Chapter 556 Whoever controls the ocean controls the world
In the first year of Wanli, a large sailing ship assigned by Felipe from Spain arrived at the Moon Harbor of the Ming Dynasty. The large sailing ship requested 'tribute' trade. Of course, this was Luo Gongchen, the owner of the Shipping Department's Rate Hall in Damingyue Port and a fellow coastal defense official, said this when he reported to the court. In the eyes of Captain Antonio, it was an ocean-going trade.
The gears of fate began to turn, and everyone's destiny changed dramatically.
Zhu Yijun brought Hai Rui back from his hometown in order to calm down the feud of the imperial court officials.
That trade was actually not smooth.
Because the Ming Dynasty did not have a policy to draw points for Thai and Western merchant ships. Legally, these ships were illegal, so the large sailing ships could not pass the customs. The large sailing ships at that time did not even have ship guides. Not even allowed to dock at Yuegang, Antonio used his "throwing money" skill to bribe Luo Gongchen from the Metropolitan Government.
Luo Gongchen came to Beijing for activities in the sixth year of Longqing, hoping to draw points for foreign ships, mainly targeting Portuguese ships, the oceans of the ocean. He failed, although Zhang Juzheng accepted the opportunity to draw points for foreign ships. memorial, but Zhang Juzheng failed to convince other courtiers. At that time, the main theme of the court was still dog fighting.
There is a decisive battle between Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong. After Gao Gong fell, the Jin Party was still entrenched and even usurping imperial power.
The two eunuchs who went to Hainan to take Hai Rui back to Beijing, Zhang Cheng and Zhang Jin, coveted the silver on the big sailboat. The national funds were really poor at that time. For the sake of the silver, these two angels, He forced the Shipping Department of Yuegang City to draw points for the large sailing ship. If Hai Rui hadn't put in some good words for the two of them after returning to Beijing, saying that his sister-in-law had to help him and that it was expedient to do so in an emergency. The eunuch will be criticized by the courtiers again.
Francisco Sander, the then Spanish Governor in the Philippines, was very disdainful of the Ming Dynasty. In his words, only two thousand people were needed to destroy the Ming Dynasty, because everyone in the Ming Dynasty was against the emperor. .
Later, Francisco was defeated by Yin Zhengmao, the country's surname, and forced him to break open the water gate of the castle. The Guangdong guest soldiers and Lin Afeng's pirates rushed into the castle and captured the outspoken governor. He is still being held captive to this day. Imprisoned in Manila.
Francisco is still alive. At first, he was used as a hostage, and later he planned to ask Felipe in exchange for some ransom. The original intention was to use this nobleman to exchange for Spain's recognition of the Ming Dynasty's occupation of Luzon, so that Spain could swallow it. In this tone, there is still business to do after all, and some things need to be explained clearly.
But Felipe is not willing to pay even a cent of silver. He does not even mention this person in his credentials. The reason for not mentioning it is very simple. I have no choice now. Luzon is too far away, but I They will not give up their claims to Luzon just like Antonio gave up the Straits of Malacca. This is the relationship between Ming and Spain, cooperation in competition.
For example, in the third year of Wanli, Felipe purchased fifty five-masted ocean-going ships from the shipyard, and the delivery was divided into five years.
When the large sailing ship arrived at the port, the Ming Dynasty clearly realized two facts. The Ming Dynasty did not have ships that could conquer the ocean, nor did it have the technology to go ocean-going. During the Yongle period, the Ming Dynasty was proud of the star-crossing ocean. Even because of the ban on astronomy, no one can master it.
This means that Ming Dynasty has lost its commodity advantage in the shipbuilding industry. It also means that it is an inevitable fact that it is falling behind in ocean navigation technology.
The Ming Dynasty claims to be the Celestial Kingdom. What is the Celestial Kingdom? It means being ahead of the world in all aspects, standing at a height that is difficult for others to reach, and the barbarians can only look up at it. Not lagging behind others in any aspect, that is the Celestial Kingdom.
