At the end of June, the 3rd and 12th Divisions of the Fuhan Army advanced to ten miles outside the city of Luodian, but did not choose to attack the city immediately, but began to set up camps, and 20,000 officers and soldiers worked in full swing outside the small Luodian City, and it took seven or eight days to dig out three long trenches.

Before Guo Ding'an became the brigade commander of the Praetorian Guard Division, he came out of the lecture hall and was an absolute expert in building positions, in addition to the three-layer trenches, he also arranged barbed wire on the position, making a strict defense appearance, it seemed that he had no idea of attacking Luodian City at all, and even shot at Luodian City.

Needless to say, when this scene appeared in front of He Shiji, the governor of Guizhou, he was completely stunned.

Do you want to be so cowardly? Isn't it he He Shiji who should really be instigated?

In fact, when the 20,000 Fu Han army left Sizhou, He Shiji had some impulse to run, he had a very obvious understanding of the combat effectiveness of his own army and the Fu Han army, to put it mildly, to deal with the eight thousand Qing soldiers in his Luodian City, almost three or four thousand people were enough.

Therefore, when the Fu Han army put on a defensive posture, He Shiji was inexplicably relieved, and he naturally hoped not to fight him, but after he eased up, he had some crooked thoughts, that is, to repay himself.

Although He Shiji didn't know why the Fu Han army didn't attack, no matter what he said, he He Shiji led 8,000 people to stick to Luodian City, and so far he has not let the Fu Han army cross the Lei Chi step, this is not a credit What is a merit?

"Quickly send the letter to Lord Duxian, this time He will be considered to be developed!"

He Shiji touched his chin, a smug smile appeared on his face, he arranged a secret post every day to keep an eye on the movements on the position of the Fu Han army, and as soon as there was a sign of an attack, he immediately ran away with his troops.

If the Fu Han army wants to keep fighting him in Luodian City, then it will be at his own convenience, anyway, he will never take people out of the city for half a step, if it can go on for a long time, it will be better.

When He Shiji was self-righteous, he didn't find that his sentinels outside the city were constantly hunted down, and his battlefield intelligence space was infinitely compressed, and almost half a mile out of the city, there was a situation where the sentinels of the Fu Han army were chasing and killing, and after a few days, the Qing army in the city would find a problem, that is, Luodian City was completely blocked.

Guo Ding'an naturally wouldn't stare at him with a little He Shiji, in fact, when he and Yue Lingfeng had already seen that Luodian City was a fragrant bait, they already had other ideas, and it was a very bold idea.

That is, the Qing army in the two provinces of Qiangui was completely dragged to death in Anshun Mansion!

It is not easy to achieve this, so Guo Dingan submitted the entire plan to the group command, which requires several divisions to cooperate to complete it, and it is entirely possible to achieve this strategic goal.

I have to say that Guo Ding'an has fallen in love with this tactic of encirclement and annihilation since the last battle of Xinhui, and it is nothing to defeat the enemy, only by completely annihilating the living forces of the other party can the war end in the shortest possible time.

In order to achieve this strategic goal, Guo Ding'an has led the Third Division to Pingtang secretly and join forces with the Fifth Division to attack Duyun, and the key is that the First Division, which started from Hunan, has successfully taken Sizhou, and is marching along Zhengyuan, Huangping and Pingyuan, and is expected to complete the assembly in Pingyue Prefecture.

Through this way of repairing the plank road and darkening the warehouse, Guo Ding'an can completely bypass the Qing army cluster in the direction of Luodian and complete the surprise attack on Guizhou Mansion, and the risk is relatively small, so Cheng Ming has already expressed his agreement.

........

When the morning glow reveals the sky, the first rays of sunlight on the horizon are sprinkled on the earth, the undulating and endless grassland is draped in a layer of red neon clothes, surrounded by mountains, surrounded by forests, and the tributaries of Yuelong Lake extend in the hinterland of the pasture, as far as the eye can see, there are cattle and sheep, egrets, pastures, and trees.

