Chapter 241: Kong Lingyang's Ambition

In the kennel, he had already prepared the most spirited dog for a demonstration. It was a German Shepherd, a direct descendant of one of the pairs from the six breeding dogs Yang Baogui had brought. It was tall, with a spirited appearance, clearly a well-trained working dog.

This dog, named Brondi, was currently multi-talented. It served as a breeding stud, worked part-time at Changhua Fort, and occasionally patrolled the county with the patrol team. It was already a rather famous hunting dog. The local area had no dog breed of such a large size and fierce appearance, almost like a wolf. Therefore, a legend soon spread that the Australians were taming wolves for patrols, which unintentionally added a deterrent element to the local administration.

Under Kong Lingyang’s command, Brondi performed some simple actions, earning the unanimous praise of the crowd. In terms of Brondi’s skill level, it was at most the basic course of a civilian dog training school in the old world, far from the skills displayed by military and police dogs in performances. This was because Brondi also had to serve as a breeding stud, so its training volume was not very large.

“I think the mountain infantry can also be equipped with them. They would be very useful in mountain combat. And the Engine Project needs a lot of public security forces to suppress the refugees. Equipping them all with police dogs would reduce the demand for manpower,” Wei Aiwen said excitedly.

“It’s difficult, Director Wei. You know that working dogs are in short supply everywhere now, and the supply can’t meet the demand. It all depends on whether they can work hard,” Kong Lingyang said, instructing someone to take Brondi back to its special kennel. “But newly grown dogs can’t be used immediately; they must undergo a period of training. We only have Yang Baogui who can do this now. We’re short of people!”

Wei Aiwen was very experienced and immediately understood the underlying meaning. He had sung similar tunes himself. He immediately stated his position: “It’s a reasonable request for you to get a few dog trainers. I will definitely fight for it at the Planning Commission. I think it should be under the military, and we can just create an establishment for a military dog training team.”

Kong Lingyang said, “That would be great. Yang Baogui has been worried about this for a long time. He has always wanted to take on a few more apprentices and pass on his skills.”

Then they visited the kennel. Although it was a brick and wood structure, the construction standards were completely in accordance with the old world, with strict disinfection. Changhua was chosen as the current animal husbandry base for many reasons, but for Kong Lingyang, Yang Baogui, and others, a major advantage was that the local population was sparse, and there was basically no commerce or outside population.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the success of emerging and developed animal husbandry places like Australia and Hokkaido was largely due to their limited contact with the outside world and the absence of foreign infectious diseases. For a large group of livestock raised intensively and without developed vaccines, an infectious disease could severely damage the local animal husbandry industry.

From a certain perspective, sooner or later the Council of Elders would leave Hainan Island. The industrial party and their beloved machine factories would all be gone, but the Imperial Veterinarian’s breeding farm would have to remain here, because Hainan Island itself was a natural isolation field. Although its natural conditions were not as favorable as Hokkaido or New Zealand.

Kong Lingyang introduced, “The scale here is not large at present, mainly undertaking the task of breeding dogs. The external influence here is relatively small, and it is not easy to have a distemper outbreak. When there are enough dog trainers, the dog farm left in Lin’gao will also be moved here. In the future, it would be best to move Lin’gao’s horse farm as well.”

They saw Brondi’s food: not only mutton but also eggs, which were rationed even for the Elders.

“The food standard is really high.”

“Serving as a breeding animal is very physically demanding,” Kong Lingyang said. “To breed strong and healthy offspring, the nutrition of both parents must be adequately guaranteed.”

Mu Min did not speak during the visit. Breeding farms always brought lewd associations to the male Elders. Topics like “pushing butts” were enduring jokes. She always felt a bit awkward about this, although police dogs were very useful to the police system she served in.

After the visit to the dog farm, Kong Lingyang gave Mu Min an unexpected gift: a fine breed of leopard cat. The dog farm had an attached cattery, breeding several fine breeds of cats as working cats. Lin’gao’s chemical industry could not produce rat poison, so they could only rely on cats, this traditional biological control method.

Compared to dogs, the resources for cats were much more relaxed. Kong Lingyang did not dare to give dogs as personal gifts to the Elders, but cats were fine.

Like all women, Mu Min had little immunity to “cute animals” like cats and puppies. She was of course very happy to have a cat, especially when she was on night duty in the office. The company of a cat would make the time pass faster. On D-Day, a female student had brought a cat, which became the collective pet of the female Elders.

In the past, the Council of Elders did not allow Elders to keep cats and dogs privately, unless the cats and dogs had been vaccinated against rabies in the old world. Although every Elder had been vaccinated against rabies before D-Day, the vaccine was only valid for one year. Although the Ministry of Health had enough vaccines and some anti-rabies serum for all Elders to be vaccinated continuously for three years, the quantity was limited and had an expiration date. It was not until recently that the biological laboratory produced a vaccine using the most primitive Pasteur method and tried to produce anti-rabies serum with horse blood, which was roughly qualified after clinical trials, that the ban was preliminarily lifted.

