Some scholars say that the opening of ocean shipping lanes has finally linked the world's human society through economic networks. Facing this new world situation, China is facing the Pacific Ocean to the east, and the changes China has endured are actually very enormous. Among them, the most far-reaching is that Chinese went to the sea, and in the Asia-Pacific region, it joined the competition for maritime power and opened up many places where the Chinese lived.
In the first year of Jianheng of Eastern Wu (269), the Eastern Wu regime established the official post of "Captain of the Ship" in Houguan County, Jian'an County (present-day Fuzhou City), and the capital lieutenant camp was located in Dongzhixiang, Kaiyuan Temple in Fuzhou, opening the history of Fujian's official shipbuilding. At that time, Dongzhi Lane was a wharf that became Soochow's shipbuilding center in Fujian. At the end of the Three Kingdoms period, Eastern Wu expanded into the coastal areas from eastern Fujian to southern Zhejiang in the form of tuntian, sending more troops and establishing a larger shipbuilding base. Because at that time, the area from the mouth of the Min River to Wenzhou in the Oujiang River basin of Zhejiang was collectively called "Wen Ma", so there was a saying of Wen Ma Chuantun.
Soochow's Wen Ma ship has a certain scale, with a hull length of more than 50 meters, a width of 7 meters, and a height of 10 meters, which can carry 60 or 70 people, or carry nearly 100 tons of cargo. The cross-section of the boat consists of five giant long wooden planks, densely connected by mortise. The cabin has partitions, which can carry cargo and people. The side of the ship is curved, and weapons or battle flags are inserted on both sides, which is very powerful. Up to five sails can be attached to the mast, and the sails are hunted under the strong sea breeze, which enhances the momentum of the ship.
In Fujian during the Sui and Tang dynasties, the people of the seaside promoted the development of shipbuilding technology. The large sea ships built by the craftsmen of the Sui Dynasty used the technology of combining wood and iron nails, that is, at the connection of the hull, the method of connecting tenons and iron nails was used in a concave and convex way to stabilize the connecting body. This is much stronger than the previous connection with wooden or bamboo nails. This advancement in shipbuilding technology is of great significance and provides a reference for the connection of shipbuilding bodies in the future.
By the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Fujian's navigation technology and shipbuilding industry entered a new stage. Due to the mountainous area, it is rich in raw materials such as wood, tung oil, lime, oyster ash, raw lacquer, rattan, brown and hemp for shipbuilding. Coupled with the rich experience accumulated in the practice of shipbuilding industry for thousands of years, so in the five generations and ten countries, Fujianese shipbuilding technology is close to maturity, they took the lead in inventing and constantly improving the sailing ship type, which can be described as unique in China at that time, which also laid a solid foundation for Fujian to continue to expand and strengthen the sailing ship type.
Song Yuan Dazhou repeatedly set recordsDuring the Song and Yuan dynasties, Quanzhou, Fuzhou and other places were already able to build large wooden sailing ships. Taking advantage of this, they defeated the Arabs' maritime commercial hegemony in the Indian Ocean and brought wealth to the Great Song Empire. In the last years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Shaoxing's foreign trade income reached more than 2 million guan, more than double the highest year of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Quanzhou Houzhu Song ship model
In 1974, a "Fu ship" type sea ship from the late Southern Song Dynasty was unearthed in Houzhu Port, Quanzhou, with a residual length of 24.20 meters and a residual width of 9.15 meters, with an estimated deadweight of about 200 tons and a displacement of 600 tons. The Quanzhou Overseas Transportation History Museum once said, "This is the earliest and largest wooden sailing ship in the world so far. ”
However, this record was soon broken. In December 2007, the Nanhai No. 1, a shipwreck of the Southern Song Dynasty, was salvaged as a whole—800 years ago, the merchant ship loaded with porcelain, silk and other commercial goods set off from Quanzhou Port to Southeast Asia, but somehow sank in the South China Sea. After the "Nanhai No. 1" was released, the hull was measured to be 30.40 meters long, 9.80 meters wide and about 4 meters high (excluding the mast), which was recognized as the earliest discovery date, the largest hull and the most complete preservation of the ancient ocean-going trading merchant ship.
