Chapter 317 - Nick's Career (Part 2)

As the seasons turned, the farm's material conditions steadily improved, and Nick's horse-breeding enterprise began to flourish in earnest. Permanent stables rose according to proper equestrian specifications. A dedicated water supply system was installed for the animals, and a paddock was fenced off where the horses could move freely.

To solve the problem of concentrated feed, Nick paid multiple visits to the Planning Committee and finally secured permission to add oats, alfalfa, and various legumes to the procurement list. Wu Nanhai also promised to include these varieties in future planting schedules. Throughout the winter months, Nick busied himself sourcing suitable fodder—if the horses were to breed come spring, the stallions and mares needed fattening. Grass alone would keep them alive, but little more.

Fortune smiled when they captured Gou Family Village; among the seized provisions were substantial quantities of miscellaneous grains. Nick treasured these like precious gems. He pestered Ma Qianzhu for an entire day and finally secured every bean variety except soybeans, mung beans, and red beans. He even arranged for the leftover dregs from future tofu production to be counted as horse feed.

"I was planning to feed that to the pigs," Wu Nanhai said, shaking his head at the waste.

"Feeding horses or pigs—either way it's wasteful," Auntie Tian interjected. She presided over the cafeteria and had strong opinions. "We're short on dishes as it is. I could make stir-fried bean dregs for everyone. That counts as a dish."

"Let's not," Wu Nanhai replied. "Everyone would curse us to death."

"It's not bad at all! Stir-fry it with sheep fat or lard, add some green garlic—smells delicious." Auntie Tian gestured expansively. "Snowflake Dish, we'd call it!"

"We're short on animal fat. That stuff needs oil to taste good. Otherwise, who'd eat dry bean dregs?"

Nick cut in: "Pigs can't pull carts. And last I checked, we don't need pig cavalry."

"Fine, I give up." Wu Nanhai threw up his hands. "It's yours."

Thanks to supplementation with miscellaneous grains and tofu dregs, the horses remained in excellent condition throughout the winter—and the herd expanded. Through purchase and capture, Nick's stable now housed twenty-five animals. Many were already capable of daily labor, whether pulling carts or driving animal-powered machinery.

Wu Nanhai may be average in most professional fields, Nick reflected, but he makes a good leader. At least he listens to everyone's opinions and ideas, dismissing no one—not even the long-term worker foremen.

The paddock gate stood closed. Inside, several teenagers in gray military uniforms tended to the horses. Seeing Nick return, the half-grown lads gathered around him.

"Chief Ni, why won't this horse listen to me?"

"I want to wash the horse's hooves, but what if it won't let me grab its hoof?"

"How do I clean the hair off the brush?"

"Chief, the horse kicked me..." Someone was even "wounded in action."

They wore the red collar tabs of the artillery—cadets from the artillery unit. Regulations required Army artillery cadets to spend one day per week on rotation at the farm stables: washing horses, learning hoof trimming, shoeing, walking the animals. These cadets considerably lightened Nick's burden, freeing him to focus on training, establishing pedigrees, and breeding management.

"Don't rush. Speak one at a time."

Nick calmed them down and asked a boy working in the stable to lead Da Tie back to his stall. When it came to horses, Nick's entire demeanor brightened.

"Washing hooves requires proper hoof-grabbing technique," Nick explained. "Little Tartar, come brush Celeron's hoof."

The horses collected from this timeline all bore names drawn from Intel and AMD processors. The natives could never fathom why a perfectly good horse wasn't called "Sai Hu" (Rivaling the Tiger) or "Sai Long" (Rivaling the Dragon) but had to be called "Sai Yang" (Celeron/Rivaling the Sheep). Could it be that Australian sheep ran extraordinarily fast?

"Yes, sir!" Little Tartar answered loudly and led Celeron over.

Little Tartar's formal name was Da Shi. He wasn't Mongol; he claimed his ancestral home was in Henan. After his hometown suffered a disaster, he had wandered all the way to Guangdong. Just because his hair curled slightly, the other cadets had saddled him with this nickname.

