Chapter 812 China's Good Times (Part 2)

Later data showed that more whales live in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, accounting for about 80% of the world's total. Whenever the Southern Ocean begins to enter winter and the sea freezes, a large number of whales leave their habitats and head north to find warm water for prey. This is a great opportunity for whaling ships from Western countries to hunt whales.

Although China's whaling ships have made breakthrough developments compared to before, they still have a lot of shortcomings compared to Europe - not just one country, but the whaling industry in Europe as a whole.

The North Sea Company has made a good start, but for the Chinese in this era, there are too many profitable industries. If you have capital, there is really no need to get involved in the dangerous business of whaling.

Whaling is dangerous. Even if a large whaling ship can fire a special whale spear like a cannon, the whale spear has a barb and a whale rope. Once a whale is stabbed by a spear, its first reaction is to escape with the rope, and it will not surface until it is exhausted. During this period, the sailors had to take a small boat [not a sampan hanging on the side of the ship, but a special small boat, even the sails were loadable and unloadable] to track along the way. Like their European counterparts, they had to hold on to the whale's harpoon tightly and not let go. The small boat was dragged by the whale and ran wildly on the sea. When the whale's huge body was tumbling and struggling, it was possible to overturn the small boat at any time. The waves were roaring, the foam was flying, and the small boat was tossed up and down in the huge waves until the blood-stained blue sea and the whale died tragically in its own blood. This hunting process usually takes dozens of minutes to several hours. So when hunting whales, you have to choose a good time, such as when the whale sprays water. That is usually because the whale's body temperature is too high, so you have to rinse the mouth and nasal cavity with cold water, and then spray hot water to form a beautiful fountain. That is also a manifestation of the whale's physical consumption. The rise in body temperature of any animal is because of exercise.

You know, the speed of whales is much higher than that of whaling ships!

Therefore, China's whaling industry is just as dangerous as its European counterparts, but it is also very dangerous. Whales, which usually weigh dozens of tons, are too powerful when they are tossed around. In the history of European whaling, there are many examples of whaling ships being smashed by angry whales.

In addition, the number of whales in the northern hemisphere is several times less than that in the southern hemisphere. Even in the North Pacific, where whale resources are well protected, it is not uncommon to not catch a whale in a month or two at sea.

Therefore, the people who do this business are still those with strong power and background. They can afford to take a whaling ship with a solid structure, and they can also afford to lose this kind of whaling ship, which is more expensive than ordinary ships. They can also pay compensation for casualties, and they can also stop all kinds of relationships!

After more than ten years of operation, Sakhalin Island has been completely brought under Chen Han's control, including the minorities on the island, and there is also a systematic population statistics.

In addition to the Chinese immigrants and the slowly increasing number of Japanese on the island, the total number of humans in the entire Sakhalin Island has now exceeded 200,000.

Oha is one of the few cities on Sakhalin that has not been renamed. This coastal port is a well-known port on Sakhalin. In addition to ships traveling to and from America, which may dock here - or dock at other ports, or even not dock at Sakhalin, depending on the situation - there are only hunters and whaling ships heading to the Aleutian Islands.

The entire city has a population of seven or eight thousand, and can harvest some potatoes every year, but more food comes from the mainland. Most of the income here comes from logging and hunting. Sakhalin Island has rich animal resources, and the Aleutian Islands are nearby. A large amount of wood and animal fur are the main sources of local people.

Such woods as fir and fish scale pine are of high economic value.

Fir wood is light in color, the difference between heartwood and sapwood is not obvious, the material is slightly hard and heavy, the water pattern is beautiful and there is no normal resin channel. The material is soft, the structure is delicate, odorless, easy to process, medium to high strength, and strong nail holding power.

Easy to process, smooth and dry cutting surface, good mechanical processing and anti-corrosion processability. It can be used for shipbuilding, and gum can be extracted from young bark and branch bark, which has a wide range of uses. It is an excellent raw material for making pulp and all wood fiber work, suitable for making utensils, furniture and plywood.

Fish scale pine and fir have great similarities, such as light and soft wood, easy to process, and wide range of uses. Papermaking, joinery, utensils, shipbuilding, and construction materials are all strong points.

Relying on the rich forest resources on Sakhalin Island, the local residents of Oha don’t have to worry about their livelihood. It’s not terrible that there is no food in the local area, as long as the local residents have money in their hands.

The whaling ship left Oha, and it’s hard to say when they will return here again.

Although today’s whaling ships will not waste whale meat in large quantities, they can’t drag a boat of meat back and forth between the sea and the port. There are countless large and small islands in the Aleutian Islands, spanning the northern end of the Pacific Ocean. Now there are whale meat processing plants on those large and small islands.

The rougher whale meat is shipped to mainland China, and it will still be sought after by civilians because of its cheap price. China at this time was far from the point of "wanting to eat green vegetables".

