The sky is blue, the wilderness is vast, and the wind blows the grass and the fat sheep are low.

Completely contrary to Wu Haogu's expectations, what he saw in the legendary "Yellow Flood Area" was not a scene of boundless yellow water. Instead, the green grassland is dotted with white clouds, flocks of sheep that flow in all directions across the prairie. The whole world is like a grassland landscape painting.

If he hadn't known that this belonged to the Hebei East Road of the Great Song Dynasty, Wu Haogu would probably think that he had arrived on the prairie of the Divination Blocker!

"Eldest sister, how can there be so much grass here? Doesn't it mean that this place is a yellow flood? ”

Leaving Chaijiazhuang all the way to the west, it has been two days, the embarrassment between Wu Haogu and Ximen Qing has gradually gone, and when the road is dull, Wu Haogu began to take the initiative to chat with Ximen Qing.

Ximen Qing also restored the true colors of the sons and daughters of the rivers and lakes, and Wu Haogu was not twisted at all, and replied with a smile: "The Yellow River has been broken many times, and it has been diverted several times in the territory of Hebei East Road. The flood had receded for several years, and few people had come to cultivate it, so it became a meadow, and the nearby forbidden army occupied it to raise fattening sheep.

The mutton that Da Lang ate in Kaifeng Mansion may have come from the Yellow Flood of Hebei East Road. ”

Wu Haogu nodded, since he woke up after changing his soul, he has eaten a lot of mutton - in the Song Dynasty, pork does not seem to be on the table, mutton is the main meat of rich people at the level of Wu Haogu, and the annual consumption should be very large.

"Didn't those sheep buy from Liao?"

In the mindset of Wu Haogu's previous life, the Song Dynasty did not have much land to raise horses, which was also an important reason why the Great Song Dynasty was always passive militarily.

But the Great Song Dynasty, which has no place to raise horses, how can there be so much land to raise sheep?

"What are you kidding?" Ma Zhi laughed when he heard this, "How many people are herding sheep in Liaoguo?" I still have to eat it, how can I sell so many sheep to the Great Song Dynasty? As far as I know, the sheep sold in the mutual market every year are three or four hundred thousand in the sky, which is enough for who to eat? ”

At this time, the Great Song Dynasty, according to later research, had a population of 100 million, which was not as many, and sixty or seventy million was indispensable.

Among them, there are at least tens of millions of Song people who can afford to consume mutton, among which there are hundreds of thousands of members of the bureaucratic landlord class who can eat it, and there are at least millions of sheep eaten a year - a sheep is not much catty! It is impossible to import all of them from Liao, otherwise the Liao people will have to go vegetarian.

So in the land of the Song Dynasty, where there was no place to raise horses, there were countless sheep!

"By the way, Second Brother Ma," Wu Haogu suddenly remembered something important at this time, "Do you have a way to smuggle a few good stallions from the Liao Kingdom to the Great Song Dynasty?" ”

"How many stallions?" Ma Zhi smiled, "Does Da Lang want a good horse?" My brother just thinks of a way for you. ”

"Then thank you," Wu Haogu immediately arched his hand, "Haogu wants to find a piece of grassland on the edge of the Yellow River to raise horses...... If it is convenient, please also ask Second Brother Ma to hire a few horse breeders to come south. ”

"Raising ...... Raising horses? Ma Zhi was stunned, "It's not easy."

Moreover, just a few stallions, how to raise horses? ”

Wu Haogu smiled: "If there are more horses, it is shepherding, and if there are fewer horses, it is breeding." Shepherding and raising each have their own strengths, don't they? ”

"Small rearing? Isn't that the stupid method used by the "Horse Protection Law"? Ximen Qing heard that Wu Haogu wanted to "raise horses", and couldn't help muttering.

The so-called "Horse Protection Law" is the Law of Protecting Armor and Raising Horses. The original intention was to reduce the expenditure of the government to raise horses, and to distribute some of the government's horses to the Baojia of Hebei, Hedong, Shaanxi, Jingxi Wulu and Kaifeng Prefecture. The government provides a certain amount of horse breeding expenses, and if the horse dies of illness, the horse breeder will compensate the horse owner.

