Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 689 The Great Voyage ([-])

Republic 470 Seven Year Winter (687)
When the Yan Kingdom was setting up a tribute system, forcing various indigenous tribes to surrender to the Guardian of the Ghost Capital.

The Xingfan Kingdom and the Xingfan Council spent a lot of money to hire the famous navigator Zheng He to once again sail to the sea, open up more overseas markets, and build more trade transfer stations.

The nobles and wealthy businessmen of the Xingfan Kingdom are no longer satisfied with the market in eastern Tianzhu.

The main reason is that Tianzhu can produce spices on its own, so there is still no market for the spices in Xingfan Kingdom. They sell other products, such as woolen cloth, silk, porcelain, fine wine, etc.

"I heard that spices from the Central Plains are imported from Da Shi, and spices from Da Shi are imported from Southern Tianzhu."

"In this case, why don't we sell the spices directly to Dashi, in this way, it is equivalent to selling to the Central Plains."

"Mr. Zheng He, please open a route to Dashi for us."

Zheng He is 72 years old and has been fond of sailing since he was a child. In recent years, while idle at home, he has served as a professor of navigation at Chang'e University, teaching students navigation knowledge and editing navigation textbooks for the Republic.

Chang'e Academy is a standard aristocratic academy. Those who can learn knowledge here are either rich or noble. They are either the children of aristocrats or the children of wealthy businessmen in guilds.

Children of ordinary citizens generally can only attend elementary school when they are young, and can learn the most basic literacy.

When you grow up, you can acquire knowledge such as navigation through practice, then take the imperial examination in navigation, and finally pass the imperial examination and become a citizen of the Republic.

As long as you spend a lot of money, you can buy some books, but if you can't find a professional teacher, you can only teach yourself, or find a relative or friend who knows this knowledge.

Zheng He's fleet had more than 20 ships and [-] sailors. They set out from Xingfan City. This time they did not choose to enter the Hangu Strait, but passed through the western waters of Fandao.

The difference from last time was that last time, Zheng He's fleet sailed entirely along the coastline. They never dared to go too deep into the center of the ocean for fear of getting lost in the vast ocean.

This time, Zheng He had a new navigation tool - the maritime astrolabe.

As early as more than ten years ago, Yan Guo improved the terrestrial astrolabe on the basis of the compass and compass.

A year ago, an explorer from Xingfan Kingdom improved the sea astrolabe based on the land astrolabe.

Although the maritime astrolabe had a large error, it gave the Republic's explorers the possibility to leave the coastline and conduct ocean voyages.

According to the astrolabe, navigators can roughly know which longitude and latitude they are at, and thus determine where they should sail next.

Since he was opening up a new route, Zheng He did not plan to sail along the last route. Instead, he relied on the latest tool - the maritime astrolabe to try to cross the sea directly and reach Lion Island from Fan Island in a straight line without having to follow the east coast. Sailing along Tianzhu's coastline.

The risk is huge. If you get lost, you will starve to death on the vast sea.

But the benefits are huge too!
In order to stimulate Zheng He and other navigators to explore closer and more efficient routes and find more overseas markets, the Republic provided very attractive conditions.

For explorers and navigators who open up new routes, the economic benefits generated by all trade transfer stations on the new routes will all belong to the pioneers within 20 years. Within 50 years, half will be shared by the pioneers and the government. After 50 years, the income from the trading stations will All belong to the government.

The government spent money to build trading stations on the new route, but the proceeds belonged to the navigators and explorers who opened the new route, and the developers of the new route could have the permanent naming rights of the new route.

That is to say, if a person opens up a new route and names this new route [Little Sister Route], then this route, even if 1000 years pass, will still be called [Little Sister Route].

There are not only long-term benefits, but also short-term benefits. Those who open up new routes will receive large monetary rewards. Those who discover new wastelands will share half of all the benefits generated by the wasteland within 100 years.

This is a stimulus to encourage explorers to find more uncultivated good land, and to find more safe and reliable rear granaries for the Republic.

After several days of sea storms, they finally arrived at Lion Island, but there was an error. They did not reach the northern end of Lion Island, which is the Lower Zhenghe Station, but arrived at the southern end of Lion Island.

This is already the boundary of the Lion Kingdom.

The Lion Kingdom is an indigenous kingdom on Lion Island. The dwarf black people have been invaded by the Zhuliye Kingdom all year round. Their people are often captured by the Zhuliye Kingdom's army and then sold to the Xingfan Kingdom as plantation slaves.

There was a small fishing village on the coast, and the local indigenous villagers looked curiously at the Xingfan Kingdom expedition ship that was docking.

This place is relatively far from the Zhuliye Kingdom. The captives are usually the natives in the north-central part of Lion Island, while the natives in the southern part of the island have never been invaded by foreign enemies.

