Chapter 316: Fodder

Because manpower was extremely scarce, the over two hundred Transmigrators were all concurrently holding multiple posts.

Take Huo Xiong for example: he was not only the Chairman and Factory Manager of the Animal Husbandry Corporation on the enterprise side, he also concurrently held a government position: Director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Agriculture Department.

Huo Xiong's direct superior was Liang Le, Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Food, who also served as Minister of Agriculture.

The office Huo Xiong was now barging into to raise a ruckus was the Agriculture Department's workspace set up in Chikan. The boss here was Mi Shuo, Chairman of the Grain Corporation and the Agriculture Department's "First Deputy Minister" who actually ran the show... in the Rabbit Country they'd call it "Executive Deputy Minister."

Seeing Huo Xiong charge in, decked out like a biker gang member with a face full of thug, the group of male and female civil servants in the room instantly jumped in fright.

Then a middle-aged man who looked like an office director hurriedly stepped forward: "Director Huo, hello, you're here to see our Minister Mi, right?"

Huo Xiong shot a sidelong glance at this dark, thin man, then as he walked further inside, asked in a heavy-metal tone: "Where is he?"

"Went down below for an inspection."

"Went where for an inspection?" Huo Xiong pushed open the door to the inner office and poked his head in to look around.

"Went to Madou to check the fields."

"Madou?" Huo Xiong pulled out his phone and dialed at that: "Really no signal. Damn, you wouldn't be lying to me, would you?"

"Wouldn't dare, wouldn't dare! The Minister did go to Madou before he left."

"Let's go, you lead the way. If we don't find your Minister today, I'll let you find out firsthand what 'cattle pen' means!" Huo Xiong said as he shoved and jostled the poor man downstairs.

Once downstairs, the poor man was no longer pitiful: he cheerfully hopped onto the back seat of the Harley motorcycle and even flashed the locally popular "V" hand sign toward the third-floor window.

Then Huo Xiong set off with this transparent office director who had never ridden a motorcycle before.

Madou Township was right next to the Kiln District, separated only by Xingang Creek. The natives there had been pacified the earliest, and Madou Township had long since become a grain production base.

Huo Xiong gunned the motorcycle all the way down the asphalt road, and when he passed the Kiln District, he even detoured to the factory to refuel along the way. Finally, after racing across the steel-cable drawbridge over Xingang Creek, the motorcycle began tearing down the dirt road. Covered in dust, Huo Xiong finally managed, just at high noon, to find Mi Shuo inspecting the fields at the edge of the farmland.

Mi Shuo was a chubby man with a round face, round ears, and round eyes. These distinctive features earned him the nickname "Mickey Mouse" right from the start of his crossing over.

Wearing a bamboo hat and canvas work clothes, Mi Shuo was sitting at the field's edge waiting for lunch. An electric three-wheeler was parked by the roadside, and three assistants were busily preparing the midday meal.

But when he spotted the Harley motorcycle from far off, Mi Shuo, who had been sitting cheerfully on a tree stump, suddenly looked a bit uneasy.

The motorcycle quickly sped along the dirt road and pulled up right in front of him.

"Well now, worthy of a leader touring the countryside, look at this service, so top-notch!" Huo Xiong's sarcastic remarks drifted over before he even got off the bike.

He wasn't wrong to say so; some people's behavior was truly outrageous: a log campfire, a steel bar grill, a deer leg sizzling and dripping oil, oysters as big as a kid's head, sprinkled with minced garlic... oh right, and home-brewed beer in an exquisite wooden barrel.

"Brother Mickey, if you tour the countryside like this and the masses snap a photo and post it online, won't you lose your official hat in a minute?" Huo Xiong teased as he unceremoniously walked over and sat down beside Mi Shuo.

Mi Shuo, long immune to these people calling him "Mickey," shook his head at that: "By the day the masses can get online, even my ashes will have melted away. Who cares that much."

After reaching over and pouring Huo Xiong a glass of beer, Mi Shuo, not waiting for the other to pick another fight, proactively brought up the topic: "Seeing you travel-worn and dusty, and dragging my office director along, you must have been looking for me half the day?"

"You've got the nerve to say that. I've been looking for you for days, and you've been hiding and refusing to see me." After shooting Mi Shuo a sidelong glance, Huo Xiong picked up an oyster and started eating, looking thoroughly indignant.

"Heh heh." Mi Shuo gave a dry laugh: "Spring sowing is just around the corner, production tasks are heavy, I have to go down to inspect the fields. Why would I hide from you?"

"Give me a break. Does farming in Tainan even distinguish between spring, summer, autumn, and winter?" Huo Xiong mercilessly exposed a certain someone's lie: "Old Mi, you can't dodge this by hiding. Today you have to give me a straight answer: when will the fifty-thousand-mu pasture start being sown?"

"Ah, I knew it was about this." Mi Shuo shook his head at that: "Brother, I'll give it to you straight: at most ten thousand mu."

Huo Xiong turned his head, his mouth agape in disbelief. After blinking, he held out his palm and started counting on his fingers: "Soybean meal, rye, sweet sorghum, alfalfa, elephant grass, imperial bamboo grass, corn... Old Mi, do you think ten thousand mu is enough for this many types of feed?"

Mi Shuo also started counting on his fingers: "First, soybean meal, stalks, and wheat bran don't need to be counted in there; those are directly supplied by field crops."

"Second, according to calculations, ten thousand mu is enough for you all. This feed isn't currency; it doesn't earn interest sitting in storage. Why do you need so much?"