Due to the lack of shipbuilding technology, the backwardness of ocean-going technology, and even the fact that the sun never sets on Taixi, Ming Dynasty came into contact with Taixi and learned that Ming Dynasty was losing its status as a great country.
Zhu Zaiyu was abducted to the capital by a precision sextant. Although he had various conflicts with the Ming Dynasty, although Zhu Zaiyu refused to admit that he was the prince of Prince Zheng and refused to accept the hereditary inheritance of Prince Zheng, although Zhu Zaiyu Zaiyu suffered in front of the palace gate for fifteen years, silently accusing the court and the emperor of injustice.
But when faced with the precision sextant, Zhu Zaiyu had no choice but to enter Beijing. He had no choice but to refuse this invitation and explore the great romance of exploring the boundaries of the world of human cognition. He Zhu Zaiyu You must not be absent.
Now, ten years later, Ming Dynasty has finally completed the global voyage and become a diner on the dining table in the process of rapid and slow development. It has also completed the global voyage and trade, and has become the strongest eater.
Neither Felipe nor Antonio had the ability to trade globally because the relationship between Spain and Portugal was very tense and there were countless conflicts over the colonies, so Felipe chose the Atlantic-Pacific route Came to Daming, and Portugal chose the Atlantic-Indian Ocean to come to Daming.
And Daming becomes the only diner who can trade through the three oceans, then everyone else is just a dish on the menu.
There are few behind, so we can catch up quickly. If it were another three hundred years, it would not be a problem that could be solved by insisting on opening up the sea for ten years.
Since the maritime ban policy after Yongle, the world's science and technology center and cultural center are moving to the West, and the speed is accelerating, because the spread of Western learning to the East, or the transfer of Western learning to the East, has begun.
The coming of Western learning from the East means that missionaries spread Western academic ideas and knowledge to the East.
In the tenth year of Wanli, Matteo Ricci’s visit to China was a representative event of the spread of Western learning to the east.
After all, Matteo Ricci came to the Ming Dynasty not only to preach, but also to bring Western learning to the East. Matteo Ricci translated all 7,000 Taixi acting books into Chinese, and the books he translated were selective. Most of these seven thousand volumes are religious and theological books.
Matteo Ricci was a missionary. His main purpose of coming to the Ming Dynasty was to preach, and his books mainly came from the Holy See.
At this time, Taixi was experiencing the Renaissance, and science had sprouted. In the first year of Wanli, Taixi's arithmetic was ahead of the Ming Dynasty.
In the West, if you want to preach among the nobility and upper-class intellectuals, you must provide some books. In order to maintain the authority of the Holy See, the Holy See set up many hand-made workshops for movable type printing, and then used the various books collected in the Holy See to , published in a volume.
Preachers often use books as a stepping stone to knock on the doors of aristocrats and upper-class intellectuals, and then use the influence of aristocrats and upper-class intellectuals to preach.
This is called the library apologetics movement in Europe. It is parallel to the Great Travel Movement and is called the bloodline of the Renaissance by later generations.
Science is a stepping stone, and theology is the doctrine that the church really wants to promote. Therefore, among the seven thousand books of Matteo Ricci, there are not enough scientific works of sufficient weight. They are all theological books.
This method was indispensable in Europe and the West, and it was also very effective in the Ming Dynasty. Li Zhizao, Xu Guangqi, etc. all had close contacts with missionaries in Europe and the West because of their arithmetic skills.
And now the world's science and technology center, cultural center, trade center, economic center, or the world center, has returned to the East again!
The Ming Dynasty is the most special and unique kingdom in the world.
"Your Majesty, a circle is a set of points. Which point is it? A set of points that are equidistant from the center of the circle." Zhu Zaiyu stood in front of the emperor, drew a circle with a compass, and explained to His Majesty.
Zhu Yijun nodded and said: "I can understand what you said, please continue."
"Let Li Kaifang explain it now." Zhu Zaiyu was about to speak, but suddenly Li Kaifang, who was standing respectfully aside, pulled him over and said with confidence: "You were the one who discovered it."
Li Kaifang had offended the emperor. He relied on his being a genius, relying on his ability to learn arithmetic to get full marks in the exam, and relying on His Majesty's cherishment of talents. He went to the Meridian Gate to plead for his brother.
