Wang Shouzhe did not take this minor episode to heart. Instead, he turned the conversation to the main matter. "By the way, Second Brother, live fish are the most valuable goods at your fish stall, right?"
"Yes. Other than Spirit Fish, the most valuable are high-grade live fish. Perch, yellowcheek, mandarin fish, culter, shad, and anchovy are all renowned for their tender flesh and greatly favored by aristocratic families and wealthy merchants. The only requirement is that they must be fresh and alive." Wang Shouyi frowned. "Sixth Uncle's fishing fleet has live-water holds. After the fish come ashore from those holds, they must be sent overnight to Changning Guard City in specialized carriages, and we must deliver them to buyers as quickly as possible. Even when the journey is extremely short, many mishaps still occur. Six or seven out of every ten die. Once dead, their value is cut in half, and they can only be sold as fresh fish."
After considering it briefly, Wang Shouzhe said, "Then transportation costs and the mortality rate of live fish are the two key issues. If we solve those two problems, even without increasing the catch, we can earn quite a bit more each year."
The reason he had been running about inspecting the various family industries was that he wanted to examine every link in their production. If he could use the mindset of a modern Earthling to make some improvements, he could increase the output of the clan's assets.
"If Fourth Brother can find a way to prevent the live fish from dying, I can conservatively guarantee an additional seventy or eighty Qian Gold each year." Wang Shouyi could not hide the pain on his face. "Those dead fish are all pure profit."
"It is too early to say. I need to see your original method first, Second Brother."
"Come with me, Fourth Brother." Wang Shouyi led Wang Shouzhe into the rear courtyard of the Branch Residence, where two carriages stood parked. Unlike ordinary carriages, they had no passenger compartments. Instead, each carried a large round wooden barrel. He explained, "One carriage carries live water and fish, while the other carries only live water. Every two hours, part of the water in the fish barrel needs to be changed. Yet even so, once there are slightly more live fish, deaths still occur. I have been considering adding another carriage to carry live water, but that would raise the costs considerably."
The moment Wang Shouzhe saw Wang Shouyi's method of transporting live fish, his eyelids twitched. Sixth Uncle's side did not catch many valuable live fish each day to begin with. Even at the most, it was only one or two thousand catties a day.
And transporting them required such an astonishing setup? These fish barrels were unexpectedly crude as well. No aeration, no filtration—just two words: change water!
To change the water, they had even deployed an entire carriage just to carry water. And that was not enough—Wang Shouyi was actually planning to add another carriage?
But Wang Shouzhe knew this was not really Wang Shouyi's fault. This was the Profound Martial World, where everyone focused on improving their cultivation realms and personal martial strength.
Of course, not every outstanding person neglected the study of natural sciences. But even if some achieved results through research, they would treasure them like a broom of their own, keeping all knowledge strictly secret and making it difficult for it to spread beyond them.
This was not their fault. Even if Wang Shouzhe developed some knowledge himself, he would only use it secretly within the clan. Asking him to spread it around for the benefit of other clans was out of the question.
In his previous life, Wang Shouzhe had been an ambitionless salted fish at work. During holidays, he often went fishing with friends. When he caught too much, he had bought aeration pumps and the like to try raising the fish alive and eating them slowly. Yet he found that even with aeration, the fish still died quickly. After doing some research and studying up a little, he came to understand some simple principles.
To keep live fish alive long enough to eat them gradually, the water tank had to meet three conditions.
The first was dissolved oxygen in the water. Fish needed oxygen to survive, while the oxygen in water was limited. The more fish placed in a barrel, the greater the oxygen consumption. This could be addressed through aeration.
The second was clean water quality. Fish waste and food residue produced ammonia and nitrites, while respiration produced nitrogen. All of these were factors in fish deaths, and they could be dealt with through water changes, filtration, and similar methods.
The third was temperature. The higher the temperature, the more active the fish became. They consumed more oxygen and produced more toxic substances such as ammonia. Therefore, keeping the water relatively cool was also highly effective.
After combining these three points, the two entered Wang Shouyi's study. After some thought, Wang Shouzhe drew a simple sketch on paper. The top layer of the round fish barrel would filter the water, and the filtered water would fall back into the barrel like rain. This used the simplest principle of drip aeration.
He also used the simplest words possible to explain the principles of oxygen and toxic substances to Wang Shouyi.
