King of Mercenaries - Chapter 81: Scraps from Fileting Fish

When talking about potash fertilizer, as a countryside kid, Marin naturally thought about phosphate fertilizer. When fertilizing crops, normally all three types of nitrogen, phosphate and potash fertilizers were needed.

The manure by the Ancient Chinese as fertilizer, was actually nitrogen fertilizer. Because manure contained nitrogen. However, only nitrogen fertilizer by itself was insufficient. The Europeans do not use fertilizer, that’s why the yield of their wheat was only slightly over a hundred catty per mu. After the Chinese people used manure, the yield per mu reached over 200 catty.

Later, aside from manure, the Chinese also sprinkled wood ash into the fields. Wood ash contains potassium, so it was barely considered a type of lesser potash fertilizer. After using those two natural fertilizers, the wheat yield of the Chinese people could reach 300 catty per mu.

As for the paddy fields of Jiangnan, due to the large system of trenches, there were a lot of fish and shrimp within. And these fish and shrimp contained high amounts of phosphorus within them. After they die, the phosphorus content will seep into the ground.

And the effects of this was quite similar to the phosphate fertilizer in modern times.

That’s why, certain paddy fields in Jiangnan which had fertilized with manure, wood ash and high phosphate content, had a very high yield per mu, reaching 500 to 600 catty. Because in these fields, they contained all three elements of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium…

Of course, the ancient people did not understand the theory of fertilizers, and did not know that dead fish and shrimp would fertilize the soil. As such, there had been the saying that the lands of Jiangnan were fertiile, while those in the North were barren.

Actually, that wasn’t even the case.

It had been proven that in modern times, as long as all three types of fertilizers were used, the Northern and Southern fields would have the same production yield.

On Texel, Marin was promoting the use of manure, as well as promoting the use of potash. Hwoever, the plant resources on Texel wasn’t as abundant than inland. Because the potassium content of wood ash was very limited, that’s why Marin deployed some men to the Harz Mountains to purchase bitter salt ores (potassium salt ore), and use the salt directly as potash fertilizer.

However, this phosphate fertilizer was a bit difficult to get one’s hands on. Because Morocco which was a major producer of phosphate fertilizer, was not something Marin could mess with. Even the other location which was a major producer of phosphate fertilizers, Western Sahara, was also under the control of the Moroccans.

Marin had once read other transmigration novels, and know that around Laayoune, Western Sahara, there was an extremely large phosphate mine with reserves of up to 2 billion tonnes, and wasn’t far away from the coast.

However, that was currently under the control of the Moroccans. Morocco wasn’t a strong country, but neither was it weak. Them mustering up an army of 10 thousand or 20 thousand Arabian cavalry was definitely not a problem. That’s why, if he wanted to seize the phosphate mine, he would have to first go past the scimitars of the Moroccans.

As for trading with the Moroccans to purchase phosphate ore, that would be possible a hundred years from now, but absolutely not currently…

Because after the 17th century, the Roman Curia has declined, and they no longer hold much influence, so everybody could trade with heretics without a problem. However, this was still the end of the 15th century, and the influence of the Curia was still very strong.

If it were strong countries like Spain or Portugal, they probably could disregard the Curia. But for Marin’s Texel, they didn’t dare to oppose the Curia. To do trade with heretics, especially with the nemesis of Christians, it would easily cause the Curia to brand them as heretics.

The Curia might not fight that well, but currently the Curia was able to muster lots of people. If he entered the blacklist of the Curia, Marin could do nothing but wait for a group beating.

That’s why, before the Reformation in Europe and Religious Wars occur, Marin would definitely not dare to oppose the Roman Curia before then. As for defeating Morocco, that wasn’t possible for the time being.

That’s why, Marin needed to think another solution for the problem of phosphate fertilizers…

He recalled that when he learned Chemistry in high school, Marin had heard his Chemistry teacher mention that the bones and scales of fish were rich in phosphate. Even the meat and organs of fish had a decent amount of phosphate.

“Which also means that fishbones, fish scales and fish organs could be used as crude phosphate fertilizer?” Marin sat on his desk as he pondered.

Arriving at that conclusion, Marin brought along several servants, and went to the two fishing ports ‘t Horntje and Oudeschild by horse, to perform field research.

As expected, whenever the fishing boats return to port, and large amounts of saltwater fish were unloaded, the fishermen started filetting the fishes…

Large amounts of scales were removed and tossed to the grund. Large amounts of fish organs were discarded, some even tossed into the sea…

And every time after finishing their meal, many of the fishermen families would leave behind lots of fishbones, which were treated like trash and thrown away…

“Damnit! That’s too wasteful!” Marin who was doing a field investigation couldn’t help but feel pain in his heart.

“Young Master, what’s wrong?” Scholl the attendant asked.

“These… are all quality phosphate fertilizer! They’re thrown away just like that!” “Phosphate fertilizer? What the heck’s that?” Scholl’s mind was filled with questions.

“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you…” Marin shook his head.

The next day, Marin decreed, all fishermen in the two large fishing ports, the scraps from filleting fish (aside from fish guts which contained toxic cyanide), as well as fish bones after eating fish, must all be gathered and handed in. If anybody throw them away by privately,  they will be fined…

As for the gathered scraps such as  fishscales, fish organs and fishbones, Marin intended to organize some people to dry them under the sun, then crush them and process them into natural fertilizer like wood ash. Or, he could just toss them into the cesspits, to ferment along with excrements and wood ash into manure.

Although the phosphate content from filleting scraps was nowhere near phosphate fertilizers. However, it would still provide an effect similar to wood ash.

Also, due to Marin’s strong support, currently in the two large fishing ports of ‘t Horntje and Oudeschild, counting only large fishing boats with displacement tonnage over 100 tonnes, there were already more than twenty.

Everyday, the amount of scraps produced by the fishing ports from filleting fish reached several dozen tonnes and more.

As for these scraps, no matter what happens the phosphate content would be at about 1%. Although it was incomparable to specialized phosphate fertilizer, but if the quantity was greater, it would still function as phosphate fertilizer.

Manure (nitrogen fertilizer), potash fertilizer (potassium salt) and phosphate fertilizer (fish scraps) were all in one place, forget reaching the standards of modern times with yields of thousand catty per mu, at the very least, it would be similar to the paddy fields like Jiangnan during the Ming Dynasty, reaching yields of 500-600 catty per mu…

Which also means, the fishing scraps which were originally thrown away as trash by the fishermen, had been put into use by Marin as primitive and natural phosphate fertilizer…