The emperor does cherish talents.
His results were all presented by the emperor's uncle Zhu Zaiyu to avoid contact with the emperor. Zhu Zaiyu didn't think he should escape. He used to be a crazy husband! Regarding the matter of offending Da Zong, he lived in the thatched cottage outside Prince Zheng's palace for fifteen years, and even if he gave Da Zong a big mouth, didn't His Majesty not blame him?
Now that you have entered the Academy of Gewu and become a doctor of the Five Classics, you have cut off the cause and effect in the world and are not among the five elements. If you have any results, you must tell your majesty loudly and squeeze out all your talents. To pave a broad road for the study of the Great Ming Dynasty to understand things is the greatest respect we should have!
“Does Your Majesty know the Pythagorean Theorem?” Li Kaifang was a little trembling.
Zhu Zaiyu covered his face and really wanted to hide his face and run away. He was already very bad at dealing with people. As a result, Li Kaifang was even more clumsy than him in this regard. Your Majesty is a mathematical genius. If it weren’t for The general affairs have been delayed. Your Majesty must be the top Doctor of Gewu in the Gewu Academy.
How could your Majesty not understand such a simple arithmetic as the Pythagorean Theorem?
Zhu Yijun nodded and said: "I know, hook square + strand square = string square."
In a right-angled triangle, the hook is the short right-angled side, the strand is the long right-angled side, and the string is The hypotenuse and the Pythagorean theorem are all familiar to junior high school students.
(Picture by Li Kaifang)
Li Kaifang constructed a rectangular coordinate system with the center of the circle as the origin, then took a point on the circle, marked the Pythagorean chord, and said: "We found that the circle can also be expressed by algebraic expressions, not just linear, but quadratic. , circles, and ellipses can all be represented by algebraic expressions. "
The moment Li Kaifang drew the rectangular coordinate system with a certain point on the circle, he immediately understood that it was the standard equation of the circle.
Li Kaifang did not end it here, but expanded it and began to deduce it. Every time he deduced it, he waited for His Majesty’s understanding. In order to take care of His Majesty, he spoke in great detail, and Zhu Yijun couldn’t help but nod, Inquiries are occasionally made.
"What's the use of this?" Feng Bao asked Zhang Hong in a low voice. Feng Bao actually didn't understand, but His Majesty seemed to understand, because His Majesty would occasionally ask.
These people seemed to be discussing in another world.
“I don’t know, I don’t understand either.” Zhang Hong sighed and shook his head and said, “I’d better read some of your majesty’s agricultural books, I know how to farm.”
Feng Bao Bao's scalp went numb for a while and he said, "I don't even know how to plant the land."
"It doesn't matter if you don't." Zhu Yijun looked at Feng Bao and said, "He makes it look useless, but it's Extremely pure arithmetic, in the eyes of most people, is no different from a ghost painting talisman. You say it is useful, it is useless, you say it is useless. It provides us with another perspective to look at the problem, from the perspective of arithmetic Angle. "
What Li Kaifang created is actually called analytic geometry.
It is not a technological breakthrough, it can be applied immediately like hydraulic principles, applications and prospects.
Sometimes new breakthroughs may not be able to solve existing and imminent problems more simply. The greatest value of such new breakthroughs is that they provide a new perspective on thinking about problems.
For example, curved motion in physics, such as instantaneous speed, parabolic parabolic motion in military, such as astronomy, planetary orbit, etc., navigation, astronomy, mechanics, economy, military, production and other fields , without the combination of numbers and shapes, without analytic geometry, it cannot be said that progress is difficult, it can only be said that progress is slow.
Li Kaifang actually turned arithmetic into mathematics because he introduced variables and the combination of numbers and shapes into arithmetic, which brought arithmetic into a new development period.
The era of variable mathematics is quietly coming.
Zhu Yijun fully affirmed Li Kaifang's achievements and made additional rewards, ending today's memorial. He went to the Imperial Palace to see the practice of hydraulic punches. Of course, the results were not very good. Hydraulic punches are not as invincible as imagined. There is a long way to go from theory to engineering practice.
