Of the two expedition vessels, the "Tsunai Hai" will sail north to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River, where it will use trawling nets to catch migratory salmon; The "Fubo" will go to the waters near the Kuril Islands, on the one hand, to investigate the local sea information, and on the other hand, and more importantly, to investigate the famous local saury fishing information.

In a few moments, the huge number of saury in the Sea of Okhotsk will begin to migrate southward, and it is appropriate to fish in the waters near the island. If the expedition ships of the people on the east coast are equipped with some combination lamps that use large condensers, then they can carry out light trapping at night, and they can easily catch more than ten tons of saury in one night. The local Ainu fishermen don't know how to fish, they just drive small boats that are a little bigger, day after day, year after year, and use their own low-quality nets to catch some pelagic fish in inland rivers or offshore waters, and they don't even know what the fishing is all about.

Therefore, science and technology is the primary productive force, guarding the Kuril Fishing Ground (that is, Hokkaido Fishing Ground), the world's largest fishing ground, if coupled with advanced fishing technology, and scientific fishery and marine knowledge, then this fishing ground will become the natural sea granary of the people on the east coast. Moreover, this granary seems to be endless: salmon, saury, Far Eastern sardines, mackerel and other high-yielding fish are all abundant here; In addition to these, the waters around Sakhalin are home to a large number of crabs and molluscs, making it truly an inexhaustible treasure trove.

The situation in the Southern Ming Dynasty is collapsing day by day, and by next year, as the war deepens. The number of displaced people will usher in another period of explosive growth. And this also means that the number of Ming refugees collected by the people on the east coast will increase geometrically. So. The question of how to ensure the feeding of such a large number of displaced people (perhaps tens of thousands or even tens of thousands) will surely become a sharp sword hanging over the heads of the people on the east coast. Roughly calculated, it is conservatively estimated that the food needs of this order of magnitude of displaced people will be more than 4,000 tons, and if the number is too large, it may require a staggering nearly 10,000 tons of food.

What is the concept of nearly 10,000 tons of grain? At present, the total annual output of all kinds of grain in the Republic of China on the east coast of China is only more than 20,000 tons, and this is still the grain output after the agricultural bases such as Xihu Fort and Dafengbao began to have stable output, and if it was in the previous two years, the total annual grain output might be more than 10,000 tons. There is a huge amount of food needed to feed tens of thousands of displaced people, and if there is a certain amount of surplus, the people on the east coast must prepare at least 6,000 tons of food (with 20,000 people as the upper limit).

Where will these 6,000 tons of food be raised? Know the way. Australia can't be counted on in the short term, and it is difficult to have surplus food to support the north for the time being. It is even more unrealistic to transport from the mainland, not to mention the barrier of tens of thousands of miles of sea distance, even this capacity is completely unable to undertake the transportation task of so much grain. Well, it's only locally solved!

The local solution is nothing more than the following. First, within the territory that he can control, and this Mo Ming has been working on it a while ago. The first step was to drain the swamp near the Yantai fortress, build an artificial reservoir, and reclaim the barren land. Furthermore. Some potatoes and spring wheat are also currently being sown in Blackwater Port and Rishiri Island. However, the common denominator of all of these things is that the sown area is small, the land is not fertile enough, and many of them are raw land. At the worst, the total grain production may not be too high and can only be used as a supplement.

The second is to buy grain from neighboring Korea, Japan, and even the indigenous people of Sakhalin. Not to mention that it will cost a lot of money, even if these countries themselves do not have much to spare. Not to mention the bitter Sakhalin natives, North Korea's grain production is just like that, so-so, but don't forget that there are millions of people to feed, and it is basically difficult to sell surplus grain. If you look at the matter of wild boar skins requisitioning grain from North Korea back then, you will know that it is not that it is unwilling to give, it is really not! And the situation in Japan may not be as good as in North Korea, because of its larger population, food will only be more scarce. Therefore, the purchase of food from Korea, Japan, and even the countries of Indochina can only be used as a supplement, as a small part of the food source, and cannot be relied on.

Third, and that is fishing, which is the most reasonable and most likely way for people on the East Coast to think of right now. If you can still say such things as the most abundant fishing grounds in the world, and you have certain fishing boats and equipment, as well as advanced fishing skills and knowledge, then you can really only doubt whether your IQ is at a normal level. Now that you know that the local resources are so abundant, it is time to start preparing as soon as possible.

