Since the establishment of the maritime fleet, Wei Shuo has been looking for opportunities for maritime trade, at first his trading fleet only came to Jiangdong, Liaodong, Qingzhou, Xuzhou and other coastal areas, and later, with Wei Shuo's encouragement, gradually opened up the route from Laoshan to Sanhan, and finally traveled as far as Wadao.

In the past two years, with the increasing size of the maritime fleet, maritime trade has become one of the very important sources of taxes under Wei Shuo's rule, and in the first half of this year, it received 500 million yuan, equivalent to 500,000 yuan.

Although this amount of money is not worth mentioning in the Song and Song dynasties, when overseas trade was developed, it is enough to shock the attention of the Wei and Jin dynasties, when maritime trade was basically blank.

The orthodox scholars, led by Pei Wei, could not believe that they could earn a fortune equivalent to a quarter of the financial revenue of the state and dynasty with just a few ships, and of course, this income did not include income in kind such as grain and silk. The fiscal revenue of the ancient government did not simply refer to monetary income, it included not only monetary income such as household tax and commercial tax, but also in-kind income such as tenant rent.

However, even so, it also made Pei Wei, Gao Zhan and others realize that maritime trade contains huge profits, and they very much agree with Wei Shuo's proposal to expand the scale of maritime trade.

"Recently, we have gained great benefits from maritime trade, and the tax revenue of the two seaports of Qingdao and Lushun has reached 500,000 yuan, which is higher than the tax revenue of the very wealthy counties in the east of Xuzhou. Despite the success of maritime trade, I feel that there is still potential to be exploited. ”

Wei Shuo glanced around at everyone and continued: "Compared with the three places of Jiangdong, Sanhan, and Wadao, which are relatively close to the voyage, although their commercial potential has not yet been fully developed, we should also take precautions. Go to the farther South Seas to open up a larger market. A long voyage means a lot of risk, but it also means a lot of profit. ”

"It is understood that in the entire Nanyang region, there are countless large and small countries such as Lim Eup and Funan, and those countries are much richer than Samhan, Baekje, and Wado. I've heard that some lords' palaces are paved with gold, and in some countries, gold is very cheap because of the abundance of gold everywhere. ”

Under Wei Shuo's description, many people showed a trace of heat in their eyes, gold is a rare thing at this time, generally only found in the rich and noble homes, many people can't imagine what a palace paved with gold looks like.

Seeing everyone take the bait, Wei Shuo said with an imperceptible smile on the corner of his mouth: "Although the countries of Nanyang are very rich, they are unable to produce porcelain, silk, tea and other materials due to underdeveloped science and technology and lack of abundant products. As long as we can transport these things to the South Seas by sea ship, we can exchange them for a shipload of gold, silver, copper ore, and other minerals and food that we urgently need. ”

Except for Pei Wei, Gao Zhan, Lu Chang and a few others who were not tempted by Wei Shuo, the others were all attracted by the scenery of the South Seas described by Wei Shuo, and they couldn't wait to drive the sea ship to the South Seas immediately, and then load a ship of gold and come back.

After Wei Shuo's instigation, a wave of maritime trade quickly arose in Liaodong. Regardless of the government or the people, maritime trade is the hottest topic at present, not only the government is organizing fleets to go to the South Seas, but some powerful businessmen are also actively buying sea vessels.

But sea voyages are not a simple task, especially in ancient times when there was no satellite navigation, and it was even more difficult. In the past two years, Wei Shuo has been training the experience of Liaodong sailors sailing on the sea, first Jiangdong and then Samhan, and finally to Wajima, Liaodong sailors have accumulated rich experience in the ocean little by little.

However, a group of sailors with a lot of experience in the ocean only gave Wei Shuo a foundation to go to sea. In addition, there must be talents who are familiar with maritime positioning technology, otherwise the fleet sent by Wei Shuo will be waiting to be lost in the vast sea!