The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty left from the back door of the Imperial Palace and walked for five minutes to the imperial study room of Tonghe Palace, which was within the scope of the Forbidden Garden. While the very industrious Emperor Ming was busy with the general affairs of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's ocean caravan had just set off from Naha Port in Shuri, Ryukyu, and began to return to Matsue Prefecture.
After setting off from Songjiang Prefecture in March of the tenth year of Wanli, to the third day of May in the eleventh year of Wanli, one year and two months after leaving the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty Ocean Caravan finally returned Home, a month earlier than expected, because the journey from the West to the Mughal Kingdom was very smooth. The Ming Dynasty regained the Strait of Malacca and had a strong influence on the West.
The governor's palace and ports along the way did not dare to embarrass Ming's fleet too much, for fear that Ming's ships would suddenly appear in their ports.
"Going home." Liu Ji stood at the bow of the ship, facing the sea breeze and looking at the vast sea. He felt unprecedentedly happy, but also a little scared and timid about being close to home.
Master Chen Tianrui was the master who sailed around the world last time, and he is still responsible for leading it this time. This voyage around the world greatly enriched the star map, and also brought out four masters who also had ocean-going capabilities. The four boat masters, like Chen Tianrui, all belong to the Ming Navy.
"Even if you want to go to Ryukyu, you must need a big ship. It would be great if the Ming Dynasty had a bathtub like the Mediterranean." Chen Tianrui looked to the south, where there was a big black ditch. Starting from Yuegang, you must first You can reach Ryukyu only by going to Ningbo Shuangyu, and then take a detour to Tamsui Town, Jilong Island. Daheigou is a natural chasm on the sea, blocking the Ming Dynasty from exploring the ocean.
The water in Daheigou is not deep, but the hydrology and trade winds are changeable. You have to wait at the Penghu Inspection Department to wait for the wind direction to change before you can go to Xinglong Village on Jilong Island.
Having a bathtub means that navigation technology can develop steadily, and step by step towards the ocean, towards the deep blue.
In fact, the Ming Dynasty had done it before. Under many natural and unfavorable circumstances, they made seven voyages to the Western Ocean during the Yongle period, that is, the ocean.
Chen Tianrui and Liu Ji did not cling too much to the past and criticized the scholar-bureaucrats' obstruction to the opening of the sea in the past. Maybe there were various problems at that time that had to be solved, but the Wanli Reform and the opening of the sea After that, Ming Dynasty must not lose the ocean again!
The West mainly relies on the ocean currents of the North Atlantic for navigation, but the ocean currents offshore of Daming are too complex and scattered. Such complex ocean currents mean half the effort with half the effort when opening the sea.
Some of the advancements in marine technology such as stern rudders, compasses, multiple masts, star charts, needle charts, propellers, etc. are archaeological research. Some of them were found in the old manuscripts of Zheng He’s voyages to the West. It is to learn the culture of the West. Although missionaries always like to bring religious books, the Ming envoys who go to the West like to bring books on arithmetic, astronomy and other topics from the West.
However, most of the technological progress is due to active exploration and innovation since the Wanli Restoration.
"Whoever controls the ocean controls trade; whoever controls world trade controls the world's wealth and therefore controls the world." Chen Tianrui said with a solemn expression: "Your Majesty's words have been confirmed again. Come true.”
This sea trade yielded extremely rich harvests, the most lucrative of which was that the Ming Dynasty found two more world-class commodities, one called pepper and the other tea.
Global commodities is a concept mentioned by Wan Shihe. Global commodities require several necessary conditions: bulk commodities; universal use; easy storage and transportation.
Pepper is a necessary spice in cooking. It is in great demand all over the world. It is a spicy fruit produced by a tropical vine. In Thailand, the Thai people call pepper: everyone Dancing around the bride.
In Thailand and Lisbon, Chen Tianrui and Liu Ji tasted black pepper steak from France, pepper sheep cheese from Italy, and pepper biscuits from the Holy Roman Empire. Objectively speaking, most Ming people cannot I'm used to that taste, it's a bit too strong.