After the expedition ship docked, the sailors disembarked and began to plunder the fishing village.

This is a normal operation in the Age of Discovery. You have come here, and you must not return empty-handed. When you explore and open up new routes, you can rob it by the way.

At first, the short black natives didn't understand what was happening. They stood there stupidly, watching blankly as the sailors put on their armors, rode tall horses, and ran towards them with horse shafts in their hands. Come.

Tatata!
puff!

"Wow!!!--"

It was only when the first villager was stabbed in the throat by a horse that the other indigenous villagers realized that they had been invaded.Some villagers ran home, picked up spears, and tried to resist.

Some villagers held harpoons and showed off their power to the Xingfan Nation sailors in full armor.

The Lion Kingdom has mastered iron smelting technology, but the smelting level is very low. It is also iron, and the quality of their ironware is very poor.

He was completely horrified when a short black fisherman stabbed the Xingfan Kingdom sailor's armor with an iron-headed harpoon, but his hand was numb from the shock, but the Xingfan Kingdom sailor was unscathed.

"devil!"

"The devil has come to harvest our souls!"

The natives screamed in terror and fled in all directions.

In their eyes, these sailors from Xingfan Kingdom are devils with bronze skin and iron bones and invulnerability.

Some villagers were slaughtered, some fled into the mountains and forests, and some were captured.

All the property in the village was carried on board the ship.

Afterwards, the expedition fleet continued its voyage, first circling the entire island, selling the slaves on board to the trading station, and then continued sailing westward in search of the legendary big food.

Everyone rested for a few days at the Lower Zhenghe Trading Post, and all the slaves on the ship were sold.

The money earned from selling slaves was spent by the sailors in the brothel of the trading station that night.

In the morning, he sold the slaves and made a sum of money, and in the evening, the money went into the hands of Sister Yao.

After replenishing a lot of food, coconuts (fresh water), and citrus (to prevent sepsis) at the trading post, the expedition fleet passed through the Lion Strait and arrived at the southernmost tip of Tianzhu - Tianzhu Cape (Nagaikoil).

Zheng He also discovered this place for the first time, so he named it [Tianzhu Corner].

This is the southernmost point of the Tianzhu Mountains. To the east is the Kingdom of Pandya and to the west is the Kingdom of Zheluo.

They are also of the dwarf race and have similar beliefs and customs.

Continuing to sail along the coastline of Western Tianzhu, when Zheng He arrived at the Dravidian Tea Kingdom, he saw the traces left by Master Xuanzang decades ago. There was even a local legend about Master Xuanzang debating Buddhist scriptures with other masters. story.

It is said that a court mage from the Dravidian tea kingdom committed suicide out of shame when he was debating sutras with Master Xuanzang because he could not argue with Tang Xuanzang.

Continuing to the north, the skin color of the local people becomes whiter and whiter, and there are fewer and fewer mountains and hills, replaced by extremely fertile plain agricultural land.

Zheng He had never seen such fertile land. The fertility of the land here was slightly inferior even in the Central Plains.

The only fly in the ointment is that it is too hot. Although the grain yield is very high, it is not something that normal people can stay in.

The local Tianzhu people are used to hot weather. Zheng He has lived in the cold Liaodong since he was a child, so he doesn't like the hot and humid climate here.

When he grew up, although he often went to the South China Sea to explore, the South China Sea was definitely not as hot as Tianzhu.

Continuing to sail along the coastline, when they arrived at the Langgelo Kingdom, Zheng He's fleet discovered that the locals would plant a large number of white hairy plants and then use this plant to spin clothes.

This kind of thing actually existed in the Central Plains during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. It was brought to the Central Plains by merchants from the Western Regions and was called "kapok".

However, there are not many places suitable for growing this plant in the Central Plains. Therefore, the Central Plains only produces a little cotton every year, which is specially provided for the use of the royal relatives, and even ordinary nobles cannot afford it.

But here, Zheng He saw patches of white cotton.

"If you purchase cotton from here and sell it to Yan State, you will definitely make a lot of money!"

Zheng He guessed this.

Many aristocrats of the Yan Kingdom were engaged in land reclamation in the cold black land of Northeast China. The residents and slaves there needed warm clothes, and cotton was undoubtedly the most suitable.

Zheng He changed the name of the Langjieluo Kingdom to the Little Cotton Kingdom, the Brahman Kingdom to the Great Cotton Kingdom, and the "Big River (Indus River)" to the "Mianhua River".

Subsequently, Zheng He continued to sail westward. His real destination was the Dashi/Umayyad Dynasty where spices could be dumped.

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In the Age of Discovery, there were many outstanding navigators and explorers. If we had to identify a representative figure, it would be Zheng He. ——"General History of the World Song Dynasty Li Qingzhao"

(End of this chapter)