Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 1 | Page 43

The Sailing Missions
Regents Primary School of Shenzhen, Lin, Zi Hao Horace - 7
Early in the 15th century, a huge fleet of ships set sail, and I was in this fleet. It was the first of a series of
voyages in China and also it was my first voyage.
The voyage was led by Zheng He, the most important Chinese adventurer and one of the greatest sailors the
world had ever known. I admired him when I was a child, and I was very excited to experience this voyage
with him. I wanted to share one of the most dangerous adventures we have been.
I remembered one of our seven voyages: Before we set off, the sea was still calm, but when we left for
several days, the sky was dark suddenly and then came the storm, we were all preparing for the storm, and
suddenly a giant megalodon shark swooped at us. And the ship was constantly shaking. Zheng He kept us
calm. Then I saw him stabbed the shark’s head with a sword when the megalodon shark came back to us
again.The megalodon shark’s blood stained the sea. We were all happy, but a gust of wind hit, and there was
a whirlpool that rapidly moving towards us. Zheng He quickly turned around the ship, but it’s too late. We
were all sucked on the ship.
Time passed slowly, we were too tired and we all felt asleep. When we woke up again, we were in the
Devil Island. Altogether Zheng He, ten soldiers and I left on that island. After a few minutes, two soldiers
stepped onto the vampire tree vine. They screamed and died all of a sudden. Although the rest of us gazed
in horror, we didn’t know what was going to happen next. By that time we were hungry and so we kept
looking for some food. Suddenly a big snake appeared in front of us. When we fought with the snake, three
soldiers died. Zheng He got injured also when he was trying to protect me. Luckily, I killed the snake with
the sword in the end. We got a key and a map from the dead snake unexpectedly. We walked into a cave
and accidentally found a treasure box. We opened the treasure box with the key and there we found a
nautical topographic map inside.We then tried to merge with the large forces using the map got from the
snake. With the help of the nautical topographic map, we successfully completed the next seven sailing
missions.
We had experienced many adventures. The first adventure was the bad weather, we met the storm and the
battle. The second adventure was the pirates, and with the help of the weapons, we defeated them at last.
The third adventure was the dangerous animals such as the vampire tree vine, the sharks and the snakes. The
fourth adventure was the people from other countries. Some people were hostile.
Of course, we did many preparations before we set off. Many tools facilitated us a lot for the success of this
voyage, such as compasses, ocean maps, and weapons. But the most important resource was our good sailors.
Through this voyage, I learned to face all kinds of difficulties and challenges bravely.