Daming pirates

After Gufeng was caught working on Nanri Island, he was paid wages every month. He couldn't use these wages on Nanri Island, so every month, Sea Wolf would send someone to send the money back to their families on the shore.

hands to prevent their families from losing their source of livelihood.

Gu Feng learned about the news that his youngest son was seriously ill through Sea Wolf's people. He was so anxious that he just wanted to jump into the sea. Finally, Yu Xiaotian learned about this and ordered someone to pick up his youngest son from the land, because

Sea Wolf's medical clinic is quite strong. The level of the medical officers here is much higher than that of the doctors in the drug stores in Land City. Therefore, by bringing his youngest son for treatment on Nanri Island, he has a better chance of survival.

Bigger.

At that time, Gu Feng was considered sick and sought medical treatment. He placed all his hopes on Yu Xiaotian. He knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly, begging Yu Xiaotian to save his youngest son. Of course, Yu Xiaotian was not sure whether his son could be saved.

I'm not sure, I'm just doing my best.

But he didn't expect that Sea Wolf Medical Center actually cured his youngest son's illness in the end. In fact, his younger son's illness was not a serious illness, but he encountered quack doctors and never found out the cause. The result was

The more treatment he got, the worse it got, and he almost lost his life.

After arriving at Nanri Island and being consulted by the medical officers here, the cause of the disease was immediately found. After applying the appropriate medicine, things improved quickly. Within a few days, the disease was cured.

But Gufeng didn't understand this! He thought it was Yu Xiaotian who had thought of many ways to save his son, so from then on, he was determined to stay and start working for Yu Xiaotian.

Originally, he was old and no one was using him anymore, but here at Sea Wolf, he was taken seriously, the salary was high, the food was good, and his body, which was a little weak, gradually became stronger again.

Moreover, Gufeng is a family craft, similar to that of Guo Fu. It is a shipbuilding craft passed down from ancestors, and in terms of craftsmanship, Gufeng has very rich experience. Compared with Guo Fu's technology, it is even better, so in Guo Fu

After being transferred to the Tamsui Boathouse, the Nanri Island Boathouse was handed over to Gu Fenglai to take charge of.

When Yu Xiaotian arrived at the boathouse, Gu Feng was inspecting the two large plywood boats with several apprentices and craftsmen. When he saw Yu Xiaotian coming, he quickly greeted Yu Xiaotian.

"Why are you here, Master? You haven't fully recovered yet. It's very windy and hot at the seaside. Why don't Master take care of your body so much?" Gu Feng knew that Yu Xiaotian was usually very polite to craftsmen like them. Seeing that,

As Yu Xiaotian's body was still a little weak and his complexion was not as good as before, he quickly advised him.

"It's okay! I made you worry, Master Gu! Haha! I know my physical condition well. I'm fine now. If I don't go out for some activities, I'm afraid my bone buttons will get rusty! Don't worry, I, Yu, don't have any bones in my body.

You think so softly, if I hadn't been careful this time, I wouldn't have gotten into such a mess! Haha!

How's it going? What do you think of the craftsmanship of this boat built by the Thais?" Yu Xiaotian waved his hands and said with a smile.

Gu Feng nodded repeatedly and said: "Just now, I took these guys to the boat to have a look. This Taixi boatwright is indeed very skilled in craftsmanship. This boat is really well built, with sufficient materials and well-made seams."

Yes, there are a lot of fantastic ideas, which really opened my eyes! If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have never thought of some places. It shows that these Thai and Western craftsmen cannot be underestimated!”

Yu Xiaotian smiled and then asked: "Actually, they probably learned many things from us Chinese, but they also made some innovations. That is, there are mountains outside the mountains, and there are people outside the people! What's going on?

The Lusi people have been traversing the sea for more than a hundred years. They are good at summing up experience and constantly improving their ships. Therefore, over the years, they have surpassed our Chinese-style ships!

If the imperial court had not sealed the sea after Zheng Daguan went to the West, with the skills of craftsmen like you, you might not have lost to them. What a pity!

It is a pity that the imperial court closed the sea, so that many of the skills of building treasure ships have been lost. In addition, our Ming craftsmen are too conservative and lack the courage to innovate. They only hold on to some shipbuilding skills left by their ancestors and dare not surpass them.

We live on our laurels, which is why the Thais have surpassed our craftsmanship!

You don’t want to listen to me. Now we have to admit that the shipbuilding skills of the Thai people are indeed unique. In particular, these large ships are built to be strong and durable, and can withstand strong winds and waves in the sea.

Across thousands of miles of ocean, if we continue to be conservative like this, in a few years we may not even be able to catch up with them!

But now that I am here, we cannot watch our Chinese shipbuilding skills decline like this. You have to help me and speed up the creation of some new ships. Let us catch up with them and let these Europeans and Westerners see what they have learned. We Chinese

They are not stupid and can build better ships than them!

