Chapter 23: Warship Becomes Fishing Boat

Chen Yonggui shouted several times in a row before Tang Wen came to his senses.

Two million startled Tang Wen; what he actually did not know was how violently the price and supply-demand relationship of fishing boats had changed in this era.

Before the 1980s, a small boat of several dozen tons could drag up ten thousand jin of fish with a single cast; back then, going to sea was truly a windfall. After the spring breeze, the private fishing industry developed as rapidly as bamboo shoots.

But when a massive amount of private capital flooded into the fishing industry, overfishing followed.

From ten thousand jin per cast, to several thousand, and finally in 1995, a single cast in near-shore waters yielded only about one thousand jin.

To increase the catch as much as possible, fishing nets were made larger and larger, and naturally, the tonnage of fishing boats had to increase accordingly.

After near-shore fishery resources inevitably became depleted, fishing companies could only turn their gaze toward the open sea.

This further led to fishing companies demanding increasingly larger boat tonnage; starting at four or five hundred tons was necessary to sustain crew consumption during long voyages and to resist the wind and waves of the open sea.

In the original history, the tonnage of Chinese fishermen's boats would rapidly upgrade after entering the new century, and the fishing range would grow larger and larger, eventually developing to the point where they frequently "accidentally" fished in the waters of the Island Nation, Luzon, Annam, and South Korea; large-tonnage fishing boats also had their uses in resolving misunderstandings.

Sometimes, even facing foreign maritime patrol boats, they did not fall behind, with stories occasionally occurring of captains bold enough to ram them directly.

At the current point in time, the value of small-tonnage fishing boats was dropping rapidly due to the depletion of near-shore fishery resources, while demand for large-tonnage fishing boats surged.

Therefore, the expansion of fishing companies urgently required large-tonnage deep-sea fishing boats; otherwise, relying on even more near-shore fishing boats would yield no profit, and every voyage would result in a loss.

Ten years later, even a second-hand wreck of a fishing boat with a light displacement of six hundred tons and a full load of one thousand tons would cost fifteen million.

One could only say that the Renminbi had not yet begun its frantic, massive devaluation, so the price was merely a few million.

For a general shipyard, building a fishing boat of over five hundred tons for two million was indeed asking too much; it would probably cover only the material costs.

But Tang Wen's mind turned quickly; although developing a new ship would cost experience points, there were... existing hulls available!

The level-one ship data included with the System Shipyard covered thirteen series, meaning thirteen gunboats of around one thousand tons each.

Gunboats and fishing boats shouldn't be that different, right?

If civilian ships from World War II could be converted into aircraft carriers, why couldn't warships be converted into fishing boats?

Moreover, two million was over forty thousand silver coins; a "Matsushima" class ship with materials included cost only 22,500 silver!

He almost immediately agreed, but he still suppressed his excitement and said to the village head:

"Village Head, two million is a bit low, but you are right; we can take this order without making a profit to make a name for ourselves.

Which company is it? I will contact them immediately!"

Chen Yonggui, however, felt a bit embarrassed:

"Actually, it's fine if you don't take it. Now that the shipyard is just getting started, there isn't much money in the accounts either; maybe we should just forget it..."

"Don't!"

Tang Wen almost knelt down to hug the village head's leg:

"Uncle! Uncle Chen, just let our shipyard practice our skills; we really can take it!"

"This..."

Although he didn't know why Tang Wen was so excited, Chen Yonggui still nodded:

"I'll ask my son to inquire for you again; I'll call you when I have news. Have you installed a telephone at your shipyard yet?"

"That is the second matter, along with the electricity connection."

"..."

Only after the reminder did Tang Wen remember that he still needed to install a telephone; installing telephone lines now would also allow for internet access in a few years.

The 56K modem should also be appearing; this ancient term from memory is now the latest technology of the era.

After seeing the village head off, Tang Wen immediately summoned Chief Ship Designer Tang Yi to begin discussing the possibility of converting warships into fishing boats.

