At night, the sea is more terrifying than the day, deep and unknown, and lurks in countless dangers. Even the most seasoned fisherman rarely sails at night.

But on the first day of the fifth month, on the sea near Qingdao Port, there was a building ship shuttling through the sea overnight, and it was getting farther and farther away from the land until it hung alone in the vast sea.

It was a night when the moon was missing, everyone on the boat raised their heads, but saw that the weather was clear and cloudless, the field of vision was extremely empty, and the night sky as deep as the sea, after the lights of the city and the world were missing, the stars and the Milky Way were particularly clear.

But after looking at it for a long time, it will also make people dazzled, Wei Yang stared at it for a long time, only to feel that his eyes were sour, and those stars were also confused with each other, and it was not easy to distinguish them one by one. On the orders of the county guard, their group of literate officials, when they did not go to sea, followed Xu Fu and learned his "art of pulling stars".

Xu Fu would not be confused, for the warlock, although the galaxy in the sky was incomparably vast, and the stars were as innumerable as grains of sand in the eyes of others, but in his eyes, they were as familiar as the palm prints on his palms.

"That's the Big Dipper."

Xu Fushen pointed to a column of stars in the sky, drew dotted lines with his fingers, connected them, and called out their names one by one.

"Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, Tianquan, Yuheng, Kaiyang, Yaoguang, the seven stars are connected together, just like a bucket scooping wine at a banquet."

"It's like a lot." The young people bowed their heads, and they were also a little hungry.

Xu Fu also said that if there is a straight line between Tianxuan and Tianshu on Doukui, and then extend the distance in the direction of Tianshu by 5 times, you can find an extremely bright star that eclipses the stars.

"That's the North Star, where it lives and all the stars are together!"

The sea is vast, boundless, I don't know anything, there is the sun during the day, but at night, you have to rely on the stars. Polaris, which is the natal star of every navigator, is located at the North Celestial Pole, its position is almost unchanged, and it can be relied on to discern the direction, and the "Star Pulling Technique" that Xu Fu wants to teach everyone is also performed around Beichen.

"There is no moon tonight, it is a good time to draw the stars, let's test them."

This group of officials of the building and boat, each hand has a "star-holding board", which is made of ebony, a total of 12 pieces, together like a fan, the largest one is a twelve-finger board, and the smallest is a finger board.

After more than a month of studying, Wei Yang has long been no stranger to this, he holds the center of one end of the star-holding board in his left hand, and stretches his arm to look at the starry sky, so that the surface of the star-holding board is perpendicular to the sea level, and observes the height of the North Star from the sea level. Depending on the height, it can be replaced with twelve planks and four ivory blocks.

Beside him, there were two assistants, one holding a fire for lighting, and the other writing down the observations for him on paper.

It was not easy to complete the measurement on the rickety deck, and after the measurement, everyone returned to the cabin, according to the measured height, using the "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic" formula in their hearts, to obtain the angle between the North Star and the ground, and then handed the result to Xu Fu.

After Xu Fu inspected them one by one, he ridiculed the people who were not accurate and asked them to go out to retest, but praised Wei Yang again:

"It's still the most accurate measured by Wei Yang!"

The eyes of his colleagues looked at him, some envious and some disdainful, Wei Yang bit his lip and did not speak. Because he also felt that this was Xu Fu deliberately promoting him, the reason needless to say, because his middle father was the county guard and supervisor, and this time he arranged for Wei Yang to be the official of the building boat, which was quite a meaning to pave the way for him to gild.

Xu Fu put a huge wooden plate on the table, this is the "Taiyi Nine Palaces Occupy the Plate", which is the treasure of Xu Fu's family, and it is also the secret of his ability to see the sea as a smooth road. Originally, he only passed on his heirs and apprentices, but when he was forced by Heifu, Xu Fu could only endure the distress, took out the ability to press the bottom of the box, and taught this group of young soldiers who called him "Master Xu".

This occupies a lacquered wooden tire, and the structure is divided into two parts, the heavenly plate and the earth. The large and outer square plate is the territory, and the disk inside the territory is the heavenly disk. Among them, the heavenly plate is used as a dipper, referring to Tiangang. The second is the twelfth chen, and the middle column is twenty-eight and four-dimensional bureaus.

The land is listed in the four corners of the 12 Chen, the Eight Cadres, the Five Elements, the Thirty-six Birds, and the Heaven, the Gate, the Earth, the People, and the Ghost Road.

