Zhu Youxiao's vision of the fishing industry is indeed very promising, as long as the factory ship is large enough, then it will become very safe to go to the ocean to fish. Because a big ship can withstand wind and waves, as long as the ship is big enough, the possibility of sinking is not too great.

And the fishing industry is not only promising in places like Hokkaido and Alaska, but also the Bohai Sea Fishing Grounds, Zhoushan Fishing Grounds, South China Sea Coastal Fisheries, and Beibu Gulf Fishing Grounds, which are China's four largest fishing grounds, are also very efficient during the flood season.

According to later estimates, China's coastal fisheries catch 8 million tonnes, beyond which sustainability will be compromised. In later generations, China's coastal areas were seriously overfished, and fishing boats in ports everywhere brought back some small fish fry, which were caught before they grew up.

Some people may wonder why the marine fishery is so promising and why has it not been developed? Even coastal catches are not too large.

The reasons are very simple, one is the problem of shipbuilding. There were not so many galleons in this era, and they were rarely used as fishing boats. After all, the shipbuilding industry relied on the development of civil forces in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty's disregard for maritime interests made the development of the shipbuilding industry relatively slow.

The second is that the storage technology is not good, because the country has a salt tax. What fisherman has the luxury of salting fish with a lot of salt? Even if it is pickled with cheap private salt, it is not afraid to sell it on the market, which not only affects the interests of the government's salt tax, but also touches the interests of salt dealers.

Therefore, even if the fishermen are fishing inshore, they can only dry their catch, but that is more troublesome, and sometimes there is no sun. It may stink before it dries. Not like pickled fish. Just hang it up and let it dry until it's half dry. There is not much demand for sunlight.

Without the support of cheap, legal salt, let alone any distant-water fishery, even if it can be driven to the vast sea to fish, the fish will stink if it is not brought back.

Therefore, to develop fisheries, one is to have large ships and marine positioning technology. The big ship is now in Daming, and the sextant can also be positioned very well. Second, there must be salt, and Daming now has a surplus of salt. Theoretically, there is enough salt to support the fishery. Third, there must be a market, can a large number of pickled fish appear in the market and be sold? What if the people don't like it? China does not have the religious practice of eating only fish on fasting days, as Europeans do.

Zhu Youxiao thought about it for a while, and suddenly thought of a way to get the best of both worlds.

Immediately let people summon Shen Yun. Shen Yan, who was handling government affairs in the cabinet, had to put down what he was doing and came to the Qianqing Palace.

"Your Majesty, what's the important matter in summoning the ministers?" Shen Yan asked the emperor, and Zhu Youxiao said slightly: "Aiqing's expectation is good, now I am short of food in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty." When I think about it, both inshore and distant-water fisheries have a lot to offer. ”

Immediately, Zhu Youxiao said his thoughts. "There are countless fish in the ocean, although it cannot be said to be inexhaustible. But with contemporary fishing methods, it is inexhaustible. If we can obtain a large amount of fish from the sea, we can live countless people, and the problem of food shortage can be greatly solved. ”

"Your Majesty, it's true that there are fish in this sea, but the fish stinks and rots before they can be brought back." Shen Yan couldn't laugh or cry, the emperor's thinking was really out of the box.

"It can be salted."

"If there is a large amount of pickled fish in the market, the salt tax will inevitably be affected." Shen Yu said, Zhu Youxiao smiled: "Although the salt tax is affected, although the salt tax is important, it is more important for the people to have a full stomach." Let's calculate an account first and see if the court has lost or gained. ”

Shen Yun immediately listened attentively, and Zhu Youxiao said: "Now the salt is twenty wen a catty, and two taels of salt are used to marinate a catty of fish. If a pound of pickled fish is sold for 5 yuan, then the imperial court still earns it, and the cost of catching fish in large boats during the offshore fishing season is very low. Because although pickled fish will be welcomed by the people in the case of saltiness, the salt tax will not be greatly impacted, and salt must still be used where salt should be used. Even if it was influential, the imperial court would be able to make money from the fishing industry. The cost of these pickled fish will not exceed 2 wen a catty, even if it is sold for 5 wen a catty, we still have 3 wen to earn, which is enough to make up for the loss of the salt tax, not to mention that the salt tax will not be reduced after the people become rich, but will continue to rise. ”

"The main thing is that it is very cost-effective to develop fisheries. It can bring a lot of employment, because we need a large number of fishing boats to develop the fishing industry, so we need more shipbuilders and loggers. The output of the fishery is enough to supplement the food consumed by these shipbuilders and lumberjacks, and there is a large surplus. At the same time, the development of fisheries allows us to migrate in large numbers from the Ming Dynasty. After the immigrants, they can not only develop fisheries, but also animal husbandry and agriculture, and can also promote various maritime trade. Zhu Youxiao's account was calculated, Shen Yun was a little dumbfounded, "And a large amount of fishery can allow me to feed more non-agricultural population, such as today's frequent disasters, the first consideration is how to feed the people." ”

"Then, your majesty may guarantee that you will be able to catch a cheap catch?" Shen Yun was also very moved after hearing this account, but he didn't know much about the ocean.

"In the coastal waters of my Daming, Bohai Bay, Zhoushan and other places, there will be fishing floods every year, a large number of fish schools are in groups, only need to improve boats, nets, you can catch a large number of fish, a fisherman a fishing season, its harvest is more than ten times the harvest of farming. And in the overseas barbarian lands, there are more fertile fishing grounds. Today, we are the most populous and productive country in the world. As long as you put your resources into the ocean, you are fully capable of conquering those barbarian lands. ”

"Your Majesty, if you want to develop the fishing industry, the fishermen still can't afford the salt tax, and the imperial court must approve low-cost salt for them to use." Shen Yu was convinced, although he had reservations about bullying weak and small ethnic groups everywhere, but he was completely convinced by the method that the emperor came up with to feed the people of the Ming Dynasty with fishery.

