Reborn in 1977

When Chen Fan returned to the educated youth spot, he found all four girls were there today, and the courtyard was more lively than usual.

Huang Ying was holding a wooden stick, looking around with a serious face, as if searching for an assassin.

Yang Ju was even more ruthless, holding fire tongs in one hand and a wood axe in the other, with the same expression as Huang Ying.

Jiang Lili was carrying a bucket, pouring water into a hole in the ground, while on the other side, Liu Dan was holding a pile of semi-dry grass, lighting it and smoking it into a hole.

As a result, not much smoke went in, but she ended up covered in ash and coughing repeatedly.

Chen Fan dismounted, placed the bamboo basket containing the little rabbit on the ground, patted the little mare's back, and let it return to the stable on its own.

Then, he looked at the girls with a puzzled expression, "What are you doing?"

Huang Ying immediately rushed over, "Teacher Chen, there are rats in the house."

Yang Ju waved the fire tongs and wood axe, gesturing as she said, "Such a big one, luckily I went to the room to scoop rice and happened to see it, otherwise the rice would have been stolen by the rat."

Huang Ying said resentfully, "It must be a rat that escaped the last rat extermination."

Jiang Lili knew Chen Fan best, knowing that he didn't understand many things, so she whispered to the side, "During the winter months, not long before you came here, the brigade organized a large-scale rat extermination campaign throughout the production team, setting rat traps, flooding rat holes with water, smoking them out, and putting down rat poison, eliminating more than two thousand rats.

Such rat extermination campaigns are carried out every two or three years, and I've only been here for three years, but I've encountered it twice. Each time, we can eliminate four to five thousand rats at most, and one to two thousand at least. If we don't exterminate the rats, they will gnaw on the crops, and over time, it may even lead to a rat plague."

Liu Dan held up the smoking bundle of grass and nodded vigorously, "Rats are the worst of the four pests, the most hateful."

Chen Fan immediately understood.

People in later generations may be unfamiliar with the word "rat plague", and many other things from this era are rarely seen more than twenty years later, let alone in the new century.

But today, rat plagues are very common. And anything called a "disaster" is no small matter.

Tens of thousands of rats come out in droves, unafraid of cats, dogs, or people. If you are not careful, the crops of the entire brigade or even the entire commune may be ruined.

Especially the bacteria and viruses carried by rats, if they bite or scratch you, you may be infected with the plague, so you can't be careless.

For example, smallpox, poliomyelitis, filariasis, schistosomiasis, Keshan disease, Kashin-Beck disease, leprosy, malaria, plague, cholera, etc., these names are almost only found in textbooks in the eyes of young people, without any personal experience.

But in this era, many diseases and viruses are as common as colds.

Especially the elderly, many of them survived the fight against these diseases and viruses. After decades of struggle, they sealed these diseases into books, winning a "health defense war".

As early as 1952, a major campaign to promote cleanliness and eliminate germs began. All parts of the country were eliminating pests, dredging underground pipelines and sewage channels, cleaning up a large number of garbage mountains and river ditches, and calling on people across the country to drink hot water and not to drink raw water.

The famous "Dragon Beard Ditch" tells the story of cleaning up a stinky ditch in BJ in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

In that campaign, the concept of "four pests" had not yet been put forward, but the main targets of elimination were mosquitoes, flies, lice, and rodents, which highly overlapped with the four pests. The later four pests were also proposed based on this campaign.

The reason why sparrows were among the earliest four pests was that a certain "scientist" proposed how much grain a sparrow could eat, how much grain one could eat in a month that was half an adult's daily ration, and how much grain one hundred million sparrows could eat, etc. Such alarmist talk led to it being listed as one of the four pests.

Later, facts proved that sparrows eating grain had little impact on the total national grain output, so they were quickly replaced with bedbugs and cockroaches.

It was from that time that the movement to eliminate the four pests never stopped.

As the leader of the four pests and the carrier of the plague, rats have long been the focus of attack.

The Jiangnan area has a network of waterways, coupled with abundant products, and has always been a breeding ground for rats.

Lujiawan carries out a rat extermination campaign every two or three years, which is only the norm for various production teams in the Jiangnan area in this era.

This large-scale movement, which lasted from the 1950s to the early 1990s, also successfully sealed many germs, effectively ensuring the life, health, and safety of the entire society.

Bringing back his thoughts, Chen Fan looked at the four people and asked, "Then did you find the rat?"

Huang Ying immediately pointed to the two holes in the corner of the courtyard wall, "I found two rat holes, and I'm flooding them with water and attacking them with fire. When they run out, we can kill them."

As she spoke, she waved the wooden stick twice, as if to immediately kill the rat with it.

Chen Fan walked over and looked at it. Both holes were the size of a fist, and they did look like rat holes.

However, half a bucket of water had been poured in, and a lot of smoke had been smoked on the other side. Under normal circumstances, if the rat was still inside, it should have run out long ago, right?

Chen Fan pondered for two seconds, looked up at the sky, and sure enough, that silly bird followed him back, so he waved to the sky.

The Eurasian hobby chirped twice, swooped down at him, gently flapped its wings as it landed, and steadily landed on his arm.

Chen Fan chirped, "Go, check the yard and surroundings for rats."

