Chapter 249: Navigation

The quadrant had been in this world for less than half a century, yet now someone was telling Li Huamei that this instrument was better than a quadrant. Naturally, she didn't quite believe it—though it was certainly smaller.

"Bragging." She denied it concisely and directly. Unlike her masters who operated frequently in East Asian waters, her ships sailed mainly to Goa, and sometimes Manila. Through the windows of those two colonial cities, she had seen most European novelties, but she had never heard of a navigational instrument superior to the quadrant.

"Heh, there are plenty of things you haven't seen. What's a sextant?" Lin Chuanqing looked indifferent.

Li Huamei noticed a part that seemed to be inlaid with lenses. Just as she was about to lean in and touch it, she heard someone shout, "Don't touch it! You'll scratch the glass."

She turned around to see a stranger she didn't recognize. He was thirty-seven or thirty-eight, tall and large. The Kun were generally tall, but this one was especially so—at least six feet seven or eight inches by her estimation. He stood a head taller than everyone around him, with a robust build: round face, big eyes. He wore the blue button-down shirt Australians often wore, what they called a training uniform. Someone had told her: blue was for the Navy, gray for the Army, and camouflaged ones were worn by everyone. His skin was dark and coarse, clearly weathered by sea wind and waves, and his expression was resolute and stern.

Behind him stood six boys wearing identical black student uniforms with standing collars, appearing to be between thirteen and fourteen years old. All were dark-skinned, standing steadily on the swaying deck. Each carried a green canvas satchel, standing neatly in a row.

"Committeeman Chen, giving the kids a lesson again?" Judging by Lin Chuanqing greeting him first, this person must be a relatively high-ranking Kun.

"Yes, these kids from the navigation class have only rowed boats in Bopu until now. This trip is a perfect opportunity for an internship."

He walked over, took the sextant back from Li Huamei, and said in a deep voice, "The most critical part of this thing is the glass lens. If it gets scratched, it's useless."

"I told you I haven't seen it before. What rare treasure is it, guarding it like that?"

The burly man ignored her completely. Seeing Meng De stumbling back from the gunwale, he reprimanded him expressionlessly: "A sailor's instrument is his life. You just throw it around like that and expect to be in the Navy?!"

"Yes, yes, I—" Meng De couldn't even stand steadily, but he was clearly in awe of this man, trying hard to stand at attention.

"Go back to the cabin. Dismissed!"

"Yes!" Meng De tried hard to salute, felt his stomach churning again, and headed for the gunwale once more.

"You know how to use a quadrant?" Chen Haiyang turned back to study the woman before him. It was his first time observing her up close. By modern standards, she wasn't short—at least 165 centimeters, which was considered tall for the era. She had a slender figure, and her hair was thinned and tied in a ponytail behind her head. At first glance, she indeed had the vibe of a modern woman—no wonder the otaku in the Navy were all dizzy over her.

"Of course I know how to use it; it's my livelihood." Li Huamei could tell this man was hard to deal with and spoke with appropriate seriousness.

"Show me first." Chen Haiyang was currently very interested in ancient navigation techniques. Many devices used for modern ship navigation couldn't be manufactured in this timeline, so utilizing mature early modern technology had become a major subject for training the new generation of sailors.

"Sure, let me go get a case." She flicked the ponytail hanging by her ear. "But afterward, you have to teach me how to use this sextant!"

"Done." The other replied crisply.

"Committeeman Chen, is the sextant okay?" Lin Chuanqing asked his clansman as he watched Li Huamei descend below deck.

"It's no big deal; we were going to teach these kids anyway," Chen Haiyang said. "Besides, she's teaching us something too."

"Yeah, to be honest, I also want to ask this woman for some steering tips."

"Stop joking. You old snakehead—the guy who dared to cross the Pacific in a tiny motor-sailer—you need someone to teach you that?"

"Motor-sailers have engines, after all." Lin Chuanqing gripped the helm hard. "This kind of pure sailing ship... the feel is always a bit off."

