When Ang Lee set off from the capital, he planned to buy a large amount of food and transport it to Dongnu Province with his own money. There was enough food in the capital, but because of the transportation restrictions, he felt that it was more cost-effective to buy it from Central Sichuan. After entering Central Sichuan, Ang Lee did indeed buy a few hundred carriages of food and transported it to Guichang City. However, halfway through the journey, Ang Lee found that the food was still too little, so he temporarily sent his confidant to Central Sichuan to continue buying more food and hire local caravans to transport it. If necessary, he could even hire Central Sichuan guards to ensure that the food could be safely transported to Dongnu Province. If he could meet Yang Xuan's team and go with them, it would be even safer. Five thousand soldiers and horses had enough strength to face all kinds of dangers.
The confidant sent out would take at least a month to bring food over. During this period of time, everything could only rely on Ang Lee himself. Ang Lee did not have the ability to conjure food, so the only way was to use the existing local resources to obtain food. For example, the local weeds were very abundant. People could not directly eat grass, but they could use the grass to feed rabbits and obtain meat. In addition, since it was a flood, the water resources were even more abundant. How could there be no fish in a place with water? The reason why he felt that there were fewer fish was not because there were fewer fish, but because there was too much water and the fish were diluted. As long as he fished scientifically, he would definitely be able to obtain a lot.
Because the people were trapped by hunger, it was very unrealistic to expect the people to raise their own rabbits. After a few days, they would directly stew and eat the breeding rabbits. This was just like a certain era of collective farming in the future. Many hungry people directly ate the good seeds when they were farming, leaving only the bad seeds. In this way, how could the food grow well? Especially when they were planting peanuts, three peanuts were needed in a pit. However, because the people who planted peanuts were not full, they would eat all the good and big peanuts, and then put one or two small peanuts in each pit. This would seriously affect the peanut yield. The reason why this kind of behavior occurred was because the people were too hungry. When the people were hungry, they would think of all kinds of ways to fill their stomachs. It was not strange for them to secretly eat the planted food. Therefore, the matter of popularizing the raising of rabbits had to be taken care of by people who could eat their fill. They also had to be well protected. If they were robbed by the hungry people, then it would be very bad. There was enough space in the palace.
There were enough open spaces in the palace that could be used to build rabbit workshops. In fact, it was not difficult to raise rabbits. They just needed to make more cages, and wooden cages would do. However, in order to make the rabbits healthier and less prone to frequent illness, it was necessary to build a large enough space so that the rabbits could run around freely in this space. The construction of this space also had requirements. It was not just building a wall casually because rabbits could dig holes. They could dig from the position of the wall all the way down to the outside of the wall, and then they could successfully escape from the farm. Therefore, when building the wall, it must be dug deep. Moreover, while digging deep, a layer of floor tiles must be laid inside, so the rabbit's idea of digging holes to escape was completely cut off. If the conditions were good, they could directly lay cement on the ground so that the rabbits could not dig holes. In this way, absolute safety could be ensured. However, considering that there was no cement workshop in the East Nu Kingdom, this would definitely not work. There were many brick workshops here, so they could only use bricks instead. Because bricks had gaps, the effect was not as good as a cement floor, so they could only make do with it.
When Zhao Yefu asked his officials to collect all the rabbits in Guichang City, these officials were all confused. When they learned that Ang Lee proposed to raise rabbits for disaster relief, they shook their heads again and again. They felt that Ang Lee was too whimsical. Now, they were in a pinch here. How could they have time to raise rabbits? What they needed most was food, and this was the only way they could think of to solve the crisis.
However, this was Zhao Yefu's personal order after all. As subordinates, they had to obey. Even if they did not understand, they would not say anything.
Overall, their luck was not bad. After the collection of these subordinate officials, thousands of cute rabbits appeared in the palace. There were many kinds of rabbits. Many of them were rare pet rabbits, and some were domestic rabbits. Because the bandits outside the city were active, they did not dare to cut grass outside the city. Therefore, the number of rabbits was always kept low. If there were more, they would sell them or kill them to fill their stomachs. Even the female rabbits were no exception. After all, they could only get so little grass from the city. How could they feed more rabbits? They did not have enough space.