In Lisbon, Liu Ji once met a businessman from Nuremberg. The businessman drank too much and began to complain to Liu Ji. The businessman said: The King of Portugal, the owner of spices, pays for pepper based on his likes and dislikes. Set the price. No matter what the price, no matter how expensive, it will be sold to everyone before long.
Price is never a problem, as long as you have pepper.
In the Ming Dynasty, pepper was mainly used for medicine, and secondly for seasoning. This kind of pepper with a spicy taste is very suitable for cooking food with a strong fishy smell, and it is also a necessity for the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty has more than 200 plantations in Nanyang, and the cultivated land area has reached 1.5 million hectares. This number is still increasing rapidly. The more than 200 plantations in Nanyang have defined pepper as a global commodity. The greatest confidence.
As for the other tea, the main function of tea is to refresh the mind. The tea bricks sent to the West this time are very popular in the West because they are well preserved, not affected by moisture or mold, and as long as they can arrive in the West smoothly, The profit from tea exceeds 1000%!
In Thailand and around the world, tea is a very expensive refreshing drink. In England, even moldy bricks of tea are added with various seasonings for cooking, and a very popular tea was even born. For Ming people, the taste of sweet tea with milk is really hard to describe.
In the entire global trade, the Ming Dynasty's ocean-going fleet discovered that people all over the world are extremely sought after for refreshing products.
Demand represents the market, and the market is silver.
The large sailing ships from the West brought tea bricks to the West. Most of them were moldy, but they could still be sold at a very high price. Because of the emphasis on firearms, the Ming Dynasty paid special attention to the preservation of gunpowder in the ocean. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty In terms of sealing and moisture-proof technology, it is ahead of Taixi, and the tea bricks brought to Taixi are of even higher quality.
Fujian is most suitable for growing tea.
Fujian is a mountainous area and has been an indisputable place for military strategists since ancient times. This place has poor mountains and rivers, and eight mountains, one water, and one farmland. The reason why military strategists do not compete is because there is no need to rob. If tea bricks can be sold overseas, then the people on the ground in Fujian will Life can get better too.
Cotton, pepper, and tea were the biggest gains during this ocean voyage.
On the seventh day of May in the eleventh year of Wanli, the ships of the Ming Dynasty's ocean caravan successfully arrived at the New Port of Songjiang Prefecture. Songjiang Prefecture has three ports in total, and Xingang is the largest seaport in the Ming Dynasty. The City of Nations was established in Nearby Newport.
Five five-masted ocean-going ships and fifty three-masted plywood ships, guided by barges, slowly docked at the pier.
"What is that?" Liu Jigang was about to get off the boat and set foot on his long-lost homeland. As soon as he raised his feet, he saw a large ship sailing far away on the sea. Only the sails could be seen, but the ship could not be seen. body.
Chen Tianrui still knew something about Songjiang Shipyard. Before the ocean caravan left, the fast sailing ship had already started manufacturing. He tentatively said: "Youlong?"
Soon the ship lowered its sails, the speed of the ship began to slow down, and the barges began to go to pick them up. Only then did Liu Ji and Chen Tianrui see clearly that they were two ships, and one was behind the sails.
It is indeed the Youlong and Feiyun. They successfully completed the sea survey and returned to their home port together.
The sea test of Youlong went well, but the sea test of Feiyun was not very smooth. The propeller was entangled in seaweed, and it was extremely troublesome to clean it every time.
The implementation of the project is never smooth sailing. It is always stumbling and trial and error, and finally the design is completed. This is a brand-new ship design concept that requires a longer journey.
Da Ming is patient now and can afford to wait.
The wharf of Xingang suddenly became busy. The laborers shouted slogans and came towards the big ship. There was a lot of cargo on the ship.
Mainly cotton. This time when passing through the Mughal Kingdom, a large amount of the goods on the ship were replaced by cotton. Liu Ji even used part of his silver to buy some cotton. Cotton is not cheap in Songjiang Prefecture. But in the Mughal Kingdom, it was really, really cheap. Only one tael of silver could be exchanged for six bags of cotton.
