Traveling through ancient times, I led my family to prosperity

Xiao Lan naturally didn't know about these things because she was very busy now.

Xiao Lan was naturally happy that He Mingyu brought people to deliver and look after the rabbits, after all, it could solve her current shortage of manpower. However, when she saw the rabbits they delivered, they were just some baby rabbits. There was not even a single slightly older rabbit.

Xiao Lan looked at He Mingyu and questioned him with her eyes.

He Mingyu smiled embarrassedly and said, "Our life as soldiers is hard. We usually hope to go to the mountains to hunt some wild game to improve our lives. Now we have the big wild rabbits to satisfy our hunger. These little rabbits will grow up after being raised for a while, hehe..." He Mingyu smiled awkwardly and laughed.

Xiao Lan looked at the bastard and didn't complain to He Mingyu after all. She knew that the soldiers under Shen Liu had a hard life, otherwise Shen Liu wouldn't have let He Mingyu follow her to Xingyuan Prefecture to do business and make money.

Xiao Lan looked at the people who came with He Mingyu this time. They were all retired from the battlefield, some missing arms or legs. But this was enough. She didn't want to let them go so easily. Xiao Lan smiled and said to He Mingyu, "Master He, since you are here, we will treat you well. However, my family has not prepared food for so many people, we have to think of a way ourselves."

When He Mingyu heard that Xiao Lan wanted to provide meals, he immediately stepped forward and said, "What do you want us to do? Just tell us."

"Of course we're going to mow the grass and hunt rabbits," Xiao Lan said. "We'll eat here at noon today. As for how much meat we can eat, it depends on how many rabbits we can hunt."

He Mingyu was a little hesitant after hearing what Xiaolan said. After all, the people he brought here were all disabled people. Could they catch rabbits? He sent this group of people to Xiaolan this time to reduce Shen Liu's burden. He thought that Xiaolan's family raised rabbits, and they should be able to feed and take care of the rabbits. If they could settle down here and be self-reliant in the future, then Shen Liu would not have to pay these people military salaries. He thought more deeply. If Xiaolan could develop the industry chain of raising rabbits and making rabbit meat, then their retired soldiers would have a place to go. This was also the reason why Shen Liu asked him to come and take a look.

Xiao Lan saw the hesitation on He Mingyu's face, and suddenly she knew what he was worried about. "Don't worry, we are not racing with rabbits. We rely on this to catch rabbits," Xiao Lan pointed to her head and said to He Mingyu.

Soldiers are soldiers, they still obey orders, and they will never go deep into the mountains if they are told to just wander around. These people have actually heard about how dangerous it is in the mountains, after all, the news of refugees being killed by wolves when they entered the mountains spread far and wide.

Xiao Lan led the group all the way into the mountains. Some rabbits ran past them not far away, but these retired soldiers did not have flexible legs or arms, so they could only watch the rabbits run away.

"Didn't you notice anything along the way?" Xiao Lan saw that He Mingyu was looking at the scenery along the way, so she took the initiative to break the silence.

He Mingyu thought about what he had just seen and heard, and replied, "There are quite a lot of rabbits." When he said this, his brows immediately frowned. He hadn't noticed it just now, but now that Xiao Lan pointed it out, he focused his attention on the grass under his feet.

This is the time when all things come back to life, but there is not much grass on the ground. If you look closely, it is not that there is not much grass, but that the grass has been eaten so much that only grass stubble is left.

"What's going on?" He Mingyu asked Xiao Lan.

"That's what you saw with your own eyes. You have experienced a locust plague yourself, so you must not have experienced or heard of a rabbit plague," Xiao Lan replied.

"Can rabbits cause a disaster?" This was the first time He Mingyu had heard this. He widened his eyes and stared at Xiao Lan in disbelief and asked.

"Too much of anything will cause a disaster. A few locusts alone will not cause a disaster, but when there are swarms of locusts that exceed the environment's ability to digest them, it will cause a disaster. The same is true for rabbits. As long as the number exceeds the limit of the environment, it will become a disaster." Xiao Lan continued, "I only discovered this recently. I originally thought I was overthinking it, but after all this travel, I didn't expect the situation to be much worse than I imagined. It's just the beginning of spring now, and you can see that the rabbits in the mountains have already come here to eat. If we don't control them, in another month or two, when all the wild grass in the mountains has been eaten, these rabbits will have no choice but to come down the mountain to eat the crops."

