Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1073 Marine Industry ([-])

The arrival of the "senior officer" from the Ministry of Agriculture (in fact, he was just a stock-level inspector) made everyone in the Nanhai Fishery Company feel awe.During the period when Chen Ke and others stayed in Yancheng Port, the work of the company's personnel suddenly changed. The guys who got drunk during work were no longer seen, and the company employees who were responsible for collecting business tax did not dare For private fishing boat owners, the average cost of repairing the boats reported by the bosses of each boat has also dropped a bit, as if everything has returned to the right path.

The staff of the local syphilis patient statistics and investigation bureau also submitted some investigation documents to Chen Ke in accordance with the regulations. A copy will be submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs), and it is expected that there will be another group of people who will be exiled overseas next year.

Since this is a key area, Chen Ke and others have been researching here for about a month before finishing their work with unsatisfied satisfaction.During this month, he reviewed all the original data, interviewed many officials and fishermen, and also boarded several fishing boats for on-the-spot investigations before returning to Yancheng Port on August 8.

During the one-month inspection, Chen Ke’s most prominent feeling was that the fishery resources in Patagonia still had potentials that urgently needed to be tapped. Last year, the yield of bottom fish (mainly hake) was only 1.22 tons. In the case of large-scale frantic fishing in later generations (the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Japan and other countries in the later generations fished a large number of seafood off the coast of Argentina, with an annual catch of 300 million tons, mainly cod and squid), this output can only It is pitifully small; the output of cephalopods (mainly smooth fish) is only 3120 tons, which is far from realizing its potential; in addition, there are 460 tons of shrimp, miscellaneous fish, and shellfish. In short, the total output is only close to two It’s only 5000 tons, but there are nearly [-] people busy in this sea area (including the over-provisioned commissioned sailors), not to mention that there are still a large number of people serving them on the shore, there is definitely potential to be tapped!

But then again, to increase Patagonia's fishery output, under the current circumstances, I'm afraid we can only add people and boats, but this is not without difficulty.Gein, most of the tonnage of ships in the East Coast Republic is now used for immigration transportation - more than 8 tons of capacity, plus a total of more than 2000 sailors who change shifts. Every year, the Immigration Department spends on ship construction, maintenance, and sailor wages. Expenditures on food, medicine and food purchases are close to 100 million yuan. If it weren’t for some of the money that could be borne by the colonies, and the ports along the way would provide free passing food, the immigration business would have been unsustainable for a long time. It was too exhausting. Money—so there are plenty of people who can be assigned to the fishery in the short term. Therefore, if you really want to increase the national fishery production, you have to do it step by step.

After all, the construction of a country is complicated and complicated. This is not a game. You can build whatever you want to build, and you can just choose whichever you want to develop. It takes time, investment, and talent pool.Moreover, all aspects of national development must not be neglected, otherwise accidents may occur.For example, more than 80 yuan is listed in the national financial budget as immigration fees every year. How do you know that the current more than 50 citizens will not have any objections?Fools think that they have no objection, even if they were miserable immigrants a few years ago!The existing immigration policy is basically old citizens subsidizing new immigrants. How to balance the interests of the old and new generations of citizens is indeed a matter of considering the political wisdom of the Executive Committee, so the degree must be grasped, absolutely You can't neglect other things because of desperate immigration, this is going to happen!

On September 9, after talking with the officials of the South China Sea Fishery Company, Chen Ke took a 1-ton offshore small steamer of the South Railway Company (coming to Yancheng Port to pull salt and pottery—there are many suitable places near Yancheng Port. Clay for making pottery, and the pottery industry is also an industry that has gradually emerged in the local area in recent years). I plan to go south to the subsidiary of the South Railway to check the development of the local marine industry.

Since the area south of 42 degrees south latitude was "bought" by the East Bank, the Executive Committee recently coordinated the scope of the Southern Railway's affiliated areas, that is, which ones are managed by the Southern Railway Company and which ones are managed by the Government Affairs Council.After the coordination was completed, the Executive Committee ratified that the original cross-border reclamation area of ​​the Southern Railway Company was still under its management, and that all the areas south of the Southern Cone and Ocean Railway (including the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego, etc.) were under the jurisdiction of the Southern Railway Company. Except for the existing towns established by the Salmon Islands, Chiloe Island and the Southern Railway, the northern region is directly under the administration of the Government Council.As soon as the news came out, the stock price of Southern Railway Company was bullish again, nearly doubled from the 50 yuan a share when it was initially issued, and 40% of the 35.85% of its publicly issued shares had been sold, raising funds for the company's sustainable development. A large amount of capital has been raised (South Railway Company has undoubtedly become the enterprise with the largest amount of IPO funds in the East Coast).

