Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 416 Whaling ([-])

The twice-wounded sperm whale flipped angrily, stirring up huge waves, but this caused more blood to flow out of it, accelerating the speed of its life.

"Do you want to do it again?" A sailor asked with a whaling spear drawn out, and then he nuzzled the musket with his mouth.

"No need." Ricardo shook his head, and then ordered: "Pad backwards, pay attention to the fishing line! It's best to drag it left and right to widen the wound on this whale! Go back quickly, don't let it take us The boat sank."

The sperm whale is still swimming on the surface of the sea, twisting its body violently from time to time, which looks very scary.However, in the eyes of the crew on the "Hunter 1", this is nothing more than the last struggle of this giant sea monster before its death.Now, everyone just needs to wait quietly for this adult whale to exhaust its once extremely tenacious vitality.

Zhang Yun tightly grasped the railing of "Hunter 1" with both hands, and his already white knuckles showed the tension in his heart.After waiting for an unknown amount of time, the life of the sperm whale was about to come to an end. Finally, after struggling violently for a while, the two wounds on the big guy's body suddenly spurted out a rain of blood.After uttering a desperate cry that could not be heard by human ears, the adult sperm whale finally landed powerlessly on the surface of the sea, floating in a pool of his own blood.

The sailors burst into cheers, and the sailors operating the fishing line drum immediately began to slowly move towards the recovery line. At the same time, the sailors on the whaling boat also began to row towards the big ship.With their joint efforts, the huge adult sperm whale was finally pulled to the left side of the "Predator 1" ship's side.

What to do with this sperm whale?The sailors all turned their eyes to the captain Zhang Yun. After Zhang Yun thought for a while, he began to order: "Pull up this whale, pay attention to its path and speed, put down the positioning anchor on the right side, and there are more irons on the bottom." Put two pieces, don't let the boat roll."

Following his order, the sailors immediately took their positions. With the assistance of Ricardo Bosun on the whaling boat, they used a large trawl net to hoist the huge sperm whale onto the deck bit by bit through a steam winch.As this huge sea beast slammed into the treatment pool at the center of the front of the deck, the sailors present cheered loudly again.

"Don't dawdle, hurry up and work." Zhang Yun also changed his captain's uniform, wearing a white cotton shirt, came over with a sharp skinning knife, and said with a smile: "Luciano, now you are in charge of driving." , and drive the boat back to Baleen Whale Harbor." Zhang Yun, a former Ming boy who came to the east coast these years, has undergone tremendous changes.At least he used to never do a "butcher" job that was very "low" in his eyes, but now he has no grievances at all, and even enjoys it, making people have to lament how the environment changes people. of.

Whales are almost full of treasures. In the 21st century, almost every piece of their body can be effectively used. The types of processed products cover many industries such as industry, food and medicine.For both the present east coast people and the modern people of later generations, the most important thing on every whale is its thick layer of fat.Because whales often live in cold water areas, and they are huge in size and have many parts in contact with sea water, the fat layer on their bodies is very thick to achieve the purpose of fully insulating the body from heat loss.On average, the fat of an adult whale accounts for more than 30% of its body weight, so its oil production rate is very high.More importantly, the quality of this oil is very good. It is not only an important raw material for the chemical industry, but also a very good lubricating oil.

A small oil refining unit is installed in the lower deck of "Hunter 1", which uses high-temperature hot steam to melt the fat layer.This method is much more efficient than the traditional method of boiling oil with fire. The average oil yield of the traditional method does not exceed 50%, and a lot of oil remains in the remaining dregs; The oil yield can be increased to close to 65%, the texture and color of the oil can also be improved to a higher level, the refining time can be shortened by more than half, and the number of people using it is still small, which can be said to have many advantages.At present, the seal oil processing center in the Baleen Whale Port on Mashima Island is using this method, and it has been proved to be very reliable. Therefore, the oil refining unit on the "Hunter 1" is also using this principle.

Zhang Yun called about 20 sailors and skinners to come over and skin the whale. They started skinning the whale's waist where the harpoon hit it, and pulled the peeled whale skin outward with hooks while peeling.During the peeling process, large groups of blood mixed with fish oil came out from time to time, and there was a stench everywhere on the deck, which made people want to vomit.Whale skin is a very good tanning material. It has a layer of short fluff on the surface, and even has natural patterns, which is very beautiful in appearance.If you take it back to the mainland and dye it with high-grade dyes, it will definitely sell at a high price in China or even in Europe.

