Since I was studying, I have always had a dream to write a novel about the navigation of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty Voyage Age, initiated by Zhu Di and led and executed by Zheng He, was written into another historical turning point.

However, every time I finish reading a well-known cool article, I feel that I am a little further away from my dream. Because I am more and more afraid of writing this glorious history, which I sigh for a long time, into a bad article. As a non-major, due to the limitations of the overall situation, cognition, history, professional knowledge and many other factors, I always cringe and cannot write.

In fact, when I like the theme of navigation, it has nothing to do with the great voyage of the Ming Dynasty, I am a stupid person, the history class at that time, Zheng He's book knowledge of going to the West did not attract my attention at that time, because at that time I only paid attention to academic performance. As an aside, I am very optimistic about exam-oriented education, because for many years my rules of doing things have been dogmatic and empirical, always trying to find answers from what I have learned, lacking imagination and creativity, knowing what is going on but not knowing why. I just mechanically put this history into my brain, so this history for me just added to my subject grades.

Interestingly, what really made me understand this history was the game "Age of Discovery", yes, a game produced and published by Tsukimoto Darkei. At that time, I had a sixteen-person Shile game machine in my hand, and the game card could not afford to rent it, but in the end I gritted my teeth and spent 180 yuan to buy this game card from a profiteer, and it was because of this game that I really began to understand the era of the great geographical discovery, so as to gradually understand the historical opportunity and significance of the great voyage of the Ming Dynasty.......

As an aside, the country has not had many famous navigators in its history, but rather a large number of pirates. So sometimes I also think that according to the size of the fleet of European explorers at that time, if I encountered these pirates, I guess the great geographical discovery would have to be postponed for a while...... But some 600 years later, it was also the pinnacle of nautical games in the country, and yes, more than 20 years later, it has never been surpassed.

After Zheng He, one side chose the isolationism of closing the country to the outside, and the other side chose to devote all its national strength to support the expansionism of going overseas. Today, the results are evident through the comparison of historical facts. Four hundred years later, the weak side finally overthrew the powerful other, and then they went into battle in turn, plundering and grabbing huge amounts of wealth...... While history has recorded all this, it has given us glories, experiences and lessons that we should not forget. If the last turning point of the Ming Dynasty's Age of Discovery turned to the right, then let's assume that if the turning point of history turned to the left, then what are the possibilities......

If we affirm the Industrial Revolution, then we must acknowledge the fact that the acceleration of industrialization and the advancement of human civilization was based on the primitive capital accumulated by overseas trade and colonial plunder some 300 years before the Industrial Revolution. Since the interests of the country and the nation are above all else, why can't we do what they can do? Why are they coming to plunder us and not us to plunder them.

I hated the hypocrisy of Song Jiang and Lin Chong's kindness in "Water Margin", so much so that I was reluctant to re-read the book for many years. But as I grew older and more experienced, I somewhat understood the two most representative personal objects portrayed by Shi Nai'an. A small priest, where did he get so much money to be charitable and famous, and finally used his "wisdom" to sit on the top spot of the rebels; A 800,000 spear and stick forbidden army leader was caught hanging by his wife, and his family was ruined, but he still obeyed it, fantasizing that one day he could be pardoned by the king. One sentence can sum up the little thing I understand, the hypocrisy of righteousness and the paralysis of loyalty. Especially in that era of thought and its imprisonment, this book can still be handed down to this day, and it is only after a sudden realization that I can understand Shi Gong's words and proverbs, which have profound meanings and are amazing. Thirty years after Shi Nai'an's death, Zhu Di and Zhu Yunwen's uncle and nephew fought fiercely, which can prove that R learning is only a royal tool of the ruling class.

Let's start hypothetizing again. If there are only living beings on Earth in the universe, and there is only one Celestial Kingdom on Earth, then this tool is extremely effective in maintaining the rule of imperial power, which can be said to be perfect and amazing. In the absence of competitors, it can also enter the era of the Industrial Revolution very slowly, after hundreds or even thousands of years. This was indeed similar to the hypothetical state before the Great Geographical Discovery, and at that time there were only JDJ, YSL and F in the world. However, the reality is not the case, not to mention the universe, even on this earth, it is not your heavenly kingdom that is the king, the extremes of things will be opposed, and the advanced party will be complacent and stagnant; After accumulating strength for hundreds of years, the other side of the backward side finally defeated the kingdom of heaven into a kingdom of earth......

