Ten minutes later, inside the cabin.
The captain, Anna Maruyama, was crushed by a group of masked men armed with assault rifles that held a gun barrel to his head.
"Praise God!" A black man dressed in a brown coat came up, kicked Anna Maruyama's arms with the tip of his foot, and said in a tongue-twisting English accent, "In order to reduce your pain as soon as possible, I want you to give your boss' or your family's phone number to me."
"Otherwise, we will be so cruel that even the devil will tremble!"
"Why? Why didn't you hijack the first five tankers? The first five tankers were worth at least $100 million."
"Because the five oil tankers are handsome!" The black man in the brown coat showed his white teeth that were suitable for toothpaste advertisement. "I'll not charge you for this question," he said, "but from now on, every time you ask a question, I'll add on $100,000."
"Captain, our boss is definitely something. He has relations with the Somali pirates, and because we pay the protection fee, we are able to navigate safely!" In the cabin of the last oil tanker, a young man with an oil slick on his face was laughing and smiling at the captain, Chen Qing.
"You, boy, have come again to ask for a cigarette!" Chen Qing pulled out two cigarettes from his pocket and handed one to him. He lit one himself, taking a deep breath, and spat out a cloud of smoke. "Yeah, damn. I was almost frightened to death seeing a pirate for the first time. Who wouldn't be?! This time, there is a small Japanese man in their hands. It really makes me happy!"
Yao Yuan, sucking on the cigarette, said with a joyful face, "Is our boss having a relationship with the Somali pirate's daughter? So, the pirates took care of us?"
"Your imagination is too much! You should write a novel!" Chen Qing slapped him on the back and made him cough. "Get the hell out of here, if there's something wrong with the wheel, I'll cut you up!"
Chen Qing had some potential to become a fortune teller with the way he estimated...
When the ship was sailing at the Djibouti coastal area, the 50,000-ton oil tanker had a burst of intense shaking. It was like an invisible hand seized the hull and kept shaking it. After a few sounds of deafening roars, with a bang the ship was shut down in order to protect the engine.
Usually, oil tankers used the steam engine as a general power source. The reason was that the oil must be heated enough to liquify so that it can be pumped into the oil tankers. They always kept the heating condition going throughout the whole transportation process so that they could quickly unload at destination ports. The steam engine that drove it was also used to provide steam for heating the oil. Technology had been in progress, of course, and now the engine of the ship was not like a few years ago. Not only was everything automatic, it would also automatically shut down if there was any failure in the power transmission system in order to prevent the tank from exploding. The valve would then release excess steam when necessary.
"What the hell's going on in the wheels?" Chen Qing grabbed the microphone and shouted.
"Captain, our propellers seem to be entangled in something!" Yao Yuan had nervous sweat on his forehead. The tanker was not a speedboat. Once the propeller had been entangled, the only way to get out was to be dragged to the dock to clear it. And in this area, there were only African countries, which were poor, and there were no such large docks.
"Hey, Chen Qing, what happened to your ship? Why did you stop suddenly?"
Several of the tankers in front of him had found out about him and asked for information by radio.
"It seems like the propeller is tangled up with something. You all stop, and I'll see what's happening in the wheel cabin!" Chen Qing threw away the microphone and threw his feet into the engine room.
When Chen Qing panted and ran to the wheel cabin, some of the staff in the room immediately came up with a sad face and kept giving an explanation.
"Reduce the steam output, and turn it in the opposite direction with low speed." The sweat soaked Chen Qing's face, not because he felt hot, but because he was anxious.
"Okay!" Yao Yuan slowly pushed the lever and let the clutch gear hold the transmission shaft.
"Honk, boom, boom!" The whole transmission system broke out again with a few loud hisses, and the power output rose up to 10,000 horsepower, and the clutch gear could not bear it and flew out.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Yao Yuan quickly slapped on the control rod and cut off the transmission gear. "What could we do now, captain?" His face was sad, and his expression was worse than if his wife ran away with someone else.
