Shen'an Farm, located in the north of the provincial capital of Liaodong Province, is a government-run farm directly under the Liaodong Provincial Department of Industry.
It is worth mentioning that even if the farm belongs to the agricultural category, it still falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry or the local industrial department, because it involves official capital management issues.
The official investment of the Dachu Empire, except for some special industries, is basically under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry.
Although the Ministry of Industry was initially an agency focusing on industry, it has basically evolved into a government-owned asset management agency.
Regardless of whether it is an industry, a farm, or some other infrastructure industry, the investment management authority is basically in the hands of the Ministry of Industry.
Of course, it is not without special circumstances. Except for the postal bank, all other government-run banks are under the jurisdiction of the Finance Department.
Da Chu Di Newspaper, Da Chu Di Newspaper and other provincial newspapers that have emerged in recent years are under the jurisdiction of the Chao Bao Department of the Ministry of Ethnic Affairs.
Postal banks and the postal industry are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport.
The Railway Corporation was initially under the jurisdiction of the Railway Department of the Ministry of Transport. Later, the Railway Corporation was independent and under the direct jurisdiction of the Cabinet.
The Dachu Empire Grain Corporation and the Salt Corporation are also second-grade institutions under the direct jurisdiction of the cabinet.
Although there are special circumstances of one kind or another, generally speaking, when talking about government-run enterprises, they basically refer to government-run enterprises invested, established and under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry or local industrial departments, divisions and institutes.
This is the case with Shen'an Farm. They were invested, established and managed by the Liaodong Provincial Department of Industry. It is the largest farm in Liaodong Province. It has a large area of arable land and adopts large-scale mechanized farming. In addition to planting, they also raise A large number of horses, beef cattle and other livestock.
Therefore, they are not only the largest single grain planting base in Liaodong Province, but also the largest government-run horse farm in Liaodong Province. They not only provide a large number of mules and horses for the people, but also provide a large number of horses for the military.
When Luo Zhixue arrived at the farm, the first thing he saw was not the large local farmland, but the large herd of horses in the distance!
"The horse farm here mainly breeds Toyoshu horses, which are very good draft horses."
Luo Zhixue naturally knew about the Fengzhou horse, because it was the most important kind of draft horse in the Chu Empire in the past ten years. It was bred based on some large European horses and integrated with the local Mongolian horse bloodline.
Its average shoulder height can reach about 1.55 meters. Although its explosive power is a bit poor and it is not suitable for use as a cavalry horse, its pulling power is very good, and it has a docile personality, good endurance, resistance to rough feeding, and good cold resistance.
Therefore, this Toyoshu horse is widely used in agricultural production and transportation.
The military also purchases a large number of Fengzhou horses and breeds them in many horse farms. They are mainly used as draft horses. Of course, they can also be ridden when necessary and used as riding horses for mounted infantry.
If you don't ride it to charge, its tall size is still very intimidating... After all, the average shoulder height is 1.55 meters.
Speaking of which, there are many horse breeds in the Great Chu Empire. In addition to the original various traditional Mongolian horses and southwestern horses, a large number of foreign horse breeds have been introduced over the past twenty years, including Kazakh horses from Central Asia, There are various horse breeds such as Turkmen horses, Arabian horses, Spanish horses, Hanoverian horses, and thoroughbred horses.
Basically, the Chu Empire collected all the horse species that could be collected through foreign trade. After the introduction, they first carried out conservation and breeding, and then selected a group of horses to be randomly cross-bred with other horse breeds.
As a result, a large number of hybrid horse breeds were produced, some of which were good and some of which were not so good.
The most famous among them is the Jinling horse, which is a cross between Mongolian horses, Arabian horses, Spanish horses, Turkmen horses, and purebred horses.
This kind of riding horse with an average shoulder height of 1.6 meters and excellent explosive power is currently rare in number and expensive. It is generally used as a toy for the rich and powerful, because although it has a very beautiful body shape and good explosive power, it has low endurance. What a place, and it is extremely delicate to raise.
This thing is actually more suitable for use as a short-distance horse race. It is basically no different in performance from the thoroughbred horses imported from the UK.
