King of Mercenaries

Chapter 320: Try whaling

Views:

Waking up early the next morning, Marin patted his sister-in-law Felice's PP and said with a smile:

"I really didn't expect, Felice, you are still a chick, and your husband never touched you?" Marin really didn't expect that the ferocious-looking Felice turned out to be an original. You know, Felice has been married for more than two years.

"My former husband was a fool. He couldn't even take care of himself when he ate and went to the toilet. How could he know how to do that? I was arranged to marry him, in fact, to be his servant for the rest of my life..." Felice said with a depressed expression. Then, feeling some discomfort in his body, he frowned.

"What's wrong?" Marin asked with concern. For Felice, Marin's current mood is also very complicated. If Felice was a young woman, Marin would not take her too seriously, and would at most give some material compensation. However, I didn't expect Felice to be the first time. Marin is not the kind of ruthless person. Although Felice felt a little too wild, he decided to give more care and love. After all, Felice doesn't want to be a wife, but she is still her legal sister-in-law.

"It's uncomfortable down here, brother-in-law, you are too much trouble, it's my first time doing this, and I don't know how to feel sorry for anyone!" Felice said angrily. After all, Felice is only 17 years old now, and her body has not yet fully grown.

"How would I know? Last night you looked like a man-eating man. You thought you were a veteran, so you acted a little louder..." Marin touched his nose and said helplessly. The main reason is that, stimulated by the indecent novels about his sister-in-law on the Internet in his previous life, Marin was so excited last night that he became a little wild. Unexpectedly, Felice, who looks wild on the outside, turned out to be strong on the outside but hard on the inside. So, make it bigger.

Felice originally pretended to be sick, but because she went too far last night, she is really "sick" now...

Marin didn't want this to be known by others, so he went out ahead of time to remove the guards, then went back to the room by himself, and carried Felice back to the guest room. Fortunately, the original Aurich Palace was very small, and Felice's guest room was not far from Marin's bedroom, so there was no problem. Then, Marin called the maid and ordered her to take good care of Felice. After the confession, Marin went to work in the office area in front of the palace...

A report submitted today aroused Marin's great interest. What kind of report is this? It turned out that the whaling team that Marin planned to engage in before was successfully formed. At the same time, the blacksmiths also developed the whaling javelins requested by Marin.

Whaling javelins are different from ordinary javelins. Ordinary javelins only need to be able to hit the target, and do not require the javelin to stay in the target body. As for the whaling javelin, after the javelin is pierced into the body of the whale, the barbs are raised immediately, and the body of the whale is tightly hooked, so that the whale cannot break free. Therefore, this required a spring mechanism in the head of the javelin.

Although Da Vinci and others did not develop standard spring steel, after many tests, the quality of spring steel has become better and better. Therefore, using these organs made of spring steel that has not yet fully met the quality standards, the craftsmen produced the whaling javelin according to Marin's request.

At the same time, a group of craftsmen from the shipyard were studying the small boats used to hunt down whales. Because the small boat is connected to the whaling javelin, after the whale is hit, it will drag the whaling javelin and the small boat to escape, and even dive. Therefore, the first requirement for a small boat is to have a large buoyancy, and it is best not to be dragged into the water by whales.

For this reason, Marin's opinion is to make multiple parts of the boat into a hollow structure so that the boat has the greatest buoyancy. At the same time, try to make the boat as wide as possible to prevent the whale from dragging the boat in a diagonal direction and dragging the boat over.

High buoyancy and not easy to capsize are the basic requirements for small boats. Of course, it is not difficult. At the shipyard, by using hollow wood, several usable boats were made.

Once the whaling javelin and skiff are ready, it's time to choose your brave fisherman. After all, for fishermen, whaling is also a game of wits and courage against the mighty whales. Whaling fishermen must not only have high-end sea fishing skills, but also have courage.

During whaling, when whaling fishermen on small boats find a whale swimming by, they will choose a brave man, hold a whaling javelin, jump up from the bow of the boat, jump in the direction of the whale, and catch the whale. The whale javelin ruthlessly inserted into the whale's body, adjusted its orientation, and hooked the whale's body as tightly as possible.

Then, the next thing is that the whale drags the whaling javelin and the boat to do intense sports on the ocean. A whale will desperately try to get rid of a whaling javelin lodged in its body. At this time, the whale is fighting for its life, so the exercise is extremely intense. They will jump up and down, and even swim to the deep sea, trying to pull the boat into the sea.

At this time, it is necessary for the sailors on the small boat to fight wits with the whales. Not only did they have to keep the whaling javelin stuck in the whale's body, but they also had to do their best to steer the boat and avoid the sailboat. Even, if there is a chance, the spare whaling javelin will be used to give the whale another shot to ensure that the whale cannot break free.

This process is very thrilling and requires the superb skills and calm handling of whaling fishermen. If you are not careful, it will easily cause the ship to capsize or the whale to escape.

The reason why small boats are used instead of the fishing boat itself. It is because even if the boat capsizes, the sailors can hold on to the boat and follow closely. When the strength of the whale was exhausted, a few fishermen easily turned the boat back upright.

If you use the main body of the fishing boat, even the fishing boat itself will be easily pulled over if you encounter a large whale. And if the fishing boat was pulled over, it would be a complete disaster. Because the cabin is flooded, it is easy to cause the fishing boat to sink.

Therefore, the early whalers would rather use small boats to hunt whales than use fishing boats to hunt whales. Only in later generations, when heavy fishing boats with steel structures appeared, and advanced equipment such as whaling guns appeared, would the fishing boats themselves be used to tow whales with confidence. Because, in the face of a whaling ship with a huge steel structure, the whale can't turn over the waves at all.

