Niu Wuqi is a horse household in Miyu Village, Lou Fu, who has raised horses for a lifetime, his father has also raised horses for a lifetime, and his grandfather, Grandpa Gao and Grandpa Gao have also raised horses for a lifetime.

The horse administration of the Ming Dynasty has always been the hatred of the common people, since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, it was set that eleven households in the south of the Yangtze River raise a horse, and five households in the north of the Yangtze River raise a horse system, and during the Yongle period, it was changed to a horse in fifteen dings, or the system of determining the number of horses according to the number of acres of land.

The imperial court handed over the military horses to the common people, and let the common people raise them on their behalf, although the taxes were exempted, but raising horses was really too expensive to eat, even if the government opened pastures in various places for horse households to raise horses, but a stallion horse still had to eat two taels of silver of grain and grass a year.

The keeper of the mare also has to hand over a foal to the government every two years, and when he hands in the horse or recruits the healthy horse, the official uniform must also carefully check the physique of the horse, and he has to be troubled by the officials in every way, and he has to spend a lot of money to make the difference.

In the Chenghua period, the imperial court thought that the horses in the south were short and weak, so the Nanjing Taifu Temple converted the horses into silver, and since then the southern horse households do not have to pay the horses, only need to pay the silver.

The northern region still retains the system of private horse breeding, especially Shaanxi, which is the main horse-producing area of the Ming Dynasty.

However, as the situation of the grassland being encroached upon by the vassal king became more and more serious, the horse administration in Shaanxi and even the Hexi Corridor was gradually abandoned, and finally he could only open a horse market in the Xuanda area and buy horses with the Mongols.

Dozens of grasslands in the Luliang Mountains were lucky enough to escape the catastrophe and were not encroached upon by the vassal kings of Shanxi and Datong, because the grasslands here were all high mountains and could not be reclaimed into farmland, so those vassal kings were naturally not interested.

At the beginning, after the spring snow melted, each family had to take turns to send people to lead the horses to graze in the mountains, and the fields could not be cultivated, and then a kind of horse households that specialized in herding horses for others were derived, which was to help other people to gather horses to the alpine pastures to graze, and in summer and autumn they lived directly on the mountains.

Niu Wuqi is this ancestral livelihood, his family has raised more than ten stallions at most, more than 30 mares, and 40 or 50 foals all year round.

There are more than a dozen horse households in Miyu Village alone, as well as Majiazhuang in the north, Mafang Village in the west, Pangquangou in the south, and Chakou Village in the east.

In the sixth year of the Apocalypse, Guo Yan led hundreds of heroes to the Shentai Peak of Guandi Mountain, and Ren Liang and Bashan Hu also set up camp in Donghuluchuan and Huangcong Mountain respectively, so all the grasslands in this area, including the largest Yunding Mountain grassland, were controlled by those bandits.

Niu Wuqi and other horse households and hundreds of horses who had no time to escape naturally fell into the hands of those thieves.

Since then, Niu Wuqi has changed from helping the Ming court raise horses to helping bandits raise horses.

After Huangcong Mountain and Shentai Peak were captured by Qinchuan one after another, many horsemen fled with their horses, and Niu Wuqi and other people who stayed behind were driven by Ren Liang to the vicinity of Donghuluchuan, and after Ren Liang surrendered, they naturally followed Qinchuan.

There were only 27 horse households left, with 100 stallions, 230 mares, and more than 370 foals under the age of two.

Because Qin Chuan had to deal with the Ming army, he didn't have time to pay attention to these horse households, so he only placed them in Miyu Village, let people build a lot of horses and horse pens, and then sent them grain and forage.

In Niu Wuli's opinion, this new owner is the best one among all the owners, not only giving them enough forage and food, but also giving them new shoes and new clothes every day.

The Guan Emperor Army, who was guarding them, was not like those bandits who shouted at them at every turn, but was very kind, and even brought them one or two jars of soju every once in a while to satisfy their hunger.

Niu Wuqi and they lived with peace of mind.

On the 10th day of the fourth lunar month, Niu Wuli led his mother-in-law and three babies, together with other horse households, to drive hundreds of horses out of Miyu Village and along the gurgling Nanchuan River to Yunding Mountain in the southwest.

The snow on the mountain has largely melted, green meadows have grown, and it's time to drive the horses up the mountain to graze.

Prior to this, they had built dozens of thatched huts and enclosed horse pens in Diaowo Valley on the mountainside with dozens of imperial troops, and they would live there for a long time, grazing horses up the mountain every day until the autumn wind rose and the grass withered.