According to Mo Ming's instructions, Sergeant Johnson prepared to form a fishing team with hundreds of Korean fishermen who had been captured before and 50 sailors from the east coast in the city. Of course, when the fishing team has manpower, this fishing boat must also be available. There are many large timbers around Blackwater Port, and although these timbers are not suitable for building warships, they are also suitable for building merchant ships and fishing boats. However, there are also practical difficulties in shipbuilding, such as the lack of professional talents, and the supporting industries closely related to the upstream and downstream of shipbuilding. It is important to know that after so many years of development, the East Coast Republic of China currently has a small shipyard in Xinhua Port, and many of its supporting equipment such as canvas, ropes, anchor chains, etc. need to be shipped from the mainland, which shows the difficulty of opening a shipyard overseas. People, plant, equipment, shipyards, timber handling, etc., each of which can be a roadblock.

However, it is not difficult to build large boats, and those small boats that have little technical content and do not require any additional equipment are not difficult to build. When the fishing season comes, as long as these small boats are put into the big boat, and then everyone goes out to sea directly in the big boat, and then they go to the fishing in small boats after arriving at the place, which is not low efficiency at all.

After these three ways, it is estimated that at the beginning, it will not be possible to get so much grain every year. But there is no way, who makes the East Coast people not have enough strength now. In fact, now these boats and hundreds of people have already made a great leap forward, and the fight is a hole that the Tartars have just finished wreaking havoc and the local control of the Ming Dynasty government has further declined. Anyway, let's build up the stronghold first, after all, we can't just watch those homeless people die in the war and starvation and be indifferent. The displaced people were immediately sent to Blackwater Port and Rishiri Island to recuperate, and then waited for ships to be transported to the port of Jinshan in Australia.

In the beginning, due to the lack of capacity, it may only be possible to transport a few thousand people a year, but that is already remarkable. In the past, a few thousand people were more than a million yuan in immigration costs, and it was necessary to sell dozens or millions of cotton cloths in Europe to earn it back. So much money is fully worth all the investment in the country.

After the departure of the "Fubo" and "Zhuhai", the "Baobab" and "Merchant" moored in the harbor were also loaded with cement, lime, and about 70,000 large bricks for the city wall, and sailed along the northwest wind to Zhifu Island in the south. The brick kiln factory outside the city of Heishui Port has been in operation for about a month and is currently running well. The work of making bricks can be completed by women and children, and the efficiency is higher after proficiency, according to the current rhythm of one kiln in three days, there is no pressure at all for each kiln to produce more than 20,000 standard bricks.

In addition to most of the bricks produced for the construction of Yantai Fortress in the south, a small part of the remaining bricks began to be supplied to the local construction of brick houses in Heishui Port. According to the idea of the technician sent by the local construction bureau, because of the cold climate and heavy snowfall in winter, the local style houses on the east coast are very unsuitable. Under his plan, the houses on this side of the port of Blackwater should be built into the same large spire type of building as in Russia, so that the snow can slide down, and the roof can no longer use the thin tiles of the past, and must use thicker ones.

In addition, every house should use a fireplace, which is for winter heating. In winter, Sakhalin is violent, with a bitter and cold west wind, heavy snowfall, and the frozen world that can almost make people feel cold through their bones. Therefore, it is necessary to build a heating fireplace in every house, which uses charcoal as fuel and exhausts smoke through a pipe chimney. A shed will also be built above the chimney to shelter from rain and snow.

This is a huge amount of work. Especially at a time when both Yantai Fortress and Rishiri Island are diverting a large amount of building materials, it will take several years to complete the construction of the Blackwater Port. Faced with such a situation, Sergeant Johnson decided to suspend most of the construction of the Blackwater Harbor, first fired a batch of refractory bricks, and then began to build a large-scale wheel kiln to greatly increase the production capacity of bricks.

However, considering that it is now the end of July, it can be predicted that after the refractory bricks are fired and the construction of the wheel kiln is completed, Sakhalin Island is likely to be about to enter winter, at least the temperature must not be far from zero, and the time left for everyone to burn bricks is only a short week or two.

After carefully weighing it, Mo Ming still approved the proposal. To this end, he even lowered the amount of bricks for the city wall of Yantai Fortress provided by the Heishui Brick Kiln Factory to 50,000 per month to ensure that Heishui Port had enough bricks for its own use to build the wheel kiln. Mo Ming believes that with so many bricks in supply, coupled with local materials, the Yantai fortress should be mostly completed before the Qing troops officially enter Shandong in June and July next year. (To be continued......)