However, there was too much whale meat, so attention should be paid to preservation, especially in the hot summer.

So how should whale meat be preserved?

After years of exploration, Chen Han's whaling industry has summed up a complete set of processing methods.

First, the whale meat is repeatedly washed and bled, and then various spices and seasonings are added and cooked according to the method of processing beef and mutton, and then it is made into whale meat jerky according to the method of jerky. This is the most advanced processing method.

After being processed in this way, the taste of whale meat is really similar to that of livestock meat. It can be sealed into small packages and sold at the same price as dried sea fish.

A more convenient way to process whale meat is to smoke it dry, or to apply a heavy layer of sea salt and hang it up to air dry.

This large piece of whale meat has a very long shelf life and can be transported from the seashore to the front line of the northwest.

To be honest, the whaling industry not only brought a large amount of whale oil to China, but also many times more whale meat also brought a lot of help to the physical development of the Chinese people.

Even if we are an agricultural nation, everyone knows that eating meat is good for the body.

It's a pity that although the fishing industry has developed rapidly in recent years, the price of sea fish and seafood is still not cheap. It's okay in coastal areas, but farther inland, even in the 21st century, seafood is still high-end. It's impossible to make sea fish as cheap as tofu these days!

Therefore, whale meat is absolutely a good thing.

In order to ensure the production of whale meat and ensure that whaling companies do not blindly pursue profits and abandon whale meat in large quantities and only pursue whale oil, each whaling company must set a corresponding amount when selling whale oil.

For example, if you buy one ton of whale oil, then you must have at least five tons of whale meat sales certificate.

This is equivalent to putting a golden hoop on each whaling company.

Therefore, most of China's whale processing plants are built in the territory of Bingzhou Prefecture centered on Sakhalin Island. Bingzhou, which is rich in whale resources, is not only rich in resources but also has outstanding location advantages. It is a natural whaling logistics base and processing center, and should be fully utilized.

This thing is really full of treasures.

Even the whale bones that Europeans generally discard with whale meat can be squeezed out of oil. Although this is not comparable to the oil content of the thick fat layer of whales, it is definitely not a small number when accumulated. Moreover, the bones after squeezing out whale oil are cooled and pounded into powder to make whale bone powder, which is a good phosphate fertilizer. Whale bones will also fix some nitrogen during the high-temperature cooking process, so whale bone meal is a very good natural fertilizer, and the amount is quite large, accounting for about 6-7% of the whale's body weight.

And the tanned whale skin, which is about two or three millimeters thick, can be used to make leather clothes, shoes and even inner armor. Raincoats made of whale skin are not only light and thin, but also have excellent waterproof properties, especially cold-resistant. They will not deform or break in the cold winter of Siberia. It is a high-quality leather. The skin of a whale can make one or two thousand pairs of rain boots, and the skin of a big guy like sperm whale can even make two or three thousand pairs of shoes.

Therefore, the Eastern whaling ship colleagues are jealous of their European colleagues who usually only cut the whale blubber and then remove the whale brain at sea, and then abandon the rest in the sea. This is really a waste.

The liver and internal organs of the whale are very valuable. Whale liver can be made into cod liver oil, and some internal organs can also be made into cod liver oil. This is a treasure clearly recorded in the pharmacopoeia of China thousands of years ago.

The internal organs of whales are very rich in vitamins. The cod liver oil made from them can be used as a nutritional supplement or even a medicine. It is very valuable for young children who need to supplement these vitamins.

This whale is really a treasure! As long as it can be fully utilized, don't think of the Europeans as extravagant. The benefits of a whale are over 500,000.

April is the season when the Arctic Circle becomes warm. Unless it is necessary, the whaling ship will not return to the mainland of Sakhalin Island at this time.

For the large tracts of wheat fields that are about to be harvested in China, this warm season is also a harvest season for whaling ships.

The immigrant ships traveling between North America and South Mingzhou are really busy on the ocean without any benefits.

In May of the fifteenth year of Chengtian, the distant Nanyang had no feelings about the upcoming war in the northwest and northeast. Manila, named Hanzhou, is pouring with heavy rain today.

A group of ships transporting immigrants have just left the port, and their destination is Nanmingzhou. They also carry a large amount of cloth, cotton, livestock, etc.

Time is the best "medicine". When Chen Han's immigrant ship arrived in Nanmingzhou, in addition to the population, it also carried a large number of agricultural tools, iron tools, leather goods, mechanical equipment, hardware tools, and even industrial products such as weapons and ammunition.

But what about now?

Nanmingzhou can already provide iron tools and some equipment by itself. What is lacking here is still basic materials such as cloth, cotton, and livestock.

This is just like the original Nanyang and Myanmar. The earliest discovered precious woods such as red sandalwood, nanmu, and ebony were all transported back to the mainland for processing. At most, they were sold back in the form of luxury goods such as high-end furniture, sculptures, crafts, and carriage bodies after a round. It is equivalent to harvesting a lot of money from these territories again.

