Chapter 667 Hugo Is Gone

In the gap between two rows of luxurious buildings, in a corner where the sun could not shine in, Hugo lit the second match.

The aroma of fried carp entered his nose. The French rarely eat carp. They prefer to eat oysters at Christmas.

The French eat oysters raw, with a few drops of lemon juice or ginger juice at most. Hugo now remembered the days when he was in Paris, with red wine in one hand and oysters in the other.

At that time, French oysters were very cheap and were once called food for the poor. However, after some people began to associate oysters, truffles and certain abilities, wild oysters in France were almost extinct.

There is a poem praising it: "It is spring all year round in the Louvre, and European frogs are new one after another. I eat three hundred oysters a day, and I am willing to be a Gaul forever."

(The French are also called European frogs because they eat everything, such as snails, rabbits, frogs, which are foods that Europeans usually don't eat...)

In fact, Franz's carp farming plan was finally successful, but he did not use the famous Asian carp in later generations, but the mirror carp native to Europe, which is the "three scales" commonly referred to in the East in later generations.

Compared with the slow Asian carp, the mirror carp is more alert and faster, and its breeding speed is also far higher than that of its Asian counterparts (20% higher), so it can live in European rivers where there are a large number of predatory fish.

To say that carp farming is really not technical, this kind of fish has no dreams. As long as there is food and drink, it will reproduce wildly, with high yield and strong disease resistance.

How could such excellent ingredients not attract the attention of Europeans? In fact, in the Middle Ages, Europeans raised a large number of carp. In the peak period of France alone, there were nearly 80,000 hectares of fish ponds.

However, with the advent of the Age of Exploration, it became very easy to obtain marine fish, especially the Dutch herring fishing industry, which directly destroyed the carp farming industry in Europe.

Marine fish have greater advantages than freshwater fish, not only because they have less earthy smell and fewer bones, but also because they are very cheap, and fishing was more stable than farming at that time.

This was mainly because the population in Europe was too small at that time, and the cost of carp farming was too high. Coupled with the impact of a series of wars such as the Thirty Years' War, the carp farming industry was depressed.

So when Franz proposed the carp farming plan, the church, which usually supported him the most, was the most opposed.

Because the carp farming industry was once dominated by the church, but because of this, they knew better than anyone how low the profit of this industry was and how high the risk was. After all, there were many floods in Austria, and several large rivers often flooded.

At this time, the carp farming industry was also facing a very embarrassing situation, that is, those who could afford it did not eat it, and those who ate it could not afford it.

The price of one kilogram of carp used to be equivalent to more than 8 kilograms of beef or 20 loaves of bread. However, since the Age of Great Navigation, a large number of marine fish have been brought to the tables of Europeans, and the price of carp has been suppressed to a very low level.

After the 16th century, nobles and merchants found marine fish that tasted better and were easier to cook. As for the poor who could not even eat meat, it was even less likely to waste their hard-earned savings on carp.

But now it is different. With the development of the times, the citizen class has stepped onto the historical stage. These people do not have the consumption power of the nobles, but are unwilling to associate with farmers.

Coupled with Austria's cultural and historical traditions, Franz felt that carp farming was completely possible. As for the water quality problem that troubled the church, Franz felt that it was not difficult to solve.

Carp is actually a bottom fish. As long as grass carp and silver carp are added, the water quality can be self-purified, and raising some shellfish can achieve perfect self-circulation.

It's just that three-dimensional farming and the like seemed crazy to people at the time. Even a group of zoologists stood up to refute Franz's nonsense.

"Archduke Franz! How can three families live in a small house?"

"They can live in the attic, the first floor and the basement respectively."

"How is that possible? They are just a group of animals. Even if it is true as you said, there is no way to avoid friction between the three families."

"Sir, they are not human beings. Animals are sometimes more disciplined than humans."

Franz's words left a group of zoologists speechless, but they were all waiting to see the show with indignation in their hearts.

However, the reality is that the fish really coexisted peacefully, which directly increased the output of the unit fish pond by three times.

As for the reproduction problem of grass carp and silver carp, which is known as the ten impossible problems in the history of human agriculture, it is really nothing in Franz's eyes.

After all, the problem that has troubled mankind for thousands of years can be easily solved by even a rural aunt in later generations. "Pituitary suspension" is the key. Although it sounds very noble, it is actually the brain of the fish entering the mating period.

Since Austrians have no obsession with eating fish heads, Franz simply left the fish heads and removed the brains to stimulate the reproduction of grass carp and silver carp.

After several years of experiments, these technologies have basically matured. Therefore, the output of farmed freshwater fish in the Austrian Empire in 1845 reached 1,000 tons, equivalent to the whole of Austria, and each person could get 20 grams.

However, this is only in the experimental stage, and there is definitely hope to increase this number by a hundred times in the future. Although Franz's fish pond has not been dug yet, he decided to put out the advertisement first.

1,000 tons of freshwater fish may be a joke to the Austrian Empire, but it is definitely a saturation attack on the citizens of Vienna.

At this time, almost every family in Vienna is cooking carp, but Austrians only have two ways to cook fish, either fried or grilled.

In short, the smell of carp is everywhere in Vienna at Christmas, and Franz also took advantage of this "carp disaster" to change people's inherent perception of the price of carp.

By the way, the marine fishery catch of the Austrian Empire at this time was only slightly stronger than that of the Kingdom of Sardinia, with a total of about 18,000 tons, but 90% of these fish were eaten by Italians.

The Kingdom of Sardinia was slightly weaker than the Austrian Empire, with an annual catch of about 16,000 tons, France's catch of about 40,000 tons, and the British Empire's catch of about 100,000 tons.

In the future, a certain country in the East produced 32 million tons of freshwater fish, so Franz's freshwater fish farming plan was still very promising.

Back to the point, the hungry Hugo lit the third match, and a figure that seemed familiar and strange appeared in front of him.

"Adele?" Hugo felt that he had hallucinations. After patting his forehead, he found that it was Miss Tina in front of him.

(Adele Hugo, the youngest daughter of Victor Hugo.)

"Mr. Hugo, I can't find you in the hotel. The hotel owner said that you checked out. What are you doing here?"

Tina asked with concern. In fact, she had known Hugo's movements for a long time. After all, Franz could not really let a great writer freeze to death in Vienna.

"I'm sorry to make you laugh, Miss Tina. I don't have money to pay the rent, and I don't want to be kicked out, so I left by myself." Hugo said apologetically.

"Mr. Hugo, I always say that you should do what you can."

"I just think you should succeed." Hugo said very sincerely.

"But you are not the sun after all. It is impossible for you to give without asking!"

"You are right." Hugo smiled bitterly, but his mood was much better and he turned to leave.

At this time, Tina pulled Hugo's sleeve.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know."

"Why don't you come to my house?"

Hugo spent an unforgettable Christmas Eve, but when he woke up again, he was already sitting in the first-class carriage to Venice.

The pocket watch and ring that he had pawned before were all found, the suitcase that he left at the hotel was next to his feet, and even his beard was shaved clean.

A lot of things seemed to have happened in the past few months, but it seemed that nothing had happened.