From time to time, there are leisurely cattle and sheep eating grass in the distance, and some horses are running wantonly, and some egrets can be seen flying in the distance of Yuelong Lake, just like a fairyland on earth, full of quiet and peaceful taste.

Ning Yu walked on the grassland, he did not choose to ride a horse, but a group of people surrounded him, one by one followed with a respectful attitude, waiting for Ning Yu's instructions.

This is not a grassland, but Chuzhou, which is located at the junction of Anhui and Suzhou, less than 100 miles away from Nanjing, so its strategic significance is very important. But for Ning Yu, he came here today not for anything else, but to inspect the Huangzhai Military Horse Farm set up here.

People in the world think that the grassland is in the north, but in fact, there is also a grassland in Chuzhou, that is, Huangzhai grassland, which is still a grassland with a very long history.

In this era and even before, the role of war horses needless to say, so in all dynasties, horse politics is a very important matter for the central court, and the pastures set up everywhere are also very critical, which is an important factor that directly affects the supply of war horses for the army.

Chuzhou Fengshan, the mountain here is not high and steep, the water is full of grass, itself is a very suitable place for war horse feeding and reproduction, so as early as the sixth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, the Ministry of War had ordered the establishment of the official office Taifu Temple in Chuzhou to manage the horses and horses, and large-scale breeding and breeding of war horses in the Huangzhai grassland.

Although after the Jingjing, the Ming Jingshi moved the capital to Beijing and set up the Taifu Temple in Beijing, but the Nanjing Taifu Temple in Chuzhou also remained until the death of the Ming Dynasty.

Among the group of ministers, several of them were blond and blue-eyed Westerners, who were the horse breeding experts and relevant cavalry officers that Ernst had previously invited back from various European countries, and they also wore Ning Chu's red official uniforms, but they looked a little nondescript.

"John, I heard that you have brought a dozen Arabian horses from England this time?"

Ning Yu glanced at the horses in the distance, but did not find the figure of the Arabian horses, most of the horses were still Mongolian horses, so he was a little curious.

After hearing the interpreter translate the Emperor's words, a Westerner with quite big eyes took two steps forward and said respectfully: "Your Majesty the Emperor, I have indeed brought twelve Arabian stallions to the Empire, and these horses will be used as horse breeds to breed war horses suitable for the Empire. ”

When he heard what John said about breeding horse breeds, Ning Yu's heart couldn't help but move, in fact, the improvement of horse breeds was not the first to start by Westerners, and China's current horse breeds have also gone through a long period of improvement.

As early as the Han Dynasty, in order to deal with the threat of the grassland Xiongnu, the Han Dynasty did not hesitate to spend a huge price to improve its horse breed, one of the purposes of the expedition to Dawan, is to obtain Dawan's sweat and blood horse breed, and later got 3,000 sweat and blood horses from Dawan, which had a great impact on the later military horse breeding.

Because all dynasties have attached great importance to horse politics, so the improvement has not stopped, the Tang and Song dynasties have also repeatedly improved the horse breed, and even in the Song Dynasty will also change the official breeding to the people, the implementation of Wang Anshi's "horse protection law", but these methods did not change the horse breed at that time.

Until the Yuan Dynasty, due to the Mongolian domination of the Central Plains, but the horse industry has been vigorously developed, the pasture of the Yuan Dynasty at that time, from the east of Tamluo, to the north of the fire in the bald hemp, and even the west of Gansu Yunnan, have established a large number of horse farms, and even Zhu Yuanzhang's later cavalry, are the selection of the Yuan Court horse farm horses, and Mongolian horses have basically become the main source of war horses in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

However, in addition to Mongolian horses, there are two types of war horses, namely Kazakh horses and Ili horses that were later bred by Kazakh horses, but these two horse breeds are from Xinjiang and are relatively few in number, so the current mainstream war horses are still Mongolian horses.

"John, I put you in the Chuzhou Horse Farm, how much do you know about the current war horses of the empire?" Ning Yu is not the master who directly pats his head, but still wants to listen to the opinions of relevant experts before making a decision.

John glanced lightly at the Mongolian horses on the horse farm, and said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, if you don't say it, I would think that those horses are donkeys used to pull goods." ”

When the translator heard this, his face suddenly changed, and he didn't know whether he should translate or not, but it aroused the curiosity of the ministers next to him.

