gnovel Chapter 47 Ship
Chapter 47 Ship
There is indeed progress on the ship; Kong Tie just found out about it.
"It's a 400-ton sea hull, made of fir wood, and not too old, about twenty years old," he said. "It's changed hands three times already; if you buy it now, it will be the fourth time."
"Wow!" Shao Shuyi was speechless.
Twenty years old, a fourth-hand ship, tell me, how powerful is that!
"Can it still be opened?" he couldn't help but ask.
Kong Tie nodded without hesitation and said, "Of course it can sail. In the canal transport, there are many ships that are decades old, while new ships are extremely rare."
Damn! Shao Shuyi was even more speechless.
What does this mean? It means that seafarers don't have the money to invest in new ships, and probably don't want to either.
"How much cargo can it hold?" Shao Shuyi asked.
"It's hard to say." Kong Tie hesitated for a moment before saying, "This ship was built specifically for transporting grain. It can also carry other goods, but not as much as grain."
"How much exactly?"
"It seems to be a boat with a capacity of over four hundred shi (a unit of weight), and it is a shallow boat, unable to sail on the deep sea, only able to sail along the shore, but it can enter the Yangtze River, the Loujiang River or other large rivers."
How big is the ship?
Kong Tie took out a piece of yellow paper from his pocket and handed it to Shao Shuyi, saying, "Before I came here, I went to Zheng's Shipyard and asked Master Li to write something down. Take a look for yourself."
Shao Shuyi looked at him with new respect, but after unfolding the yellow paper, he saw several lines of crooked writing on it—
"It can hold 320 shi of regular grain, consume 132 shi of grain, for a total of 452 shi."
The base is 52 feet long, the board is 2 inches thick, the head is 9 feet 5 inches long, the tip is 9 feet 5 inches long, and the total length is 71 feet (about 22 meters).
There are fourteen beams, hence the fifteen compartments.
The windbreak beam was to be 4.35 meters wide and 1.18 meters deep.
These are the basic data for common sea bream.
Although there are some differences between the Drilling Sea Loach due to the non-standardized construction process of each shipyard, the differences are not very large. The load capacity is basically in the range of 420 to 450 tons. Based on a square coefficient of 0.7, the displacement of the Drilling Sea Loach is about 38 tons, and the standard load capacity is between 25 and 27 tons.
Shao Shuyi put away the yellow paper and frowned in thought.
To be honest, this ship is actually quite good. It can carry 452 shi (weight stone, 120 jin, not volume stone) of grain, and it can also be used for trading and transporting other goods.
"Baijianu, how many people are needed to start such a ship?" Shao Shuyi asked.
"It depends on how you plan to operate," Kong Tie replied. "If you're just following the grain convoy, a dozen or twenty people will suffice. If you want to move as nimbly as a dragon swimming in the sea, you'll need to double the number, to thirty or forty. If you're going to fight and kill others—"
At this point, Kong Tie gave Shao Shuyi a deep look and said, "The more people you bring, the better."
Shao Shuyi hummed in agreement.
"Brother Shao, stop being so picky," Wang Huadu suddenly said. "Although it's much smaller than the big ships on the Loujiang River, it's more than enough for us. Damn it, what would happen if we brought back four hundred shi of salt?"
"Why didn't you bring back four hundred shi of counterfeit money?" Shao Shuyi glanced at him, then changed the subject, saying, "This ship is indeed quite good. How much did it cost?"
"It's a long story..." Kong Tie sighed and gave a brief explanation.
Shao Shuyi then realized that the Drilling Sea Loach actually belonged to his "old acquaintance" Li Fu.
He had just returned from the summer sports meet. After traveling between Taicang and Zhigu, the boat sustained some damage, and he ran out of money to repair it.
More importantly, he has no interest in running the boat anymore because his wife has died.
Li Fu received a sum of money for the water transport, paid off his debts, and redeemed his wife. However, he still owed wages to the sailors he had recruited for the grain transport, so he planned to pawn his wife again to borrow more money for the emergency.
After learning that his wife was going to be mortgaged a second time, she calmly cooked dinner for the children and then hanged herself that night.
Li Fu was devastated by this blow and became completely despondent. If it weren't for his son and daughter, he probably wouldn't have had the courage to go on living.
After being comforted by his neighbors, he now only wants to get rid of the boat, pay off his debts, and not care about anything else.
After Kong Tie finished speaking, the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
After a long silence, Shao Shuyi sighed and said, "Let's go see Li Fu's house."
******
A large crowd had gathered outside Li Fu's house, mostly neighbors.
When Shao Shuyi arrived in the courtyard, he immediately saw the disheveled man and the motionless corpse of the woman lying on the straw mat.
The two children, one four or five years old and the other six or seven, were crying uncontrollably beside them.
Kong Tie nodded to Shao Shuyi, walked over and squatted down next to Li Fu, whispering something to him.
Li Fu looked dazed and confused, nodding to everything he said, occasionally chuckling to himself, his eyes staring blankly into the air.
