When I returned from meeting Kim Hong-jip in Japan, the people here had already finished the delivery of hay, feed, and wheat to the Russian Army on their own.
Now, even without me, they were capable of handling these kinds of tasks by themselves.
The long winter of Primorsky Krai was beginning.
While the entirety of Sidimi entered winter preparations and all work came to a halt, there were places where people were working hard: the foundry making Hot Bulb Engines and Fridolf Gek’s shipyard.
Even though I designed and built the engine, I didn’t know much about ships.
The person who knew more about ships than anyone else was Fridolf Gek, and he built the vessels according to my orders.
What I intended to build was a herring fishing boat.
To that end, I had specifically ordered blueprints and nets for herring fishing from the United Kingdom.
One might think you could just use a standard net on a Schooner hull, but that wasn’t the case.
Fishing boats differ in form depending on the type of fish they primarily catch, and the shape of the nets is the same.
This was especially true because our competitors were the fishermen of Hokkaido, Japan, who had been catching herring much longer than we had.
Fridolf Gek looked at the blueprints for the herring boat I had bought and spoke.
“I can’t build it exactly like this. This is designed to hold a Steam Engine, but we’re going to install a Hot Bulb Engine, not a Steam Engine. So we don’t need a boiler, and we don’t need a coal bunker. Furthermore, the engine itself is smaller, and we won’t need engineers, firemen, or boiler men. So we can delete those parts, move the engine room here, and expand the space to store the caught herring.”
“Rather than that, let’s change the boiler room into a freezer and have the water storage area keep ice instead.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Herring die as soon as they’re caught, so they have to be pickled in salt or brine, which requires salt. I’m suggesting we make ice to fill the hold instead. When it’s not herring season, we can use it to store other fish we catch.”
“You can make ice on a ship?”
“Skipper, you’ve seen an ice maker before.”
“I have, but I’ve never seen one used on a small fishing boat like this. Are you saying you can make that too?”
“If it’s necessary, I’ll have to try. Since it will be used at sea, I should also consider making it with seawater.”
The principles of the ice maker were already public knowledge, and since there were spare Hot Bulb Engines, I could make one easily.
However, because it had to be used at sea, freezing seawater didn’t produce solid ice; it created a slushy state, a mix of water and ice fragments.
But after a little thought, I realized that since we weren’t making it to eat but for fish preservation, this might actually be better.
Building a ship is a difficult and time-consuming task.
In the 21st century, you could just weld pre-cut steel plates and assemble them, but in this era, you had to build from the keel up, slowly.
Fortunately, all the timber was prepared, and I had improved several production processes to make it relatively easier to build, yet the first fishing boat wasn’t completed until near the end of December.
In the same amount of time, we had built more than ten Hot Bulb Engines, so a significant gap was forming between engine production and shipbuilding.
“Skipper, if we hire more people, could we build a bit faster?”
“Even if we train them starting now, results won’t come immediately. Right now, this speed is only possible because I’m personally involved and teaching every single step. Now that we’ve built one, the speed will increase slightly, but I’m not sure if it’ll be a noticeable improvement.”
It took over two months to build this one ship. If we continued at this pace, I thought we could only build five or six ships a year, but Fridolf Gek gave me a more accurate estimate.
“Once they get used to it, it’ll take about a month to build one ship from next time.”
Even so, that was twelve ships a year. This speed was far too slow compared to my ambitions.
“It’s fine if it’s a bit slow, so let’s hire more people and train them. Young people learn quickly, so if we focus on hiring and teaching them, we’ll be able to grow the shipyard much larger.”
A school had been established in Sidimi.
By reading the Western books I translated or even just looking at the diagrams in the untranslated ones, the youth and children of Sidimi had come to understand the situation of the West to some extent.
The Joseon youth of Sidimi, who had their eyes opened to the outside world, were increasingly becoming people who weren’t satisfied with just farming.
The parents, who would normally have scolded their children for having absurd ambitions, had completely surrendered to the superior power of the agricultural machinery I had introduced.
They no longer stopped their children or the youth who wanted to learn other trades.
That’s why, when I recruited people to learn metal casting in Vladivostok, people gathered quickly, and there were many who wanted to learn shipbuilding at Fridolf Gek’s shipyard.
“If we do that, the shipbuilding speed will drop even further for the first year or so. At the current pace, we can make twelve a year, but if we have to teach the kids while doing it, we might only make three or four.”
“Well, we’ll just have to delay it then.”
Expanding the scale of the shipyard wasn’t a bad thing for Fridolf Gek either.
Who would dislike their own shipyard growing larger?
Thus, we decided to increase the number of docks at Gek’s shipyard to five and decided to bring in much better cranes from Hong Kong or Shanghai.
The sawmill also needed to expand. Fortunately, I had built the building with expansion in mind from the start, so there were no major problems.
Once we could run the mechanical saws with the newly made Hot Bulb Engines, efficiency began to rise at a startling rate.
Yuli Briner, saying that this would be more profitable than trading, frequented the Primorsky Krai provincial government a few times and returned with large-scale logging rights for the Ussuri region.
Thanks to him, the timber supply didn’t seem like it would be a major issue.
Yuli Briner showed me a simple drawing and spoke.
“Even if we cut trees, there’s a limit to human strength after all. To cut one tree with axes and saws, it often takes several people. So, how about making a saw like this that uses the Hot Bulb Engine you made?”
The drawing Yuli Briner showed was a type of band saw.
It was a structure where such a saw was connected to a Hot Bulb Engine to cut wood.
“That’s a good idea. But a Hot Bulb Engine weighs over a ton. How are we going to drag that to the logging site, and who is going to build this?”
“You’re the one who’s bright with machines, so you have to build it. I’m at my limit just thinking of these things.”
