Chapter 614: Building a Seawater Aquaculture Farm

He Yuzhu was out at sea, continuing to collect fish while searching for the ten fishing boats waiting for him.

Two days later, he finally located those fishing boats via radio.

When the boat captain, Lao Sun, saw He Yuzhu's boat approaching, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Are you Comrade He?"

"It's me. Have you all been waiting for several days?"

"You finally returned! We've been waiting for you for three days; we thought something had happened to you!"

He Yuzhu jumped onto their boat, wiped the sweat from his face, and lowered his voice with a look of lingering fear: "I won't hide it from you all, it was really close this time—I went fishing over by the peninsula and ran into a South Korea patrol boat. It chased me the whole way. I pushed the throttle to the max to get away; luckily, they ran out of fuel, otherwise..." He waved his hand, not continuing.

"Oh my, that was too dangerous!" Lao Sun said. "From now on, you must be very careful!"

"Don't worry." He Yuzhu smiled and pointed to his own cabin. "I caught quite a lot of fish, they're all inside. How do you want to transfer them to your boats?"

But once they actually started, he realized he had thought it too simple.

Out on the vast ocean, was unloading and loading cargo ever that easy? The waves made the hulls sway, and the two boats rocked like swings, making it hard for anyone to even stand steady. Carrying a crate of fish over was not only exhausting enough to make them grimace, but the efficiency was also shockingly slow. After struggling for several hours, they had barely managed to move thirty tons of fish onto one fishing boat.

After discovering this drawback, He Yuzhu began leading the remaining nine fishing boats to fish at locations he designated.

By doing this, although it wasn't as fast as him collecting the fish, it was still much better than their own method of casting nets blindly.

Under He Yuzhu's guidance, two days later, all nine boats were fully loaded, totaling over three hundred tons.

He Yuzhu returned to the Fish Drying Processing Base on shore, and as soon as he arrived, he called Ershuan, Shunzi, and the others over.

"Ershuan, how are you all doing with learning to pilot the boats?"

"No problem!" Ershuan said, patting his chest.

He Yuzhu thought for a moment and said, "Do you all remember the Bay we passed when we drove over here?"

The few of them looked at each other and nodded.

"I want to fence that area off and start seawater aquaculture. In the future, even if we don't go out to sea, we can have a stable source of fish."

A look of difficulty appeared on Ershuan's face: "Brother Zhuzi, that place... someone is already farming there."

He Yuzhu waved his hand: "I know, they only occupy a small part of it. You go talk to them; we'll pay them every year as rent."

"That shouldn't be hard to negotiate," Ershuan scratched his head, "but this aquaculture stuff, the time is too long, right? If it takes a year or half a year to raise them, can we afford to wait?"

He Yuzhu smiled and lowered his voice: "I say it's for aquaculture, but I have a way to transport live fish there. That place is just a temporary warehouse, understand?"

The eyes of the few lit up, and they stopped asking questions.

Having followed He Yuzhu for so long, they naturally knew that this Brother Zhuzi had some mysterious abilities that couldn't be explained.

That very day, Ershuan took some men to find the production teams that were doing the farming to discuss it.

After two days of negotiation, it was a success—they would give them twenty tons of fish every year as rent.

Once the matter was settled, He Yuzhu sent Xiaosun with some men to the Bay to install nets and build the site.

He Yuzhu wasn't idle either; he brought out the three Landing Craft from his space, painted them white, and wrote the four large characters "Hongxing Fishery" on the hulls.

When Ershuan saw these three big machines, his eyes went wide. He circled them several times, muttering to himself: "Oh my, Zhuzi, this thing is so convenient! Once the rear hatch opens, the fish can be moved straight out; it's much easier to use than those fishing boats."

He Yuzhu didn't delay, took Ershuan, Shunzi, and Little Horse, and went out to sea with the ten fishing boats.

