Chapter 332： Captain School

马 When Marin dispatched two newly built 250 class merchant ships with 660,000 pounds of rye south to Spain, he encountered a shortage of captains.

Earlier, on the island of Texel, Marin relied on high-paid Portuguese old sailors to run informal sailor schools to train young people selected from fishermen's families.

However, sailors are only sailors after all, and they cannot completely replace the captain's status. The main task of the sailor is to control the sails and battles on the sea.

This kind of work is easy for ordinary uneducated young fishermen. After all, their grandparents lived on the sea, and they were born with the instinct to sail.

However, His Majesty, such as the captain and chief mate, who are in charge of leading the team, are extremely scarce. Because the captain is not only an advanced sailor, he must also have the culture to be able to record logbooks and hydrological conditions.

Moreover, every qualified ocean sailing captain is a good astronomer and mathematical talent. Because the captain often needs to determine the navigation position by observing the sun, moon, and stars.

After Marin instructed Da Vinci to make a sextant, the captain must understand the calculation of the celestial angle, and he needs some geometric knowledge.

So, in the era of great sailing, the captain is the real advanced technical job, which is difficult for most people. There were quite a few captains under Marin, but none of them were qualified seafaring captains.

These captains are only suitable for offshore navigation and rely on land as a reference coordinate for shore navigation. And this kind of offshore captain is actually the most in Europe at present. Only a few excellent captains who understand the calculation of the angles of the sun, moon, and stars are suitable for leading ocean voyages. Generally speaking, such a captain is also called a navigator. Columbus and Amerigo are both outstanding representatives.

Sadly, Marin currently has only two Columbus and Amerigos under his command, who can be called navigators. Others can only be regarded as offshore captains. At most, some of the first mate and second mate who were mixed around Columbus and Amerigo, followed these two people to learn some deep navigation knowledge, barely able to run according to the log to explore good routes.

Alas, Marin obviously did not want this. He is a man who wants to be the overlord of the sea in the era of great sailing. Therefore, it is Marin's pursuit to have a group of captains who can adapt to ocean navigation.

Therefore, Marin intends to select young men with good brains and teach them to read and read, as well as marine astronomy and mathematics.

At the same time, one of the crew members who followed Columbus's exploration of India was taken home by Marin Wheel. So Marin picked out 50 clever sailor boys and gave them to the first mate named Knight, who asked them to teach children astronomical knowledge and mathematical calculation methods for navigation.

Actually, Knight himself is just a two-knife level. However, it is possible for him to teach the children basic sailing knowledge. Moreover, Knight is literate anyway, otherwise he cannot be a mate. Therefore, Marin asked Knight to teach literacy to sailors and teenagers, to recite the astronomical knowledge base for navigation, and to simply calculate the angle between the sun and the horizontal plane.

Marin does not expect how good Knight can teach these sailor boys, anyway, when Columbus returns from India this time, Marin is not going to let him go to sea again.

Instead of letting a handful of Columbus go to sea, let Columbus stay in the Captain's School in East Friesland and teach these clever sailors youngsters a deeper astronomical and mathematical knowledge.

Wait until the teenagers have learned the geometric calculation of the celestial body angle. According to the sextant and the marine clock, they can easily calculate the latitude and longitude of the place.

In this way, as long as the latitude and longitude of the complete route are recorded, these people can easily complete the voyage of the old route based on the data and compare the measurement results.

The better ones can also be cultivated as exploratory navigators, allowing them to explore new routes in the future-such as the Ming Dynasty route ...

You should know that the porcelain and silk produced in the Ming Dynasty can definitely sell well in Europe, and they are very profitable. Not only that, the saltpeter prices in the Ming Dynasty were even cheaper than in India.

If the Ming Dynasty route is really opened, the profit will be much higher than the Indian route. These medieval Europeans may not know how to deal with the reclusive and conservative country of the Ming Dynasty, but can Marin, who is familiar with the history of China, still not know?

The European royal family is so good-looking, they always want to get along with the Ming Dynasty on an equal footing. But everyone knows that the Ming people actually looked down on any other country. Therefore, it is impossible for Europeans to communicate with the Ming Dynasty in advance. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty was rich in materials and did not need to trade with Europeans.

Therefore, the best way to deal with the Ming Dynasty is to call him a nagong and send a representative to Beijing for three or nine worship. As long as the monarchs and ministers of the Ming dynasty feel that they have face, everything is easy to say. Otherwise, it will never bird you. It's better to fight to the end than to step back.

The Spaniards suffered from this loss. As the great empire dominating Europe and the Americas, the Spaniards were too reserved, so they could not open the Ming Dynasty market. The Portuguese are much more cunning. Although they did not claim tribute to the Ming dynasty, they also obtained the trade point of Macau by bribing local officials from Guangdong and Guangxi. Had it not happened that Portugal had been destroyed by Spain and the Dutch had seized the Malacca Straits, the Portuguese would continue to enjoy huge trade benefits.

As a Huaxia traversal, Xi Malin should not be too familiar with the Ming Dynasty. Although the Ming Dynasty routes have not yet been opened, a lot of plans were made to please the Ming Dynasty. Such as directly courting the emperor, bribing cabinet ministers, or even ~ www.novelhall.com ~ can also bribe popular eunuchs ...

In short, as long as you can win the Ming Dynasty's trading rights, it is totally worth paying a bribe. Moreover, Marin knew that the Ming Dynasty was governed by Ming Xiaozong in the past two years, and bribery might be more difficult. But after 1505, when the bear child Zhu Houzhao came to power, the flaw was called more than one. Not to mention that Zhu Houzhao himself is easier to handle, that is, simply bribing the **** Liu Jin, under the command of Zhu Houzhao, can simply solve the problem of trade.

Of course, those are the methods that can be used later. Right now, it is imperative for Marin to have a number of high-level, young and strong captains, and to open the Ming Dynasty route first.

In addition to selecting 50 clever sailor teenagers for training, in the civilian school established by Marin, a craftsman school, Marin also intends to let the Frisian fishermen ’s children learn the basics of navigation and mathematics from an early age. . When they are a bit older, they will select the students who have learned well from them, and give them to Columbus and Amerigo to continue to train, so as to become an excellent ocean sailing captain who can succeed the two.

There are now as many as 30,000 or 40,000 fishermen in East Frisian Land, and there are many children in the fishermen's homes. As many as 5,000 children are sent to school. These children, Marin does not need them all to become captains, as long as there are 500 people to become qualified ocean captains, Marin is extremely happy. As for the rest, they can act as sailors and serve Marin's great cause of navigation.

However, no matter whether it is the 50 clever sailor boys or the 5,000 fisherman children who have just attended elementary school, they want to grow up to become captains. So Marin still has to wait. For now, he can only continue to reuse Columbus and Amerigo. Only when a new generation of navigators grow up can Marin truly realize his dream of dominating the ocean ...