Little Tartar was short. Following Nick's instructions, he lifted the horse's front leg to waist height, gritted his teeth, and held it up with both hands. He hadn't expected it to go so smoothly. Just as Nick had demonstrated, he used his left hand to grab the hoof and rest it on his knee. But the moment his grip loosened, the hoof slipped. Little Tartar jumped back, worried about being kicked.

"Don't be afraid," Nick said. "Your grip is wrong. Try the opposite direction."

He tried, and indeed it was much steadier. Holding the brush in his right hand, he scraped dirt from inside the hoof. Each time the brush touched, the horse shifted its leg. Little Tartar's face tensed with every movement. Finally, he fetched an iron bucket filled with water and used a scrubbing brush to clean the sole.

"Remember to hold the leg firmly while scrubbing. If you let go mid-way, it'll step on your foot—or fly into a rage."

After washing the hoof, he applied hoof oil according to Nick's instructions. This small amount of oil had taken Nick half a day of petitioning Wu Nanhai to obtain.

"Good. Now do the hind legs."

Little Tartar hesitated. "Will it kick me? A kick from the hind leg can be fatal..."

"Don't be afraid. I'm watching."

The hind legs were more intimidating. Little Tartar grabbed the left hind leg with both hands and tried to lift it without success. But the horse didn't kick, which slightly eased his nerves. He tried again with more force and lifted it fairly easily.

Cleaning remained strenuous. Whenever the hoof threatened to slip, he had to heave it back up. With great difficulty, he finally finished all four legs. Little Tartar was drenched in sweat.

"Good work," Nick praised, though it had taken rather long.

"Horses are precious and useful animals. To make them serve you, you must take good care of them. Understood?"

"Yes, Chief!" The future artillerymen answered in unison.

Nick guided the others for a while, inspected the horses exercising in the paddock to check their condition, then returned to the stable.

The tall stable was one of the farm's landmark structures. Local natives clicked their tongues in wonder at the sight, and even the transmigrators regarded it with curiosity. The entire building was brick-and-wood construction, long and narrow, with a high peaked roof. Ventilation and lighting were excellent. The floors of the double-row stalls were compacted lime-sand-clay mixture. Bedding straw was changed daily to ensure cleanliness—lacking veterinary medicines, they had to strengthen hygiene measures to keep the horses healthy. Yang Baogui also sprinkled lime daily at the stable entrance as a simple disinfection measure.

As the herd grew, so did Nick's staff. He dismissed the people Wu De had found among immigrant natives who claimed horse-raising experience as ignorant—many of their methods were completely wrong. He simply refused to take any of them.

"Correcting mistakes is harder than starting fresh on a blank slate."

Instead, Nick selected just two fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boys named Sheng Bao and Lai Bao from among the children of farm employees. Both had completed literacy classes and were now formally his apprentices.

He instructed Sheng Bao to give Da Tie water and feed. The breeding stallion required semen collection twice daily, so it needed especially rich nutrition. For this, Nick had secured specific rations of eggs and millet from Wu Nanhai. Eggs replenished protein; millet, he'd been told, improved a stallion's libido and semen quality.

Lai Bao brought fresh water from outside. Nick taught him hands-on how to clean Da Tie's genitals, particularly scrubbing the testicles with cold water—Yang Baogui had taught him this technique, claiming it beneficial for semen secretion.

Da Tie was a breeding stallion in which they placed great hopes. As a Tieling draft horse, the blood of many world-class breeds flowed in its veins: Ardennes, Anglo-Norman, Percheron, Anglo-Arabian, and more. It was an excellent draft animal of crucial importance for the transmigrators' future in agriculture, military transport, and road haulage. Besides mating it with the Tieling mare, Yang Baogui also planned crossbreeding with local Dian mares.

After cleaning Da Tie and giving his apprentices their instructions, Nick hurried back to his room to rest. He was exhausted—rising at three in the morning to feed horses, giving the last fodder at nine in the evening, tending the animals, teaching apprentices, collecting and processing feed, handling administration... he scarcely had a free hour.

