Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 566

February 1647, 2, La Plata, Puerto Mar del Plata.

The three-masted battleship "Judge", which was captured by the east coast, was flying the bright red goshawk flag and was cruising the open sea with its sails up.In the harbor, several small boats of one to two hundred tons were making final preparations before sailing, and a group of men in Chinese tunic suits and turbans were crowded on the shore, receiving lectures.

Most of these people are newly recruited sailors from various countries, including pirates from the Caribbean, sailors from neighboring countries (Brazil and La Plata) attracted by high wages, and French fishermen who lost their jobs because of the heavy blow to the fishing industry , In addition, the largest number is the ordinary people recruited locally on the east coast-many of these people were engaged in jobs that have nothing to do with navigation before.

As the war with the Spanish continued, the work of training reserve sailors must be put on the agenda.After all, everyone knows that hundreds of casualties in a naval battle are light, and the east coast, which is short of sailors, obviously cannot afford a long-term war of attrition.Even if your ship is better than others, and your training is better than others, so what?As a big seafaring country with a profound heritage and a population of 500 million, Spain will exhaust you.The last time the Spanish La Plata fleet was besieged and wiped out in the port of Buenos Aires. Even with such a huge advantage, the people on the east coast still suffered more than 250 casualties (only more than 70 of them could recover and return to the navy). The number of casualties is really painful for people on the east coast, because it is too difficult to replenish sailors in the east coast area. This country has been full of thirst for sailors from the beginning.

Up to now, the number of registered seamen nationwide is only 2413 (not including the navy). This number can only be said to be insignificantly small compared to European maritime powers.For example, in the 17th century, King Louis XIV of France decided to revive the navy. He ordered the French sailors serving overseas to return home. As a result, more than 3 sailors responded in one place in the Netherlands alone.These 2413 sailors are basically responsible for important tasks, and it is difficult to recruit and replenish the lost manpower of the navy. With the fact that the current naval navigation school can only graduate 300 students each year, it can only be said that the prospects of the East Coast Navy are really good. It's not good, if there are a few more battles, maybe the manpower will not be able to keep up.

Against such a background, the Ministry of the Navy, with the assistance of the Executive Committee and the Government Council, began to select reserve sailors across the country.The so-called reserve sailors are to supplement the naval battle losses.These new recruits are basically landlubbers. They will be assigned to some fishing boats, transport ships and warships for internships. After the half-year internship period is over, they will be sent to the Navy for selection.At the same time, the united front work of the United Front Work Department in the Caribbean Sea and adjacent areas is still going on, and many pirates and sailors from neighboring countries who want to be good have been recruited.

In addition, since two years ago, the commercial station established in Bordeaux on the East Bank has begun to recruit sailors in France.Because they found that due to the attack of the Spaniards and the intentional or unintentional crowding out of the English and Portuguese, a large number of French ships engaged in cod fishing operations in the Newfoundland area were expelled or robbed. At the peak, more than 400 French fishing boats were in the waters of Newfoundland Only a third of the cod-fishing boats are still operating there – mainly from Bordeaux, Nantes and Saint-Malo.Not only that, the French fishing boats fishing for herring near the British coast in Calais, Normandy, Picardy and other areas were also repeatedly attacked by the Spanish Netherlands Navy.The people on the east coast saw the opportunity and made continuous attacks in Bordeaux, La Rochelle and other places. In two years, more than 400 French immigrants were recruited to work on the east coast, effectively supplementing the number of domestic sailors.

眼前站在马德普拉塔港口码头上的这700名“水手”（超过三分之二是旱鸭子）就是这个计划的产物。港口内停泊着1艘海军训练舰（“东岸之鹰”号）、2艘鱿钓船、4艘鳕鱼捕捞船和1艘补给船（兼加工渔获），所有人将轮番在这8艘船上进行实习训练，同时也顺便进行捕鱼以为国家创造一些效益。

Among these ships, the naval training ship "Eagle of the East Coast" has a displacement of 250 tons, the squid fishing boat and the cod fishing boat both have a displacement of 100 tons, and the supply processing ship has a slightly larger tonnage of 300 tons.These 8 ships are almost twice overstaffed. Under the escort and supervision of the naval battleship "Judge", they will set off from the port of Mar del Plata for fishing and sea fishing along the coastline of Patagonia. As a job, while catching cod and squid, which are relatively abundant in the local area, while training various sea skills by the way.

In fact, training sailors with fishing boats was very common in European countries at this time.For example, in England at this time, due to the rich herring resources in its coastal areas, when the fishing season comes every year, a large number of small fishing boats set off from various ports, start to trace the route of fish schools and fish, and communicate with the people who heard the news. The Dutch, French, Irish and Norwegians compete.These fishing boats are generally small, and even the smallest English fishing boat has a ridiculous displacement of 6-12 tons. The French fishing boats are only 80 to [-] tons, and even the largest Dutch fishing boat is only about [-] tons.

In addition, in the waters of Newfoundland and Iceland, a large number of English fishing boats (60-100 tons) flocked to catch the rich local cod resources, which created a large amount of economic value and also formed a huge domestic sailor reserve.At that time, the British admirals called these fishing boats "sea nurseries", which meant the cradle for the navy to train low-level sailors.

