Lu Ming

Chapter 268 Alonso

Theoretically speaking, the estuaries of all major rivers must be rich in fishing grounds, and the Zhoushan Islands are an obvious example.

However, this rule was not applicable in the 17th century. For motor sailboats with sonar fish finders, the strait was full of fishing grounds.

You only need to walk around Taiwan Island along the "Kuroshio Current", that is, the Japan-Philippines Warm Current. In fact, you don't need to go far at all, and the cold cabin with a capacity of 85 tons will be filled with fat fish bodies.

After the trawling practice, the two ships hurried back to their voyage.As for the more complicated and dangerous two-vessel trawling mode, this is not yet possible, and shareholders need to explore by themselves in the future.

The return trip was relatively easy.After Yu Chengde settled the affairs on the deck, he hurriedly went to the cabin to learn how to operate the instruments.However, the effect is not good: it takes time and patience for an illiterate old fisherman to understand various electronic instruments.

Facing the sunset in the evening, under the communication of the internal horn, the captain at the helm and the engineer cooperated tacitly, and easily parked the Fathead Fish at the fish pier in Chikan.

The next moment, a scene full of rich capitalist style appeared: the captain, the engineer, and the crane workers, who were in charge of technology, were just like those awesome workers in the United States who left their jobs and left after get off work. Without looking back, I went straight to Chikan Avenue, discussing which restaurant to go to for a meal on the way.

But the theoretical owner/boss/capitalist Yu Chengde and his group started hard work.

They put on thick linen work clothes, opened the cold cabin with their nephews, and began to lift 85 tons of cold fresh fish into the basket little by little with their hands in woolen gloves.After that, the fish will be transported by the crane to the rail trolley at the pier, and then the bosses will be responsible for pushing the trolley into the large cold storage, and then wait for the inspector to weigh, check and accept, sign, and then go to the financial room to collect the banknotes with the documents.
When the employees are drunk after a venison feast and go home to sleep with their wives, the bosses are still burning the lights: 85 tons of chilled fish are not so easy to clean up.

For the above procedures, about 20 strong laborers usually have to work until midnight under the strong light on the pier to complete the work.

They can't help but not work hard: for every second of delay, the gas refrigeration system on the ship will operate for one more second, fuel and various losses will increase, and it is not so easy to be a capitalist.

Poor Yu Chengde, he only now knows that when the dream of "fishing endlessly" is realized since childhood, it is not as beautiful as imagined.

After working hard for half the night, the exhausted people took the night bus to go home to sleep. It was not until the next afternoon that several shareholders returned to the ship to settle accounts.

It’s not ignorance, but it’s shocking: After excluding all personnel expenses, fuel consumables, ship depreciation, taxes, maintenance fees, and wharf fees, the net profit of this trip is only 180 taels of silver.
85 tons of high-quality fish meat that even cold storage inspectors have to admit, and they made such a small amount of money at the end.You must know that the load capacity of a single section of train wagons in later generations is only 60 tons.

What's the problem?personnel expenses.

More than 200 taels of silver were taken away by the Port Authority for nothing: "technical tap fee".

This fee is tied to the technicians such as marine engineers. Yu Chengde and the others have to pay an extra sum of money to the government every time they hire marine engineers for an extra month: the so-called fuel surcharge. Wrong wharf construction is a technician surcharge.

After finishing their accounts, the honest fishermen are planning to revolt and overthrow the evil port authority.

However, the rebellion is also about the Basic Law. This fee item has already existed in the contract. The purpose of the Port Authority is very clear, which is to force the shipowners to master the technology as soon as possible and return the people to them.

So in the end, the depressed people can only say bitterly: "Let this generation be proud for a few more days", and then admit defeat.

In fact, all the reactions of the shipowners were in the expectation of the Port Authority: Can the loan be played by the bank?

According to the plan of the mastermind behind the scenes, based on the net profit of 400 taels per voyage, Yu Chengde and the others can repay the loan of about 1000 taels per month—it takes 10 days for each fishing boat to sail and rest .

In this way, if they can operate the boat independently, it only takes one year to pay off the loan; if it is slower, it will be settled in about one and a half years.

At that point, the shareholders could save up and split: in a year or so, half of them would have raised enough capital to buy a new boat.

Then if all goes well, it will take three or four years for Yu Chengde to own all the shares of Pangtouyu. This is the route planned by the designer. , in order to gradually become stronger.

After the shareholders made a complaint, they started to work: today the ship will be driven to the shipyard for overhaul and replenishment of consumables.

When the ship stopped at the shipyard, the honest man Yu Chengde took the crew to carry the fuel.what fuelHerring.

