Cut off my army's food supplies? I'll open a portal between the two worlds and max out my

Pig farming is Li Wen's next plan.

Of course, raising pigs in Anxi Town wasn't for profit or to provide extra food. The logistics of the Anxi army were now linked to those of the Venus Hotel. Imagine if the logistics of a modern five-star hotel were applied to ancient times—would they have been poorly fed?

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the soldiers of the Anxi Army eat so much oily food every day that they don't need to raise pigs to supplement their meals.

Li Wen wanted to raise pigs in Anxi Town mainly for two reasons.

The first purpose was to explore the possibility of a sustainable industrial development.

Secondly, and most importantly, it is for environmental governance.

Although the land near Fengyue Valley is close to the Tumu River basin and has a decent environment, the terrain at the entrance is somewhat barren due to long-term neglect.

Anxi Town has a small population now, and there is enough land in the Tumu River basin behind it, but Li Wen does not want to think about the future development direction of Anxi Town.

Moreover, as the economy develops, the population will inevitably increase significantly. At that time, we can't rely entirely on Li Wen to purchase supplies from the modern world, can we? Li Wen's mental energy will also be depleted.

Anxi Town must be self-sufficient, and its arable land area must be large.

According to conventional thinking, Anxi Town would definitely build city walls to defend against external enemies after it develops. But in Li Wen's view, city walls would only have the side effect of limiting Anxi Town's expansion.

Therefore, Li Wen had no intention of building city walls at all.

Even if the major powers of the Western Regions were to organize a coalition again, Li Wen would have a plan in mind.

Heartless cannon.

It is also the simplest and fastest, with low operational difficulty, and can be deployed in large quantities in a short period of time.

The more enemies there are, the more satisfying it will be for the heartless cannons to bombard them.

Of course, this is only the worst-case scenario.

Some time ago, Li Wen sent scouts to investigate the situation in the direction of the original Great Zhou border. They discovered that the Great Zhou Dynasty had actually given up the border in the Yanshan area and chosen to retreat.

In this way, Anxi Town's location will not involve the interests of various forces in the short term, allowing it to develop steadily for a period of time.

Having said all that, I've gone a bit off-topic. The reason Li Wen had the idea of ​​raising pigs to manage the land actually stemmed from a fake news story he saw a few days ago.

It was said that a desert region on Earth had successfully controlled the desert by raising 100,000 black pigs. This news caused quite a stir when it first came out, but it was quickly refuted by local officials.

The ecological environment in desert areas is already fragile. Raising pigs not only cannot control desertification, but will also damage that fragile ecological environment. This is a news story fabricated by marketing accounts for sensationalism.

But the news content still gave Li Wen some inspiration.

The ecological environment of Anxi Town is not fragile. Wild grass grows on the wasteland, and pigs can turn the soil when they move around. Moreover, pig manure can fertilize the land.

In this way, pig farming has only brought benefits to Anxi Town, with no drawbacks whatsoever.

Upon returning to Anxi Town, due to manpower shortages, the Anxi army soldiers were busy building infrastructure for the market, while the pigsties on the outskirts were built by hiring local tribesmen.

The cost of hiring them is also very low; as long as they are provided with meals, they are happy to come and work for the Anxi army.

Anyway, the women and children can go out to graze the cattle and sheep at home, and they can save on their food rations by working outside.

However, those who came to work didn't quite understand the Anxi army's actions.

"Build a pigsty? This isn't the Great Zhou Dynasty, what's the point of raising pigs here!"

"Exactly, exactly, pigs eat so much."

Several men from the tribe chatted amongst themselves between tasks.

However, they did not slow down their work. When it was time for their lunch break, the Anxi Army's management personnel told them to stop and go eat.

A dozen or so tribal members arrived at their work site with great anticipation.

The tribes in the Gobi Desert all knew that the Anxi army was very wealthy, and when they came to work, they wondered what delicious food they would get to eat.

In particular, a noble delicacy called instant noodles, which originated from the Anxi army, has become popular in the Western Regions.

"Everyone must use their employee ID to get food; no cutting in line is allowed, everyone must come in order."

The women who had previously joined the logistics team were in charge of cooking.

They didn't know these cooking techniques before; they learned them after special training.

Soon, the tribal members who were working were stunned when they saw the golden fried rice in their bowls.

"What is this? It smells so good!"

He asked instinctively.

The woman serving the food glanced at the man in front of her; the man possessed the characteristics of a tribal person: "Fried rice with egg."

"Fried rice with egg? What's that?"

"It's just leftover rice fried with eggs. You have to get the vegetables from the side. Aren't you annoying? You get your food and then you stay here. There are people waiting in line behind you."

The woman said with disdain.

The man instinctively moved aside. The pot next to him contained stewed cabbage and vermicelli, leftover ingredients from the Anxi army, which were then processed into a meal for the tribe members.

