According to the Ming Dynasty Law: civil servants go out to ride sedan chairs and military officers go on horseback, but the price of war horses is too expensive and the cost of raising them is high. Every meal cannot be separated from concentrated feed such as wheat and bean cakes. If you have nothing to do, you have to eat two eggs to make up for it.

The military's food and salary were small and often deducted by the upper class. It would be great if the soldiers could barely have enough food. How could they still have the spare time to raise war horses?

Therefore, like many lower-level officers, Zhang Zongqi could only settle for the second best and raised a mule to carry a modern transportation tool.

The mule is strong, has strong endurance, and is not picky about food. As a means of transportation, it can help with work during busy farming. In addition to being unable to fight, it is much more practical than a war horse!

"Sir, this is the little mule lee that you have saved for half a year and bought. I have worked hard to feed the big ones, so I can't kill them!"

"Yes, kill the mule, what kind of cart should we use to pull the cart when harvesting autumn?"

...

Seeing that Zhang Xiaoqi was about to kill the mount, the soldiers came out to dissuade him. They knew very well that this mule was hard-won and even more important!

During the Ming Dynasty, the training of the Wei Army had been abandoned for a long time. Like ordinary people, they made a living by farming and farming. The farming work was very hard and tiring. It would be impossible without the help of large livestock. It can even be said that livestock is more important than humans!

Now that Zhang Xiaoqi's family will have difficulty in making a living.

"Needless to say, human life is at stake. I took these people out. I can't watch them starve to death. Come and help me!

Old guy, I'm sorry, I'll join you in the next life!"

Zhang Xiaoqi sighed and shook his head, led the big green mule to the open space, touched it reluctantly, and fed half a steamed bun, which was a farewell meal!

Finally, he gritted his teeth, took off his coat and covered the mule's eyes, pulled out his sword, and stabbed him hard towards his heart...

"Ye!Ye!--Pu!"

The big green mule fell to the ground with a whine. The four hooves twitched a few times and died. They didn't suffer much!

A soldier had already come over and filled the spurted mule blood in a large wooden barrel. This was a good thing and he didn't dare to waste it at all.

...

"Everyone came here to get the meat. The old man and the children stood in front, and went to the back with strong bodies. They all lined up and no one was allowed to compete!"

"Thank you, Lord Zhang!"

"Official Zhang Xiaoqi, a great man!"

After killing the mule, Zhang Xiaoqi called the victims over and personally took a knife to share the meat.

The Ming Dynasty was corrupt, and officials only knew how to plunder money and never cared about the lives of the people. Now, on the way to immigrate, with such a kind-hearted military officer leader, the victims were naturally grateful, and there were many people kneeling on the ground and kowtowed!

However, Zhang Xiaoqi was riding a donkey mule, which was not big. In addition, he was tired on the road, lacking grass and material, and lost weight very seriously, leaving only less than 400 kilograms of portions. After removing the fur, bones and feces, it would be nice to produce half of the semen and meat.

There are more than 200 people in the people, and one person can get less than a pound of meat on average. There is no scale here, so it is impossible to distribute it evenly. As for how to divide it, it depends on Zhang Xiaoqi. He will give more points if he likes everyone, and the ones who don’t like each other will give less points if he doesn’t like each other. If he just doesn’t like each other, he won’t just tell the difference!

"Blacksmith Hu, you are a dilapidated house. Be honest in the future. If I see you bullying the elderly, weak, women and children again, I will dispose of you and give the meat to others to eat!"

"Don't worry, Lord Zhang, I, Old Hu, will never dare to do anything bad anymore!"

"Well, this is your portion of meat!"

...

After receiving the meat, the blacksmith Hu nodded and left, Xue Yu was following behind.

"Little brother, this is the meat I have given to you. These bones belong to you!" Zhang Xiaoqi was very pleased with Xue Yu. He tilted the knife in his hand and cut off several kilograms of meat. He also gave him three other rib bones.

"Mr. Zhang sacrifices himself as a man, and is a noble righteous person. In the future, the day when a boy becomes successful will be a hundred times or a thousand times reward. I will give you a large ranch with ten thousand cattle, sheep and thousands of horses!" Faced with special care, Xue Yu did not kowtow like other people, nor did he say wishes for the New Year, but just made a promise!

"Okay, then I'll wait. When the day my little brothers are successful, I'll give me a big ranch, haha!" Zhang Xiaoqi nodded with a smile, but did not believe Xue Yu's promise. He just regarded it as a joke for a child, because he was a soldier and knew very well how lacked horses in the Ming Dynasty!

Horses are the foundation of armor and weapons and the great animal of the country. They have always been valued by rulers. However, since ancient times, the Central Plains lacked good horses and even good pastures for raising horses!

During the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di and his son, three policies were implemented in order to solve the problem of war horses:

The first is the official pastor: set up institutions such as the Imperial Horse Supervisor and Yuanma Temple to encircle pastures in a place of plump water and grass, and let the soldiers of the garrison tame war horses.

The second is the people's herdsmanship, which encourages the people in the northwest to raise horses. If horse farmers can give birth to a foal every year, they can be exempted from the hardship of serving the government and taxes can be reduced.

The third is to open horse markets on the border, and exchange tea with nomadic peoples for horses. For example, in the late Hongwu period, there was a record of 13,500 horses in trading in a year.