"I decided to use the fishing company as the main force to develop the fishing industry, and the fishermen lacked the funds to build large fishing boats. We want the Cabinet to introduce a bill to regulate fishermen and fishing companies across the country as soon as possible. The main purpose is to adopt a quota fishing system for the fishing of large fishing vessels in the coastal fishing grounds of Daming, so as to avoid the destruction of fishing grounds due to overfishing. Ordinary fishermen if they want to own large fishing boats. They must also be allowed to set up fishing companies. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify the ...... of the fishing moratorium"

The quota system was very advanced. Before the appearance of trawlers. It is almost impossible to deplete offshore fishing grounds.

However, after the advent of trawlers, the introduction of a quota system will inevitably be under the request for a substantial reduction in fishery resources. Moreover, the quota system will be adopted at that time, which will harm the interests of fishery operators.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao decided to set fishing quotas before developing large-scale fisheries, making quotas a red line that cannot be crossed. In addition, the moratorium should be widespread, before trawlers appear.

Although there is no official moratorium on this year, due to the constraints of navigation technology and fishing costs, the fishing is staggered by the spawning period of the species. However, with the continuous development of technology, it will one day become possible to go to sea all year round.

The fishing moratorium can also be introduced in advance, although the fishermen's small fishing boats can be exempted from the restrictions. But fishing companies with large-tonnage vessels must be restricted.

Shen Yu came out after spending nearly an hour in the Qianqing Palace, and soon after the cabinet formulated the "Daming Fisheries Act" and established a Ministry of Fisheries.

The bill stipulates that all fishing vessels exceeding 500 (about 150 tons) along the coast must register with the Ministry of Fisheries and establish a fishing company.

Fishery companies in the Ming fishing grounds, the implementation of quota fishing, the specific quota is the best, is still being verified. However, this does not prevent the establishment of quotas first, which is set at 150,000 tons per year for the fishing grounds in Bohai Bay. The annual quota for the Zhoushan fishery is set at 200,000 tons.

At the same time, the Cabinet issued a decree that the Imperial Court would grant special salt to the fishing company. The price is 1 penny and 2 catties. At the same time, the establishment criteria for a fishing company are stipulated, and there must be at least one fishing vessel with a tonnage of more than 150 yuan and a registered capital of 3,000 yuan.

The Daming Fisheries Act also stipulates that whaling must be licensed by the imperial court, and fishing companies that do not have a whaling license are not allowed to kill whales that strayed outside the port.

The reason for the promulgation of such whaling restrictions is mainly due to the fact that once the private whaling ships have tasted the sweetness of whaling, they must only need whale oil and not whale meat in the process of whaling. It will throw whale meat back into the sea in the same way that modern Westerners did in whaling, in the pursuit of getting more whale oil from a single voyage for whaling.

If the whale is harvested by a royal consortium, the whale meat can be cut and salted and then transported back to Daming, thus avoiding wasting resources. And compared with whale oil, whale meat is what Daming can make ordinary people fill their stomachs.

After the introduction of the "Daming Fishery Act", under the report of the "Daming Daily", the entire Daming businessmen soon realized the huge profits contained in the marine fishery.

Fishing boats are not a problem at all, in the past two years, the official and the royal consortium have ordered a large number of ships, and private shipyards have received a lot of orders, and the shipbuilding industry of Daming has developed very rapidly in the past two years. In particular, the shipyard invested by Royal Capital, after the recovery of Liaodong, invested in two large-scale shipyards in the Liaodong Bay area.

Freshness is not a problem, and the imperial court has a special price for salt.

Immediately, many businessmen were agitated and began to contact the shipyard to order fishing boats. Especially for the merchants of Beizhili, the fishing industry has become a new investment highlight.

The royal consortium is naturally indispensable, the royal consortium first increased investment in the shipbuilding industry, and the Ming Dynasty needed more warships, merchant ships, and fishing boats.

At the same time, the royal consortium began to establish a fishing company and build a whaling fleet. It is true that the big ones are relatively new to whaling, but soon the problem is completely solved, because the Dutch do.

There are now a large number of Dutch employees in the Royal Navy, all of whom had been captured in previous naval battles, and the Dutch abandoned the idea of ransom because the ransom price was too high. Therefore, in order not to be thrown into the mine to mine, these captured Dutch could only choose to serve the Ming Navy.

The Dutch in those years invested heavily in whaling, and a whaling fleet was often accompanied by tens of thousands of Dutch soldiers. Many of the captured Dutch officers and soldiers had been exposed to the whaling industry, so the problem of unfamiliarity with the business faced by the Daming whaling industry was quickly resolved.

Except for the limited access of private capital in the whaling industry, private capital in other fishing industries can enter, but the fishing quota of coastal fisheries has to be purchased at a cost. When the amount of quota purchased exceeds the quota set by the imperial court, the imperial court will consider increasing the fishing quota. In the event of a decline in fishery production, fishing quotas will be reduced to protect fishery resources.

In addition to buying quotas in offshore fisheries, where fisheries are abundant, the royal consortium will carry out fishing. The main fishing area is still overseas, and the Hokkaido fishing grounds are clearly the first to be targeted, with a large number of fish and whales.

At the end of the year, the Royal Navy also made plans to escort 30,000 migrants to Hokkaido after the beginning of next spring, so as to provide enough labor for fishing in the area. In addition, a thousand marines will be sent to Hokkaido, and the imperial court will also establish an administrative district in Hokkaido.

At the same time, in the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the Navy will use the Hokkaido base as a supply point to explore the Alaska region of North America. (To be continued......)