Just smelling the delicious aroma, the man felt like he was cooking.

What do you mean by leftover white rice... How could something as precious as white rice be left over?

The man swallowed hard and quickly ran to the dining area to eat heartily.

"fragrant!"

"It's so delicious!"

Fried rice with eggs and pork and cabbage are a complete game-changer compared to their diet of eating barley cakes all day and occasionally munching on dried meat.

They even felt that what they were eating was more delicious than the aristocratic food that the patriarch often ate.

The Anxi Army did not limit the amount of food served. Even though each person ate a large bowl, and even the fried rice was not enough, the kitchen temporarily cooked an extra pot.

Even so, it didn't stop them from constantly getting food.

I just reminded them that they still had work to do after they were full and wanted to keep eating.

These people then stopped getting their food.

During a break after dinner, they gathered together again to start discussing.

"General Li Wen is so illustrious! There must be a reason he had us build the pigsty that we don't know about!"

"Exactly! I think General Li Wen really is as they say, a great messenger of the gods!"

A single working meal was enough to make the tribal members who came to work begin to admire Li Wen.

After the pigsty was finished, these people became reluctant to leave and volunteered to stay and help Anxi Town with more work.

They don't want any pay, they just want to have something to eat.

Seeing this behavior, Li Wen did not refuse these people's requests, but made a decision based on their performance.

Anyone who behaves well during the work period can stay and continue to participate in the construction of Anxi Town.

After all, Anxi Town still has a lot of work to do to transform Fengyue Valley, so it's not a bad idea to hire more people to do the work.

The Anxi army's stockpiles are gradually increasing.

Besides the rice and flour that Li Wen had previously purchased, the Anxi Army couldn't even finish using all the food that the Jin Xing Hotel's logistics department discarded every day.

Li Wen has no plans to build a generator yet, so preserving the excess fresh ingredients is a problem. It would be better to just use them as a work meal.

The reputation of the lavish working meals in Anxi Town quickly spread.

This was especially appealing to nomadic peoples who had never tasted good food.

Soon even Blackstone, the chieftain of the Blackstone tribe, heard about this.

At first he didn't believe it, but then he found out that all the idle men in his tribe were not at home. Upon further inquiry, he discovered that they had all gone to work in Anxi Town.

At first, Black Stone thought that it was because Li Wen offered a high reward that attracted so many of his clansmen.

Upon further inquiry, it turned out there was no compensation! They just provided delicious meals.

Black Stone was completely baffled by this, and since he was getting tired of eating instant noodles lately, he wanted to see just how appealing the work meals in Anxi Town really were.

Upon arriving in Anxi Town, Heishi was immediately drawn to the sight of the work meals.

He shamelessly approached Li Wen and asked if he could bring his guards to work with him.

When Li Wen heard the news, his expression became very strange, but he did not refuse.

And so, for the sake of food, even the dignified chieftain of the Black Stone Tribe came to Anxi Town to start working.

After working for two days, Black Stone felt that even the instant noodles eaten by the nobles of Da Zhou were not as good as the work meals he ate. He got tired of eating instant noodles every day, but the work meals on the construction site were different every day!

Previously, Blackstone was reluctant to sell off all the instant noodles he had stored. The day after finishing his work lunch, he had someone sell the instant noodles he had kept to the nobles of the kingdom in the west.

During the bustling construction in Anxi Town, a caravan arrived from the east.

This caravan was a member of the Southern Chamber of Commerce, and Fairy was affiliated with the Governor of the Southwest Circuit, mainly engaged in border trade.

The business involved smuggling salt and iron, which were controlled items in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

These state-controlled items should, in principle, be prohibited from being sold or exported. However, several generals in the border corps stationed at Yumen Pass were protégés of the Governor of the Southwest Circuit. Therefore, they turned a blind eye to this kind of smuggling between officials and merchants. As long as their own tributes were not cut off, they did not care what the merchants did.

Some border troops even offer paid security services.

This is also because civilian officials can use logistics to control the border troops.

Because supplies and rewards were often not delivered in time, the border troops came up with a plan to start their own business.

Some of the caravans were even actually masqueraded as border troops.

The Gobi Desert region leading to the Western Regions was deserted for a while due to rampant banditry.

Now that the bandits have been wiped out, the news has reached the caravan.

Many caravans began to resume their activities.

Salt was the commodity that caravans liked to sell the most.

Because these kinds of things can always fetch a high price from nomadic tribes.

"Steward Liu, there's a herding tribe ahead. Shall we go take a look?"

The caravan's scouts returned and reported the information they had gathered ahead.

"Good. The master allocated so much salt to us this time, we must sell it for a good price, and the brothers will all get a bonus when we get back."

Thinking about how much salt he had brought out, Butler Liu couldn't suppress a smile.