Mythical Three Kingdoms

No one can bypass the essentials of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Holding such a thing in hand, everyone feels at ease. However, the current Northern aristocratic families who hold the wool can’t promote it for universal use because the sheep wool isn’t enough!

Is this a reason? Of course it is. The Hu people on the Great Prairie only have so many sheep, while the Central Plains have so many people. It’s no wonder that the wool production from two to three million sheep is not constant. This is why later on, aristocratic families angrily scolded the Hu people for not being able to raise sheep, demanding they cede the grasslands so they could raise sheep themselves!

Thus, although the Northern Grasslands hasn’t been conquered yet, what was previously thought to have no output and no significance now has a large group of aristocratic families marking them for sheep raising, wool production, and eating mutton.

Additionally, Jia Xu organized a large group to embark on Ma Zheng. Logically, the late Han situation was better than the early Tang, and Chen Xi didn’t have to worry about the Hu people on the prairie causing trouble. Back in early Tang, the Turkic people were extremely fierce.

But even so, during the Era of Zhenguan, the Tang Dynasty’s Ma Zheng had 400,000 warhorses and over a million pack horses. Chen Xi roughly laid out a plan for Jia Xu to play with, estimating that with the current situation, taking over the grasslands could easily result in five to six hundred thousand warhorses and a million pack horses.

Speaking of the Han and Tang Ma Zheng, one must mention a dynasty that led to its own demise, called the Song Dynasty. They too played with Ma Zheng following the Tang Dynasty. Though the Ma Zheng system of the Tang Dynasty was very thorough, and despite the Song not having the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, there were still many places in the Central Plains suitable for Ma Zheng.

While the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun were ideal, their absence wasn’t a big deal. You could play elsewhere because even Ergonomic Japan could play cavalry with horses barely 110 cm tall at the shoulder.

The local horses in the Central Plains like Hequ Horse, Datong Horse, and Kazakh Horse, even when raised freely, wouldn’t be under 130 cm at the shoulder. Yet, the Song Dynasty, mimicking the Tang Dynasty’s Ma Zheng, played it to a pitiful extent. Of course, one must admit, the Song Dynasty was really wealthy.

There is a famous passage in the History of Song Dynasty: ”Raozhou kept five hundred and sixty-two mares and stallions, of which three hundred and fifteen died, and twenty-seven were successfully bred into foals.”

What does this mean? It’s actually quite simple. They raised 562 quality breeding horses, 315 of which died. Of the remaining 247 breeding horses, only 27 could produce foals. Hmm, a breeding rate of less than 5%...

Even with such a low breeding rate, the Song Dynasty’s Ma Zheng continued until the Dynasty’s downfall. Incidentally, the previous 5% is considered high because cases where certain regions’ entire herds were wiped out due to equine plague were common. Hence, it’s really the Song Dynasty’s own fault that they had no cavalry.

In any case, before the Northern Huns and Hu were dealt with, Chen Xi was already studying the prairie maps, estimating how many horses, sheep, and cattle to raise. In any event, Chen Xi didn’t plan on giving the Great Prairie to the Hu people.

Of course, Chen Xi wouldn’t deliberately carve out areas like those in Western Siberia, where it’s frozen for nine months a year, or the permafrost areas. At most, they would leave only an ancient legend.

As for occupation, forget it. Heaven loves life, so if the Hu people can survive there, Chen Xi doesn’t mind letting them stay forever.

After all, even in later generations, not many people can live perennially where temperatures drop as low as minus seventy degrees, let alone where it’s winter nine months a year, or longer. If the Hu people have the skill to live there, Chen Xi can assure that as long as they don’t cause trouble, the Han Dynasty will never go to war with them.

Of course, while Chen Xi already has meticulous plans in mind, certain things still require sending people to conduct on-site investigations, like the future-determined maximum number of cattle the grasslands can support, which certainly requires on-the-ground surveys now.

Incidentally, Chen Xi always thought that purely letting cattle and sheep graze and live nomadically following the water and grass is completely unreliable. Seeding grass, providing green fodder, and keeping them in pens is the King’s Way. As for cattle and sheep lacking exercise and having less tender meat, that’s just nonsense!

In this era of A.D. 200, anyone who can eat meat is already living pretty well. Who would care about such things? It’s warhorses that can’t lack exercise. After all, in the era of cold weapons, the national strength of any country could be directly correlated with the number of elite cavalry.

Thus, Chen Xi’s eventual prairie plan basically turned it into a national pasture since the barren lands are unsuitable for farming; they might as well be used for livestock.

Incidentally, Chen Xi also planned to take those who jumped particularly joyously during this time, with tens of millions or even over a hundred million coins, and have them donate to fight against the Hu people. They’d pick out all the aristocratic families, with Qu Qi as a representative, donating his vast ill-gotten money and grain.

Although their motives aren’t pure, Chen Xi focuses on actions. Whether someone is good or not is a matter Chen Xi has always judged by deeds rather than intentions.

So even if their motives aren’t pure, given their significant efforts, he plans to turn this previously unwanted prairie into nationalized ranches, allotting some places to these aristocratic families, and then have these families engage in large-scale ranching.

All outputs will be reclaimed by the state. Although the purchase price might be lower than market price, there could be other policy supports or financial supports in case of unexpected events.

In any case, Chen Xi definitely won’t give others the opportunity to disrupt prices. By controlling the livestock production of the Northern Grasslands, even if subcontracted, he will never allow these scoundrels to enter the market and create chaos. These matters, in Chen Xi’s view, must be regulated by the government.