But the body shape is more graceful, and it runs very beautifully... You can see it running is pleasing to the eye. Well, the Jinling horse is also more delicate than the thoroughbred horse...
The Hexi horse, also known as the Central Asian horse in the early days, was the first excellent military horse bred in the Chu Empire. It was a cross between Mongolian horses, Kazakh horses, Qinghai horses and Arabian horses. The average shoulder height reached one Mi Si has particularly good endurance, is easy to raise, is cold-resistant, and has poor explosive power. It is an excellent light draft horse and riding horse.
The New Southwest Horse is a kind of horse bred from many horses native to the southwest region. Although the average shoulder height of the male horse is only one meter, it has excellent endurance and is adapted to special climates such as plateaus and tropical rainforests. It is a kind of horse. Excellent draft horses are used in the southern regions.
The Liaoxi horse, with an average shoulder height of 1.5 meters, is a cross-bred product of a Spanish horse male and a Hexi horse mare. It has a very complicated bloodline... This kind of war horse has a beautiful body, strong explosive power, moderate endurance, and moderate breeding.
These characteristics made it gradually become the most important mounted war horse in the army of the Chu Empire. It was bred in large quantities and widely equipped with various cavalry units and used as an officer's mount. It is now the iconic mounted war horse of the Chu Empire.
Fengzhou horses are made from a variety of Western horse breeds, mainly some Western draft horses, such as Hanoverian horses and Mongolian horses. The average shoulder height is 1.55 meters. They have a docile personality, good endurance, and are easy to raise. , but its explosive power is not very good, and it is only suitable for use as a work horse.
To put it simply, the horse breeds that were bred on a large scale in the Chu Empire and used by the military were Hexi horses, Liaoxi horses, Xinnan horses, and Fengzhou horses.
Among them, the Liaoxi horse is a pure riding horse, the Hexi horse is a light work horse and a riding horse, the New Southwestern horse is a work horse specially used for terrain such as the southern jungle water network or plateau mountains, and the Fengzhou horse is a A medium-sized draft horse.
Of course, this is just a rough idea!
In fact, the Chu Empire still maintained and bred various native horse breeds, such as several famous horse breeds: Arabian horses, Spanish horses, British thoroughbred horses, Turkmen horses, and of course the native Mongolian horses. horse.
There are also many types of horses used by the military. It's not about which ones are good for use, but what they are used for and what they are suitable for... After all, the Chu Army deployed and the Chu Army's deployment range was too wide, from the Arctic ice fields to the tropics. Rainforests range from plateaus to low-altitude plains, from snow to deserts, with all kinds of chaotic climate and geographical conditions.
As for horses, it is difficult to say that they can adapt to all climates and terrains.
Therefore, the Chu army also used different horses according to the geographical climate.
Moreover, the use of war horses will also be subject to transportation restrictions. In many cases, horses cannot be transported all the way from the hinterland of the country. The transportation cost is too high. At the same time, foreign horse breeds also have problems with environmental adaptability.
Therefore, the Chu army fighting overseas will try to use local horses if possible. For example, local Kazakh horses, Turkmen horses, Arabian horses, etc. are widely used in Central Asia and Western Siberia.
The garrisons in India widely use local Marwar horses and other horses. Among them, Marwar horses are the product of natural cross-breeding of Turkmen horses, Arabian horses, Mongolian horses and local horses in Central Asia. They are a quite Excellent riding horse.
Strictly speaking, no army of many countries in the world uses so many types of horses at the same time as the Chu army.
Of course, this is also due to the fact that many countries do not have the strength and conditions to maintain such a large-scale overseas garrison... There are not many overseas garrison troops, so naturally there is no large-scale overseas cavalry, let alone the use of a variety of horses. .
The Chu army is different. The Chu army now has more than 60,000 troops deployed in the Indian region alone. There are a lot of cavalry, plus officer mounts, artillery and draft horses and pack horses needed for baggage. This requires There are quite a few horses.
From this we can also see the importance of various military horses to the Chu army.
Let’s not talk about the horses for riding. Without a large number of service horses, the artillery unit that the Chu army is proud of would not be able to pull it onto the battlefield.
That can weigh hundreds of kilograms or even one or two thousand kilograms of field artillery, but it requires a large number of draft horses to maintain mobility and combat.
