Maritime merchants, in the impression of ordinary people, are very rich, they can make a lot of money once they go to sea, especially these maritime merchants who came to the Northern Song Dynasty, they showed countless treasures.

But the sea is full of dangers, even if it is connected by ports and supply points, as in Asia, and at most twenty or thirty miles from the shore.

Even so, in the absence of ranging means, in the absence of long-range means of communication, this is still a very dangerous voyage, almost every year, there is news of shipwrecks, the average maritime businessman, can hold on to more than 10 years, very little, either earn enough, or sink into the bay.

In the vast coast of China, as well as the vast Indian Ocean, the bottom of the Arabian Sea, for many years, I don't know how many shipwrecks and where they sank.

Wind and waves, trekking, fights, and even pirates, these are the levels that maritime merchants must go through, and any of these levels, if they can't break through, is the end of death.

Even if you go through one difficulty after another, if you want to get high profits, there is a problem, and that is the monsoon.

Any maritime merchant must be affected by the monsoon, in the age of sails, the ship was propelled by the wind, and the fixed monsoon season made it possible to sail for a long time, and he could continue for a long time, providing the same wind to make the ship sail in one direction.

Success, success, failure, and failure, sailing the wind in one direction in a row, for the downwind, is beautiful, but for the headwind, it is a nightmare, the maritime merchants are affected by the monsoon, in the spinnaker, such a sharp weapon that can sail against the wind, they must sail according to the monsoon.

The continents and oceans heat and cool differently throughout the year, and the wide range of winds between the continents and the oceans that change in direction with the seasons is called the monsoon.

The most distinctive thing about this monsoon is that summer and winter are two diametrically opposed monsoon seasons, which is the supreme weapon for the era when boats can need wind power.

In the non-monsoon season, maybe a short voyage can be, or even use manpower, but in the long run, it will be fatal, no matter how huge the sea ship is, it can only honestly follow the monsoon, when the monsoon is to the Northern Song Dynasty, to the Northern Song Dynasty, to the Northern Song Dynasty, to sail over, when the monsoon is to the other side, to sail away.

Whether it is from Southeast Asia, India, or Arabia, they must maintain this law, fortunately, even if the speed of capsizing in this era, the speed of 4 knots per hour, in the monsoon season, can reach about 40 knots a day, that is, more than 70 kilometers, and the voyage in Asia will not exceed 5000 kilometers, that is, more than two months, counting the intermediate berthing and waste, the maximum sailing time is 3 months.

However, the monsoon only changes once every six months, that is to say, even the maritime merchants located in Arabia, when they came to the Northern Song Dynasty, had a 3-month idle period, and recently Southeast Asia, there may be a 5-month idle period.

Of course, the maritime merchants of Southeast Asia did not exist for the time being, in Southeast Asia, in the 11th century, near the Indochina Peninsula, there were several unified countries, they were very weak, and they even had civilization and established cities under the influence of the entire Northern Song Dynasty.

However, they are very weak, and even on an island like Indochina, they are not capable of developing outward.

However, in the later Indonesian region, it was a series of islands composed of tribes and small countries, and they were a group of prehistoric savages before the Eastern civilization spread technology and civilization to the islands of Southeast Asia.

Some people will say that during this free period, you can set off later, then it's okay, so that the time of the voyage is controlled at a certain time, and after arriving in the Northern Song Dynasty, you can sell the goods, and then buy the goods, you can return, so as not to delay the time.

Compared with staying in the Northern Song Dynasty for a long time, it should be more comfortable in your own home, after all, you are staying in your own home.

It sounds very reasonable and feasible, but in fact, in this era, there are too many force majeure, and no one dares to guarantee that they will be able to cross the monsoon and cross the sea in the shortest possible time to reach the Northern Song Dynasty.

In the monsoon season, if it is good, it is okay, but if it is not smooth, at some point, when there is a storm, even if the ship does not sink, it must be docked to avoid the storm.

