Chapter 1015 The Reception

Originally the Fishery Fleet had quite a few ships, but they were generally small, miscellaneous, and old—low tonnage, poor condition, basically operating in coastal waters, reaching the Beibu Gulf at most. Now needing to undertake maritime patrols around the Xisha and Dongsha islands, they were clearly inadequate. So Ming Qiu eliminated a batch of ships with standard displacement under 100 tons from the auxiliary boat squadrons and gave them to the Fishery Fleet. Lin Chuanqing could convert them however he wished; the only requirement was maintaining a certain armament level for armed patrols in the waters between Dongsha and Xisha.

Initially the Senate hoped Lin Chuanqing could convert a few whaling ships. Whales were treasures head to tail—especially their oil, a main source of oil in early industry, indispensable for the Senate's industrial system that severely lacked fats. As for baleen and bone plates, their high elasticity also had considerable industrial uses. However, the Great Library threw cold water on the whaling enthusiasts—the South China Sea simply wasn't whale habitat; only occasional passing whales. Before taking Hokkaido or Hawaii, commercial whaling was out of the question.

Thus all newly allocated fishing boats were converted to longline fishing vessels. Conversion wasn't complicated—just adding a large manual winch plus two work boats. Without powered winches, manual deployment and retrieval was slow. After the longline was deployed, unless there were special circumstances, work boats went to check buoys, lines, and catches, and replace bait. Additionally, the hold was converted to a "cold storage"—caught fish were simply processed and stuffed in for preservation. Sailing ships had no refrigeration power, so of course couldn't have gas cold storage. Refrigeration could only be ice blocks wrapped in insulation materials.

Lin Chuanqing invited a Senator with a thermal engineering background to carefully design shipboard cold storage. The insulation layer used multi-layer thermal insulation treatment. For insulation materials, there were many options: besides kapok, sawdust, and diatomaceous earth widely used in Lingao, large amounts of cattail leaves and cattail down were also used. Cattail down had excellent insulation and wasn't afraid of water—cattails evolved this fiber to help their seeds drift with water, and hollow cattail leaves served as moisture barriers.

Cattails were actually the eastern subspecies of ancient Egyptian civilization's most famous plant—papyrus. Ancient Egyptians used cattail leaves' long fibers to make papyrus. In China, besides making cushions, mattresses, and kneeling pads from cattail leaves, or using them for papermaking, cattail down was also an important cold-resistance material.

Since cattails grew well in high-salinity lowlands and wetlands, the Water and Drainage Department planted them extensively for sewage treatment and coastal saline-alkali land improvement. Compared to small amounts of wild kapok from collection and purchase, and sawdust and diatomaceous earth with other uses, cattail leaves and down had become the transmigrator group's cheapest and most effective insulation material they could mass-produce. They were extensively mixed into cotton batting for bedding needed for Operation Engine; pillows for Senators and maids to enjoy soft warmth mostly also contained fragrant cattail down.

Though cattail down production was large, it also had to ensure northern expedition supply. So Lin Chuanqing's refrigerated ships only converted ten—three for the Beibu Gulf region, six for Sanya, and two deployed to Hong Kong—large river estuaries were also places with abundant fish.

The reception's sushi and sashimi were benefits of the refrigerated ships. Hong Shuiyin had originally thought locals might not accept such food, but unexpectedly it was still hugely popular. Platters streamed in endlessly and were quickly demolished.

"This is Guangdong—there's always been a tradition of eating fish raw. If freshwater fish can be eaten raw, saltwater fish certainly can." Shipyard director Shi Jiantao said slightly tipsy, holding his wine glass. "Shunde isn't far from here, and local fish raw is famous..."

Shi Jiantao was in excellent spirits: The H800 Hexie-class construction project he supervised, after stumbling along for a phase, had finally achieved considerable success. Training workers for local shipyards, providing standardized measuring tools and equipment all helped—especially the decisive support from the Planning Bureau: approving establishment of a lumber processing factory in Hong Kong to process wood shipped from Guangdong and Fujian locally, while batch-producing standardized ship materials including masts, shell planks, deck boards, and so on.

These measures greatly accelerated H800 Hexie-class construction progress. Shi Jiantao discovered that natives' learning ability wasn't actually poor—they could even be called full of wisdom. They'd only been blinded by years of conservatism. When someone opened a window and showed a new path, teaching them step by step how to walk it, they quickly caught up and could even draw inferences. Local shipyards, stimulated by economic interest, adapted to the Australians' production mode. Efficiency grew geometrically. The first few Hexie-class ships consumed several months just producing qualified outsourced components in the material preparation stage. But once everything was running smoothly, building one H800 Hexie-class averaged only fifty days. Shi Jiantao built these large transport ships at a rate of four per batch on Hong Kong's simple beach slipways.

