Urban Sims

It’s November, the twenty-first year of Tiansheng.

After leaving Wenyuan Academy, Zhou Ming returned to his hometown in Haiping County with more than 30 classmates (some of whom went back home).

My parents were a little surprised when so many guests came at once, and they didn’t know how to arrange it.

Fortunately, a few years ago, Zhou Ming personally designed a bastion for the family's treasury, which has been mostly completed. The base is made of reinforced concrete, with a circumference of one mile and a height of nearly 40 meters. It is not far from the Wubao. Wuli, close to Beijiang, has complete defenses. Under the protection of matchlocks and cannons (there are sufficient raw materials for gunpowder in this world, matchlocks have been developed, and there are only a few experimental cannons due to lack of copper), as well as supporting port facilities. In a war situation, even if it is besieged by a million troops on land, it will not fall easily.

There are hundreds of rooms with complete supporting facilities in the tall bastion. You can also enjoy the river breeze and enjoy the distant sea view at night. Therefore, after consulting more than 30 students, Zhou Ming placed most of these students there. In the guest room of the bastion, a servant and a maid are arranged beside each person to serve them personally and provide them with good treatment.

Of course, Zhou Ming does not live and feed these classmates for free. These are all high-level intellectuals. Some of them can be incorporated into the "literary group" to help with literary creation, and some can be organized into the "cartoon group" Help him draw comics, and some can be incorporated into the "entertainment group" to help him develop his entertainment career.

Even if there are some losers who can't help in any way, it is very useful to stand aside and be responsible for raising the momentum and shouting.

In short, make the best use of everything, and don't let any classmate eat and waste here.

The classmates were all settled and returned to Tianjiazhuang Wubao. Zhou Ming asked his father Tian Feng about the development of the family's various industries in the past four years. He had been away most of the time.

Tian Feng, his father, who has a tanned skin and is obviously much older. In the past four years, he has worked hard to complete all the development plans formulated by Zhou Ming. He looks much more capable and mature, and his movements are full of the characteristics of a successful man. Temperament, he took out more than a dozen account books and introduced to Zhou Ming the current development status of the family's various industries in the past few years.

The first is the big farm plan. There is nothing to say about this. Now Tianjiazhuang is not only self-sufficient in food, but also has more than 4,000 cattle, more than 2,000 horses, and tens of thousands of pigs and sheep in the farm pasture. , and countless chickens and ducks. The meat, eggs, and milk produced every year have allowed farmers in Tianjiazhuang to live a well-off life with meat and eggs every day. In recent years, the average height of children in Tianjiazhuang has been higher than People of the same age in other counties are all three or five centimeters taller, and the older they are, the bigger the gap becomes.

Next is the large salt field plan. The current Haiping Salt Field has been developed for nearly ten years. The salt field area has expanded from the initial 20 acres, 1,000 acres, and 5,000 acres to 30,000 acres, with an annual sea salt output of over one million Stone, this output is close to one-third of the sea salt of Yangzhou Changlu Salt Field, but due to lack of manpower and the annual salt tax paid to governments at all levels has increased to 50%, his father Tian Feng no longer has such a strong motivation. The area of ​​​​the salt fields must continue to be expanded, otherwise the government will raise the salt tax again. All this hard work is equivalent to making a wedding dress for the court.

Finally, the Ocean Fishing Company Plan. When this plan just started and the investment every year was greater than the return, his father Tian Feng was not particularly concerned about it. Instead, a large number of ships and ships were damaged every year due to storms, reefs, ocean currents, etc. As a fisherman, I felt very sad. Sometimes I felt that this plan was stagnant and had no significance for development. However, with my son’s insistence, I still gritted my teeth and persisted in this plan. I organized training for fishermen, established a shipyard, purchased high-quality wood, and built Larger, sturdier, and more scientifically designed fishing boats have been launched, and investment has continued for nearly ten years. Now, they have finally borne fruitful results and brought many unexpected surprises.

