As the peak of the tide had passed, Zhuge Jin hurriedly asked people to lower the gill net, and also gave a few technical details:
For example, we are fishing for low-tide fish this time, so the fish barbs formed by the split bamboo should face the north, which is also the direction upstream of Hangou.
Liu Bei and Sun Qian were watching the excitement, and everyone was busy for a whole hour before setting up the nets. Some buoys that are unstable need to be fished out again and weighted to ensure they are not washed away.
After doing this, it was already dark. But Zhuge Jin was not in a hurry to close the net, and ordered people to light torches on the shore.
Liu Bei was a little impatient and couldn't help but ask: "Do you usually have to wait like this?"
"That's not necessary. Isn't it an experiment now? You have to deal with accidents at any time and make timely adjustments. After you get used to it, you can just go down the net twice a day at high and low tides."
Zhuge Jin explained while watching the sailors and guards operate.
As a result, a few sailors were lazy and made mistakes. He immediately reprimanded and corrected them: "How many times have I told you! To catch high-tide fish, you must light a torch upstream, and to catch low-tide fish, you must light a torch downstream! What kind of fire are you lighting here?"
The sailors who were reprimanded felt quite ashamed and quickly apologized: "I saw your husband and lord standing here and wanted to help illuminate..."
Liu Bei quickly waved his hand and signaled: "It doesn't have to be like this. Since your husband has given instructions, I will obey him in everything. Let's go to a place farther downstream to wait and see."
Liu Bei demanded that Zhuge Jin's instructions be fully carried out unconditionally and that the torch could not be moved, so he could just go over.
Seeing that Liu Bei didn't ask for the reason, Zhuge Jin was a little disappointed. He was actually ready to explain the scientific principles just now.
The group of people walked a hundred steps downstream, but Zhuge Jin did not calm down and asked proactively: "General, you are not curious, why don't I let you set up torches on the upstream shore?"
Liu Bei: "What you are thinking must be reasonable. We don't understand it, so just listen to what you have to say. You will definitely not be wrong. If you think this is a simple truth, and laymen like us can also understand it, you will naturally say it."
Zhuge Jin couldn't help but be amused, and sighed: "I admire, I admire, the general and the gentleman are incompetent and trustworthy in employing people, more so than Marquis Wen of Wei. In fact, in the dark night, fish also have phototropism, similar to moths rushing to the flame. Light the torch in the setting The net is positioned downstream to lure more fish to migrate from there.”
…
While everyone was chatting about popular science, bragging and spanking, we finally got to the position where the tide was relatively low late at night.
Zhuge Jin saw that the diabolo floats on the bamboo fence could hardly stand upright, so he ordered the net to be set up.
Under the expectant eyes of Liu Bei and Sun Qian, a kind of sailor and fisherman brought the bamboo rafts carrying countless large and small fish ashore one by one. The process was very careful, lest they lose the fish.
For some particularly large fish, the whole net cannot be pulled, so the sailors have to jump into the water, remove the big fish hanging on the bamboo spines, and throw them into the fish guard.
When Liu Bei looked at the amount of harvest, his expression changed from solemn to pleased, and finally to surprised.
"How can we get so many? And there are many sea bass! Even Songjiang perch?"
Liu Bei and Sun Qian were both good at picking up the goods. Just looking at the harvests from the first few nets, they found that the proportion of sea bass was very high.
There is a scene in the original text of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in which "Zuo Ci throws a cup to Cao Cao". It is said that Cao Cao wants to eat Songjiang sea bass and asks Zuo Ci to conjure it up. Then Cao Cao said that this was an ordinary seabass and a deception that Zuo Ci had hidden in advance.
In the end, Zuo Ci retorted by saying, "Everyone knows that all bass in the world have two gills, but the Songjiang perch has four gills." And the fish he conjured really had four gills to prove the power of his illusion.
Although this is a novelist's statement, it can also be seen that saltwater bass was very precious in the Han Dynasty. (Note: Fan Ye's "Book of the Later Han Dynasty. Biography of Zuo Ci" also mentions that "Cao Cao hosted a banquet and said: "Today's high gathering, rare delicacies are prepared, and the master is Songjiang Perch Er.", but the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" is the official history, and there is no information about it. Detailed description of Zuo Ci’s magic tricks)
Nowadays, most of the fish washed up by the Guangling tide are from rivers and seas, and naturally there are also a large number of sea bass.
Liu Bei and Sun Qian couldn't help but look envious when they saw this.
In particular, these grow naturally and were rarely fished by people in the past, so they can grow to very large sizes. It’s no better than the breeding industry of later generations. For the sake of profit efficiency, they only raise a maximum of two kilograms and then sell them.
Liu Bei picked up a large sea bass weighing about seven or eight kilograms, observed it carefully, and marveled:
"I have been eating fish for thirty years, and I have never seen anyone catch so many bass. Fishermen in areas where bass are common will only get 20% of their harvest at most. Tzuyu, how do you manage to get more than half of it to be bass? "
Zhuge Jin had never thought about this question and could not answer it for a while.
In his experience, bass is not a rare species;
In the previous life, the market price was generally only ten yuan per catty, and in order to make more money, the proprietresses often belittled seabass and promoted bamboo shoots and shellfish:
Bass is a fish that lives on the bottom. It has a strong earthy smell, is easy to accumulate heavy metal pollution, and is greasy...
