The map in front of her was much larger than any map she had ever seen before. Look at the Ten Routes of the World marked everywhere on it, as well as Tubo, Tocharo and other places, as well as Goguryeo, Xinjiang and other places to the northeast. Luo, Baekje, and Japan across the sea.
Looking down the map, Quanzhou, Jiangnan and other places were also clearly marked. Wu Mei continued down, looking at the distance about two fingers wide across the sea, pointing at Yizhou and said: " Is this Yizhou? It looks like the Japanese country, but it’s surrounded by water.”
"Yes, this is Yizhou. In the former Sui Dynasty, Yang Guang sent Zhu Kuan and Chen Leng to this place three times."
"Jiangnan and Jiangnan are separated by the Yangtze River." Wu Mei looked intently at the places marked by Li Hong on the map. This was the first time in her life that she stared at the vastness so intuitively. Tang territory.
From Shule in the west of Anxi to Huiyi in Andong in the east, from Yunzhong in the north to Yazhou in the south, I stared at all the place names on the map over and over again. Looking at the geographical location, I felt a kind of feeling in my heart. The proud sense of satisfaction, the feeling that Datang turned out to be like this.
Li Hong pointed to Pingzhou where Qin Shihuang sent Lu Sheng from Yan to the sea to seek immortality, and said: "Queen mother, look here, this is Pingzhou, facing it is Liaodong, this is Dengzhou, and with it Facing each other is Baekje's Zhixia City. Baekje now wants to travel to the Tang Dynasty. If Goguryeo is inaccessible, they can only go by water. "
Wu Mei's beautiful eyes moved, looking around with Li Hong's fingers, and murmured: "The distances in this world are so far, I didn't expect them to be so close on a piece of white paper."
"Yes, look here, this is De'an City of Baekje, and it is so close to the Japanese state. In recent years, the Japanese state has been repairing and fighting with Baekje and Silla, and they came over this sea..."
As Li Hong's fingers flew up and down on the map, Wu Mei felt dizzy for a while and then understood. In short, what Li Hong meant was that whether it was Pingzhou or Dengzhou, they were all in this bend, because The place where it is drawn out on the map forms an embrace, thus preventing the wind from blowing over. The wind on the sea is not like the sea outside this sea area, which is as high as the roof and larger. The wind and waves are strong, so this sea area is called the Bohai Sea.
However, the voyage of Japan was on the real sea, and the wind and waves were much bigger than those inside, so it was called the Yellow Sea. Their navigation was much braver than that of the Tang Dynasty, and their understanding of the sea was much deeper than ours.
Today's Tang people, when doing some navigation, are just sailing along the line called the coastline drawn by Li Hong. In fact, they do not actually enter the sea, but are on the sea not far from the land, along the coastline. Sailing.
The reason why Li Chunfeng was asked to build sea ships in Quanzhou and other places was to enable the Tang people to go deeper into the sea, go further, and understand the sea more deeply than the Japanese.
After all, it was extremely difficult for a queen as powerful as Wu Mei to accept the superficial information on the sea. After listening to Li Hong's words, Wu Mei felt as if stars were rising in front of her eyes.
"Having said so much, don't you just want to say that you invested so much money in Quanzhou just to explore the ocean? But now the court only sees you spending money like water, but not a penny in return." Wu Mei shook her head in disbelief, and with Li Hong's help, she sat down on the sofa, calmed down for a while, and then said with difficulty.
"This is a long-term investment. It's normal to see no benefits in the short term. But as long as the money is spent, the return from this ocean is far greater than you think. Let me tell you this, back then I asked you to tighten your belt and start working on Taiyi City. Now, you don’t know the reward. When Li Chunfeng’s big ship is built, we in Datang will be able to get it in less than three to five years. The rewards from Taiyi City are not comparable to that of three or five Taiyi cities." Li Hong looked at Long Ma, who was a little excited, and finally said only three or five Taiyi cities. Wealth, he was afraid that if he spoke louder, the feather duster that appeared out of nowhere would be summoned to him.
Wu Mei's mind was still in chaos at this moment. Although her heart had calmed down a little, her mind was filled with the clearly marked territory map of the Tang Dynasty. Li Hong said it was like purgatory on earth, a sea that makes people both frightened and dreamy.
Land and ocean appeared repeatedly in her mind, leaving her unable to figure out a clue for a while, but she still caught the contradiction in Li Hong's words: "Since the ocean is so scary, why are you still there?" Want to send people to go deep? Also, when I saw you talking about the ocean, you were spitting and excited, are you planning something else?"
"Ah? No, what Er Chen said is the truth." Li Hong didn't expect Long Ma to ask such a question, so he hurriedly opened one of his closed eyes, loosened the movement of the gun in his right hand and said.