Chen Qing, as though he had never heard it, still squatted there and smoked his cigarette. Judging from the sound, the propeller was deathly tangled by something, and could not even move a little, and it is impossible to judge what was going around the propeller, it is possible it was nets, a chain, or algae.
The possibility of large vessels getting winded was very small, because under the powerful drive system, some floaters or fishing nets would just be torn off by the propeller, unless it involved the shaft.
About half an hour later, the crew of several other oil tankers came in on a raft and discussed what to do.
"Why don't you dive down and see what happened? If it's just a piece of junk stuck in the drive shaft, let's see if we can pull it out with a rope." The fourth oil tanker's captain touched his nose and said.
"If that's the case, I'm afraid of leaving a residue in it. And then I'll have to go to the shipyard and remove the sealed shell to clean it." The captain of the fourth tanker, Fei Ning, shook his head. "If it's sundry, it's already stuck with mud in it, and now we can only hope it is just a chain!"
"Then Xiao Zhang, you take oxygen and dive down to see the situation!" Chen Qing commanded and took a deep drag of his cigarette.
"Okay captain!" The man called Xiao Zhang simply agreed, then dressed in simple diving equipment and took a rubber boat to the rear of the boat.
A good news and bad news!
The good news: it was not some junk that was twisted into the drive shaft!
Bad news: A beacon from who knows where, broke at the bottom of it's chain, then followed the waves there, and tangled in the propeller. It was deathly tangled, and they must go to a large dock to clean it out.
It was a decrepit beacon, which was set up by one of the poor countries in the vicinity, and the exterior paint had all fallen off and was used to anchor the same chain in the sea. The tail spearhead was nowhere to be found, and only a bare iron chain wound around the propeller like an octopus. Xiao Zhang observed for a long time, but could only shake his head and climb up the rubber boat.
He told everyone about it, and everyone was silent for a long time.
"Its okay if the country is poor. Why do they have to harm us?" Chen Qing stomped his foot on the iron column beside him.
"The good news is that we are running an empty tank, and now we can only connect the ship with the iron chain, and then pull it away from the main channel and ask the boss which country to go to solve the problem." Fei Ning patted him on the shoulder and said, "as long as it's not wrapped around the drive shaft, it's like driving a car."
The situation had happened, and the few captains had no better solutions. So they would have to pull the six-ton ship, tied head to tail. Dozens of people after dwelling for some time, were only able to tie the two anchors in place.
When Chen Fan got the call, he was sitting on the sofa, playing with little Snow and watching TV.
"F**k! Which country's marker was it?"
Chen Fan heard and almost threw little Snow on the ground in anger. He knew a little about ships. If the propeller was tangled, in most cases the one way was to go to a dock. But going back and forth would delay them. It would take at least three days.
"There was no sign on it, Boss. It was totally rusted and broken from the propeller, and we could not see from which country it was." The captain Chen Qing said in a depressed tone.
"Wait a moment, I'll think it over!"
Putting the phone down, Chen Fan went deep thought while holding his nose. He had two choices now. The first was to let the oil tanker pull the tanker to Saudi's dock and clean it there, and the other was to control the electric eel to Djibouti's waters and pull out the coiled chain.
The electric eel only needed a day and a half to get there. Going to the shipyard would delay them 10 days. Then when they reach the Saudi oil tanker wharf, all would be ruined, and they would have to pay and wait again...
"Tell me your specific coordinates. Stay there. I'll contact a Saudi Arabian sea operating company, and let them send some frogmen with underwater cutting equipment to cut off the chain." Chen Fan thought of a more reasonable explanation.
"Really, boss?" Chen Qing who listened to this was pleasantly surprised.
"Why should I lie to you?" "Chen Fan's mouth twitched.
After he had written down the detailed coordinates, Chen Fan turned on the computer and use the Google satellite map to find the bird's eye view, then controlled the electric eel to the destination without delaying a moment.