Thinking back to this, Zhuge Jin suddenly became enlightened and answered his doubts: "I know, the way ordinary people fish is to use floating nets to catch shallow fish. My method today is to scrape the bottom of the river. Bass likes it. If it sinks to the bottom, there will naturally be more..."
He wanted to mention the other shortcomings casually, but when he thought about the heavy metal pollution in the Han Dynasty, the greasiness of the fish belly was not a shortcoming. As for the earthy smell, it would be good to eat it.
Moreover, seabass does not have small spines, which is a big advantage nowadays. Until the Song Dynasty, Fan Zhongyan wrote, "People who travel on the river love the beauty of seabass."
Unexpectedly, with this method, I could not only catch many times more fish, but also make the species I caught become much more valuable.
After Sun Qian and Liu Bei understood it, they could only sigh at the wonder of nature.
After a lot of hard work, near midnight, the harvest was finally packed and weighed.
Liu Bei was very curious about the final figure, but he knew that Zhuge Jin's bet must have passed. Just by visual inspection, he knew that today would definitely be more than 20,000 kilograms.
"My lord, we have already weighed the fish. We got 34,000 kilograms of fish tonight, with an average of 1,670 kilograms per fish. It saves effort to catch the fish, as long as the tide rises and the tide goes out, the net can be lowered and closed on time."
Liu Beirao was mentally prepared. When he heard the final number, he still clenched his fists and smashed his palms several times:
"We can catch hundreds of stone fish in one day! Tens of thousands of stone fish in a hundred days! Before the twelfth lunar month of winter, we can catch at least tens of thousands of stone fish! This military ration gap has been completely filled! By the way, Tzuyu seems to have said, this Can we catch two rounds every day when the tide rises and falls? Doesn’t it have to be multiplied by two?”
Zhuge Jin poured cold water on the side at the right time: "You can't calculate it like this. Today is the biggest tide day in the whole year, and the harvest is naturally the best in the whole year. It is far from what we can usually achieve."
Liu Bei still didn't give up, and thought again: "Can we set up places along the river to expand fishing?"
Zhuge Jin: "If there are multiple interceptions, the following ones won't be that big. And this is to take advantage of the natural characteristics of the confluence of Hangou and the Yangtze River and Huaihe River. This is possible because we have the right time and place.
At most, we can only build one in Yunchang and Huaiyin County. In this way, the total output can be doubled, but that's it. We will have to think of other methods in the future. "
Liu Bei then felt quite sorry. It seemed that farming still had to be done. Fishing could not become the main source of food after all. It was because he was overthinking it.
But to be able to get twice as much as today was something he never dared to think about before.
And Zhuge Jin obviously didn't use all the fishing techniques he knew.
Once he came, he only had some ideas and needed to slowly practice and explore.
Secondly, the bamboo sinking gill net is the simplest among them and also has the highest requirements on the geographical environment. Only Guangling and Huaiyin can maximize their benefits.
Even if other princes learn it, they will not have the geographical environment to support it for the time being.
Other more complex technologies are also more versatile.
Zhuge Jin felt that those tasks could be left to his second brother to sum up and explore after a while. He only needed to get through the current difficulties.
Anyway, the two bets he made with Liu Bei were both overfulfilled.
…
Because he was busy working too late, Liu Bei didn't keep him for supper that night. After finishing work, they went back to their homes to rest.
But early the next morning, Liu Bei came to him very excitedly to discuss matters. He also had someone steam the plump seabass with onion, ginger, rice wine, and other meat and wine.
Liu Bei must have been thinking about how to take advantage of this good news all night, so he asked for advice as soon as they met: "Sir, the shortage of military rations in our army has been basically solved. However, I think the previous deployment of the winter mustard campaign is still necessary. Focus on promoting it - although it is not enough to eat a few bites of green vegetables, don't let it go unnoticed because it is a small thing.
A while ago, I was thinking that Gongyou lacked some "miraculous signs" to make people believe that our promotion method is absolutely effective. The gill net fishing was so effective yesterday, didn't this 'miraculous' come to your doorstep?
In the past few days, we will catch a few times with great fanfare, and the details can be hidden. When it comes to the final harvest, the people are allowed to watch from a distance, and we will sell seabass to the public with great fanfare. In this way, the local wealthy households must believe that we have a magical way to catch large amounts of bass, and they will definitely have more trust in the other methods we promote to encourage farmers, right? "
When Zhuge Jin came to the door, he was not quite awake yet. Hearing that the plan was generally fine, he casually responded with "Ah, yes, yes, yes."
Liu Bei was greatly excited when he saw that his idea could be approved by a divine strategist like Zhuge Jin. He felt that he seemed to be better than before.
He quickly came up with another plan: "Now that the military supplies have been basically settled and the war has been settled, the most urgent thing for our army next is to negotiate with Lu Bu, try to obtain a reconciliation, and redeem all the families of the soldiers. Okay. Does Tzuyu have any tips to teach me about this?"
Originally, Liu Bei couldn't take care of this aspect, because the other two major issues were each more urgent than redeeming his family members.
Now that I have some free time, I have to finish this matter immediately.
Otherwise, dozens of soldiers would flee every day, and if they wanted to go back to their hometowns to find their relatives, it would be unbearable over time.
Zhuge Jin was speechless for a while: Why did you catch me as a counselor? Did I say I knew diplomacy? no?