My family used to be very wealthy.
My father sold Tianzhuhuang and Jiegeng in Qingyuan, and he made a lot of money for me.
Her family owned a pharmacy, and when she married me, all the young men in the surrounding villages sighed with regret.
She brought over three large boxes of jewelry as a dowry.
She gave birth to two children for me…
Li Fu muttered to himself as if no one else was around, and as he spoke, he began to sob.
There was no hysteria, no wailing or lamentation, but a calm, heartfelt sadness.
After his wife's death, Li Fu seemed to have gone mad, yet also seemed to have regained his senses.
Before Kong Tie could say anything more, Shao Shuyi stepped forward and pulled him back, asking in a low voice, "Does Li Fu's family have the money to hold a funeral?"
"It should be gone," Kong Tie said.
Shao Shuyi beckoned Yu Yuan over and asked him to take out all the precious banknotes he had brought.
"After paying the last sum for the bow, I have twenty strings of cash left." After saying that, Yu Yuan added another ten strings of cash, saying, "I still have ten strings left."
"Thirty strings of cash isn't enough," Shao Shuyi said. "You stay here and help Baijianu with the funeral arrangements. I'll be right back."
"Brother Shao, where are you going?" Wang Huadu walked over and asked in a low voice, "What about the boat?"
Shao Shuyi sighed and replied in a low voice, "Although I am not a good person, I really can't bear to take advantage of Li Fu's situation."
Wang Huadu opened his mouth, but in the end only sighed and muttered, "Playing the good guy again."
"Cherish the time I can still be a good person," Shao Shuyi patted Wang Huadu on the shoulder and said, "You stay and help too. Li Fu's hometown is in Qingyuan, and he has no relatives here anymore, so help him if you can."
Having said that, he turned and left.
He traveled westward for an unknown distance until he finally saw a house in the distance, so he went up and knocked on the door.
"Brother Shao?" the servant asked in surprise as he opened the door.
"It's me. Is my lord here?" Shao Shuyi cupped his hands and asked.
The person who opened the door was a servant from Zheng Fan's household. I recognized him because I had come to the ceramics shop once before.
"You've come at just the right time; the master was just about to leave," the servant said.
"Who's looking for me?" A loud voice rang out from inside the door, and a moment later, Zheng Fan appeared.
"My lord," Shao Shuyi bowed.
"Huh? Isn't it not the winter solstice yet? Why are you in such a hurry to come over for a meal?" Zheng Fan joked.
Shao Shuyi shook his head with a wry smile, then leaned close to Zheng Fan's ear and recounted Li Fu's affair. Finally, he added, "Sir, could you lend me two ingots of paper money?"
Zheng Fan gave him an annoyed look and said, "You've gotten bold, huh? You dare to ask me for money now."
"I hope you will grant my request," Shao Shuyi said.
Zheng Fan was silent for a moment, then said, "Do you know that Li Fu was originally a seafarer who was granted a visa?"
"I don't know," Shao Shuyi answered honestly.
"The seafaring households are no longer profitable, so the court issues new appointments every few years," Zheng Fan said. "Li Fu should have had some wealth, but after transporting grain for so many years, it's all been squandered. He's not the first, and he won't be the last. Didn't the provincial authorities issue over a thousand new seafaring households this year? Just wait and see, in three or four years at the earliest, five or six years at the latest, there will definitely be more cases like Li Fu emerging. Can you manage to control them all?"
Shao Shuyi remained silent for a moment, then said, "How could I not know? But seeing such tragedies, I can't help but lend a hand. Perhaps—"
At this point, he sighed, "The second time I encountered it, my heart hardened, and I turned a blind eye. But this time, I still want to help. If you're worried, sir, I still have that bag of incense medicine left; you can use it to repay me."
Zheng Fan snorted, pondered for a moment, then turned and ordered his servant, "Go and fetch five ingots of paper money."
The servant responded and left.
A moment later, he came over with the money, held it high above his head, and handed it to Zheng Fan.
Zheng Fan took the items, counted them, and handed them to Shao Shuyi. Then he pointed at the servant and said, "Take Xiao Hu to buy funerary objects. He doesn't know any better and will most likely be fooled."
"Yes," the servant replied.
Shao Shuyi was both amused and touched.
At this point, it's already good enough that they're willing to lend you money, let alone worry that you'll be ripped off when you buy things, so they specially sent someone to follow you.
He then bowed deeply and said, "Thank you, sir."
Zheng Fan stared at him intently for a moment, then suddenly smiled and said, "I'm over thirty this year. When I was seventeen, the first time I went to the north to roam as a swordsman, I was just as enthusiastic as you. Oh well, everyone has to go through this. I hope—your blood doesn't cool down so quickly."
After saying that, he shook his head and said, "Let's go drink. This messed-up world, we'll just have to live one day at a time. But we only have a few more days to enjoy ourselves. In the middle of winter, people from the porcelain kiln will be coming, and we might both have to be there. You go ahead and get busy..."