"Nanhai No. 1" Southern Song Dynasty merchant ship restoration model
But if you put the "Nanhai No. 1" back in history, it is not the largest merchant ship of the Song Dynasty. According to the "Mengliang Record" written by Wu Zimu in the Song Dynasty, "The ships of maritime merchants vary in size. The large one is five thousand materials, and can carry five or six hundred people; The small ones are 2,000 to 1,000 materials, and can also carry 2 or 300 people. "Material is the Song people's unit of measurement for the load of ships, one material is equal to one Song stone, equivalent to 120 jin today.
However, even five thousand materials is not the maximum load of sea ships in the Song Dynasty. The Song people also built huge sailing ships. In the fifth year of Zongxuanhe of the Northern Song Dynasty (1123), the Song court, because he wanted to send an embassy to visit Goryeo, ordered the dock of Dinghai (present-day Zhenhai) in Zhejiang to build two giant ships, one named "Dingxinli Shenzhou Huaiyuan Kangji Shenzhou" and the other named "Flowing Comfort Tongji Shenzhou". According to the "Seonwa Bongjing Goryeo Tujing", "Shenzhou is three times as long and tall, as well as the number of objects, and the number of people." In other words, the load of a Shenzhou is at least 6,000 materials, which translates into today's parlance, with a load of 360 tons and a displacement of more than 1,000 tons.
In the seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty to the Zheng Dynasty (1347), the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who visited Hangzhou and Guangzhou said in "Wonders of Exotic Lands - Ibn Battuta's Travels" that the maritime communication between India and China is in Chinese hands, and Chinese ships have 3 to 12 sails, and a large ship can carry 1,000 people: including 600 seafarers and 400 soldiers. As soon as the pirates saw the Yuan Dynasty, they immediately fled. The sailors on board can bring their dependents and children and grow vegetables and ginger in wooden troughs. The captain is like a great commander who rules over his people, and he is majestic.
Ming Dynasty Fu ships can be called aircraft carriersThe Ming Dynasty was the peak period of shipbuilding on the mainland, and many history books record the history of the Ming government's construction of warships in order to replenish its armaments. After the Ming Dynasty implemented the sea ban policy, it established tributary relations with neighboring countries, coupled with the continuous harassment of coastal areas by the Wokou, the Ming government's demand for ships increased, and a large number of merchant ships and war ships began to be built. In addition to the former generation of building boats, sea eagles, walking boats, etc., there are also Jiujiang-style sentry boats, rowing boats, etc. At that time, there were more than 20 kinds of warships, and most of the famous warships were Fu ships.
Fu ship is an excellent ship type in ancient China, also known as "Dafuku ship". It is a pointed bottom sea vessel known for sailing in the South and Far Seas. The ship is as tall as a building, with a wide base, a high end and a tail, and guards on both sides. The whole ship has four floors, the bottom one is equipped with earth and stone, in order to ballast and enhance the stability of the ship, just like building a house, there are cornerstones built to stabilize the house. The second floor is mainly a living cabin, where soldiers and crew live, and the cabin is equipped with many windows. The third level is the main operating space, with two separate cabins: the undecked cabin at the front, with a galley and water storage tank; The rear cabin is divided into 4 compartments for stacking cargo. The fourth floor is the combat place, during which soldiers are condescending, shooting bows and arrows, artillery, throwing arrows, spears, stone tools, and oil mines at enemy ships.
At that time, the ships used by Zheng He's fleet were mainly treasure ships, and treasure ships were a large kind of lucky ships. The history books say that Zheng He "has sixty-two treasure ships, the largest one is forty-four zhang long and 18 zhang wide." Converted to its current dimensions, it is 125.65 meters long and 50.94 meters wide. According to relevant experts, Zheng Hebao's ship has a displacement of more than 10,000 tons, which is similar to a small aircraft carrier.
Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan's fleet, the main warship was called "Rongke ship" by the Dutch, in fact, it is also a kind of "Fu ship", its ace warship is the "three-masted gunboat", the length of the ship can reach 80 meters, the mast is 4 feet high, there are 5 floors of cabins, equipped with 50 guns of various types, can carry more than 400 combatants, at that time the East Asian Sea was called a giant, comparable to the Dutch East India Company's "plywood warship".
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