But, whether it’s Zhenzhou, Qiongzhou, or Guangzhou, there are a lot of Tanka fishing boats in the area, and to put it in modern terms, the fishery resources are a bit depleted. If you try to transport from far away, the boats are too slow—just relying on hand-rowed oars, you can’t get very far in a day, and even if you exhaust yourself, it’s impossible to deliver the seafood in time. If the seafood isn’t fresh, who would eat it? Some types of fish die as soon as they’re out of the water, and after half a day, the taste changes. Relying on sails is even less reliable—no one can predict when the wind will blow or not, and whether it’s headwind or tailwind is impossible to foresee in advance. You can’t just count on the monsoon that comes twice a year.

Actually, the Tanka people aren’t stupid. They’ve long known that being close to big cities means they can sell at a good price, which is why so many Tanka gather in the waters near big cities. Although the catch is small, the selling price is high, so they carry their burdens and make do.

After thinking it over all night, it turns out Brian Carter was just thinking in circles and ended up back at the starting point. If you want to make more money, you have to catch more fish. If you want to catch more fish, you have to stay away from big cities. If you want to stay away from big cities and still make more money, your boat has to be fast. If you want a fast boat, you have to build a new one. If you want to build a new boat, you need money... You could talk about this for a hundred years and still not solve a single problem. So Brian Carter rubbed his eyes and simply decided to get up. There was already some noise outside, and he had plenty of tasks today. The top priority was to take a group of women and girls to the beach to continue making fish traps.

Yesterday’s harvest had already made everyone realize the power of knowledge. With just a small fish trap, an outsider, a girl, and two kids, their afternoon catch was basically equal to what five boats could get, and they didn’t even have to go far or work hard. If that doesn’t prove the point, then Brian Carter might as well give up and leave—there’s no future here. Even the most conservative Paul Foster contributed both an old net and a new net from his boat, because when Brian Carter distributed the catch yesterday, he set a rule: from now on, fish traps, rolling hooks, and crab cages would be the collective property of this small group. No one is allowed to operate them alone. If you want to use them, everyone has to chip in and form a cooperative.

No one really understood what a cooperative was, but anyway, this outsider kid was always coming up with new terms. What it’s called doesn’t matter; what matters is that the more labor and resources a family puts in, the more catch they get. Except for Brian Carter’s fixed 30% as a technology investment, the remaining 70% would be divided this way. The Tanka people aren’t all selfless saints—everyone knows how to make sure their own family earns more.

Among the Bo, Huang, and Chen families, the Bo family is the richest, because their son is the oldest and they have the most labor. If the eldest son’s family hadn’t died early, the grandson could already go out to sea alone by now—maybe even a great-grandson would be around. The Huang family is a bit weaker; they only finished paying the bride price for their two sons a few years ago, so they don’t have much savings. The Chen family is the poorest. Ethan Brooks has only one son, and his wife died early, so they are seriously short on labor. That’s one reason he wants to take Brian Carter as his godson.

Since Brian Carter wants to use the strength of these three families to achieve his goals, he must balance the wealth gap between them. People can often share hardship but not prosperity; the real problem is not poverty but inequality. Before the cooperative, everyone was happy eating rough food together, but once there’s wealth, who gets more and who gets less becomes a big issue. At best, it breeds suspicion and weakens relationships; at worst, it leads to direct conflict, and the cooperative falls apart as everyone goes their own way. There are no patent restrictions right now—fish traps, rolling hooks, and crab cages are all easy to learn. Anyone can make them after watching for a few days. By then, he’d be left with just Ethan Brooks and his son, and relying on their strength alone, who knows how many years it would take to save up enough to build a new boat? So he must make sure things are divided evenly so everyone can get rich together!

Chapter 15: Full Mobilization

Brian Carter discussed it with the three families: the Bo and Huang families can’t have more than 30% of the shares, and he and the Chen family also only take 30%. The remaining 10% goes to the women of each family, since a lot of the support work will need their help in the future. If they get no benefit at all, Brian Carter feels it would seriously hurt their motivation. Even though women in this era are basically men’s appendages with no social status and have to work even if they don’t get a penny, Brian Carter refuses to go along with that custom. He firmly believes that most of the work men can do, women can do as well. By raising their social status, he’s doing a good deed that will pay off sooner or later. There’s nothing but benefit, so why not do it?

The Bo, Huang, and Chen families have no idea what’s going on in Brian Carter’s mind, with his thousand years of advanced memories and the heart of a hungry wolf in sheep’s clothing. They just instinctively feel that Brian Carter does things in a very traditional and fair way, which suits them. So the cooperative gradually became led by Brian Carter, with the Bo, Huang, and Chen families as assistants. It’s a bit like a board of directors now: Brian Carter is the chairman and CEO, and the Bo, Huang, and Chen families are directors. Everyone can discuss things together, and Brian Carter has a bit more authority, but he can’t do whatever he wants.