"There is a plum wind in May, and Jiangnan is a trade wind."
On the merchant ship Bashang, the dark-skinned old captain stood on the stern deck and said facing the vast sea and blue waves.
The plum blossom is the southeast monsoon that occurs after the rainy season.
By the time of the Han Dynasty, people had already known how to use the monsoon to sail.
"But in the past, people were still relatively passive about the interest on the monsoon.
In the past, we set sail and sailed down to the South Seas in the summer southeast monsoon.
When they got there, they sold their goods, but they couldn't return.
We still have to wait until the northwest monsoon returns in winter, which is five months. ” Cheng Biting Jin chewed a beef jerky and looked at the seagulls at sea absent-mindedly.
He used to be a landowner, and he didn't know much about navigation.
I have no idea what a leap forward in seafaring technology is today.
"In the past, maritime trade was not as prosperous as it is now, and the biggest reason was not ships, shipbuilding technology is not the key, the key is navigation technology.
At that time, there was no compass and compass, and there was no sextant positioning, and sailing on the sea was all a matter of luck, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was a gamble. ” A shipping route, a nautical chart, is the most precious treasure, and it is definitely a treasure that has been cherished by a maritime family for generations.
And such a diagram is only in the hands of the captain.
Even if it is the helmsman and others, they can't master the whole journey.
Because they don't know how to identify directions, let alone locate, they don't even know where they are.
Only the captain can master the route and positioning, which they have learned little by little from the old captain over the decades.
A qualified captain must be very familiar with the surface of the sea and the natural objects in the sea, such as birds, fish, currents, driftwood, seagrass, water color, even clouds, wind, etc.
Some captains always carry a cage of crows on the boat, and when the captain feels that he will be close to land, he will release the birds in the cage.
If the crow flies aimlessly around the ship, it means that it is still far from land.
And if the crow flies in a certain direction, then he will sail in the direction in which the crow flies, which must be the direction of land.
Previous captains, even the most experienced ones, had only run one fixed course in their lifetime.
Because of their experience, the route charts in their minds are actually summed up by predecessors, and they are fixed road maps, not ways to find.
The whole route map is made up of countless fixed targets as references, and if he deviates from one of them, he may be lost at sea.
It is simply impossible to let them go on an unfamiliar route.
"In the past, when I ran in the South Seas, I always had to carefully keep a close distance from the shore and judge the correct navigation by the land features I could see.
Even we sail only during the day and anchor in the harbor or anchor at night.
We'd rather sail around the coast than sail straight south. ” "My teacher always warned me not to venture out to sea where there is no land in sight.
Because the danger of encountering reefs and shoals is higher when sailing along the coast, it is also more terrible than getting lost and sinking in the sea. ” Cheng Yanjin asked, "You can't grasp the direction, look at the stars or something, don't you judge the direction by the stars now?"
"I didn't have this before."
The old captain said directly.
At that time, everyone sailed along the coast for fear of losing their way, of storms in the open ocean, and of pirates.
But in the end, the most important thing is the first reason.
And now, Li Chao has invented the compass and the sextant, so that everyone can accurately find the direction at sea and know their location, even if there is a threat of ocean-going storms and pirates, but the captains dare to sail through the ocean.
"For example, if we go to Baekje Silla and sail directly east from Dengju, it only takes three days to get there when the wind is down.
But in the past, few people dared to wear the ocean like this.
They all pass through the Oohu Islands to southern Liaonan, then along the coast of Liaodong all the way to the Samhan Peninsula, and then continue along the coast to Silla.
It was a huge bend, a three-day voyage, but it could take two or three months. ” Only a person like the old captain who has been running the sea for many years can really understand the greatness of the compass and sextant invented by Li Chao.
When sailing at sea, especially on a long voyage, the most important thing is to determine the direction of the ship.
In the past, people used to judge their position by observing the height of the sun during the day and the direction of the North Star at night.
But in this way, the error is still very large.
And on the vast sea, a little error can sometimes be missed by a millimeter, and the error can be thousands of miles.
Especially in bad weather, it is not possible to see the sun and the North Star.
So later there was a simple compass, rubbing an iron needle on a magnet to make it magnetic, and fixing it to a straw and suspending it in a bowl of water, so that the magnetic iron needle would automatically point to the north.
The compass invented by Li Chao is actually an improved type.
The marine magnetic compass continuously measures all horizontal directions with an accuracy of up to three degrees.
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At the beginning, when Li Chao's nautical compass was launched, many captains felt that this thing was very mysterious because they didn't understand the principle, and they didn't believe it too much.
However, it was later discovered that the compass was very stable and reliable, so it quickly became popular again.
