Black Current Route

Black Current Route

A domestic pig was tied to a wooden frame, letting out earth-shaking shrieks. Perhaps it thought its howling was loud enough for the master to take pity and let these terrifying white-bearded, white-haired old fellows give it a quick death.

"This one, you must first suture the subcutaneous muscle, and then suture the outer layer of skin."

"You don't need catgut for the skin, hemp thread will do. Just cut it and pull it out when the time comes, it won't bleed at all."

"This uncle, this wine is for scrubbing wounds, not for spraying... No need to spray... You drank it all!"

This pig had the worst luck in eight lifetimes. With seven or eight large gashes on its body, three or four veteran military doctors were practicing their needlework on it. First they slashed open a gash, then sewed it back up, then slashed another gash. The pig was also stubborn, not stopping that resounding shrieking for a full two hours.

The on-site teaching could not go on because the materials were gone. Ever since a clever military doctor invented the unique skill of first spraying wine with his mouth and then wiping the wound with cloth, the alcohol was rapidly hitting rock bottom.

"Wait until next year... Wait until next year... When we have plenty of idle money, I'll issue each of you a large barrel of wine to leave you half-drunk." Qin Mo dropped this harsh threat and turned to leave. He truly hadn't imagined these old men all considered him blind!

"Thank you, Your Highness the Heir, for keeping us in mind."

"Thank you, Your Highness... Thank you, Your Highness, for your gracious reward!"

A series of gratitude-expressing voices almost made Qin Mo trip over his own feet and take a tumble. How could men of such fierce and fiery dispositions be corrupted into masters of thick-faced black-heartedness by a single cup of wine?

The vast ocean was boundless and limitless, a flock of gulls flying freely and generating endless envy in the fish below, yet not knowing that the gulls were already half-dead from flapping their wings for so long, and if they couldn't find food soon, they would starve to death and be done with it.

A fleet of ships loomed in the distance between sea and sky, luring a large flock of gulls to fly straight toward them. For a fleet to see gulls would be considered good luck because gulls do not operate very far from the coastline. Since they saw gulls, land was almost reached.

Sailors chopped fish into pieces and threw them up to feed the gulls. This was a tradition on the ships, and Qin Mo found it novel and interesting as well. He had finally fulfilled his sailing dream, and his very maiden voyage was holding the lofty, grand, and high-end position of fleet commander. His inner smugness was simply flying wild.

"Ximan, officer of the watch, measure the latitude and record it on the chart." Qin Mo shouted out his orders. The few people around him fell into a flurry of fluster, each holding an exquisite bronze instrument up to their eyes and beginning to measure. It left a bunch of veteran sailors baffled and envious.

They couldn't understand what these so-called officers of the watch were doing, but they saw the nautical chart. Charts were the most precious possessions of every maritime merchant, never casually shown to people. Yet these people were writing and sketching right there on the deck. Although they were rough drafts, they would surely be copied onto the master charts later. But the fact that these people could make nautical charts meant they would certainly be important figures in the fleet in the future, incomparably higher than low-level sailors like themselves.

Aboard a ship, the hierarchy was extremely strict. The captain, first mate, second mate, sailors, and so on followed in order, exercising layer-upon-layer control and oppression. Otherwise, in the dry and monotonous maritime life, the captain could not control the entire vessel. As for the person who controlled the nautical chart, if not the captain, it was someone one rank higher than the captain—either the shipowner or the owner's trusted confidant.

Qin Mo had Ximan test-manufacture several sextants. This time they took a new route, taking the opportunity to test the new ships and sextants. More importantly, they wanted to find that "Black Current" which originated from the Philippines, passed through Dayuan, and reached Fusang.

Going from Great Xia to Fusang generally involved two routes. One was going to Hangzhou and Ningbo, then directly crossing the East China Sea to reach Fusang. The other was going to Goryeo and then turning toward Fusang. The Black Current was the last discovered route, as well as the one that saved the most time and effort.

Qin Mo first had the fleet go to Hangzhou to trade for some cloth, then return to Dayuan to pick up his five hundred spirits and three hundred veteran elite guards. Nearly thirty majestic ships set out eastward from Tamsui, measuring latitude all the way while searching for the Black Current. Before long, they discovered that the seawater color was exceptionally blue and deep, and they figured this must be the so-called Black Current.

The Black Current was generally one hundred and fifty kilometers wide, and upon reaching the waters southwest of Fusang, it might reach three hundred kilometers in width, with a flow velocity of three to ten kilometers per hour. Therefore, with the aid of the Black Current, one could quickly reach the Fusang archipelago.

In this era, navigation was a severe test of human perseverance. The great ocean was vast and boundless, and not knowing one's whereabouts led to frequent getting lost, even with charts and compasses. Why? Because navigation relied entirely on those fixed reference landmarks.

For example, setting out from a certain place and walking east for a few li would reveal a reef, so a reef would appear on the chart, and then walking north for a few li would reach the destination. If the reef was not found when heading east, then the chart lost its function because the ship no longer knew where it was; how could it navigate? At this time, one either returned the same way or rashly turned north to trust to luck. If it was a complex route, encountering bad luck twice and failing to find the reference landmarks—heh! Pray to the heavens for blessing, because you wouldn't even know where you had run off to.

Thus, the world charts Qin Mo saw were all abstract versions. Fusang was a hundred and eight thousand li away from Great Xia, almost reaching Hawaii, just to indicate that it was extremely distant from the Great Xia Empire. Scale was not considered at all when drawing. An unstandardized chart would become a treasured object, showing how backward current navigation technology was.

Usually, whether a sea vessel could accurately reach its destination depended overwhelmingly on the captain's familiarity with the route and his navigational experience. Experienced captains were targets of solicitation by all maritime merchant master families. What Qin Mo was doing now was mass-producing such captains.

Qin Mo selected reliable young men from among his personal troops, familiarizing them with the use of the sextant and learning to make standard charts using scales. Although precise longitude could not be determined due to the lack of a marine chronometer, for any single route alone, after using the sextant to measure the precise latitudes of various reference landmarks, the possibility of getting lost was infinitely reduced.

If upon reaching the latitude marked on the chart, the reference landmark was not seen, one would search east and west along that latitude until the landmark was found, and then proceed along the chart to the next leg of the voyage. Once officers of the watch led by sextant navigation were on board, they would forever remain calm and would always reach their destination; it was merely a matter of sooner or later.

As for the East Asian nautical chart that Qin Mo drew based on his own memory, it left Allen and the others who saw it in utter amazement. Compared to Qin Mo's map, that treasured chart from the Great Xia royal family locked in the secret chamber was simply garbage. The two of them finally understood what Qin Mo had meant when he first saw that chart.

"From now on, we will never need to explore again. Perhaps I can find the road to the West."