On the rough sea, a little white sail undulated in the deep blue waves, this is a sailing ship that is being eliminated by iron-hulled steamships, the tonnage is 865 tons, the mast is slightly tilted, it can collect the wind, and the speed is very fast when sailing in the wind. The sail surface can be divided into three parts: foremast, mainmast and bow. The foremast consists of the brig foremast, foremast, second and third sails, the mainmast includes the foremath and the top mast, and the bow includes the bow jib and the spinnaker. This is a typical two-masted schooner.

At the end of the 19th century, when a small schooner with a low-powered steam engine and no full-time engineer was becoming obsolete, the North American schooner was battling the raging seas.

On the bridge, the captain wearing a short woolen coat and a captain's hat picked up a telescope from time to time to observe the surroundings, and unexpectedly, the ship seemed to be an Oriental, and his dark face seemed to be very calm.

"Turn the rudder left and catch up!"

Li Han shouted at the helmsman, this small sailing ship is a sailing ship of Beiyang Shipping, but this "small boat" built in 1864 is not engaged in shipping, it is a whaling ship, the ship is built very strong, the ribs and hull plates are all assembled with steel nails, the sails are wide, and the stern outline is open and beautiful. It is ideal for driving on rough seas north of 40 degrees north latitude.

After the decline of the American whaling industry, the ship had been idle in the harbor for several years, during which time it had served as a trading ship, but was eventually eliminated by iron-hulled steam ships. Idle in the ports of the United States. Until the end of last year. It was bought by a guest from the East for a very low price of $6,400, and after being renovated and refurbished in the shipyard, it sailed out of the harbor and set out again into the angry sea.

Built 27 years ago, this small ship is sturdy enough to sail in harsh climates, agile enough to sail across the ocean in the harshest climates, and of course as a whaling ship, it doesn't have a large crew on board. There was only one captain, one first mate, one boatswain, one cook, and twenty-eight sailors -- thirty-two in all.

Unlike other whaling vessels, the whaling ship was refurbished at a U.S. shipyard to remove the refinery and add layers of cork and sawdust to the refinery and cargo hold to form a 1.5-foot-thick insulation layer – which is even thicker than that of a fresh meat freezer to ensure that the hold is sealed and insulated. Even during the two-month voyage, the ice carried by the ship remained frozen. But a month ago. The ice in the cabin has been replaced by ice taken from icebergs near the North Pole, between which hundreds of tons of fresh, neatly cut whale meat are placed, and even on the deck, bags of bone meal are piled up, which will be used to meet the demand for meat in the Special Administrative Region, and as for bone meal, which can be used as fertilizer, although there is no demand for bone meal by local farmers in North Korea, the experimental farm of the Tongjian Office needs a lot of fertilizer.

At this time, the freezer was already full of whale meat, but Li Han, as the captain of the ship, hoped to hunt another whale to obtain more whale meat, so as to reduce the cost of the voyage.

"If you catch another whale, even if you are small, you can get more than a dozen tons of meat and a few tons of bone meal, which is almost enough for the cost of this voyage......"

With this in his heart, Li Han once again took the telescope to search the sea, and for the past two days, the ship has been tracking a school of fish, which is a very small yellow croaker, but the number is very large and stretches for several kilometers. This yellow croaker is food for right whales, and if you're lucky, you might catch another whale or two.

For whaling, Li Han is not an expert, and can even be said to be a layman, but he has gained knowledge about whaling by relying on more than a dozen books on whaling, and he is completely new to this industry. Just like the 32 crew members on this whaling ship, one-third of the fishermen from the coastal area of Shandong Province are born, and most of the others are just swimmers, and they are completely unfamiliar with the sea, that is, the coastal fishermen are only fishing in the offshore waters, so to speak, for each of them, the ocean is unfamiliar, and the whales are also unfamiliar.

It was because of this strangeness that it took them two months -- until ten days earlier, when a group of whales had been discovered -- a full twenty-six whales, and when the whales were found, the two whaling cannons in the bow were immediately busy, and by the time the whales disappeared, the sea was already red, and then nine humpback whales were dragged aboard, and the freezer chamber, which had been full of ice, was soon filled with whale meat, and over the next ten days, several more whales were caught, thus filling the empty freezer with fresh meat.

Just as Li Han imagined at the beginning, the sea can provide sufficient meat for the SAR, and this whale meat is exactly what the SAR needs, not only for the police department and schools, but also for the laborers, and now the whale meat loaded on the ship is enough for tens of thousands of people to eat for a month, compared to pork or beef, it is cheap enough -- there is almost no cost except the cost of navigation, and the vast ocean is an inexhaustible pasture.