Huo Xiong sneered at this and shot back tit-for-tat: "Old Mi, on the first point, I'm afraid you don't know that our embryo transfer experiment succeeded. On this point, I spoke with Xia Shoufu on the phone yesterday, and he's already agreed to increase the import of livestock from the Ming Country. So, from now on, our large livestock inventory will multiply by leaps and bounds."

"And that's not even counting all the chickens, ducks, geese, and bamboo rats everywhere. Oh right, after the new year, I'm also launching projects for Wei Han sheep and Merino sheep. All of these need large quantities of feed."

Huo Xiong raised a second finger at this point: "You got one thing right just now. Feed may not be currency, but storing it up is absolutely necessary."

"Our industrial level right now can't keep up; even the supply of soda is intermittent, and our feed processing capability is very poor." Huo Xiong's face now broke into a grin: "So I need to store large quantities of silage feed."

"Say no more, I understand this. Fermented feed kills bacteria and parasite eggs." Mi Shuo had a bit of a headache: "Did your embryo transfer really succeed?"

"You think it's fake?" Huo Xiong was immensely pleased with himself: "If you start plowing and sowing now, then in a year when my livestock numbers explode, this feed will have just finished ensiling and be ready to eat."

"No, no, fifty thousand mu is still too much." Mi Shuo shook his head like a rattle-drum now: "Comrade, farming isn't drawing circles. Among the conditions like machinery, irrigation, seeds, and manpower, aside from manpower being abundant, everything else has to be carefully calculated. Don't make such an exorbitant demand."

"How about this: after the new year, I'll open up twenty thousand mu of dedicated feed fields on my end. Plant whatever you want. Also, I'll talk with Old Liang later and allocate a batch of our stockpiled soybean meal and stalks to you. That should be enough now, right?"

"Still feels a bit dicey." Huo Xiong was already gnawing on a deer leg and drinking beer by now: "Newly opened fields generally don't grow well. You have to guarantee my supply for the second half of next year."

Mi Shuo was exasperated: "Alright, don't let your eyes be bigger than your belly. If there really comes a day when feed is short, I'll allocate soybeans and polished rice anytime to feed those ancestors of yours! Deal?"

"You said it yourself!" Huo Xiong pointed a finger at Mi Shuo.

"I said it. But the year-end Great Plan Meeting is coming up soon. Regarding agricultural machinery, pesticides, and fertilizer production, you have to cooperate with us to fight for resources together. Hmm, and on the breeding stock matter, I'll also put in a few words for you."

"Fine, isn't it just being used as a weapon? I'm good at that." Huo Xiong thumped his chest: "Our big agriculture sector needs to band together and push hard. What damn military cannons and gunboats — a couple of days ago there were even people advocating building phonographs to swindle money out of Great Ming... truly, they're indulging in frivolous pursuits. If we don't turn the tide with all our might, I say this broken empire is done for!"

... When it came down to it, things ultimately reached this point: when internal resource distribution is uneven, the best solution is to start a war externally, seize resources outside the plan, and shift the contradictions.

So after much discussion back and forth, the two men ultimately decided to solve the problem from the "root": compress other people's non-essential industrial categories, concentrate resources, and push the Empire's primary industry up first.

The year-end Great Plan Meeting was the most important meeting of the year: this three-day meeting would determine the rough proportions of resources allocated to each department for the coming year. It was no exaggeration to call it a life-or-death battle.

Thus, Huo Xiong and Mi Shuo, two independent factions under the big agriculture umbrella, quickly reached an agreement under pressure, and a series of conspiracies ensued... alliances and stratagems — who was a friend, who was an enemy, all of this had to be clearly figured out.

After a meal of venison, beer, and barbecue, the two had pretty much finished their discussion. A bit tipsy, Huo Xiong was in a very good mood: he had finally solved the problem weighing on his mind. That feeling of having to beg behind someone else's back was truly awful... he now somewhat understood Huang Xu's mood yesterday.

Patting Mi Shuo's thick shoulder, Huo Xiong turned around, mounted the Harley, waved his hand, and sped off in a trail of dust, kicking up an earth dragon along the way.

Watching Huo Xiong's back disappear into the dust, Mi Shuo sighed helplessly: people these days weren't easy to fool anymore. Everyone was full of drive. Before crossing over, every single one was a loser; after crossing over, everyone scrambled to be a model worker.

It had to be said, equity incentives were mankind's greatest invention — once a person confirmed they'd get a slice of the pie in the future, especially when that pie was as big as a Fortune 500 company, it really could make one devote oneself utterly and risk life and limb...

His lament finished, Mi Shuo was also ready to withdraw his troops and leave. At his command, several grease-mouthed subordinates, including the office director who had abruptly come to mooch a meal, all pitched in and moved the gear onto the three-wheeler. Then everyone climbed onto the wooden cargo bed — this electric three-wheeler was DIY; aside from the critical transmission system, everything else was produced in the Kiln District.

Racing all the way back to the Chikan District Government Compound, Mi Shuo parked the vehicle in the courtyard, then exited through the government's back gate — there was a dedicated passenger dock here, with a shuttle boat always on duty.

Quickly crossing Taijiang on the shuttle boat, Mi Shuo disembarked on Dayuan Island, then hitched a ride from the Port Authority Building into the Imperial City.

In a modest office on the left-hand side of the first floor, he met his partner, Cabinet Member and Minister of Agriculture, Liang Le.