The "Yinhe" incident in 1993 was a typical case of the United States bullying China and displaying its arrogant hegemonism. In order to add a trumped-up charge of transporting chemical weapons to China, the United States shut down its satellite navigation system over the Indian Ocean and forced the Chinese merchant ship "Yinhe" to stop sailing. The U.S. military forcibly boarded the ship for inspection, but found nothing. This is a great humiliation of the Chinese people by US imperialism. We must write down this account, and we will always have to calculate it when we look for opportunities in the future.
I've always had a question, though. How did ships sail on the oceans when there was no satellite navigation system in the world? Now with the GPS navigation system in the United States, everyone is using it. But if the United States turns off the navigation system, or if the navigation system fails, will the ship at sea be completely immobile? That's not the way it should be!
Back then, Zheng He went to the Western Ocean seven times, and there was absolutely no GPS satellite navigation at that time, and Zheng He's fleet went to the Western Ocean seven times, and there were no major problems. At the very least, before that, the so-called satellite navigation was not absolutely inseparable from the navigation of ships in the sea. After that, during the so-called Western Voyage Period, there were no satellite navigation systems, and many captains at that time had mastered the superb technology of navigating the sea.
At that time, there were two very important problems in navigation, one was to solve the problem of shipping routes. From A to B, how does this route go? This is a big problem to solve. The first thing one has to do is draw a chart, on which the direction of the route is marked. Of course, there is a great risk in blindly going on a route that has not been taken. For example, there may be frequent wind and wave areas at sea, and there will be reef areas, which will bring safety risks to ships under sail. So it was not easy to open a new route at that time.
Another problem is that the ship under sail has to solve the problem of positioning itself. The ship sailed on the sea, far from the land, and there was nothing to see except the water and the sky. In this case, if you can't determine the exact position of the ship, for example, you don't know the latitude and longitude of the ship's own position, then it is useless to have a route map. I don't know much about what our Zheng He used to locate himself when he went to the West, but there must be such a thing as a compass. As for how Zheng He's treasure ship was positioned with a compass, I didn't understand it at all. But what is certain is that the positioning system of Chinese navigation at that time was certainly not lagging behind.
Whether the compass was also used in Western navigation, I don't know too well. But later on, they often used an instrument called a theodolite. There is also an instrument called a sextant. I don't know if these two instruments are two completely different instruments? Or are they different names for the same instrument? Or are there two different generations of instruments for measuring latitude and longitude? But in any case, before the existence of satellite navigation systems, human navigation on the sea could not be separated from this thing.
Here's the problem. If our "Galaxy" was turned off by satellite navigation signals, why didn't our captain or chief engineer use this traditional positioning system to figure out the position of his ship, and use traditional charts to determine the ship's course and continue to sail to its destination? If you can't make it to your destination, you should be able to return home. At that time, the "Milky Way" seemed to be lying on its stomach all of a sudden, unable to move. Isn't that right? Now, the only explanation is that since China's ocean-going companies began to use the American satellite navigation system, they have abandoned the traditional tools and instruments when training their captains and seafarers. They felt that they did not need any training for their captains and seafarers on how to use these old tools. In their opinion, these old objects are outdated.
When people accept new technologies and equipment, it is easy to throw the old ones aside. It seems to make sense, and it's not complicated to do. Throw away the old stuff, who wouldn't? But at that time, in the minds of some people, there was no sense of risk. GPS was developed by the United States, and the United States allows the whole world to use it for free, and the United States has its own calculations, and some of us think that the United States is a product that provides public services to the world free of charge. The Americans are very generous, very generous, and the Americans really don't say anything. However, as soon as the "Milky Way" incident came out, people discovered that things were not as simple as they had imagined. People can pinch your bull's nose. And people can pinch it as much as they want, you can't do anything about it.
Even if the "Yinhe" incident does not occur, no one can guarantee that the US satellite navigation system is absolutely reliable, and no one can guarantee that there will be absolutely no problems with this navigation system. If the US satellite navigation system really has a serious problem and a major failure at a certain day and a certain time, and all ships sailing on the sea cannot count on this navigation system, then those ships that are sailing on the sea will have to wait for death? Is there any other way they can save themselves? Is there a way to still drive the boat back?
There is certainly a solution, and that is to revert to the traditional practice of using ships for navigation at sea. Use the old methods and old equipment in the past to position yourself, find a suitable route, and find a way to sail to the original destination through this route. The question is how many of today's captains and chief engineers can master and use this set of traditional instruments and methods. If we now have no such content in the training courses for captains and chief engineers, then is this tantamount to blocking our way to survive in times of crisis?
So, our maritime universities, our ocean-going companies, have to do this kind of training for the operators on ocean-going vessels, teach them to use traditional positioning instruments, teach them to be able to read charts, to be able to find shipping lanes. Many of the equipment on board is now operated by electric or more advanced automation. However, if these automatic control parts fail, then a lot of manual or manual operation is still required. Therefore, the traditional original set cannot simply be thrown aside, thinking that they are backward and out of fashion, and they can be discarded like clogs. This is very dangerous.
When you think of the modernization of our army, there may be a similar situation. Now the combat effectiveness of the troops depends on powerful weapons and equipment. A significant part of this armament is also automated. Our information and communication systems, our command systems, are equipped with high technology and have a high level of automation. Now the fighters of our troops are very comfortable in operating these equipment. But in the event that during the war, these devices malfunction, and some of the automatic control parts suddenly fail, should this battle continue? How else to fight?
In this case, it is likely that traditional manual work will be required to solve the problem. This is also indispensable for the peacetime training of our troops. Some people may think that now that the equipment is so advanced, what's the point of training those old ones? Some things seem to be old-fashioned, and they don't seem to make so much sense, but at critical moments, old-fashioned things will save lives, will get us out of danger, and will make us turn the tide. So don't look down on the old ways. The old one may have been trained for many years, and it will not be used in real combat once in the future. But this seemingly unlikely event could become a 100% high-probability event on the battlefield. Being prepared is always the most effective way for us to avoid risks.
(The author is a senior researcher at Kunlun Ce Research Institute; Source: Kunlun Ce Network [Author's Authorization], revised and released; The picture comes from the Internet, invaded and deleted)