Chapter 311: Hunting Wild Boar

For a primitive livestock farming system, the kind of intensive factory farms of later generations are absolutely out of the question. Without antibiotics and vaccines, if you gather the Second Senior Brothers together, you might as well just wait for them to collectively kick the bucket.

Therefore, the Transmigrators' farming system was decentralized from the very beginning.

Across the vast Tainan Plain, Huo Xiong set up many breeding outposts. These small outposts were all very crude, with very few staff and livestock. Typically, an elderly couple was the standard setup; a breeding farm like Seven Bridges, which had four workers, was already considered a major operation.

The crudeness was a necessity: the breeding outposts needed to be relocated periodically, and the original pens were usually dismantled or burned.

To minimize cross-contamination as much as possible, the livestock breeds at each breeding outpost were also singular: pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks were not to be mixed. On this basis, Huo Xiong also defined the activity range, drinking water rivers, and feed sources for the livestock at each outpost.

This was a simple defense plan based on coordination studies: once a problem arose at a certain outpost, the managers could quickly pinpoint the source of the disease through cross-referencing.

Today was no exception. After Huo Xiong arrived at Seven Bridges, by examining records and dissecting corpses, he already had a clear idea in his mind about this sudden outbreak of swine fever.

Swine fever is not influenza; this virus cannot spread through the air. In other words, swine fever can only be transmitted through direct contact or an intermediate host.

Considering that the other pigs fed the same batch of feed were still alive and well, the first thing Huo Xiong ruled out was transmission via swill.

For livestock, swill is a major channel for spreading germs. The swine fever virus can incubate for about 20 days at room temperature, and one of the virus's main transmission routes is kitchen waste.

For the various livestock epidemics that spread globally in later generations, swill played a part in the majority of them. Europeans fed leftover kitchen meat and fat to herbivorous cattle as feed, and then there was mad cow disease.

And after ordinary swill was transported between pig farms, swine fever began to spread. By the 21st century, the European Union had already enacted laws banning the feeding of swill to livestock. But because the Rabbit Country's foundation was too weak, it couldn't ban swill feeding overnight, which is why African Swine Fever, similar to Classic Swine Fever, was able to run rampant and bloom everywhere.

The Transmigration Nation in the 17th century currently doesn't have the capability to ban swill either.

The farmland being frantically reclaimed in Tainan, whose output of rice, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, has the primary task of ensuring national food security... The Transmigrators need to feed their nationals, whose numbers are increasing geometrically; this is a political task that overrides everything else.

On this basis, the corn and oats produced by a small number of feed fields are fed to "high-end livestock": cattle and horses.

So, for "low-end livestock" like the Second Senior Brother, they can only be managed with swill plus pigweed for now.

After inspecting the swill and feed, Huo Xiong also dissected the skin of several dead pigs and found that their sanitary conditions were well-maintained, with no ticks—the intermediate host of swine fever—appearing on their skin.

Those people in later generations who tirelessly pursue so-called "natural free-ranging" and "pure ecology" are actually a joke.

Let's not even talk about the brainless individuals who drink so-called "natural mountain spring water" every day and end up with internal organs full of parasites under X-rays.

Just from the perspective of livestock, "natural free-ranging" is also the dirtiest: livestock foraging in the grass will ingest the feces, eggs, and hair tissues of various wild animals. In addition, tick-type parasites that spread various plagues, encephalitis, bacteria, and blood diseases, as well as mosquitoes and flies that are sources of viruses, are also waiting in the "natural environment" at all times.

As for so-called free-range livestock, when they return from the wild at night, who knows how many germs and parasites they are infected with inside and out.

The only pork in human history that can meet the standard of "clean" is precisely the so-called "injection-fed feedlot pigs" that people despise from regular farms—at least when this kind of pork is cut open, you won't see a patch of white pork tapeworm eggs between the fat.

The final item Huo Xiong inspected was infectious materials like straw bedding.

The result was just as he predicted: these pigs had not been transported across regions in the past two months, so they had not come into contact with intermediate infectious materials like straw bedding in their vicinity.

Alright, after ruling out all other causes, the source of the swine fever was now obvious—Huo Xiong once again gathered the four pig farm workers and began a detailed interrogation.

It didn't take long for the truth to come out: the youngest worker stammered that a few days ago, his family's pig seemed to have been "mounted" by a wild boar while grazing.

Huo Xiong rolled his eyes, a "I knew it would be this" expression appearing on his face.

... Wild boars are a major source of plague transmission. In fact, the African Swine Fever that rampaged globally in later generations can trace its earliest origins back to a wild boar in Kenya in 1921.

"How did you memorize the regulations? Why didn't you report it when a wild boar mounted it!?" Huo Xiong, furious at their failure to make good, exploded in rage this time, sending the pig farm idiots scattering with their heads in their hands from a flurry of punches and kicks...

After he finished, Huo Xiong, panting heavily, glared fiercely at the wife of Shangen, the only one who hadn't been hit: "Get them to the mess hall, quickly, what are you waiting for?"

So the few fellows who had disappeared for a while scurried out again, frantically lifted the dead pigs onto a cart, and rushed all the way to the mess hall in the Seven Bridges family quarters.