If the British do that, of course the East Coasters can do the same.In the past, due to various reasons, the navy did not want to interfere too much with the normal domestic production order, so it only over-provisioned a certain proportion of personnel on some of its warships as a reserve force for training, and the training period for these personnel is generally very long. The various knowledge and skills cultivated are relatively comprehensive.However, before the outbreak of the war, some new warships were launched one after another, and the reserve forces cultivated by the navy in the past few years were all sucked out at once.In desperation, they could only entrust various domestic ocean-going ships to help train a certain number of sailors.

Fortunately, the government is more aware of the severity. It is the time of war, and of course everything is war-oriented, so they quickly ordered the South China Sea Fisheries Company and the South China Sea Transportation Company to start over-staffing and training sailors.Today, the eight ships in Mar del Plata port originally required less than 8 sailors, but now there are a full 230 people waiting to board, which shows that the manpower is indeed doubled.

At this time, several main leaders of the Nanhai Fishery Company on the wharf were also present.Han Dezhi, who retired as a navy captain because of his age (in his 50s), served as the boss of the South China Sea Fishery Company; Hu Zhigang, the vice president of the company in charge of finance and logistics; Zhang Yun, a native of this time and space who was born as a ship captain and was in charge of daily production, gave speeches respectively, encouraging these "sailors" and encouraging them to study hard and live up to the trust of the motherland.However, after seeing the puzzled, numb, puzzled and impatient eyes of these people, Han Dezhi suddenly lost interest in carrying out ideological mobilization. He waved his hand, and the "sailors" filed together under the leadership of the old officer. Entered the cabins of the various ships, and then went south along the Patagonian coastline under the escort of the three-masted battleship "Judge".

Two days after going to sea, they stopped in the waters at about 43 degrees south latitude. At this time, the naval training ship "Eagle of the East Coast" moved aside to conduct shelling training, while the rest of the fishing boats started normal fishing operations.After all, they didn't come out specifically to play. Fishing was their first priority, and training was just a matter of passing.

There are still some fishery resources in the waters near Patagonia. Although they are not as good as first-tier fishing grounds such as Newfoundland, Peru, and Hokkaido, or even second-tier fishing grounds such as Zhoushan Islands and Beihai (near the United Kingdom), in general The fishery resources of this fishery can also be described by the word "rich".In the late 20th century, Argentina caught about 60 million tons of fish here every year, and by the 21st century, this number had grown to more than 200 million tons.

The main fishery product here is hake (deep-sea cod de la Plata), which accounts for about 40-60% of the total catch; followed by squid (Argentine squid), whose output fluctuates greatly, and can be produced in many years. It accounts for 20%, less than 10% in less years; as for other sea bream, tuna and the like, it is relatively small, often adding up to 4-5%, which is not worth mentioning.

There are two methods of fishing cod in Europe at this time.One is adopted by fishing boats with larger tonnage (more than 100 tons), that is, to use purse seine for fishing, but this method is quite difficult, because cod is a deep-sea fish and often lives on the bottom of the sea, it is difficult to find where large-scale fish have formed. and if the tonnage of the vessel is small, then only longline fishing is the only way to fish.French fishing boats (with a tonnage of about 40 tons) with backward technology generally use single-hook fishing lines to fish, which is less efficient, while the Dutch and English with advanced technology use multi-hook fishing methods, that is, one fishing line There are multiple hooks.As for the soft fish, because it lives in the middle and upper layers of seawater, it can be caught by its phototaxis, and it can also be caught with a hook. In short, it is much more convenient than cod.

From arriving here on February 2 to March 27, in a total of 3 days, the sailors caught more than 15 cod (about 17 tons) and 5500 tons of squid, and these catches were transported to supply. On the processing ship, the sailors sort the fish by size, process them separately, marinate them, and put them in wooden barrels for storage after marinating.According to the current east coast market, cod costs 22 cents per catty, a medium-sized cod costs 10 yuan, and 5 tons of cod costs 0.4 yuan. It's only 22 cents, and 2200 tons of fish is only 2 yuan, which can only be said to be better than nothing.

In Italy, where the European economy is rich at this time, the average person consumes about 840 grams of fish per month, basically herring or cod (exported from the Netherlands), and Sweden is horribly close to 8 kilograms due to dietary structure problems (the upper middle class ).Although there is no well-developed fishery in Europe on the east coast, resulting in high prices for the two main edible fishes, cod and squid, ordinary people can still enjoy one cod or more than ten catties of squid every month with their relatively high income.Especially those new immigrants who believe in Catholicism, they will enjoy a lot of cod on many festivals-this is a tradition brought from the Old World. It is conservatively estimated that the current monthly demand for cod on the east coast is more than 1, which is about 15 Yuan, the prospects are still relatively broad.

Of course, in addition to fishing, these 700 sailors also conduct rotation training on several ships to fully ensure that various skills are trained in place. On March 3th, the navy also sent people to conduct a spot check on them, and the overall results were still very good.

On March 3, the fleet left the sea area where they had been training for many days, and changed to another place to continue fishing and training.

(End of this chapter)