The 16th year of Zhenguan

The sea breeze is blowing... There are seagulls flying happily in the sky, not far away... Several large ships have just left the port, and Li Zhan is lying comfortably on the beach. At this time, Li Zhan has lost the tenderness of a young man.

After all, it has been six years since Li Zhan is already twenty-five years old.

Around Li Zhan, several furry children were playing with the sand on the beach wantonly. Li Zhan equipped them with one person, a small shovel and a bucket, so that they could play freely.

These children are Li Ping, Li An, Li Jue (the eldest son of Li Chengqian), Li Hao (the eldest son of Li Ke), Li Yuxi...!

The five children are now learning from Li Zhan. Li Jue and Li Hao were sent to him in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan last year. Under the care of Li Zhan, they are becoming more and more lively. You don’t know that when these two children were just sent, they looked like little adults and had no childlike innocence at all.

Now, I finally regained my childlike heart.

"Dad... look, I made a big city." Li Zhan's eldest son Li Ping came to Li Zhan with a smile to present treasures.

Following Li Ping, Ang, Li Jue and Li Hao also ran over one by one. Li Zhan looked at Li Ping's small city and smiled and nodded, "No, not bad..."

After saying it was good, Ang Lee, Li Jue and Li Hao immediately asked Li Zhan to see what they made, including boats, streets and carriages... You can't say anything, each one is pretty good.

Li Zhan gave all the praises, but Li Zhan was puzzled by his daughter Li Yuxi, who did nothing alone. Li Yuxi was just picking up shells by the beach. When Li Yuxi came to Li Zhan, there was already half a bucket of shells in his hand.

At this time, Li Zhan smiled and asked Li Yuxi, why are you not playing with sand?

Li Yuxi's answer was that Li Zhan didn't know how to answer, because Li Yuxi told Li Zhan that no matter how good the sand was piled up now, when the tide came, no matter how good the sand would be, it would be destroyed in an instant? So even if it was piled up, it would be useless.

It's better to pick up some shells by yourself.

"Uh..." For a moment? Li Zhan was stunned for a moment. He felt that his daughter seemed to know a lot.

At this moment... Li Yi ran over from a distance with a smile? Then he smiled at Li Zhan and said, "Your Highness... It's time to have a meal..."

When I heard about the meal, five children lined up immediately? They didn’t need anyone’s support at all. Instead, after waiting for Li Zhan’s order, they walked towards a villa by the beach together.

That villa is a building that is very similar to a modern villa.

The villa covers a small area, with eight rooms, three living rooms, four bathrooms... There is tap water in the villa? A toilet. Of course, there is no electric light and electric gun, and Li Zhan's family lives here.

There are no servants in the villa, and those who clean the housework are Yang Qiaoer, Li Qing'an, Ouyang Duoduo, Feng Ming, Tuo Xiaodi, Yue'er, Hua Gu... These people? However, the villa area is blocked.

Wait until you return to the villa.

"Grandpa Ying...Grandpa Ying...!"

The children saw the shadow happily, ran over happily with the five children, and then rushed into the shadow's arms. After six years, the shadow has grown a little older, but he is still very energetic.

The shadow is the most doting of these children. I still remember that Li Ping once broke a porcelain cup because of mischief. Li Zhan was very angry because Li Zhan had already talked about Li Ping's naughtyness again and again, but Li Ping always refused to listen.

In order to kill the chicken to warn the monkey, Li Zhan issued an order, and Li Ping was not allowed to eat for a day.

Oh... Before Yang Qiao'er cried, Mr. Ying knelt to Li Zhan sadly, hoping that Li Zhan would not have such punishment. Mr. Ying cried and said that now Li Ping is still growing, and if he doesn't eat, it will definitely affect his health.

Li Zhan was speechless. He didn't give others his face, but how could he not give Old Ying's face? Old Ying has been following Li Zhan through life and death. Now he is kneeling in front of Li Zhan, crying so miserably.

Li Zhan had no choice but to sigh, then helped Mr. Ying up and said forget it.

Originally, Li Zhan thought that Mr. Ying should be better than Li Ping, and others should not be protected like this. What made Li Zhan a little stunned was that Mr. Ying actually spoiled all the children.

Whether it was Li Ping, Ang, Li Yuxi, and later Li Jue and Li Hao, Mr. Ying was extremely fond of these children, so that when Li Zhan wanted to punish these children, he would pay Mr. Ying away.

"Grandpa...Grandpa...Grandpa...Grandpa...!"

Of course, because Mr. Ying is sincere to the children, the children are also very kind to Mr. Ying. They rushed into Mr. Ying's arms and happily called grandpa. That touch was really warm.

