Chapter One Thousand One Hundred and Seven: Acupuncture, Sailing and Accidents
"Bodhisattva! It turns out that what you are using is an ancient water-floating fish!... If you boil the iron needle until it is hot, and then cool it suddenly, it will float on the water in the bowl, pointing almost to the south... This is
It’s an old method that’s been used for some years, but it’s easy to get inaccurate…”
"Oh! You still rely on the sun during the day and the stars at night to indicate the direction of the sea? Then write down the mountain peaks and rivers along the way, and the appearance of the seashore?... This is also a commonly used method... However, there is no exact needle.
Road, then you must sail close to the coast and not dare to go too far from the coast, let alone sail into the open sea..."
"What! You have a sea chart that was divined after the 'Great Witch Hall's Divine Seduction', so you know the general coast and the road ahead?!...Ah this! God! You relied on divination all the way, and you know
What will be on the sea ahead?!... Lord God! There are such efficacious gods and Buddhas? There is such a great shaman with infinite power?..."
"My lord!... You still recruit sailors and guides from the savage tribes in various places? Ask the local tribes for information about the waterways, and then move to the west coast little by little... Bodhisattva! You are really like this
, just like this... relying on gods, Buddhas and tribes... sailed twenty thousand miles all the way!!..."
The coast of Alaska in the north is vaguely visible in the sky. Those towering peaks are the most eye-catching beacons for hundreds of miles. The sea breeze blowing from the southwest is blowing through the sails tilted to the wind, carrying the lonely shelter boat.
, going to the East without stopping.
The strong southwesterly wind not only brought eastward wind, but also pushed the entire ship to tilt to the north from time to time. The three people on the side of the ship have long been accustomed to this level of bumping and rolling. They all bowed slightly.
, with legs and feet stretched out, while maintaining the balance of the body, while talking loudly with gestures.
"God bless you! Pu Fanjiang, the compass in your hand is originally used to point... Then it has twenty-four grids, that is, it has twenty-four recorded directions?..."
"Yes... sir! This is a twenty-four-digit water compass, also called that... oh! 'Single-needle compass'. Use the azimuth and distance recorded by it to record the detailed sea route, ship speed and time, which is the guide for sailing."
Needle Road...'Zi Guichou Gen, Yin Jia Mao Yi', 'Zi' means due north, 'Gen' means northeast, and 'Mao' means due east. Our ship is heading east now. But look carefully at this
The bow of the ship is actually between 'Gen' and 'Mao', which is roughly like the position of 'A'...that is, one north of six from due east..."
"In total, according to this direction, we have already traveled today...well, three hours!...Ah? You ask how to determine the time? Look at the 12 o'clock sundial on the bow of the ship. It turns three grids, that is three
An hour…”
Sailmaker Pu Shunfan carefully pointed to the 24-digit compass in his hand, and then pointed to the sundial specially placed at the bow of the ship, as well as the direction pole that marked the direction of the bow. The direction of the pole corresponded with the compass, and it was indeed the right direction.
The correct position is 'A', which is due east by north, 75 degrees.
"God bless you! When you are sailing, you actually write down twenty-four angles?...Ah! You also need to write down the time of sailing?!..."
"Sir, sailing on this sea is inherently unpredictable and unpredictable. If you can't even determine the direction and time... you don't know where you will end up!"
Having said this, sailmaker Pu Shunfan tugged his hair, recalled what he had seen and heard at sea, and replied with emotion.
"The compass on our ship is just a simple twenty-four position... Some old 'navigators' on the Ming Dynasty's ship will use a double-needle compass to record the route to Nanyang..."
"We have seen that kind of compass before, with forty-eight directions... and according to the notation of the double-needle compass, the current heading is the 'Jia Mao' position (82.5 degrees) between 'A' and 'Mao'... They
On the boat, there is also a leakage of flowing water, which can tell the exact time and moment..."
"O Lord God! Pu Fanjiang, write down the forty-eight navigation directions down to the specific moment... You are really a tribe that is good at navigation!..."
"Uh... Sir... what you are saying is... you are the... star in the sky descending to earth!... Even if you don't have any tools, you can still go to sea smoothly. Even the Dragon King in the sea does not dare to accept you... No! Xiao Xiao
You are stupid... you... you are... that... auspicious person has his own destiny!..."
Having said this, sailmaker Pu Shunfan gritted his teeth and gave himself two hard slaps, suppressing the disrespectful thoughts in his mind. Then he swallowed hard, and then looked at the man with a surprised and curious face.
It seems that the "big master of the two classes" has never seen these navigation tools.
"Sir! That...this...the wind is very good right now! Very good!...In one hour, you can travel that...forty or fifty miles!..."
