167, Rabbit Breeding Manual
167, Rabbit Breeding Manual
The night he returned to the city, Lu Mingfei stayed up late in his study writing about how to raise and cultivate rabbits, writing down everything he could think of.
Fortunately, when he was an intern reporter, he followed his predecessor to a rabbit farm for an interview and listened to the farm owner talk about some precautions on how to raise rabbits. These things are still very useful in this era.
Just as he was concentrating on writing, a voice suddenly came from behind him, "You want to raise rabbits?"
"!!!" Even though he was used to Zhao Lang's sudden appearances, Lu Mingfei was still startled by the sudden sound. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. He turned back to look at the person behind him who was whispering in his ear, his face full of anger.
Meeting Lu Mingfei's gaze, Zhao Lang's calm eyes showed no guilt at all. He simply asked calmly, "Did I scare you?"
Lu Mingfei asked the man angrily, "Why don't you make any noise when you walk?"
When the weather was hot in the summer, he opened the doors and windows of the study to allow air to circulate and make the room cooler.
Everyone in his family was asleep at this time, so no one would disturb him while he was writing. But he had forgotten that there was someone who always liked to come to his place in the middle of the night. He knew without thinking that Zhao Lang had walked in through the door of his study, but he was so focused on his writing at the time that he didn't hear the sound of someone coming in.
This was also because the person who came in was not a bad guy. If it was some ruthless bandit, he might have been stabbed in the neck from behind before he could even react. It seemed that for his own safety, he had to close the door of the room next time he wrote in the study.
Because even if the person who comes in is not a ruthless bandit who kills people without blinking an eye, scaring people may scare them into having problems.
Zhao Lang said nothing, but his face was full of an expression that said, "Hasn't this how I always walk?"
"..." Lu Mingfei glared at the man, and looking at Prince Zhao's innocent look, he finally laughed out of anger.
Seeing that Zhao Lang was still looking at him, waiting for him to answer the previous question, Lu Mingfei didn't bother with Zhao Lang and asked Zhao Lang to move a stool and sit next to him.
After Zhao Lang sat down, he showed him the two pieces of paper he had written on the table. "It's not that I want to raise rabbits. My father and I went back to the village today, and the village chief asked me if I had any good jobs to recommend to the villagers. I thought about it and suggested that the villagers raise rabbits."
Zhao Lang took the paper that Lu Mingfei handed to him and began to read it while listening to Lu Mingfei speak.
Noticing that Lu Mingfei stopped talking halfway, he looked up at Lu Mingfei and signaled with his eyes that Lu Mingfei should continue.
Lu Mingfei dipped the brush in ink and paused before continuing. "You may not understand the situation of the farmers near Kyoto Prefecture. Many of them have not owned their own land for generations. They are tenants of officials who own land, or noble families. Therefore, farming is definitely not an option."
"Going to the city to do business isn't for everyone. You have to consider the capital and management skills. If you invest money but the business doesn't take off, you'll lose money. So after some thought, I decided that raising rabbits at home would be more suitable for everyone."
"First, if you raise a small number of rabbits, you don't need a lot of space. Rabbits eat grass, fruits, melons, and vegetables, so you don't need to spend a lot of food to feed them. Secondly, rabbits have a strong reproductive capacity. A litter can have at least four or five puppies, and as many as seven or eight. An adult female rabbit can have at least two or three litters a year. If they are raised artificially, under good conditions, it's possible to have four or five litters a year. Calculating the minimum litter size, a female rabbit can give birth to at least fifteen baby rabbits a year."
"I've told the village chief that we'll donate ten pairs of rabbits to the village. It will take less than a year for ten pairs of rabbits to be born, and by then every household should be able to get a female rabbit to raise. By this time next year, the village will have adult rabbits ready for sale."
"Aren't we planning to build two workshops? Once we have these two workshops, we can collect rabbits from the villagers. We can process the rabbit meat into dried rabbit meat or make it into rabbit sauce to sell. We can use the rabbit skins to make clothes, shoes and hats."
"If they don't want to sell it to us, they can take the rabbits they raise to the city and sell them. A live adult rabbit can be sold for a hundred coins each."
Zhao Lang listened while looking at the things in his hand. When he saw something he didn't understand, he pointed at the words and asked Lu Mingfei, "Why do black rabbits mate with black rabbits and white rabbits mate with white rabbits here?"
"Oh, that's what you're talking about. Let me give you an example. Have you noticed that if a parent has fair skin, their child will most likely inherit their skin color, like your skin and mine." Lu Mingfei held out his arm for Zhao Lang to see, and Zhao Lang's skin color was not much different from his. "So the same principle applies to rabbit breeding. If white rabbits mate with white rabbits, the resulting baby rabbits will most likely be white."
"By the same token, if black rabbits mate with black rabbits, the resulting rabbits are more likely to be black. Pure-colored rabbit fur is easier to process, and the colors of the clothes made from it are also more beautiful."
"Also, if a big rabbit mates with a big rabbit, the offspring they give birth to will be stronger. If a small rabbit mates with a small rabbit, the offspring they give birth to will also be smaller."