"Ding Ding ......"

Suddenly, a hurried bell sounded on the mast, interrupting Li Han's thoughts, and the shouts of lookouts came from the ship at the same time.

"Whale spotting!"

Sure enough, Li Han's conjecture came true, and they found right whales, although there were not many, but there were five or six of them.

"It's a pity that the ship can't hold that much meat!"

It's a pity that Li Han saw that those right whales were busy eating in the yellow croaker school, clumsy but happy, and didn't care about the slowly approaching sailboat full of blood. They weave through the schools of fish, their mouths wide open, and they keep bringing the poor little yellow croaker into their bellies.

Sometimes, they will also stop and rest for a while, as if they are tired of eating, and several silver-white water sprays are more than ten meters above the surface of the water.

At this time, from the top of the mast, its black back floated on the surface of the sea, like a pile of rocks, and at first glance it was impossible to make out what they were, as if it had walked across the plain, and it was impossible to distinguish these stones like those that had emerged from the black mound.

"Bang, bang......"

In two successive cannon sounds, the whaling fork dragged the rope towards the two whales, at the moment of hitting the whale, the whale that seemed to be resting swung in horror, but the swing was only a moment, the explosives contained in the whaling fork were immediately detonated, the body of the struggling whale was slammed, and the sea surface was instantly dyed a piece of blood red, in that piece of blood red, the whale that was still struggling kept swinging its tail fin, slapping the red water.

"Quick, drag it up!"

Amid the excited shouts of the sailors, Li Shouguo, who was operating the guns in the bow, turned around and shouted loudly.

"Captain, are you still firing?"

By this time he had reloaded the cartridge and put a new whaling fork into the barrel, and now that the whale had not swam far, it was still urgent to fire again, but he had to wait for the captain's order to pay attention to orders and obedience on the sea.

"If you can't fit it, these two can fill the cabin!"

After the whale was dragged onto the ship, the blood flowed down the deck, and the crew immediately picked up the saw blades and hooks, and began to get busy, because to keep it fresh, it meant that the sailors had to race against time, and the whale was cut in half before it could breathe. Then, one after another, peeling, boneless, liver scraping, meat picking, oil extraction...... Lumps of heavy outer fat with skin and ordinary lean meat are dragged into the cabin, and the lean meat with the best taste at the tail is packed into wooden crates, and even the internal organs such as whale intestines and hearts are washed with seawater and then put in bags and sent to cold storage.

Finally, along with the meat on the bones, it was necessary to cut them with a knife, and the twenty men were busy for several hours, until nightfall, when the exhausted people were not idle, and by this time the cook had prepared a sumptuous feast for the sailors with the palm-sized "minced meat" scraped from the whale bones.

And Li Han, who was standing on the bridge, looked at those tired sailors, but what he thought of was the bloody scene before, whales eat fish, people kill whales, and people, creatures and nature compete with each other ferociously, perhaps, this is the law of the jungle, and the law of the sea. Turning his gaze to the sailors who were sitting on the deck, holding a dinner basin and enjoying the fruits of their labor, the corners of Li Han's lips couldn't help but raise slightly, although this time it was only two months to go to sea, but in these two months, these sailors who had never gone deep into the sea, quickly familiar with the sea, from the initial seasickness to the current accustomed sea, a qiē is so fast, in the two months of sailing, they have never set foot on land, but on this ship to compete with the sea, and then understand and get used to the sea.

Someday, they will grow into real sailors, but it seems that there are still too few people!

Thinking like this in his heart, Li Han even regretted it a little, he shouldn't have bought such a "small boat" for cheapness, maybe he should have bought a larger steel-hulled sailing boat, in that case, there could be hundreds of sailors on board, and more whales could be caught, and like this "small boat", only a few dozen sailors could be trained.

"When we return to the Special Economic Zone, we will see how the benefits of this trip are!"

Income, Li Han knew that if he wanted to expand the fleet or want larger ships, he needed to use the huge profits to convince the adults, more precisely, to convince the Unified Supervision Office that whaling was definitely a profitable industry, not only profitable, but also a reserve of sailors for the future establishment of a navy.

"Captain, now that the cabin is full of meat, shall we go home, or ......"

When the first mate's words reached his ears, Li Han glanced at the stars in the sky, and then commanded the first mate.

"Go home!" (To be continued......)