Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 420: New Dynasty Horse Administration (Part ) (Supplementary previous updates)
When Li Shanchang heard Lu Jin say that it was not that troublesome, he immediately became interested and asked, "Then according to my lord, how should we raise it?"

Lu Jin then said, "If we want to quickly breed excellent war horses, China's native horses are not useless. As we all know, when people go to a strange new place, they will inevitably have problems with acclimatization, and the same is true for horses.

"Then what should we do? At this time, we can import high-quality overseas stallions and improve local horse breeds to breed a new breed of war horses that can adapt to China's climate.

"As for how to breed it, the method is also simple, that is hybridization, but it is not the kind of hybridization that dilutes the bloodline, but a purposeful and directional hybridization and breeding.

"You may not understand what I'm saying, so let me give you another inappropriate example. You should know a little bit about calligraphy and painting, right?"

Everyone nodded after hearing this.

Lu Jin added, "When painting, do you need to mix colors? Mix vermilion with indigo to get purple, mix vermilion with yellow ochre to get orange, mix yellow ochre with indigo to get green. Breeding new species of animals is actually similar to mixing colors in painting, but what is being mixed is not color, but bloodline. Gongshu called it blood matching or mixed blood.

"According to Gongshu's experience, if you want to breed a new breed of animal, you need to breed it for at least seven generations before you can produce a new breed with stable traits and characteristics, and a self-contained system that can be bred internally."

As soon as everyone heard it, they understood where the difficulty of this matter lay. According to what Lu Jin said, it was actually very simple. It was to introduce excellent stallions and crossbreed them with native Chinese horses. This was not difficult. The difficulty lay in breeding seven generations!
The average lifespan of a horse is usually around 25 years old. It is considered an adult at the age of four and can participate in reproduction. Just do the math. It starts breeding at the age of four, is pregnant for a year, and gives birth to the next generation in the fifth year. That means it takes at least five years to breed one generation, and seven generations is 35 years. How many 35 years does a person have in his lifetime?

This is almost like sacrificing one's entire life.
Lu Jin continued.

"Given China's size, if we want to breed enough war horses in the shortest possible time and meet the needs of the people and the army, we need to breed at least three or five new breeds of horses."

He counted on his fingers and said, "We need at least one kind of heavy draft horse for pulling artillery carts, plowing fields, and pulling carts to transport goods, right? There should also be two or three kinds of horses for cavalry. The climate in the northwest is dry and hot, the climate in the northern desert is extremely cold, and the forests and snow fields in the northeast all require horse breeds that can adapt to the local climate.

“So the specific approach is to first select a group of excellent mares from the local area.

"Let me give you an example. For example, the Gansu-Qinghai horses (Hequ horses) in the northwest, I heard that the yellow horses in Gansu-Qinghai are the best, and they are called hay yellow, bone-penetrating dragon, etc. So we try to select 200 to 300 mares of the yellow horses, with uniform coat color and outstanding appearance, and select the tallest and strongest ones among them.

"Then we can bring in a few stallions, such as the Arabian Horse, with similar coat colors, such as yellow, chestnut or gold, and tall and strong bodies. For example, if there are four stallions, A, B, C, and D, and if the stallions are carefully raised, they can mate with fifty mares a year, then the 200 Gansu-Qinghai horse mares will be divided equally among the four Arabian Horse stallions.

"The first generation of offspring is born a year later. At this time, the offspring of this first generation have half the bloodline of the Arabian horse and half the bloodline of the Gansu-Qinghai horse. However, the offspring produced by the hybridization may not be what we want. At this time, we have to eliminate the ones we don't want.

"For example, we don't want those with mixed fur, or those with body shape inherited from their mother, and as short as the Gansu-Qinghai horse, we don't want them either. In the end, we only keep the tall and strong offspring that are similar to their father.

