On September 30, 1643, the weather in Blackwater Harbor was getting colder. The large straight birch forests around the harbor also sprinkled large golden leaves in the blowing of the bitter west wind. And among the golden birch and poplar trees, there are occasionally some green fir trees, so that people can find a little solace in this cold season.

Winter in Sakhalin is coming!

As a steam engine sailing ship roared into the docks of Blackwater, a group of Korean dock workers, who had long been dressed in cotton coats, rushed forward, graciously took the cables that the sailors had thrown from the deck, and then skillfully tied them to the wooden stakes on the shore.

"Get someone to come and carry the fish! Great harvest! On the deck of the "Tsunay", the bearded German boatswain Ha Lu Ha Da Lu laughed and shouted to the shore, and after roaring he poured two mouthfuls of river koji into his mouth, and the spicy smell of wine made him roll his eyes.

With his roar, a large group of dock workers suddenly poured out of the low cabins around the docks, and a considerable number of these people were Akito who had just been sent from Zhifu Island in the south some time ago. They will work in Blackwater Harbor while recuperating their bodies while waiting for a boat to sail to Australia's Golden Mountain Port in mid-to-late October. These are the exact words of the people on the east coast, they don't understand what this place is, they don't know what the Jinshan port is, and they have no concept of the east coast in other people's legends, they are only interested in the promise of the east coast people to divide the land for themselves.

Da Ming can't live anymore, so it's normal to find a place to live. Although he is not very happy to leave the land where his ancestors have lived for generations, he is trying to earn food. To stay alive. can only cross the ocean. And these East Coasters look fierce though. But they are fair, and they promise to give themselves land, so let them go! I was cheap, I was about to starve to death, but I still ate the porridge they gave to get back a life, and now what if I give them back my life?

Many fishermen in cotton coats disembarked from their boats to the wharf, carrying buckets of pre-treated salmon in pairs and heading straight for the drying ground not far from the wharf. On the drying ground. It is an even more spectacular scene, only to see countless salted fish that have been salted are hanging high, gently swaying with the wind. At this time, if someone comes to take a rough look, they will soon find that there must be tens of thousands of fish here! What is even more obvious is that most of the tens of thousands of fish here are not all of them, and many more fish have been collected and stored by the people of the East Coast.

Next to the drying ground, there are hundreds of pots, each of which is flanked by two new immigrants, who are boiling seawater and boiling salt. The coarse salt they boil out will be collected by specialized technicians and then purified in the next step. so that it can be eaten. In fact, when the people from the East Coast came, they brought a huge amount of refined salt, which was enough for everyone to eat for a long time. But the tragedy is that this year's fishing season salmon, saury, mackerel and other fish especially salmon have a bumper harvest. As a result, the salt was rapidly consumed in the process of salting the salted fish, and Mo Ming had to order to start boiling seawater to replenish the rapidly declining salt stocks.

This year's salmon season is almost over, and although there will be some of the last few waves of fish migrating in the next week, it will not affect the overall situation. On the east coast, people on the east coast have caught more than 100,000 salmon in the Heishui River, the Tatar Strait, the mouth of the Heilongjiang River, and the extremely abundant island of Zeyu, and it is unlikely that hundreds of tons will have to be made into salted fish. It's a pity that there are only six boats on the east coast, and if there are more boats, it is estimated that the catch will be even greater. In particular, according to the reaction of the "Fubo", which went to the vicinity of the Kuril Islands to reconnoiter the saury fishing flood, the abundance of humpback salmon resources on the island is unimaginable.

It's a pity that the people on the east coast are not very well prepared, and there is a shortage of boats, manpower, and fishing nets, resulting in this year's catch is not ideal. At that time, the Soviets did not have many fishing boats in the Far East, and they even had to buy fishing gear from Japan, but they were able to catch about 8,000 to 10,000 tons of salmon a year around Sakhalin Island alone. In contrast, in China, which is located in the upper reaches of the Heilongjiang River, the annual catch of salmon is not even half of Lao Maozi's, and in many cases even a third. The Sea of Okhotsk in this era has not yet been frantically fished by the Russians and Japanese in later generations, and the abundance of fishery resources is rare in the world. Therefore, this year's salmon catches of the people of the East Coast can really only be described as average.

The "Fukai" is the last ship to end the salmon season this year, and several other ships such as the "Fuba" have already begun to move to the waters of the South Kuril Islands, tracking the saury schools that have begun to move south to the coast of Japan. According to the description of the "Fubo", which was the first to track the saury fish, the saury chased by the big fish jumped out of the sea from time to time, and the dense school of fish really slowed down the speed of the boat like herring and cod on the Newfoundland side.