Except for a little coal for emergency use, the daily fuel used on the sailboat is wood.Therefore, people are subject to change: The wreck of the Herring, which has been acquired by the Port Authority in theory, has recently become a source of affection for an old fisherman.Anyway, there are a lot of broken ships in the scrap yard, and no one cares if they get cheap from the public.
Under the banner of visiting the old man, someone blatantly moved the wreckage of the old man to the new ship, and then completely smashed the old man to make it more convenient for the next voyage - so many days have passed , The old man is almost sun-baked, just suitable for use.

From this point, it can be seen that even a capitalist in the form of a baby is still a capitalist, and his pores are bleeding.

Poor an honest fisherman who came from thousands of miles to join the Kun people, so quickly transformed into an old man. Therefore, the first pot of gold is full of original sin.

The moonlight was like washing, scattered like pieces of silver on the sea outside Dayuan Harbor.With gusts of sea wind blowing, the silver-scaled waves fluctuate, and at the same time, the sailboats floating on the sea are also drifting with the waves.

"Oh God, is that the legendary 'City of Light'? That's amazing." Alonso de Rojas Vargas stood at the bow of the boat, looking into the distance with a telescope The brightly lit castle, said in surprise.

Alonso is a Portuguese nobleman with a big beard.His ancestor was the famous Alonso de Rojas knight, who had followed the King of Aragon in the 13th century to attack the North African Moors (Muslin) entrenched in Valencia, so he hid in Alonso. Among the long list of real names, the honorable aristocratic surname "Rojas" is the most important part.

As a senior member of the Macau City Council, Alonso was entrusted by the city council to formally come to establish diplomatic relations with the owner here.

At this moment, Alonso was looking at the imperial city on Dayuan Island from the armed sailboat Cascais at midnight.

The Cascais departed from Macau a week ago.According to the guide's plan, the ship first took the south wind to go north to Xiamen, and then crossed the strait from Xiamen Port with several junk ships behind.

Due to the existence of lighthouses along the way, the fleet did not suffer much trouble along the way. The Cascais arrived at Dayuan smoothly at midnight at the end of September.

Usually, when a ship comes to the nearshore area in the dark, it cannot move easily: no one knows whether there are reefs or dark beaches ahead.

But because of the brightly blazing castle, the leading junks quickly calculated their positions with reference to the castle and the lighthouse at the entrance of the Daman Passage, so those junks scrambled in the dark night It rushed into the Dayuan channel and walked away.

Unknown road conditions were left behind, and the large and heavy Cascais was blowing outside the channel mouth.

Fortunately, even in the dark night, here is not alone.A traffic command boat whose whole body was painted bright red and emitted bright beams of light quickly approached.

The beam of light began to sweep across the Cascais from a long distance, and the strong light made the sailors whose eyes were pierced exclaim.Here's the irony: people don't yell out the words heathen and devil.After all, the appearance of white light in the boundless night is in line with the description of various holy scenes in the Bible.

The next moment, there was a huge human voice on the traffic boat.

Since the Portuguese set off from Macau, there would naturally be no shortage of Chinese translators on board.After the interpreter replied loudly, an instruction came from the traffic boat soon: wait in place and enter the port tomorrow morning.

The Cascais, with a displacement of 350 tons, is quite clumsy in this situation. Instead of taking the risk of entering the port under the guidance of lights, it is better to talk about it tomorrow morning, and this night is not bad.

Early the next morning, a short-haired pilot boarded the ship on the gangway of the Cascais.Although Congressman Alonso had obtained a lot of information from the merchants before, he was still dazzled when he entered the port.

The next step is the complex parking process.The Cascais first berthed at the Northern Line Oshima Wharf, which is next to the exit of the channel.

All short-term foreign personnel will stay on Beixian Island, which will greatly reduce the pressure on the health department for epidemic prevention.Most of the Cascais crew disembarked here, and they quickly liked it—the rum punch at the Pirate's Bar, the sound stage, and the pole dancers were already famous among East Asian sailors.

After that, the Cascais was towed by a traffic boat to the Chikan Wharf area on the other side of the Taijiang River for unloading.

Because the trade between Macau and Dayuan is not complementary, the Portuguese also took a lot of trouble to raise goods for this diplomatic operation.

Fortunately, Macau is stuck at the throat of the Pearl River Delta. As long as there are silver coins, it is not difficult to temporarily prepare some "crude goods".So when Special Envoy Alonso set off, the Cascais had already been filled with rice, buffalo hides, rough iron, and coal, which were said to be more popular cargoes in Daguan, according to the merchants' suggestions.

Of course, the Cascais also has a lot of silver coins used to fill the trade deficit when merchant ships and officials from various countries trade.

(End of this chapter)