On September 9, the ship arrived at Xingnan Port, where Chen Ke and others went ashore.And when they went ashore, a fleet of 7 fishing boats was just getting ready to go to sea. It is said that because of the squid fishing season broke out near the Falkland Islands, these boats had to go there for fishing operations.Chen Ke also admires the enthusiasm and bravery of these people. The waters near the Maldives Island are always windy and rough, and those who dare to go there to hunt whaling and fishing are generally violent.Now that these fishermen dare to go there to "make a fortune" at this time, they must have confidence in their own sailing skills, otherwise they would not dare to play like this.

On September 9, Chen Ke, with the cooperation of the staff of the Southern Railway Company, read a large number of original materials stored in the Xingnan Port Library, and then visited some fishermen in Hong Kong to learn about the local fishery in detail. Finally, he went to the local fishery market to conduct a comprehensive investigation on the supply and sales of seafood.

During the investigation, Chen Ke and others felt that there were not many fish in the local market. Even if there were, most of them were Chilean fish transported from the port of Araucan via the two-ocean railway, such as horse mackerel. , salmon, trout, etc.——In the whole year of last year, relying on the fishery resources in the southern waters of Chile far beyond the coast of La Plata, the fishing team of Southern Railway Company caught about 3100 tons of horse mackerel, 100 tons of cod, With 500 tons of trout and about 300 tons of other miscellaneous fish, the efficiency is indeed extraordinary.

Of the 4000 tons of seafood caught in total, some were consumed by the 6.9 residents of the South Railway subsidiary, and some were exported to the Viceroyalty of Peru in Spain (Peruvians have never fished much because of the policy), but there are still Nearly half of the catch could not be digested, and finally managed to export it to the mainland at a low price, causing local fishery businessmen to complain that they had hit the market, and the local fishery department should levy tariffs on these "southern iron fish"——local Of course, the competent department will not impose tariffs on the fish exported by the Southern Railway Company, because the interests involved are too complicated, and the Ministry of Agriculture has no intention or ability to formulate such a policy.

We said before that Xingnan port imports a large amount of Chilean fish because of the limited fish production. This is true, but Chen Ke and others also found that the supply of seafood in Xingnan port far exceeds that of fish is all kinds of sea animal meat. And whale meat, nothing else, because it's cheap!These sea animals are mainly sea otters, seals, sea lions, fur seals, and even "crazy" people sell penguin meat. The meat of all these sea animals comes from several settlements around Tierra del Fuego. The local residents include Nantie and With the license issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, it is possible to regularly hunt a specified number of various sea animals to obtain fur, high-grade lubricating oil, and some meat, and the profits are still very rich.

To be honest, the Ministry of Agriculture didn't pay much attention to this marginal marine industry at the beginning. They were most concerned about the fishery output.However, the people on the east coast who moved to Beech Fort, Shanhou Fort and Sunset Bay discovered this way of making money. Now they regularly produce more than 20 pieces of high-grade furs (collectively referred to as "Southern Iron") every year, as well as a large amount of seal oil, The feces of sea animals (similar to struvite, it is a rare fertilizer) and cured meat make an annual profit of more than 8 yuan—even if most of this money is shared by local residents and the Southern Railway Company, the Ministry of Agriculture handed over It can be regarded as a little bit of money for a year. Of course, the local residents will catch some whales thrown ashore by the waves from time to time, but this kind of windfall from the sky is not the same as that of agriculture. It has nothing to do with it, it is completely the property that the local residents can freely dispose of——so, Chen Ke has to find a way to go to Tierra del Fuego when he comes to the Southern Cone this time, to investigate and investigate the local sea animal hunting industry, But the premise is that the Southern Railway Company sends personnel to accompany them.

But maybe Chen Ke's plan to go to Tierra del Fuego will be postponed a little bit, because on September 9, Liu Ang, the second president of the Southern Railway Company, planned to visit the Salmon Islands on the Pacific coast. He sent someone to ask Will Chen Ke want to go with him?Considering that he would go to the Pacific Ocean to investigate the current situation of fishery production, Chen Ke agreed, and then took a train with President Liu and more than 13 people to go to 20 via the Southern Cone Liangyang Railway. The port of Araucan, many kilometers away.After disembarking there, everyone will take a small offshore steamboat and head north along the winding islands in southern Chile. The first stop is Qingfeng Port, a settlement deep in the archipelago established by the Southern Railway Company for many years—here is an experiment The large-scale salmon farm (co-funded by the Southern Railway Corporation and the Ministry of Agriculture) intends to use the clean and pure sea water here to raise a large number of salmon in artificial cages to supply the growing domestic market demand on the east coast.

(End of this chapter)