"Moreover, the herdsman supervisor must compile a household registration genealogy and file for each horse, give each horse a name, and assign an identity number, just like registering the households of all the people. The horses must also be weighed and measured, including their shoulder height, body length, leg length, chest circumference, abdominal circumference, personality traits, appearance features, whether their hooves are strong enough, and the speed of each age group from one to four years old, ranging from one kilometer to three kilometers.
"As for the genealogy, we need to remember clearly who the father, mother, grandparents, and grandparents of each horse are. We need to have documentation and traces to prove the blood relationship of each horse and the eighteen generations of ancestors mentioned above."

Everyone was overwhelmed when they heard this. It would be a huge workload to compile a family tree and files for each horse.

This is not the end yet, Lu Jin continued.

"Each stallion can mate with 50 mares, and produce 200 foals every year. When the first batch of foals reach adulthood at the age of four, a total of foals can be produced with half the bloodline of the Arabian horse. Let's say half male and half female. Four stallions will produce foals and mares, all of which are the first generation daughters of the stallions.

"Then we change the father for breeding. Stallion A will continue to breed with the daughter of B, then the daughter of B will be bred with C, the daughter of C will be bred with D, and the daughter of D will be bred with A. This will produce the second generation. Then we will continue to eliminate the ones we don't want, leaving only those with pure coat color, tall and strong bodies.

"The second generation produced in this way will have 75% Arabian horse bloodline and 25% Gansu-Qinghai horse bloodline, because the grandfather and father of the second generation are both pure-blooded Arabian horses, and only the grandmother is a Gansu-Qinghai horse, right?"

Everyone suddenly realized.

"Indeed!"

"So this is blood matching?!"

"Yes, this is blood matching and hybridization breeding." Lu Jin nodded and continued.

"After the second generation is produced, continue to change the father for breeding. The granddaughter of A will be mated with C, the granddaughter of B will be mated with D, the granddaughter of C will be mated with A, and the granddaughter of D will be mated with B. In this way, the third generation can be guaranteed to have 90% of the Arabian horse bloodline, because its biological father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are all purebred Arabian horses, and only the great-grandmother is a Gansu-Qinghai horse, right?"

"That's right. But if we continue breeding in this way, it won't be possible, right? It will take at least 15 years to produce the third generation, and those four stallions must be very old." Feng Guoyong reminded immediately.

Lu Jin nodded, "Yes, after the third generation, these four stallions will be eliminated. Then, when breeding the fourth generation, there are two ways. One is to continue to import pure-blooded Arabian horses from overseas to participate in the fourth generation, or..."

"Or use the stallions of the first, second and third generations to breed with the third generation mares?" Tao An also said.

However, before Lu Jin could speak, Wang Guangyang, who had been silent, said in surprise, "How can this be possible? Uncle and niece, uncle and niece, isn't this unethical?"

Upon hearing this, Lu Jin glanced over and said indifferently, "So this is where Confucianism is pedantic, especially the Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty. It was common for livestock to cross the border. The Song Dynasty could not win the foreign wars and lost power and humiliated the country, so it desperately distorted Neo-Confucianism and forcibly created an orthodox legal system for itself.

"Especially Emperor Zhenzong of Song, Zhao Heng, who signed the Treaty of Chanyuan, a humiliating treaty that ceded power to the country, and shamelessly went to Mount Tai to offer sacrifices to the gods and create auspicious signs, as if he was still the orthodox Chinese lord. In fact, he had already completely abandoned the legal system!"

The Confucian scholars present were shocked when they heard this, and Wang Guangyang was even more shocked and said, "My lord, be careful with your words!"

Lu Jin said nonchalantly, "So what if I said it? Are Confucian scholars allowed to do but not say?
"The former Song Dynasty could not win foreign wars, so in order to maintain its legal system, it could only work hard on Confucianism and morality, claiming cultural victory, and using this to despise the Jin, Liao, and Western Xia, viewing them as barbarians.

"It is true that Jin, Liao and Xixia were barbarians, but were the Confucian scholars of the early Song Dynasty glorious? Especially the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism of the early Song Dynasty, which made no progress at all and became more and more self-contained. During the Han and Tang dynasties, people were more open-minded. In the Han Dynasty, marrying a widow was considered a good thing. Cao Cao, the first emperor of Wei, was even known for being a good wife.

