Coming to Jeju with him, there were also trainees drawn from the cavalry training team, baggage training team and artillery training team. These three branches all need to use a lot of horses. So in Lingao, they take turns to Mopanling Ranch
Carry out practical work on raising and training horses.
Except for leaving a small number of personnel in the cavalry training team to maintain the organization in Lingao, one company was transferred to Shandong, and almost all the rest of the personnel and equipment were transferred to Jeju. According to the order of the General Staff, the location of the cavalry training team was changed from Lingao to Jeju Island. From now on,
Jeju Island is the cavalry formation and training base of the Fubo Army.
In addition, the baggage and artillery training teams will also set up their own draft horse training squadrons in Jeju Island to specifically train their respective horse control and breeding personnel.
There are more than 200 students from Lingao. Although most of them are first-year students with no experience, they are still the basic force that Nick can trust most. Compared with the lifeless local Fenggong team, regardless of the
Both work enthusiasm and loyalty are much stronger. Not to mention that they have received three months of recruit training, are equipped with weapons, and are a force that can guard the honor.
Since this group of students came to Jeju, Nangong Wudi even felt that he could use more mobile troops to promote the next step of extending his rule to every area of Jeju Island-this group of students could be used as the main force of Jeju City.
garrison.
The cadets set up their own temporary camps outside the horse pen according to their military types. Although there were houses for them to live in Jeju City, Nick believed that the cadets must get used to the smell of horse manure and horses, so that they can be competent in raising horses in the future.
Horse work.
The camp was very simple, just like a stable except for the walls on all sides: walls made of volcanic stone and a wooden roof, but with a thick layer of clay smeared on top to prevent fire.
The floor inside the house is compacted clay, with stone blocks on both sides to support the bed frame. The standard bed boards that were transported are put on it to serve as the soldiers' beds - the conditions are more difficult than in the Lingao camp. One room sleeps in one row. The most comfortable room in the house is
The most exquisite thing is the windows inlaid with glass, which attracted many locals to watch curiously.
With all the personnel and horses in place, Nick took his apprentices and herdsmen and began to train the cadets and public troops.
The training is on-the-job training, or on-the-job internship, where you learn how to raise and care for horses at work.
The first step is to screen all horses. The horses are inspected, evaluated and classified.
Sick horses are separated separately and put into sick stables for treatment. Those that are healthy and can be used are separated according to male and female. Nick noticed that fat loss is common, but most of the horses are still healthy - it seems that Jeju Island
The relatively lower temperatures in winter are still beneficial to the health of horses.
Fat loss is relatively easy to solve. As long as you strengthen management and add more concentrated feed, you can recover quickly.
However, almost all horses are not shod, and the hoofs are not regularly polished. Many horses have varying degrees of wear on their hoofs, which is very detrimental to the use of the horses.
Nick knew that this was a very common phenomenon in East Asia - especially the folk horses, which were basically not shod. So he specially brought a large number of factory-made horseshoes, and also brought a craftsman who specialized in repairing horseshoes.
One of the students had learned how to shoe the horses' hooves, and he immediately arranged for someone to trim and shoe the horses' hooves. He himself screened the reproductive status of the selected healthy horses.
Generally speaking, the horses used by the Jeju Prison Camp and Chaocheonpo Station are quite chaotic. There are old horses, young horses, mares, geldings, and uncastrated stallions. The horses are mixed.
.
He roughly measured the body height of each uncastrated male horse of appropriate age. The tallest was 131cm and the lowest was 105cm. The average height was about 120cm.
This body height is still low even compared with the average level of ordinary Mongolian horses. Whether used as a riding or draft horse, it is too thin. It is not even as high as the average shoulder height of Shandong donkeys - a full 130cm.
Nick knows that the average body height of Mongolian horses raised on a modern scale is about 130cm, and the average height of mares can reach 125cm. The Mongolian horses in Jeju Island are obviously unqualified.
The reason for unqualification is obviously related to the lack of scientific breeding. The horse breed of Jeju Island itself is a pony. Even after the improvement of imported Mongolian horses, this gene still exists. If the breeding is not good,
Poor control will result in poor quality horses.
Obviously, the local horse breeding is very rough, and the castration of stallions is not strict. Some low-quality stallions are put into service directly without castration. They are not separated from the mares. It is conceivable that after the horses are in estrus in the spring, such low-quality stallions will be used at will.
Mating a mare not only wastes the mare's resources, but also does nothing to improve the quality of the foal.
Moreover, young stallions, prime stallions and old stallions are mixed for service. The prime stallions at the optimal breeding age stage cannot be matched with enough mares, while the young stallions and old stallions take up many mare resources.