Actually, the Hong Kong Shipyard was just executing assembly tasks. Iron frames and ribs needed for shipbuilding were processed in Bopu, then transported to Hong Kong by whale carriers. Simple wooden structural components were subcontracted to various native shipyards and carpentry workshops at the Pearl River mouth, then shipped to Hong Kong Island. More complex wooden structural components were manufactured at the lumber processing factory. Final assembly was completed on beach slipways.

Ultimately, Hong Kong Shipyard completed twenty-eight ships before D-Day Anniversary—not only fully completing the Operation Engine assignment but exceeding it by four ships. These four were converted to fleet colliers.

When Shi Jiantao realized his shipbuilding work would complete on schedule, he got happily drunk—his position in the Senate was now fully secure. Fortune had to be sought through risk.

Today, watching the transport squadron he had personally supervised building about to leave port for Operation Engine, his mood was even better. He drank soda water and fruit juice mixed with rum to his heart's content.

"Your contractors came too?" Hong Shuiyin asked. He had invited local merchants with trade relations today.

"They did. Also Luo Chen's Tiandihui customers."

At the reception gathered a group of natives in silk and satin—"upper-class people"—among whom mingled some scholars in Confucian robes. Hong Shuiyin, as the local commercial director and external liaison, held his wine glass while conversing and laughing among the crowd, schmoozing adeptly with the local native collaborators.

The local native collaborators were mostly entrepreneurial small and medium landlords from Kowloon Peninsula across St. Mary's Bay and further north in Dongguan and Xiangshan counties. Affected by the Ming dynasty's commercial economy wave, they had long ago begun growing various cash crops, mainly indigo and mulberries for silkworms. Indigo, raw silk, and silk fabrics were all major export goods for the Senate. Thus they had always been targets Hong Shuiyin actively cultivated.

Attracting them to provide export products for the Foreign Trade Company and promoting Tiandihui's services was currently one of Hong Shuiyin's main tasks.

These small and medium landlords' initial cooperation with Hong Kong Station somewhat involved "voluntary coercion"—because of the Fubo Army's "fearsome martial prowess" at the Pearl River mouth, plus bayonets and gunboats lingering nearby, no one dared refuse Hong Kong Station's "trade briefings."

However, once such trade relationships were formally established, they quickly discovered that cooperating with Hong Kong Station's Australians was much, much better than cooperating with all the crooked merchants in the cities. Thus relations between the two quickly warmed up, and Tiandihui also took the opportunity to develop customers locally—Hong Kong Island had poor conditions for agricultural development, so Tiandihui had little room for action.

Of course, there were also those who actively sought to cooperate with the Australians—Liu Deshan was one of them. After witnessing the Fubo Army's discipline at Sanliang Town, he quickly conceived of doing business with the Australians.

Liu Deshan's business was trading local products between Shandong and Guangdong. He had long heard that the Australians did huge business and Australian goods were extremely popular. Now with Australians close at hand, the opportunity naturally couldn't be missed. So once the Pearl River Basin punitive campaign ended, he ran to Hong Kong, found Hong Shuiyin, and requested to trade Shandong goods.

Hong Shuiyin was very interested in his proposal. Though Liu Deshan was a small merchant without strong capital, he knew business routes well. As a Shandong native who had long traded in the Pearl River Delta region, he was familiar with conditions in both places—a very suitable trade agent. Moreover, his influence wasn't great, unlikely to become uncontrollable.

With Hong Shuiyin's support, Liu Deshan quickly became "Wanyou's" agent, starting to handle Australian goods. He was very familiar with Pearl River Delta town conditions, able to penetrate villages and towns that Guangzhou Station previously couldn't reach. He had preliminarily established a township commercial network within Dongguan County.

This township commercial network, through itinerant peddlers and local agency store models, heavily promoted Lingao-produced daily necessities like matches, new-style iron farm tools, and cheap patent medicines to townships, while purchasing various local specialties from villages. Although business was trivial and not very profitable, it at least penetrated Lingao's goods into rural areas. As goods penetrated, concepts would follow.

Liu Deshan himself also made a small fortune. Though he hadn't earned too much money, his shrewd mind already sensed the Australians had bigger opportunities behind them. As long as he was patient, the days of great wealth lay ahead.

At this moment he stood in the hall, following the Australians' example holding a glass of kvass, watching Hong Shuiyin's every move—hoping this "chief" might reveal some more news. He had already detected some scent from Hong Kong Station's big purchases in the previous phase—greater opportunities would soon descend on Hong Kong Island.

(End of Chapter)