So to what extent was the Ming Dynasty navigating the Great Voyage? At that time, Zheng He had more than 240 ships under his command, with more than 27,000 people. More than 90 years later, Gamma of the Kingdom of Portugal had only four ships and more than 170 people under his command and began his quest to find India. This is just a simple comparison of numbers, and as for the information behind it, everyone has to make up their own brains. "There is no Zheng He after Zheng He", this is because the Ming Dynasty continued to pursue a policy of closing the country to the outside world, and for Portugal, even if da Gama did not find India, they would still continue to explore and discover until they found India, which is the essential difference.

At that time, Xia Yuanji and Liu Daxia, the representatives of the civil official group, believed that the great voyage was useless to the country and the people, and that it was a major maladministration and must be abolished. This is due to the dominance of R-studies and the general environment of its cultural thought, and even if we modern people are put in that era, we cannot do anything to change it. Not to mention that it was an era under the absolute domination of the ideology of the R religion. What they represented was the mainstream view of the elite of the Ming Dynasty at that time. Even the emperor Zhu Di did not dare to go against the ancestral precepts and the entire civil official group, but also under the banner of "royal", no other semicolon cruising on the ocean, he also tried to change this thinking step by step, until the goal of lifting the sea ban was achieved, although in the end it still did not reach the goal, but it is undeniable that Zhu Di's wisdom and courage and the ability to mobilize huge national resources to build ships and go to sea ahead of the public.

After Zhu Di's death, Zhu Gaochi, the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty, in order to encircle the civil official group and consolidate the throne, did not care about his father's great navigation. His grandfather Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral motto is "you can't go to the sea on a piece of board", so to hell with his father's great voyage! Under the temptation of the throne, this filial piety is not so simple. And Zheng He made the last effort and shout for my great navigation in China, which probably means that your grandfather's national policy is outdated, and your father's national policy is right. The Ming fleet is very profitable, they can not only be self-sufficient, but also enrich the treasury and inner treasury (the emperor's small treasury) of the Ming Dynasty, I know that it is cheesy to talk about money with scholars, but these guys only count what they spend and do not earn money, which is not right; In addition, they are also very capable of fighting, not modest to say that they are invincible in the world, although I am the Ming Dynasty is the kingdom of the Heavenly Empire, the state of etiquette, doing business has always been adhering to fair trading, children are not bullied, but if they dare to play tricks, bully people, we will beat them all over the ground to find teeth, obedient and obedient; I have thousands of miles of sea territory, we must not abandon it, if there is a promising king of other countries to seize the South Seas, then my China is in danger...... From Zheng He's words, it is not difficult to find that Bole (Zhu Di) and Maxima (Zheng He) are already the first people in China to open their eyes to see the world, and the role of the fleet can be used for business and conquest of foreign countries in the future. As a result, the great navigation that the former emperor Zhu Di had been engaged in for more than 20 years was ruined......

Prince Henry of Portugal, who was in the same period as the Ming Dynasty, was a "navigator who never sailed far", but he evolved from the classic Caravel sailing ship by funding and sending expedition fleets, establishing a nautical academy, establishing an observatory and library to collect all kinds of nautical data and maps, building ships of more than 100 tons, providing free timber for all ship parts that need to be imported, and designing and building a dhower suitable for long-term ocean-going expeditions that could sail against headwinds...... It is no exaggeration to say that it was he who ushered in the Age of Exploration in Europe. This unusually devout JDJ devoted his life to the Church and the Portuguese seafaring cause, and he adhered to his teachings, disciplined himself, lived frugally, and never married, but at the same time began the colonial expansion of Europe and the slave trade. What is it? A man of Portugal who is not for fame, not for profit, and not for beauty, is at the same time what we call a criminal man.