From this, we can also see the importance of the Fengzhou horse, the main service horse in the army of the Chu Empire.
This kind of Fengzhou horses are bred in many horse farms in the Great Chu Empire, and Shen'an Farm is just one of them.
The largest breeding base for Fengzhou horses in China is not at Shen'an Farm, but at Fengzhou Racecourse in Fengzhou Prefecture, Monan Province. Otherwise, where did the name come from? It's because this kind of horse was bred at Fengzhou Racecourse. It came out.
However, although the Fengzhou horse herd in Shen'an Farm is not large, with only more than 5,000 horses currently on hand, it is still very spectacular to see up close.
Before Luo Zhixue got off the royal carriage, he saw a large group of horses from a distance. After entering the farm, he went to see the huge group of horses and watched a simple horse draft organized by the farm. What about the performance of pulling a cart?
I saw a number of four-wheeled carriages loaded with heavy objects, each pulled by four tall Toyoshu horses, basically selected with a shoulder height of 1.6 meters. Moreover, the roads were not on flat hardened roads, but on sand. Stone pavement.
Four Fengzhou horses pulled a four-wheeled carriage carrying about 1.5 tons of cargo. They were not weak at all on this kind of road, and the speed was quite fast.
Seeing these Fengzhou horses pulling the heavily loaded carriage forward easily, Luo Zhixue showed a satisfied expression.
He is still very satisfied with the breeding work of Fengzhou horses. Since the breeding of this kind of medium and large draft horses, the artillery and logistics strength of the Da Chu Empire can be said to have risen to a higher level.
Even some heavy field guns that were inconvenient to use in the past are now much easier to use.
More importantly, the successful breeding of medium and large draft horses that were suitable for the climate conditions in the north of the Chu Empire, especially in the Northeast, brought great development to local agricultural production and transportation.
You must know that horse farming is widely used in agricultural production in North China.
Although mechanized farming has also appeared and its application scale is not small, some privately owned small and medium-sized farms, or simply put, local farmers basically still use horses for farming, and draft horses such as Toyoshu horses are very suitable as draft horses. Used by plow horses.
It is also very suitable for pulling goods.
The majority of farmers in the Northeast use Toyoshu horses for farming, and then use Toyoshu horses to pull grain from rural areas to cities. After transshipment, they transport it to inland rivers or coastal ports, or train stations, and then transport it by rail. to North China or to the South via sea transport.
Luo Zhixue naturally attaches great importance to this excellent draft horse that has many functions in military, agricultural production and transportation.
Even in order to promote and encourage the use of Fengzhou horses, the draft horses used in Luo Zhixue's royal carriages were all Fengzhou horses.
In other words, this thing is still a royal draft horse.
It's much more important than any Jinling horse.
Although Luo Zhixue uses Jinling horses for riding, apart from looking good and running fast, they really have no practical use.
After watching the Fengzhou Horse's performance, Luo Zhixue came to the grain growing area on the other side of Shen'an Farm.
This is also the core area of Shen'an Farm.
"Our farm currently mainly grows rice and soybeans, and also grows some corn introduced from the Americas and some pasture."
"The most important one is rice cultivation. The large rice field in front is one of our main rice cultivation areas. There are 50,000 acres here. In addition to this 50,000 acres of planting land, we have four large and small rice fields in other places. A rice-growing area.”
"It's autumn harvest now, and we're harvesting rice with a steam engine combine harvester!"
Without being reminded, Luo Zhixue also saw a large golden rice field in front of him. On the edge of the rice field, there were multiple large steam combine harvesters spraying light white mist, harvesting.
This scene is also the main purpose of Luo Zhixue's inspection of Shen'an Farm today.
Just to see the mechanized planting in the Dachu Empire.
At first glance, I should say, the level is there, but this steam combine harvester is too big!
And there are not one or two people operating above, but as many as a dozen...
After all, these days' steam combine harvesters are not easy to service. There is no so-called automation, and many operations require manual labor.
When Luo Zhixue was in Tianjin before, he visited a local steam plow, which also required a dozen people to operate at the same time.
Therefore, the steam agricultural machinery these days is not a worry-free thing. They are all big guys and difficult to take care of.
But the efficiency is not low, much better than manual work.