At present, except for one of the several boats of the East Coast that regularly travels between Yantai Wharf and Heishui Port, the remaining four are all fishing there. Mo Ming and others optimistically predict that after the end of this fishing season, the catch of saury and other fish such as Far Eastern sardines and mackerel will be at least five or six hundred tons, or even more.

In the 20th century, Japan was a big country in the fishing for saury, and the number of saury they caught off their shores every year was extremely large, reaching a peak of 500,000 tons in the fifties and sixties, and then declining year by year, but it has remained at about 200,000 tons. Of course, this is because the Japanese fishing boats are mostly broadside netters that use light traps, so the production is particularly high. Before 1947, when traditional fishing methods were used, the annual catch of saury in Japan was only about a few tens of thousands of tons, and the number of fishing vessels involved in the fishing was about 200 to 300, and the tonnage rarely exceeded 100 tons.

In the 17th century, when there was no overfishing in later generations, and in the waters of the South Kuril Islands, where fishery resources were more abundant than those of Japan (saury off the coast of Japan were spring groups, and most of them were small fish), the density of saury far exceeded that of later generations. Although only the multi-purpose expedition vessels of the East Coasters carried large professional trawls, the others had to be temporarily refitted; Although most of the sailors of the East Coast people did not have much fishing experience; Although the fishing nets of the people on the east coast are not as good as the drift nets of later generations, it is still believed that catching more than 600 tons of saury this season will not be a problem.

Even, if they are lucky enough to find other fish stocks, they can catch a large number of sardines that will produce 1 million to 2 million tons a year here, not to mention a large number of mackerel, squid and other fish here. The Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the Northwest Pacific Ocean, is really a natural granary!

In the end, more than 60 barrels of fish were taken from the hold of the ship, totaling more than 10,000 fish, and according to the experience of the past few days, they caught about 50-60 tons of fish on this trip, which is quite good. Workers in the drying yard hang the newly arrived fish on it, and the west wind is strong at this time, and it will not take long for the fish to dry themselves.

The dried salted fish was also removed and packed into clean wooden boxes, and then stored in an ice cellar where they had been dug up. The volume of the ice cellar is not large, about more than 600 cubic meters, and it is in the shape of a cube. The surrounding walls are made of bricks, and the walls are painted with cement; The top floor is made of prefabricated cement panels, and the middle is supported by brick columns. Originally, Mo Ming was going to build two layers of walls, and stuff cotton and other materials in the middle to insulate and keep warm, but considering the poor conditions here, he still gave up this idea after the end.

Besides, with the relatively cold climate on the side of Blackwater Port, coupled with the fact that it is now in the Xiaoice period, the temperature is already low, so as long as the sealing measures are taken, the ice in this ice cellar may not melt all summer.

The workers stacked wooden boxes full of dried fish next to the wall and went out. At this time, there is naturally no ice in this ice cellar, which needs to wait until the Heishui River freezes and send someone to dig it in the river. In other words, this ice cellar is actually more prepared for next year, that is, the fish caught next year do not need to be made into salted fish to prevent spoilage, but can be directly stuffed into the ice cellar for preservation. Including all kinds of meat they slaughtered, it can be preserved inside.

It is not far from the chaos of the Qing troops entering the Central Plains next year, and that time will be a good time for the people on the east coast to collect the displaced people. This year, the people on the east coast have reclaimed some wasteland around Yantai Fortress, Rishiri Island and Blackwater Port, and have also harvested a crop of potatoes one after another, but the harvest is not ideal. Thousands of acres of wasteland have yielded less than 1,500 tonnes of potatoes, with yields almost hitting record lows.

At present, except for a few hundred acres of spring wheat on Rishiri Island, and a small number of sweet potatoes and corn intercropping fields near Yantai Fortress, there is no harvest. The hundreds of tons of grain brought from the mainland have basically gone through this period of consumption, and it seems that in order to successfully withstand the refugee tide in the spring and summer of next year, we will have to find a way to raise some more grain. If it really doesn't work, you can only go to the North Koreans to "borrow" it again.

The Koreans have been plundered many times by the people on the east coast, and even lost the county seat, it is impossible to say that they did not take precautions. But what's the use of being vigilant, when the second batch of local reinforcements comes, the people on the east coast can organize a team of more than 2,000 people, and at that time you can go to the Korean royal capital to borrow grain! (To be continued......)