Damn it, I wasn’t an engineering student in my past life; I was a liberal arts major.
However, even without Yuli Briner’s suggestion, I had been planning to build a tractor using the Hot Bulb Engine.
Since a Hot Bulb Engine couldn’t be turned on and off frequently, it had to be run for long periods once started.
This characteristic suited tractors, and after the engine was invented, it was indeed used as a tractor engine.
The development of gasoline or diesel engines still had decades to go, so it didn’t seem like a bad idea to make a tractor with a Hot Bulb Engine now.
And the mechanical band saw Yuli Briner showed me was likely already being made and used in the United States.
It wasn’t just mechanical band saws that needed to be purchased from the United States or Europe.
We also had to order the steel wheels to be used as tractor wheels.
We didn’t have steel technology, and if we made tractor wheels out of the cast iron we produced, it was obvious they would shatter before long.
To do that, I inevitably needed to visit Europe or the United States at least once.
While going, I also needed to apply for a patent for the Hot Bulb Engine and check on how my investments in the United States were doing.
At this time, Russia used the Julian Calendar, which was twelve days behind Europe or the United States, which used the Gregorian Calendar.
Naturally, the New Year was also late.
After observing this New Year, I departed for Europe on a ship captained by Shevelev.
Captain Shevelev asked me.
“There’s very little cargo on the ship. Will we make a profit?”
“What else can I do when there’s nothing else to sell from Russia but sea cucumbers and kelp? Still, I’m glad we could get quite a bit of sea cucumber and kelp. Adolf Dattan will be furious again if he finds out, but what can you do? Besides that, I’ve managed to get some furs, so I’ll try selling those too.”
“Furs are also hard to come by, aren’t they?”
“Don’t even mention it. It feels like even the animals in this region are going extinct. Not to mention North Siberia. Fortunately, I could get some from Joseon, or else the cargo we’re carrying would have been less than half of what it is now.”
“Since we’re going to Europe and perhaps even the United States, I’ve loaded plenty of coal, so you can rest easy on that front.”
Certainly, there was a significant amount of coal obtained from Japan and China, so that part was reassuring.
Captain Shevelev introduced me to the newly recruited sailors.
After having only mediocre sailors due to pressure from the Russian Army and the provincial government, he seemed to want to boast about the reliable people he had personally picked.
Among those sailors, there were also two Koryo-saram.
“This is Pyotr Choi, and this is Nikolai Choi. Both are Koryo-saram like you and are reliable sailors. Pyotr, Nikolai, this is the shipowner, Viktor Lee.”
I was a bit surprised to hear that there were already Koryo-saram sailors at this time.
I shook hands with the two and spoke in the Joseon language.
“I am Lee Myeong-jin. It is a pleasure to meet you. I was lucky enough to become the owner of this ship at a young age.”
When I, the shipowner, spoke quite politely to them, who were just mere sailors, the two were very moved.
As they shook hands, they also introduced themselves in the Joseon language.
“I am called Choi Jae-hyeong. You may call me Jae-hyeong, or you can call me Pyotr or Pechka as the Russians do.”
“I am called Choi Bong-jun. My Russian name is Nikolai, but you can also call me Kolya, or use Bong-jun or Nikolai.”
Pechka is a nickname for Pyotr, and Kolya is a nickname for Nikolai. Russians often call each other by nicknames once they become close.
Seeing that both had the surname Choi, I had a slight expectation, and indeed, they were Choi Jae-hyeong and Choi Bong-jun.
Both were individuals who achieved the greatest wealth among the Koryo-saram in Russia and contributed significantly to the Joseon independence movement.
Choi Jae-hyeong was known to have supported An Jung-geun’s assassination of Ito Hirobumi from behind the scenes, and Choi Bong-jun was known for looking after An Jung-geun’s bereaved family in Russia after his death.
I wanted to become close to these people, but right now there was quite a class difference between a regular sailor and the shipowner.
We had just greeted each other in the Joseon language, but since it might be rude in front of Captain Shevelev, who didn’t know the language, I asked in Russian.
“You two have the same surname. Are you perhaps related?”
The two shook their heads simultaneously.
Choi Bong-jun, noticing the reason I spoke in Russian, replied in Russian.
“We only share a surname; we are not relatives, and our hometowns in Joseon are different. Jae-hyeong here is from Gyeongheung, and I am from Seongjin. We only got to know each other after boarding this ship. Though, being the only two Koryo-saram, we became close quickly.”
At the mention of Gyeongheung, I said happily.
“Ah, I am also from Gyeongheung. It’s good to see someone from Gyeongheung here. After all, there are quite a few people from Gyeongheung among the Koryo-saram in Russia.”
Choi Jae-hyeong also spoke with a slight sense of humility.
“Yes, since it borders the frontier, many people from Gyeongheung crossed over during the famine back then.”
“Do you two perhaps live in Yeonchu?”
Currently, Sidimi had become the largest base for Joseon people in Primorsky Krai, but before that, it was Yeonchu.
However, both shook their heads.
“Both of us live in Vladivostok. I lived in Yeonchu but left home when I was young to live in Vladivostok, and Bong-jun lived in Ussuri before moving to Vladivostok. Living in Vladivostok allowed us to learn how to sail like this.”
My reputation in Russian Primorsky Krai was quite high, and the two knew my name well.
They hesitated on how to address me but eventually called me Shipowner.
“I have heard so much about the Shipowner’s reputation that my ears are sore. The achievements made in Sidimi are incredible, but even just this ship alone—isn’t it true that not even a First Guild Merchant in this region owns such a ship by himself?”
“I was lucky.”
Captain Shevelev chimed in from the side.
“You don’t become the owner of a ship like this only four years after crossing over to Russia. Viktor, you can afford to boast a bit more than just calling it luck.”
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