Shen Liu was assigned a lot of military land, which were cultivated by military households. They had to provide military rations to Shen Liu. If it was really as Xiao Lan said, would there be a source of military rations this year?

He Mingyu heard Xiao Lan's detailed account and nodded, "Looks like we have to go hunt some rabbits."

"Actually, rabbits are nocturnal animals. There are still few rabbits out in the daytime. If it's night, there will be more than a few." Xiao Lan led He Ming and his group into the mountains while giving him some knowledge. "When I used to hunt rabbits with my father, we would dig rabbit holes and sometimes set traps to catch rabbits. But if we set traps, we wouldn't see rabbits on the same day. We would have to go to the traps the next day to look for them."

The reason why Xiao Lan talked to He Mingyu in such detail was that she hoped he could tell Shen Liu what she said, so that Shen Liu could take precautions in advance. Because if the rabbits really became a disaster, then the number of people who had finally survived the iron cavalry of the Hu people would be expected to decrease sharply. If the farmers were eaten by rabbits, they would starve to death. Then the common people would really have no way to survive.

"Let's catch as many as we can today." Xiao Lan said to He Ming.

When He Mingyu heard Xiao Lan's method of setting traps and digging rabbit nests, his eyes lit up and he said, "If we can catch rabbits with the methods you mentioned, then we won't have to worry. The general still has many retired veterans. Although they are not very flexible, digging rabbit nests and setting traps should be no problem for them."

He Mingyu thought about the soldiers in the barracks who hadn't had meat for ten days or half a month. If they could catch a rabbit this time, they would have meat to eat during this period. "Xiao Lan, you think this is a disaster, but I think this is an opportunity given to us by God."

Shen Liu has no shortage of people under his command, including healthy, disabled, old, young, and even some who lied about their age and sneaked into the military camp.

He Mingyu thought of Shen Liu's worries about how to place the old, weak or disabled soldiers. If Xiao Lan could help these people catch the rabbit, then he could place them there.

In any case, the prerequisite is to learn how to catch rabbits from Xiao Lan in the next few days, and then he will hand it over to these soldiers. Then when these soldiers have something to do and can support themselves, Shen Liu will be free.

Xiao Lan was waiting for him to say this. As long as they could kill more rabbits, the probability of rabbits becoming a disaster would be reduced, and their crops would be saved. "That's great. Just let me know if you need any help."

He Mingyu also knew what the little girl was thinking, and said with a smile, "We are not very familiar with hunting, and most of the soldiers under us are from farmers, so we have to ask the girl to teach us."

Xiao Lan thought about it and realized that if she was the only one to teach, she would not be able to teach too many people, so she suggested, "Hasn't your military camp ever recruited hunters? We have quite a few hunters in Liaodong Prefecture, right?"

"Yes, yes, why didn't I think of that?" He Mingyu said with a smile, "When I return to the capital this time, I will go to the general to ask for the person."

Xiao Lan nodded repeatedly. "Hunters are familiar with the mountains where they often hunt. Let them lead the team to teach everyone how to set traps. We will definitely be able to catch a lot of rabbits. And it won't take up too much of your time. You can spend half a day setting traps and harvest them the next day. Or you can go dig out rabbit nests, especially at night, when there are so many rabbits. Setting traps will definitely be useful."

He Mingyu's doubts grew as he heard Xiao Lan say this. "Have you been to the mountains at night before?"

Xiao Lan shook her head. "Although I haven't been to the nest, I can tell something from the traces of rabbits' movements on the ground. Before winter last year, there weren't so many rabbits. I didn't expect that after a winter, they would give birth to so many offspring."

Rabbits can brood in three months, and each litter must have at least five or six rabbits. With this calculation, the number of newly added rabbits is naturally huge. This is also the reason why Xiaolan wants to raise rabbits. Only with this breeding volume can she open a meat jerky factory.

