海洋的呼唤：前大航海时代的东西方航海萌芽

太平兴国五年（980年）春，广州港的潮水刚退去，十二艘福船（Fuchuan，福建style木制海船）的船身还沾着滩涂的淤泥，船工们正忙着把最后一批丝绸、越窑青瓷和福建的茶叶搬进船舱。市舶司的使者周弁站在主船的甲板上，手里攥着刚刻好的朱砂罗盘，海风把他的官袍吹得猎猎作响。他的目的地是远在万里之外的三佛齐（Srivijaya，今印度尼西亚巨港），作为北宋的册封使，他要向刚刚即位的三佛齐国王授予宋朝的印信。这是北宋朝廷第无数次派遣使者远航南洋，在之前的《太平寰宇记》里，已经把这些航线标注为“通海夷道”：从广州出发，经过今越南、马来西亚，到苏门答腊、爪哇，全程需要四十多个日夜，中间要经过七洲洋（今西沙群岛附近），那里“飓风发作，溺死者无算”，但来往的商人还是络绎不绝。

In the spring of the fifth year of the Taiping Xingguo era (980 CE), as the tide receded from Guangzhou Port, the hulls of twelve fuchuan (Fujian-style wooden seagoing ships) were still stained with the mud of the tidal flat. Workers were busy loading the last batch of silk, Yue kiln celadon, and Fujian tea into the cabins. Zhou Bian, an envoy from the Maritime Trade Office, stood on the deck of the flagship, clutching a newly engraved cinnabar compass. The sea breeze billowed his official robe. His destination was Srivijaya (modern-day Palembang, Indonesia), thousands of miles away, where he would present the newly enthroned Srivijayan king with an official seal from the Northern Song court. This was one of countless diplomatic missions the Northern Song government had sent to Southeast Asia; earlier records in the *Taiping Huanyu Ji* (Universal Geography of the Taiping Era) had already marked these routes as the "Maritime Trade Roads to the Southern Barbarians": a journey of more than 40 days and nights from Guangzhou, passing through present-day Vietnam and Malaysia, to Sumatra and Java, crossing the Seven Isles Ocean (near the modern Xisha Islands), where "typhoons arise without warning, and no one who drowns is ever found"—yet merchants still traveled these routes in unbroken streams.

周弁踩着的甲板是用整块樟木拼成的，缝隙里填着麻丝和桐油，连一滴水都渗不进来。船舱被一道道的隔板分成十二个独立的“水密隔舱”（watertight bulkhead）——这是中国船工在汉代就发明的独门技术，哪怕有一个舱被礁石撞破进水，其他隔舱依然能保持浮力，整艘船不会沉没。水手们已经在甲板上支起了罗经（compass），那是一个刻着二十四方位的磁石盘，放在盛满水的铜盆里，不管船怎么晃，指针永远指着南方。北宋人已经把罗盘航海的技术摸得门清：《萍洲可谈》里记载“舟师识地理，夜则观星，昼则观日，阴晦则观指南针”，哪怕遇到连续三天的阴天，也能靠着罗盘找到方向。

The camphor wood planks under Zhou Bian’s feet were sealed with hemp and tung oil in the gaps, so tight that not a drop of water could seep through. The cabins were divided by bulkheads into twelve independent watertight compartments—a unique technology invented by Chinese shipwrights as early as the Han Dynasty. Even if one compartment was punctured by a reef and filled with water, the others would retain enough buoyancy to keep the entire ship afloat. The sailors had already set up a luojing (compass) on deck: a magnetic stone disk engraved with twenty-four directions, floating in a water-filled bronze basin. No matter how much the ship rocked, the needle always pointed south. By the Northern Song Dynasty, Chinese sailors had mastered compass navigation: records in the *Pingzhou Ketan* (Notes from Pingzhou) note that "ship pilots know the geography: they watch the stars at night, the sun by day, and the compass when it is overcast." Even during three consecutive days of cloud cover, they could stay on course using the compass alone.

船队刚出珠江口，就遇到了东北信风（trade wind），船帆被吹得鼓成满月，福船的速度一下子提到了每小时十五公里。周弁站在船头，看着远处的海平面和飞过的海鸥，想起出发前市舶司官员的叮嘱：到了三佛齐，要带好丝绸和瓷器，换回当地的胡椒、龙脑香和珍珠，不要和当地的“海寇”发生冲突，遇到风暴就抛“祭海猪”——就是把活猪扔到海里，求海神保佑。航行了七天之后，水手们果然看到了成群的飞鱼，领航的水手说，这是快到七洲洋的征兆，再过两天就能看到西沙群岛的礁盘了。

As soon as the fleet left the Pearl River estuary, they caught the northeast trade wind, which billowed the sails into full moons and pushed the fuchuan to a speed of 15 kilometers per hour. Standing at the bow, Zhou Bian watched the distant sea and seagulls flying overhead, recalling the instructions he had received from the Maritime Trade Office before departure: when he arrived in Srivijaya, he was to bring silk and porcelain, and trade them for