When tropical storms are one after another, it is very likely that for more than ten days in a row, or even one or two decades, there will be stormy waves, and under such a premise, going to sea is almost a death, and it is definitely impossible to go to sea, so you can only wait.

Waiting for the wind and waves to calm down, so that you can go to sea, no one dares to estimate, how much time is there in this wind and waves, if you choose the limit, then how long to wait, how much time must be delayed, it may be a little bit shorter, it may be ten days, twenty days of sailing, what if the monsoon changes?

In the era of sails, in the era when there was no spinnaker and could sail against the wind, the headwind represented a nightmare, short distance, for example, a distance of one or two days, you could also reach it against the wind, no matter how long it was, it was simply impossible, if it was really forced to sail, it would be dead.

Most mature maritime merchants will reserve enough leeway, at the very least, to set off a month or even two months in advance, so as to ensure that some wind and waves will come at the end of the monsoon.

However, for some experienced maritime merchants, they would set off as soon as the monsoon changed, so that after they arrived in the Northern Song Dynasty, it was as little as three months and as much as four or five months, and this time period was generally used to sell products.

However, most of the products of the maritime merchants are relatively scarce products, and generally speaking, the sales speed is very fast, and only some very high-end gemstones will be sold slowly.

These gems, there is no need for the maritime merchants to stare at every day, the maritime merchants who have been in the harbor for a long time, they will have a fixed shop, often things, are sent over, put in the shop, they will relax.

Some wealthy maritime merchants, they would even buy properties in the ports of the Northern Song Dynasty, buy family businesses, and some even married and had children in the Northern Song Dynasty.

It's not that they don't want to, it's because of the existence of the force majeure of the monsoon, and they can't help it.

But now, there is one more choice, even if the cost of each transportation is not large, but it adds up to a lot, which is also very considerable.

Timber, this is available anywhere, although there is a choice of ship timber, but not much, as long as there is a port along the coast, and then through the river, collect timber, here to load the ship, and then set the navy, the nearest point, may only be a few hundred miles.

These sea ships, their loading capacity, even if there will be a little headwind, after all, if the monsoon does not change, there will definitely be a headwind, but it is not impossible to overcome, on the sea boat, there are certain auxiliary equipment, oars and the like, their speed is not fast, compared to the downwind, the speed is much slower, but the premise that the distance is not too far, 15 days to play a round trip, not to mention the harvest of transporting timber, Zhao Xin's benefits are not high, but he has put forward a lot in other aspects.

In order to attract these people to the given navy to transport timber, there is no single increase in the price of timber, and even if the price is raised to a very high level, it is impossible to be higher than some products and not attract enough people.

This is also the focus of opposition from Zhao Xin's subordinates when he built a dock on a large scale, and it was useless to build a huge dock without enough ship materials.

Zhao Xin used the method of later generations, wood is this kind of thing, the added value is not high, and there is a limit to the price increase, at present, the navy is limited to insufficient capacity, can not be transported on a large scale, and it is impossible to give it a sky-high price.

In the 21st century, for commodities in demand, either add money to pick up the goods, or, you have to bear some conditions, as long as it is not too excessive, it is acceptable, and the other party will inevitably make a choice when weighing the benefits of this condition.

What Dingjun is most lacking now is a variety of in-demand goods, whether it is yeast, glass, cement, or even various ordinary steel products, these things are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people throughout the Northern Song Dynasty, and the sales range is very wide.

Zhao Xin tied the timber to some of the superior goods of the Dinghai Navy, such as high-end glass mirrors, high-end glass products, and other high-end materials, which the Dinghai Navy deliberately controlled and reduced sales, in order to maintain their prices, and the scarcity was expensive.

Now, for the sake of wood, an opening can be opened, and the proportion can be occupied by the wood that is transported, even if a shipload of timber only allows them to obtain a tenth of the ship's high-end products, but the profit generated is enough to make them crazy.

