The Rise of the European Emperor

Columbus's fleet had already set off to look for Panama, but Marin understood that Panama was just a springboard, a springboard to control North and South America, as well as to China and Japan.

The reason why I chose to take the Pacific route is because of the tailwind. From the Indian Ocean to Huaxia, you have to bypass the east and west coasts of Africa, and then pass through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea to reach Huaxia.

The biggest problem with this road is that the wind direction is changeable, and it has to pass through several wind belts. In the era of sailing, boating is not about taking the shortest route, but finding a route that can maximize the use of wind power.

If you take the African coastal route to enter the Indian Ocean, you will first enter the prevailing westerly wind belt north of 30 degrees north latitude, enter the windless belt of 30 degrees north latitude, continue south, and enter the northeast trade wind belt of 30 degrees north latitude to the equator. After that, it enters the southeast trade wind belt from the equator to 30 degrees south latitude. Arrived in the South African waters at the southernmost tip of Africa, and entered the prevailing westerly belt...

After arriving on the east coast of Africa, turn it around and change it again...

In short, although the total distance of this road is not longer than that of the Pacific route, or even shorter, the wind belt changes too much, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against the wind, and the sailboat is very difficult to walk.

Marin remembers that in the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company brought silk, porcelain, etc. acquired from Taiwan back to China, using advanced Galen ships, which also required a voyage of up to 10 months.

However, taking the other route, the Spanish "Manila Galleon Trade" route, takes the Pacific route, and the time is much shorter.

This is because the Spaniards took full advantage of the trade winds in the Pacific Ocean. For example, when sailing from the Americas to the Philippine colonies in Asia, the Spanish sailboats traveled the northeast trade winds between 30 degrees north latitude and the equator. Moreover, in the Pacific Ocean at this latitude, there is also an ocean current from east to west - the North Equatorial Warm Current...

The sailboats take this route, which is equivalent to the wind and the water, and the speed is very fast. Even a Spanish galleon, a little less powerful than the Anglo-Dutch Galen, can travel from the west coast of America to the Philippines in just 3 months.

The voyage from Europe to Panama, using the Galen, takes only a month or two. That is to say, if you marry the southeast coast of China from Europe and take the “smooth” route in the Pacific Ocean, the total time will only take 5 months, which is half the time compared to the Dutch.

As for the return journey, it's basically the same. Manila Galleons generally sail from Manila to the northeast along the "Kuroshio". After reaching the waters near Japan, which is north of 30 degrees north latitude, it follows the prevailing westerly winds in this area and the warm North Pacific current in the direction northerly to the east, all the way to the east. After arriving in California on the west coast of the Americas, follow the south-flowing California cold to the west coast of Mexico, or, simply go to Panama...

However, although this route is also downwind, because it is very detoured, it has to go north first and then go south. The total voyage time has reached 6 months, which is twice the time taken from east to west. This is the difference between a tailwind and a tailwind in the age of sailing.

Returning to Europe from Panama is also a bit unpleasant, and it is estimated that it will take 3 months. In this way, the total time will reach about 9 months, which is about the same time as the Dutch coastal route in Africa.

Of course, that's the time it would take to use a normal Galen boat. If it were a clipper boat...

A terrifying statistic suddenly appeared in Marin's mind - the "Cutty Sark" (also known as the Short Shirt), the clipper ship used by the British to transport tea, departed from Guangzhou, detoured the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to London. It only took 100 days!

And how long is a hundred days? 3 months and 10 days, a third of the Dutch sailing time of 10 months…

It is certain that if you use the clipper ship to take the Pacific route, it will only take about a month to go from Panama to Southeast China, from east to west. Even if the return journey is not so smooth,

It's been almost two months...

Marin's consideration is that when other countries are attracted by African coastal routes and do not set foot in the Pacific, he can boldly use clippers in the Pacific. In this way, sailing time can be greatly saved.

Moreover, if other countries do not set foot in the Pacific Ocean, they will not discover the mystery of the clipper. Then, they go to the east and west coasts of Africa and the Indian Ocean foolishly, still using old-fashioned Galen boats (it seems that they don't even have Galen boats now), and the sailing time is three times that of clippers...

