Chapter 38 Chapter 10 Searching for the Ancients in the South China Sea

The "Zheng He" has been searching for the spacecraft that sank in the sea thousands of years ago in the area of ​​the Paracel Islands for several days. On the main deck of the "Zheng He", there is a wide detection cabin.Various marine exploration equipment, such as side-scanning sonar, submarine cameras, magnetic detectors and argon ion laser underwater television systems, as well as various fluorescent screens, oscilloscopes, and electronic instruments, are all displayed in this detection cabin.These devices are automatically controlled and recorded day and night, and people only need to check, analyze and process these records during the day.

Zhang Kai and his assistant stood by the magnetic detector's oscilloscope, carefully examining the reels of recording tapes.They observed those green and unpredictable curves on the oscilloscope very carefully, for fear of missing any useful information.Liang Weizhou and Yue Jing have been working with them here, looking after the underwater TV system.They have been busy for most of the day, but there is still no result. "This detection method is too slow!" Yue Jing complained. "Are you still too slow?" Zhang Kai moved his gaze from the oscilloscope, "The design detection capability of this ship is 8 square kilometers every 24 hours. Now we actually detect 10 square kilometers every day, which exceeds the design capability."

"Then why not slow down? According to your target, it will take more than three months for the sea area of ​​​​a thousand square kilometers." "Finding a sunken spaceship in such a large sea area is like looking for an embroidery needle in your Yuexiu Park." Zhang Kai smiled slightly on his bearded face, "If you really find it within three months Once you get off the spaceship, that’s pretty fast.” Yue Jing, who always loves to talk and laugh, sighed softly. The next day, in the afternoon of October 18th, the sea blew again.Although the "Zheng He" is a large scientific research ship, it was still teased by huge waves.The waves beat on the deck from time to time, and the ship was staggering forward.Under such harsh natural conditions, the scientific workers on board still persisted in their ocean exploration work.

Yue Jing didn't get seasick when she took a river boat before, so she thought that there would be no major problems when she took a sea boat.Unexpectedly, the wind and waves at sea were completely different from those in the rivers and lakes, and she couldn't bear it anymore.A fit of nausea, she couldn't control herself, and vomited.Seeing herself throwing up in front of the main unit of the underwater TV system, she was very disturbed and struggled to clean it up.Liang Weizhou hurriedly put down his work, walked to her side, and asked her to sit down.Then he fetched another cup of warm water and asked her to rinse her mouth.He just hung up the phone and asked Doctor Yang to come.At this time, Zhang Jie had already fetched the pickle and broom and was going to tidy up.Liang Weizhou rushed over and cleaned up.

After a while, Yang Fan, Xu Zhenyu, and Ren Sihong all came to the detection cabin.Yang Fan asked Yue Jing how she was feeling, and said apologetically: "I didn't know you were seasick too, otherwise you would have taken medicine earlier." After all, I took care of her to take the medicine, and took out some rheumatism pain relief cream, told her to stick it on the navel for a while to make sure it would work.She asked Yue Jing to go back to her room to rest, and then helped Yue Jing to go out. Xu Zhenyu comforted Yue Jing a few words, seeing that Liang Weizhou was so busy at the moment, with sweat dripping from his forehead, he said to him:

"You also take care of her, I will take care of the work here." In the evening, the wind and waves stopped.Yue Jing rested overnight, her symptoms disappeared, and she returned to work in the detection cabin early the next morning. Time passed day by day, and the "Zheng He" sailed, probed, and searched in the vast South China Sea, but there was no trace of the wreckage of the spaceship.As time goes by, life at sea becomes somewhat monotonous. Yue Jing even feels that if she has such a grand goal to support her, she will not be able to persist. One morning, Yang Fan passed by on the deck in order to check the health status of the entire ship.Suddenly a large group of flying fish sprang out from the sea, they spread their wings and soared like small planes.Somehow, three flying fish landed on the deck all of a sudden, making a thumping sound.Yang Fan Lengding was taken aback, seeing it like that, he thought it was a small cannonball.The flying fish were round and about a foot long, she picked up the three flying fish and sent them to the kitchen.

At lunch, the chef added another dish to them—grilled flying fish. No one expected it to taste so good.Liang Weizhou praised repeatedly: "This seafood is really fresh!" By coincidence, when Liang Weizhou was walking on the rear deck after the meal, a seagull accidentally bumped into a piece of tarpaulin on the windlass.He caught it in two or three strokes.He was about to go into the kitchen when Captain Li came out and saw that he had caught a seagull, so he asked: "What are you catching it for?" "Dr. Yang treats everyone to grilled flying fish at noon, and tonight I will treat everyone to taste the taste of braised seagulls!" Liang Weizhou said happily.