"I plan to have them breed several different kinds of rabbits. One is a solid-colored meat rabbit, which is a relatively strong rabbit, and the other is a petite rabbit. The meat of the former rabbit will be eaten, and the fur will be processed into clothes. As for the small rabbits, they can be sold individually to the little girls in the city who like rabbits and raised as pets." This involves genetic genetics, and knowing about genetic inheritance is a completely unfamiliar subject in this era, so Lu Mingfei did not bring it up with Zhao Lang.
After Lu Mingfei finished speaking, Zhao Lang stared at Lu Mingfei without blinking. He found that Lu Mingfei knew a lot of things that he had never heard from others.
"Where did you get these things? Why have I never heard of them?" Zhao Lang asked curiously.
"..." Lu Mingfei's body stiffened. He couldn't say that he was from another world. They had already learned these things in their high school textbooks, right? Obviously, he couldn't say anything about these things.
Even if he was facing Zhao Lang, he could not confess the things about his previous life to anyone else.
My mind froze for a moment before quickly starting to work again, and I came up with a reasonable explanation for what I had just said: "This is what I observed myself."
"Think about it, humans are animals, rabbits are animals too, there must be something in common." Yes, that's right! Lu Mingfei almost believed what he said.
Zhao Lang thought about it and felt that what Lu Mingfei said made sense. He finished reading the things in his hand and put them on the table. Seeing that the paper in front of Lu Mingfei was only half written, he gestured for Lu Mingfei to continue writing, "When you finish, copy a copy for me."
"Why, do you want to raise rabbits?" Lu Mingfei asked the man with a bit of amusement.
"Well, I'll let someone else raise it." Zhao Lang nodded.
Lu Mingfei remembered that Prince Ding's Mansion must have a lot of land outside of Kyoto City. The farm they visited last time was quite large. "You can let the tenant farmers on your farm raise rabbits as well. You have a lot of land, so you can also build a large rabbit farm and raise more rabbits."
"Then we can work together to set up a large rabbit head processing workshop and a rabbit fur processing workshop."
"Aren't you afraid that your family's business will be taken away?" Zhao Lang asked with a smile in his eyes.
"Hehe, don't worry. The market is so big, our two small workshops will definitely not be able to make all the money for everyone. Let's make money together." Lu Mingfei gave Zhao Lang a look that said "we are all good brothers."
Knowing that Zhao Lang was waiting for him to finish writing, after saying a few words to Zhao Lang, he continued to finish the rest.
After finishing writing everything, he took a new piece of paper and copied it again. During the copying process, he remembered what he had missed and added it in. The second copy he wrote was even more detailed than the first, but he still gave it to Zhao Lang and explained some of the things he had missed.
After finishing two documents, Lu Mingfei realized it was already very late. He couldn't help but yawn and asked Zhao Lang, "I'm going to sleep. Do you want to sleep next to me or go back to your place?"
"You go to sleep, I'm leaving first." Zhao Lang looked at the young man with tears in his eyes, holding the rabbit-raising manual given to him by Lu Mingfei in his hand.
"Okay." Lu Mingfei stood up from the chair he was sitting on. When he was about to send Zhao Lang out, he remembered something and said to Zhao Lang, "I invited my senior brother and Ling Xuan Zhuoran to have a barbecue at home the day after tomorrow. It might not be convenient for you to come...so how about we go to the palace for a barbecue another day?"
It’s not that he doesn’t want to invite Zhao Lang to the barbecue, but Zhao Lang’s status is there. If he invites Zhao Lang to his home as a guest, the first people to be scared will probably be his parents.
And if Zhao Lang were here, others might not be able to relax and have fun.
"I can come here with a different identity." Zhao Lang suddenly wanted to get to know Lu Mingfei's classmates and friends.
"New neighbor?" Lu Mingfei looked towards the courtyard next door and remembered Zhao Lang's face after he changed his appearance last time. It seemed that it would not be impossible for him to come to their house as a guest with a different face and identity?
"Yeah." Zhao Lang nodded.
"Okay, we'll have a barbecue the day after tomorrow in the evening. If you have time, come over and I'll introduce you to my father and mother, as well as Ling Xuan and Zhuoran." Lu Mingfei couldn't help but laugh. He began to look forward to the scene of Zhao Lang coming to his house as an ordinary person and getting to know his family and friends.
After the two men agreed on a meeting time the day after tomorrow, Zhao Lang and his guards climbed over the wall of the Lu family courtyard and disappeared on the other side of the wall.
Lu Mingfei stood outside the courtyard, watching the direction Zhao Lang left. He didn't know whether Zhao Lang had returned to Prince Ding's Mansion or gone to live in the small courtyard next door. However, after a while, he didn't hear any movement from next door, so he thought Zhao Lang had returned to Prince Ding's Mansion.
Shaking his head, he did not continue to pay attention to this matter. He went back to the room to get clothes and oil lamps, and went to the bathroom next door to take a shower.
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