As an agrarian nation, the Han people have inherited the spirit of study of their ancestors, and this curiosity flowing in the blood of the nation has been brought into full play.

This is the main reason for the Han people's continuous exploration of science and technology, and asking a few more reasons for everything has become an important means for the Chinese ancestors to pursue science.

Today's Great Song Dynasty science and technology, culture has reached the peak of history, countless knowledge accumulation makes the current Great Song Dynasty has a strong scientific and technological foundation, Zhao Zhen's Gewu has been promoted to a strong hotbed for scientific and technological development.

Zhao Zhen believes that the Great Song Dynasty is the most technologically advanced dynasty in history throughout the ages, and the four major inventions that condense the wisdom of China either appeared in this era, or advanced by leaps and bounds in this era, and papermaking, compass, gunpowder and printing are like the bright stars of China in the sky of history.

As early as the Shang Dynasty, there was a strong cavalry, Jiang Taigong's "Liutao" has a special record about knights, called "Liutao, Dog Tao, Wu Knight", the martial knight chapter accurately located the criteria, conditions and methods for selecting cavalry.

First of all, he is under the age of 40 and is more than 7 feet 5 inches tall, and secondly, he is physically strong, skilled in riding wood, and superb in archery, able to "cross ravines, climb hills, take risks, and be absolutely strong, gallop strong enemies, and chaos the public." ”

The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period proved the powerful value of cavalry, but the Han Dynasty was the golden age of cavalry development, because of the need for nomadic people such as the Xiongnu to fight, the cavalry grew rapidly, and the army battle changed from the previous chariot and cavalry to cavalry to replace the chariot soldiers, and the cavalry became the decisive force.

In the later period of the Three Kingdoms, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was the era of heavy armored cavalry, that is, the armor of people and horses, and the armor and cavalry weapons have also been amazingly developed, and many horse-specific weapons appeared, but in the Sui and Tang dynasties, great changes have occurred.

The Tang Dynasty opened the country with martial arts, and Taizong Li Shimin himself was good at using cavalry, and his famous six mounts were known as the Six Horses of Zhaoling. Therefore, the Don also attached great importance to the construction of cavalry. However, during this period, the development of cavalry equipment and tactics was not large, and it was no longer as focused on heavy cavalry as in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Mainly use cavalry as a mobile force to fight against the enemy.

Now the Great Song Dynasty has returned to the Han Dynasty, the threat of the surrounding nomads made it necessary and necessary for the Great Song Dynasty to develop cavalry, but in the Later Tang Dynasty, the old diseases of the Five Dynasties made the horse-producing areas in the northwest basically lost, and the Great Song Dynasty whether it was through the purchase of horses in the border areas, changing horses, or setting up pastoral supervision and other methods, has never been able to meet the needs, as well as the bureaucratic system that the Wenchen took for granted, so that the horses could not meet the needs at all.

What cavalry did not even develop without horses? Therefore, the Great Song Dynasty had no choice but to adopt the strategy of riding on foot, not because they didn't want to change, but because they didn't have cavalry in their hands!

But now it is different, the Great Song Dynasty quietly captured Yanzhou from the Western Xia with infantry, Hongzhou and Hongzhou became the hotbed of the Great Song Dynasty horse herding, coupled with the good breed of Arab war horses from the Abbasid Dynasty, the Great Song Dynasty has been able to form a strong cavalry force, which is also an important reason why Zhao Zhen went north to Yanyun, because there is a much-needed horse grazing land there, the Chahar steppe.

In fact, for so many years, Zhao Zhen's direction of use of troops has been the same as chasing the direction of the pasture, invading the Western Xia to obtain horses in order to enter Yanyun, and seizing the pasture from Yanyun to Fengshengzhou in order to attack the Western Xia again, which is a jumping offensive method and has been fruitful.

And now the Gansu Military Division of Western Xia has fallen into the hands of the Great Song Dynasty, and the Shandan Military Horse Farm established in the Han Dynasty will also fall into the hands of the Great Song Dynasty, which is not known, but Zhao Zhen knows that this military horse farm is the world's largest production area of military horses in later generations!

It can be said that a large part of the reason why Zhao Zhen went to the Western Xia was in this Shandan military horse farm, and now the Great Song Dynasty, which has many war horses, has become a cavalry power, but the cavalry of the Great Song Dynasty is not the same as that of the Western Xia of the Liao Dynasty, which is inseparable from the development of science and technology.

The pursuit of science and technology caused the Great Song Dynasty to carefully study everything, and the master craftsman who would be the supervisor made amazing changes to the Great Song cavalry, although the changes were relatively small, but Zhao Zhen could see the difference between the cavalry of various arms at a glance.

While marveling at the wisdom of China, Zhao Zhen was also amazed at the ingenuity of these craftsmen, as well as the research spirit ahead of this era, their study of cavalry tactics was even higher than Di Qing, and their knowledge of cavalry even exceeded that of the cavalry itself, only in this way could they develop different types of cavalry and achieve perfect cooperation between the cavalry.

Where is the advantage of the infantry? Of course, it's the cooperation between the various arms!

Shields, knives, armor-piercing guns, horizontal knives, ratchet crossbows, and so on all play an irreplaceable role in the military formation, and only the cooperation between the various arms can maximize the combat effectiveness of the infantry, and the greater the combat effectiveness, the stronger the lethality.

In the same way, can cavalry, like foot soldiers, be divided into multiple arms and cooperate with each other to attack the enemy? This is the direction of the research of the craftsmen of the Great Song Dynasty.

The advantage of cavalry is obvious, it has the incomparable powerful mobility of the infantry, and also has the incomparable armor protection of the cavalry, the armor of the cavalry is heavier than the armor of the infantry, they are the fierce beasts on the battlefield in this era, and they are the torrent of steel in the attack.

Now Zhao Zhen saw the Great Song Dynasty cavalry has been completely different from the original, back to the army, the white army is all composed of cavalry, although the number of the white army is small, but it is the elite of the cavalry, they are skilled in equestrianism, control the horse and sweep the gun in one go, naturally become the Great Song Dynasty cavalry in the rangers, once the two armies collide with each other, the white army can move at will, flexible vertical horse fighting, no one restricts their flexibility, but the same, no one can support them, the white army can only support each other, and can not get the support of other arms.

The reason is very simple, compared with stepping on the white, the cavalry in the back army is more inclined to infantry tactics, their riding skills are not as good as the white army, but they are uniform, constantly cooperate with each other to help, and their troops are much more than the white army.

If the White Army is the dragon in the army, then the Beiwei Army is the Mount Tai in the army, which is stable and difficult to shake!

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Bearers are called foot soldiers on horseback, because they have a wide variety of troops, and they can be divided into heavy cavalry, medium cavalry, and light cavalry according to the density of their armor alone.

The three kinds of cavalry launched an attack on the Liao people with different positions and weapons, and the means were uneven and full of tricks, but the effect was amazing, making the Liao people unable to defend themselves, because they had never seen the power of the Great Song cavalry.