(Dear friends, starting from this chapter, "The Death of the Ming Sea" will enter the third chapter - the bloody West.) Let the cup take you with you to unveil the veil of the medieval Age of Discovery! ）

The ocean covers more than 70% of the earth's land, and more than ninety percent of the world's commercial trade and transportation originate from the ocean.

From the day more than 400 years ago, when the navigator Hanno led a fleet to break through the Pillar of Hercules, the people of the Mediterranean coast have risen up to explore the unknown seas on a grand scale!

History proves that the first to reach the Americas, that is, the New World, were the Vikings of Scandinavia, who pioneered the era of piracy in Northern Europe, and also opened up the Age of Discovery, which accelerated the development of the world through new shipping routes.

It was from that time that the tectonic plates of the earth, which had been separated from each other, began to be connected, and the great competition of nations triggered by the great geographical discoveries also opened the historical curtain of different civilizations interconnected, looking at each other, opposing each other, and promoting each other.

Among the five continents and seven oceans on the earth, the development history of Europe is most closely integrated with the development of maritime culture and sea power culture. It can even be said that the ancient civilization of Europe was born in the sea. Over the past 500 years, one European power after another has stepped onto the stage of world history and become the protagonists of the world's history.

In the 16th century, the focus of Europe was Portugal and Spain, in the 17th century there was the famous "coachman of the sea" Netherlands, and in the 19th century, England, known as the "empire on which the sun never sets", emerged, and its influence is still alive today.

If we look at the history of Europe, we can find that these rising countries must be maritime powers while they are world powers; And once they lose their dominance in the seas, their status as great powers will inevitably decline.

Therefore, the era in which I live now is the most lively and dazzling era. Europe, that is, the great powers of the Western Ocean, are constantly fighting at sea, and the bayonets are vying for their own maritime supremacy, and in the eyes of Westerners, the seven seas are the pastures of power struggle!

Since then, with the continuous expansion of the sea area controlled by the Western colonial countries and the continuous clarification of the awareness of sea power, the powerful countries have begun to formulate and improve laws to resolve maritime disputes, followed by the birth of the concept of sea power and the arrival of the era of sea power.

To this day, when we shout the slogan of "going to the blue ocean", it is actually the development and continuation of the consciousness of sea power in this era.

Today, when I come to this arena with the fleet to participate in this competition, in the unknown future, whether I am a prey or a hunter, whether I live standing or die on my knees, I can only rely on my actual strength.

The sea has no mercy and does not believe in tears. Behind every wave, there is a poignant and touching story. And under each sea tide, how many youth and soul bones are buried!

Today is the fifth day of sailing, and we have left the Toei mainland, and after a brief rest in Naha, we set sail south again.

The route we sailed was actually what we call the "Maritime Silk Road" today. Although this term was not first mentioned by the French orientalist Sha Wan until 1913, its emergence and development can be traced back to a long, long time ago.

According to research, China's maritime Silk Road sprouted in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, developed in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, formed in the Qin and Han dynasties, arose in the Tang and Song dynasties, and turned in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Because of the world-famous specialties of China, it is also known as the "Maritime Ceramics Road" and the "Maritime Spice Road".

According to the general understanding, the Maritime Silk Road can be divided into two routes: the East China Sea Route and the South China Sea Route.

The so-called East China Sea Route is also called the "Oriental Maritime Silk Road". Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Qi State near the sea opened up a golden passage on the Jiaodong Peninsula to the Liaodong Peninsula, the Goryeo Peninsula, the Dongying Islands and even Southeast Asia in the later period, until the Tang Dynasty, the maritime trade of the three East Asian countries through the Shandong Peninsula and the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang arose, and the East China Sea route became the main trade route in the coastal waters of China. During the Song Dynasty, ports such as Ningbo became the main ports for maritime trade among the three East Asian countries.

And the route we take today is called the South China Sea Route, also known as the South China Sea Silk Road - the starting point is mainly Guangzhou and Quanzhou. During the pre-Qin period, the ancestors of Lingnan risked their lives to open up a trading circle linked by ceramics on the South China Sea-South Pacific coast and its islands, which was the predecessor of the South China Sea route.

In the Tang Dynasty, the so-called "Guangzhou Tonghaiyi Road" was the earliest name of the Chinese Maritime Silk Road, and it was also the longest ocean route in the world at that time. The era developed to a few decades ago, and Zheng He, the eunuch of the Three Treasures of the Ming Dynasty, went to the Western Ocean, marking the development of the Maritime Silk Road to its heyday.

The South China Sea Silk Road in its heyday started from China, passed through the Indochina Peninsula and the South China Sea countries, crossed the Indian Ocean, entered the Red Sea, arrived in East Africa and Europe, and passed through more than 100 countries and regions, becoming the maritime artery of trade and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries!

We can even imagine that if it were not for the ignorant policy of seclusion and seclusion in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with the navigation level of China at that time, it would have been able to become an angry torrent in the world of medieval sea power! Become the crosshairs that adjust the world, or at least the process of oriental civilization!

However, the Ming Dynasty was harassed by the Japanese invaders, was bitten by snakes for one time, and was afraid of well ropes for ten years, and began to close the country in the later period, resulting in the continuous shrinkage of the navigation industry. Gone are the scenes of a thousand sails racing in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. When it came to the Qing Dynasty, in the minds of the Manchu Tartars, it was enough to sit on the pride of the Heavenly Empire, and it was not decent to ride a horse so chicly, why did they float around on the water......