Djibouti, located on the west bank of the Gulf of Aden, was the main thrust of the red sea into the Indian Ocean, one of the least developed countries in the world. It was a former French colony, and with Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia in territorial conflict, it was a typical doormat until 1975, after the separatist successfully restored peace.
Five tankers were now moored in Djibouti bay, 10 kilometers to the south. The channel at its widest point was only 40 kilometers. Eighty kilometers to the west was a typical inland sea. The south and north channel was only a little more than nine hundred meters wide. It was a natural shelter harbor. Whenever ships met the big waves when travelling in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, they would avoid it by sailing there.
The electric eel dashed all the way through the moon, the wind, and waves, and endured a day and a half. At 3 a.m. local time, it finally arrived at the five oil tankers.
If a Saudi Arabian ship stopped there, it was entirely reasonable because, after all, it was only a few hundred miles from Saudi Arabia.
The electric eel, with its spear in its hand, swam stealthily to the tanker when the night was high. The tanker's propeller had a chain caught in it, and he studied carefully how to free it up.
This rusty chain was not thick, but the length was extremely long. I was wound around the propeller and the rudder more than 10 times, and it was a complex entanglement. The only way was to break it by force.
The chain was as thick as a child's wrist. The electric eel with its right front claws grabbed onto it, and its left claws pressed on the propeller, which was the size of a house, and using all its muscles and might, broke it free with a scary boom! sound.
After breaking the six chains that were the main tangles, the chain was stripped of its main entanglements and was easily removed from the propeller by the electric eel and thrown into the sea.
After a few moments of uncertainty, Chen Fan ensured that there were no other entanglements, and he transferred his mind back and called the maritime satellite phone.
The pulling sound of the chain was so poor that no one noticed it.
"Hello, boss. Is it the ocean operating company arriving?" In the middle of the night, Chen Qing, who received his phone call, jumped up from the sofa in a hurry like the trigger had been pulled on a Gatling machine gun.
"In a strict sense, it's not that they're here, it's that they just left!"
"What, what? Boss, I can't understand you!" Chen Qing was completely confused. How could they be gone if they had not arrived?
"I mean, the people at ocean operations have already cut the chain, and are now sailing back to Saudi Arabia."
"Ah!" Chen Qing's mouth opened so wide, he could put a fist in. "Boss, why did we not notice any ship coming near?"
"Obviously you've all been slacking off or you would have seen a ship came near. If it was a pirate who came near you, you wouldn't even know that you were being kidnapped," Chen Fan said seriously.
"No, no, boss. We have five people on shift!" Chen Qing still couldn't believe that the problem had been solved. This was really too unexpected. Not even to say hello before cutting the chain?
"Boss, did you find a con company?"
"Bullsh*t! Now quickly start the machine wheel group and see if the ship can move. I'm waiting for the result before paying them!"
There was no doubt that Chen Qing's loud voice woke the crew. It was not long before he was overwhelmed by the great joy, the dynamic system that moved with the rhythm and roar, which was so pleasing to the ear.
After making sure that the ship's power system was all right, Chen Fan yawned and controlled the electric eel to find a hidden resting place.
This sea area was about 300 meters deep. The seabed was flat sand. The electric eel had been swimming eight kilometers north. About two kilometers from the Djibouti seaside, he discovered a huge, coral reef that was suitable for the electric eel to sleep in the center of.
A hundred meters away from the coral, the electric eel released a voltage of up to 8,000 volts from the body to explore the coral environment.
"Ah!"
It was difficult to describe Chen Fan's mood at that moment. He could only feel a very strong sense of fear, rising from the electric eel's tail, like lightning drilled into its mind, a hearting sank to the freezing point.
And then...
In zero point one second, the electric eel did not even care about its spear, and it was thrown away when the electric eel turned 90 degrees away...
To reduce the overall weight of the electric eel, and strive for a precious time of zero point one second.