But what about now? A few years have passed, and furniture factories have been built in Nanyang and Myanmar, and they are high-end furniture. Those precious woods should not be used to build warships. For the owners of furniture factories, those teak, nanmu, and even sandalwood were added to the ships, which was really a waste of natural resources.

If they were only used to make furniture, how much could their production increase?

Don’t you know how big the demand for high-end furniture is in China now?

Some furniture factory owners have orders scheduled until next year.

This is the change brought by time, this is development.

Hanzhou Prefecture has entered the rainy season again. The weather here is divided into wet and dry. The Pacific Ocean in the east is the birthplace of typhoons. Along with the heavy rain in the rainy season, high humidity and many typhoons are obvious climate characteristics of Hanzhou Prefecture.

But yesterday's heavy rain stopped this morning. When we woke up in the morning, the air outside was really not that fresh.

Yoshida Shohei moved from Borneo to Hanzhou Fucheng two years ago. The former was still a bit chaotic. At first, the security team and the support team killed the local indigenous people a bit harshly. Even now, there are indigenous people hiding deep in the dense forests and maintaining resistance.

Yoshida Shohei simply moved.

My wife has already prepared breakfast. The main food is rice porridge, and the side dishes are a plate of fruit, a pickle, a fried tofu with soybean sprouts, cold shrimp and kelp, and a steamed bun with a poached egg.

Looking at the Yoshida family's breakfast, you really can't tell the slightest bit of Japanese flavor.

Yoshida Shohei finished his breakfast in a hurry and turned to look at the door. His eight-year-old son was sitting there playing in the mud. This is his youngest son, and he is also the child who speaks the most slippery Mandarin.

I don’t know if it’s the inheritance of the Yoshida family. Including him and his brother who died on the North American battlefield, the entire Yoshida family’s men speak Mandarin with a foreign flavor, which makes people know that they are Chinese. Immigration, real immigration.

Only this young son, who is not very old, speaks the most authentic words in Nanjing Mandarin. At the same time, this also makes him love his younger son even more.

"The price of meat has gone up again, and so have the prices of eggs." His wife began to complain on the side. Today is the end of October, school is not in session, and there are no rooms in the factory. Moreover, the children of Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida Shohei still live together. Except for the energetic young son who got up early to play, everyone else was fast asleep.

"Those greedy vendors raise the prices every time they come here. It's really bad. Not only have these prices increased, but mangoes and bananas have also increased dramatically. Doesn't the government care about it?"

Yoshida Shohei's wife spoke with a hint of dissatisfaction. This is not the first time she has complained. But Hanzhou is not the original Borneo. This big city has this problem. When the rainy season comes, the price of food and drink increases.

God knows what happened to those small merchants and hawkers due to the wind and rain in the Sea Dragon King. But they still raised the price.

Yoshida Shohei was injured on the front line and was transferred from the military hospital to his home. He already knew that he would probably never return to the army. Even though his position is inconspicuous, there are many Japanese people staring at that position.

Who knows, one day when a notification comes, he will take off the uniform of the National Defense Force and become a policeman in Hanzhou or somewhere.

Yoshida Shohei didn't care at all about his wife's mutterings. The Yoshida family was no longer the paupers it had been back then. How could they survive the increase in the price of meat, melons, and fruits with just a small amount of money?

Yoshida Shohei didn't even hum. He grabbed the steamed bun with poached eggs in one hand and stared at the newspaper on the table.

This is the official newspaper of Hanzhou Prefecture. If you want to see the latest news from the Sino-Russian front, you cannot rely on private newspapers in Hanzhou. You have to look at the official newspaper.

Yoshida Shohei's main concern is Tohoku, because his old unit is in Tohoku, and because he was injured in Tohoku, he was also in Tohoku.

In Yakusk in the northeast, as long as this city is broken by the National Defense Forces, the Russian Qing will be completely wiped out. Even if Repnin led a small number of Russian troops to drill into caves in the Aldan Mountains, it would only be a skin disease.

The entire Eastern Siberia is considered the territory of the empire, and then it is connected with the North Sea, and half of the entire Siberia belongs to China. Perhaps by the time of the Chinese New Year this year, all of Siberia will belong to His Majesty, and that will be normal.

"Sigh." It's a pity that his nephew, his son, and several boys from the Yoshida family failed to pass the military academy, and not many even went to vocational high school. These idiots, idiots!

Yoshida Shohei really wished he could die on the battlefield instead of just being injured. In that case, even if two of the Yoshida family sacrificed their lives for the country, the government would definitely give them preferential treatment, and maybe one of their descendants would be admitted to the military academy.

The Yoshida family, who was born as a samurai, has won everything by joining the army. How can the next generation not have a single soldier?