Scientific horse breeding starts with selecting the best stallions. Retaining too many stallions is not only meaningless, but also fails to optimize the pedigree.
In addition, Nick found that the proportion of old stallions was relatively high. They accounted for about half of the number of stallions. Considering that the stallions in prison camps and settlements are mainly used for drafting, it is difficult to imagine why so many old stallions should be retained.
.
Under normal circumstances, all the stallions used in draft horses will be castrated for management and use. There are many stallions and even many old stallions among the draft horses, which makes people feel very abnormal.
As for the mares, the situation is not ideal either. Not only are mares of various ages mixed in, but many mares are also overtaxed. Like stallions, a large proportion of older mares are used.
The result of malnutrition and overuse is that the mare is only in estrus and not pregnant. The result is "empty pregnancy", which not only wastes the mare's pregnancy opportunities, but also wastes the male horse's breeding resources.
Nick carefully inspected every stallion and mare, and took this opportunity to take Noble and a few students to reorganize the "horse stalls" - during the field investigation, he discovered: the horse stalls of the Jeju Supervisory Camp
It was very confusing. Not only were there stalls but no horses, and horses were there but no stalls, but more importantly, the records on the stalls did not match the marks on the horses.
Obviously, these official horses contained a lot of fraud. Nick summoned the retained horse stewards and grooms, and they readily admitted that there was a lot of fraud.
According to the confession of the horse steward, a batch of new horses are transferred from the official horse ranch every year to supplement the official horses in the three local prison camps and nine towns to replace the dead and eliminated horses.
However, the transferred horses were often replaced by others as soon as they arrived at the prison camps and camps. The newly recruited strong and good horses were often replaced by horses that should have been eliminated by the officials in charge.
The officials in the official ranch are not fools. In the spirit of "equal benefit sharing", every time they replenish new horses for the prison camps and villages, some useless old horses or inferior horses are mixed in. The officials who accept them turn a blind eye - anyway, the old horses are
If there are many horses, they will be killed quickly, and new horses will be replenished quickly. This benefits everyone.
As for the annual misappropriation of feed, it is normal. A large part of the feed allocated to the official horses every year is grains such as sorghum, buckwheat, and barley. It is also normal for officials at all levels to embezzle and resell. Basically, 10% of the refined materials can reach the manger.
It's pretty good here.
"That's it!" Nick exclaimed. No wonder the horse death rate here is so high.
Although he roughly guessed what was going on, due to his horse-loving nature, he became even more indignant at this kind of "taking food from the horse's mouth".
However, the more realistic problem is that since the horses in Jeju Island are managed and used by such a group of people, it goes without saying that the quality of the horses will not be high.
From this point of view, it is necessary to introduce stallions from Lingao as soon as possible and start improving local horse breeds immediately.
During his three years in Lingao, he has bred a number of new stallions using the Tieling draft horses brought by the Senate and the British thoroughbred racing horse "Alanchi" he brought as stallions. And they have been preliminarily classified.
The riding system and the draft horse system were introduced.
Originally, he was worried that transporting stallions might result in death due to bumpy sea routes - the death of "Landian" left deep psychological scars on him, which made him unwilling to easily transport horses by sea. It was not easy to get a few stallions.
, the gestation period of a mare is as long as 11 months. Even if the mare is bred to a blood foal immediately after giving birth, a pair of stallions can give birth to up to three horses in three years. What’s more, Nick has no intention of protecting the reproductive potential of the broodmare.
Angle, unwilling to mate with blood horses. Therefore, apart from the earliest pair of stallions, Big Iron and Little Iron, the purebred Tieling draft horses only have two new horses, one of which is a male horse.
Of course, there are still more than 20 so-called improved foals produced by Tieling male horses and Mongolian mares. In addition, there are several horses bred with early Yunnan mares. In order to distinguish them from pure Tieling male horses
, Nick named the former "Gaoshanling" and the latter "Wenlanjiang". There were several sexually mature stallions among them that were considered suitable for breeding stallions. Nick thought about it again and again and decided to breed this stallion.
Part of them went to Jeju Island - after all, the stock of horses in Lingao was too small, and the stallions could not fully play their role in Lingao.
As long as one stallion could be safely landed, Nick believed that more than fifty mares could be impregnated using artificial insemination. In this way, by 1633, he had direct descendants of fifty stallions.
Preference is given to stallions and mares.
Nick thought carefully and decided to send a message to the Lingao Agricultural Committee and ask them to prepare two Gaoshanling stallions and one Wenlanjiang stallion and try to transport them to Jeju Island by ship.
He wrote in the cable: "Every effort should be made to ensure the safety of horses during transportation."
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