On the one hand, he taught Wei Yang how to use the previously measured data to compare the scales on the heavenly disk and the ground one by one to obtain the direction. Xu Fu couldn't help but sigh with emotion, because the original use of this thing was not to measure the direction at all, but to take advantage of the good fortune!

Back then, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Wei Ping, a turtle policy expert, told fortunes for the Song and Yuan Dynasty, and once "looked up to the sky and looked at the light of the moon, watched the fight, set the day in the township, supplemented by the rules, and weighed it off." The four dimensions have been determined, and the gossip looks at each other. Depending on its good fortune, the insect will be the first. ”

In short, this thing is mainly used for fortune-telling and fortune-telling, and the turtle and the day are divided into "twelve fields" according to the distribution of the stars. At the same time, they also found that the distance between the North Star and the ground is different in different regions, such as the Yandi in the "Weiji" field and the Chu land in the "Yizhen" field, and the distance is very different.

However, in the southern area of Zhaodi, where the "ginseng" is divided, and Qidi, where the "dangerous" is divided, the angle between the North Star and the ground is almost the same!

Therefore, in addition to astrology and fortune telling, astrology has another use, that is, to observe the north and south positions. On land, this was actually of little use, until it reached the land of Yan Qi, in the hands of the warlocks, and it didn't shine!

Xu Fu used this technique for long-distance voyages, which was also the reason why he was able to go overseas ten times, and he could always observe the direction to know whether the route of his voyage deviated from the destination.

This magician used to be secretive, and the awe-inspiring knowledge was, to put it bluntly, quite simple.

"Feudal superstition and science and technology are actually a pair of twins......"

After listening to Xu Fu's story, Heifu was so emotional, and at the same time decided to save his life.

Today, the astrology of the past has been successfully whitewashed and turned into "astronomical navigation".

Hefu also gave a name to this geographical coordinates, which are different from north to south.

"Latitude!"

Xu Fu admitted that in the past ten years or so, he has quietly measured the azimuth data of different places along the coast of Yanqi, north and south, and even on the other side of the North Korea, he has also measured a few points. Starting from Jiaodong, how to sail to accurately reach the port on the other side, Xu Fu knows it well!

This is something for Xu Fuhui, but the adventure of the warlock to find immortals is different from the stable and safe grain shipping that must be guaranteed after all, and they also have to solve a big problem: going across the sea, in two or three days, what if they are unlucky enough to encounter a night without stars and moons, and deviate from the route?

……

After finishing the twice-monthly star-pulling practice, Xu Fu returned to Qingdao Port, and the next day, Heifu inspected here and asked Xu Fu to take him to see how the secret projects that were being tinkered with by the magicians who were good at "Ancestral Stoves" were going after being "recruited".

"The county guard, the so-called Sinan, can't guide at all."

As soon as he entered the door, Xu Fu told Heifu the bad news.

That's right, this secret project is to make a device that can measure the north and south positions even on cloudy and rainy days.

In this era, magnets have been known, and there is a saying in "Lü's Spring and Autumn", Ci Zhao Tie, or citation. There is also a legend in the hometown of the Six Kingdoms, saying that Qin Shi Huang had a gate made of magnets in Xianyang Palace, but anyone who passed by with a sword would be adsorbed to it......

Of course, this is nonsense, Qin Di's sword is mostly copper, and it is useless to build a magnet door.

However, the sorcerer is very interested in this kind of fun thing, it is a necessary thing to pretend to be a ghost, and it is a matter of fetching things in the air, and these guys are not lacking in it.

Hefu had a clear purpose, and he wanted to use a magnet as a compass, but the magicians disagreed.

Some people think that they should make the "guide car" used by the Yellow Emperor in the legend, and some people think that they should use the "Sinan" that has been seen in ancient books but has been lost in the present world.

After thinking about it, Heifu divided the magicians into three groups, seven or eight people were to make the compass, and the rest were to be the Sinan and the guide car.

Under a company, the same project, divided into several studios to compete benignly, is a good way, this group of magicians will be of great use in the future, Heifu hopes that they can have their own ideas, not just be echo worms.

"In that case, wouldn't it be more convenient for me to find an illiterate craftsman?"

Even if it's wrong, you can try it, who knows that a failed project, with a little transformation, can't be turned into a black technology?

However, it turned out that what Sinan and guide cars were ideal things, and those people spent several months and a lot of manpower to grind the magnets transported from Cishan in Wu'an County, Handan Army into a spoon, and put them on the polished and smooth copper jian, hoping that its spoon handle could be guided.