"Seagulls are very stubborn. After they are caught, they will not eat or drink until they die." Captain Li smiled and waved his hand, then paused for a moment and said, "Seabirds are our sailors' friends. We do not advocate eating them." .” "We Guangzhou people don't care about these things." Liang Weizhou smiled, "Since it is your friend, I respect its freedom." After that, he let go of his hand, and the seagull flew out in a hurry.It hovered over the "Zheng He" for a moment, as if to express its gratitude to them, and then flew into the blue sky.

However, flying fish and seagulls are not frequent visitors on the boat after all. Once this incident is over, people will repeat their previous monotonous life.Yue Jing saw that Ren Sihong was still so optimistic, Xu Zhenyu was still so steadfast, Huang Jingzhi was still studying his ancient books in this turbulent environment, Fang Yutian seemed to have returned to his home,... I am doing my duty and working tenaciously.It seemed to her that she was the only one who was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. "Hey, why do you always think about this? If they can persist, so can I. Why can't I persist?" Yue Jing thought to herself.

A freighter came from the south, and when it approached the "Zheng He", it blew its whistle to salute the "Zheng He". The "Zheng He" also sounded a deep and powerful whistle, saluting the freighter.Seeing a ship on the vast sea is like a guest coming to the deserted grassland, which is very cordial.Yue Jing, Yang Fan and many others boarded the deck together and waved to the freighter going north. Yue Jing looked at the freighter, looked at the north, and suddenly remembered that Xiaoxiling had come.I don't know if Xiao Xiling listened to grandma's words, whether the food was good or not, whether he was sick or not?Thinking of this, she took out a photo from her jacket pocket, and it showed the white and fat little Xiling.