Ten minutes later, inside the cabin.
The captain, Anna Maruyama, was crushed by a group of masked men armed with assault rifles that held a gun barrel to his head.
"Praise God!" A black man dressed in a brown coat came up, kicked Anna Maruyama's arms with the tip of his foot, and said in a tongue-twisting English accent, "In order to reduce your pain as soon as possible, I want you to give your boss' or your family's phone number to me."
"Otherwise, we will be so cruel that even the devil will tremble!"
"Why? Why didn't you hijack the first five tankers? The first five tankers were worth at least $100 million."
"Because the five oil tankers are handsome!" The black man in the brown coat showed his white teeth that were suitable for toothpaste advertisement. "I'll not charge you for this question," he said, "but from now on, every time you ask a question, I'll add on $100,000."
"Captain, our boss is definitely something. He has relations with the Somali pirates, and because we pay the protection fee, we are able to navigate safely!" In the cabin of the last oil tanker, a young man with an oil slick on his face was laughing and smiling at the captain, Chen Qing.
"You, boy, have come again to ask for a cigarette!" Chen Qing pulled out two cigarettes from his pocket and handed one to him. He lit one himself, taking a deep breath, and spat out a cloud of smoke. "Yeah, damn. I was almost frightened to death seeing a pirate for the first time. Who wouldn't be?! This time, there is a small Japanese man in their hands. It really makes me happy!"
Yao Yuan, sucking on the cigarette, said with a joyful face, "Is our boss having a relationship with the Somali pirate's daughter? So, the pirates took care of us?"
"Your imagination is too much! You should write a novel!" Chen Qing slapped him on the back and made him cough. "Get the hell out of here, if there's something wrong with the wheel, I'll cut you up!"
Chen Qing had some potential to become a fortune teller with the way he estimated...
When the ship was sailing at the Djibouti coastal area, the 50,000-ton oil tanker had a burst of intense shaking. It was like an invisible hand seized the hull and kept shaking it. After a few sounds of deafening roars, with a bang the ship was shut down in order to protect the engine.
Usually, oil tankers used the steam engine as a general power source. The reason was that the oil must be heated enough to liquify so that it can be pumped into the oil tankers. They always kept the heating condition going throughout the whole transportation process so that they could quickly unload at destination ports. The steam engine that drove it was also used to provide steam for heating the oil. Technology had been in progress, of course, and now the engine of the ship was not like a few years ago. Not only was everything automatic, it would also automatically shut down if there was any failure in the power transmission system in order to prevent the tank from exploding. The valve would then release excess steam when necessary.
"What the hell's going on in the wheels?" Chen Qing grabbed the microphone and shouted.
"Captain, our propellers seem to be entangled in something!" Yao Yuan had nervous sweat on his forehead. The tanker was not a speedboat. Once the propeller had been entangled, the only way to get out was to be dragged to the dock to clear it. And in this area, there were only African countries, which were poor, and there were no such large docks.
"Hey, Chen Qing, what happened to your ship? Why did you stop suddenly?"
Several of the tankers in front of him had found out about him and asked for information by radio.
"It seems like the propeller is tangled up with something. You all stop, and I'll see what's happening in the wheel cabin!" Chen Qing threw away the microphone and threw his feet into the engine room.
When Chen Qing panted and ran to the wheel cabin, some of the staff in the room immediately came up with a sad face and kept giving an explanation.
"Reduce the steam output, and turn it in the opposite direction with low speed." The sweat soaked Chen Qing's face, not because he felt hot, but because he was anxious.
"Okay!" Yao Yuan slowly pushed the lever and let the clutch gear hold the transmission shaft.
"Honk, boom, boom!" The whole transmission system broke out again with a few loud hisses, and the power output rose up to 10,000 horsepower, and the clutch gear could not bear it and flew out.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Yao Yuan quickly slapped on the control rod and cut off the transmission gear. "What could we do now, captain?" His face was sad, and his expression was worse than if his wife ran away with someone else.