The three-pronged approach was obvious. By the late Yongle period, the number of war horses in the Ming army had exceeded 1.5 million. With such strong capital, Emperor Yongle was able to "go out of the northern desert and the three plows of the sacred courts" and defeat the Tatars and the Valla tribes obediently!

However, as time passed, the rule of the Ming Dynasty became increasingly corrupt. The vassal kings and officials in various places continued to privately occupy pastures, instead of farmland, or sell stallions secretly, using inferior products as good ones, and exploiting the people who raised horses, resulting in the defeat of the official and the people and the people who were all married, and they could no longer provide a large number of good-bred war horses.

At the same time, for personal gain, the high-ranking officials and nobles of the Ming Dynasty smuggled large amounts of tea and salt to the border, and before the government, they bought a large number of horses from the parish and sold them back to the mainland to make huge profits. When the official horse market opened, they either could not receive horses or received bad horses, and the price was very expensive!

In addition, the Han merchants were treacherous and the foreigners were repeatedly deceived, which aggravated ethnic conflicts and caused a disgrace to the Ming Dynasty border. For example, the conflicts on the Mongolian and Han borders were mostly caused by transaction injustice, and many horse markets were abandoned as a result.

Due to various reasons, the Ming army was seriously lacking in high-bred war horses. Even the number of slow horses pulling chariots was insufficient, so their combat effectiveness naturally plummeted!

In the Battle of Sarhu not long ago, if the Ming army had more mules and horses and had faster march speed, they might not have been defeated by the Eight Banners Iron Cavalry each with the advantage of their troops!

Today, the Ming Dynasty court is doing its best to recruit soldiers, raise funds and buy horses for the sake of Liaodong defense. Compared with these three: it is difficult to raise funds than to raise soldiers, while buying horses is difficult to raise funds!

A large ranch with ten thousand cattle and sheep and thousands of horses, even a chief official and a general at the border would not dare to say such big talk!

What's more, a down-and-out boy who is only a teenager with no tiles covering his body and no studded underneath?

Therefore, Zhang Xiaoqi did not believe it, the soldiers did not believe it, and the people around him did not believe it, thinking that this young man was bragging, but his heart was still good, at least he could repay kindness.

Xue Yu didn't refute, but just smiled faintly and returned to the shed with his flesh. However, he didn't take a few steps away. He suddenly turned around and looked at the sword in Zhang Xiaoqi's hand, with a look of surprise in his eyes!

The knife is three feet long and about two inches wide. It is cast in fine steel and is extremely cold. It is obvious that it is a sword with extremely sharp handle. The most important thing is that its blade body is actually straight!

To facilitate chopping, half of the blade is curved, but there is an exception - the Xiuchun Knife!

As everyone knows, flying fish suits and embroidered spring swords are the two major symbols of the Jinyiwei, and only senior officers can own them. Zhang Xiaoqi is just a low-level military officer, so how can there be embroidered spring swords?

Could it be that he was born in the Jinyiwei, or his ancestors were born in the Jinyiwei?

The Jinyiwei is hereditary system. As the emperor's personal army, he is treated very well. If his ancestors were middle and senior officers of the Jinyiwei, how could he have fallen to this point? It seems that this is also a person with a story!

...

With all kinds of questions, Xue Yu returned to the shack. The friends had already picked up dry firewood, set up a large iron pot, poured it into the river water mixed with mud and sand, and lit it and started to boil it.

Xue Yu pulled out a dagger and cut the mule meat into small pieces. All of them were still in the iron pot. He took out a small pocket from his arms and poured out a little coarse salt, dried wild onions and wild garlic as condiments. These were all prepared when he was in the mountains.

As for other people, some brought coarse salt and seasonings, some had nothing, they could only boil mule meat in white water.

Soon, smoke from the camp was storming, and the iron pots everywhere were boiling. The mule meat was rolling up and down in the boiling water, but the taste was not good at all. It was not that the people's cooking skills were not good, but that the mule meat was not delicious at all.

There is a saying in the countryside, "Donkey meat is fragrant, horse meat is smelly, so you won't eat mule meat if you beat it to death!

First, mule meat is relatively coarse, hard, difficult to chew, and has a strong fishy smell, which is far inferior to donkey meat with tender and tender texture.

Second, mules are hybridized by donkeys and horses, and they have no reproductive ability. The ancients were superstitious and were afraid that after eating mule meat, they might not be able to reproduce offspring like mules, so they avoided mule meat.

Mule meat is unpalatable, and it lacks condiments and is boiled in river water mixed with mud and sand. You can imagine the taste!

"It's almost done, take it out quickly, I'm almost starving to death!"

"Give me one!"

"Don't rob, bite my finger!"

But for those who are about to starve to death, grassroots and tree bark are all good things, let alone mule meat. No one cares about those taboos. They just cooked until they were ripe and couldn't wait to fish them out. People scrambled each other and sniffed them in big mouths. The meat, tendons, skin, water, water, and water... and even their hooves were chewed clean!

Even so, people still didn't eat enough, so they could only boil the remaining bones and use bone soup to fill their hunger. Each of them drank a few big bowls, and finally they were so full that they lay on the ground and couldn't move!

From the beginning to the end, Zhang Xiaoqi didn't eat a bite of meat or a bite of soup. He just took out half of a black and hard steamed bun, and hid in the dark and ate it silently!

The mule raised by my own home has a very deep relationship. I am sorry to kill it, and I still have the heart to eat its meat!

All of this fell into Xue Yu's eyes and was kept in mind!
Chapter completed!