sweeping the world

Chapter 655 The Gateway to the World

Green mountains and green waters?That doesn't exist at all, all that is in the sea is endless water, without any fatigue, rolling endlessly after wave after wave.

"How long will it take to land!!!"

Fu Wei took a boat from the Miaodao archipelago. When he arrived at Jingkou, he took a short rest for a day. He took a fleet of 32 ships out of the Yangtze River mouth and arrived at Yizhou along the route not far from the coastline. On the other side of the state, fresh water and some fruits and vegetables were added, and the boat continued to set off without docking at all.

"Should there be another five or six days?" Si Hongzhuang lay on the deck with a weak appearance, and said softly, "Be patient."

Si Hongzhuang felt that he would be included in the first batch of going to the Indochina Peninsula when he was in the blood mold. What they were going to was not the colonized land that had already been developed, but to cross the strait into the ocean and travel thousands of miles north. Docking at a bay, after landing, they began to survey the terrain and presided over the construction of camping facilities for the follow-up troops.

"Tolerance?" Fu Wei couldn't bear it at all: "You can still go ashore, brother, I can only stay for two days to take it easy, and then I have to do repeated exploration at sea. If I can go ashore for one day in a month, I will burn high incense .”

The Han Dynasty began to form a navy in the second year of Yuanshuo. The problem is that before the elimination of the small imperial court of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the navy was not very large except for the system troops. It waited for the destruction of the Tuoba Dai Kingdom and the Zhangshi Liang Kingdom to expand.

In the sixth year of Yuanshuo, Liu Yan ordered the formation of two fleets, the Beiyang Navy based in Changguang County (Qingyi Island), and the Nanyang Navy based in Panyu (Guangzhou).

The size of the Beiyang Navy was relatively large at the beginning. The main base was in Changguang County. There were also Liaodong Mashijin (Lv 1 Shun), Peninsula Haiming (Haizhou), Wajima Kyushu Kingdom (Sasebo), and Wajima Nobi Kingdom ( Ishikawa Kanazawa) These affiliated military ports.Not counting the system warships, the Beiyang Fleet has more than [-] warships, large and small, and more than [-] non-warships of various types.

The main base of the Nanyang Navy is in Panyu, Yizhou has Keelung and Danshui, Zhuyazhou (Hai 1 Nanya County), and Rinan County in Cochin (Da Nang, Vietnam) is the main military port of the Indo-China Peninsula, and Funan (Bangkok, Thailand) There is also a place.Not counting system warships, the Nanyang Fleet has more than 150 large and small warships and more than [-] non-warships of various types.

The forces around Beiyang are either eliminated or vassalized. In fact, there are no enemies here. The biggest task of the navy is to conduct various routine cruises, and then to explore the ice ocean in the Arctic Circle. If there are no escorts from The size of the fleet of transport ships traveling to and from the Japanese islands must be reduced.

By the way, Liu Yan has already sent people to the Japanese islands, naturally to find those famous gold and silver mines, and actually explore the minerals for preliminary excavation.

Nanyang is the main business area of ​​Han in the future. There are far more islands there than Beiyang, and there are indigenous people on each island.The civilization of those aborigines is very backward, but because of the local environment, even the aborigines will go out to sea by boat even when they are in the stage of drinking blood.

Exploring the navies around the South China Sea will be a long-term task. Enough ships are needed to serve. After finding the island, they have to go to the island to explore the environment. The resources must also be explored. The ships needed will not few.

In fact, just exploring and operating the South China Sea is a major project that lasts decades or even hundreds of years, but Han's appetite is not just that big.At present, the Pacific Ocean is basically a land of no owner...or even if the land has an owner, no one can prevent the Han from seizing the land. If you don’t take advantage of it now, is it waiting for the aborigines to develop, or people from other places come to occupy it? ?Naturally, it is as far as possible to go further and faster. Even if you set up a boundary marker and leave it alone, you are declaring ownership.

In addition to the advance to the Pacific Ocean, Liu Yan mentioned the abundance of Ah San’s territory. The Han Kingdom is about to enter a difficult time. It’s not just the military that first thought of robbing it. Those who know such things are all plundering other countries to make up for themselves. The idea of ​​marching into the ocean (Asanyang) that has no name has become inevitable.

"I see land!"

