Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 934 Strategic Opportunity Period ([-])

"Speed ​​up production, maintain quality and quantity! Strive to obtain greater benefits during the strategic opportunity period, and inject more nutrients into the growth of the Republic!" When boarding a refrigerated ship heading south, Zhang Yun, vice president of Nanhai Fishery Company, thought There are still lingering speeches made by the bosses at the previous company meeting.

"The Dutch West India Company came to order a large amount of salted fish. I heard that all the New England fishing boats that were exported to them in the past disappeared. This is both a good thing and a pressure for us." Zhang Yun sighed. Iron company, excluding whale meat), the total fishery output last year was only a mere [-] tons, which is still insufficient for personal use, let alone export.And to solve this contradiction, it can only increase production, there is no second way to go.

Fortunately, this year, the South China Sea Fisheries Company launched two new whaling vessels, four cod fishing vessels, four squid fishing vessels, two offshore trawlers and one processing/transportation vessel.The launch of these ships should more or less enable the company's fishery output to climb to a new peak again - after joining these new ships, the total tonnage of the fishing boats (including processing ships) of Nanhai Fishery Company has reached 4 tons. The number of employees has also reached 4, and it is a veritable trust enterprise in the fishing industry on the east coast.

According to regulations, each of these fishing boats has twice the manpower. After long-term training, it can train more than 1500 skilled sailors for the country every year.Some of these people entered the Inland River Transportation Company, some entered the South China Sea Transportation Company, some entered the Navy, some entered the immigration fleet exclusive to the Immigration Department, and of course some were digested internally by the South China Sea Fishery Company. The contribution made is still considerable.

For example, the refrigerated ship that Zhang Yun is riding on is newly launched this year, and its sailors are all trained before.This motor sailboat with a tonnage of no more than 300 tons has a uniquely designed large cold storage room, which can freeze more than 160 last of seafood.It's just that the production of ether on the east coast is not high enough, and the freezer is still a new thing, so the cost of refrigeration is relatively high. Generally speaking, this kind of ship will not be used for non-long-distance transportation.

But now to export seafood, meat, and some other commodities to places such as Dutch Brazil (the Dutch West African colony is supplied by the South African River Port), you have to use refrigerated ships.Otherwise, even pickled salted fish will deteriorate to a certain extent when it passes near the equator, which will obviously be unacceptable to customers-fortunately, the Dutch are willing to pay 50 guilders per last for this The cost of freight is more than enough to recover the cost, so the South China Sea Transportation Company has ordered several refrigerated ships, planning to flex its muscles and transport the meat and fish from the east coast to distant places for sale.

The refrigerated ship docked at the exclusive fishery wharf of Yancheng Port at around ten o'clock in the morning.At this time, in addition to the ships of the South China Sea Transportation Company and the South China Sea Fishery Company, there were seven or eight galleons, large and small, in the port. These ships seemed to have undergone some simple repairs and refurbishments, and their appearance was much different from before. However, in the eyes of a veteran navigator like Zhang Yun, he knew at a glance that these were foreign merchant ships privately plundered by the navy.

It seems that in a secluded corner of Yancheng Port, there seems to be another stolen goods sale conference being held!

In the harbor, two offshore trawlers newly joined the South China Sea Fisheries Company are making final preparations before sailing.This kind of motor-sail trawler, which is not very common on the east coast, uses steam power to heave the anchor and pull the winch, making it faster and more convenient to pull the net.And this, obviously, also created conditions for fishing boats to use longer ropes and larger trawl nets.

Among the few sail-powered trawlers in the Blackwater area on the east coast, a truss trawl that was very popular in Europe at this time was used. The advantage of this trawl is that its shape on the seabed is not affected by the speed of the ship. Influence - This is more important for sail-powered fishing boats, but the girders are only about ten meters long, and the size of the trawl net is strictly limited, so the efficiency is low.

If the Blackwater area is not close to the largest fishing ground in the world, and there are many bottom fishes, shrimps and crabs off the coast of Sakhalin Island, their trawlers will catch very little. It is far better to modify it to catch the fishing season What about the pelagics?

The newly designed offshore trawler on the east coast this time uses steam-sail hybrid power, and the net gear has also been innovated-this time it uses a mesh-type trawl.This kind of trawl net has a large net plate fixed at both ends of the net mouth, and a row of floats are used on the upper edge of the net to keep the net mouth open. open.Theoretically speaking, the size of this trawl only depends on the power of the fishing boat, that is to say, the greater the power of the fishing boat, the bigger the trawl can be made, and the higher the fishing efficiency.