For example, the amount of marine fish caught in the first few years can only be caught with small boats and small nets in the offshore. There is a catch of 500 to 600 tons a year, which is not bad. Some of the rotten and spoiled fish are thrown away and made into fish. I can consume most of the dried fish myself. However, since the 19th year of Tiansheng, Tianjia Shipyard adopted a standardized construction model and built a batch of "sea fishing type 1" fishing boats with waterproof compartments and a displacement of 550 tons. After they were put into mass construction, Tiansheng 20th In 2008, the catch of the Ocean Fishing Company increased nearly tenfold in one year, reaching 5,000 tons.

In addition, fishermen have invented some techniques for preserving marine fish (such as wooden barrel stocking, artificial oxygen supply, etc.), which can ensure that most marine fish are still alive before landing ashore, which is a problem for the workers who cook and dry fish on the shore. , brought a large amount of raw materials, so that a specialty of Haiping County called "Haiping Dried Fish" quickly became popular in surrounding counties.

Even the newly arrived County Magistrate Du of Haiping County (who benefited from the Haipingtian family, and the original Magistrates Chen and Sun were promoted due to their outstanding political achievements) found that "Haiping Dried Fish" tastes good and has a lot of flavor. In order to please the central government, this kind of dried fish was listed as a tribute and presented to His Majesty the Ming Emperor and the Empress of Heaven. It was quickly praised and asked to donate a hundred stones of dried fish every year to be tasted by the royal family, civil and military officials. .

If the dried fish industry is a moderately profitable industry, then the whale fishing industry that Tianjia Ocean Fishing Company has developed crazily in the past two years is a completely profitable industry. Just relying on whale fishing, in two years Within a short period of time, Tianjia Ocean Fishing Company had made back all the huge funds invested in the previous ten years, not to mention a huge profit of nearly 200,000 yuan.

Why is whale fishing a hugely profitable industry?

Because whales are full of treasures!

Whale skin, after being tanned, is strong, durable, waterproof and corrosion-resistant, and has strong defense. It can be made into leather armor, belts, waterproof clothing, whale skin umbrellas, hiking boots, backpack straps, etc., like ancient industrial plastics. , is extremely versatile.

Whale blubber and extracted whale oil have a special fragrance after burning, which is refreshing and worth thousands of dollars. Whale oil is also an excellent industrial lubricant. Whale oil is indispensable for the manufacture of steam engines in the future.

Whale meat is edible, tastes similar to beef, has a delicate texture, is rich in protein, is not likely to cause obesity, and is not expensive.

Whale tendons are much tougher than beef tendons and mutton tendons, and are as tough as crocodile tendons. Bows, arrows, crossbows, and various siege devices will be much more powerful after using whale tendons. Whale tendons can be said to be a A military strategic material.

Whale bone, after being ground into powder, is a high-grade "compound fertilizer" containing a variety of mineral elements. When spread on the fields, it can have the magical effect of increasing agricultural output by 10%.

Some of the whale internal organs can be used as medicine, and some are delicious food. In short, they have many functions.

Whale poop...throw it away.

How did Tianjia Ocean Fishing Company catch the first whale? It is also a coincidence that this whale was seriously injured after fighting with a group of vicious sharks and fled to the offshore hastily. It coincided with the low tide of the sea. This whale, which is 18 meters long and weighs 1,000 stones (50 tons), Unfortunately, I ran aground on the shoal and was picked up by a "Haiyu Type 1" fishing boat returning from fishing...

After tasting a lot of sweetness from this stranded whale (this whale is equal to the company's annual income in previous years), the Ocean Fishing Company was out of control and specially modified several whaling ships for whaling. came out, formed a whaling fleet, and cooperated in hunting whales. In two years, they caught hundreds of small and medium-sized whales (I didn’t dare to mess with the big ones), and they only relied on selling the whale oil extracted from these whales. , and made hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The whale groups in the sea are like the herds of cattle and horses on land. They are countless. For example, in an ocean current convergence zone more than 300 miles east of Haiping County, there are tens of thousands of whales living there. Even the whaling fleet can only visit 100,000 whales a year. Catching 1,800 whales will only slightly speed up the population renewal of these whales.