Chen Qing, as though he had never heard it, still squatted there and smoked his cigarette. Judging from the sound, the propeller was deathly tangled by something, and could not even move a little, and it is impossible to judge what was going around the propeller, it is possible it was nets, a chain, or algae.
The possibility of large vessels getting winded was very small, because under the powerful drive system, some floaters or fishing nets would just be torn off by the propeller, unless it involved the shaft.
About half an hour later, the crew of several other oil tankers came in on a raft and discussed what to do.
"Why don't you dive down and see what happened? If it's just a piece of junk stuck in the drive shaft, let's see if we can pull it out with a rope." The fourth oil tanker's captain touched his nose and said.
"If that's the case, I'm afraid of leaving a residue in it. And then I'll have to go to the shipyard and remove the sealed shell to clean it." The captain of the fourth tanker, Fei Ning, shook his head. "If it's sundry, it's already stuck with mud in it, and now we can only hope it is just a chain!"
"Then Xiao Zhang, you take oxygen and dive down to see the situation!" Chen Qing commanded and took a deep drag of his cigarette.
"Okay captain!" The man called Xiao Zhang simply agreed, then dressed in simple diving equipment and took a rubber boat to the rear of the boat.
A good news and bad news!
The good news: it was not some junk that was twisted into the drive shaft!
Bad news: A beacon from who knows where, broke at the bottom of it's chain, then followed the waves there, and tangled in the propeller. It was deathly tangled, and they must go to a large dock to clean it out.
It was a decrepit beacon, which was set up by one of the poor countries in the vicinity, and the exterior paint had all fallen off and was used to anchor the same chain in the sea. The tail spearhead was nowhere to be found, and only a bare iron chain wound around the propeller like an octopus. Xiao Zhang observed for a long time, but could only shake his head and climb up the rubber boat.
He told everyone about it, and everyone was silent for a long time.
"Its okay if the country is poor. Why do they have to harm us?" Chen Qing stomped his foot on the iron column beside him.
"The good news is that we are running an empty tank, and now we can only connect the ship with the iron chain, and then pull it away from the main channel and ask the boss which country to go to solve the problem." Fei Ning patted him on the shoulder and said, "as long as it's not wrapped around the drive shaft, it's like driving a car."
The situation had happened, and the few captains had no better solutions. So they would have to pull the six-ton ship, tied head to tail. Dozens of people after dwelling for some time, were only able to tie the two anchors in place.
When Chen Fan got the call, he was sitting on the sofa, playing with little Snow and watching TV.
"F**k! Which country's marker was it?"
Chen Fan heard and almost threw little Snow on the ground in anger. He knew a little about ships. If the propeller was tangled, in most cases the one way was to go to a dock. But going back and forth would delay them. It would take at least three days.
"There was no sign on it, Boss. It was totally rusted and broken from the propeller, and we could not see from which country it was." The captain Chen Qing said in a depressed tone.
"Wait a moment, I'll think it over!"
Putting the phone down, Chen Fan went deep thought while holding his nose. He had two choices now. The first was to let the oil tanker pull the tanker to Saudi's dock and clean it there, and the other was to control the electric eel to Djibouti's waters and pull out the coiled chain.
The electric eel only needed a day and a half to get there. Going to the shipyard would delay them 10 days. Then when they reach the Saudi oil tanker wharf, all would be ruined, and they would have to pay and wait again...
"Tell me your specific coordinates. Stay there. I'll contact a Saudi Arabian sea operating company, and let them send some frogmen with underwater cutting equipment to cut off the chain." Chen Fan thought of a more reasonable explanation.
"Really, boss?" Chen Qing who listened to this was pleasantly surprised.
"Why should I lie to you?" "Chen Fan's mouth twitched.
After he had written down the detailed coordinates, Chen Fan turned on the computer and use the Google satellite map to find the bird's eye view, then controlled the electric eel to the destination without delaying a moment.