Wang Shouyi had worked in the fish stall business for more than ten years, so he quickly understood Wang Shouzhe's reasoning. Suddenly enlightened, he said, "Now that Fourth Brother has put it that way, I suddenly understand many things. The elders of the family only passed down the instruction that we had to change in live water. They said it was because fish needed to consume the living breath in the water. If there was not enough living breath, the water became dead water, and the fish died. Fourth Brother means that rain-like dripping water can increase the living breath in the water. I never thought of that."
"I saw it in ancient texts. Whether it actually works is hard to say. Second Brother will need to conduct several experiments for comparison." Wang Shouzhe nodded inwardly. Living breath was fine; it was easier to understand than the awkward term oxygen.
"The fish consume living breath and expel dead breath. When their waste accumulates in the water, it produces poisonous breath. If layers of cotton cloth, crushed charcoal, and gravel filter out the waste and poisonous breath from the water, then the water will be free of poison, and naturally the fish will not die. How did I not think of that?"
The more Wang Shouyi spoke, the more excited he became. "And Fourth Brother's point about hot and cold conditions makes great sense too. The colder the weather, the fewer live fish die during transport. More die in summer. So when the weather is hot, the fish are more active, and they need more living breath... No wonder transporting them by day is worse than at night! If we added some cellar-stored ice to the water..."
The theories Wang Shouzhe imparted were like opening the door to a new world for Wang Shouyi. Many things he had been unable to understand despite racking his brains suddenly became clear.
"As long as Second Brother understands, it is enough. You can have craftsmen make a few small devices and test them first." Wang Shouzhe glanced at the sky. "It is getting late. I still have other matters to handle, so I will take my leave."
As Clan Leader, Wang Shouzhe had not come here to invent things. Besides, knowing was easy while doing was hard. If he personally tinkered with those things, he might not even make them well.
As long as Wang Shouyi understood the principles, he was fully capable of taking on the work that followed.
"Do not hurry off, Fourth Brother." Wang Shouyi held onto him and would not let go. "You rarely visit the fish stall, and Second Brother has not properly entertained you yet. Let us dine at Hundred Flavors Pavilion at noon. That restaurant's live fish are all supplied by us, and every dish is superb. There are still several things I do not understand. What was that siphon effect drainage method you mentioned? What was the principle behind using a pump to add living breath to a water tank? And how could the principle of a pump make water flow upward..."
Well, there it was!
Listening to his "hundred thousand whys," Wang Shouzhe felt his head swell a little, but he also knew it was a good thing. Wang Shouyi had run the fish stall for years. If he truly immersed himself in this field, the fish stall business would only grow better in the future. That would count as a tremendous contribution to the clan.
Within Changning Guard, the Wang Clan Fish Stall was not the only one. More than ten aristocratic clans operated fish stall businesses. In particular, the Liu Clan and Zhao Clan operated on scales larger than the Wang Clan.
The better their own fish stall performed, the more wealth it created—and in truth, the more it squeezed the living space of their competitors.
Therefore, Wang Shouzhe spent some more time giving Wang Shouyi a proper "enlightenment education." Both the siphon effect and hand pumps required pipes. This world's use of piping was rather crude, with only bamboo pipes, ceramic pipes, copper pipes, and a few other kinds available, but they were barely sufficient.
It did not matter if they could not make a hand pump for the time being. They could use a simple siphon to draw out the bottom water, then have the assistants manually pour water onto the filtration layer. This would greatly increase the amount a single carriage could transport and sharply raise the survival rate of the live fish.
Wang Shouyi listened as though drunk and entranced. Even while dining at Hundred Flavors Pavilion at noon, he kept hold of Wang Shouzhe and chattered on with questions.
"Second Brother, is this Hundred Flavors Pavilion really one of the best restaurants in Changning Guard?" Wang Shouzhe ate the dishes from Hundred Flavors Pavilion and found their flavors rather ordinary. Their only strength was the quality of their ingredients.
Of course, their seasoning was still better than that of the Wang Clan's cooks, but there remained quite a large gap in flavor compared with Earth.
"Fourth Brother, this meal cost thirty-two Big Copper and seventy-three Jiao..." Wang Shouyi's face darkened as he cried injustice. "This is all the private money your foolish elder brother saved through bitter labor. With such delicious dishes, you are still not satisfied?"
Wang Shouzhe rubbed his chin. The sense of disparity was probably Monosodium Glutamate's fault. In his previous life on Earth, MSG and chicken essence had filled every corner of the food world, raising the threshold for deliciousness in his soul's memories to a very high level.
If he could produce MSG, could it become an industry as well?
Before you continue