He Mingyu wondered, "Rabbits are so fertile, why don't people raise rabbits? Instead, they raise chickens and ducks?"

Xiao Lan lowered her head and thought for a while. "It's hard to raise wild rabbits. They will run away. Farmers who want to eat wild game can wander around the foot of the mountain. If they are lucky, they will catch a rabbit. Chickens and ducks can indeed lay eggs, and they usually provide the eggs for our families. Besides, even if a restaurant wants wild rabbits, the hunters nearby will send them the rabbits they have killed. After all, people in the Great Qi Dynasty are used to eating domestic poultry and livestock. It's okay to change the taste of wild game occasionally, but if we eat it every day, the chefs in the Great Qi Dynasty don't have a good recipe."

"From what you said, young lady, you have a way to make rabbit meat delicious?" He Mingyu admired Xiaolan. Selling goods from the north to the south is a profitable business. This is his personal experience when he followed Xiaolan to Xingyuan Prefecture to do business. Thinking of the huge market for rabbit meat, he couldn't help but be tempted. He said to Xiaolan in a seductive way, "Little God of Wealth, how about we cooperate? We will provide people to help you raise rabbits, and you will be responsible for making jerky. When the time comes, we can either sell rabbit meat to the south of the country, or transport the jerky to Dajin. We will split the money 30% to 70%. How about it?"

Xiao Lan's eyes lit up when she heard this. If He Mingyu took over the rabbit breeding business, they would have more manpower and the rabbit shed could be expanded. "I'll have seven, you three."

He Ming looked at Xiao Lan in surprise and said, "Of course it's Wo Qi, you are three."

Xiao Lan felt that this person was not honest, so she asked, "Is it me or you who came up with the idea of ​​raising rabbits and making meat jerky? Do I make the meat jerky or do you? You want to do it, but can you do it?"

"But I was the one who gave you the fodder, and I haven't charged you for it yet. Besides, we also provided people to help you raise rabbits." He Mingyu said.

"You provide the personnel here, don't they need to eat, drink, defecate and urinate? Don't I need to pay to hire them? Although you didn't ask me for the grass seeds, if you hadn't heard that I wanted to buy grass seeds, would you have thought of the idea of ​​planting grass?"

"You only provided a little help, and you want to take the lion's share of the profits. How can you do that in business?"

He Mingyu thought about it and realized that if he did this, Xiao Lan would suffer a lot. After all, to sell the rabbit meat, he still had to rely on the girl. Moreover, she had to find someone to steam or smoke the meat, and the amount of spices to be used was not yet determined. All these expenses had to be borne by the girl.

This is to help them solve the employment problem of soldiers who have retired from the battlefield. I am afraid they are just thinking of taking advantage of General Shen's influence. After all, if they can develop the meat jerky business, if they really succeed, there will probably be many people who will be jealous. At that time, she will not be able to keep it with her family's current ability. She can give up a little profit, which is already a way to express her sincerity.

"Okay, I'll discuss this with the general when I get back, and then we'll sign a contract." He Mingyu said, "But first, let me make it clear that you'd better grow these rabbits to a certain size. If there's not enough space, our Sixth Master will find a way."

Xiao Lan waved her hand and said, "The land at my house is enough. Even if it's not enough, we can buy some ourselves. But as for the rabbit seedlings, I'd better ask you to pay more attention to them."

In this era, no one raised rabbits, so naturally there were no rabbit seedlings. There was no place to buy rabbit seedlings, so people could only catch them everywhere in the mountains and fields. Nowadays, rabbits are generally not kept at home, except for some people who keep one or two as pets.

So her biggest problem now is the problem of wild rabbit seedlings, which is why Xiao Lan is willing to give General Shen three-tenths of the profits. Because she not only needs to borrow his power, but also needs his people to help catch wild rabbit seedlings.

"When you go back to catch rabbits, you can keep the big rabbits and eat their meat. As for the small rabbits, leave them to me. There is not much meat on the small rabbits, so they are not enough to fill the gaps between your teeth when you eat them. Just like this time, it's good enough that you send me this kind of baby rabbits."

"Are you going to keep all these rabbits here?" He Mingyu asked. "Will they be stolen?"