If you say navigator, who can you think of? It is estimated that everyone thinks of Westerners, such as Columbus, Magellan, da Gama, James Cook, Bartolomeu Dias, Prince Enrique and so on. After all, the West has a very unique interest in navigation, while China is not, China has long been in the era of small peasant economy, accustomed to living on the mainland, for overseas expansion and maritime life has a natural fear and incomprehension, so China's navigators are very few, if there is any, it is estimated that everyone can only think of a Zheng He. In fact, there is a navigator in China who is earlier than Zheng He, but his name is little known, and this person is Wang Dayuan.
Wang Dayuan, born in the fourth year of Emperor Wuzong of Yuan (1311), a native of Wang Jialang, Shiyao Village, Qingyunpu, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, was a famous navigator of the Yuan Dynasty, who traveled many times to many western countries, and was known as "Marco Polo of the East".
Since the Song Dynasty, Jiangxi has produced a number of talents, such as Wang Anshi, Zhu Xi and Wen Tianxiang, and a number of great literary heroes have emerged, and non-governmental schools have also been active, and the number of colleges accounts for almost half of the country. Their educational atmosphere after the Yuan Dynasty is still very hot, and the good cultural atmosphere has a great influence on him.
Wang Dayuan has been smart and studious since childhood, likes to understand the unknown, and his parents like him very much and are pinned on the family's high hopes. His name, "Daibuchi", means sea.
Wang Dayuan
Since ancient times, China has had the saying of "name science", and a person's name represents his destiny. In the darkness, everything was as Wang Dayuan's parents expected. When he grew up, he crossed the sea and traveled the world, became a navigator, and wrote a huge book about navigation, "Island Yizhiluo".
Since he was a child in the school, he is different from other children, not playful, and likes to read a lot of books. In particular, he is full of yearning for the outside world, hoping to be able to travel all over the world like Sima Qian, and see all the customs and customs.
He was tireless in reading the "Chronicle of Goods" in the "Records of History", and was able to memorize the different geographies, nature, products, and commerce of the north and south of China expressed in the article, and often immersed himself in the divine travel of books and traveled through the rivers, lakes and seas.
His collection of two overseas geographical travelogues, "Lingwai Dai-A" and "Zhu Fan Zhi", deeply attracted him and planted blue seeds in his heart.
In the first year of Shun (1330), the 20-year-old Wang Dayuan came to Quanzhou, Fujian Province, the largest commercial port in southern China at that time and one of the largest commercial ports in the world.
Here, the port attracts people of all colors and languages, a variety of Chinese and foreign goods, and all over the world. In particular, the world customs and customs told by those Chinese and foreign merchants and sailors deeply touched Wang Dayuan's heart. In the end, he could not bear his desire to travel the world, so he took the Quanzhou ocean-going merchant ship and went to sea from Quanzhou Port until the second year of the Yuan Reunification (1334), and the whole voyage lasted nearly four years.
On this voyage, they crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Quanzhou via Hainan Island, Champa, Malacca, Java, Sumatra, Myanmar, India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, crossed the Mediterranean Sea, came to Morocco in northwest Africa, returned to Egypt, went out of the Red Sea to Somalia, turned south to Mozambique, and then crossed the Indian Ocean back to Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Java, and then To Australia, from Australia to Kalimantan Island, and then through the Philippine Islands, and finally returned to quanzhou Port.
In the third year of the Shun Dynasty (1337), he set sail from Quanzhou for the second time, traveling through the Nanyang Archipelago, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Mozambique Strait and australia in the western part of the Indian Ocean, and returned to Quanzhou two years later.
After returning home on his second voyage, he began to work on the compilation of the Shima Yi Zhiluo. He recorded the socio-economic and strange customs of various countries he saw during the two voyages into articles, preserved them as materials, and published them in the Nanchang journal. This book provides a good reference experience for the development of navigation in the world.
"Shima Yi ZhiLuo"
In his book, Wang Dayuan guarantees the authenticity of the things he records, saying that "all the people swim in the body, the eyes and ears see with their own eyes, and the things that are legendary are not carried away." Zhang Yi, a magistrate in Quanzhou, also said: "Wang Junhuan Zhang, when he was crowned in the year, tasted two annexes to the east and west oceans, and recorded the strangeness of his mountains, rivers, terroirs, and products, and the goodness of his living room, diet, and clothes." Wu Jian, a major in Quanzhou Fangzhi, said: "As far as the eye can see, it is all written in books. The words of the emperor will be written, so it is appended after the "Qingyuan Continuation" (that is, the "Quanzhou Road QingyuanZhi"). ”
In the book, he also recounts the situation with Regarding Australia, when China called Australia Ross, the port of Darwin was called Marani, and Quanzhou merchants and sailors considered Australia to be the last island on earth, calling it the "Island of Extinction". In the book, Wang Dayuan's record of the customs of the local residents is as follows: "Men and women are alien, do not weave or wear clothes, cover themselves with bird feathers, eat no smoke and fire, only Ru Mao drinks blood, and lives in the nest." "Wear a five-colored silk short shirt and tie it with penga thorn cloth as a unique skirt." He also said that its north was "surrounded by water" and that "there are oysters like mountains, and there are fewer people." "Qifeng Leilei, like a Pegasus galloping, the situation is near the sea." In Australia, there is also a gray-haired, red-billed, red-legged, dancing, six-foot-tall Australian crane, "when people clap their hands, they dance with their wings, and their appearance is considerable, but also foreign objects." When Zheng He went to the Western Ocean, Ma Huan, who followed him to the Western Ocean, said: "Yu Yitong translated the Fanshu, and was also sent to the end, and when he went, the whale wave was vast, and he did not know how many miles it was, and he had traveled to various states, and his weather and climate, geographical figures, and witnesses were walking on it, and then he knew that the author of "Island Yizhi" was not false. ”
People who have dreams must be people with stories. It does not matter how much a person has experienced, the key is that he can record the experience and leave it for posterity as a reference, and this spirit is worth learning.