So what was the great voyage initiated and led by Zhu Di and Zheng He? Take a look at the analysis and evaluation of the elites of the R religion; First of all, because Zhu Di's throne was snatched from Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunwen, and it is rumored that Zhu Yunwen fled into the sea before he died, Zhu Di was very afraid that Zhu Yunwen would fight hard and accumulate strength on a desert island overseas. So let's assume that Zhu Yunwen is dead, according to the logic of the death of the lord of R learning, then the ministers of Zhu Yunwen's department should follow Zhu Yunwen, and Zhu Di belongs to the rebellion and usurpation, according to the logic of the R religion, this is disloyal, rebellious, and everyone will be punished, but in fact, most of them surrendered and continued to work for Zhu Di, but we must always find a reason for surrendering, that is, the reason why Zhu Yunwen is not dead is the most sufficient, because Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, is located in Zhu Yunwen instead of Zhu Di, So Zhu Yunwen represents orthodoxy, as long as orthodoxy is still there, everyone has a reason to preserve their strength, hibernate and wait, and can save the country, so even if Zhu Yunwen is really dead, they say that he is alive, so there is no need to analyze whether Zhu Yunwen is dead or alive, because he must live. This leads to the story of Zhu Di violating the ancestral training of shipbuilding and sending Zheng He to lead a fleet to search for Zhu Yunwen's whereabouts, because Zhu Di is afraid of the war to overthrow his throne caused by the orthodox doctrine of the R religion. Secondly, the financial income of the Ming Dynasty is only a few million taels of silver, and tens of millions of taels of silver are spent on shipbuilding and going to sea, which has caused a huge burden on the Ming Dynasty's finances. Even if Zhu Di and Zheng He are stupid and don't know how to make money, then during the Yongle period, they built a new capital of Beijing, five expeditions to Mobei, a southern expedition to Annan, an expedition to the east, a Yongle ceremony, a Great Wall, a Wudang Mountain, a dredge of the Grand Canal, a large Bao'en Temple, a new Ming Mausoleum, and a shipbuilding to go to sea...... The above projects cost millions or even tens of millions of taels of silver, and only a little tax from the Ming Dynasty could not support such a huge expenditure in Yongle, that is, there was no tax increase and no extra money, where did the money come from? Third, "all countries come to court" is Zhu Di's face project, so he is an emperor who is very happy, and the government spends millions of taels of silver every year, and I don't know where this money comes from? Fourth, in addition to looking for Zhu Yunwen, Zheng He searched everywhere for rare treasures to please Zhu Di in order to gain the emperor's favor. Fifth, it is still a great achievement, Zheng He led the fleet to show off his military might, show off his wealth and martial arts, be a marine policeman, and be nosy when he has nothing to do, which is really against the code of conduct of convincing people with virtue......

As for the other navigators, Diaz, da Gama, Columbus, Magellan, etc., I ask you to make up your own brains for the sake of space, and strongly recommend the Santa Fe Agreement, which was signed by a commoner and the queen through three months of bargaining, and which completely turned my worldview upside down......

Oh! By the way, as mentioned earlier, da Gama led four ships to India, and when he returned, two of them sank, and only two returned to Lisbon, but even so, the profit obtained in this way was dozens of times that of the investment, so it can be seen that the huge profit was the driving force behind the voyage...... This also marked the beginning of the transition between the East and the West.

There is no harm without contrast, and there is no progress without harm. This self-admiring and self-absorbed R religion behind closed doors finally buried the last bit of dignity and blood of the Chinese nation...... Looking at the essence through the phenomenon, it is worthless to put it bluntly, that is, interests, they harm the interests of the country for their own sake or the interest groups behind them. However, they were righteous and righteous, loud and false, claiming that the "boycott of navigation" was for the sake of the common people in the world and the eternal stability of the country, and in the end the Ming Dynasty died of poverty, and the Han people were almost wiped out, which was not retribution, and the R religion continued to be loyal to their new masters, and called it fusion......

I remember that in that era of material scarcity, I always liked to save the best food for the end; If I read a few books, I always save the one that I think is the best for the last. But this time I went against that rule. In fact, before I started writing, I always wanted to practice my pen before writing this history, so as not to spoil the good subject matter. According to the previous logic, I was right to think so, but in the end I figured out that my starting point was wrong, because the first book is the business card that everyone knows you, if this book is completed, then everyone can know the general scope of the author's book selection, just like the customer who enters the Sichuan restaurant can't not dislike the spicy taste is a truth. A Sichuan chef must have so many authentic specialties, so in the same way, I must first make my specialties, so that all the customers who have eaten this dish can make judgments and choices, and I must do my best to achieve the characteristics of Sichuan cuisine, rather than making this dish into eight major cuisines for everyone's taste, then the result can be imagined. So I decided not to be clever anymore and honestly write about this subject to my best efforts. No one has a dream, but this book is written for those who have dreams, and you have invited you to watch the officials......