A permanent smell of horse manure hung in the room, but Nick didn't mind. Too tired to bathe and unwilling to dirty the sheets, he laid out a straw pallet by the door and slept directly on it, changing the straw every other day. Wu Nanhai joked that Nick had become part horse himself.

He woke after less than two hours of sleep. During breeding season, there was simply too much to do; he dared not sleep too soundly. Checking his watch, he saw it was nearly noon. His stomach growled. He rose, dusted off the straw stalks, poured water from an earthen jar into a basin to wash his face, and prepared to head to the canteen.

Suddenly the phone rang. Yang Baogui was calling.

"Come to the Lotus Pavilion for lunch. Wu Nanhai is treating."

The Lotus Pavilion was the farm's dedicated venue for "corruption"—their euphemism for feasting. It sat beside a small lake now planted thick with lotus roots, hence the name.

"Why the sudden treat?"

"It's not treating you—you're the accompanying guest. By the way, this has a huge bearing on your horse-breeding career. You must come!" Yang Baogui hung up.

Huge bearing on horse breeding? Nick couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Arriving at the Lotus Pavilion, he discovered the invited guest was none other than Civil Affairs Commissioner Wu De. Once conversation flowed over the meal, Nick realized Yang Baogui had designs on Damei Village.

This idea had been germinating for some time. Through months of horse-breeding practice, Nick had come to understand that Lingao's overall climate and environment weren't quite suitable for horses. Moreover, the space was too confined. Currently, only the open areas along both banks of the Wenlan River were suitable for grazing and walking horses, but these had either been reclaimed as farmland or were slated for future agricultural development. Reserving large tracts of land for horse breeding was unlikely—planting crops took priority, and grain output directly determined the scale at which horses could be bred.

Although stall feeding combined with heavy use of silage and concentrated feed could support fairly high-density horse-keeping in the existing space, the climate was simply too hot and humid, which would prove detrimental to equine health in summer. Furthermore, horses were sensitive creatures requiring long adaptation periods in unfamiliar environments—a persistent headache. Animals that felt unhappy or uncomfortable obviously wouldn't have much "interest" in breeding, so natural reproduction rates remained low. This was precisely why Yang Baogui was pushing so hard for artificial insemination.

Yang Baogui had visited the Gaoshan Ridge area several times since the New Year, scouting for a potential summer mountain pasture. The mountain vegetation was lush, the climate cool and pleasant, natural feed abundant, and clean water sources plentiful. It was ideal summer refuge for horses and other large livestock.

The most ready-made location was naturally Damei Village. This small settlement, built on the ruins of Gou Family Village, was now firmly under Transmigration Regime control. Water sources flowed near the village, and nearly a thousand mu of valley and sloping land could serve for grazing and planting feed.

But the matter required approval from Wu De, who controlled all civil affairs.

"I have no objection to establishing a pasture in Damei Village," Wu De said. "It's just that the road there passes through the county town. Does that present problems?"

"Come now," Yang Baogui replied with some exasperation. "If you put it that way, Bairen City is only a few kilometers from the county town. Besides, isn't the area around the county seat under our surveillance now?"

"True enough." Wu De nodded. "However, once you establish a pasture there, you'll lack strong protection. Damei is over ten kilometers from here, and the road isn't hardened—just a simple highway. If something happens, reinforcements will take at least half an hour to arrive. You'd have to rely on the Damei Village militia to protect the pasture."

"Wasn't regime construction and militia training in Damei Village handled personally by Xi Yazhou? It shouldn't be too bad."

"No matter how good, they're just armed with broadswords and spears. Besides, there are only twelve strictly trained backbone militiamen." Wu De took a sip of wine. "Damei Village has fifty households total—two hundred sixty-one people including men, women, old, and young. Sixty-four males aged sixteen to fifty." His memory was excellent; he recited the figures without hesitation. "You must understand one thing: Lingao has serious banditry problems. If dozens of horses are kept in Damei, sixty-four able-bodied men might not be enough to stop a large gang of bandits. Wealth moves hearts."

"Exaggerated, isn't it? Just twenty or thirty horses—"

"Not exaggerated." Wu De's expression grew serious. "Do you know what a horse sells for in this timeline?"

"A hundred taels?"