"Women in the Tang Dynasty were also very open-minded. They could even divorce their husbands and remarry. Even in the early Song Dynasty, women could show their faces in public, become female shopkeepers, and open restaurants and teahouses. But by the Southern Song Dynasty, look at what had happened?
"Women were not allowed to show their faces in public, and even after their husbands died, they were required to remain chaste. Chastity arches were built on a large scale to restrain women, forbidding them from remarrying, as otherwise it would be considered immoral. Even foot binding began in the Southern Song Dynasty.

"I really feel ashamed for the Confucian scholars of the Southern Song Dynasty. They used their literary skills to control military power, but they could not defeat the Jin people and lost half of their territory. They were incapable of marching north to retake the lost territory, and they could only bully their own women to show off their masculinity. Confucian scholars talk about ruling the world with filial piety every day, saying that one's body and hair are given by parents and should not be damaged, but they encourage women to bind their feet. What is beautiful about foot binding? It only persecutes women!

"Some people advocate the three-inch golden lotus, which causes women's foot bones to deform and become extremely painful, making it difficult for them to even walk. Isn't this destroying the body? Isn't this unfilial? Why don't Confucian scholars talk about filial piety at this time?
"A bunch of Song scholars who can't defeat the barbarians and can only show off their power by using women, really bring shame to us Han men!"

The Confucian scholars present were so angry at Lu Jin's scolding that they couldn't utter a word. Although Lu Jin was not scolding them but the Confucian scholars of the Southern Song Dynasty, they were still Confucian scholars. Some of them even studied the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism that Lu Jin despised. It would be better to scold them directly than to scold their ancestors.

Lu Jin continued to say with disdain, "The most infuriating thing is that a group of Confucian scholars actually used the ethics and morals formulated by humans to apply to livestock. No wonder the former Song Dynasty could not raise good horses and was beaten by the Jin Kingdom.

"I'll say it again. People say people with the same surname should not marry each other. Close relatives within three generations are not allowed to marry each other. But don't apply human ethics to animals. Do you understand?"

"Understood." Everyone agreed sparsely. They were a group of Confucian scholars, but they had to serve a lord who was not a Confucian. This lord also cursed Confucianism every now and then. It was really difficult for them.

Lu Jin then continued, "Speaking of breeding war horses, when it comes to the third generation, the original four stallions should be eliminated. At this time, it is best to introduce a batch of purebred Arabian horses to participate in the breeding of the fourth generation.

“Although livestock are unethical, inbreeding always leads to some subtle hidden dangers, such as susceptibility to genetic diseases, or recessive genes that were not prone to diseases before but become prominent after inbreeding, which is always bad.

"In addition, in order to expand the breeding scale of this new variety in the future, if conditions permit, more fresh bloodlines should be introduced. When breeding new varieties, the wider the source of bloodlines, the greater the genetic diversity, and the better the new varieties bred in the future." However, even if new bloodlines are introduced in the fourth generation, backcrossing is still required. This is an indispensable step in breeding new varieties. Otherwise, the genetic traits of the new variety cannot be stabilized, and no consistent offspring can be produced, and the variety is unsuccessful.

"As for the specific method, assuming that no new bloodline is introduced, we can use the second-generation stallions at this time, select excellent mature individuals, and use them as second-generation stallions to mate with third-generation mares to breed the fourth generation."

Qin Conglong, the old man, was not so pedantic. He did not mind the inbreeding between livestock, so he asked curiously, "Why not use the second generation instead of the first generation stallions? What's the explanation?"

Lu Jin immediately explained, "Sir, do you still remember how much of the first generation of stallions were of Arabian horses?"

Qin Conglong immediately said, "The first generation is a cross between the Ferghana horse and the Gansu-Qinghai horse, so the bloodline should be half each."

"That's right, because the first generation has too high a proportion of Gansu-Qinghai horse bloodline. If it participates in the breeding of the fourth generation, there will be a certain probability of atavism, and the fourth generation born may be more like Gansu-Qinghai horse rather than Arabian horse.