But the embarrassing thing is that after staring for a long time, "Sinan" just didn't move.

That's right, the weak magnetic force is far less than the effect of gravity and friction, so it's no wonder that it can move!

The Sinan project team declared a failure, and the "guide car" next door was even worse, the magicians and craftsmen tinkered for a long time, but they couldn't make an artifact that could automatically guide no matter where they turned, so they could only give up in embarrassment.

In the end, it was the "compass" developed by Heff that had some effect.

Ordinary sewing needles, repeatedly rubbed with natural magnets, can make the needle magnetic, although the principle of this magicians also do not understand, but it does not prevent them from using it.

Xu Fu had people show Heifu two ways to use it: thread a few waxed straw sticks through a magnetized needle and float them on the surface of a wooden plate, or apply some wax and stick a piece of silk and hang it in a place where there is no wind......

However, I saw that the sharp point of the pointer was guided by some "mysterious power", and it rotated slightly, and the sharp point was often guided, and there were also those who pointed north.

Xu Fu explained: "This lithophobia is different, resulting in the opposite of the north and the south, which should be different, and the ...... has not been deeply examined."

"That's probably the difference between the N-pole and the S-pole?"

Although the Hefu was not quite satisfied with the extremely rudimentary compass and compass, what they had to do was not to sail thousands of miles into the ocean, but only to cross hundreds of miles to the sea for a short time, and the compass was only used as an aid to the astrological technique, in case of emergency.

Such a compass cannot be compared with later generations, but there is nothing that can be perfected from the beginning.

Among the two methods, Xu Fu recommends the wisp suspension method, because the biggest disadvantage of the water float method is that the water surface is easy to shake and affect the measurement results, while the shaking of ships at sea is not ordinarily large.

Xu Fu also said that he specially compared the position of the sun and the north in the day and night, and found that although the direction of the compass and the north arrow is generally north and south, there is still a slight deviation, and no matter how it is changed, it cannot be eliminated.

"A slight deviation is harmless."

Heifu knew that this was the geomagnetic declination, but he couldn't explain it to Xu Fu for a while, and he still left this kind of theoretical thing to the great scientist Zhang Cang to study.

"It's enough, prepare more magnetic needles, let each ship have several, and then teach the officials of the building ship to use it, compared to the art of pulling the stars, this thing is simple, whether you are literate or not, you can learn it!"

……

After inspecting the Warlocks' projects, Heifu went outside, and the port of Qingdao, which he personally named, was no longer a fishing village in the past, but had accumulated over time and turned into a bustling harbor.

"Mountains of soil are accumulated, and wind and rain are prosperous; The water becomes an abyss, and the dragon is born. ”

Blowing the sea breeze, Heifu couldn't help but sigh, what he was doing now was just the process of accumulating soil into mountains and water into abysses.

Monsoons, ocean currents, compasses, astronomical navigation, all the knowledge that the magicians had hidden, were now taken out by the black man and made public. The first batch of seafarers with this knowledge is also being trained......

The necessary material foundation for ocean voyages is being completed one by one, what is missing?

The most critical, core thing is missing.

"Benefits!"

What is the difference between a voyage that cannot bring benefits to the world, at least the people of Jiaodong, and a magician who spends a lot of money overseas to seek immortals? Once that momentum has passed, no matter how large the fleet is, it will run aground and rust, where they have explored, where they have reached the farthest, it is meaningless, only posterity sighs regretfully.

"If we can go farther, if that exciting voyage to the West can continue...... If ......"

There are no ifs in history, only interests, which can drive people to continue to explore.

But Heifu really didn't see that sailing overseas at this time, in addition to satisfying Qin Shihuang's vanity and satisfying Heifu's bad taste for playing stalks, could make the Central Plains get some oil and water.

"Maybe we'll be able to find it after this cross-sea expedition?"

Now, the boatmen have been trained for a long time, the grain has been hoarded, the large wooden boats built in Qingdao have crowded the port, and now the "navigation system" has been completed......

While Heifu was thinking about it, on the "wind demonstrator" beside him, a long flag was raised and fluttering, and the wind chimes tied to it jingled and made a nice sound!

"Middle Father!"

Wei Yang, who was guarding the wind demonstrator outside, was overjoyed, and he shouted to Heifu:

"The wind is blowing! It's the monsoon, it's the south wind! ”