Wu Mei glanced at him angrily, although she didn't understand why Li Hong had to close one eye just now to pretend to be a one-eyed dragon, and he was still making unknown gestures with his hands, looking vulgar, frivolous, and careless. But from a mother's point of view, she was keenly aware that this boy must be up to something wrong.
What's wrong, Li Xian really wasn't taken seriously by him. He just took care of everything about Li Xian when completing his planned plan.
Li Hong put away his subconscious act of pretending to be a Pirates of the Caribbean, sat down next to Wu Mei, and said: "Mother, didn't you notice just now? In the map that Erchen drew, you didn't see the ocean. Is the territory about the same as the land territory? Think about it, if the Tang Dynasty controls the ocean, will all other foreign ships have to obey us? The Japanese country seems to be honest, but in fact they have discovered that the ocean They would also go out to sea to harass our fishermen in Quanzhou and other places in the Tang Dynasty from time to time. You must have heard about this in the court, right? However, they did not cause any major harm and the court did not pay attention to it. But if one day. , what should we do if more Japanese ships or other foreign ships appear at our door? With the current force of our Datang, it is difficult for them to invade our land, but what if they keep blocking us and not letting us go to sea? What to do? We will be trapped on land..."
"It's okay to be sleepy, but life at sea is uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable even going to Qujiang Lake and taking a boat, let alone taking the Wuya warship from Luoyang to Yongji Canal. As long as we don't let them land on our land, they will What can you do to me, Datang?" Wu Mei said matter-of-factly.
Anyway, now she doesn't think the ocean is as important as Li Hong said, and as Li Hong said, there are fish bigger than houses, snakes, and sharks that will kill when they smell blood. Wait for other ghosts. In this case, it would be better to let the foreigners go to the sea to die.
"This... you can't say that, Queen Mother. Such an idea is very dangerous and a big mistake!" Li Hong looked serious, facing the feather duster raised in Long Ma's hand, without flinching and speaking righteously.
This expression calmed Wu Mei, and she slowly put down the feather duster in her hand, but she secretly thought: "You are getting more and more courageous. It seems that your Majesty may have been taught a lesson by him several times in Liaodong, and now he even I dare to teach myself a lesson'.
He suppressed the resentment in his heart and said patiently: "Then you should tell me about the danger and mistake. If you can't tell me, Li Hong, don't blame me for being ruthless!" In the end, Wu Mei still said it. He couldn't help but threaten.
Li Hong was numb to this unreasonable threat and rolled his eyes. In order to be able to wander south for a year and a half, he had to... endure it!
He ran to the table diligently, took the map that was as flat as a mirror, folded it and placed it on his lap. As soon as he spread it out, the feather duster in Mother Long's hand flew to his shoulder, and the sound of dragon rang in his ears. Mom scolded angrily: "It's a good map. If you fold it like this, you won't be afraid of breaking it! Can't you just lay it out flat on the table?"
"I... I want to get in front of my mother..."
"Don't I have legs? I won't come to the table to watch your explanation? What a map, but it's full of wrinkles. Your father hasn't even looked at it yet, so you, a prodigal son, made it wrinkled. Yes, put it on the table!" Wu Mei felt sorry for the map, and the feather duster hit someone's hand to roll up the map again.
Li Hong had no choice but to sigh, this son was worse than a broken map to make the queen care. The appointed one took the map and spread it out on the table again.
At this time, Wu Mei bent down and carefully smoothed out the wrinkles with both hands. With such concentration and caution, it seemed that the map was more precious than her gold and silver jewelry.
Seeing Wu Mei's careful and cautious look, Li Hong had no choice but to sigh again and comfort him: "Mother, if you want this map, I will ask the Hongwen Museum to send you two. They are more clear than this one, and It’s also a lot bigger and looks more intuitive, so you can hang it on the wall and look at it slowly.”
Wu Mei raised her head, rolled her eyes at Li Hong angrily, then continued to lower her head and smooth the wrinkles that had just been made by the prodigal son, and said coldly: "Those maps are not as easy to distinguish as this map. Although it is more detailed, it can All the territories of the Tang Dynasty, including foreign territories, are drawn on it, but there are very few of them, and... It’s not that you don’t know that those maps drawn on silk and sheepskin did not have such complete territorial maps. ?”
"What Erchen said is exactly the same as what you see now, but it is much more rigorous than Erchen, who is just cramming. It is also a map of the entire territory of the Tang Dynasty." Li Hong looked at it, still bending down to smooth it. Mother Long, whose map was wrinkled, suddenly said with some distress.
It can be seen that Wu Mei is very concerned about the territory map of the Tang Dynasty. Perhaps because as a queen, she has never been able to intuitively feel how majestic her country is, so when she saw this map for the first time, she immediately A feeling of love aroused.
(End of chapter)