Chapter 21 Opening the Door to a New World for Second Brother
Wang Shouzhe did not take this small incident to heart. Instead, he steered the conversation back to the main topic. “By the way, Second Brother, the value of the live fish in your fish stall is the highest, right?”
“That’s right. Other than spirit fishes, some of the top-notch live fishes are the most valuable. The types of bass, minnow, mandarin perches, culters, shads and mullets are famed for being fresh and tender, and are rather popular among noble clans and wealthy businessmen. The only requirement is that they are fresh and live.” Wang Shouyi frowned and said, “Sixth Uncle’s fishing fleet has live water tanks. After we get the fishes ashore from the living water tanks, we need to use specialized carriages to send them to Changning Wei City overnight. We also need to send them to the buyers in the shortest time possible. Even if we only take an extremely short period of time, many errors can occur. Sixty to seventy percent of the fishes will die. After dying, their value would drop by half, and they can only be sold as fresh fish.”
Wang Shouzhe thought for a moment and said, “In that case, the cost of transportation and the mortality rate of live fish are two key factors. If we solve these two problems, even if the yield of fish is not increased, we can still earn a lot more annually.”
The reason why he was going around to inspect the various industries in the clan was to see every aspect of the production of the clan’s businesses. If he could use his modern thinking on Earth to make some improvements, he could increase the production of the clan.
“If Fourth Brother can find a way to resolve the death of live fishes, a conservative estimate would be an additional 70 or 80 gold per year.” Wang Shouyi’s face could not help but show his heartache. “Those which die are all losses in net profit.”
“It’s hard to say now. I have to see your original plan, Second Brother.”
“Fourth Brother, follow me.” Wang Shouyi led Wang Shouzhe to the backyard of the residence. There were two horse carriages parked there. Unlike ordinary carriages, they were no carriages for passengers. Instead, a large and round wooden bucket was placed in each. He said, “One of the horse carriages contains live water and fish, while the other carriage only contains live water. Every two hours, a portion of the water in the wooden bucket must be replaced. Even so, despite a slight increase in live fish, deaths will still occur. I’m already considering whether to add live water to add another carriage for holding live water, but this way, the cost of consumption will increase by a lot.”
As soon as he saw Wang Shouyi’s method of transporting live fishes, Wang Shouzhe’s eyelids twitched. The number of valuable live fishes that Sixth Uncle could catch every day was small to begin with. At most, he could catch one to two thousand catties a day.
And they had to resort to such shocking methods during transportation? These fish buckets were also surprisingly crude. There was no means for oxygenation or filtering at all. It only boiled down to two words: changing water!
In order to change water, they even used a carriage just to hold water. Furthermore, Wang Shouyi was actually planning to add another carriage?
However, Wang Shouzhe also knew that this really could not be blamed on Wang Shouyi. This was because this was an Arcane Martial World. Everyone only thought about how to increase their cultivation level and personal martial prowess.
Of course, some human elites did study some natural sciences. However, even if those people obtained some results from their research, they would only keep it to themselves. All kinds of knowledge were kept strictly confidential and were unlikely to spread.
This was not their fault. Even the knowledge that Wang Shouzhe had obtained from research would only be provided to his clan for use in secret. He wouldn’t consider spreading it to benefit other clans at all.
In his previous life, Wang Shouzhe was an unambitious office worker. During holidays, he often went fishing with his friends. When he caught a lot of fish, he had also bought an oxygen pump to try to keep the fish alive for consumption later. However, he found that with only oxygenation, fishes still died very quickly. After some research and learning, he understood some simple principles.
If he wanted to keep the fishes alive for consumption later, his water tank would have to satisfy three conditions.
The first was the amount of oxygen in the water. The survival of the fishes required oxygen, and there was a limit to the amount of oxygen in the water. The more fishes put into a bucket, the greater the oxygen consumption. This could be achieved through oxygenation.
The second was the cleanliness of the water. The feces of the fish and food residue would produce ammonia and nitrite, and respiration would produce nitrogen. These were all factors that caused the death of fishes. They could be resolved by changing water and filtering. The third was the temperature. The higher the temperature, more active the fish would be. The amount of oxygen needed would increase, and the production of toxic substances such as ammonia would increase as well. Therefore, maintaining a relatively low temperature for the water was also very effective. After combining these three points, the two of them entered Wang Shouyi’s study. After some thought, Wang Shouzhe sketched a simple diagram on a piece of paper. The top of the round wooden barrel incorporated a filter, and filtered water would be dripped into the barrel. This used the simplest principle of drip oxygenation.
He also explained the principles of oxygen and toxic substances to Wang Shouyi as simply as possible.