The peregrine falcon immediately flapped its wings and flew to the roof, turning its head to survey the area.

Catching birds and rats is the peregrine falcon's forte. Catching large hares is a bit difficult for it. After all, it's just a small bird of prey, not a large raptor like a golden eagle or vulture, so its strength is naturally not comparable. But if the boss gives an order, it will do its best to catch them. If it can't catch big ones, it will catch smaller ones.

Today, it was rare for the boss to want to catch rats, so it was naturally excited and working hard.

After searching around on the roof and not finding any, the peregrine falcon flew into the sky to search.

Seeing Chen Fan looking at the peregrine falcon, Huang Ying asked curiously, "Teacher, what is it doing?"

Chen Fan said without turning his head, "Looking for rats. You guys flooded and smoked them out, but the rats didn't come out. They must have already left the hole."

Hearing him say this, the four girls felt it made sense, so they all dejectedly put down the "weapons" in their hands and watched the peregrine falcon, hoping it could find the rats.

Unfortunately, although the peregrine falcon's eyes are sharp, it can't find rats that have burrowed into holes. After flying around twice, it chirped to Chen Fan to report, "None."

Chen Fan beckoned it down and then said, "I'm warning you again, you're not allowed to eat the rats you find. Don't even touch them, or you'll never get near me again."

The peregrine falcon tilted its head and looked at him, "I don't eat rats."

It's now addicted to catching rabbits. It catches one every day and brings it back. When it's hungry, it asks Chen Fan or Jiang Lili for food. It hasn't eaten a small bird in a long time, let alone a rat.

Chen Fan doesn't pay that much attention to it, but Jiang Lili prepares food for it in different ways, sometimes pork or pig liver, sometimes fish or fish innards, to change its taste. Chen Fan brought these meats back from the veterinary station a few days ago when he was "taking classes," and Jiang Lili used some minced meat to curry favor.

Once, Jiang Lili even wanted to feed it cooked meat, but after hearing Chen Fan say that it's not good for wild birds to eat cooked meat, she regretfully gave up.

So, in this yard, besides Chen Fan, only Jiang Lili can touch it a little. No matter how much Huang Ying and the others try to please it, it won't eat the meat they give it.

After being spoiled, those stinky rats are naturally not within its consideration.

Chen Fan added, "You're not allowed to eat flying rats either."

Seeing the peregrine falcon obediently nod, he let it leave.

Chen Fan clapped his hands and pointed to the wicker basket, "Huang Ying, take the little rabbit to the back."

There are two "rooms" in the livestock shed in the back, separated by a passage in the middle. The west side is home to two piglets, and the east side was originally a woodpile, but later two sheep and two horses squeezed in as well.

Before preparing to raise rabbits, Chen Fan took Jiang Lili and the others to move all the firewood to the wooden partition above the livestock shed. Those that couldn't fit were placed under the courtyard wall. The space vacated in the pigsty was then divided in two with a half-wall of adobe bricks, leaving most of the space for the horses and sheep, and a small part for the rabbits.

However, this is just a temporary solution. Rabbits can dig holes, and the rammed earth here will probably not be difficult for them.

In the past two days, Chen Fan planned to build an outdoor single-row rabbit shed next to the livestock shed. The 《Common Rural Breeding》 he bought last time included methods for building rabbit sheds. With his level 3 bricklaying and level 3 carpentry skills, a small rabbit shed is definitely not a problem.

In addition, he also found a soil method for tanning fur in 《Rural Sideline Production Knowledge》. The rabbit skins from the rabbits that the peregrine falcon had caught before were used for experiments, tanning them into soft rabbit skins for making leather clothes in the future.

If rabbit farming goes smoothly, he can also engage in a rabbit deep processing industry, from rabbit seedling cultivation to leather and rabbit meat production, all in one go.

He just doesn't know if Secretary Yang and the others have such great courage.

Huang Ying carried the wicker basket to the backyard. Yang Ju thought about it and was still unwilling to give up, so she took some soil and blocked all the visible holes in the yard.

Actually, it's useless. No matter what lives in the hole, since they can dig holes, what effect can blocking them with soil have?

Chen Fan chuckled, "There's quicklime that was burned before at the kiln. Pick a few pieces, mix them with water, and pour some lime water in. No matter what's inside, it's definitely a dead end."

Limestone is one of the most widely distributed stones in the world. Almost every place has it. In China, North China and Northeast China have the most. Nanhugongshe also has a small limestone mine, which is very cheap, two yuan a car, you can pull it as you like.

In the future, building houses will require lime, so Chen Fan bought ten yuan's worth and pulled it back, burning it into quicklime in the earthen kiln. In a moment, just add water and you can get slaked lime and lime water, which is very convenient.

Hearing Chen Fan's words, Yang Ju's eyes lit up, and she found a dustpan and rushed out the gate, running to the back.

Chen Fan smacked his lips and said softly, "We might as well take advantage of this renovation of the earthen stove and toilet to open up the back door as well."

Jiang Lili glanced at Liu Dan, who had gone to the kitchen to cook, walked over and said softly, "Xiao Fan, you should think about how to protect your preserved meat and fish, as well as the rice and paddy. There's only a thousand days to be a thief, and no thousand days to guard against one. What if that big rat comes again? That would be terrible."