Li Zhan came over, and Old Ying immediately let go of the children and bowed, "Your Highness...!"

"No gifts..." Li Zhan followed and said with a smile: "Let's go have a meal together... After the meal is finished, Mr. Ying will take the children to play for a while."

"Really...!" The movie music was a surprise. When the children heard that they could play for a while, they cheered quickly.

Li Zhan smiled slightly, "Children... I'm born to love playing. After entering the villa, Yang Qiaoer smiled and took the children to wash their hands. Li Zhan looked at Li Qing'an and asked, "Yunan, how many months did my father-in-law say?"

Li Fengan turned around and smiled, "July... this time my father said he went a little far, but no matter how far he was, he would come back in July."

Li Zhan nodded: "Thank you for your hard work, so I always help me walk around. When I come back this time, I think you told my father-in-law that you should not go out to sea again in the future. You are not young anymore and you can rest."

"Oh... I understand." Li Qingan replied with a smile.

At this time, Ouyang Duoduo on the side rushed over and said, "Your Highness... When will we start teaching kung fu?... My teacher has been idle for a long time."

Li Zhan looked at Ouyang Duoduo and smiled: "These children are only six years old, aren't they too young?"

"Hey... you don't understand this. Martial arts must start practicing from the child..." Ouyang Duoduo was ready to try to teach his children's martial arts.

However, Li Zhan was a little reluctant, why... because this martial art is indeed a useless child, and he endured very hard. Although he could protect himself when he grew up, Li Zhan still disagreed with it, so he always disagreed with Ouyang Duoduo.

"Ah...oh..." Looking at Ouyang Duoduo who was excited, Li Zhan smiled and said, "I am the only one who decides not to be able to do it alone... You said that you should practice martial arts, but we can't only practice it, Jue'er and Hao'er also need to practice it.

So I have to ask Chengqian and Li Ke whether they are willing or not?”

"Then ask quickly..." Ouyang Duoduo couldn't wait to stare at his little eyes.

"What are you asking...!" Ouyang Ye walked over from the side with a frown and looked at Ouyang Duoduo and cursed unhappily: "Ouyang Duoduo, if you dare to touch my granddaughter again, I will fight you hard. Last time I insisted on letting my granddaughter practice splits.

My granddaughter's tears are all over, you won't give up, hum... stay away from my granddaughter."

"Ah..." Ouyang Duoduo looked at his father's distress and said ridiculously: "Isn't you treating me like this when you were a child? You also told me that only by suffering can you be sweet if you endure hardships. Why do you say this again now?"

"Bah... can you compare with my granddaughter...I'm the same thing, Ouyang Duoduo, you can practice anyone, but my granddaughter will never follow you."

Ouyang Ye's words made Ouyang Duoduo speechless. When Ouyang Ye turned back to find Li Yuxi, he frowned behind Ouyang Ye. Li Zhan looked at Ouyang Duoduo's cute appearance and laughed haha.

The laughter made Ouyang Ye turn around suddenly, and then he saw Ouyang Duoduo winking at him.

Ouyang Ye glared at his eyes, Ouyang Duoduo called out "ah" and turned around and ran away. Ouyang Ye instantly chased and scolded, "You still want to run away."

"Dad, I didn't mean it, don't chase me." Ouyang Duoduo begged for mercy loudly.

However, Ouyang Ye shouted reluctantly: "Stop and let me beat you up."

"Haha..." The daily routine of the father and daughter made the children laugh, and Li Zhan kept laughing.

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Finally... lunch started, so you can eat the mountains and the sea. Li Zhan's family's lunch was a gorgeous seafood meal, king crab... sea urchin... oysters...!

Of course, these are all eaten by adults, while the children still eat rice and meat dishes.

At first, these children also like seafood very much, but after eating it for a long time, it would still be rice.

The largest import in Dengzhou City is now rice. To be honest, there are very few people eating seafood, especially crabs. Li Zhan built a whaling ship in the 14th year of Zhenguan.

Of course, whaling has happened a long time ago. Our ancestors paddled a raft and started catching whaling, but the mortality rate of whaling at that time was too high.

Whales are currently the largest animal in the world. Large whales can be more than 30 meters long and weigh more than 190 tons, which is equivalent to 33 elephants or 300 scalpers.

The ancient description of whales was that the sound was like thunder, the breath was like wind, and the water was like rain and fog. From a distance, it looked like a mountain on the sea. Whales often traveled with mother and son, one big one with one small one, and from a distance, one high and one low like islands in the sea.

The whale at that time was called Hailongweng.

Whales are full of treasures, not only meat can be eaten, but whales are very rich in fat, reaching more than ten to ten centimeters thick. Fishermen will use whale blubber to make oil very early and use whale oil to light it. It is smokeless, odorless and durable.

