Zhen Jiu scratched his head, Zhen Qian's words were very clear, but he still didn't understand a little, why Zhen Qian wanted Zhen Shi to go south, he had just made a little improvement in the Bohai area, and now he was transferred to the Wufeng Islands, could it be that Zhen Qian was ready to give up the Bohai Sea.

Zhen Qian's time in passing through the ocean was a bit late, Datang's navigation skills had just started, and he put the two of them in one south and one north for the purpose of training.

At the beginning, most of the funds were biased towards Zhen Jiu, after all, the Bohai Sea is an inland sea, and the wind and waves are relatively small, so it is perfect to accumulate experience in the early stage. As for Zhen Shijing's strategy to the south, it was more about laying a foundation on land, looking for business opportunities, attracting craftsmen who built sea ships, and arranging chess pieces along the coast.

These plans still seem to be fine, and sometimes they are not right or wrong, but are based on actual needs.

Zhen Shi now only has two small boats of three or four hundred stones, and he has just landed on the Shengsi Islands, and at this time, he transferred Zhen Shi to the Wa Kingdom, not only did not help at all, but all the foundation he had just laid was wasted.

If it is possible, Zhen Qian actually doesn't want to use Zhen Jiu now, new sea ships are being built, a large number of sailors are still being trained, and the trade between him and the north has also made Zhen Qian make a lot of money, at this time, letting Zhen Jiu go to the Wa Kingdom is tantamount to demolishing the east wall and making up the west wall.

"I must feel a great loss in my heart!"

"It's a big loss!" Zhen Jiu said with a smile: "Last year, we plundered eight merchant ships on the Bohai Sea, and did five transactions with Liaodong, and there were 80,000 yuan in the books alone. ”

The loss is certain, the original plan was to wait for the Anshi Rebellion to break out, and he would personally go to the Wa Kingdom, at that time Zhen Jiu had at least more than 20 sea ships in his hands, and the impact of dividing half of them should not be large.

Now, Zhen Jiu can only appear in the Wa Kingdom with three sea ships, and many of the original plans cannot be realized.

"There is no way to do this, the plan can never catch up with the changes, our current strength is still too weak, we can only be silent for two or three years? Nothing to be frustrated ....... ”

Things were already like this, and Zhen Jiu was reluctant to continue to talk about these things, so he told Zhen Qian about what he had seen and heard along the way from the Bohai Sea to the Wufeng Islands, and continued to ask: "Master, this time there are a total of three seagoing ships with the best performance, one went north to Sado Island, which the master marked on the chart, and the other went south along the first island chain that the master said, and by the way, visit the legendary Ryukyu Kingdom?" ”

Compared with the Wa Kingdom, many Tang people did not know the existence of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Zhen Qian also read a lot of books, only to find some records in the book "Sui Shu Ryukyu Kingdom", during the Great Cause, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty sent two military generals, several times to the Liuqiu country, to conquer the Liuqiu inhabitants and capture thousands of untamed men and women back to China.

It is recorded in the book that Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty consulted three times in total. The first time was in 607, because of the language barrier, so only one person was "plundered and returned". The following year, Zhu Kuan was ordered to attack for the second time, but he only "took his cloth armor and returned". The third time, led by Chen Ling and Zhang Zhenzhou, was a large-scale military campaign in 610, and "thousands of men and women were captured".

Later scholars debated whether the expedition was the Ryukyu Islands in later generations or the treasure island of Taiwan today.

As far as the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan in the Tang Dynasty are concerned, Zhen Qian believes that the Ryukyu Islands conquered by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty for two reasons: first, the Ryukyu Islands already had the rudimentary form of a state in the Sui and Tang dynasties, and Taiwan was still only inhabited by some indigenous people at that time. Second, according to the navigation technology of the Sui Dynasty, it is not difficult to reach the Ryukyu Islands, but it is not easy to land in Taiwan, mainly because of the wind and waves in the Taiwan Strait, even when Zheng Chenggong attacked Taiwan at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he also encountered the same dilemma, and the navigation technology at that time was not known to be many times higher than that of the Sui Dynasty.

Throughout the history of China, it will be found that the Chinese people have landed in Taiwan since the Three Kingdoms period, but in the end they all ended in failure.

The navigation technology of the Song Dynasty was already quite developed, and the conditions for developing and occupying Taiwan were very mature, but because the Taiwan Strait was too stormy, the Southern Song Dynasty court tried several times to no avail.

As far as the navigation technology of the Tang Dynasty is concerned, if you want to land in Taiwan, the best way is not to directly cross the Taiwan Strait, but to use the northward and southward detours to avoid the wind and waves in the strait.

This time, Zhen Qian did not want to develop Taiwan, or the Great Ryukyus, because the current conditions were not ripe at all, and without the best sea ships, advanced navigation technology, and excellent sailors, it would be a big joke to develop any islands.

Historically, Columbus discovered the American continent in 1492, while the Portuguese crossed the African state of Good Hope to come to the Ming Dynasty in Macao in 1549, with a gap of less than 50 years.

The Cape of Good Hope has strong westerly winds all year round due to the confluence of the warm Indian Ocean current and the cold current from Antarctica in the Atlantic Ocean, and because it happens to be close to the strong westerly wind belt over the ocean. Due to the harsh sea and weather conditions, the Cape of Good Hope area is often marked by howling winds and high waves.

Because of the rough seas that were common here, the Portuguese navigator Dias first discovered the place in 1488 and named it "Cape of the Storm". It was not until November 1497, when another Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, led a fleet to the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope and returned to Portugal laden with gold and silk, that King John II of Portugal renamed the "Cape of Storms" to the "Cape of Good Hope".

The waters of the Cape of Good Hope are windy and rough almost all year round, and there are often "killing waves". This kind of wave is weak 5m~6m high, strong as 15m or more, the wave head is like a cliff, the back of the wave is like a gentle hillside, there are countless ships that are attacked by it, and the Cape of Good Hope is one of the most dangerous nautical areas in the world.

Although the Taiwan Strait does not have the stormy waves of the Cape of Good Hope, because of the changeable climate and hydrology prevented the ancients who wanted to develop the island, the monsoon in the Taiwan Strait alternates obviously, and the frequent northerly winds are very strong.

The strait is an area with large wind and waves in the East China Sea, and there are more swells than wind waves, and under the influence of cold waves in winter and tropical cyclones in summer, 8~9 waves can be formed. The currents are controlled by the western branch of the Kuroshio Stream and the South China Sea Stream in the north and the coastal current of Zhejiang and Fujian in the south, and are influenced by the monsoon. In summer, the coastal current stops moving southward, and the entire strait is a northeast flow combining the southwest monsoon stream and the western branch of the Kuroshio Current.

(End of chapter)