On the warm Tainan Plain, even in December, even during the Little Ice Age, the temperature here never drops below 15 degrees. So the dead pigs had to be sent to the mess hall immediately, just in time for dinner.

Watching the pig keepers' figures flee in panic into the distance, Huo Xiong couldn't help but sigh deeply: the overall low educational level of animal husbandry workers was the most fundamental reason for the frequent occurrence of all kinds of accidents.

Many illiterate breeders stumbled over reciting the regulations, and the undisciplined living habits of an agricultural society made them lack the proper respect for various rules.

"It seems I can't keep indulging this any longer." Huo Xiong thought fiercely: "Set up intensive vocational training courses, everyone must pass, with mandatory elimination; those who fail will all be sent to clear wasteland!"

Having settled on the next reform plan, Huo Xiong walked over to his beloved Harley, took out his cell phone to check it, and found there were still two bars of signal. So he pulled up the Chikan District Government's phone number and dialed it.

The district government took Huo Xiong's call very seriously—they took all calls about food very seriously.

After both sides exchanged a few words on the phone, the district government hung up. And Huo Xiong got on his motorcycle and sped all the way to the Seven Bridges mess hall.

There were three mess halls in the family quarters at Seven Bridges. Huo Xiong raced like the wind and lightning all the way, and before the dead pigs crossed over, he parked his motorcycle in front of the smallest mess hall.

After entering, he went straight to a private room—every mess hall had private rooms exclusively for the Transmigrators' use. He sat down, smoked half a cigarette, and drank a glass of beer, when a chubby man in his thirties, wearing a casual suit, lifted the curtain and walked in.

This man was named Shao Qiang, a Shaanxi native. Before crossing over, he was a section member responsible for writing drafts; currently, he was the Deputy District Chief of Chikan.

Seeing Shao Qiang enter, Huo Xiong quickly poured him a glass of beer: "Great District Chief Shao, you came pretty fast, a model public servant!"

Shao Qiang nodded with a grin, then pulled out a Furongwang cigarette Huo Xiong had placed on the table and lit it: "The food issue is a high-tension wire right now; I'm pretty much in a state of constant alarm over here. So, you call, I come."

At this point, Shao Qiang exhaled a puff of blue smoke: "So, what's this I hear about another swine fever outbreak?"

"Yeah." Huo Xiong sighed: "Infected by a wild boar, four died in one go. You'll be able to eat red-braised pork in a bit."

"I'm not eating diseased pork." Hearing this, a look of disgust immediately appeared on Shao Qiang's chubby face.

"Tch..." Huo Xiong had a contemptuous look: "Then before you crossed over, did you ever eat braised meat from the wet market?"

"I did eat that pretty often, what about it?" Shao Qiang was puzzled.

"Well then, where do you think all those shiny red braised meats and braised chickens came from?"

Seeing Shao Qiang's expression slowly dawn with realization, Huo Xiong stabbed another knife into his heart: "You didn't think all dead pigs and dead chickens were buried, did you?"

"Weren't they all buried on TV? Tens of thousands buried at once!?" Shao Qiang was now both shocked and angry.

"Hahaha." Huo Xiong burst out laughing: "With over 40,000 townships nationwide, do you know how many chickens, ducks, and pigs die scattered and diseased every day?"

"If they were all buried like you said, how would those peddlers who go from village to village with bicycles covered in dead chickens make a living? How would those meat processing plants that collect diseased pigs for ham sausages survive?"

"Damn, so I've eaten plenty of dead chickens without knowing it?"

"A whole braised chicken outside the train station is only sixteen kuai; if they didn't collect diseased chickens, wouldn't the boss lose his shirt?" In fact... Huo Xiong paused here and gave a sly grin: "It's a bit better in winter, but in summer, many dead chickens are already turning green by the time they hit the pot."

"Shut up, you ha song!" Shao Qiang was so agitated his hometown dialect slipped out.

"Heh heh, alright, don't you worry too much." Huo Xiong changed the subject at this point and began to console Shao Qiang: "The swine fever virus can only survive for 5 minutes at 60°C. In fact, from a purely biological perspective, no virus can survive more than 5 minutes at 100°C."

"So the red-braised pork is safe, brother. Eat it without worry later; I'll eat it with you."

"I don't feel like eating pork right now. Let's just get some deer meat instead."

"Alright, deer meat it is, but you need to hurry up with that matter I mentioned earlier."

"Understood. It'll be brought up at the meeting tonight, and deployed tomorrow."

Huo Xiong's venison feast was not given for nothing.

Two days later, the fifty hunting teams mobilized by the Chikan District Government began their dragnet search across the Tainan Plain.

The operation was codenamed "Operation Wild Hunt 1849." Its objective was to clear wild boar, weasels, and voles from the Tainan Plain, along with slash-and-burn.

As a result, the wild Second Senior Brothers met with terrible misfortune. Within a few bouts of effort, the wild boars' range was pushed back to the Central Mountain Range, and vast numbers of weasels and voles on the plain had their dens destroyed along with them... When humans get ruthless, they are truly terrifying.