A bag of cotton is one hundred and twenty pounds. A bag of cotton can weave twelve pieces of large cloth and fifteen pieces of small cloth. The price of a bag of cotton in the Ming Dynasty is nine coins, which will make the Mughal Kingdom The cotton was trafficked to Songjiang Prefecture, and the gross profit for a bag was as high as 0.73 silver.
The price of woven large cloth sold to the Mughal Kingdom is one silver per piece, and the gross profit is also about 0.6 silver.
The Ming Dynasty only needs to transport it to the port of the Mughal Kingdom, Akbar of the Mughal Kingdom. He is the largest agent of the Ming Dynasty in the West, and the export of cotton cloth is a bulk commodity of the order of 100,000 pieces. .
Liu Ji had already exercised great restraint. He only brought 100,000 bags of cotton this time. For such a lucrative deal, the reason why he did not bring more was to prevent the influx of large amounts of Mughal cotton from causing disaster to local cotton farmers. Songjiang Prefecture has More than half of the fields are planted with cotton. The climate in Songjiang Prefecture is actually more suitable for growing rice than cotton, while Shandong is more suitable for growing cotton.
It takes time to change the crops grown in Songjiang Prefecture.
It is not possible for the imperial court to slap the head and issue a decree to let the people switch from cotton to rice, and then it can be implemented smoothly. It needs to change the overall environment bit by bit to make the price of cotton drop steadily. Farmers need to be encouraged to make mulberry trees. The local officials, with good advice, need time to adjust little by little. When it becomes unprofitable, the cotton fields all over Songjiang Prefecture will slowly disappear.
In addition to cotton, there are also goods such as pepper, fish oil, palm oil, sugar cubes, abaca, rubber, copper, etc. These are all purchased in Manila, and most of these goods are used to fill warehouses. , their prices are about 40% more expensive than in Luzon. Due to the continuous prosperity of sea trade, profits are actually not as high as before.
After the fleet unloaded its cargo in Lisbon, it was actually an empty ship, mainly because it carried no valuable cargo, even in the West. It was not until it arrived in the Mughal Kingdom that cotton and saltpeter were shipped. I started to add positions, and it was only in Manila that the cabin was completely filled.
The lack of goods worth carrying is also one of the dilemmas of Yongle's opening of the sea in the Ming Dynasty. The Western Ocean is huge, but places worth going to are ports one by one. There are not enough goods worth exchanging. The Western Ocean is huge in scale but has little harvest, which makes the motivation to go to sea weaker and weaker.
After the cargo, there is a huge amount of silver. This silver also needs to be unloaded because the ocean-going sailing ships need to be rested. The damaged sails, the ship's sides are covered with barnacles, and some of the watertight cabins are in use and need to be repaired. The ships need to be completely cleaned to prevent rats from running ashore and spreading plague, etc. The ships of the ocean-going caravans need to be maintained.
Liu Ji, Chen Tianrui and others put silver on the fast sailing ship Youlong. The fast sailing ship was faster and safer.
Setting out with the fast sailing ship was a large fleet of 150 ships.
This fleet will perform the task of shipping grain. Four million stones of grain have been loaded into grain boxes and moved to 450 grain ships. The 450 ships will be divided into three batches for transportation. This is the second Wanli period. Since the beginning of the year, the results of grain shipping have been achieved.
The sails covered the sky and the sun, and headed towards Tianjin Wei.
The Ming Emperor Zhu Yijun received the memorial from Songjiang Mansion.
Songjiang Governor Shen Shixing went to the dock to greet the returning Ming Dynasty warriors, and inventoried the goods. The list of goods has been kept by the Ministry of Household Affairs.
“I actually brought back more than three million taels of silver this time.” Zhu Yijun looked at the memorial in his hand and said with excitement.
The time has come to test the productivity of Ming craftsmen!
Huang Zifu, a doctor of the Five Classics, promised to increase the production capacity of imperial silver coins to 2.5 million silver per year by the end of this year.
At present, it is far from enough!
(End of this chapter)