Marin sent people to select 30 brave young fishermen from the Frisian fishermen, drive a fishing boat of more than 100 tons, take two small boats, several pairs of whaling javelins and cables, and go to the North Sea to test catch. The whale went.

After Marin occupies Nantucket Island in the future, he will definitely establish a whaling base there. With a whaling base, whales can be hunted on a large scale to obtain whale oil and whale meat. These things are very important materials. Whale oil can be used as lamp oil for lighting, for tanning, as lubricating oil, and even for making candles. Whale meat, after being salted, can be stored as grain.

The most important thing is that the cost of whaling is low. As long as one whale is killed, a large amount of whale meat and large barrels of whale oil can be obtained.

Moreover, whale meat tastes good, not as unpalatable as shark meat. It is said that it is similar to beef and mutton, and it is also rich in nutrition. It is really a good source of food.

And a large amount of whale oil can be widely used because of its low cost. In addition to being used as lamp oil, tanning, steelmaking, and candle making, Marin attaches great importance to the high temperature resistance of whale oil as a lubricating oil.

In his previous life, Marin saw an article on the Internet, which introduced that before the world began to ban whaling in the 1970s, sperm whale whale oil used to be a kind of lubricating oil with very good effect and high temperature resistance, which was widely used in automatic Transmission oil (ATF for short). Automatic transmissions that use whale oil seat lube rarely need to replace the ATF, and vice versa often need to be replaced.

After the machine is started, the temperature must be very high. Because kinetic energy is easily converted into heat energy. Ordinary animal fats and vegetable oils are easy to oxidize under high temperature environment for a long time, and produce a large amount of sludge and acidic substances, which will damage the machine itself.

The early steam engines were fine, because the speed was slow and they could not generate too high a temperature, and the effect of high temperature on the lubricating oil could not be seen. In the era of internal combustion engines, due to the greatly increased speed and the combustion of fuel in a closed high-pressure environment, it is very easy to generate high temperatures of several hundred degrees. At this time, the requirement of high temperature resistance of lubricating oil immediately appeared.

Even for low-speed steam engines with low temperatures, ordinary animal and vegetable lubricating oils are easily oxidized and need to be replaced frequently. But after switching to whale oil that is not easy to be oxidized at high temperature, the lubricating oil can be replaced for a long time.

Also, whale oil is cheap. If you kill a whale casually, you can get large barrels of whale oil at a very low cost...

Thinking of this, Marin quickly changed his original intention and decided to give up obtaining castor oil from Egypt. Whale oil is as effective as castor oil and costs a lot less. In comparison, it is better to use whale oil.

Moreover, in this era, the European whaling industry has not yet emerged, and there are many whales in the ocean. With the whaling team formed by Marin, it is difficult to kill the whales below the dangerous line. Whales were slaughtered in large numbers, and only after the advent of whaling guns and steel fishing boats did they become mass slaughtered. The whaling cannon has a long range, high speed, and a sight, making it difficult for whales to escape hunting. This kind of thing is the deadly enemy of whales. The artificial whaling promoted by Marin is relatively inefficient. But even so, the whale meat and whale oil obtained by whaling are quite enough. After all, this era is not yet the industrial age, and the demand for whale meat and whale oil is not very great.

Marin personally rushed to the port of Emden to meet the fishermen on a boat. Then, the 30 fishermen on this fishing boat were sent by Marin to the North Sea to try to hunt whales in accordance with Marin's "guidance".

For the sake of safety, Marin suggested that they start by hunting small whales, and then hunt medium-sized whales when they are proficient. Finally, wait until you get too skilled before thinking about killing large whales.

In fact, in this era, because few people were whaling, the number of small and medium-sized whales was also very large. Small and medium-sized whales alone are enough for fishermen to hunt and kill, and there is no need to take risks to hunt large whales.

Also, large whales are too large to be dragged and handled. Unlike small and medium-sized whales, they are easier to handle and less prone to accidents.

Whales basically feed on other fish. Wherever there are many fish and shrimps, there are bound to be whales. The North Sea region is one of the world's important fishing grounds. There are many fish, and there must be many whales hunting here. Therefore, Marin is not worried that these fishermen will not be able to touch whales, but only that their skills are not good enough. After all, whaling is really a demanding technical job...

When the fishermen on this boat became familiar with whaling, Marin felt that the route between Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard Island was almost opened. At that time, Marin will organize more fishermen and hand them over to the earliest whaling fishermen to teach them, and then send them to Nantucket Island to hunt whaling.

After all, the Beihai area is a fishing ground shared by many countries, and there are many fishermen from all over the world. As long as fishermen from other countries learn to hunt whaling, it will definitely affect the interests of the whaling ships under Marin's command.

The coastal areas of North America are different. There are only Indians in canoes, and there are very few fishermen. If you send your own fleet there, not only can you catch a large number of whales, but you can't even catch ordinary fish. As long as a fishing base is established there, it can not only provide sufficient food for the colonists who colonized North America, but also process the fish meat into dried salted fish and transport it back to Europe as a food supplement. In this way, the Counties of East Frisia no longer have to worry about food issues. Moreover, there is an inexhaustible supply of whale oil used in various industries.

Therefore, although this newly established whaling ship is only a beginning attempt, the future significance is extremely far-reaching. As long as the attempt is successful, Marin will have inexhaustible whale oil and whale meat in the future, and can quickly gain a foothold on the east coast of North America, and then start to expand inland...