The Water Transport Yamen held a meeting all afternoon, and I had some casual dinner along with the Yamen food.
After telling Ma Cheng to prepare the Fengzhou fleet, Song Yang took Yu Ming and Fang Zhe to the livestock area before dusk arrived.
The livestock area is to the north of the workshop area.
After several expansions, the livestock area was divided into several areas.
The largest of them is the chicken farm, with more than 3,000 chicks hatched last month.
The second largest one is the rabbit breeding base, which currently has more than 400 rabbits.
This place is considered the largest meat supply base in Jiangzhou Fucheng.
"Your Majesty, a thousand years old!"
Seeing Song Yang coming, the people who were working all greeted him.
They are expanding the sheepfold.
When the Jiangbei search team's fleet returned, they brought more than 20 sheep with them.
These sheep were found by Longgan Lake in the north of the Yangtze River. They were trapped on an isolated island for two months due to flooding.
All the turf on the island has been eaten away.
All the sheep were starving.
After transporting the sheep back, the sheepfold will be expanded.
Including the original sheep pen, there are now more than 80 sheep.
Next to the sheep pen is the cattle pen. Currently, there are only more than 40 cattle in Jiangzhou.
There are too few cattle to cultivate the land.
Next year's spring plowing and animal power will be another big problem.
But there is nothing we can do about it. The reproduction speed of cattle and sheep is not as fast as that of chickens and ducks.
Song Yang could only order the fleet to find as many animals as possible and bring them back.
Further north is the pigsty, with more than sixty pigs in it.
However, pork is fishy and smelly, and people don’t like to eat it very much.
The matter of castrating pigs has not been promoted yet, and Song Yang plans to push it forward this time when he comes here.
Finally, after passing the pig pen, there is a duck and goose farm. Water was diverted from the river to build a pool, and the ducks and geese played in the pool.
There are more than 400 ducks and more than 100 geese.
In addition, there are a few donkeys, mules and other livestock, which are kept in a centralized enclosure in the east.
As a means of transportation, the horses were kept separately by Jinghu Lake in the west of the new city.
During this period, the number of horses has grown to one hundred and ten, not including the ten horses given to each county.
After looking around for a while, Song Yang started chatting with the workers.
“Are there any difficulties with livestock?”
"You are here to guarantee the meat supply in Jiangzhou. If you have any difficulties, please bring them up and we will find a way to solve them."
The workers looked at each other, and the foreman Lao Bao said:
"Your Majesty, there are a lot of animals in the livestock factory now, and we can't take care of them with just a few people."
"Yes, yes. I have to cut grass and feed the pigs every day, and I can't feed them even if I wake up early and stay late at night." Someone agreed.
Song Yang looked at Fang Zhe, who said with a bitter face: "Your Majesty, Xincheng is short of manpower, and now the main manpower is invested in the field protection team."
Since the establishment of the field protection team, more than 40 teams have been formed.
There are also work teams engaged in agricultural work such as weeding, watering, and fertilizer replenishing.
Jiangzhou government invested a lot of manpower to protect the land and production.
There are actually a lot of people here at the livestock factory, there are already twenty people.
However, as the livestock breeds more and more, manpower becomes increasingly scarce.
"Your Majesty, look over there."
The foreman, Old Bao, pointed to the haystack next to the cattle pen.
There were three piles of hay piled there.
"Feeding livestock is not simply feeding fodder. According to our old masters, it is best to chop the fodder before feeding it."
"The cattle and sheep will eat more after being chopped into pieces, and they will grow faster."
"Our main problem here is the lack of manpower and fodder, so this work is quite time-consuming."
The foreman Lao Bao introduced to Song Yang the difficulties of cutting fodder.
The old master he was talking about was an old man named Li, who was originally a cowherd in the government yamen.
He has no name, so people call him Li Lao Niu or Li Niu Guer.
Li Laoniu has rich experience in raising cattle and has provided many breeding methods to the workers in the livestock factory.
In fact, Song Yang also knew that it was better to chop the fodder before feeding it, but he did not expect that the lack of manpower would make the work quite difficult.
"Kakaka!"
Song Yang walked to the haystack, where ten workers were cutting the grass.
There are a total of twenty people in the livestock factory, and half of them are busy with the work of cutting grass.
The guillotine tool they use is a guillotine, which looks different in size.
If this thing hadn't appeared here, Song Yang might have thought it was for guillotining...
"The guillotine is being struck one after another, the speed is too slow."
Song Yang looked at it for a while and shook his head.
"Your Majesty, our speed is pretty good." Old Bao, the foreman, said with a grimace.
"These guys are all skilled. They can cut more than 100 kilograms a day."
"It was even slower a while ago. We searched through the ruins for several days before we found three more guillotines."
"Look at the three guillotines over there. They are all used to kill people in the yamen. We dug them out from the ruins. It would be suitable to use them as guillotines."
Song Yang: This guy is really a guillotine! I wonder why it looks so similar...
"Let's do this. If you persist for a few days, I will go to the workshop to buy you a mower." Song Yang patted the foreman Lao Bao on the shoulder and said.
"Cutter?"
No one has heard of this thing, they were all so careless before.
"You will know when I get it out. It is much faster than this kind of guillotine."
Song Yang said with a smile.
When the foreman Lao Bao heard that it was faster than a guillotine, he also laughed:
"My lord, the work of cutting grass is the most tiring and exhausting. If we can make the work of cutting grass easier, it will be enough for the twenty of us."
Song Yang nodded and immediately took Yu Ming and Fang Zhe to the blacksmith workshop.
"Clang clang clang!"
"Clang clang clang!"
Far away, I could hear the sound of metal tapping coming from the blacksmith's workshop.
Four blacksmiths are working overtime.
When we walked to the door of the blacksmith workshop, bursts of steam came out, but Song Yang and everyone else did not go inside.
Even if you don’t go in, you’ll know it’s hot inside.
Fang Zhe shouted twice outside the door.
"Wang Jinshi!"
"Wang Jinyu!"
There are four blacksmiths and two middle-aged brothers. The eldest is named Wang Jinshi and the second is named Wang Jinyu.
The eldest son’s two sons are named Wang Muxing and Wang Muyue.
Fang Zhe said that they were of the same generation as metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
After two more calls, the sound of hammering inside stopped.
"Ah! The prince is here! Damn it! I bumped into the prince."
As soon as Wang Jinshi came out, he saw Song Yang coming and hurriedly knelt down to apologize.
He came out shirtless.
In the past, being shirtless in front of the prince was a serious sin.
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, get up quickly."
"Don't worry too much. It's normal to be shirtless if you get into trouble in the workshop."
Song Yang comforted him with a smile.
Wang Jinshi stood up in a hurry and said something about his sin again.
At this time, his brother Wang Jinyu also came out, but he heard his brother's voice.
When I came out, I was wearing a smock, and I also took out my brother's smock.
Wang Jinshi immediately put on his clothes and then looked at Song Yang with some embarrassment.
"How's it going? Are you still used to working here?"
"If I go back to the prince, the tools here are complete, and the common people and others are very accustomed to it."
Wang Jinshi replied respectfully. They had just arrived and didn't know Song Yang's temperament.
Song Yang nodded and chatted with them for a few more words.
After waiting for a while for the steam in the workshop to dissipate, I walked into the workshop.