The re-torque, the star-pulling plate, are all positioned by using the height of the North Star.
However, the error of these instruments is still large, Li Chao took out a sextant and used it to measure the angle between the sun and other celestial bodies and the horizon or horizon at a certain time, so as to quickly know the meridian latitude of the sea ship.
The sextant has a fan-shaped shape and consists of a small telescope, a translucent and semi-reflective fixed plane mirror, and a movable mirror connected to the index.
When used, the observer holds a sextant and rotates the indicator mirror so that the celestial objects that appear at the same time in the field of view coincide with the sea horizon.
The advantage of this instrument is that it can be observed on a rocking and undulating ship, and the disadvantage is that it cannot be used on rainy days.
But even so, the high-precision sextant has quickly become a necessary equipment on long-distance ships.
With a marine magnetic compass and a sextant, you don't have to worry about getting lost or not knowing where you are.
Even if you can't sail on a rainy day, it's only temporary.
You can drop anchor for a while, or sail until the weather is good before correcting your course.
"Another reason why we dare to go deep into the ocean today is that our sailing skills have also improved greatly.
We can now sail in all directions, and ships can sail in seven other directions except the head-to-head direction.
So now even if there is no monsoon to ride, we can sail, upwind and crosswinds, as long as there is wind, we can sail, the difference is just speed. ” Under the impetus of Li Chao, Datang's navigation technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, and shipbuilding technology has also leaped forward.
The centerline rudder makes it easier and faster to steer, and the watertight compartment greatly improves the safety of the vessel.
Technologies such as soft sails, spliced keels, and spliced masts allow ships to build bigger and allow boats to blow from all directions.
Compass, sextant, so that the ship is no longer lost.
It can be said that Li Chao has improved the level of navigation technology for thousands of years, allowing Datang's sea ships to sail directly into the ocean from offshore sailing.
Although there are no Tang ships to sail across the ocean, with these new technologies, sooner or later there will be adventurous captains to sail into the depths of the ocean to explore those more unknown places.
Among them, the centerline rudder is not weaker than the compass is an important technology, the centerline rudder with the new sail, in order to flexibly change the direction of the boat in a favorable sail angle to receive the wind.
Without an efficient vertical centerline rudder, then the ship has no long-range sailing capability. can only simply sail by the monsoon, such as the old captains in the past, they went down to the South Sea in the summer, and then had to wait until the winter wind rose, and they could only return after more than half a year.
Now, with the new sails and centerline rudders, seagoing vessels can sail from all sides, downwind and against the wind.
In recent years, Li Chao has spent a lot of manpower and material resources to send personnel and crews to measure the hydrogeography and other conditions along the coast of Datang, and draw many nautical charts.
These things were extremely rough in Li Chao's eyes, but they were treasures that the captains dreamed of.
"Are there pirates on this sea" Lao Cheng is not very interested in navigation technology, he is interested in pirates.
"Yes, there are all over the coast, but no one dares to rob our ships."
Pirates, like water thieves and mountain bandits in the mainland, are not in short supply at any time.
Especially after the war at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the Central Plains was pacified not long ago, and there were many pirates, but there were no powerful ones.
Li Chao's ships are all big in the world, and ordinary pirates are just small sailing ships, how dare they come to rob them.
Besides, the family crests hanging on the ship alone can ensure that no one dares to come.
"They don't dare to rob us, let's rob them.
Do you know where there are pirates around here, let's go and practice with them first.
"Lao Cheng has nothing to do."
Our ship is full of young people, and we don't see blood, and these people are useless when they go to Goguryeo. ” Seeing that Lao Cheng was so persistent, the captain looked at Li Chao.
"What Lu Guogong said also has some truth, it's better to find a few nests of pirates to practice first."
The nearest route from Dengzhou to the Liaodong Peninsula is a direct flight, as there are many islands in between, so there is no need to worry about getting lost.
However, because there are many islands here, there are many pirates here.
In fact, these pirates are not all living on robbery, some are homeless people who fled the Central Plains during the Sui Rebellion, as well as some rebels who escaped after a failed rebellion, and of course, some are smuggling fleets in some places.
The entire Wuhu Islands are full of large and small islands, and there are many teams of all kinds.
"Dozens of miles north of here, there is a snake island, which is full of snakes, and in recent years, there is a pirate entrenched on the island, calling itself the Red Viper Pirates.
There are about a dozen boats, and there are about 1,000 people with their families.
"The captain has been running this route for more than a year, and he still knows a lot about the pirate situation here.
The pirate group of more than 1,000 people is not weak.
But if you leave your family and the old and weak, in fact, there are at most two or three hundred real pirates.
"That's it."
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Lao Cheng directly decided. t1706231537: