Chapter 1223 Sister Huaixiu's Sextant
"But Master, we can receive so much money and tax thanks to the Royal Shipping Company." Jin Xuezeng was the most dishonest guy. He always had a purpose in what he said. He pestered Zhao Hao again and wanted to leave something behind. "Once the Royal Shipping Company leaves next year, the county will be paralyzed. What infrastructure will we have?"
Now Xiao Jin already knows that the Pudong New Area on the other side of the strait is under construction in full swing. It is said that the first phase of the project will be completed next year, and by then the Royal Shipping's port of departure will be moved from Chongming to Pudong.
He finally understood why his master had comforted him to be strong... He never dreamed last year that the muddy pond in Pudong would snatch away his golden chicken!
If I had known that would happen, I would have gotten Master's approval even if I had thrown a tantrum last year, and moved out of Royal Shipping a few years later.
"Don't try that." As soon as he flapped his wings, Zhao Hao knew where he was going to fly to. He said unhappily, "Just do your thing. Even if Royal Shipping moves away, Sansha Wharf will not be idle."
But Zhao Hao didn't tell him what its specific use was, and he couldn't find out even if he asked.
At this time, Chen Huaixiu came over and invited him to get on his boat. Zhao Hao shook off Xiao Jin's entanglement and followed Chen Huaixiu on board the Pingjiang.
As soon as we boarded the ship, the sailor brought us the maritime weather forecast issued by the Chongming Meteorological Station before sailing.
"It will be sunny in the next three days, with low probability of rainfall and high visibility at sea. South wind of level 3 to 5 with light waves in the Huangshui Ocean; south wind or southeast wind of level 3 to 5 with light to medium waves in the Heishui Ocean. I wish you a safe journey..."
Chen Huaixiu ordered the sailors to express their sincere gratitude to the weather station. Knowing the weather and hydrology on the route in advance can greatly improve navigation safety and allow sailors to prepare for advance response.
In fact, the Pingjiang is also equipped with various new instruments such as wind vane, thermometer, hygrometer, current meter, etc. Sailors trained in the navigation school will read the numbers regularly every day and report the real-time sea conditions and weather to the captain.
In addition, a series of navigation and positioning instruments have been added to the ship - sextant, bipod, protractor, and parallel ruler.
Some of these instruments were invented by Hua Shuyang and Bei Peijia, and some were used by Portuguese people such as Pinto and Alfonso. Master Zhao integrated them together and went to the Chongming Island Crew School in the middle of the year to teach the use of these instruments and related cartography knowledge.
The most critical one is the sextant, which Europeans did not have at that time.
The principle of the sextant is not complicated. By measuring the angle between the sun and the horizon at a certain moment, one can quickly find out the latitude at that moment.
Even after the invention of radio positioning in later generations, the sextant invented by Niu Zi is still widely used in navigation because of its speed and lightness.
But the sextant Zhao Zi made was far from being light. It was made of brass, like a large fan, and weighed 26 kilograms. The navigator had to fasten its lower end to his belt to keep it stable.
This was something that Mr. Zhao had not thought of at first. In his opinion, with the skilled craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty, it should not be difficult to hand-make a palm-sized sextant. How cool would it be to hang it around the waist?
Although it can be made, the measurement results are very inaccurate. Hua Shuyang quickly found the crux of the problem - although the principle of the sextant is very simple, it is essentially a protractor that measures the angle between two targets. However, its measurement accuracy is closely related to the precision of the scale division. At that time, skilled craftsmen could carve patterns on rice grains, but it was difficult to accurately divide the scale on a small dial.
So they had to make it bigger to improve the accuracy of the measurement. In the end, they made a sextant with an error of 0.2 degrees. If you hang it on your belt, you have to pull your pants off.
It doesn't matter if it's big, as long as it works. Mr. Zhao was already very satisfied and ordered his two disciples to shift the research focus to longitude measurement.
In fact, the principle of longitude measurement is simpler. Forty years ago, Dutch astronomers proposed the idea of "determining longitude by time" - since the earth rotates once every 24 hours, that is, 360 degrees, it is equivalent to 15 degrees per hour and 1 degree in 4 minutes.
In this way, you only need to bring a very accurate clock to record the local time at the starting point, and use other methods to measure the local time at your current location. Then, through the difference between the two times, you can easily get the longitude difference between the two places.
Zhao Hao knew that later generations used marine clocks to determine the time at the departure point and used the Astronomical Almanac to determine the local time.
He originally thought that the difficulty lies in the latter, but Bei Peijia told Zhao Hao that the Imperial Observatory is specialized in this and they will record it accurately.
The various celestial phenomena and the positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars in a year only need to be transcribed into an "astronomical almanac" according to a certain format.
In this way, sailors only need to make simple calculations to compare the astronomical phenomena at their location and determine the local time.
However, just when Mr. Zhao was about to happily announce that the location of the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing would be designated as the prime meridian, Hua Shuyang told him that the principle of this method was correct, but it had limited effect in navigation.