"Huh? Boatman Pu, what are you talking about? How fast is this boat going now?..."
"Well, this... the boat travels... that... from here to here... one moment is... one hour... that is... about... a little less than half faster than when you first got on the boat and went from the first island to the second island..."
Sailmaker Pu Shunfan stammered, making gestures and narrating, and Watanabe also translated together. The two talked for a full two-quarters of an hour, and only then did the knowledgeable Mickey figure out what the speed of the boat was.
.
"Lord God! It turns out that this wind god's ship can actually move faster?!..."
"Yes! Sir! This ship is sailing eastward. If it goes against the east wind, it can only travel more than ten miles in one hour. Summer days are long, and the sun on the North Sea is especially long! ... We can travel five hours a day.
, if the wind is against the wind for one day, it will only be fifty or sixty miles. This boat was half facing the south wind, and it can travel thirty miles in an hour. If the wind is half the wind for one day, it is about one hundred and fifty miles!"
"As for now, this boat is following the southwest wind, and it can travel forty or fifty miles in an hour, and more than two hundred miles in a day! And if it is following the west wind, completely following the wind, it can go even faster than it is now! A
In an hour, you can even travel sixty miles, and in a day with a favorable wind, you can travel three hundred miles!…”
"Shipmaker Park, what are you talking about?! If we go completely with the wind, we can travel three hundred miles a day?!... Lord God! This is really a fast ship blessed by the wind god!..."
Hearing such incredible ship speed, Knowledgeable Mickey touched his nose, it was really unbelievable. This is almost three times the speed of the kingdom's longship...
In fact, in this era, Chinese-style shelter boats using longitudinal sails had a limited load capacity, but they were very light and stable, and were good at borrowing wind power. Generally speaking, it can reach the fastest speed with a headwind of 2 knots, a half wind of 4 knots, and a tailwind.
At 7 knots, it is a medium-sized vessel that is very suitable for offshore sailing.
The ocean-covering boat that everyone was riding on set off from Shenshuangyan Port at 158 degrees east longitude at the end of May, and arrived at Shendadi Port at 163 degrees west longitude at the beginning of July. This Chinese-style ocean-covering boat maintained a half-wind
At a speed of 3-5 knots, it took just over a month or forty days to travel through 39 longitudes and 5,000 to 6,000 miles of the Aleutian Island Chain. But now that the wind is turning from half wind to tailwind, the ship's speed has become
Faster. To cover the more than 6,000 miles of the extreme northern coast, it would only take a little over a month...
"God bless you! If everything goes well, we will be able to travel across the entire far north coast in mid-August and arrive at the northernmost point of the west coast, the kingdom's whaling port! And when we arrive at the whale port, even if we don't meet
The third batch of fleets supported by the kingdom can at least know the details of the supporting fleets from the missionary priest Zuyu who is staying here!…”
Thinking of this, Mikey, the knowledgeable man, felt ups and downs, his face was full of impatient desire, and his eyes also showed a look of longing.
The kingdom's ports on the far north coast have only been established for less than a year, and they only have one or two hundred tribes. There are no redundant longships in the ports to accompany the returning owners of the ocean ships, nor can they provide too many supplies. Even the west coast
The news came from last year before the freeze. After all, the extreme northern coast is too desolate and bitterly cold, with almost no large tribes of thousands of people, which is far inferior to the warmer climate and numerous tribes on the west coast.
Only when they reached the west coast, which is navigable all year round, and met the kingdom's support fleet, could this ocean-covering ship, fully loaded with the harvest of Shenqi Continent, truly fall into the hands of the kingdom safely! At that time, he and
Zuvarro’s exploration achievements will be completely settled and will be passed on to the kingdom and recorded in the divinely inspired epic!…
"Priest! Priest Mi! It's not good! It's not good!..."
Mickey, the knowledgeable man, was thinking about something when he suddenly heard a flurry of footsteps and panicked shouts with a Japanese accent.
“The Lord God witnesses! Something happened! Something bad is going to happen!…”
"Huh? What's wrong?! You are... the horse breeder Ichiro?... What happened?"
"Yes! Priest-sama! The young one is Suichiro..."
The horse breeder, Sukeichiro, was barefoot, wearing a leather robe and a golden sun amulet. His face was full of uneasiness and fear. Then, with a "pop" sound, and smelling of horse manure, he
He knelt down on the sloping deck and kowtowed several times. The "bang bang" sound was as if he was about to break the deck with his head. And his voice was full of anxiety, which could even be heard.
Cries of fear came.
"Master Priest!...The horse...the big horse...that big Jurchen horse...something happened!..."
