of the space city.
The tail of the space city also fell into the sea. This time, it didn't create a massive wave, but the waves still reached over ten meters high. Soon after, about five or six thousand people wearing life jackets floated to the surface at the crash site of the space city.
The fleet split into two groups: one group went to rescue the people in the white rectangular boxes, and the other group went to rescue those wearing life jackets.
Since the wooden boats and rafts could carry approximately 40,000 people, after all those wearing life jackets were loaded onto the boats and rafts, nearly half the number of people in the white boxes, about 35,000, awaited the second rescue. The wooden boats, rafts, and some of the wooden boxes moved slowly on the sea. Three days later, the second group of people in the white boxes began boarding the wooden boats, rafts, and the remaining wooden boxes, and two days later they successfully reached the coastal camp.
Of the approximately 75,000 people who survived the space city landing, more than 24,000 died.
After a short day of rest, the main force, led by Speaker Chu Tianxiong, began to head back home. Due to the limited food supply, each person was given a ration.
Upon reaching the canyon, just as on the way there, Muko and his adjutant each led two hundred men up the mountain to guard against another barbarian attack. The journey was safe and uneventful.
When they were about 70 or 80 kilometers from the town's main camp, they spotted a large group of people ahead. Mu Ke led his armed guards forward to investigate and discovered that it was a thousand-strong force sent by Tang Feng to meet them and deliver food and water. After the two sides reunited, they continued their journey. With the food and water replenished, everyone quickened their pace and finally reached the town safely.
That night, after arranging for the guards to protect and secure the area around the town, a large-scale celebration was held to mark the return to Earth. Chu Tianxiong, on behalf of humanity, expressed his remembrance of all the predecessors who had lived and worked in the space city over the past 190 years, mourned the more than 24,000 people who sacrificed their lives during the Dragon Boat Space City's landing on Earth, extended his heartfelt congratulations and gratitude to everyone in the town's base camp, thanked the more than 104,000 people for their unity and hard work, and hoped that they would carry on the legacy, continue to move forward on behalf of humanity, unite as one, multiply and thrive, expand their territory, and fly into space.
In his speech, Chu Tianxiong particularly spoke of the suffering caused by human beings killing each other. He hoped that, regardless of how human civilization develops in the new era, it will no longer harbor hatred and harm towards one another, thus preventing another civil war. To this end, the council passed the "New Era Earth Human Civilization Convention." Although this convention has no binding force, it serves as an inspiration and reminder to everyone, urging humanity to remember the lessons of history and unite to move forward bravely.