Wu Haogu never expected that there would be a horse farm on the other side of Jiehe River, that is, on the territory of Jiehe Market, Taipei City!

It's a horse farm!

On the afternoon of the second day after Wu Haogu arrived at Jiehe Commercial City, he and Ma Zhi boarded a privately owned building boat from Ma Zhi to cross the wide Jiehe River and arrived on the land belonging to the Liao Kingdom on the other side.

Compared with the situation of a "grapeland" in the Song Dynasty, the other side of the Border River seems to be more prosperous. At least it is not a "grapeland", but a large area of ​​farmland, scattered villages and tall fortresses. Only places close to the Border River are often flooded, so they are more deserted.

Ma Zhi has already collected tens of thousands of acres of land at a very low price. This land will be used as the principal of the four investors in Yan, and offset 40,000 yuan.

After getting the land, Ma Zhi was not idle, but asked someone to build a small pier opposite the location where Huang Zhisheng chose to build a pier. Not far from the pier, there was a lush forest. Ma Zhi led Wu Haogu along a small path into the woods. After walking for about a quarter of an hour, Wu Haogu discovered that there was a unique world in the woods located on the bank of the Jie River.

A large area of ​​forest in the middle of the woods has been cut down, and grass seeds have been sprinkled on it and planted on the grass, turning into a pasture surrounded by the woods. On the northern edge of the pasture, a row of sheds and houses have been built. From a distance, you can see two tall and thin horses with yellowish and pure black hair slowly walking outside the house.

Wu Haogu already knows a little about horses now. At a glance, he knows that it is a "high horse". I don't know whether it is good or not. Maybe he suffered a lot on the road and lost weight. But this height is still there!

"What a tall horse!" Wu Haogu blurted out.

Ma Zhi smiled and said, "I have promised to help you find a bloody horse, but it is really hard to find a bloody horse. Not to mention that there are no ones in the Liao Kingdom, even if there are few Uighurs going far away. But finally finding these two Persian horses is not considered breaking my promise."

"Persian horse?" Wu Haogu thought to himself: I have heard of Arab horses, but I have never heard of Persian horses. Persian cats know that they are blonde and blue-eyed. If you have the chance, you have to get two "pieces" to raise them...

"In fact, these two horses were not born in Persia, but were good horses raised by some Persian tribes in the Western Regions."

Ma Zhi said: "This horse is both famous horses in the Black Khan Uighurs, and the price is extremely high! If a family had not had a good official career in the past two years, became the deputy envoy of the Nanjing Dao Police and the big merchants who came from the Black Khan Uighurs, they would not have been able to get these two Persian stallions."

When the two were talking, they had already walked quickly to the vicinity of two Persian stallions. One of them had a little hooked nose and his eyes were slightly sunken. The groom, a man in his forties, stepped forward and bowed to Ma Zhi, and then said in skillful Chinese: "Lord, do you want to ride a horse?"

"I won't ride today," Ma Zhi waved his hand, "bring a friend to take a look."

The groom bowed to Wu Haogu again, and then dodged aside.

Ma Zhi walked forward, grabbed one of the black "high horses", and gently shook her.

Wu Haogu also went forward. The scholar Ma Zhi looked like a horse butt and whispered: "This horse looks so thin."

"That's the kind." Ma Zhi said, "Don't look at it being thin, it runs very fast, has excellent endurance, and is very smart. The only bad thing is that it is a bit recognizable. You have to keep it for a while, get along with it more, and let you ride it after getting familiar with it."

"It's a stallion!" Wu Haogu shook his head, "I dare not let me ride... I'd better keep the breeding."

In fact, the horses found a really good horse for Wu Haogu. It is now called the Persian horse, and later called the Turkmen horse and the Akha Takma. It was one of the ancestors of the Don hippo. The Don hippo was a cross between the Mongolian horse (now probably called the Khitan horse), the Akha Takma (now called the Persian horse) and the Arabian horse (the big horse).

However, even if you don’t cross the Don hippo, the Persian horse species can be called a famous horse!

"By the way," Wu Haogu said to Ma Zhi, "I have also got two tall mares these days, both of which are four feet and seven feet tall, just for breeding them."

"You have to hurry up if you want to breed." Ma Zhi understood horses, and he immediately said, "It is the peak season for estrus. When the weather gets hot, it will fade and will stop estrus in autumn."

"Then I'll have someone bring two mares tomorrow." Wu Haogu glanced at the Chinese-speaking man, "Brother Ma, do you have a good groom?"

"Yes." Ma Zhi pointed to the Baifan man, "His name is Mierbao, he is a Uighur from Xizhou. He used to sell horses in Xijin Mansion to make a living. Later, he went bankrupt and followed my uncle. This time he went to the Heikhan Uighurs in person and found you two Persian horses. Dalang, if you don't have anyone to raise horses, Mierbao will also give you this."

This time, the husband can actually give up people, obviously he is a slave. However, he is a slave who can raise good horses, and his treatment is naturally not comparable to ordinary slaves.

