Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 79 "Soft Gold"

September 9, dawn.

The morning light at dawn shines through the dense redwood forest and dapples onto the calm sea.

Several Indian hunters, dressed in animal skins, holding sharp spears, and dragging a fishing net made by the Chinese, sneaked into the water silently.

His eyes were as sharp as an eagle's, and through the crystal clear water, they were fixed on the sea otters playing leisurely on the water in front of him.

The sea otter seemed to sense the approaching danger, and raised its head alertly, looking around for the source of the sound.

The hunter crouched low, leaving only his eyes exposed, and slowly approached the sea otter in rhythm with his breathing.

Ripples gently appeared on the sea surface, and everything was ready to take place in silence.

The hunter suddenly threw the fishing net in his hand. The net was as light as the clouds in the sky, but as heavy as a mountain.

Seven or eight sea otters were caught in the sudden net, struggling and slapping the water, causing a splash.

The other Indians quickly surrounded the otter and pinned it down with wooden spears to prevent it from escaping.

Their movements were orderly, showing that they had already formed a tacit understanding with each other.

The air was filled with tension and excitement, and the sea breeze was mixed with the splashes of water caused by the sea otters' struggles.

After a violent struggle, the sea otter was completely subdued and curled up in the fishing net, staring and looking around in horror.

Several Indians swam excitedly towards the shore, dragging their fishing nets.

"Not bad, not bad!" Wei Zhonglong walked closer, squatted down, looked at the eight sea otters in the fishing net, and praised repeatedly: "Your catch has been getting more and more recently. Later, when we return to Shixing Fort, I will immediately recommend to our director that you give more rewards."

"This... is very useful!" Red Nose's face lit up with joy when he heard the other party's praise. He pointed at the fishing net and said in his broken Chinese, "It's used to catch sea otters. It won't... damage their fur."

"That's right." Wei Zhonglong grabbed the otter's neck through the fishing net and pulled it up, examining it carefully. "If this otter skin had a big hole in it, it wouldn't be worth much. But it's different if you catch it with a fishing net. Each otter is still intact, and you can peel off a complete otter skin. Well, I heard from that guy Li Liang that a good otter skin can sell for dozens of taels of silver."

Red Nose listened to the Chinese man's chattering, but he didn't quite understand a lot of what he meant.

However, they clearly valued the sea otters they captured and were highly praised for their efforts.

Well, that's enough.

As long as the Chinese were satisfied, they would provide them with a lot of delicious food, very soft cloth, and a kind of spicy and intoxicating "water".

Previously, in order to fill their stomachs and store food for the winter, the Indians around Shixing Fort would organize hunters to hunt sea otters on the coast and obtain their meat.

Of course, the fur of sea otters is also the best way to keep warm, allowing them to survive the cold winter.

However, due to their small population, the number of sea otters they hunt is also very small.

However, when the Chinese arrived here, they showed an unusually strong interest in sea otter fur.

Especially at the beginning of this year, they organized these Indians to hunt sea otters on a large scale on the beach.

The sea otter meat is salted and smoked, the fur is peeled off in one piece, and then it goes through several tanning processes before being stacked in the warehouse.

Initially, Fort Shixing equipped the Indians with a number of spears and harpoons so that they could hunt sea otters more efficiently.

But later on, I thought that these sea otter skins with holes in them would affect the beauty of the entire fur and thus reduce their value.

So, Shixingbao prepared fishing nets for the Indians and instructed them how to set the nets to catch sea otters, avoiding leaving wounds on the sea otters as much as possible.

Although the Indians did not know why Shixing Fort had accumulated so many sea otter skins, they still firmly obeyed their arrangements.

Since joining Fort Shixing, these Indians have completely bid farewell to the bitter days of hunger and hunger. They now live in wooden houses that offer shelter from the wind and snow during the harsh winter, no longer suffering from the cold and hunger. When faced with attacks from grizzly bears and wild wolves, they are no longer helpless and forced to flee.

As long as the Chinese raised the "short spear" that could produce a loud noise and flash of fire, no matter how ferocious the grizzly bear was, they could kill it on the spot.

The Chinese are the masters of this land and rule over everything.