As they spoke, Li Huamei climbed back up to the quarterdeck, carrying a case in her hand. The box was neither small in size nor volume.

"This is my full set of instruments." She opened it as she spoke.

Inside were several instruments, books, and rolled-up charts.

"There are a few more things on the Hangzhou, all fixed installations. No need to bring them."

Chen Haiyang watched with interest as she took out the first item. It was quite large, made of bronze, with a radius of about 0.6 meters—cast from bronze and hollow in the middle. The curved edge of the quadrant was engraved with angles, the smallest graduation being 0.25 degrees. Two copper rings were attached to the center for hanging, and a fine silk thread hung from the center position, weighted with a lead ball. Two copper blocks were inlaid on one straight edge of the quadrant, each with a circular hole about five millimeters in diameter through which one could sight stars.

"This is the quadrant," Li Huamei explained. "Some people also call it a marine astrolabe."

"Wait, I remember a quadrant doesn't look like this." The more Chen Haiyang looked, the more he felt the design differed from the quadrant he had seen in textbooks during his studies at the naval academy.

"This is a quadrant," Li Huamei said, then she understood. "You must be talking about the English Quadrant." As she spoke, she took out another instrument, much smaller in size, also made of bronze, somewhat similar to a sextant.

"This is clearly a back-staff!" Chen Haiyang slapped his thigh, remembering the standard name from his textbooks.

"Back-staff? I don't know that name. Everyone calls it the English Quadrant. But this one is indeed useful—high precision."

English Quadrant. Chen Haiyang thought the name was indeed intuitive—it was invented by the English navigator John Davis.

"We can't use the astrolabe now; I'll demonstrate it for you tonight. Let's look at the quadrant first."

Chen Haiyang instructed the students: "Watch Instructor Li's operation carefully!"

"So you want me to be a drill instructor." Li Huamei giggled. "I'll do my best." As she spoke, she raised the back-staff.

The reason the back-staff was called "back" was mainly to distinguish it from the cross-staff used before it. The usage of both was similar; the difference was that one required observing the sun directly, while the other was the exact opposite—one had to turn one's back to the sun.

When operating, the observer turned their back to the sun and aimed at the horizon through the slit on the sight of the large arc and the sight of the small arc. By estimation, they set the shadow vane, adjusting the sight until the shadow of the upper edge fell on the upper edge of the slit while simultaneously viewing the horizon. The sum of the readings on the two arcs gave the zenith distance. Through formula calculation, the specific latitude could then be determined. Because the large arc of this instrument was diagonally divided, even very small angles could be read accurately, greatly improving the precision of latitude measurement.

Li Huamei demonstrated once, then had the naval cadets operate it one by one, asking them to calculate the latitude separately. Although most of these children came from maritime families, almost none had been literate, let alone learned mathematics. Relying on the cramming of the National School to make up for their gaps in knowledge, their calculations were predictably slow. Several measured and calculated, and the answers they handed in differed considerably from the numbers Li Huamei had produced.

Chen Haiyang reviewed the students' calculations. Some had obviously made arithmetic errors, though their observation numbers and calculation processes were correct. It seemed the students' aptitude was passable. After all, during the previous shore-based instruction, the teachers had instilled basic geographical and astronomical concepts such as the earth, longitude and latitude, and time difference. Otherwise, just explaining the concept of latitude would have been an exhausting ordeal.

"They know longitude and latitude?" Li Huamei was somewhat surprised. In the Ming Empire, almost no one understood these concepts. Even those who made their living on the sea every day didn't know and had no interest in knowing—ancient Chinese navigation had its own system.

Chen Haiyang was puzzled; weren't longitude and latitude the most basic concepts in navigation? "We taught them everything. Otherwise, how would they navigate?"

Li Huamei sighed with emotion: "In the Ming Empire, I don't think there are more than ten people who understand what longitude and latitude are." Suspicion rose in her heart. These Australians always claimed they were descendants of the Great Song dynasty, lost in overseas Australia. Since they had been isolated overseas, how could they know European science? And these instruments—it was as if they had always been in contact with Europe. But Europeans had never heard of this place. Truly strange.

