The whaling ship "Great Tailwind" sails alone on the icy waters of the Whale Sea.

"Da Shunfeng" is a professional whaling ship built by Dengzhou Shipyard in the first year of Longdao, according to the fashionable professional saying among the navigators of Qi now:

The standard displacement of this ship is 220 tons; twin masts; Different from the traditional Chinese ship type, the bow deck of this ship is relatively straight, and there is no bow tower, so the speed is relatively fast; The stern is tilted inward, and the rear mast is equipped with a winch and noose, and the caught whale can be quickly dragged along the inward stern.

The faster the whale gets on board, the less meat is lost to sharks attracted by whale blood.

In order to better deal with the huge whales, the "Great Tailwind" installed a whaling gun on the bow and on each side, which can fire harpoons with ropes, and can attack whales from a distance, once hit, whether it is a ferocious humpback whale or a huge blue whale, there is almost no chance of escape.

Of course, when the harpoons are not installed, these three whaling guns can also fire 3-pound shells, and their main guns are usually aimed at pirates or smuggling ships.

Qi Customs is a powerful department under the joint management of the Ministry of Households, the Criminal Department, and the Ministry of War, and any merchant ship that has not passed the customs acceptance and tax payment cannot enter the ports of Qi at will, and smuggling ships are the great enemies of Qi Customs.

As a result, armed ships such as whaling ships have the obligation to capture smuggling ships – the owners and crews receive 10 percent of the cargo carried by the smuggling ships as a reward.

Therefore, the benefits that whaling ships can receive, that is quite substantial.

Captain Zhang Shun was wearing a thick cotton jacket and a woolen shirt inside, standing at the bow of the boat with his sleeves on, looking out.

His position is not suitable for spotting whales, and there are no smuggling boats on this side of the Whale Sea, and even if there is, this kind of work is also the work of the foremast, and Zhang Shun's purpose here is not to personally find any prey.

He just loved the sight of standing on the bow of the boat and watching his boat ride the waves in the sea.

That's right, own ship.

Zhang Shun was born into a family of Wubao owners in Dengzhou, and when he was a child, he followed the elders of the family to the sea, fishing, or running to Jiangnan or Liaodong to do business.

Therefore, the economic situation of the Zhang family belonged to the very wealthy category at that time.

When the Qi army captured Dengzhou, Zhang Shunjia also participated in the Wubao main alliance against the Qi army, but fortunately, the area where the Zhang family was located was at the end of the Qi army's attack sequence, so they had ample time to quickly turn the ship around and surrender to the Qi army.

At that time, the lords of the dock fort who were directly defeated, whether they were local tyrants or gentry who had made a name for themselves, were all confiscated without exception, and their families became commoners and scattered into exile.

But the dock lord who has the opportunity to surrender voluntarily will end up much better.

For example, Zhang Shun's family, after the war, the Qi army punished their family by only fining almost half of the land and ships under their names, and forcibly taking over all their tenants.

Zhang Shun's family still maintained a lot of money and grain, half of the land and ships, and after a few years of operation, the state of Qi, which was still the capital governor's mansion at that time, began to encourage private shipping and whaling operations, Zhang Shun immediately seized the opportunity, took out the money and grain stored at home, and then brought a grain stamp from the bank to buy a new whaling ship of his own.

Since then, Zhang Shun has gone to sea three to four times a year, hunting at least one whale each time.

In the case of the more common minke whales, a whale can bring Zhang Shun about 4 tons of whale meat, about 500 kilograms of whale oil and other whale products.

Such a whale, sent to Lushun or Dengzhou, can probably be exchanged for 7 to 80,000 catties of food stamps, half of the cost of the voyage, and the salary of the crew must be tens of thousands of catties, but Zhang Shun himself can still have about 10,000 catties left, which is even higher than the salary of middle-class officials in Qi State.

Moreover, since the ship belonged to him, Zhang Shun did not have to perform special tasks of the navy, and if he needed to be temporarily recruited, the navy would have to pay him a hiring fee.

If he is not called, he can decide his own actions - such as this time, at the cost of time, in order to get a better harvest at a time, running so far away from the whale sea.

In fact, the "Great Shunfeng" has already hunted a sub-adult cloth whale this time, this whale is estimated to weigh more than 15 tons, and Zhang Shun has obtained as much as 6 tons of whale meat alone, in addition to 600 kilograms of whale oil.

It is said that this income is already very satisfactory, and Zhang Shun's choice should be to return to Qi and hand over the meat and oil to the official in exchange for food stamps.

But Zhang Shun did not return home, but continued to sail north along the coastline, walking and walking.

His goal was to find a suitable port north of the Goryeo Peninsula.

This is an expedition mission issued by the Ministry of Qi State, and a private captain who is confident and does not have a mission can take the initiative to undertake such an open mission, and Qi will give a rich reward to those who complete the mission, both in terms of reputation and finance.

To put it simply, the captain who can complete this task can get an economic reward of up to 500,000 catties of food stamps, and at least twenty credits at the same time - in the country of Qi, civilians only need ten credits to become citizens, and citizens can even be knighted if they get ten more credits!

The rewards were so great that Zhang Shun felt it was worth the risk.

Zhang Shun stood at the bow of the boat, looking at the faint coastline not far away, as if looking for the future of himself and his family.

The mission announced by the Ministry of War requires that the port must be navigable half of the year, so that the Navy will have time to build the port, so that future whaling ships sailing in the whale sea can have a nearby opportunity to rest and dispose of whale products.

In addition, the General Staff of the Qi Army hoped that this port could be located in the north of the Jurchens, and if it could get in touch with the Jurchen Alliance, it would naturally be best to continue to maintain pressure on the Jurchen Tartars from all sides.

If the Jurchen alliance has collapsed, then use this port as a base to send reclamation troops, which can still stab Tartar in the back at a critical moment.

So far, Zhang Shun's "Great Shunfeng" has been sailing in the Whale Sea for more than 10 days, and has continued to sail for several days after entering a narrow strait along a large long island, but he has not been able to find a suitable place to build a port.

All he could see was the endless mountains along the coastline to the left of his ship's side—the Jurchens called this mountain Mount Sikhot, and they said that this mountain was a sacred mountain, and there was no boundary at all.

However, Zhang Shun believes that this kind of nonsense legend can only prove that the fishskin tartar is too unknowledgeable - this mountain has a southern margin, how can it not have a northern margin?

Besides, the document on Zhang Shun's ship told him that the Molong River, where the birth of the Nuzhen gathered, was north of Mount Sihote, and that big river must have an outlet to the sea, and that outlet to the sea was the treasure land that best suited the naval goals.