After Li Zhan hunted whaling, he specially sold this whale oil to Chang'an, which was definitely a hot item.

Of course, whaling is skilled, and the best thing to catch whaling is in spring, because we all know that whales look like big fish, but are actually mammals. Every winter and spring, whales will swim to the shallow sea to produce seeds, and this is the peak season for whaling.

Li Zhan’s Dengzhou whaling team, as soon as the winter solstice passes, the fishermen organize fleets to patrol. After discovering whales, the ships slowly approach the prey and use the "stinging technique" to catch them.

The fleet consists of three whaling ships. If it weren't for the whaling ships built by Li Zhan, it would take at least nine to ten whaling ships. The fishing gear is a whale mark with a rope and a pole, which is 1.5-2 meters long and weighs about 10 kilograms. The hook is sharp and the cables are connected firmly. One end is wrapped around the ship and the other end is operated with the pole.

There are several groups of each ship, each group of two people, one person grabs the mark and one person carries the cable. A person with high skills and sufficient experience is responsible for the head mark. Generally, when the head mark is 2-3 meters away from a whale, the head mark starts to be thrown. Regardless of whether it falls off or not, other marks will be added manually, and the numbers will be equal and foolproof.

After the hook pierced into the fish body, the fishermen took advantage of the situation and let the ropes be pulled to swim. After the injured whale was exhausted, they tied the boat side and then dragged it to the shore to slaughter.

The income from selling whales is agreed upon, and the actual number of winning ships and parts are distributed according to the actual number of bids, and each ship is then disposed of according to the size of the contribution. Li Zhan thought of whaling because one year later, a giant whale was stranded on the beach of Shawan and weighed ten thousand kilograms, just like a hill!

After some people discovered it, they dragged more than ten cows near Dengzhou City to slaughter and sell them at a very cheap price. Life was difficult at that time, and everyone was rushing to buy meat when they had eaten it.

After Li Zhan found out, he also went to see it. He found that those people didn't know how good the whales were, so they threw away the whale oil, which made Li Zhan feel like he wanted to teach everyone to catch whales.

However, after more whales caught, whales became cheaper. Before Dengzhou was rich, the family was poor and greedy for whales. I bought a lot of them. I was afraid of eating them when I was tired of them. "Whales meat was much cheaper than pork. At that time, seafood was cheaper than pork, and even pigs ate seafood as feed!

Li Zhan thought that he could not let whale meat be sold so cheaply, but whale meat was not easy to store, so Li Zhan later invented canned whale meat. My God, this sale not only sold whale meat throughout the Tang Dynasty, but also Dashi, Tubo... the entire Western Regions countries sold all over the country.

Li Zhan's whaling team has also changed from one team to fifteen teams now, and the canning factory has also changed from one room to ten.

The income of whaling alone can reach 50 million guan a year. Of course, Li Zhan will have to send some of these 50 million guan to Chang'an, and everyone will enjoy the rain and dew. Only then can everyone know how good Li Zhan is and that Li Zhan will always be in everyone's hearts.

Of course, Li Zhan is restrained by whaling, because Li Zhan also knows that if he is not restrained, the whales will suffer a catastrophe. Humans are not very interested in whales.

In ancient times when human tools were not mature, humans had no choice but to be a behemoth of whales, only some small whales would become prey of the Inuits.

However, with the discovery of the huge wealth of whales, humans began to hunt whales on a large scale, from dolphins to sperm whales, and then to blue whales. No matter how big the whales are, they are vulnerable to human whaling ships.

Especially after humans invented the internal combustion engine, the demand for whale oil reached its peak, and the price of whale oil was comparable to gold at that time.

The huge profits also promoted the further expansion of the whaling industry. At that time, a whaling ship was like a factory on the sea. After fishing whales on board, specialized workers would be responsible for boiling whale oil on the spot, otherwise once the whales rotted, they would lose their value.

In order to catch whales, whalers will even catch the young whales first, making the whale mother unable to bear to leave, and eventually become buckets of whale oil.

The British, Dutch, French, Norwegian, and later Americans were the countries that were most keen on whaling at that time. The further development of industry and technology allowed the whaling ships to be equipped with more advanced weapons, and no whales could escape from the whaling ships.

The range of human whaling is from the Arctic to the Antarctic, especially the blue whales that live in the Antarctic waters.

The whalers were surprised to find that the blue whales weighed 170 tons, which was the largest among all whales and the richest fat on their bodies. After the news spread, Antarctica once became a place where whaling ships were dense, and the blue whales were almost extinct.

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Chapter completed!