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7. Three Masters of Shipbuilding in Northern Song Dynasty
According to the History of Song Dynasty, envoys were sent to visit the DPRK three times to build large ships, which successfully created three shipbuilding heroes in the Northern Song Dynasty-Zhou Ming Fan Ziyuan, Zhou Mi Ping Jian and Jinshi Chao Shuozhi, adding a lot of color to the history of ancient shipping and shipbuilding in China.

1) Fan Ziyuan in Mingzhou

Fan Ziyuan was originally a cloth, but his parents and family were killed by the Yellow River flood, so he stopped studying Confucian classics and concentrated on shipbuilding. Over the years, Fan Ziyuan has worked tirelessly to help local officials build water conservancy projects and build ships, winning the respect of the people.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the political friendly exchanges between the Northern Song Dynasty and North Korea increased obviously under the pressure of the Liaodong expedition and the Southern Expedition. According to statistics, the two sides exchanged envoys for more than 80 times.

In order to strengthen the friendly political and economic exchanges between the two countries, the Northern Song Dynasty sent envoys to visit North Korea. It was suggested that Fan Ziyuan, a royal official in Song Shenzong, should go to the shipyard command camp to supervise the construction of Shenzhou.

In the shipyard, after repeated comparisons, Fan Ziyuan determined that the stern of Shenzhou is square, so that the stern has more room to build a three-story cabin, and the square stern structure ensures that most of the ship plates are not deformed, which increases the service life of the boards. Fan Ziyuan also went to the forest logging yard to supervise the boatmen to use different kinds of wood. The boatman was ordered that all the "joists" on both sides of the Shenzhou were made of camphor wood, while the other planks of the hull were made of Chinese fir and camphor wood, and a few unimportant places were made of pine wood.

Under the supervision and guidance of Fan Ziyuan, the hull structure and shape design of Shenzhou seagoing ship are strictly standardized, and the material selection is high-grade and scientific, with thickness and thinness. The transverse side seams of the hull are all connected by tongue and groove, and then coated with twisted materials such as tung oil, lime and hemp.

After shenzhou was built, it was tested in shallow sea area. In the meantime, because the boatman didn't put down the sail in time, the ship was stuck between several rocks. A few hours later, with the high tide, Shenzhou retreated. Shenzhou has been slapped by waves and undercurrents for a long time because of its excellent wood and strong structure, but no water leakage has been found. Fan Ziyuan, who drove Shenzhou back to the shipyard for a comprehensive inspection, found that only a few unimportant planks on both sides of the bottom of the ship were worn by rocks, other parts were intact, and there were no cracks and leaks at the joints of the outer planks. Only after partial repair did he continue to test its other navigation functions.

Fan Ziyuan believes that the trial flight of Shenzhou can escape from the reef, and it is inseparable from the excellent selection of materials, reasonable structure and good construction quality. Good shipbuilding quality laid the foundation for a successful visit to Korea in the future.

2) Michigan bamboo slips

"History of Song Dynasty" records that when King Koryo died, Zongshen sent messengers to mourn, and ordered people to build several ships at the official shipyards in Dengzhou and Laizhou near Mizhou as soon as possible. Dengzhou and Laizhou still had strong shipbuilding ability in the Tang Dynasty, but in the Northern Song Dynasty, the shipbuilding industry began to shrink. Most of the ships built by the official shipyards near Mizhou are small and medium-sized rough sea ships and inland river ships, but the ships built by private shipyards are of high quality. So the official shipyard officials asked craftsmen with exquisite folk rowing skills to supervise and guide the construction of the envoy ship.

Ping Jian led his dozens of shipbuilders, Qi Xin, to work together, and finally built a ship more than 30 meters long. The magic of his supervision of ocean-going ships is that he doesn't need the popular drawings or ship models at that time, and he knows all the data completely. A ship of that size can be built quickly and well. After a ship was built, the wood was basically used up, leaving only a few big boards and pillars, which made the officials of the official shipyard dumbfounded.

It seems simple for Ping Jian to supervise craftsmen to saw wood, and the knowledge in the middle should not be underestimated. First, the logs used in shipbuilding are particularly thick and long, which requires exquisite carpentry skills. One log is sawed off as soon as it is turned, and there is no error of more than ten centimeters, otherwise a very long log will be sawed off. After the wood is sawn, it needs good drying and anti-corrosion treatment, so that the ship can be strong and durable. Shipbuilding is like building a house. First, build the skeleton and waterproof cabin, and then build it layer by layer: lay the deck and build the cabin ... This is a highly technical job.