Djibouti, located on the west bank of the Gulf of Aden, was the main thrust of the red sea into the Indian Ocean, one of the least developed countries in the world. It was a former French colony, and with Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia in territorial conflict, it was a typical doormat until 1975, after the separatist successfully restored peace.
Five tankers were now moored in Djibouti bay, 10 kilometers to the south. The channel at its widest point was only 40 kilometers. Eighty kilometers to the west was a typical inland sea. The south and north channel was only a little more than nine hundred meters wide. It was a natural shelter harbor. Whenever ships met the big waves when travelling in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, they would avoid it by sailing there.
The electric eel dashed all the way through the moon, the wind, and waves, and endured a day and a half. At 3 a.m. local time, it finally arrived at the five oil tankers.
If a Saudi Arabian ship stopped there, it was entirely reasonable because, after all, it was only a few hundred miles from Saudi Arabia.
The electric eel, with its spear in its hand, swam stealthily to the tanker when the night was high. The tanker's propeller had a chain caught in it, and he studied carefully how to free it up.
This rusty chain was not thick, but the length was extremely long. I was wound around the propeller and the rudder more than 10 times, and it was a complex entanglement. The only way was to break it by force.
The chain was as thick as a child's wrist. The electric eel with its right front claws grabbed onto it, and its left claws pressed on the propeller, which was the size of a house, and using all its muscles and might, broke it free with a scary boom! sound.
After breaking the six chains that were the main tangles, the chain was stripped of its main entanglements and was easily removed from the propeller by the electric eel and thrown into the sea.
After a few moments of uncertainty, Chen Fan ensured that there were no other entanglements, and he transferred his mind back and called the maritime satellite phone.
The pulling sound of the chain was so poor that no one noticed it.
"Hello, boss. Is it the ocean operating company arriving?" In the middle of the night, Chen Qing, who received his phone call, jumped up from the sofa in a hurry like the trigger had been pulled on a Gatling machine gun.
"In a strict sense, it's not that they're here, it's that they just left!"
"What, what? Boss, I can't understand you!" Chen Qing was completely confused. How could they be gone if they had not arrived?
"I mean, the people at ocean operations have already cut the chain, and are now sailing back to Saudi Arabia."
"Ah!" Chen Qing's mouth opened so wide, he could put a fist in. "Boss, why did we not notice any ship coming near?"
"Obviously you've all been slacking off or you would have seen a ship came near. If it was a pirate who came near you, you wouldn't even know that you were being kidnapped," Chen Fan said seriously.
"No, no, boss. We have five people on shift!" Chen Qing still couldn't believe that the problem had been solved. This was really too unexpected. Not even to say hello before cutting the chain?
"Boss, did you find a con company?"
"Bullsh*t! Now quickly start the machine wheel group and see if the ship can move. I'm waiting for the result before paying them!"
There was no doubt that Chen Qing's loud voice woke the crew. It was not long before he was overwhelmed by the great joy, the dynamic system that moved with the rhythm and roar, which was so pleasing to the ear.
After making sure that the ship's power system was all right, Chen Fan yawned and controlled the electric eel to find a hidden resting place.
This sea area was about 300 meters deep. The seabed was flat sand. The electric eel had been swimming eight kilometers north. About two kilometers from the Djibouti seaside, he discovered a huge, coral reef that was suitable for the electric eel to sleep in the center of.
A hundred meters away from the coral, the electric eel released a voltage of up to 8,000 volts from the body to explore the coral environment.
"Ah!"
It was difficult to describe Chen Fan's mood at that moment. He could only feel a very strong sense of fear, rising from the electric eel's tail, like lightning drilled into its mind, a hearting sank to the freezing point.
And then...
In zero point one second, the electric eel did not even care about its spear, and it was thrown away when the electric eel turned 90 degrees away...
To reduce the overall weight of the electric eel, and strive for a precious time of zero point one second.