The lookout on the ship's mast roared, but the people on the deck actually hadn't seen it yet. That's because they really lived on a sphere. They couldn't see it up close, but they were far enough away and there were no obstacles. You can find the magnitude of the horizon. For example, when two ships meet each other, the first thing they see is the mast of the other party.

Fu Wei glanced at the direction pointed by the watchman on the mast, and just stared helplessly.

Si Hongzhuang jumped up as soon as he was erect, staring in the direction pointed by his hand with longing eyes.

The fleet should have sailed to the vicinity of the Nansha 1 Islands of later generations, relatively close to the waters of Malaysia, and will soon enter the Zeng 1 Mother 1 Dark 1 Sand Sea. From a distance, you can see land on the horizon in the southeast, but in fact it is just a Big island in the sea.

Seeing the big island of Malaysia in later generations, it is not that far away from the strait, but there seems to be something wrong with their navigation, which is relatively southerly than the planned route, or the first land they see should be the continental shelf Half Arm Bay (Thailand-Malaysia border).

"Do you want to send someone ashore to have a look?"

"No, we are not an exploration fleet."

Their task is to cross the strait as soon as possible, go to the sea area designated by the king to carry out coastal exploration, find the two places drawn, and station first, and then send people from the various families in the Indochina Peninsula to build a military port and a base for garrisoning troops.

After sailing at sea for a long time, the desire for land will really exceed imagination. The problem is that Fu Wei's fleet has only sailed at sea for five days, and the time is really not long.

Zhu Xia is not a nation that is good at sailing. For generations, what they have seen is the benefits on land. The few explorations of sea navigation are the rulers who are fooled by a group of warlocks to find the fairy island that does not exist. It's not completely successful, or it would be great to explore and conquer HNA by looking for Xiandao.

Staying in the sea full of water for five days without seeing land, for people who have no similar experience, the mood will really lead to depression, and it is not surprising to have thoughts of longing for land.Because of the effect brought by thoughts, it is one aspect to make people listless. When the energy is weak, the body will also be weak. If you are not sick, you will feel that you are sick, and then you will really get sick.According to the old saying, there will be dissatisfaction caused by the burden of thought, and later illness, and even death, are basically brought about by thought.

Fu Wei and Si Hongzhuang came to the bridge, walked to the side of the table where Si Nan (the original compass) was placed, and stared at the spoon placed on the square matrix (compass).

"Sure enough, it is still unreliable." Fu Wei said that the flight path deviation is definitely not his fault, and it is clearly that the tools are unreliable: "We should develop some more accurate tools."

Sinan is a creation of the Spring and Autumn Period. It was not until the Warring States Period that it gradually formed a system. It was paid attention to when the Han army entered the grassland in the Western Han Dynasty, but it was never used in navigation.

At present, there are not many ways to determine the route. Reliable pointing tools are one way, and the second is to observe the astrology.

On the earth, the astrology seen from different positions is actually not the same. For example, the positions of the constellations seen in the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere are different. Furthermore, the position of the astrology also moves throughout the year (after all, the earth revolves around the sun in change).Therefore, you have to first judge where you are, and then make a judgment based on the astrology and astrology you know.

Fortunately, the Chinese civilization has a long history, and when there is no object to clearly distinguish the direction, in addition to the compass and astrology, there is another method called measuring distance.In fact, it is to draw a blueprint full of grids, and according to the time and speed of your voyage, and then according to the rising and setting of the sun, and the refraction of the sun, you can roughly identify which direction you will be in.

In ancient times, it was not the Europeans who developed the navigation technology to its peak, let alone the Chinese, but the Arabs.The Arabs obtained compass technology from the Celestial Dynasty (during the Song Dynasty), and a set of theories (triangulation method) from Greece. Together with the astrology given by God, the combination resulted in a very reliable navigation technology.

In fact, I really can’t boast about how advanced the civilization of the ancient Chinese dynasty was. Some etiquette, eating, drinking, and clothing, including the creation of some tools, have something to say, but it’s more about studying philosophy.In addition to the four great inventions, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, and ancient India really exploded the ancient Chinese dynasty in terms of some creations and theories.