"Do you want a child?" Yang Fan asked in a low voice. "Yeah." Yue Jing didn't hide it, "Sister Yang, when you get married and have children, you will think about it too." Yang Fan's face turned red... In the evening, Yang Fan came to Xu Zhenyu's room and told him about Yue Jing's difficulty getting used to the boat and how he missed Xiaoxiling.Ren Sihong was also in the room, and he said to Xu Zhenyu: "We should have a chat with her and give her some encouragement." Xu Zhenyu said "yes" and began to think.He thought of Yang Guangyao, and when he failed in excavating copper balls and his thoughts were dull for a while, Yang Guangyao went to the Three Gorges Dam to talk to him, encouraged him with his personal experience in the liberation war, The clear language made him realize the profound philosophy, and finally found the copper ball together with everyone.Xu Zhenyu shared his experience, and Ren Sihong seemed to realize something: "I'm going to talk to her tomorrow." The next day, Ren Sihong ran into Yue Jing on the deck after breakfast. "Are you still seasick these two days?" "God took care of me recently, the weather was calm, and I was given a few days to live in peace." "Living at sea is also a matter of adaptation. As long as you persevere, you will get used to it." "I'm afraid I can't get used to it." "I believe you will adapt. The greatest strength of human beings is the ability to adapt to nature and the environment. Human beings originated on land, but they are not restricted by land. Take the sea area in front of us as an example, our ancestors have As early as the Han Dynasty, we have already come here to carry out sailing activities. At that time, the South China Sea was called Zhanghai. Later, our ancestors discovered the Xisha Islands and the Nansha Islands, and they called the Xisha Islands Wanli Shitang. " "I didn't expect that our ancestors sailed in this area as early as the Han Dynasty two thousand years ago." "Actually, this is only the time available in historical data. In fact, our ancestors started sailing activities in the South China Sea, probably long before the Han Dynasty. According to the existing archaeological excavations and historical documents, our ancestors were as early as seven thousand years ago. There were wooden oars, and then there were canoes and rafts (in ancient times, they were called 槎), and relatively mature ships appeared three or four thousand years ago. Some people even verified that as early as one or two thousand years ago, The fleets of residents along the southeast coast of our country discovered South America and North America. Therefore, based on the shipbuilding ability and navigation technology level at that time, I deduce that our ancestors had been in this endless South China Sea no later than three or four thousand years ago. They have sailed. Not only have they adapted to life at sea, but since that era, they have worked hard to develop the beautiful and rich South China Sea generation after generation.” "It seems that our Tianyuan Four Project is also a continuation of our development of the South China Sea for generations." "It can be said that." Ren Sihong agreed, "I think we are at such a moment, as long as we persevere, we will definitely win." Just as he was talking, the loudspeaker on the deck sounded: "Comrade Ren Sihong, please come to the detection cabin immediately, I need you urgently!" Ren Sihong was taken aback for a moment, and immediately guessed that they must have discovered something, so he ran to the detection cabin in three steps at a time.Yue Jing also followed. On the bulkhead hangs a one-meter-wide color flat-screen TV, which is controlled by an argon-ion laser underwater TV system.Because the laser beam emitted by the argon ion laser has good penetration performance in seawater, the TV image is very clear and lifelike.Through it, people can see the underwater world clearly. At this moment, there are already a lot of people standing in front of the flat-screen TV, and everyone is discussing enthusiastically.It can be seen from the TV screen that there is an object lying on the bottom of the sea that seems to be round and not round, and loose sediments are accumulated on this object. Xu Zhenyu said to Ren Sihong: "Come and see, does this look like a spaceship wreck?" "Any results from other detection methods?" "Yes." Zhang Jie told him the results measured by the magnetic detector, "The main component of this underwater object is iron, and the depth is 120 meters." "Iron?" Liang Weizhou was surprised, "The four of Tianyuan wouldn't use iron to build spaceships, would they?" After all, Fang Yutian had an ocean expedition experience. He said to one of Zhang Jie's assistants: "Get the chart quickly!" The assistant quickly found out the chart showing the current location of the "Zheng He".Taking a closer look, the object they "discovered" had already been marked on the chart. It turned out to be a boiler that sank in the early years... On October 26, another strong wind blew up at sea, and the "Zheng He" was tossed and tossed on the huge waves.Now that Yue Jing had experience, when she saw the wind and waves rising, she quickly returned to her room, took seasickness medicine, put rheumatism pain relief ointment on her navel, and lay down on the bed to rest.Unexpectedly, the sea wind became stronger and stronger, the waves rolled higher and higher, and the "Zheng He" shook and bumped more violently.Yue Jing said "wow" and vomited out all the medicine she had just taken.At first, she vomited yellow water, but later, the yellow water was mixed with blood, and her complexion became very bad. When Liang Weizhou returned to the room and saw this situation, he was very distressed and immediately invited Dr. Yang.After a while, Xu Zhenyu and Ren Sihong came to see her one after another.Seeing her haggard, Ren Sihong said to Xu Zhenyu sympathetically: "Send her to Xinghua Island to rest first, and then board the ship after this windy season." Yue Jing heard their conversation, shook her head feebly, and said in a low voice: "Don't send me away, I want to stick to it." The next day, the 27th of October, they had a fair and calm day. In the evening, Yue Jing felt much better, and accompanied by Liang Weizhou, she came up for a walk in the back of the house.A cook carried a bucket of fish into the water and dumped it in the sea.A group of big blue sharks smelled the smell of blood from a distance, and quickly caught up, following the "Zheng He".Yue Jing gently said to Liang Weizhou: "Sharks, look at these sharks!" Liang Weizhou greeted him loudly, he wanted everyone to come and meet him. Ren Sihong, Fang Yutian, Xu Zhenyu, and Yang Fan came out one after another and leaned on the railing of the rear deck.At first glance, the shark looks like a torpedo, with a length of eight or nine meters, a short one of five or six meters, and a weight of at least three to five hundred kilograms.These sharks opened their mouths, revealing several rows of triangular teeth, as if someone put a sharp saw blade in its mouth. The big blue shark trailed behind the boat for a while, but swam away in despair without catching any oil or water. In the northern sky, a group of dark shadows appeared, moving towards the "Zheng He".The black shadow gradually turned into a dense gray dot, and when it approached, it was white.Yue Jing saw it: "Seabird, seabird!" Fang Yutian told her: "It's a red-footed booby, and the fishermen here call it a pilot bird." "Why, birds can still navigate?" "Yes, why not? They fly to the sea in groups to look for food during the day, and then fly back to the island in groups at night. The local fishermen have figured out its temper, and follow these birds to sail into the sea during the day, and then follow them back to the island at night. " While they were talking, thousands of red-footed boobies had already flown over the "Zheng He".They fly freely on the endless sea, they are really in different poses and with different expressions, very beautiful.After a while, these beautiful and lovely seabirds flew to the southwest direction of Yongle Islands. After hearing Fang Yutian's talk, Liang Weizhou's eyes lit up when he saw the dark mass of navigating birds.He thought to himself: "These seabirds can guide fishermen, why not let satellites guide us?" After talking to Yue Jing, he went to look for Zhang Jie in the cabin.He asked Zhang Kai: "Why not let Marine Resources Satellite help us find it!" "I heard that this plan has been considered before. At present, the multispectral scanner on the satellite can only see the seabed within a few hundred meters, and there are many places where the water depth exceeds this limit, so it has not been adopted." Zhang Jie said. "I think it's still worth a try. It's best if the satellite can detect it in shallow water; if it can't detect it, we can concentrate our efforts on deep water." Liang Weizhou and Zhang Wei went to find Xu Zhenyu together.After they agreed, they immediately sent a telegram to the National Technology and Science Committee, requesting to arrange marine resource satellites to assist in the search.