The reason is that the most accurate Western clock has an error of about five minutes a day. The actual error is more than two hundred miles, and if the captains rely on it for navigation, they will be fed up with life.
Therefore, before developing a more accurate marine clock for traveling, it is impossible to simply measure longitude using time.
Therefore, the dream of breaking away from dependence on the coast and sailing freely in the deep ocean cannot be realized for the time being...
~~
However, just these new navigation instruments in front of him were enough to make Chen Huaixiu admire them.
She held a compass in her hand and looked at Zhao Hao with admiration, saying, "It's hard to imagine that you, a man who has never sailed a boat for a day, can actually invent so many new things, and each one is so practical, as if it has been tempered through thousands of trials..."
"Haha, these are just simple measurements and calculations, and they are the same at sea and on land." Young Master Zhao laughed and thought to himself, of course, I'll get you a marine clock, and you can use this set of tools for four hundred years.
"Of course it's easy for you and your disciple." Chen Huaixiu frowned slightly, and said with a hint of distress on her pretty face, "But for people like us who haven't read for a few days, those calculation formulas are even more difficult than the Book of Heaven."
"Be more confident. You are no different from scholars." Young Master Zhao encouraged Chen Huaixiu and mocked scholars, "If you really can't do it, just memorize it by rote and apply it mechanically. Sister Huaixiu is so smart, she must have mastered it long ago."
"You're right. I just memorized it by rote..." Chen Huaixiu blushed and said with a childish look, "I knew at that time that I probably wouldn't be able to enter the field of science in this life."
"If you can't get in through the front door, I'll open the back door for you." Young Master Zhao couldn't help but laugh.
"What nonsense are you talking about..." Chen Huaixiu spat, becoming even more embarrassed. Secretary Ma is still here...
The charming eyes are closed in shyness, and the red lips are gradually opened with a smile. The wind blows the grape belt, and the sun shines on the pomegranate skirt.
These few lines of poetry suddenly popped up in Mr. Zhao's mind. This strong, intelligent, courageous, beautiful...especially beautiful elder sister, seems to have completely gotten over the pain of losing her husband.
So happy for her. Purely happy...
For a moment, the atmosphere in the cabin was a little ambiguous.
Ma Xianglan's face was as calm as a still pond, as if she had heard nothing. She just held the folder in her hands and stared straight ahead at the Sansha Wharf which was gradually disappearing into the distance.
But there is no intention to leave, just pretend that I don’t exist... as long as you can do that.
Chen Huaixiu coughed awkwardly and quickly changed the subject, "By the way, during these trips to the sea, there were speedboats of unknown origin following us and spying on us."
"Oh?" Zhao Hao really diverted his attention and asked, "Didn't you catch a tongue?"
"They are all experienced boat operators, and they were operating a four-oared single-masted speedboat, so they didn't approach us. As soon as our speedboat approached, they immediately fled away, and the escort team failed to catch them several times." Chen Huaixiu sighed lightly, and then comforted him:
"But it shouldn't be a big problem. Our escort team is very powerful."
According to Master Zhao's instructions, the Tamra Garrison will double its military within a year, and there are countless new police officers and warships that need navigation training.
Zhao Hao was also worried that the Portuguese or the sea lords in the south would attack the Royal Shipping Fleet, so he simply asked them to be responsible for escorting the fleet, which was killing two birds with one stone.
As for Chongming Island, there are two security battalions with a total of one thousand security personnel stationed there, as well as more than ten thousand sand boat gang members who receive regular military training. No one should be foolish enough to fight against a rock with an egg, right?
"It's probably the lord of the sea in the south," Zhao Hao crossed his arms and thought for a moment, then said, "These guys are like bloodthirsty sharks. They smelled something and came over to check it out, right?"
In fact, the main reason was that he monopolized trade with Japan and did not allow ships from any other forces to approach Japan.
Then can't we take the overseas route and bypass Tanegashima and Tamra Island which are controlled by the Jiangnan Group?
It really doesn't work.
Because in this era, ships were very dependent on land for navigation, not only for the needs of ship supplies and safety, but also for navigation.
Most sailors would become lost once their ships were far away from land and without coastlines and known islands as reference points.
Therefore, there are only a few routes at sea that our predecessors have risked their lives to explore. As long as we guard the key nodes, we will be able to control the entire trade line.
At least the southern sea masters did not have the ability to take the overseas routes. The Portuguese did go there, but there were no markers or reliable navigation instruments on the sea, and they did not find the right ocean currents. The risk was too great to open up a trade route.
Without trade with Japan, not only the Portuguese would suffer, but also the sea lords in the south. Of course, they had to find a way to pull out the nail and take back the shipping route.
"Let's just leave it at that for this year. Be careful and don't give them any chances." Young Master Zhao said in a deep voice, "Next year, they won't have to come. I'll go south to cause trouble for them!"
(End of this chapter)