In fact, when I went to sea today, I didn't think of too many big festivals and righteousness such as countries and nations, I wanted to fulfill my promise to my second uncle and ancestor, and at the same time, I was able to personally devote myself to this glorious and poignant history! Let yourself always face tomorrow with vitality!

I deeply believe that if there is no such strong force to support me, and without the stimulation of a life that is always fresh, as a modern time-traveler, I would be driven crazy by this ordinary life without the Internet, no mobile phone, no computer, no car, no Tokyo heat, *!

Do you agree? Yes! Agreed? Raise your claws in agreement!

But when I actually started sailing, I realized how harsh sailing was in reality—I mean medieval seafaring. There is no humor and antics of Jack Sparrow in the movie, nor the Devil Fruit or bizarre abilities of the Pirate King Luffy, but just boundless danger, tribulation, and loneliness.

When it comes to danger, there is one of the most intuitive questions - there are no instruments for measuring longitude in this era! In modern life, GPS, Beidou and other navigation provide us with convenience, and we are not afraid to go to strange places! However, in the Middle Ages, navigators had quadrants and sextants to measure dimensions, but they did not have the ability and conditions to measure longitude!

In the legendary year of 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain to the Bahamas and discovered the New World of America, and he traveled a simple route – always along a straight route at 28 degrees north latitude! Because latitude could be measured at that time, but it was difficult to accurately locate longitude, ships either traveled along the coastline, or after reaching a fixed latitude, and then followed the circle of latitude, otherwise there was a high risk of getting lost until they were destroyed.

Of course, at that time, there were also some so-called navigators who proposed to use astronomical methods to measure accuracy, or hourglass calculation to measure longitude, but objectively speaking, these algorithms can only be regarded as metaphysics, not science. People who believe in these algorithms are the masters who bet their youth on tomorrow and where they go......

Therefore, objectively speaking, if you can't locate the longitude, you can't sail safely and freely, and the exploration of unfamiliar waters can't be mentioned. Generations of navigators and scientists have sought to find effective ways to measure longitude. For example, in 1514, the German astronomer Johannes Werner proposed the lunar distance method, which uses the movement of the moon to measure longitude, because only the movement of celestial bodies is completely punctual, and the sun, moon and stars can predict time for humans.

In 1530, the Dutch mathematician Gamma Friesis proposed the idea of clockwork, arguing that as long as an extremely accurate clock was made, starting according to the time of departure, then coming to a new place, and then using the height of the sun to measure the new local time, the difference between this new time and the clock time could be converted into a longitude difference.

If you want me to say, this moon distance method is too complex and difficult to operate, so it has not been able to solve the problem. In addition, although the clock or hourglass method is very simple, it requires an accurate clock, which was a fantasy at the time, right? I don't have this technology in modern times, right? It is completely limited by various limitations such as raw materials, basic disciplines, and tool accuracy, and it is completely impossible to achieve, okay?

So it wasn't until exactly two hundred years later, in 1730, that his good idea was solved by a thirty-seven-year-old watchmaker, John Harrison!

Harrison's buddy is the son of a country carpenter, and he was born with a second line, and he doesn't know how to come and go, so he learns the art of making clocks without a teacher...... After six years of development, Harrison built the world's first marine clock, a bronze shell weighing 42 kilograms and measuring 1.3 meters in length, width and height. His invention attracted the attention of the nautical community, and navigators set their sights on this chosen son.

However, after the invention of the first machine, Harrison's H1 and H2 did not go too well, until the marine clock H3 - that is, when the prototype of the fourth model was born - finally came out with pocket watches, and Harrison's inspiration for finally overcoming difficulties came from pocket watches.

The dude, who lives in the suburbs of London, discovered that pocket watches used high-frequency oscillators instead of the traditional pendulum technique. So he asked his friend watchmaker John Jeffries to order a pocket watch for himself. Relying on the technology of this pocket watch, his longitude clock finally completely got rid of the earth's gravity, and after a series of technical improvements such as thermal expansion and contraction and lubrication, he finally created the fourth-generation longitude clock H4, which is slightly larger than the pocket watch.

By this time, almost forty years had passed since his first piece of sailing! It took this London gentleman most of his life to develop the real crosshairs of people's free navigation!

Two hundred years ago today, there was no way for me to replicate his success, and the way I made the seafarers locate the accuracy was to use the rough method of hourglass calculations on the basis of the "nautical charts" I made, which was actually a rough version of the world map.

My advantage is that I know the pattern of the world map, which is equivalent to opening a plug-in to a certain extent! But I can't solve the technical problem, which is equivalent to the mouse is not very good. So compared to a real navigator, it should be basically the same......

Just imagine, if the accuracy is uncertain and only the latitude is known, then the fleet sailing in the Pacific Ocean may get lost in any sea area, after all, the latitude and longitude from Hangzhou and New Orleans are the same...... But across the entire globe.

As for the lack of refrigerators, the inability to eat fresh food will cause sepsis, the lack of sound and the only way to listen to the sailors playing, playing and singing, and the lack of modern audio-visual equipment can only YY scenes, these are not problems, they are deeply troubled by every seafarer!

Well, after twenty days of sailing in such a lonely life, in an endless and repetitive monotonous blue, we finally saw a piece of land again – Manila!