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

Chapter 698 Great Voyage (21)

Autumn of the fourth year of the Republic of China 490 (694)
Chang'e Academy
"Song Changgeng, is this the globe you made?"

In the school, the professor of geography looked at the globe made by Song Yingxing and was very curious and admired it very much.

A year ago, the late Emperor Di Yu felt that geography played a very important role in opening up new routes, so he created a separate geography department from the navigation department.

Zheng He is not only an honorary professor of navigation, but also an honorary professor of geography.

His disciples were also hired by the academy to serve as professors in the academy.

"Exactly."

Song Yingxing was very proud. The reason why it was called the globe was because he believed that the earth was a sphere.

On the globe he made, there are the Republic, the Central Plains, the Grassland, the Spice Islands, the Southern Continent, Tianzhu, Dashi, and Rome.

The scholars of the Republic already knew the latitude and longitude, and determined the position of the equator very early.

Therefore, in the world map of the Republic, there are many countries north of the equator, while south of the equator, except for the Spice Islands, is the endless ocean.

Of course, this is just one version.

There are also some republican scholars who put forward the idea: If the northern hemisphere is all land and the southern hemisphere is all ocean, then the northern hemisphere will be heavier than the southern hemisphere and the earth cannot maintain balance. Therefore, the southern hemisphere must have as much land as the northern hemisphere. .

The Republic has not explored the world in the southern hemisphere, so it can only imagine the world through such assumptions.

By coincidence, a few years ago, explorers discovered that there is an endless continent (Australia) south of Star City, which is exactly in line with the hypothesis of "land balance in the northern and southern hemispheres" of scholars.

Therefore, on the latest version of the world map of the Republic, these scholars drew a landmass south of the Spice Islands that was larger than the entire Central Plains grassland combined, and named it [Southern Continent] (Australia).

On Song Yingxing's globe, to the east of the Yan Kingdom is the vast sea. Through the vast sea, you can reach Spain, the far west of Rome described in Journey to the West.

Yes, on Song Yingxing's globe, the east of Yan Kingdom is the Roman Empire.

At this moment, the Republic does not yet know the existence of the New World, even though Li Huamei has been to the New World once and returned once.

However, other people in the Republic believed that Li Huamei just went to the Liugui Protectorate to capture a few natives, while Li Huamei and other members of the expedition thought that they had arrived in Rome.

Anyway, those who have been to the New World think that what they have discovered is Rome, not the New World, and those who have not been to the New World do not know the existence of the New World.

Therefore, even though Li Huamei had discovered the New World a year ago, no one in the Republic knew about the New World, not even Li Huamei herself, because she thought she had discovered Rome.

In particular, the Republic has not yet sailed around the Southern Continent, but has only visited the north coast and the northern part of the East Coast. Therefore, the Southern Continent on the map is drawn very large, extending directly from the south of Xingfan City to latitude 0.

Not only that, there is not only no New World, but also no Black Continent (Africa) on the map. The Republic's expedition team has not yet arrived. Therefore, on the Republic's world map, the area of ​​the Black Continent is directly in the vast sea, with a huge floating on the sea. Island, there is a powerful country on the island called Egypt.

To the north of the island country Egypt, across the sea, is Greece, and to the west of Greece is the legendary Rome.

These geographical locations are all imagined based on the descriptions in Xu Xiake's "Journey to the West".

Song Yingxing's globe has the same structure.

It can be seen that the Republic of this period still had very insufficient understanding of the world. Even Song Yingxing could not escape the times.Song Yingxing is only 16 years old this year, but he has already made a rotating globe by himself, even though this globe is very inaccurate and full of errors.

Moreover, the Liugui Duhufu, grassland and other places on the globe are drawn very small.

The reason is that the population in these places is very small. Map makers infer the size of the territory based on the population. They think that if the population is large, the territory will be large, and if the population is small, the territory will be small.

Under their thinking, the Central Plains and Tianzhu were painted very large. A Shandong Peninsula was actually larger than the entire Quedao (Japanese Islands).

The Guanzhong area in the Central Plains was drawn to be larger than the entire Northeast due to its dense population.

However, the huge grassland was painted to be as big as Hebei.

World map makers are full of mistakes, and when Song Yingxing put the world map on the globe, he was also full of mistakes.

While Song Yingxing and others were admiring the improved globe, a war broke out between the Central Plains and the Turks. One hundred thousand Turkic cavalry fought Wang Xiaojie in Monan and were defeated by Wang Xiaojie. The Wuzhou Empire regained Monan and established the "Monan Protectorate" to regain support. Pro-Tang Turkic nobles helped rule the Monan grassland.

The Turks (later/new) retreated to the Mobei grassland to recharge their batteries and recover their vitality, waiting for the next decisive battle.

Not only that, Wu Zhao also prepared to completely destroy the Western Turks.

The Western Turks were subjugated and resurrected, subjugated and resurrected, and over and over again, making the Central Plains dynasty extremely annoyed.

In the snow-covered plateau, the civil war in the Zhou Kingdom continues, and as many as 20 troops have been lost in the civil war.

This was undoubtedly a huge blow to the Snowy Zhou Kingdom.

More importantly, some Zhou nobles also surrendered to Wu Zhou and became Wu Zhou's tributary vassal kings.

No matter which country is in a civil war, surrounding countries always like to take the opportunity to intervene.

When the Central Plains was in civil strife, the Snowy Zhou Kingdom intervened in the Central Plains. When the Snowy Zhou Kingdom was in civil strife, the Central Plains in turn intervened in the Snowy Zhou Kingdom.

During the civil war in Yan, the Tang Dynasty invaded the Yan State. When the Tang Dynasty was in civil strife, the Yan State also attacked the Shandong region of the Tang Dynasty.

Various wars are still being staged repeatedly in the Central Plains, Wu Zhao's great purge is still going on, Shangguan Wan'er continues to pass on more information to Emperor Shitian, and Yuan Tiangang is still tirelessly passing on information to Di Renjie.

And at this moment in the "Roman Continent", Li Huamei has arrived in the "Roman Continent" again.

"Is this the Rome you're talking about?"

After five months of hard sailing, the professional expedition team finally arrived at the "Roman Continent".

Looking at the desolate land in front of him, there were no decent villages, let alone cities. The leader of the professional expedition team was not surprised and asked questions.

"This is definitely Rome!" Li Huamei was very determined.

This must be Rome, and it must be Rome!
The expedition continued to sail south. Last time Li Huamei sailed north, he failed to find the city of Rome, so this time he decided to sail south and he would definitely find the city of Rome.

(End of this chapter)