"I was admitted to the naval school and served as a captain on a ship. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info At that time, it was said that the earth was round, and someone found gold on the island, and the Qi country supported pirates to plunder, so they often had to go to sea at that time. ”

"Why didn't the people who said they wanted to ring the earth come back? The group of people in the arithmetic class earlier relied on the shadow of the sun to calculate, and one circle is only 80,000 miles, and trigonometry and arithmetic will not deceive people. 80,000 miles, that is, climbing, climbing for three or five years, and climbing back. Just because the waves are strange here, I'm afraid they haven't even sailed out for 30,000 miles. ”

"We are at sea, and we have to look at the sun, the astrolabe, and the stars with the star-pulling board all the year round, otherwise you don't know which way the ship is sailing, and if you see too much, you won't be able to see clearly with one eye. How is it so easy to do in the Navy? ”

"In the military school, you have to learn arithmetic triangles, and you have to serve the people on the ship, but the ship is not on land, there are not so many good rules, and if you don't obey, you will be beaten, otherwise you won't be able to subdue everyone. In a small space, there is no place to run, only obedience! Obey! Obey again! If you can't convince them, they can tie you up and throw you into the sea to be a pirate themselves. ”

Fifteen years ago, six ships sank on the rocks, caught up with strong winds, and there were more than 1,000 people left. Sometimes it's far away, and the water you drink stinks and turns green, so you have to drink it, and if you don't drink it, you'll die of thirst......"

Speaking of this, Chen Siwen suddenly fell silent, as if he recalled something unbearable, and sighed and said: "If you just fight along the coast, it's fine, but now there are many pirates, and there are orders to attack and suppress at every turn, how can it be so easy?" ”

The sea is indeed romantic, but behind the romance, there are countless sorrows. It is precisely because of those countless sorrows that the romance of the great voyage of wine and drunkenness without fear of life and death has been brewed.

Jian Chen sat up straight and said solemnly: "Father, my son has also read a lot of books these days, and he understands a little bit about navigation. I always feel that the sea is the place where men should go, and the army is a little boring and dull. After doing it for a long time, it is inevitable that it will be a little boring and tired, so ......"

Chen Siwen said with a smile: "You, you, you are like the person Ji Xia said in "Sleepwalking in the World of the Ancestors", you can't learn books for three years, you can't learn swords for three years, and you can't learn the art of war of the enemy of 10,000 people. But people are born with the strength to carry the crown...... It is said that Na Ding is the name of the ancestors for cannons, even if it is the smallest three-pound cannon, it will be a few hundred catties, right? Then you still use a sword to learn a fart? What are you, I don't know? ”

reprimanded, piled up the books and only let Chen Jian learn. Jian Chen didn't say much, put away the books and left.

After Chen Jian left, Chen Siwen couldn't help but sigh.

I also had the dreams and enthusiasm of young people back then, and I was admitted to the Naval Academy from the few places reserved for ordinary people, and I also hoped that I could plant the flag of China on those unknown islands, and I also hoped that there would be no more war in the unification of the world, and even I might be able to make great contributions and engrave my name in some places where people can look at me.

Those years were the most exciting years of the sea, and people looked forward to the return of the round-the-world voyage and the fact that they could know the outside world, but after a few years, no news came back, and after a few more waves, it was still the same.

So those passions turned into fear, thinking that there might be terrifying creatures in the sea that were ten thousand times bigger than whales. Since arithmetic and triangulation and the shadow of the sun are not wrong, then the earth is still round, but I am afraid that there is no other continent except for China.

When all these emotions gradually spread to the whole country, people's thinking is also slowly changing: once the Qi country is defeated, there will be no more enemies, no longer need the army, and no longer need those poor people who have given political claims because of their military service......

It was at that time that Chen Siwen grew up, no longer the young man who fantasized about circumnavigating the world, and became a normal military officer.

At that time, there was a poet who described everything that followed: China will be like a pool of stagnant water, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. There are no more heroes who have military exploits to fight, only mercenary countrymen remain.

It was also from that time that all the strange ideas about human beings began to appear: some people compared the number of population increases, and found to their horror that one day the population of China would be too large to flourish, and the world was only so big, that there was an anti-human idea of drowning a group of poor people proportionally.

Political parties have sprung up to discuss only one thing: what kind of country is best in this known world.

Chen Siwen went to school, and he learned very well; There were ideals, and ideals were very high. But the more so, the more desperate and decadent he will be in the face of this futuristic and dark despair.

From a handsome young officer, who wore a straight uniform without epaulettes even at the dinner table at home, who never gobbled up his meals, who practiced even walking with his big toe apart and grasping the ground with the ball of his forefoot in order to get used to the deck, who was able to load muskets with his eyes closed; He became a middle-aged corrupt bureaucrat who was chubby, occasionally well-dressed, ate slowly, could ride a horse without walking, and read novels more than astrolabes.

He doesn't want his son to go through the path he has walked again, because the ending is inevitably the same, so why bother?