Don't blow it up, ancient Greece has been doing research on astronomy. According to relevant classics, ancient Greece (not referring to the four ancient countries) had a complete set of astronomical theories before other civilizations; ancient Egypt's achievements in integrated agriculture It is also amazing, including engineering is almost the best, agriculture has benefited too many people, engineering was used by the pharaoh to build tombs (pyramids); ancient India really nourished the world in smelting, they are doing wootz steel At that time, most civilizations were not even qualified for iron smelting, and more civilizations were still in the Bronze Age. (That is, the Persians and Arabs are cheaper, and the Europas are introduced from the Arabs for the second time, and the Chinese people also benefit)

The ancient Chinese dynasty had an established direction of development, and research on everything served the supreme ruler. For example, astronomical research was turned into observing astronomical phenomena and judging bad luck.Things like this abound, and what is even more frustrating is that some creations that can be used to revolutionize the military have turned out to be entertainment for the public.

As far as the current navigation technology is concerned, Ah San's technology is the highest, which is the legacy left by the Guishuang Empire.As far as Rome is concerned, they mainly sailed in the Mediterranean Sea, which is fundamentally different from the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, among them the height of the waves.The Celestial Dynasty has always followed the direction of the Continental Army, basically ignoring the ocean.As for the Arabs who developed their navigation technology to the peak, they are still struggling with the Persians, Romans, and even Armenians, anyway, as inferior people.

As San, who possesses the highest navigation technology, what they think about is how to conduct trade, and the trade spanning tens of thousands of nautical miles is really accumulating wealth.Another point is that because Ah San's sailing is really good, later generations show that there are quite a few people in the South Asian archipelago and Oceania who have Ah San's blood.

If Ah San is not happy to indulge in caste and religion, like those "pirate culture" Europas doing colonization, each country may be able to rely on the advantage of the army to hold on to the mainland, but it is definitely true that the Asan ethnic group is more widespread inevitable.

Fu Wei confirmed that the direction was shifted, the fleet stopped, and sent a small boat to land to check the annual rings of the tree.

Can you tell the direction from the tree rings?There really is such an operation!Generally speaking, moss tends to grow on the shady side (north side) of trees, and the growth rings of trees on the south side will be more sparse, not as dense as those on the north side.The annual rings of the stump are sparser in the south-facing half, and denser in the north-facing half.The trunk of the plant faces the sun in the south, and the annual rings can be seen to be arranged sparsely, while the tree trunks are slightly denser in the north.This is how the direction is judged.

After confirming the direction, the fleet set off again, and they sailed for half a day and saw land again.

This time, Fu Wei finally knew that he was not going wrong. He was sailing relatively close to the coastline. The lookouts tried their best to observe. They must first find the established stronghold, and the stronghold will provide the correct route.

The following stronghold was found, the two sides also communicated, and even the stronghold sent ships to lead the navigation. What Fu Wei didn't expect was that they officially arrived at the entrance of the strait the next day.

"I don't understand why Your Majesty named this sea area the Strait of Malacca. Is there any special meaning?"

horse?Everyone is familiar with this, but what is the meaning of "six" and several meanings of "A", each word can be understood separately, but it is completely incomprehensible when connected.

The fleet no longer has as many as 32 ships. They hit a rock on the side of Zeng 1 Mother 1 Dark 1 Sand, and three more ships were folded near the crook of the arm. The remaining 29 ships lined up in an array line, no matter what happened It was also unlucky for the ships in front, so they had to stop quickly for detection.

Entering the Strait of Malacca from the South China Sea, the entrance is not wide, and there are even many small islands and three relatively larger islands.

Fu Wei stood on the bridge and observed both sides of the strait. In addition to a piece of green, he could see a lot of buildings on the left and right.

"The big man needs to run this place well." Si Hongzhuang rubbed his chin and said, "Cities will be built, and the necessary lighthouses and seaports will also be indispensable. I heard that forts will also be built and the newly-made bronze cannons installed?"

Fu Wei could already see the busy crowd, and the binoculars could clearly see those people with darker skin, so he said, "There should be no shortage of slaves in this place."

"There is a rumor." Si Hongzhuang said uncertainly: "It is said that the king called this place the 'Gate of the World'. Although I don't know what the name means, it sounds amazing."

Liu Yan really said something about the "Gate of the World". It means that this is the gateway to the sea. Coming from the west means entering the eastern world, and vice versa. Whoever controls this is the same as controlling the portal.

(End of this chapter)