Because there were many boats, he didn't dare go too far from the South Korea coastline, instead fishing in an area fifty nautical miles out. Only after he finished guiding the ten fishing boats did he start loading fish onto the three Landing Craft.

"You all try fishing nearby with this Modified Boat of mine first; I'm going to head further out," He Yuzhu said.

After saying this, he pushed the throttle, the bow of the Landing Craft rose high, cut through the waves, and vanished over the horizon in the blink of an eye.

Three hours later, he returned.

The cabin was packed full, entirely with fish, piled up until it was almost overflowing.

Ershuan and the others were poor at finding fish; they had fished for three days and hadn't even caught five thousand catties.

Ershuan asked: "Zhuzi, with the Landing Craft's huge space, you filled it all up?"

He Yuzhu nodded.

"Zhuzi, did you... did you run into a school of fish?"

He Yuzhu didn't answer, jumped onto another Landing Craft, and drove out again.

In a few hours' time, all three boats were full.

"Zhuzi, you're just too incredible." Ershuan looked at He Yuzhu in disbelief.

He Yuzhu ignored the three of them and pointed to their boat: "You all don't know how to find schools of fish."

As he spoke, he started the Modified Boat, circled the sea a few times, spotted a spot, and cast the net.

When they hauled the net in, Ershuan's mouth opened wider and wider: the net was bulging, the fish were thrashing and jumping about, and with one haul, there were at least two thousand catties.

He Yuzhu didn't stop; he changed direction and cast another net, getting another one or two thousand catties.

In no more than two hours, the fishing boat was already fully loaded, with at least ten thousand catties. Ershuan stood in the pile of fish and finally managed to squeeze out a sentence: "Zhuzi, you really are a god!"

He Yuzhu took Ershuan and those fishing boats out to sea for a full fifteen days, and they had already transported back nearly 3,000 tons of fresh fish.

In Ershuan's view, this was already a massive achievement, but He Yuzhu couldn't be happy at all. He didn't want to do this kind of futile work.

Not long after, news came from Xiaosun's side: the nets at the Bay were finished.

He Yuzhu took Ershuan and the others to inspect that Bay.

When the group arrived there, it was already dark.

The water surface was pitch black, with only the sound of waves gently lapping against the wooden stakes.

He took off his clothes and swam over to the wooden stakes. The stakes were driven deep, exposed over a meter above the water and driven a meter and a half below; the fishing nets were pulled very tight, and the mesh size was appropriate: large fish couldn't escape, and the water flow could pass through, so the tide wouldn't wash the nets away.

He surfaced, wiped his face, and felt reassured.

For the next half month, he continued to take Ershuan and the fishing boats out to sea, but only sent the fish caught by those fishing boats to be made into dried fish, while they used the fish in the Landing Craft to stock the Bay.

Once the rear hatch of the Landing Craft opened, a full cabin of fish mixed with seawater surged into the Bay with a splash.

Once the fish entered the new place, they thrashed a few times and swam off in all directions, lively and energetic.

Ershuan stood on the shore watching, muttering: "This area of the sea has really become our fishing ground."

Little did he know, He Yuzhu's real tricks were still to come.

More than ten days later, after he used three Landing Craft to release the fish into the Bay, Ershuan and the others left, but he stayed behind himself. Once the sky was completely dark, he swam alone to the center of the Bay and dumped nearly twenty thousand tons of fish from his space into the Bay all at once.

By the time he left, the density of fish beneath the seawater was already extremely high.

He Yuzhu did not let outsiders manage this body of water, but instead specifically transferred fifty security personnel over from the Rolling Mill to guard this Bay exclusively.

In the blink of an eye, it was already the end of September, and the two blast furnaces at the Rolling Mill had been completed.

He Yuzhu handed all matters regarding the dried fish factory over to Ershuan, while he himself returned to Si Jiu Cheng without a sound.

He placed four Tanks and some advanced M Country equipment into the East Suburb Warehouse.

The next day, he found Liu Xiaohua.