He couldn't figure out why his son had changed, or why he had something ridiculous, called a dream, that he had before.

After being relieved, there was only a sigh, this thing might as well not have it all the time.

On the second night, Chen Siwen was reading a book there, and Chen Jian walked in again, holding something made of wood in his hand.

Just by looking up, I knew that it was a triangle with a ninety degree angle, and a scale was marked on it.

"What do you want to do?"

"After I went back yesterday, I thought about it, and the star-pulling board is actually not good, and the error is a bit big. People hold the star-pulling board and rely on their arms to be level, and people who have not practiced for many years will have a great error. And there are a total of thirty star-pulling plates, each board is at least three degrees, and it is necessary to rely on the naked eye to identify the star map near the Big Dipper to determine the specific location, so I made this. ”

Chen Siwen frowned and said, "What do you know?" Do you really think you understand everything after reading a few books? ”

As he spoke, he took the triangle board without anger, and looked through it, and there was no difference between it and the ninety-degree angle triangle, except that a hole was buckled in the center of the arc, and a rope was tied to it, and a lead bullet was attached to the rope.

"What the hell is this?"

"The new star-pulling board."

Chen Siwen laughed, pointed to something that a child who had finished elementary school could knock out in a quarter of an hour, and said, "Are you joking with me?" ”

"Then let's give it a try. If you calculate the 80,000 miles around the earth, you can calculate how far we are from the far north. ”

Chen Siwen laughed and closed the book, returned to the room, and found a large pile of peachwood planks of various sizes that had been rubbed by sweat and hands to the point that he could no longer stand on the fly, and walked outside with Jian Chen.

The stars in the sky are extremely clear in the night sky, Chen Siwen knows that the sages of hundreds of years ago knew about the precession, knew that the North Star is constantly approaching the extreme north, and also knows that the current North Star is about three degrees away from the due north, and even those who look at the stars all day long use the precession to deduce that Vega will appear in the north after 14,000 years, and the North Star, which is not very clear at that time and is not too bright, will no longer be the North Star.

The first story about the stars under the gourd stand a long time ago will become the protagonist of the starry sky in another 10,000 years, which was not thought of by those who listened to the story under the gourd stand hundreds of years ago.

The North Star is not a star, it is a location, and whoever is there is the North Star.

Chen Siwen looked at the starry sky in the extreme north, put the star-holding board on the ground, shook his head and said, "I used the star-holding board when I was young, and I knew it with my eyes closed." If the equator is zero, it is twenty-eight and a half degrees, and it is 13,666 miles from the extreme north. You don't need to count half of this thing, just calculate twenty-eight degrees. ”

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and looked at his son holding the triangle board and the buckshot hanging from the center of the arc, like a hanging wire for building a house, Chen Siwen buzzed in his mind and snatched the simple toy.

A right-angled fan, on one side is a tin tube that can be knocked out by any tin pot maker, aiming the tin tube at the North Star in the extreme north direction, and after finding it from the field of vision, slowly adjust it, and close the lid in front of the tin tube with only a small round hole exposed, so as to find the position of the North Star more accurately.

Then he stabilized himself with the arm that he had practiced many years ago and had practiced on the sea, which could not move no matter how much he shook his feet, and when the naturally drooping buckshot no longer swayed, he said in a steady chest cavity and the commanding tone accustomed to being on board: "Read the horns." ”

"Sixty-one and a half hours."

Chen Siwen took a breath, put away the simple little wooden board, and muttered, "The moment angle minus sixty-one and a half degrees, that is twenty-eight and a half degrees...... If you make it bigger and carve out the division, you can really measure the difference of thirty or fifty miles...... It's also useless. ”

"And in the sea and the wind and waves are strong, this vertical lead bullet will always shake, but it may not be accurate, but it saves the hard work of practicing the hands and leveling the stars."

Although he said this, he couldn't help but be excited in his heart, after all, this is a simple problem that cannot be simpler - hands may deceive people, and even eyes can deceive people, obviously it is not flat but think it is flat.

Only the cotton thread driven by the sag of the lead bullet will not deceive people, that is, it points to the earth under the feet, and is at a rectangular angle to the theoretical level of the place where you stand.

The most experienced crew members can put a bowl of water on their arm, and the water in the bowl will never tilt, and they can even use their knowledge of the astrolabe to roughly estimate the north-south position at this time without the need for a star plate.

But this thing...... It only takes two children who have gone to school to hold it, as long as one knows the number, the other can do addition and subtraction within 90.

Hanging thread, which has been used since very ancient times, is still used to build houses, but the combination of a buckshot and cotton thread replaces the three years of hard work of the navigator to stretch his arm.

When Chen Siwen was surprised, he heard again: "Father, this lead bullet will indeed shake because of the swing of the ship, if you can make something, not by the arm but by the truth that it is impossible to change between heaven and earth to determine the angle, can you directly rely on this student who has been recruited into the Navy as a naval academy?" ”

"The immutable truth between heaven and earth?"

"Yes."

"If it can really be made and easy to use, then you can really go without paying a bribe!"