The original intention of this reform, like Wang Anshi's other new laws, is naturally good. However, in the process of implementation, it has been abandoned several times, resulting in the failure of "horse protection" and the complete abolition of pastoral supervision. Nowadays, due to various problems in the implementation process, the "Baoma Law" has become a law that has always "disturbed the people" and "harmed the people".

The Ximen Qing family all bought property and started business on Jingdong East and West Road, and naturally suffered a lot from the "Baoma Law".

Wu Haogu smiled and said: "The method of the "Horse Protection Law" is stupid, it does not mean that it is not feasible to raise horses...... Besides, I don't have a lot of horses, just a few dozen horses. ”

"Since it's Da Lang who wants to raise, then it's wrapped up in a certain body......," Ma Zhi thought for a while, "There are a lot of good horses in Liao, but the best of the horses is going to the Uighurs in the west to find it." It's the production area of good horses, and my brother will help you think of a way to see if you can get a few sweaty horses to be stallions. ”

"It's not just stallions," Wu Haogu interjected, "and mares should be found as well." ”

"The mare is going to be good, too?" Ximen Qing was stunned for a moment, "Da Lang, you are also very particular, right?" ”

Of course, the Song people knew that horses needed to be bred, but the Song people did not seem to be very good at breeding - both stallions and horses could be improved by artificial breeding (mainly breeding and inbreeding). For example, if you want to get tall and strong horses, you can use tall stallions and mares to repeatedly inbreed (inbreeding is also divided into three types: inbreeding, internal and counter-breeding), strengthen the tall genes, so as to get tall and strong mares.

Crossing tall mares with stallions of sweatblood, Turkmen, and Arabian breeds will result in a "thoroughbred" that is both tall and fast.

In the "Horse Protection Law" implemented by Wang Anshi, the Song people ignored the problem of breeding even more. Wang Anshi is proficient in moral articles, but he is completely a layman in the way of raising animal husbandry. Therefore, his old man's "Horse Protection Law" only cares about the number of horses, regardless of the quality of horses.

According to the rules of the Horse Protection Act, households must prefer to breed horses that are easy to feed and relatively small. Because this kind of horse eats less, and it is not easy to die of disease. As for whether they can raise war horses, the people will not care.

Therefore, the Horse Protection Act only preserves the quantity of horses, but not the quality of horses. Therefore, today's "lack of horses" in the Great Song Dynasty is just a legend, and the lack of war horses is true.

And Wu Haogu actually doesn't know how to raise horses, but he knows a little bit about raising dogs. Because in his previous family, he had a purebred Golden Retriever itinerant dog, and he was also a purebred dog that could sell his cubs for money, and he had raised them for several generations. Therefore, Wu Haogu knows how valuable high-quality purebred dogs are, and also knows that good dogs also have a "family tree" (pedigree certificate), and also knows several inbreeding methods for dogs......

Now, Wu Haogu wants to use the method of raising dogs in later generations to raise horses. But after all, he didn't study biology, and he didn't know how to raise high-quality war horses.

It's not easy to know! Because there are no good stallions here in the Great Song Dynasty, there are no male breeds and no female breeds. The former can also buy sweat horses and Alabama at a high price, while the latter can only find a way to breed and breed on their own - the stallion is responsible for the cannon, and one stallion can get dozens of mares, so one or two stallions can be brought in from afar to breed. And because of the large number of mares, it is impossible to get them, so they can only raise them themselves.

Therefore, the difficulty in breeding excellent war horses in the Song Dynasty was probably to introduce stallions of the Arabian breed or the sweat and blood breed, and to raise tall native mares.

Wu Haogu thought for a while, and then said: "Second Brother Ma, Sister Ximen, you all have to think of a way to help me find dozens of good mares, which must be tall and strong (able to give birth and raise, and easy to breed)." Stallions, as large as possible, can be a few. As for...... If you can get it, you can spend as much as you want. ”