Because this kind of seagoing ship requires strong wind resistance and seawater corrosion resistance, the selection of wood is very strict. Ping Jian requires that the keel wood at the bottom of the ship should be Huang Huali wood, which belongs to the so-called redwood and is a typical hardwood with a very long growth period. This Huang Huali wood is only found in one or two local mountains in Michigan, and boatmen in Ping Jian know where to cut wood.

Ping Jian is also the leader of a fleet and has mastered the watertight compartment technology. When installing watertight compartments at the bottom of the ship, he asked the boatman to check whether watertight compartments with strict separation between 8 and 13 bottom compartments were set as required; See if they nail the bulkhead with flat iron and hooks; Check whether the gap between bulkhead and hull plate is completely sealed with tung oil ash to make it have strong water resistance; Check whether the bulkhead panels are closely combined to form a box structure to enhance the rigidity of the hull. ...

Ping Jian led a fleet to North Korea for many times to deliver messages to the two governments, and was awarded the title of "Third-class Envoy" by the Song Dynasty, and was personally awarded the title by Song Shenzong in recognition of his achievements of "three missions to North Korea and exchanges with Guo Xin", which was also an extraordinary honor for Ping Jian.

3) Jin Shi Chao Shuo Zhi

In A.D. 1 123, South Korea held a large-scale state event, and invited the dignitaries of the Northern Song Dynasty to participate. Song Huizong promised to send a special envoy to build two larger Shenzhou in Mingzhou, and Chao Shuo will be responsible for the design and supervision of Shenzhou. As a shipyard supervisor, Chao Shuozhi supervised the construction of two larger pointed square-tailed Shenzhou with reference to the previous Shenzhou style: the total length of the hull is about 40 meters, the height of the ship is about 6 meters, and the height of the main mast among the three masts is 25 meters.

Chao Shuo first asked the shipbuilder to make the shape of the ship "upper flat and lower blade" in order to resist the wind and waves when sailing in the deep sea. The hull of the new Shenzhou is "all made of giant wooden beams", so it is necessary to check whether the tenons and nails of the hull plate are strictly made of iron components and nails, so as to make the connection between wood structures more firm and prevent cutting corners. Check whether the hull cracks are greasy and dense with tung oil ash to make them have strict waterproof effect; He knows that multi-layer hulls have stronger anti-collision ability than single-layer hulls.

Chao Shuozhi checked the quality of the water tank and the storage granary, and repeatedly checked whether their placement positions were firm and safe, whether the material of the water tank polluted fresh water, and whether the sealing degree of the water tank was high to prevent the stored water from deteriorating for a long time. We also paid attention to the quality inspection of the Shenzhou power plant-Sail. At that time, the quality and design of the sail had been greatly improved compared with that of the Tang Dynasty: there were a main sail and a small sail on the ship, and the small sail was sleeved on the cloth sail of the main sail to meet the positive wind and improve the speed; Sails are divided into cloth sails and bamboo hard sails according to materials.

These two Shenzhou ships supervised by Chao Shuozhi are magnificent and magnificent: the cabin is divided into three floors, the lower floor has more than 20 rooms, the second floor has four rooms and two office kiosks, the third floor is built at the stern, and there are three luxurious rooms for the dignitaries of the diplomatic corps to live in. Each Shenzhou has a full displacement of about 600 tons, and the two Shenzhou are obviously behemoths. In technology, production technology and navigation ability, it reached the highest level at that time.

The visiting fleet set off from Mingzhou and successfully arrived on the Korean Peninsula in less than a month. The North Korean monarch led hundreds of court officials to gather on the shore to welcome the Shenzhou fleet in the Northern Song Dynasty. The surrounding people are crowded, and several cities near the sea are deserted. People came to the shore to watch the fleet of envoys of the Great Song Dynasty. The Korean people looked at the huge and magnificent fleet of the Northern Song Dynasty, and all of them admired and cheered for it. The visiting officials visited the king and ministers in Korea. After returning from North Korea, the returning fleet was full of all kinds of goods.

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