Two days later, Li Zhang bid farewell to his family and left the capital with a wild dog and a team of guards. This time he went to Quanzhou for a long journey. It was more comfortable to walk on the water, but of course the premise was that he was not seasick. However, Li Zhang did not want to waste too much time on the road. After all, the water route was still slower, so he finally decided to take the land route.

Li Zhang left the capital a lot, but in the past he mainly went to the north and basically never went to the south. The closest time he was to Yongcheng. However, although Yongcheng was south than Kaifeng, it still belonged to the north geographically. Speaking of which, Li Zhang's ancestral home was still Hangzhou, but he only visited Hangzhou once in his later generations.

There is no need to explain the difficulty of boating along the way. When Li Zhang and his friends arrived in Yangzhou, they would cross the Yangtze River further south. There were no large bridges on the Yangtze River in this era. Although some places could build floating bridges, they needed to be in specific sections of the Yangtze River. After all, the flow rate of the Yangtze River is too large and floods are prone to erupt during the rainy season, so many places are not suitable for building floating bridges.

Of course, the most important thing is that large ships can be passed through the Yangtze River. If a floating bridge is built, it will affect the passage of ships. Therefore, in ancient times, if you want to cross the Yangtze River, you can only rely on ships.

Li Zhang and his friends rested in Yangzhou for two days, tasted the local food in Yangzhou, and also admired the Qionghua that claimed to have led Yang Guang south to appreciate. Unfortunately, it is not the time to bloom, but Li Zhang still bought a few and sent them back to the capital to make gifts for Empress Dowager Li. Speaking of which, Empress Dowager Li's birthday is coming soon, but unfortunately he couldn't rush back to the capital to celebrate his birthday this time, so he could only give some gifts to express his feelings.

Li Zhang and his friends abandoned their cars and took a boat in Yangzhou. In addition to crossing the Yangtze River, they also had to take a boat to Li Zhang's hometown, Hangzhou, and then take a boat from Hangzhou to sea, sail along the coastline, and finally arrive in Quanzhou. Of course, you can also go to Quanzhou by land from Hangzhou. However, although the south of this era has begun to develop, it is still impossible to compare with the north in all aspects, and the road conditions are even worse, so it is better to take the sea route.

It was almost the Chinese New Year. If it was in the north, it might be snowing all over the sky and most of the plants had withered. However, although the temperature along the Yangtze River was relatively low, it was much warmer than the north, and the temperature became higher the south. However, compared with later generations, the temperature during this period was still lower. It is said that it often snowed along the Yangtze River in winter, rather than the snow in later generations, as in later generations, the snow could be on the news.

Li Zhang and others' ships soon arrived in Hangzhou. Here they needed to change their ships again because river boats could not drive on the sea. After all, most river boats were flat-bottomed boats, and such ships could not withstand the wind and waves at all. When a wave came down, the ship might have to face the sky, so they had to transfer to the tip-bottomed boats.

Li Zhang knew the danger of going to sea in this era. It is no exaggeration to say that people who went to sea in this era almost tied their heads to their belts, and if they were not careful, they might be wiped out. For safety reasons, Li Zhang could not trust ordinary sea ships, so after arriving in Hangzhou, he found the local government to indicate his identity and asked the other party to transfer several ships from the navy to escort him to Quanzhou.

Hangzhou is also a famous port on the southern coast. The most important thing is that it is the end of the Grand Canal, which is both a river port and a sea port. It can be said to be the most important transportation hub in the south. Therefore, it is also extremely prosperous. Of course, it is still a little worse than Tokyo, but it is definitely one of the most prosperous cities on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Only Guangzhou can compare with Hangzhou. It is estimated that it was precisely because of this reason that the later court of the Southern Song Dynasty chose this place as the capital.

After learning about Li Zhang's identity, the local officials in Hangzhou were also very enthusiastic. After all, the emperor's cousin was a popular celebrity in the capital. It is said that he could be on par with Prime Minister Lu Yijian, so they could not afford to offend them, so they immediately asked people to prepare five naval warships to escort Li Zhang and the others to Quanzhou.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Zhang also went to the Navy Camp in Hangzhou to observe. Hangzhou's ports were mainly divided into two areas, one was a river port and the other was a sea port. The two ports were connected, especially the river port were shipbuilding workshops everywhere, and many sea boats would come here to repair them.

Li Zhang originally thought that the Navy camp in Hangzhou should be on the harbor, but what he didn't expect was that the Navy camp was on the harbor. Although this did not affect some navy patrols on the sea, it can be seen from this arrangement that the focus of the Hangzhou Navy is still on the safety of the canal, and patrols on the sea are lined up behind.

"The sea is the future!" Li Zhang couldn't help but sigh in secret, and then recorded the situation. After all, in addition to investigating the case of the Dong family, the most important thing for him to inspect the situation of the Song Dynasty Navy. However, Hangzhou, the first stop, disappointed him, even the navy still put the inland river in front of the sea.

However, it is not the time to change this situation. The navy quickly allocated five warships, all of which were pointed sea ships. Speaking of which, before the Song Dynasty, the Central Plains Navy mainly used a warship called a tower ship. As the name suggests, it was a very high-built warship. Because it looked like a building, it was named a tower ship. However, the center of gravity of this ship was too high, which made the ship only suitable for navigating in the inland rivers. If it reached the sea, it could not withstand the wind and waves at all.

The shipbuilding industry during the Song Dynasty had developed greatly, and special sea ships appeared. The warships that Li Zhang saw now were said to have developed from a kind of sea falcon ship called sea falcon ship. This sea falcon ship originated from the former Tang Dynasty. Later, after many improvements, it also became the main warship of the Song Dynasty. Each ship had 50 soldiers, which was very stable when sailing on the sea.

After Li Zhang asked someone to bring the gift to the boat, he also rode on the flagship of the navy fleet. Speaking of which, although it was his first time to go out to sea in this era, he had also taken a sea boat in his previous life, so he was not worried at first, but when he got on the boat, he realized that this kind of wooden warship was completely different from the ferry he rode on later generations. It was even more bumpy when he arrived at the sea. Not to mention him, even wild dogs were seasick and vomited.

Fortunately, I got used to things like seasickness. When Li Zhang vomited nothing in his stomach, he gradually felt better. After a few days, he could eat something and recovered a lot of energy.
Chapter completed!