The gifts for Wei Aiwen and Fang Jinghan were his own “secretly made three-penis wine.” As for which three penises, he had always kept it a secret. It was said to be his ancestral secret recipe. In addition to the three penises, more than a dozen Chinese medicines were added, steeped in high-quality white wine from Guangzhou. After he came to Changhua, he had made more than a dozen jars. Besides for his own use, he often used it for public relations. Any male Elder who came to the local area on business would be given a bottle of the secretly made three-penis wine by Kong Lingyang. For a time, the limited edition cigars of the Nanhai Farmstead and the secretly made three-penis wine of the Changhua Ranch became a popular fashion among the male Elders. Since the male Elders had life secretaries, although they all said “three points, no more,” they had also been long-deprived and had inevitably overindulged. Coupled with the hard work during the day, there was a strong demand for nourishment, and the three-penis wine was just right.

Seeing that the people from the central government were in a happy mood and no longer had the previous argument, Kong Lingyang began to talk about his great ambitions, especially about the animal husbandry in Changhua. Except for Mu Min, who had little interest in this, male Elders like Wei Aiwen and Fang Jinghan all regarded horse breeding as a top priority for the Council of Elders. No matter how ignorant they were about horses, or even if they couldn’t ride at all, everyone was full of affection for horses. Like maids, cannons, and ironclad ships, it was one of the G-spots for the male Elders.

Kong Lingyang was not picky about horses at all. Although he was from an animal husbandry major, he did not pay much attention to the specialty of horse breeding when he was in school. In China, horse breeding was not a focus of agriculture and animal husbandry. Except for the traditional pastoral areas, almost no farmers were interested in raising horses, and the market was also very small. So, unlike Nick and others, he believed that the problem of horses was to first solve the problem of “having them or not.” No matter where they could get usable horses from, they should expand the population.

Even if the quality of the population was not high, the horses could be used as the mother or father stock for mules. The domestic horse breeds were not good, but there were some high-quality donkeys. Large donkey breeds like the Dezhou donkey were not inferior to the average Mongolian horse in terms of shoulder height, and were even slightly better. Mules were strong, resistant to coarse fodder, and could be used continuously for more than twenty years, which was far more economical than horses.

From the perspective of use, the main purpose of the Fubo Army and the civilian population using large draft animals was to solve the problem of pulling vehicles, artillery, and machinery, and transporting supplies and equipment. In this respect, mules were more practical than horses, and the breeding cost was lower. The demand for riding horses was not very large, and introducing and breeding riding horses was not an urgent matter.

Changhua was more suitable as an animal husbandry base than Lin’gao, but the estuary area was too humid and hot in summer, which was not conducive to the reproduction of a large number of livestock. After this period of investigation, Kong Lingyang had taken a fancy to the Changhua Daling, about 4 kilometers east of the Changhua River estuary. It had an altitude of more than 400 meters, with mainly tree and grassland vegetation, and a cool climate, making it a suitable summer pasture. Kong Lingyang planned to start the preliminary planning and construction of the Changhua Daling this autumn and winter, and to put it into preliminary use next summer.

To expand the scale of the ranch, it was necessary to increase the manpower, especially technical personnel. Whether it was animal husbandry or veterinary medicine, the available naturalized personnel were currently zero.

Except for Yang Baogui, who had quickly grabbed a few students as his apprentices, Kong Lingyang still did not have a few decent apprentices. He had managed to get four apprentices. After bringing them to Changhua, he had taught them by word of mouth, gave them extra lessons at night, and had them practice during the day. They had roughly learned some basic veterinary knowledge and could do simple tasks like delivering and breeding livestock. But in the long run, the foundation of this group of people was too poor. In the end, they could only become “old technicians” by accumulating experience, and it would be difficult for them to achieve great things.

He was now stationed outside. Changhua County was a small county, with few affairs and great power. He had more spare time at his disposal. If he had enough students to lead, he could give them one or two years of basic courses, combined with internships, learning by doing until they had a certain foundation, and then have them intern at Yang Baogui’s place in rotation, letting him lead the advanced clinical classes. Then he would select the best seedlings from them for further cultivation, and finally become a teacher in the veterinary department of the military supply university in Kong Lingyang’s imagination.

To achieve this grand goal, Kong Lingyang and Yang Baogui had been trying to book a few B-level diploma holders from the Fangcaodi students to study veterinary medicine. However, there were too many monks and too little porridge for the B-level diploma holders, and the animal husbandry and veterinary industry had never been able to get a spot.

So, while talking about his long-term plans, he occasionally inserted a few words about the lack of cultivable students, to convey his meaning and strive for their support for his plan at the Council of Elders’ meetings. It should be known that these few people in front of him were much more persuasive in the Executive Committee than he was.