129: Excuse me

While the group was chatting idly, Chen Lanying received a call. Everyone knew it was the harvest returning to port and would arrive in about half an hour.

Yang Qi was also quite excited; he hadn't seen the harvest or Yang Dad and the others for almost four days. He wondered if Yang Dad could adapt.

The group drove a van and an electric scooter to the dock ahead of time to wait. Before long, Chen Tianming also arrived with his crewmen.

From a distance, the outline of the harvest appeared in everyone's sight.

As the boat got closer, Yang Qi finally saw Yang Dad. Yang Dad stood at the bow, looking spirited, with an excited smile on his face.

The boat docked steadily, and Yang Qi quickly went to meet him. "Dad, how are you? Are you tired? Have you adapted to being at sea these past few days?"

Yang Dad laughed heartily and patted his shoulder: "Son, I'm fine. Your dad is strong, and we had a great harvest today!"

With a command from Chen Tianming, the crewmen began to busily unload the catch. Baskets of fresh, plump fish were carried onto the dock.

Yang Qi took a look and saw that the most abundant catch for the harvest this time was filefish.

Filefish, also known as leatherjacket, triggerfish, or rubberfish, has the scientific name Thamnaconus modestus. It is widely distributed along China's coast and, as its name suggests, is named for the rough outer skin that needs to be removed before cooking.

As one of China's important marine economic fish species, its annual output reaches tens of thousands of tons, second only to Beltfish. Due to its high yield, it appears in various markets across the country, either fresh, frozen, or dried.

It is rich in nutrients. In addition to being eaten fresh, it is deep-processed into delicious grilled fish fillets and canned goods that sell well both domestically and internationally, making it one of the exported aquatic products.

Filefish meat can be used medicinally, rich in protein and amino acids, it can treat mastitis, gastrointestinal bleeding, etc., and its skin can be made into gelatin.

Its flesh is garlic-clove-shaped, tender and firm, with a soft yet not loose texture, slightly sweet, with few bones and no fishy smell.

Filefish is suitable for a variety of cooking methods; in short, it tastes good no matter how it's prepared.

Moreover, its market price is relatively affordable.

Depending on individual size, and the difference between fresh and frozen, it generally costs 30 to 50 yuan per jin.

Some large, live filefish can even fetch over a hundred yuan per jin.

According to Yang Dad, they encountered a sizable school of filefish this time, pulling two nets and harvesting about four tons of fish in total.

Everyone gathered to inspect, each marveling. Although the price of filefish isn't very high, the sheer volume makes up for it!

Everyone understood the principle of quantitative change leading to qualitative change.

Yang Qi noticed that this catch was not only large in quantity but also rich in variety and exceptionally good in quality.

There should also be several tons of Beltfish, and other fish like Sea Bass, Yellowfin Seabream, red seabream, and various types of sea shrimp, mantis shrimp, etc., which were likely caught by gillnets and trawling.

The live fish hold mostly contained fish caught by longlines and ground cages, including various sizes of Grouper, Sea Bass, seabream, and even many Blackfish.

There were also many blue crabs, swimming crabs, flower crabs, large stone crabs, Spiny Lobster, eels, Octopus, and other catches from the ground cages.

In short, the harvest utilized trawling, as well as a large number of gillnets, longlines, ground cages, and other fishing tools.

The main focus was on large quantities and ample supply!

The setting sail's main focus was on premium quality!

Chen Lanying said with a smile, "It seems the harvest truly lives up to its name!"

Everyone laughed along, and the dockside was a lively scene. It was also fortunate that they didn't unload at the town dock, or they would surely have been surrounded by onlookers.

Next was the busy time for Chen Tianming's crewmen. Boxes of fish were moved by them onto the dock.

Yang Mom and Chen Lanying were there overseeing the accounting; the size and specifications had already been roughly sorted on the fishing boat.

As for Chen Tianming taking them back and continuing to sort and sell them, that was his business. After all, this was also part of his profit.

If valuable fish species were encountered, the specifications would certainly need to be finely divided, and even large Large Yellow Croaker would need to be weighed individually and accounted for separately. After all, a difference of a few liang in weight could lead to a significant price difference.

Yang Qi also got to know the newly hired crewmen from a few days ago through Yang Dad's introduction.

These were two men in their thirties, not yet forty. By their appearance, they seemed to be honest and decent fishermen.

One was named Bai Dazheng, and just by hearing the name, he seemed to be a relative of Bai Dahai. Indeed, Yang Dad introduced him as Bai Dahai's cousin.

The other was named Chen Dong, who should be from Chen Lanying's maternal side, but Yang Qi didn't ask further.

Yang Qi shook hands and greeted Bai Dazheng and Chen Dong, thus getting acquainted.

As for why Yang Qi didn't arrange for relatives and friends from his hometown to work on the boat, he and Yang Dad had indeed considered and discussed this matter.

One aspect was the urgency of hiring people; local people were old fishermen and could easily and quickly adapt to life on the boat.

Another aspect was that it was hard to say whether people from his hometown could adapt to a fisherman's life, and even if they could, it would be difficult to find suitable candidates quickly, and time waits for no one.

They could only consider it when hiring people in the future, slowly looking for suitable candidates.

Looking at so many fish, five crewmen on the harvest actually seemed a bit few.

After all, the operating methods required more manpower. So many fish on the numerous gillnets had to be removed one by one, and then sorted into different specifications.

The trawler, combined with a large number of gillnets, longlines, and ground cages, dramatically increased the workload on the fishing boat.

If it were another family's fishing boat, the workload might not be this heavy.

The harvest was different; Bai Dahai, having received the fishing spots provided by Yang Qi, could catch large quantities of fish every time.

The few people on the boat were both pained and happy.

Because the hired crewmen all had a share of the profits, Chen Zhongwei, as the captain, had a base salary of 5000 yuan plus a 1% commission, while Bai Dazheng and Chen Dong both had a base salary of 4000 yuan plus a 0.5% commission.

Seeing that the harvest had finished unloading, Bai Dazheng, Chen Dong, and Bai Lang were cleaning the boat.

This made Yang Qi look at Bai Lang again with admiration; in the afternoon, the setting sail's cleaning was also mostly done by him voluntarily.

"Good lad, promising future!"

Yang Qi secretly praised him in his heart.

Yang Qi didn't bother with Yang Dad and Chen Tianming settling accounts; he swayed into the training center alone to chat with Zhang Fei's friends over tea.

Those guys were also good at chatting, listening to them rambling about everything under the sun, both domestic and international—from the war between big geese and small geese to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and then to strategies for Taiwan. They all expressed their opinions, arguing until their faces were red and spit flew everywhere.

Yang Qi plugged his ears and bid farewell!

"Damn it, a bunch of rich second-generation kids, just idle with nothing to do. Otherwise, they should all go out to sea on the harvest for two days to help with the work."

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PS: Thanks to all the old friends who read this book! Your support is my motivation to write!