Ang Lee had also raised rabbits when he was a child, but the number never exceeded 100. Because as long as the number was large, the family's energy would not be able to bear it. There was not enough space in the house to put too many rabbits. If they forced too many rabbits in a narrow space, it would definitely cause diseases. Then, all the rabbits in the nest would die. They could not find a place to cry even if they wanted to.
If a rabbit rearing workshop was established, then these problems could be solved. However, in a normal year, the people's stomachs were full, and the price of rabbit meat was definitely more expensive than grain. As a result, the sales would definitely not be particularly good. Once the sales were blocked, naturally, no one would be willing to raise rabbits in the next year. As a result, it was difficult to form an industry. Even in the later generations with rich materials, rabbit meat was a relatively rare meat. Rabbit meat could not be seen at the general market at all.
Was rabbit meat not delicious? With rich cooking skills, any meat was delicious. There was no meat that was not delicious. As long as more seasonings were added, enough delicious meat could be obtained.
In addition, rabbit meat was high in protein, low in fat, and low in cholesterol. It was known as the element of meat. It was the ideal meat for obese people. It also had a certain cosmetic effect. Since rabbit meat was so good, why was rabbit meat not common? Pork was very common in any era, and the reproductive ability of rabbits was not worse than that of pigs. Why could it not be popularized?
This question had once troubled Li An as well. However, after hearing the reason from others, Li An calmed down. Although rabbits reproduced quickly, they had many shortcomings as well.
For example, rabbits were too lively and especially liked to exercise. Animals such as pigs, chickens, ducks, and geese would sleep after eating, and eat after sleeping. The food in their mouths would become meat, but rabbits liked to exercise very much. Most of the grass in their stomachs would be consumed, and not all of it would be converted into meat. For the people who pursued efficiency and cost ratio, this was really not attractive at all. After all, cutting grass every day was very tiring. Looking at the large amount of grass that they cut turned into such little rabbit meat, they would be somewhat unhappy. Humans were relatively lazy. Naturally, they hoped that cutting a catty of grass could make the rabbit grow a catty of meat.
In addition, rabbits had a sense of distance from people. They were not close to people and would not treat the owner's home as their own. Once they had a chance to escape, they would never come back. Generally, chickens, ducks, and geese were free-range, but even if they were free-range, these chickens, ducks, and geese would go home on time. When it was time to go home, they would go home. Rabbits could never be found. Moreover, chickens, ducks, and geese did not know how to dig holes, but rabbits could. In ancient times with backward productivity, rabbits could easily escape. Sometimes, it was useless to lay floor tiles. After all, there were also gaps in the floor tiles. If the quality was not controlled well during construction, and some gaps were too big, then all the rabbits would escape from this gap, causing the farmers to suffer heavy losses. It was not easy to rear rabbits in captivity, so many people were not willing to rear rabbits because it was too tiring to rear these little elves. They had to be prepared to fight with the rabbits at all times, and they had to check the rabbit's cage at all times to find abnormal places in time. Just thinking about it would make one feel tired!
Compared to chickens, ducks, geese, and other domestic fowls, rabbits were easier to get sick. Once a rabbit got sick, it would spread quickly. The speed of infection was extremely fast, far faster than the speed of infection of other farmed animals. Therefore, prevention of diseases must be done very well. There must be no wishful thinking. Once it was not done well, it would be disastrous. Sometimes, there would be strong noises in the surroundings, such as the explosion of firecrackers, which could scare a large number of rabbits to death. Such fragile rabbits, when taking care of them, would need to spend a lot of effort. If there were not enough benefits, no one would be willing to spend so much money to raise this kind of living ancestor.
Chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs were all omnivores. They could eat anything, especially pigs, which could eat feces. It was not news for dogs to eat feces. However, rabbits only ate grass. Of course, grass was easy to obtain, and they were not particularly picky about eating only grass. The problem was that once the grass was accidentally stained with water, then the rabbit would have diarrhea. In serious cases, it would lead to the death of the rabbit. Cows and sheep also ate grass, but this would not happen. Fruits with high water content could not be eaten. Once rabbits ate it, they would have diarrhea, and in serious cases, they would die. In ancient times, where knowledge was scarce, many people did not understand this knowledge. Sometimes, occasionally feeding some vegetables with high water content would lead to a great tragedy. One really had to be very careful when feeding rabbits. One could not have any careless thoughts, and could not make any small mistakes. After painstakingly harvesting a large amount of grass from the wild, if it was wet in the rain, then these grass could not be used to feed rabbits. The rainwater on these grass had to be dried first before they could be used to feed rabbits. How tiring was this!
Although raising rabbits was very tiring, and would encounter all kinds of problems, in fact, as long as there were sufficient preparations, all these problems could be completely solved. Weren't rabbits delicate? Then they would raise them according to the delicate method. As long as all the conditions were prepared, raising delicate rabbits would not be a problem.
Looking at the thousands of little rabbits in front of him, Ang Lee was very happy. With these breeding rabbits, it wouldn't be long before the rabbits in the palace would become a disaster. Rabbits loved to eat grass, so he could just send the army to cut a large amount of grass outside the city. The army's fighting power was very strong, and no one dared to provoke them easily. Moreover, the army's carriages were all covered in grass. Only a fool would spend the effort to rob them, and only a fool would rob them. Therefore, there was absolutely no need to worry about the source of food for the rabbits.
It wasn't enough to just have rabbits. He also had to prepare enough cages for the rabbits. In other words, he had to build a home that could allow the rabbits to survive well. In order to save land, the cages could be placed in multiple layers. One and a half layers could be placed between every two layers. It was used to dispose of the rabbit feces. This way, the rabbit cages could be kept clean. In order to prevent the rabbits from getting sick, ventilation was very important. Therefore, the two ends of the rabbit cages had to be ventilated. When the wind blew, the turbid air in the rabbit cages would be blown away, and the rabbits wouldn't get sick easily. In order to prevent cross-infection, the two cages had to be completely isolated. Two rabbits couldn't be allowed to have close contact with each other, so as to prevent one rabbit from accidentally getting sick and causing all the rabbits to get sick. That way, the loss would be too heavy.
Ang Lee quickly drew the drawings and marked them very clearly on the drawings. Every structure was marked in detail, and then he handed them to the officials under Zhao Yefu. He asked them to build the rabbit cages according to the drawings because only by using this scientific breeding method could they prevent the rabbits from getting sick to the greatest extent and avoid all the investment being wasted.
In addition, some warehouses had to be built near the rabbit cages area to store the grass. The grass was stored in these warehouses to ensure that it wouldn't be watered by the rain, so as to ensure that the rabbits wouldn't get sick after eating it.
Every day, someone had to check the mental state of the rabbits, and someone had to be responsible for cleaning the feces under each rabbit's head. Removing the feces in time could greatly prevent the growth of bacteria and prevent the rabbits from getting sick because of the bad living environment. Rabbits were animals that loved cleanliness. If they lived with feces for a long time, the rabbits would get sick easily. It was very important to clean the feces under the rabbit cages in time. It had to be cleaned every day, and no one could be lazy at all.
"It's just raising rabbits. Why is it so hard?"
Ang Lee had made too many requests. Zhao Yefu felt a little confused.
"Yefu, you only raised a few rabbits before, and you took good care of them. Look at this cage. How clean it is. Naturally, you don't have to follow my method. But if you want to raise rabbits on a large scale, the density of the rabbits is too large. You must pay attention to these details. If you don't pay attention, you will get rabbit plague.
You have to be vigilant. "Ang Lee said very seriously.
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