Among the 20 people, 13 were skinning, 2 were pulling the skin with iron hooks, 4 were helping the ladder (the fish was too high), and 1 was sharpening the knife beside him. They were very busy.Due to the lack of equipment and materials for tanning fresh whale skin on board, Zhang Yun and others decided to smear the surface of the whale skin to be peeled off later with refined salt to make salt hide.This kind of salt hide hide can be preserved for a long time, enough for everyone to go back to the mainland or baleen whale port for tanning.

In this way, the crowd took more than three days to peel off the skin of the adult sperm whale.According to estimates by Zhang Yun and others, the weight of the whale skin of this whale is about 3-4 tons. After tanning into leather, its weight may be less than one-tenth of the current weight, and its thickness is only about one-fifth (about 2 -3mm).

And when they were skinning, they also mobilized more sailors to cut the fat on the whale's body surface.They cut the fat into standard-sized blocks, and then sent them to the processing workshop on the lower deck, and the processing workers put these fat blocks into steel steamers one by one.There are hot steam pipes passing through the steam engine boiler room in the steamer. The temperature of the hot steam is not very high (no more than 200 degrees), but it is enough.After the blubber is put into the steamer, the lid is sealed, and then hot steam is introduced. After the blubber is completely melted, it flows into the wooden barrel below through another pipe on the steamer and is stored. This is the finished product.

After finishing the whale skin and blubber, the ship almost arrived in the baleen whale port.When the residents of Baleen Whale Harbor heard that the "Hunter 1" had captured a whale, the whole city immediately became a sensation.Although the name of this small city contains the word "baleen whale", almost all residents have never seen what a whale looks like.At this time, they heard that the boat had caught a real big guy back, and all of them flocked to the pier to watch. The sailors of "Hunter 1" held their heads high and held their chests high, accepting the admiration and amazement of the citizens of the city as if they had won a battle.

"Don't be in a rut, hurry up and get the rest ashore to deal with." Zhang Yun had already changed into a clean and tidy captain's uniform again, and gave orders to the sailors with a smile.Following his order, the sailors began to hoist the whale meat that had been cut into pieces one by one off the ship, and then pulled it to the center of the city by carriage for processing.The southern hemisphere is now in early spring, and in addition to the high latitudes near the Baleen Whale Harbor, the temperature is extremely low, so although the meat has passed for several days, it has not spoiled.According to data, the weight of whale meat generally accounts for about 55% of the whale's weight, and its nutritional value is very high. Although the taste is not as delicious as beef and mutton, it is still passable.And more importantly, the quantity is large. This sperm whale is nearly 20 meters long. Although its weight cannot be measured accurately, it is estimated to exceed 60 tons. The meat is more than 30 tons. It is too wasteful to throw it away.

Tons of whale meat were hoisted piece by piece into the carriages of freight carriages docked on the wharf trestle, and then quickly pulled into the city.Matthias, the mayor of Baleen Whale Harbor, also scratched his head in the face of these meat mountains, not knowing how to deal with them.In the end, Zhang Yun, the captain of "Hunter 1", helped him solve the trouble. He asked the sailors to bring out a lot of spices from the cabin, and then sent two more people to him.These two are on-board technicians dispatched by the Ministry of Agriculture. These two people have no other skills, but they learned the skills of top-notch chefs when they were in China.

With the help of a large number of helpers sent by Mayor Mathias, they washed and bled the whale meat repeatedly, and then added various spices and seasonings according to the method of processing beef to make spiced whale jerky.After being made into jerky, the weight will probably shrink by more than two-thirds, but this is still in the early ten tons, which is still very scary.Of course, because they came out in a hurry this time, they didn't have time to bring some glass cans out, otherwise they could make some canned whale meat at this time, so that they could bring them back to the mainland for everyone to try, but this is not in a hurry here. For a while, you can bring it next time.

But so much whale meat is naturally impossible to make all spiced jerky.Among other things, more than 800 people, men, women and children in Baleen Whale Harbor are watching eagerly.Although they have eaten all kinds of poultry, livestock, seals and sea lions, they have never tasted whale meat.Therefore, facing these piles of whale meat, they all couldn't help but want to try something new while being curious.

Seeing this situation, Zhang Yun decided to share a few catties of meat for each person, and the 800 people were only a few tons, just a drizzle.After all, he was still counting on others to help with the work, so he had to give some benefits first.But after going back, I have to write a report to the superior, so that the superior can simply set up a whale product processing factory in the baleen whale port.Workers are recruited from the local area to make comprehensive use of various resources on the whale.Baleen Whale Port on Mashima Island is located in the whale fishing ground, with abundant resources and outstanding location advantages. It is a natural whaling logistics base and processing center and should be fully utilized.

(End of this chapter)