Next, she took out a small bronze disk with scales, small holes, and a pointer. The edge was serrated; at first glance, it resembled a circular saw blade.

"Nocturnal. But we can't use it now; we have to wait until midnight."

"Do you use the punctuality of stars crossing the meridian to determine midnight time?" Chen Haiyang speculated.

"You're really good—you knew it at a glance! Have you used one before?"

"No. Before you took it out, I truly didn't think such a thing still existed in the world."

"This is a booklet for navigation." She took out a book with a rough hard cover, already severely worn.

"This is—"

"The Seaman's Secrets." Chen Haiyang had been a naval officer, and his English was not bad. He naturally understood the title.

"You understand English?"

"A little." Chen Haiyang was very modest.

"Heh, really impressive." Li Huamei complimented casually, wondering why every Australian seemed to know a few phrases of English. If Australians had founded their nation on trade, Dutch or Spanish would seem more useful.

She didn't know that thanks to the universal education and college entrance exam system of another timeline, almost everyone in China under thirty recognized at least a few English words.

The book contained astronomical charts essential for navigators, mainly meridian tables, scales applicable for every quarter compass point and degree of distance, sailing charts, as well as natural numbers, trigonometric logarithm tables, and tide tables. It was a very convenient seaman's tool book.

"This book is currently only sold in England. Hard to find. This one was taken from an English ship last time." Obviously, it was booty.

Another book was printed in Portuguese, which Chen Haiyang couldn't read; he had to rely on Li Huamei to explain.

This book was called Regiment of the Astrolabe and Quadrant. Its purpose was to provide a reference table for increasing longitude and latitude. Whether determining position via the sun or stars, it was necessary to link the change in latitude with sailing distance. Sailors all had a distance table, usually pasted on every bearing of the compass to facilitate adding or subtracting longitude and latitude. The book included a distance table, a latitude table from the Cape of Good Hope to the Equator, and a solar declination table with a four-year cycle. Published as a guide for pilots, it had a very long history—officially published in 1509 but with earlier versions possibly dating back further. At least Columbus used this book during his 1492 voyage. It had been subsequently revised and reprinted continuously.

Chen Haiyang flipped through these manuals, looking at the numerous rules and number tables. What great effort humanity had made to break through its own geographic limitations and explore new worlds. Although these manuals looked rough, and some rules and numbers were even wrong, they represented the accumulated wisdom and experience of countless navigators. Standing before them, one couldn't help but feel a sense of reverence.

Wasn't the Li Huamei before him also one of those pioneer navigators? Chen Haiyang, who had originally harbored suspicion and exclusion toward her, felt a subtle emotion welling up in his heart.

The naval cadets were just half-grown kids. Though bound by strict military discipline, seeing so many strange gadgets emerging from the box, they took advantage of Chen Haiyang's inattention to crane their necks and look around.

The last things Li Huamei took out were rolls of paper: "These are charts. Very expensive," she joked.

These were mostly Mercator charts drawn according to the latest technological achievements of this era. Medieval charts had been flat. This type of projection was originally a compass bearing line mode designed for medieval Mediterranean charts. All north-south lines it gave were parallel. As the distance from the equator increased, the east-west distance became more distorted, resulting in bearings on the chart that often had large errors. Mercator invented a new projection chart. The most basic feature of this projection—and its difference from the flat chart—was that it gave the true bearing or compass bearing line between any two points. Accuracy was greatly improved.

Most of these charts covered East Asian and Southeast Asian waters, as well as the Indian Ocean. Chen Haiyang naturally knew the value of such charts; in the past, they had been worth a fortune.

"Can you sail to Goa?"

"I run the Goa-Macau route. I've been to Madras too."

"You really are a navigator," he said sincerely. Chen Haiyang was an explorer and outdoor enthusiast at heart. After retiring from the army, he had once trekked across the Siguniang Mountains alone and sailed a sailboat in the Qiongzhou Strait by himself. He felt a strong sense of mutual appreciation for this kindred spirit.

(End of Chapter)