However, the only thing that made the Indians feel a little dissatisfied deep down was that the Chinese did not allow any of them to be idle, let alone lie down in the wooden house and take a nap after eating and drinking.

They seemed to have endless work to do, keeping all the Indians busy, all year round, from morning to night.

Felling wood, digging, making bricks, burning bricks, building roads, building docks, hunting, plowing, tilling the land, weeding, harvesting wheat, baling, hunting sea otters, fishing at the beach...

If an Indian was lazy and didn't want to do it, he would only be starved, whipped, and even deprived of the right to live in the wooden house.

Worse still, they were driven out of the camp and left to fend for themselves.

The Indians who once lived a "minimalist" life never thought that a "good" life would require so much effort!
Before, they just wanted to survive.

Under the "rule" of Shixing Fort, after nearly two years of "teaching" and "taming", the Indians gradually adapted to their pace of life and work.

There is no need to think too much, just do whatever the Chinese tell you to do.

As long as you have enough food to eat, warm clothes to wear, and a warm wooden house to live in, what higher demands can you have?
Most of the Indian tribes on the west coast of North America were in the primitive clan development stage. Whether in terms of productivity or social form, they were much behind their Indian "compatriots" on the east coast or even in the central Great Plains region.

Although this primitive and ignorant state made it very time-consuming and laborious for Shixing Fort to "educate" them, it would not cause too much "rejection" to a certain extent, and even less violent resistance.

You should know that the major Indian tribes on the East Coast and the central region: the Iroquois Confederacy, the Lakota, the Cheyenne, the Comanche, the Navajo, etc., are not easy to deal with. Not only are they extremely ferocious in tribal feuds, but they are also extremely fierce when facing European colonists, and they cause huge losses to the other side in the process of confrontation.

Being obedient and following arrangements is enough for Shixing Fort.

After all, in the initial stage, the work involved was crude and simple, which was just suitable for these Indians whose development model was slightly backward.

If you want to build a machine or produce a complex device, you can't expect them to be.

At this time, it was September, and autumn was gradually showing. The sea water was naturally extremely cold. It was quite hard for these Indians to hunt sea otters on the beach.

Wei Zhonglong and several other time travelers built a bonfire and brought a few blankets to help the Indians who took turns going into the water to hunt sea otters to get rid of moisture and warm up.

If you catch a cold, it can be fatal.

The west coast of North America, including Vancouver Island, is extremely rich in fur resources, including beaver, sea otter, seal, elk, white-tailed deer, and even grizzly bears.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British, Russians and Spanish came here one after another, frantically plundering local animal furs and making huge profits.

By the way, even the United States, which later gained independence from Britain, relied on the rich fur resources on the west coast to open up their global trade chain and earn their first pot of gold in the early days of its founding.

Among many animal furs, sea otter fur is the most superior.

Unlike other marine mammals that have thick subcutaneous fat, sea otters' ability to keep warm is unique - well, it's all thanks to their righteousness, no, it's their thick hair.

The sea otter's fur is roughly divided into two layers. The outer layer is longer, up to 2.9 cm, and the inner layer of hair below the outer layer is 1.9 cm long.

Sea otter hair is not only long, but also very dense. It is estimated that the number of hairs per square centimeter can reach 12 to 14, making it the undisputed leader in the mammal world!
To use a most intuitive comparison, the amount of hair on one square centimeter of a sea otter's body is equivalent to 1.2 to 1.4 times the average human hair volume!!!
To ensure that their hair is filled with enough air, sea otters spend a lot of time grooming their fur every day. This alone can account for 5 to 19% of their daytime activity time.

However, the precious fur that allows sea otters to survive in the cold sea water also brings them tragic misfortune.

Sea otter skin is a kind of "soft gold"!
Since Shixing Fort had started the trans-Pacific immigration movement, it naturally could not leave empty-handed, nor could it always rely on going to Spanish America to hunt for food to raise travel expenses.

Then the rich fur resources of Qiming Island became a specialty that could be used for trade with the Ming Dynasty. After exchanging a large amount of gold and silver locally, the necessary production and living materials could be purchased locally, and immigrants could be recruited, thus forming a perfect trade cycle.
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(End of this chapter)