As for the Atlantic route, from the mainland to Panama, for the sake of confidentiality, Marin still uses the Galen ship. Moreover, this route is also unstable, and there will definitely be many pirates in the future. Therefore, the Galen ship that can install a lot of artillery is the first choice for this route. As for the clippers, fast is fast, but can not install artillery, no self-defense ability. So, you can only take the remote route, don't let people find out...

Once the trade route to China in the Pacific Ocean is opened, Marin can predict that at that time, China's silk, porcelain, and tea will bring him all kinds of huge profits.

You must know that the Spanish manila galleon, purchased from Huaxia every year, costs between 1 million and 3 million pesos. This peso is the silver dollar, which is called "the ocean" in later generations. One million pesos is one million oceans. Specifically, each silver dollar contains about 24 grams of silver. According to the current gold and silver exchange ratio of 1:12, that is 2 grams of gold. 1 million pesos is 2 million grams of gold, which is equivalent to 561,000 ducats...

And, that's just the purchase price, shipping to Europe, the price is higher. Marin had read a piece of data in a previous life. That is, the Dutch in Taiwan, buying those smuggled raw silk, the purchase price is 4 guilders per pound. When shipped back to Europe, the sales price reached 16.6 guilders per pound, which more than quadrupled...

In other words, if the goods worth 1 million pesos are shipped back to Europe, the price may reach more than 4 million pesos, which is equivalent to more than 2.3 million gold coins. The specific profit, I am afraid there are also hundreds of thousands of gold coins...

Faced with such huge profits, how could Marin not be moved? So he decided to open up China's trade routes within 5 years. To this end, what he has to do now is to cultivate a batch of Chinese translators...

Yes, train a batch of Chinese translations. After all, now in the whole of East Frisland, or in the whole of Europe, only Marin understands Chinese. There are also two Mongolian doctors, Mozhigen and Batel, who know a little Datong dialect.

However, if you send a fleet to China trade, you can't let yourself or two court doctors go there in person, right? Therefore, it is still necessary to train a group of translators.

Marin thought carefully about this. Dealing with Daming is very complicated. First, language is a big problem.

Among them, this should be divided into two cases. One is dealing with the government, the other is dealing with the people...

If you are dealing with the government, you need to know "Mandarin". The Mandarin of the Ming Dynasty is different from the Mandarin of later generations. The Mandarin of later generations was actually formed after the Manchus entered the customs and absorbed a lot of Manchu vocabulary. For example, "Hutong" is one of the words introduced by the Manchus.

The Mandarin of the Ming Dynasty in this period was actually more based on the Nanjing accent. Because Nanjing is the capital of the Ming Dynasty. At the beginning of the founding of the country, it was also the "Yayin" with the Nanjing accent as the national standard.

Of course, after the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Peiping, the main residents of Peiping were a large number of officials and their families. In this national city, the official "Yayin" has naturally also influenced the local language.

In other words, the Mandarin of later generations is actually a mixture of the Mandarin of the Ming Dynasty, the local dialect of Peiping, and the dialect of the Manchus who entered the customs later.

Marin lived in Nanjing in later generations, and found that there was no problem in communicating with the locals in Mandarin. In other words, there is no problem in dealing with the Daming government in Mandarin.

As for dealing with the people, it would be troublesome. Because, most of the people engaged in maritime trade are Hu Jian and Cantonese. These maritime merchants who dare to violate the law and engage in smuggling are not scholars, and naturally do not understand Mandarin, they only speak Hokkien and Cantonese.

As for Hokkien and Cantonese, Ma Lin does not understand, and at most he can sing a few Cantonese songs with high popularity. However, if you ask him to communicate with people in Cantonese, he will be blinded.

Therefore, Marin's final plan was to communicate with Daming officials, using Mandarin to communicate with Daming Mandarin.

To this end, Marin ordered that in the school, select teenagers with better language talent and teach them Mandarin by himself. A few years later, he was sent to Huaxia to act as a translator and engage in trade...

As for the number of people, Marin is tentatively set at 30 people. No matter how much, I don't have the energy to teach myself. Moreover, if you want to teach this group of people, you have to write textbooks yourself. For example, Hanyu Pinyin, etc., also need to come out. Then, we have to build a small dictionary similar to the "Xinhua Dictionary" so that the students can look up by themselves. It's just that the volume of this book is huge... Marin feels that he is going to be used as an animal...