…

A few days later.

Thirty miles northeast of Tianjiazhuang, on the seaside, a shipyard covering hundreds of acres is holding a new ship launching ceremony.

Zhou Ming and his father Tian Feng both came here.

The person in charge of the shipyard is named Tian Guang. He is a middle-aged man in his forties, with rough and dark skin, like an old farmer. He is an uncle from the Tian family lineage. He was originally a shipbuilding carpenter and has a certain level of literacy. He was quite good at building sea-going ships. After Zhou Ming recruited him, he handed over all the large and small affairs of the shipyard to him.

In the center of the shipyard, on the largest slipway, sits a ship with a relatively large side width (about 7.5). The ship has a pointed nose and narrow stern, a slender hull, three masts (which can hang sails), and two masts on the left and right sides of the midships. The oar row window can accommodate 80 oarsmen; there are also two rows of fins on the bottom of the boat to reduce the amplitude of the hull rolling when sailing in the sea.

In front of this new ship that is about to be launched, Tian Guang, the person in charge of the shipyard, said with a stern eyebrow: "This 'seaborne type 1' cargo ship uses 1155 materials, has three decks, 68 waterproof compartments, and a relatively large cargo warehouse. It is large and can carry 2,000 stones (=100 tons) of supplies. It has a fixed crew of about 150 people and operates the oars. With smooth winds and smooth currents, it is a piece of cake to sail thousands of miles in a day! With this type of cargo ship, Ocean Fishing Company, In the future, when going to sea during the fishing season, fishing boats will not have to go back and forth. The transportation work will be exclusively handled by maritime cargo ships. The fishing efficiency will definitely increase several times!"

Any industry that wants to improve efficiency must pay attention to division of labor and cooperation, and the same is true for ocean fishing: "sea fishing type" fishing boats focus on fishing, and the more they can catch, the better; "sea fishing type" boats are faster and have more cabins ", is responsible for transportation... In this way, during the three or four months when the sea has the least storms a year, the catch of the ocean fishing company will definitely increase dramatically under this division of labor model.

Zhou Ming nodded and asked him: "Uncle Guang, let's mass-produce 20 Type 1 cargo ships first. The focus of the next research should be on the 'Sea Catching Type 2' fishing boat. This new type of fishing boat uses The amount of material should be more than 2,000. If you go to sea once, you can catch at least two large whales and come back... You should try to develop the 'sea fishing type II' fishing boat within two years."

Two years?

Tian Guang was surprised. This must be too urgent. Doubling the shipbuilding materials means that the workload is not simply doubled, but three to four times! In addition, in order to maintain the stability of the ship's navigation, the structural design of the internal cabin also requires a large amount of data calculations. Therefore, it is an axiom in the shipbuilding industry that larger ships are more difficult to build.

"Then it will be about three years, preferably no more than four years! The company will also find ways to recruit more manpower and craftsmen, including talents in ship design...Uncle Guang, can you, in just two years, Building the 'Sea Type One' from scratch shows that you can do better than you imagine in the face of greater challenges!"

Seeing that he was in trouble, Zhou Ming cheered him up.

Tian Guang nodded, with a firm and confident look on his face.

"here we go!"

"Let the water go, let the water go!"

Accompanied by the cheers of his father Tian Feng and the workers, the ship lock gate slowly opened. After seawater poured into the dock, this brand-new cargo ship, as slender as a bow and coated with yellow tung oil, slowly floated up from the water. This giant ship, It is also like a man-made miracle, bringing people endless reverie...

Today and tomorrow, both updates! Ten updates will be released on May 1st! Those who say this book is a eunuch can go to sleep now. No matter how bad this book is, I have to finish it. Please support me with your recommendation vote!