"And even if we calculate it from the proportion of bloodline, how much of the fourth generation born from the first generation with 50% blood and the third generation with 90% blood is the blood of the Arabian horse?" Lu Jin asked back.

Qin Conglong thought for a moment before saying, "About 70%?"

Lu Jin nodded, "Yes, so if you want to maintain the bloodline of the Arabian horse and prevent its offspring from degenerating and becoming shorter, you have to mate the second generation with 75% of the blood and the third generation with 90% of the blood. But at this time, you can add the bloodline of the third generation stallion.

"By mating uncles with nieces, and nephews with aunts, we can produce the fourth generation with 80% of the Arabian horse bloodline. Therefore, the fourth generation can be called the future generation, which is the parent generation that will establish a new breed."

"So that's how it is. This is how you create a new variety? It's really magical." Feng Guoyong exclaimed.

“After breeding the fourth generation, we can use the third generation with 90% blood and the fourth generation with 80% blood to produce the fifth generation with 85% blood.

“When the fifth generation reaches adulthood, the third generation with 90% of blood can be mated with the fifth generation with 85% of blood, grandfather and granddaughter, grandson and grandmother, or the fourth generation with 80% of blood can be mated with the fifth generation with 85% of blood, uncle and niece, nephew and aunt. This will give birth to the sixth generation whose bloodline is infinitely close to 80% to 90% of the Arabian horse bloodline. Therefore, the sixth generation can also be called a stable line.

“When it comes to the sixth generation, there is no need to continue backcrossing. You only need to use cousins ​​of the same generation to breed the seventh generation. If the character, body shape, speed, endurance, and coat color of the seventh generation are almost all the same, and they don’t have any strange diseases, and they retain all the good characteristics of the four Arabian horse ancestors without any degeneration, then this new breed is considered to have been bred, and the seventh generation can be called a finished product line.

"After that, breeding for the eighth generation will expand the population size. We will try to select those with distant blood relationships for the same generation breeding, or continue to backcross with the sixth or seventh generation. After breeding for eight or nine generations, the blood relationship will become more distant, and we won't have to worry about bloodline in the future.

"This new breed is close to 90% of the Ferghana horse bloodline. Except that our ancestors once used Gansu-Qinghai horses as maternal material, you can almost think that this is a new type of Ferghana horse that is adapted to the Chinese climate and is native to China!
"No matter how you give birth in the future, as long as you don't mix it with other horses, its offspring will all be 80% to 90% purebred horses. Moreover, its bloodline has formed its own system and a new breed. It can be called a purebred horse!"

Everyone took a moment to digest what he said, and then Qin Conglong said, "I think I understand. This is just like brewing wine. If you want to brew wine with the same taste, you have to use the old koji to make new koji over and over again. Only when the wine is brewed with this koji can the taste be consistent."

Lu Jin nodded, "That's pretty much what I mean."

"No, no, no." Chen Yu said, "I think it's like cooking. Selection and selection means choosing the flavor you want. If you want spicy taste, you need to add dogwood and mustard. If you want sweet taste, you need to add icing sugar and honey. If you want sour taste, you need to add vinegar. If you want numbing taste, you need to add peppercorns. According to your own taste, you can add different seasonings to make a satisfactory dish."

Lu Jin nodded again and said, "Mr. Zhonghang's understanding is not wrong. The so-called blood matching and breeding of new varieties are to specially select and breed according to one's own needs."

Feng Guoyong also said, "I think what the lord said about painting and mixing colors is more appropriate."

"That's pretty much the meaning anyway." Lu Jin didn't dwell on it.

Li Shanchang then said, "If we follow the method that my lord has suggested, it doesn't seem to cost much money and grain. We only need to import a dozen stallions from overseas and give them to merchants, or send an envoy to buy horses.

"This is how time-consuming it is to breed horses. We also have to create household registration and genealogy for each horse. It is really hard work. And by the time the number of purebred horses has expanded to hundreds of thousands and is ready for use, it will probably take a long time."