It is not the same to determine the purchase of the navy and the number of ships to support the fleet, but it is different for those maritime merchants from Jiangnan to come, in addition to some clans in Jiangnan, there are also some maritime merchants from foreign countries.

In history, the shipping developed was the Northern Song Dynasty, because the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal connected China's five major rivers as the lifeline, after dredging and digging, so that the Northern Song Dynasty's shipping was very developed, with the help of a developed shipping network, the entire Northern Song Dynasty cities were united into a whole.

The Northern Song Dynasty had the most boats, all kinds of ships traveling on inland rivers, but there were also sea boats.

Because there were not many interests and the danger was huge, there were not many families in the entire Northern Song Dynasty who did maritime trade.

The climax of trade with Japan was actually in the Ming Dynasty, and that was because of the mining of Iwami Ginzan, and before that, Chinese goods were bestsellers in Japan, and Japanese products were sold in the Northern Song Dynasty, so it really didn't have much effect.

The shipbuilding of the Northern Song Dynasty, in the whole of Asia, and even in the world, is the leading technology, among the big families, there are some, for this aspect is more important, even if they do not go to the sea, but they will leave one or two ships, occasionally to the north to transport a little goods, such as grain, or transfer some materials.

All of a sudden, it attracted these big families, big ships, small ships, some of which could be transported to Haizhou by river, and then turned to sea by sea.

In fact, after setting this and sending people to publicize it extensively, Zhao Xin finally understood how big the sea ships the entire Northern Song Dynasty had.

Simply came to Dinghai to help Dinghai transport all kinds of materials and timber, there are actually 12 large sea ships with more than 30,000 materials, such sea ships, converted into tonnage, are more than 1,000 tons high, not to mention a large number of 900 tons, 800 tons of various ships.

It is no wonder that the maritime merchants supported the huge sales of tea, silk and porcelain in the whole of Jiangnan, not in one household, but in the whole country.

The ships acquired by the Dinghai Navy before are nothing in the face of such a huge capacity, and even if they simply transport wood, the total amount of wood is somewhat beyond the limit of the Dinghai's use.

You must know that a 30,000-material ship may transport more than 30,000 materials, that is to say, such a ship, you can produce 3 more, or even 4 or 5 10,000-material sails, such a ship, not to mention, 800 tons, 900 tons, and a large number of those between 10,000 and 20,000.

Fortunately, Zhao Xin is very aware of this, the main capacity is in the maritime merchants, they have one ship, almost three or four other ships, and there are many of them.

After an in-depth understanding, Zhao Xin also found a problem, the maritime merchants, who have a lot of money, look at these ships, you know their net worth, they are in the Northern Song Dynasty, after all, they are not the head snakes, the wood they get, once or twice, it is okay, it is a little difficult in the long run, but those big families, they are all very influential in the local area, but some timber, they can continue to supply for a long time.

These maritime merchants, what they obtained, after several exploits, finally came into their hands, and the profits were already relatively meager, and even lost money, which would affect their subjectivity.

During the period when they were close to the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhao Xin could obtain a large amount of transportation capacity by employing them, from raw materials to various products, with them, whether it was raw materials or various commodities, and transported to various ports in the Northern Song Dynasty, they could get huge support.

For maritime merchants, such short-distance transportation, the profit is not high, and the price given by Zhao Xin is only according to the ordinary price of river transportation, which is a little higher than that of sea transportation, but compared with the huge interests of maritime merchants, it is not a little bit worse.

However, this is a short-distance transportation, the most recent voyage, only 7 days, the farthest, is only about 15 days, even according to the shortest stay time of the maritime merchants, can also be carried out about 10 times of transportation, according to the back and forth capacity, almost comparable to one-third of the sea trade income.

This income, even for maritime merchants, is huge, in the entire Chinese sea, there is no need to go deep into the depths of the sea, the safety has been greatly guaranteed, at the same time, this is also an additional income, which is a temptation that is difficult to refuse for any maritime businessman.