At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the famous Chinese navigator Zheng He once sailed to the Western Ocean seven times, and the route crossed Asia to reach Africa, which can be called an unprecedented feat in the history of human navigation, but you may not know that Zheng He's great voyage is inseparable from the blessing of a "treasure", he is the world's best voyage ship at that timeFukufu
The National Maritime Museum has restored the model of the Song Yuanfu ship, which is located in the marine culture theme space, with a total length of 278 meters, 8 meters wide6 meters, depth 34 meters, design draft 236 meters, reproduce the traditional skills and structural forms of watertight compartments, multiple plates and fish scale laps, which not only vividly restore the situation of the old fortune boats, but also reflect a better display and viewing effect.
Fujian has a long history of shipbuilding, Fujian has the title of "Min in the sea" in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and later generations of Minyue people "Xi to water buckets, easy to use boats" ("Hanshu Yan Zhu Biography"). A large number of iron products such as axes, adzes, and chisels were found in the ruins of the ancient city of Minyue in Wuyishan Village, and the use of advanced hand tools could undoubtedly promote the development of the shipbuilding industry at that time. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, "the seven counties of the old Jiaozhi contributed to the transshipment, all from Dongye, to the sea......So it was passed, and it has become the norm to this day." At this time, Fuzhou has become an important maritime transportation hub.
Named after the construction of the Fujian coast, the Fuchuan is a kind of wooden sailing ship with a pointed bottom, and is known as the three ancient ships of China together with the Guangzhou ship and the sand boat. As a marine wooden sailing ship mainly sailing in the ocean of southern Zhejiang, Fujian and eastern Guangdong, it is "flat as a balance at the top and a blade at the bottom", with the characteristics of a sharp bottom, wide at the top, a high mouth at the head and a towering tail, and a multi-layer bottom plate and watertight compartment design.
How should you distinguish between Fukufune?
It needs to be identified by the "eyes", the big eyes of the lucky boat are called "dragon eyes", its size and shape are quite particular, the keel is four inches long with the dragon eye every one zhang long, the eyes of the fishing boat look down, intended to find fish, and the eyes of the merchant ship look forward, which is intended to know the way.
As early as the Song Dynasty, the Fu ship was famous for "the sea boat to Fujian as the top", the historical records recorded, the deck of the Fu ship was flat, the side of the ship was sharpened like a knife blade, the cross section of the ship was V-shaped, and the keel through the head and tail was set under the ship to support the hull, so that the ship was stronger and the draft was deeper.
The advantage of this is that once the ship hits the reef and other accidents, the cabin will not sink as a whole, and secondly, the cargo can be stored in a classified manner, and the final installed hatch can also play a role in reinforcing the hull, which can be described as killing three birds with one stone, and is full of wisdom. The bottom tip is wide, the keel is thick, there are many watertight compartments, the head tip and the tail are wide and the two ends are warped, which greatly improves the ability of the ship to resist wind and waves and the safety performance of long-distance navigation.
Cross-sectional view of the watertight compartment of the Fufu ship at the National Maritime Museum).
In the fifth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1372), "ordered the pedestrian Yang Zai to enthrone the Jianyuan edict to inform his country, among which the mountain king Chadu sent his younger brother Tai Qi and other people to the dynasty with him, and paid tribute" ("Ming History, Ryukyu Biography"), and then the king of Beishan and Nanshan also paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ryukyu countries and the Ming Dynasty formally formed a tributary relationship. Every time the envoy visited the country, he had to recruit civilian merchant ships in Fujian to temporarily serve as canonization boats, and to build canonization boats on Nantai Island on the Minjiang River in Fuzhou. At that time and later, the canonization boat was mostly transformed into a blessing boat, and the canonization boat generally had two to three floors of the tail building, the upper floor lived **, and the middle floor was dedicated to the heavenly concubine to protect the smooth sailing.
The second chapter of Chinese maritime civilization in the National Maritime Museum: the model of sealing the boat).
Zheng He's fleet to the West passed through the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the deep-water waters such as the Persian Gulf and the East African coast. "Ming Shilu" records that in May of the first year of Yongle, Xin Si "ordered the Fujian capital to build 137 ships", and in the first month of the second year of Yongle, Guihai "will send an envoy to Western countries and order Fujian to build five ships." Fuchuan became the behind-the-scenes hero of Zheng He's seven voyages to the West, and also wrote a glorious chapter in the history of Chinese shipbuilding.
During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the plague invaded the southeast coastal areas of China, and the Fu ship was consciously transformed into a warship, and the overall ship shape also developed in the direction of narrowness and lightness. Qi Jiguang, a famous anti-Japanese general, once commented that "the Fufu ship is as tall as a city, and it is not driven by manpower, and the power is strong."The boat is short from itself, such as my small boat, so the lucky boat is pressed down by the wind, like a car running over a praying mantis, fighting the boat force but not fighting manpower, is to win every time."
Qi Jiguang's evaluation of the fortune boat in "Ji Xiao's New Book: Fu Chuan Said").
FukufuAs the leader of the wooden ocean-going ships in the history of our country, it is not only the carrier of the spread of Chinese maritime civilization, but also the bright pearl in the history of world navigation, it shows us superb shipbuilding skills, and is the extraordinary wisdom crystallization of the ancient working people, especially the coastal ancestors of Fujian.
References:
The Classic of Mountains and Seas [M], Beijing. Chung Hwa Book Company, 2011
Bangu: Hanshu [M], Beijing. Chung Hwa Book Company, 2007
Zhang Tingyu et al.: History of the Ming Dynasty [M], Beijing. Chung Hwa Book Company, 1977
Xi Longfei, History of Ancient Chinese Shipbuilding [M], Wuhan. Wuhan University Press, 2015
Liu Yijie. Fuchuan Yuanliu Kao[J].Research on the History of Maritime Relations, 2016, (No.2).
*: Tianjin National Maritime Museum).