Lu Jin said, "That's not necessarily true. If you put more resources in from the beginning, you can breed faster. For example, at the beginning, you can use six to eight stallions and mate three to four hundred mares. By the time you breed to the seventh generation, you will have at least tens of thousands of purebred horses.

"With a large base number, it will be easier to expand the population. Let's divide the population into half male and half female. Five thousand mares can give birth to five thousand horses a year, which means twenty thousand horses in four years. By the time they reach the eighth or ninth generation, which will only take ten years, there will be at least one hundred thousand horses.

"Besides, aren't we going to breed three or five new breeds? If we open three or five stud farms to breed together, in just fifty years, we will have hundreds of thousands of divine horses like Yaoguang and Chixiao! By then, all the soldiers of our Xin Dynasty will ride on Pegasus. Who in the world can compete with us?"

Feng Guoyong sighed when he heard this, "It takes fifty years to develop a new breed of horse. This means one has to work from the age of twenty to the age of seventy. I wonder if anyone will live to see the day when the breed is developed."

Everyone followed suit and sighed when they heard this.

Seeing this, Lu Jin immediately said, "So this is where the difficulty lies. Managing a horse farm is not necessarily that difficult. The key is that it is extremely boring and time-consuming, and there is a lot of paperwork to be done. Not to mention expanding the scale, it will take at least 35 years just to breed the breed.

“So we need to find some young people who are willing to endure hardships and patience to do this. If we use middle-aged people, they will die of old age before they see the day of results, which is definitely not acceptable.

“But human life span is limited after all. A person starts learning at the age of six, goes to school for more than ten years, and starts working at the age of twenty. By the time this new breed is bred, the person will be almost sixty years old. As the saying goes, even if there is no credit, there is still hard work. The best years of youth have been spent on horse breeding, and we cannot treat them unfairly.

"If anyone can breed a new breed of horse for the country, even if it can't be said to enrich the country, it can be said to strengthen the army. If every soldier in my Celestial Empire can ride a celestial horse, it can be considered a great contribution to the country. Why not give him a hereditary earldom?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the eyes of everyone present lit up. Those who had young nephews or nephews at home all became interested in this job. This was a hereditary earldom, who wouldn't be excited?

As the saying goes, good things should be kept within the family, so of course we should strive to keep such a good thing for ourselves!
However, Feng Guoyong thought of a hidden danger, so he said.

“If the title of Earl is used as a reward, then there must be someone willing to do this. However, I have thought of a hidden danger. If this new breed of warhorse wants to maintain its pure bloodline, it can only rely on the official herdsmen of the court.

“Ordinary people don’t understand bloodlines and heredity, let alone breeding. If we breed purebred horses with mixed horses from who knows where, won’t the horse breed degenerate in a few generations?

"So the purebred horses can only be raised by the imperial court. The common people can't help at all. But this will be too much of a burden for the imperial court."

Everyone became hesitant after hearing this.

Lu Jin's eyes flashed behind his sunglasses, and he hesitated for a long time before saying, "I do have a way to let the people voluntarily raise horses and let them participate in breeding, so that the bloodline of horses in the folk will not degenerate. Moreover, the court will hardly spend any money, and can even make money from it, and those horse breeders in the folk will also be profitable.

"It may be a little harmful. I can only say that there are pros and cons. I can't make up my mind for the moment."

"What method?" Feng Guoyong suddenly became curious.

Li Shanchang also frowned. Lord Lu Jin had always been very confident, but this time he could not make up his mind. This meant that his idea might really be harmful, or perhaps the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Otherwise, Lu Jin would definitely not be so hesitant.

So he said, "My lord, you have pioneered the study of economics and are the best at business. Everyone in the Marshal's Office knows this. If there is really a way that does not require the court to spend money and can make the people voluntarily raise horses, and even make both the court and the people profitable, my lord, you might as well tell us first. Whether it is beneficial or harmful, I can also give you some advice. If there are really any disadvantages, perhaps I can help you find out the loopholes and come up with a solution."

(End of this chapter)