I feel so good after dressing up as a peasant girl

After getting the red deeds for the house, shop and two farms, Bai Jingzhou and Gu Wenxuan also bought a donkey.

"Donkeys are an important substitute for horses. They are herbivorous livestock that prefer warm and dry climates. They are resistant to hunger and thirst, heat and are afraid of severe cold."

"Timid but stubborn, good at walking but not running, loud voice, small appetite, chewing finely, feeding must be regular and quantitative, oats, bran or other concentrated feed should be mixed with feed, feed in small amounts and add more frequently."

While Bai Jingzhou was recalling the knowledge about donkeys, he quickly wrote down the key points in the small notebook he carried with him.

Gu Yanwu's "Rizhilu" records: "Since the Qin Dynasty, there is no mention of donkeys in biographies, which means that although donkeys existed, they were not commonly kept by people."

Gu Wenxuan leaned over to take a look, "When did the donkey become popular?"

Bai Jingzhou thought for a moment and said, "The Han Dynasty."

He told Gu Wenxuan, "Donkeys were introduced in large numbers, according to records, after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian to the Western Regions, sent Wei Qing and Huo Qubing to the north to attack the Xiongnu, and opened up the Hexi Corridor."

"At that time, the connection between the Central Plains and the Western Regions was becoming increasingly close. In addition, donkeys had many advantages, so the people in the Central Plains gradually began to raise donkeys."

First of all, donkeys are gentle and hard-working. They are not as delicate as horses and can do all kinds of dirty and tiring work. This trait makes them very popular with humans.

Secondly, donkeys are easier to raise, can tolerate rough living, and have stronger disease resistance than horses, so large-scale diseases basically will not occur.

Third, donkeys can be used for farming and riding, and are very suitable for carrying goods in mountainous areas and for household chores.

Silai donkey can also be served on the table after being cooked.

Donkey meat is known as "dragon meat in the sky and donkey meat on the earth". It can calm the mind, replenish blood and qi, and treat sadness, years of strain. Boiling it into soup and drinking it on an empty stomach can also treat hemorrhoids and attract parasites.

Covering malaria patients with raw donkey skin has a good effect. Donkey skin is fried into glue and eaten, which can replenish blood, stop bleeding, nourish yin and moisten the lungs, beautify the skin, and supplement nutrition.

In short, it is easy to raise and has many uses.

This led to people starting to use and breed donkeys in large numbers, causing the Central Plains region to gradually present the situation described in "Salt and Iron Discussions" where "mules, donkeys, and livers are all our livestock."

As for the mule mentioned at the same time.

Bai Jingzhou had no way of knowing whether there were animals like mules in this dynasty, but he certainly had never seen anyone using mules in the surrounding counties and towns.

And as far as he knew, in the world he had lived in, although mules had already existed in China as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, no one thought of trying to enslave them at that time. They had always been regarded as precious animals and only used for entertainment by princes and nobles.

It was not until the Ming Dynasty that mules were bred in large numbers as draft animals.

Mules have poor cold tolerance but are heat-resistant, strong and hard-working, have strong adaptability, strong disease resistance, and tolerance to rough feed. They have high feed utilization rates and are easy to raise and manage. They show obvious hybrid advantages and are ideal pack animals and cart animals. In later generations, they were often used for national defense and are also an important draft animal among domestic livestock.

Unfortunately, mules are less agile and less docile than horses, and are not as good as horses for riding. Moreover, mules are infertile and cannot reproduce. Of course, even so, they still experience estrus.

In order to better control the behavior of mules, improve their labor efficiency and make them easier to control, people sometimes castrate mules, especially male mules, which can make them easier to tame.

When people raise mules, they usually adopt a combination of stall feeding and grazing during the off-season. During the busy farming season, people feed them with grass or hay and add concentrated feed, while in the winter, they are mainly fed with wheat straw and beans.

After recording all of this, Bai Jingzhou said to Gu Wenxuan: "The lifespan of a mule is generally 40-50 years, so it can be used for a long time."

This is also one of the reasons why Bai Jingzhou had the idea of ​​breeding horses and mules.

What the two men bought from the livestock dealer was a two-year-old male donkey. This donkey was a large donkey that came from the Guanzhong Plain. This was the only breed of donkey on the market.

Donkeys mature relatively early. Male donkeys can reproduce at one year old, and female donkeys at one to one and a half years old. Growth and development completely stop at the age of three.

The male donkey that Bai Jingzhou and his men bought was only two years old and had about twenty years of breeding period left. The female horse they seized from the bandit camp was now seven years old. Based on the average frequency of giving birth every two years, they could breed at least seven or eight mules with this donkey and horse.

After making a simple mule breeding plan, Bai Jingzhou put down the charcoal pencil and discussed with Gu Wenxuan what farm tools to buy next, as well as how much wasteland their two families should buy around the village, and what they would plant on the wasteland this year after purchasing it.

Gu Wenxuan said as she watched Bai Jingzhou make a list, "I plan to buy the wasteland between my home and the stream, and then plant radishes, cabbages and other winter vegetables on it."

It's already this season, so forget about growing crops. Only vegetables can grow before the weather gets cold.

Bai Jingzhou nodded, "That's fine. These can be made into sauerkraut, dried vegetables, pickles, or stored directly in the cellar."

After a pause, he continued, "Then my family will buy the wasteland on the other side of your house."

"It's up to you." Gu Wenxuan stretched lazily. "We can leave these things that can be done in the village to my parents and your parents to solve. The most important thing for us to consider now is how to spend the remaining money as much as possible."

They had only spent about two thousand taels of silver to buy the shop, the house, and the two farms, which meant that they still had more than three thousand taels of silver on hand.

Excluding the one thousand taels of silver that Bai Jingzhou and Gu Wenxuan planned to use to store grain after the autumn harvest this year, the two of them still had more than two thousand taels of silver on hand that could be used to purchase property.

Silver will not produce anything no matter how long it is kept, so Bai Jingzhou and Gu Wenxuan both want to exchange the silver for property before the New Year.

After obtaining the red deed for the newly acquired property, they asked Wang Yaren to help keep an eye out. If there is a good property that meets their requirements, Wang Yaren will send a message to their newly purchased farm as soon as possible.

The two stayed in the newly bought house for one night. The next day, they had breakfast in the county town, bought farm tools, and then drove out of the city in a horse-drawn carriage to see their newly bought farm.

The two new farms they bought, the one closer to Baijia Village has a total of 60 acres of land, of which 40 acres are top-quality land and 20 acres are medium-quality land.

In addition to the sixty acres of land, this small village also has four irrigation wells, a small hill with a hundred fruit trees planted on it, a small pond with an area of ​​about one and a half acres, which houses a number of common fish, and a two-story house that was recently built by the previous owner of the village but has not yet been occupied.

Although the house was sold before flowers and trees could be transplanted, Gu Wenxuan and Bai Jingzhou really liked the newly built blue brick and tile house, the new antique furniture, and the two wells with excellent water quality in the front and back yards.