Wu Haogu was not surprised. He knew that the Liao families all had slaves. He asked softly, "Mirbao, right?"

"It's just the bottom."

"Do you believe in Mingzun or Buddha?" Wu Haogu asked again.

Mierbao said: "Xiao Di is a Buddhist disciple."

"Are there many people in Xizhou who are in Xinmingzun?"

"Seldom." Mirbao said, "Only nobles believe that Xiaodi is a horse-raising person."

"You raise horses." Wu Haogu nodded, "Do you know how to breed?"

Mirbao smiled and said, "It's natural to breed horses. How can I not know the little one?"

Wu Haogu thought about it and asked, "Do you know how brothers and sisters mate with mother and son, father and daughter?"

Hearing this question, Ma Zhi, who was standing by, suddenly coughed: "Dalang, what do you say? That is called the 'inner matching method' and 'reverse matching method'. There is also the 'outer matching method', which is to introduce good varieties that have no blood relationship with the horse herd to improve the quality of the horse herd."

"Uh, I know, I'm afraid he can't understand this, so I said that." Wu Haogu smiled bitterly. What he said just now was indeed inappropriate. Fortunately, Ma Zhi heard it. If a scholar-official official who regarded ethical principles as bigger than heaven knew, he might have broken up with him.

"Milbao," Wu Haogu continued, "Are foals raised by internal and counter-attachment methods prone to deformity?"

Mirbao nodded and said, "There are some, just kill them."

In addition, if a high-ranking official wants to raise good breeds, he must be patient and not ask for quantity. Because horses are not very capable of giving birth, they usually only have one child at a time and must be 11 months pregnant. Moreover, mares usually can only get pregnant at the age of three, and they will not be able to give birth to them when they are ten years old. In other words, they can only have 6-7 foals in their lifetime. If they are required for good breeds, only one or two of them are good. The rest must be processed in time, so the expansion of the horse herd is very slow. It takes twenty or thirty years to form the horse breed before the population can be expanded."

This is a real person!

Wu Haogu, who had raised good dogs in later generations, was very satisfied with Mirbao, but it was impossible for him to be dissatisfied with it. How could a wealthy family with such a large power in the Ma Zhi family not be able to find one or two people who can raise horses?

Ma Zhi himself is obviously a person who knows how to raise horses. He is afraid that Wu Haogu will not understand it, so he also explained: "Breeding is the most important thing in raising horses. If there is no good breed and only seeking to raise more, just like the Khitans and the people who stop divination, there are only five or six out of a hundred horses. If there is no herd of millions of horses, it is impossible to raise enough war horses by raising more.

Therefore, because there is not enough grassland to raise more, the oasis tribes in the Western Regions have adopted the method of breeding selection for thousands of years, raising good varieties and then breeding. Although the horse herd is small, every horse can fight."

"So that's it!" Wu Haogu suddenly realized what Ma Zhi said.

No wonder the Song Dynasty kept crying and shouting that there were no horses, but it turned out that the method of raising horses was wrong. The Northern Song Dynasty took the "grassland route" to build a large horse farm, and won by number. At the same time, because the economic structure of the Northern Song Dynasty also changed, the manor economy completely collapsed, resulting in the aristocrats (not the folk, but the aristocrats, small farmers, and small landlords who did not need to raise war horses) no longer needed to raise good horses.

The number of official horse farms seems to be only 200,000 at most. According to the ratio of 5 or 6 out of 100 horses, only 10,000 horses can be provided... However, considering the management ability of civil servants in the Northern Song Dynasty, it is estimated that they have to be given a half-deal.

As for the way to raise good horses by privately raising good horses to the court, it was not feasible in the Song Dynasty because raising good horses took too much time and money. Without the way and financial resources like Wu Haogu, he could get Persian horses, big-food horses and many large-sized mares, and he would not be able to raise good horses for a hundred years.

The purchase price offered by the Song Dynasty court for a first-class horse with a shoulder height of four feet and seven feet was only more than three hundred yuan. It was completely worth it to make this money by relying on generations of breeding!

So what Wu Haogu is going to do now is definitely a loss-making deal! The value of a few stallions alone is probably as high as tens of thousands of cranes. He also has to buy tall mares at all costs, build a vast horse farm, hire or even train high-level grooms and veterinarians, and spend twenty or thirty years... In the future, he will only provide two thousand "Hippos" with shoulder heights close to five feet a year, which is worth only six or seven hundred thousand cranes.

But if you don’t invest huge amounts of money to raise horses now, you will not be able to buy two thousand good horses even if you spend six or seven million in the future.

"Okay!" Wu Haogu slapped his horse's butt again and said to Ma Zhi with a smile, "Brother Ma, we brothers don't have to distinguish you and me, so we will set up a horse farm to train the hippos in the world. I also asked a big food merchant to find the big food good horses, and I also collected some tall mares, which will all reach the world river in the future. Brother Ma, you also think of a way to find more tall mares. Money is not a problem, it will take as much as you need. There are also time, twenty years, even thirty years, you can afford it!"
Chapter completed!