"Longjiang Shipyard Chronicles" recorded: "Hongwu and Yongle, from Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Huguang, Fujian, Nanzhili (now Jiangsu) Binjiang County residents more than 400 households, to Beijing (i.e. Nanjing) shipbuilding, subordinate to the lifting division, organized into four compartments. The wooden shuttle rope puller of the first carriage, the timber and iron cablesmith of the second carriage, the stern of the third carriage, and the brown canopy maker of the fourth carriage. This means that during the Hongwu and Yongle periods, the Ming court sent hundreds of households from the southern provinces to Nanjing to build ships, which were divided into four categories, which were responsible for the production of oars, ropes, tung oil and lime bonded ship boards and sails.

The Ming Huidian records a large-scale shipyard with hundreds of craftsmen, including ship carpenters, shipwhelmers, canopy workers, and oarsman workers.

Based on these records, it can be seen that the division of labor and personnel arrangement of shipbuilding workshops at that time already had the prototype of modern large-scale factory production.

Archaeologists have excavated the ponds and waterways of the Longjiang Bao Shipyard "Upper Fourth Dock" and "Lower Fourth Dock" that remain in Xiaguan, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, and found that the pond is in an east-west direction, which is connected with the Jiajiang River of the Yangtze River, which is convenient for the treasure ship to be launched.

Zuotang is very large, measured by modern times, about 500 meters long, about 40 meters wide, Longjiang Bao Shipyard deserves to be the largest shipbuilding base and berthing center in the Ming Dynasty.

The Chinese Maritime History Research Society once restored and made a model of a 9-masted and 12-sail Fu ship (pointed bottom) based on the size of 44.4×18 zhang, which was used as the standard ship type and size of Zheng He's treasure ship at that time.

Some experts believe that according to the rubbings of the remnants of Jinghai Temple in Nanjing, combined with the illustrations of Zheng He's fleet in the frontispiece of the "Tianfei Sutra" in the eighteenth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, the Zheng He treasure ship can be restored as a ship with a length of 19 zhang, a width of 4.4 zhang and a displacement of about 1,100 tons.

Some experts believe that this is only a small and medium-sized treasure ship, and that large treasure ships should still maintain their original size. According to the ruins, the shipbuilding of the treasure shipyard should be flat-bottomed, the flat-bottomed ship has a shallow draft, can sail on the waves, its end can be cocked, safe, and easy to dock.

In fact, during Zheng He's voyage, nearly 4,000 large and small sea ships were built in the country, and the shipyards were all over the country. For example, Changle, Fujian, according to the "Changle County Chronicle": "Taiping Port is in the west half of the county, and the old name is Majiang." …… During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, the eunuch Zheng He passed through the Western Ocean, built a huge ship here, and changed Taiping Port. ”

During the Yongle period, the Ming navy had 3,800 ships, including 1,350 patrol ships, and 400 large capital ships in the Xinjiang estuary of Nanjing.

Therefore, the famous British historian Joseph Needham asserted: "Around 1420, the Chinese navy may have surpassed that of any other Asian country at any time in history, and perhaps even more than any European country of the same era, and even more than the navy of all European countries combined." ”

Through Su Yu's popular science, Yang Pingfan finally knew the ox x of Zheng He's fleet, in short, in the current Yongle period, Zheng He's fleet was more dominant than the navy of the Citigroup in later generations.

While they were talking, the boat had entered the inner waters of the fleet, and the two of them, along with the crew who had sent them over, boarded a legendary treasure ship. Su Yu whispered to Yang Pingfan, this ship has six masts, twenty-four zhang long and nine zhang wide, and belongs to the boat, the so-called boat is an ordinary member ship.

The hundred households on the ship listened to the description of the crew, and carefully looked at Yang Pingfan and Su Yu, first of all, the two of them were not wearing the clothes of this dynasty, and there was still a fairy car bolted to the water (crossing the cabin, because it was too heavy, the pulley on the ship could not be pulled up) So the two immortals were asked to wait for a while, and went to the eunuch with the leading small flag to report.

After Yang Pingfan saw him go away, he took a sip of the tea on the table, smacked his lips, this tea was boiled with the inventory water on the ship, with a strange smell, Yang Pingfan immediately sprayed, remembered something, and couldn't help but say, "It seems that Zheng He's authority is not good, a small flag directly calls him a eunuch." ”

Su Yu looked at Yang Pingfan with a look at history Xiaobai, "Do you have any misunderstanding about the eunuch?"

"Isn't a eunuch a eunuch? A eunuch who is castrated is a eunuch, does it mean something else?"

Su Yu sighed, "There is a difference between eunuchs and eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty. Eunuch is a title, the highest official of each prison, the fourth grade, under which there are young eunuchs, eunuchs, bookkeepers, chief attendants, Fengyu and other positions, while eunuch is a general name for internal officials and castrated male service personnel. After the Qing Dynasty, people equated eunuchs with eunuchs, regardless of their ranks, collectively referred to as eunuchs, you should have watched too many film and television dramas, and those directors and screenwriters who did not learn and did not have any skills did not seriously examine the evidence, so they collectively called the castrated cats and dogs eunuchs, so you will have this opinion. ”

According to the records of the "History of the Ming Dynasty, the Records of Career Officials": The internal officials and eunuchs "are in charge of wood, stone, tile, earth, building materials, eastward and westward, paint, weddings, gunpowder, and rice and salt warehouses, construction warehouses, and imperial altar warehouses, and all the countries build palaces and mausoleums, as well as copper and tin makeup, utensils, and ice kilns." "Generally speaking, he is responsible for the internal affairs of the palace, which is equivalent to the chief steward, and all the construction, repair, food, procurement and even daily utensils of the palace are all regulated by him.

During Zheng He's trip to the West, it was when Ming Chengzu was planning to move the capital, build a new emperor's inner garden for Beijing, and purchase some applied things from overseas, such as all kinds of utensils, all kinds of spices, and even rare flowers and trees in China, birds and beasts, which are all within the scope of Zheng He's responsibilities as an internal official and eunuch, so Emperor Yongle selected Zheng He to lead the West, which is by no means as simple as finding Emperor Jianwen as later generations said. Don't laugh, they are four-grade officials, and they are provincial and ministerial-level cadres in our time, so we have to be more serious. ”

Yang Pingfan couldn't help laughing when he heard this, and hurriedly held back when he heard Su Yu say this, the two were gossiping, and a loud voice was announced outside: The young master of the prince, the doctor of goodness, Yao Guangxiao, and Lord Yao have arrived.

Yang Pingfan was still in a daze, and Su Yu had already pulled him to stand up.

I saw three people coming in at the hatch, Yang Pingfan looked at them, one was a middle-aged monk wearing a monk's robe and a bald head, and the other was a middle-aged general with a beard and armor.

They also looked at Yang Pingfan and the two, these two people were wearing strange clothes that did not belong to any level of this dynasty, although they did not conform to the etiquette system, but it looked like the weaving method was very exquisite, the male figure was tall and mighty, and the female was pretty, although the frame was larger, but it could show that the two people were not mortals (Yang Pingfan's height was close to 1.8 meters, and Su Yu also had a height of almost 1.7 meters, and the two of them were placed in ancient times when most of the malnutrition was crooked and cracked, and there were no cosmetics, and they were indeed similar to the gods. ）