They were accompanied by thirty-six Guan Emperor troops, who were told to be the soldiers of the banner, who helped them transport food, and would guard them there to prevent them from stealing their horses and escaping, and by the way, helping them to hunt down the wild wolves and leopards nearby, so that the horses would not be eaten by wolves.

Today's Genting Mountain is full of grass, and hundreds of horses can't walk halfway up the slope immediately, and they eat all the way to the top of the mountain.

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; Every year on the mountain, Niu Wu's heart is always very comfortable, this year is the same, to the top of the mountain will break a piece of grass in his mouth, a look at the horses grazing happily, and a while look at the mountains in the distance.

Looking at it, he suddenly saw a group of people coming down the mountain, about a hundred, all riding tall horses, wearing fiery red clothes, like a big flame, slowly burning towards the top of the mountain.

"It's Lord Qin here."

A Guan Dijun next to him said excitedly.

"Lord Qin?"

Niu Wufu shook his head for a moment, and quickly reacted that this was his new owner.

The nearby horsemen also ran over, looking nervously at the team dressed in fiery red.

When the distance was still a hundred feet, Niu Wuqi pulled the three babies and knelt on the ground together.

The other horses also knelt down, pouting their buttocks and their heads on the ground.

Qin Chuan, who was at the forefront, felt a little funny, and when he got closer, he said loudly, "Get up, I don't like this, don't kneel in the future." ”

"Thank you, sir."

Niu Wuqi hurriedly pulled the three babies and stood up.

"What's your name?" Qin Chuan saw him tall and dark-skinned at a glance.

"Back to the adult, the small one is called Niu Wufat."

"Hmm...... It's a good name, raising cattle and horses grow fat. ”

Qin Chuan couldn't help but smile and said seriously.

Niu Wuli didn't know what to say, so he just smirked.

Qin Chuan turned over and dismounted, handed the reins to the red-clothed attendants behind him, and asked them to lead them to graze, and then looked around at the second largest grassland in Luliang Mountain.

"Niu Wuji, how many acres are there in this Yunding Mountain grassland?"

Niu Wuqi accompanied him and said with a smile, "Back to my lord, the top of the mountain and the gentle slopes around it add up, there must be about 13,400 acres." ”

"How many horses can be grazed at the same time in such a large pasture?"

"My lord, if the year is good, the rain and snow are sufficient, and the meadows are abundant, it is not a problem to raise eight thousand horses, and in a drought year, you can raise four or five thousand horses."

"Well, that's good."

Qin Chuan nodded with satisfaction, walked over and patted him on the shoulder, and said, "I plan to enclose this pasture and build a pasture here, there are still hundreds of stallions and herding horses in Lan County, and they will be sent over when the time comes." ”

"You have raised the horses well, I will not treat you badly, when the time comes, I will calculate the money according to the horse, raise a healthy horse, and after deducting the money for grain and grass, I will settle it for you at 70% of the market price, how about it?"

Niu Wuli was stunned.

After half a ring, he knelt on the ground and kowtowed vigorously.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you."

The other horses also knelt down and kowtowed.

For them, it's like pie in the sky.

A mare gives birth to a litter every year, and the foal can be ridden or used as a horse after two and a half years, and the stallion and mare eat about four stone beans a year, as well as bean cakes, sake lees, and forage in autumn and winter, etc., and the foal only needs half of the mare's size, and it can be sold after two and a half years.

Nowadays, beans are very expensive, and it costs eight dollars of silver to get a stone, and it is necessary to raise a foal, and the forage eaten by the stallion and the mare, according to today's grain prices, will cost about twelve taels of silver.

Although the grain is expensive, the price of horses is also very expensive, and a two-and-a-half-year-old fat gelding can be sold for about twenty taels of silver.

After deducting the money for grain and grass, there are still eight taels of silver left, of which seven achievements are more than five taels.

That is to say, every time a horse household such as Niu Wuqi raises a healthy horse, it will cost about five taels of silver.

Every family had ten and eight mares, and they could produce eight foals a year, and two and a half years was twenty foals, and they received a total of one hundred taels of silver, or about forty taels of silver a year.

This salary is higher than that of the county's small officials, which is enough to make Niu Wuqi and others grateful to Qin Chuan.

In fact, this model is also very beneficial to Qin Chuan, who is equivalent to buying horses from these horse households at seventy percent of the market price.

If there are enough rewards to stimulate Niu Wuqi and other horse households, they will naturally take good care of those horses and raise fat and strong healthy horses for Qinchuan.

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