Now our Feizhao Clippers is an example. Although this ship is not big, but even if it is taken to the West, it will not count as a loss! Currently, the ships that can outrun our Feizhao Clippers, including the Taixi people,

, not necessarily, so as long as we are willing to do it and think more about it, there is nothing we can’t do!

Okay, let’s talk about it. After looking at these two big Taishi plywood boats, do you think they can be repaired?”

Although Gu Feng felt a bit harsh after listening to Yu Xiaotian's words, he had nothing to say. The Taixi ship in front of them was placed in front of them. Only after they saw it did they realize that his craftsmanship was indeed better than theirs.

, if they were asked to do it, they would never be able to think of using these methods to build a ship or build such a ship, so if it doesn't work, it just won't work. This can't be blamed on Xiaotian's bad words.

But fortunately, now they have also built the Feizihao Clipper, and a few days ago they also transformed the three-masted Dafu ship gunboat. It cannot be said that they are useless. In the past, they did not dare to say that they could build this Taixi man.

A large plywood boat, that's because they have never seen it before.

Now things are easier to handle. There are two large Thai-Spanish ships placed in front of them. They can look at and learn from them inside and out. Except for some crafts that they may not understand for a while, they don't understand the structure of this ship.

You can figure it out soon.

As long as they write it down, they can imitate the gourd and learn how to build it in the future. In the past, they lacked the sense of innovation and were conservative and could only build those old ship types. This cannot be blamed on them for not wanting to think about building better ships.

But the environment determines that they cannot change the ship type casually, because they are shipwrights and must build the ship according to the ship type ordered by the customer. They have to build it according to the rules as to what type they want and how big they want it to be.

If you modify it casually, when the ship comes to pick up the ship, it turns out that it is not what they want, and if you don't want it and you still have to make a claim, can't they, the shipbuilders, compensate the shippers with the money?

Therefore, if there is no demand, there will be no motivation to create. The shopkeepers of the shipyards will not spend money to develop new ship models. Naturally, the craftsmen do not dare to mess around. Moreover, China's maritime trade has always been accustomed to just running

Nanyang is fine. Most of the routes we take are routes close to the coast. At least there must be some islands as landmarks on the waterway.

Basically no one sailed across the oceans and traveled thousands of miles across the vast ocean to explore and discover new opportunities. Therefore, after Zheng He's voyages to the Western Ocean in the middle Ming Dynasty, the technological progress of Chinese-style ships stagnated and the technology was lost.

Without the impetus for continued development, coupled with the implementation of the Ming Dynasty's policy of sealing the sea, shipbuilding technology completely stagnated and even suffered a serious setback.

At least the craftsmanship of how to build a large treasure ship with thousands of materials has been completely lost. The most critical thing here is how to splice such a long keel and ensure the structural strength so that the large ship can survive strong winds and waves.

, keeping the structure strong without breaking and disintegrating, which no one knows anymore.

Most of China's shipbuilding craftsmen are from the lowest level of society. They rely on word of mouth and hands-on teaching and learning to learn their skills. Most of them are illiterate, so naturally they will not leave behind any technical information or documents.

There are some limited literary things left by some seemingly expert readers.

These scholars were disdainful of being in the company of these shipwrights and spending time in the boathouses to truly learn shipbuilding techniques. Therefore, the written materials they left behind were mostly based on what they had heard and heard, and many things were simply taken for granted or superficial.

, or even simply something specious, and future generations cannot learn anything useful from it.

In addition, the Chinese have not developed systematic drawing techniques and do not know what proportional drawings are. Some scholars drew some ship diagrams, but the proportions were out of proportion and there were no structural diagrams. They could not carry more information at all, so that later generations,

If you want to copy some ancient ships based on some literature or drawings, there is no reliable information.

This is why among the ship models of later generations, most of them are Western-style ships, but there are very few Chinese-style ships, or they are simply specious things.

Chinese shipwrights, all relying on the craftsmanship left by their ancestors, are resting on their laurels step by step, and they cherish each other very much. They are afraid that if their craftsmanship is imitated by others, their own jobs will be ruined, and many very good people will be ruined.

Technology is gradually lost in the long river of history.

However, Western shipbuilders have a considerable social status. After the Age of Discovery began, they were more willing to innovate because of demand. They constantly corrected the problems of previous ships, constantly innovated some new ship types, and explored the construction of new ships.

A ship type more suitable for sailing in the sea.

In addition, they have now developed relatively complete cartography. Shipbuilders no longer build ships in person as they did before, but gradually become shipbuilding designers. They draw drawings, make models, and test them

After that, it is handed over to the workers of the shipyard to build it according to the drawings.

These have greatly promoted the development of Western shipbuilding, and European countries have begun to turn their attention to the sea, hoping to get a huge piece of cake from it. Therefore, there is competition among each other, and it is indispensable to compete with each other on the sea.

Fight.