In modern Weishuo, I didn't go to a maritime school, so I didn't know much about navigation. He only knew that the ancient sea mainly relied on astronomical navigation or compass and sextant navigation. Wei Shuo didn't know how it worked, but if he didn't know the compass, as a Chinese, it would be better to take a piece of tofu and kill him directly.

The compass, to put it bluntly, is a further development of the compass, its orientation division is much more precise than the compass, and the compass provides much more information than the compass. As early as the Warring States Period, the working people of China understood and used the polarity of the magnet to make the earliest compass - Sinan.

In the process of making the compass, the natural magnet is easy to lose magnetism due to blow and heat, and the magnetism is weak, so Sinan has not been widely spread. It was not until the Song Dynasty that artificial magnets were discovered, and later in long-term practice, guide fish appeared.

By changing the magnetic sheet to a magnetic steel needle, a new guide instrument was created that went further than the guide fish.

Soon after the invention of the compass, it was applied to navigation, that is, the nautical compass was born, and the earliest document in the world to record the application of the compass to navigation was during the Xuanhe period of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Under Wei Shuo's order, the Laoshan water division and the trade fleet had already used the simple compass, and after a year of training, a large number of skilled compass locators were produced under his command, which was enough to meet his upcoming ocean trade.

After making full preparations with technology and manpower, Wei Shuo's long-awaited ocean-going trade could finally begin, and before leaving, he drew a map of the South China Sea based on his impressions and handed it to the fleet that was about to go to the sea.

However, even with Ronan, a rough map, and experienced sailors, there is still no guarantee that the ocean-going fleet will be able to reach the islands of the South Seas, because a sea-going ship suitable for the ocean is needed.

Before the invention of the three-masted sailing ship, in fact, the Chinese sailing technology was ahead of Europe, until the Turks captured Constantinople in the middle of the 15th century, and the Europeans' route to the east was blocked.

In order to build bigger and better ships to cross the seas in search of new riches, Spanish and Portuguese shipbuilders combined wine ships and clippers to form three-masted galleons. Its hull structure is more rational, it has three masts, can travel with wind within a 65-degree angle, can carry a lot of necessities, can stay at sea for months on end, and can even sail around the earth.

The appearance of the three-masted galleon changed the history of the West lagging behind the East in shipbuilding technology, and also changed the position of the West in world trade.

In the minds of navigators and shipbuilders, the construction of the three-masted galleon was almost perfect.

Although Wei Shuo very much wanted to get the three sailing boats out to match his fleet, for the Laoshan shipyard, which had a weak technical foundation, it was not possible to manufacture such advanced sailing ships for the time being. Later, Wei Shuo thought about it and set his goal on improving the existing sand boat.

The sand ship is the most mature ship in the shipyard at present, and its construction number is the largest and the most widely used, and it is characterized by a flat-bottomed square bow and square stern. Rivers, lakes and seas are navigable, and the seaworthiness is particularly strong, and its most prominent features are wide, large, flat and shallow.

Sand ships are currently the most widely used ships, not only in the trade fleet in a large number of sand ships, but also the main warship of the current sailors. Although sand boats have many advantages, there are also irreparable flaws. The flat-bottomed sand boat was completely unsuitable for ocean voyages, so Wei Shuo set his sights on the Fu ship at the beginning.

After nearly two years of exploration, Laoshan Shipyard has successfully built a Fu ship, which is a kind of pointed bottom sea ship, which was famous for sailing in the South China Sea and the open sea in the Ming Dynasty.

Standing on the pier, Wei Shuo looked at it from afar, and saw that the "Laoshan" was as tall as a building, with a wide bottom tip, high head and tail, and guards on both sides. It looks majestic, in front of a petite sand boat, like a noble king.

The whole ship is divided into four layers, the lower deck is loaded with cargo ballast, the second floor is inhabited by personnel, the third floor is the main operation place, and the upper floor is the combat site, which is condescending, and bows and arrows and ballistas are fired downward or around to defeat the enemy. The Laoshan is the first large seagoing vessel built by Laoshan Shipyard, with a draft of one zhang, and is an excellent ship suitable for sailing in the deep sea.