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Wang Shouyi had been working in the fish stall for more than ten years. He quickly understood Wang Shouzhe’s principles. He came to a realization and said, “Hearing what Fourth Brother said, I suddenly understand a lot. In the past, the elders in the clan only passed down that live water should be changed. The reason was that fish needed to consume the live air in the water. If there wasn’t enough live air, it would become stagnant water, and the fish would die. Fourth Brother means that using the drip technique can increase live air in the water. I’ve never thought of that.”
“This is what I read from ancient books. It’s hard to say if it’s effective or not. Second Brother will have to test it a few more times for comparison.” Wang Shouzhe nodded to himself. If they wanted to call it live air, so be it. It was easier to understand than the difficult-sounding “oxygen”. “When a fish consumes live air, it expels dead air. Its feces produce poisonous gas in the water. The cotton layer, crushed charcoal, and gravel layer filter away the poisonous gas from the feces in the water. Since there’s no poison in the water, the fishes naturally won’t die. Why didn’t I think of that?”
The more Wang Shouyi spoke, the more excited he became. “Also, what Fourth Brother said about the cold and hot conditions makes a lot of sense too. The colder the weather is, the fewer deaths there are when transporting live fishes. In the summer, more live fishes will die. So it turns out that the fishes are more active in hot weather, so they need more live air… No wonder transporting them in the day is not as good as transporting them at night! If we add some cellar ice in the water…”
The theories that Wang Shouzhe imparted seemed to have opened a door to a new world for Wang Shouyi. He suddenly figured out many things that he could not figure out in the past. “Second Brother, it’s good that you understand. You can get the craftsmen to make a few small devices for testing first.” Wang Shouzhe looked at the sky. “It’s getting late. I have other matters to attend to, so I’ll take my leave first.”
As the patriarch, Wang Shouzhe was not here to invent things. Besides, it was easier in theory than in practice. He might not be able to do those things well if he had to make them himself.
As long as Wang Shouyi understood the principles, he could take on the rest of the work.
“Fourth Brother, don’t be in such a hurry to leave.” Wang Shouyi tugged at him and did not let go. “It’s rare for you to come to the fish stall, and I haven’t properly received you yet. We’ll have lunch at the Hundred Flavors Pavilion this afternoon. The live fish in that restaurant are all provided by us, and the various dishes are all top-notch. There are still a few things that I haven’t figured out yet. What’s the principle of the siphoning effect drainage method you mentioned? What’s the principle of using the pump to add live air to the water tank? How to use the pumping effect to make the water travel to higher places…”
Good grief!
Hearing the barrage of questions from him, although Wang Shouzhe felt a headache, he knew that it was a good thing. Wang Shouyi had run the fish stall for many years. If he could really immerse himself in this field of knowledge, the business of the fish stall in the future would keep improving. This could be considered a huge contribution to the clan.
Wang Clan’s fish stall wasn’t the only one in Changning Wei. More than ten noble clans were running the fish stall businesses. The Liu and Zhao Clans in particular both ran it on a larger scale than the Wang Clan.
The better their own fish stall was, the more wealth they could create. At the same time, it would also deprive their opponents of living space.
Therefore, Wang Shouzhe spent more time on further “preliminary education” with Wang Shouyi. The siphoning effect and the manual pump both required pipes. The use of pipes in this world was rather crude. There were only bamboo pipes, clay pipes, and copper pipes, but they were enough for use.
It didn’t matter if they couldn’t produce manual pumps for the time being. They could just use the simple siphoning principle to suck out the bottom layer of water and get the staff to manually pour water into the filtering layer. This way, the transportation volume of a carriage would increase tremendously, and the live fish rate would also increase substantially.
Wang Shouyi was mesmerized by what he heard. Even when they were having lunch at the Hundred Flavors Pavilion, he tugged at Wang Shouzhe and kept asking questions.
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“Second Brother, is the Hundred Flavors Pavilion really one of the best restaurants in Changning Wei?” As Wang Shouzhe ate the dishes in the Hundred Flavors Pavilion, he felt that the taste was average. The only advantage was the quality of the ingredients.
Of course, the skills in seasoning still exceeded that of the Wang Clan’s cook. However, there was still a huge disparity between its taste and that of food on Earth.
“Fourth Brother, this meal cost 32 large coppers and 73 dimes…” Wang Shouyi’s face darkened as he cried out in grievance. “This is all from my hard-earned private savings. How can you not be satisfied with such delicious food?”
Wang Shouzhe touched his chin. The discrepancy was probably due to sodium glutamate. In his previous life on Earth, every corner of the culinary world was filled with MSG and chicken essence. It had long raised the threshold for flavor in his soul memory to a very high level.
If he could produce MSG, could it also become an industry?