It is worth mentioning that at this time Europe already had the prototype of the concept of this kind of mesh trawl, but due to various reasons, their innovation has not been recognized by fishermen, so this trawl The shape of the system gradually disappeared into the invisible.However, after a Scot who immigrated to the east coast provided the trawl-type system he had seen when he was a child, the South China Sea Fishery Company attached great importance to it, and immediately organized special personnel to conduct research and development, and finally finalized the shape, and then applied for a patent in the name of the company.

The newly designed patented fishing net uses sisal fibers produced in many sisal plantations in New China. This fiber has good hardness and flexibility, and is also resistant to seawater corrosion. It is a very good fiber for industry and fishery. One of the important export commodities in New China today.

After having lunch at the branch of the Yancheng Port Company, Zhang Yun received several captains and encouraged them, then boarded a processing ship and went fishing with several fishing boats.Their fishing ground is still located in the east-south waters of Yancheng Port, where the resources of smooth fish and hake are relatively rich, and the trawlers of the people on the east coast mainly target the bottom cod fish in this sea area , such as pollock, hake, etc.

These cod live in the bottom cold waters and live in groups. Originally, people on the east coast used cod fishing boats to fish, which was inefficient.With these trawlers this time, it is believed that domestic cod production on the east coast will have a growth peak in a short period of time.

In fact, this is also the case. After a few days at sea, perhaps the new fishing boats are really powerful, or perhaps it is because Zhang Yun, the leader of the company who accompanied the ship for investigation, was supervising the battle, the two trawlers quickly found one. A place where cod resources are relatively rich, and a large number of pollock—a cod fish that was originally the most common in the east coast of China—was caught.

The caught fish were quickly sent to Zhang Yun's processing ship. This new underwater processing ship with a tonnage of more than 500 tons also has a cold storage room.There are several ether freezers in the cold room for simultaneous cooling. After the fish are processed, they are immediately sent to the freezing tank filled with ice brine in the cold room. After the fish freezes, the cold brine is pumped out.Such fish can be placed in the refrigerator for a long time without worrying about spoilage, which undoubtedly greatly prolongs the time for fishing boats to operate at sea and improves work efficiency.

In the past, when no refrigerated processing ships were used, every time people on the east coast caught fish, they could only process it quickly—mainly because there were a lot of bacteria on the fish skin and intestines, and the temperature only needed to be a few degrees above zero. For example, the cod caught by people on the east coast will rot after three or four days at 5°C; and if the cod has been processed (removed by laparotomy and dried), there are fewer bacteria , can still be eaten at room temperature for many weeks, that's the difference.

This time I went to the fishing ground to fish, and the freezing temperature of the refrigerated processing ship was set to zero degrees.The reason why this temperature is set is because the Nanhai Fishery Company has conducted experiments: fresh cod can be stored at least 16 days before it deteriorates at zero degrees.Such a long time is enough for the refrigerated processing ship to send the caught fish to Yancheng Port (stored in an underground ice cellar) and go back and forth two or three times.Therefore, in order to save costs, all refrigerated processing ships that go out store the caught seafood at zero temperature.

Zhang Yun stayed on the refrigerated processing ship for a week. Six or seven nearby cod fishing boats, squid fishing boats and two offshore trawlers successively delivered more than 70 tons of various seafood to the ship, most of which were Pollock and Argentinian squid, as well as some rare hake, cod, various plaice, pomfret and long pomfret fish, which made Zhang Yun happy to see a few - don't look at the latter The number of species of fish is small, but the price on the east coast is really high. Many wealthy people are willing to spend a lot of money to buy it for cooking and eating. The market prospect is very bright.

"The fish sold to the Dutch are mostly pollock and squid. But I guess those people only want cod, not squid. It's really... tsk tsk." Zhang Yun looked at the full warehouse of cod, I began to think about the business in my mind: "I don't know if the Netherlands will ask us to export their catches to them. It is probably very possible. Aren't they being severely blocked by the British? If they are not guaranteed, they will ask us to buy meat and fish. , and it has to be delivered to your door. Well, from another point of view, it is not a bad thing, because under the stimulation of strong external demand, the Government Affairs Council should approve the company’s request to further expand the size of the fishing fleet. The number of sailors is also a great thing from the perspective of increasing fishery production. Our country should be based on sailing, and the foundation of sailing is to expand the size of the fishing fleet. After all, fishing is the cradle and foundation of all nautical businesses Base……"

"Strive to double the size of the fishing fleet and whaling fleet next year, and the ocean shipping fleet of the South China Sea Transportation Company is likely to expand as well. What about the spring of the fish business?" Zhang Yun thought.

(End of this chapter)