Chapter 181: Blasting Badgers
Because the three of them had discovered three badger dens while moving around earlier. Badgers aren't large, but they are quite valuable because every part of them is a treasure!
As for the badger itself, the pelt isn't that big and they are relatively common, so while valuable, the price isn't exorbitant. The procurement price for a badger pelt at the supply and marketing cooperative is 9 yuan, one yuan less than a yellow weasel.
However, badger oil is the real prize; it is practically a miracle oil for burns. Applying badger oil after a burn is incredibly effective—it relieves pain and speeds up the healing of the wound.
The supply and marketing cooperative also buys this stuff at 2 yuan per jin. Normally, a twenty-jin badger, after removing the pelt, internal organs, and head, can yield nearly 4 jin of badger oil, making it a rather miraculous animal.
Furthermore, the badger's internal organs are edible, meaning nothing on a badger goes to waste.
In other words, digging out one badger could earn roughly 17 yuan, and you'd get to satisfy a craving for meat!
This had led to the badger dens around the village being almost entirely wiped out. Whenever one was discovered, people would do whatever it took to dig them out and trade them for money.
In this part of Northeast China, there are three types of badgers.
The European badger, the pig-badger, and the wolverine. The ones people usually hunt are European badgers; they are the most numerous. Most importantly, European badgers are social animals, living in groups of ten to thirty. One dig could yield several or a dozen, and with good luck, one could get around twenty.
Pig-badgers usually have only one or two per den, maybe three or four at most. Perhaps due to the geography, pig-badgers are very rare in the Northeast.
Wolverines, also known as gluttons, are even rarer. Their rarity in the Northeast is comparable to that of tiger cubs. However, the wolverine is the largest and most ferocious of the three. They are similar in size to tiger cubs, reaching up to 50 jin, and like tiger cubs, they can take on a wolf one-on-one; a lone wolf is no match for them.
As for who is stronger between a wolverine and a tiger cub, that remains unknown, as both can defeat or even kill a lone wolf.
European badgers and pig-badgers are similar in size, growing up to twenty-four or twenty-five jin, and they are very easy to tell apart.
A European badger's nose is like a dog's—black and pointed.
A pig-badger's nose is like a pig's—flat and pale red, and its head also resembles a pig's head.
The three of them drove the sled to the vicinity of a badger den. In reality, it was near a series of dirt mounds. The soil badgers dig out isn't piled at the entrance; instead, they carry it ten-odd meters away, likely to prevent rainwater from flooding the den.
According to the chatter of the village elders, the way they transport soil is the most bizarre part. In every badger colony, there is one badger that gets bullied.
This bullied badger serves as the colony's soil-transport tool. The badgers make this "tool badger" hold the excavated soil in its arms, and then other badgers bite its tail to drag it away.
Therefore, when digging out badgers, if you encounter one that is mostly bald, it is definitely the bullied one of the colony.
Anyone who has dug a badger den knows that the inside is like a palace, consisting of many chambers: areas for raising cubs, toilets, food storage, and sleeping quarters. It is quite comprehensive.
Moreover, as the badger population increases, they continuously dig new tunnels. In short, aside from eating, sleeping, and storing food, badgers spend their entire existence digging; they seemingly have no concept of rest.
Of course, these creatures undergo semi-hibernation, so during winter, they never leave their dens—they are either sleeping or eating inside.
The three arrived near the dirt mounds, found a random tree to tie up the horse, Da'er, and fed it fodder, then released the six dogs.
At this moment, Wang An said to Wang Li, "Old Fifth, take the axe and cut some thick wooden plugs to block the badger holes in a bit. Also, cut three slightly longer hoe handles."
"Got it, Fourth Brother," Wang Li replied casually, then turned and left with the axe.
In this era, regardless of gender, almost everyone had dug for badgers. This was because the extent to which they ravaged crops was no different from wild boars; a dozen badgers could destroy several mu of corn in a single night.
Thus, in the countryside, they were like rats—hated by all. Although they were ferocious by nature, they were too small; a four-pronged steel fork or a fire-fork could handle them. A fire-fork was a two-pronged steel fork.
Badger entrances were relatively easy to find on the snow. Because the badgers inside needed to breathe, the snow at the entrance differed from other areas, having a small depression. Of course, this depression wasn't very obvious.
Therefore, the help of a dog's nose was required. Since there were multiple entrances to a badger den, they had to find as many as possible. Otherwise, once the badgers were startled from their slumber, they would scramble randomly, and there would be no telling which hole they would bolt from.
"Sniff, sniff-sniff!" Wang An and Mu Xueli pointed at the ground, simultaneously commanding their dogs.
The word "sniff" was actually pronounced like "stink" (chòu) by mountain hunters, but the pronunciation was light. For any trained hunting dog, understanding this word was a basic and essential skill.
There were also simple commands like "Up," "Pinch," and "Dig," though habits varied among hunters. These three words essentially meant the same thing: telling the dog to go fight!
Then there were "Let go," "Come back," and various whistles; these were all mandatory for training dogs.
Following the commands of Wang An and Mu Xueli, the six dogs obediently began sniffing the snow.
In a short while, the six dogs found four entrances. After scratching them open with their front paws, they barked incessantly. Meanwhile, Wang Li returned carrying three hoe handles and a pile of wooden plugs about twenty centimeters long.
Generally, digging out badgers involved lighting ura grass and damp pine branches and placing them in the hole to smoke the badgers out. But badgers aren't stupid; they would dig soil inside to block the holes where the smoke entered.
Consequently, after working for half a day, one might only smoke out one or two badgers. It could be said that digging these things out was genuinely tedious, primarily because the badgers simply didn't want to come out.
Spring, summer, and autumn were the times for frantic badger digging; sometimes the resulting pits were over a hundred square meters.
Wang An certainly wasn't going to waste his time with smoke. More importantly, for Wang An, digging out one or two badgers wasn't worth the effort.
Spending a whole day for twenty or thirty yuan was not as good as hunting a few wild boars or roe deer.
The reason he decided to dig these out was that Wang An had *ma lei zi* (firecrackers) and *er ti jiao* (double-bang crackers) in his pocket.
Wang An's way of thinking was different from normal people. Although no one had done it this way, Wang An felt that using firecrackers to blast badgers out would definitely work. The sound and vibration were one thing, but the smell of gunpowder was also quite potent.
He forcefully jammed wooden plugs into two of the holes, then had Mu Xueli and Wang Li, along with three dogs, guard the remaining unblocked entrance.
The two of them held a hoe handle each, staring at the hole like two door gods. Three green dogs stood beside them, looking back and forth between the hole and the two door gods, having no idea what the hell was going on.
Wang An lit a cigarette, took a puff, and then casually poked a tree twig into the hole to probe. This hole was good—fairly straight.
Then Wang An took out a double-bang cracker. He pointed the top of the cracker in the direction the twig had gone and lit the fuse.
With a loud "Bang!", the cracker shot into the badger den. The three black dogs staring at the hole let out a "Wu nao!" and jumped straight up in fright. Because the three black dogs were closest, they jumped the highest; however, due to the excessive force, one flipped backward and landed flat on its back.
Then, a "poof" sound came from the hole, sounding like a fart. Perhaps the cracker had gone deep into the den, so the sound wasn't loud.
Wang An ignored the dogs and lit a large *ma lei zi*, throwing it in with force. However, because the hole was sloped, the firecracker exploded before it could go very deep.