The protagonist once had a burst of self-confidence after semi-domesticating flies, and tried to tame some beetles as draft animals.

Draft animals, also known as power animals, are livestock used for servitude and can be used for farming, transport, riding, etc. For humans, draft animals include horses, cattle, mules, donkeys, camels, etc.

As one of the main sources of power in the agricultural era, draft animals have a great impact on national security and the national economy

In ancient times, there were traditional machinery in China and abroad, and these machines often needed to be operated with the help of human or draft animals. Therefore, bioenergy, represented by draft animals, was the most relied on and most commonly used form of power during this period.

Large draft animals such as cattle and horses can also drive vehicles, providing power and speed for military and transportation.

For primitive economies, horses were not only the foot strength that could be used to walk in the vast grasslands, but also the source of means of subsistence in harsh environments. At least 5,500 years ago, the Botai people living in present-day Kazakhstan made their lives by riding horses and herding herds. Horse manure, horse milk and horse meat, however, provide heat to nomads in the alpine regions and help them hunt other animals at higher speeds.

In China, at least in the early Neolithic period, horses have become an important role in the northern nomadic areas in addition to humans. The Khitan people worship horses and cattle as national totems, believing that their ancestors are born from the union of a god man riding a white horse and a fairy driving a green ox cart.

Since the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Chinese dynasties have further amplified the function of horses as military draft animals in order to maintain political centralization and resist external challenges. With the help of the development of agriculture in the early days and the improvement of logistics supply, the number of horses in the Central Plains Dynasty increased significantly, so that it was able to fight against the northern tribes in a multi-horse and one-cart manner, and the impact and combat effectiveness were greatly enhanced.

Just like the significance of oil to modern warfare, the number of horses in the pre-Qin period was often the material prerequisite for princes to compete for hegemony. Because the horse was the core of the war, the supreme military leader was called "the Great Sima". Confucius measured the strength of a country by the number of horses and chariots, and called a great country "a country of a thousand times".

At that time, the level of imperial art (that is, the control of cars and horses) determined the extent to which the kinetic energy of horses could be applied, so "royal" was listed as a necessary survival skill for pre-Qin scholars, along with etiquette, music, archery, calligraphy, and mathematics. The clever royal hand can even become a powerful person because of the imperial art, and the royal hand of King Mu of Zhou is said to be because of the "long drive back to Zhou", "a thousand miles a day", so that King Mu of Kunlun who traveled west to the west returned to the division in time to quell the rebellion and finally made his fortune.

The reason why the Qin Emperor and Han Wu achieved hegemony is also related to the strategic resource of large draft animals. The main purpose of the Shang Dynasty reform is "farming" and "war", so draft animals are particularly important. At that time, the heavy punishment of "the horse thief died, and the cattle thief was added" not only reflected the state's protection of official cattle resources, but also proved the urgent need for draft animals in the agricultural society.

The Han Dynasty vigorously developed horse politics, so that it was able to establish a fast and flexible cavalry force, which shortened the gap with the speed of the Xiongnu cavalry, and also solved the problem of grain and grass supply and baggage transportation, so that the Han army could go deep into the desert hinterland to pursue the Xiongnu.

The Ming Dynasty was plagued by the Mongols, so it attached great importance to horse politics, and shouted at every turn, "The major affairs of the country are in Rong, and the great use of Rong is in the horse". Although the Ming Dynasty attached great importance to horse politics, it was abolished in the Xuande period, and the Song and Ming dynasties died in Mongolia and Manchu iron cavalry, which was not unrelated to the lack of war horses and poor quality.

In order to bring into play the powerful driving force of draft animals during the war, the Qin Dynasty implemented the "same track" and also "galloped the whole world" so that it could throw force into various places as quickly as possible if necessary.

Cattle are even more important for transportation and farming than horses. Although horses can also "lead ploughs, drive dung trucks, and clear fertile fields", most of the time these tasks are done by more docile and easily fed oxen.

The bamboo slip "Stable Yuan Law" unearthed from the Qin tomb in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province shows that the Qin State once evaluated the fat and thin cattle of cattle farmers in order to produce a large amount of fruit and use cattle farming, and the Tian Qifu in charge of cattle raising tasks would be rewarded and punished for this.

Ying Shao, a famous scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty, regarded the number of cultivated cattle as the criterion of the strength of the country, claiming that "cattle are the foundation of farming, the people look up to them, they are the greatest, and the country is strong or weak."

When Wu Zetian was in power, he bought cattle and sheep on a large scale, "with military funds". Her minister, Zhang Tinghui, regarded the cultivation of cattle as the pivot of social operation, pointing out that "the king is in the people, the people are in the food, the food is in the farming, the farming is in the cattle, the cattle are wasted, the farming is eaten, and the people are killed."

Donkeys are also important draft animals. Since the Song and Ming dynasties, there have been major changes in the structure of draft animals, and the mutual conquest with the northern nomads has made it difficult for the Central Plains to obtain horses from the north. The importance of horses in agriculture has gradually given way to other livestock such as cattle and donkeys, which are easier to raise.

In the eyes of the Song people, the donkey certainly does not have the speed and strength of a horse, but it is "a body and a foot to drive, although the road is poor, there is no room for it", and it is more adaptable. In case of shortcuts, its transportation efficiency is not even lower than that of "strong cars and good horses". The Northern Song Dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan's "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" depicts a total of 91 livestock, of which 49 are donkeys alone.

But raising draft animals is not an easy task, unlike fossil fuels. It is not only an energy provider, but also an energy consumer.

It is for this reason that most northern nomads have had to be constrained by logistics and have difficulty crossing the semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral areas north of the Yellow River.

For the Central Plains Dynasty, the purchase of draft animals not only cost a huge amount of money, but also the roughage used to raise draft animals was often fuel at the same time, which was bound to crowd out land and agricultural resources.

Because draft animals are so expensive, people have often had to replace animal power with manpower throughout history. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, family members moved to live together in order to save on the cost of raising cattle. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, due to the epidemic of cattle disease, the number of cattle was reduced, and a large number of manpower were used.

It can be said that it was precisely because of the large number of qualified draft animals that the civilization of the Old World was able to develop rapidly.

As a counterexample, the Inca, Aztec and other civilizations in the New World were constrained by the lack of qualified large draft animals, and the development of civilization came to a standstill, and was finally wiped out by foreign invaders. After the explosive growth of China's population in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the use of cheap manpower was more economical than the use of draft animals, and the social, economic and technological development fell into involution, and gradually lagged behind the world.

It can be seen that draft animals are even a strategic force that can determine the rise and fall of civilization, and it is no wonder that the protagonist wants to domesticate a qualified draft animal so much.