Upon hearing this request, Tang Yi's expression was as if he had eaten something terrible, but he still thought seriously and replied after a while:

"Strictly speaking, a gunboat like the 'Matsushima' class and a fishing boat of the same level are not that different. A level-one warship has almost no armor; removing the turrets and various weapons can reduce weight by at least one hundred tons, and installing trawls is not a major problem.

Although the 'Matsushima' was designed as an inland river gunboat with a flat bottom, it adopted a long forecastle hull form to cross the main island, possessing both sea and inland river navigation capabilities; slightly modifying the hull shape is also easy.

Aside from being slightly narrower than a normal fishing boat, from the perspective of minimizing changes to save research experience, the 'Matsushima' class can be converted into a large deep-sea fishing boat with a standard displacement of 800 tons and a full load of 1,400 tons.

However..."

Tang Wen nodded repeatedly and became excited listening to Tang Yi's long explanation before, and subconsciously asked:

"However what? These should all be minor problems, right?"

Tang Yi: "Have you considered the propulsion? The Matsushima is a warship using a 3,300 horsepower steam turbine that burns heavy oil.

Converted to a fishing boat, the speed could be reduced to 14 knots, but it would still require at least 2,500 horsepower; a diesel engine set would be best. We do not have such a propulsion combination and would need to develop it from scratch."

Tang Wen: "Can't the steam turbine burning heavy oil be used?"

"Of course it can, and heavy oil is cheaper than diesel, but fishing companies might find it hard to gather crew capable of maintaining steam turbines, and safety and convenience are far inferior to diesel engine sets.

Even for a thousand-ton class gunboat, it takes more than half an hour before setting sail to pressurize the boilers before it can move."

In fact, after World War II, thousand-ton class warships basically also used diesel engine sets, with various performance metrics being much better, and civilian ships had basically bid farewell to steam engines.

If developing a 2,500 horsepower diesel engine set, that would violate Tang Wen's original intention of saving research experience.

A diesel engine set of this level would require at least four diesel engines connected in parallel, meaning single engines of over 600 horsepower each; the technical difficulty is not small.

But asking a fishing company to use a steam turbine... how does that feel like turning history backward?

Tang Yi could not think of a good solution to this problem either, so Tang Wen could only temporarily give up.

However, thinking that this was after all a fishing boat of over one thousand tons, if the price was low enough, it should still have considerable competitiveness.

It's just that the village head hasn't even contacted the other shipyard yet; right now, it's just thinking about it.

However, the village head's words today opened Tang Wen's mind; fishing boats were more profitable than he imagined, and if the research experience requirement was ignored, they might become the shipyard's main source of income in the future.

Just as he was thinking about how to do the fishing boat business, Wu Lao Er, who had been away for over a week, finally returned to the shipyard.

Upon meeting, Wu Lao Er fumbled for money in a panic, as if something bad would happen if he was a moment late.

"Brother Tang, this is all the final payment; I brought it all back to you without missing a single cent!"

Tang Wen did not bother counting the money; he merely looked at Wu Lao Er's wretched state and asked what had happened, whereupon the latter immediately wore a bitter expression and shook his head repeatedly.

Tang Shiba, following behind him, spoke up:

"We encountered a robbery, but we were not robbed."

"That is good news then; no one was hurt."

Tang Wen was stunned, yet it felt somewhat expected; could it be that Wu Lao Er had been scared senseless?

Little did he know the latter stammered and said:

"Brother Tang, well... actually, transport isn't that dangerous; next time I will just figure out the transport myself."

Hearing such an answer, Tang Wen thought it was because Tang Shiba and Tang Shijiu were uncooperative, and he instinctively questioned the latter, only for Wu Lao Er to give an unexpected reply:

"Little brother, although the local customs here are indeed somewhat fierce, you didn't need to bring a machine gun!"