Ning Yu still knew some English, so he naturally understood the meaning of the Westerner in front of him, and said softly: "John, do you think that these Mongolian horses are not suitable for existing as war horses?" ”

"Your Majesty, the Mongolian horse is a very ancient horse breed, and it has many advantages, such as a strong body, strong limbs, rough and strong physique, tenacious vitality, and will perform very well in the Mongolian steppe - but for your empire, if you want to have a strong heavy cavalry regiment, you can't choose the Mongolian horse, because it is too short."

John said with a serious face, he had no intention of accusing the Mongolian horses of anything, but he understood that the Mongolian horses alone could not train a qualified heavy cavalry.

The cuirassiers that Ning Yu has always wanted are actually the most typical and common heavy cavalry in Europe, they wear steel cuirasses with polished surfaces, and steel helmets decorated with brass on their heads, and the weight of the cuirass alone is as much as 7-8 kilograms, and the war horses of the heavy cavalry require strong and tall bodies, and do not require high speed and agility, but they must have impact.

The height of Mongolian horses is usually only 120~142 cm, and the weight is between 267.7~372 kg.

"Your Majesty, the military horses used in European countries now have been continuously bred, such as the British thoroughbreds, the German Hanoverian horses, and the French Serra France horses, these war horses are much higher than the Mongolian horses in terms of height and weight."

As he spoke, John explained: "War horses like these are usually between 150 cm and 160 cm tall and weigh much higher than the current Mongolian horses, so we also need to use Arabian horses and combine them with Mongolian horses to improve horse breeds suitable for the empire." ”

"John, I see what you mean."

Ning Yu Ning Yu couldn't help but sigh softly, in fact, this problem was not the only one he had encountered, Japan in history had also encountered it, and after the Meiji Restoration, he set off a horse breed improvement movement, but that horse breed improvement had experienced decades of uninterrupted breeding time.

Long before the Meiji Restoration, Japanese horse breeds were usually from Mongolian horses and some local Japanese stallions, such as Misaki horses, Kiso horses, Noma horses, Hokkaido and stallions, Tsushu horses, Yonaguni horses, Miyako horses and other small horses, due to Japan's own conditions, coupled with horse political inaction, so until the Meiji Restoration, Japanese horses were under 100 cm tall, which is shorter than donkeys.

Later, in the early days of the Meiji Restoration, France gave Japan some Arabian horses, but the Meiji court at that time was still using small local horses as military horses, which was too difficult to use, so it decided to improve the local horse breed.

This improvement is ten years, of course, in the course of this ten years, the improvement of Japanese horses is also in place, the average height of registered military horses reached 135 ~ 138 cm, and then in order to further improve the quality of military horses, the Japanese government established a modern horse breeding institution - Mita Breeding Farm, and began to implement the first phase of the horse breed improvement program for a period of 30 years.

The program learned advanced animal husbandry technology from Western European countries, introduced different types of high-quality horses from all over the world, and comprehensively improved Japanese horses, so that by the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, the average height of Japanese military horses had increased to 142 centimeters, and the average weight had reached 329 kilograms, basically surpassing the mainstream military horses in China.

However, even so, in the later Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China, Japan's military horses still had obvious disadvantages with those of Western European countries, and there was still a difference of nearly 20 centimeters in height and nearly 70 kilograms in weight, so that it caused ridicule from all sides.

However, in 1906, the first phase of Japan's horse breed improvement program ended, and the horse political bureau was established, and then the second phase of the horse breed improvement program was launched, which continued for 30 years, and this time a large number of excellent European horse breeds were introduced, so that the height of the improved military horses rose to 160 cm, and the weight was significantly improved.

Therefore, Ning Yuda was a little worried about this decades-long horse breed improvement at every turn, if it really took so long, how could he wait for the improvement of military horses? I can only make do with the current Mongolian horses first.

"Your Majesty, I plan to spend about ten years in China to complete the improvement plan for the crossbreeding of Mongolian horses and Arabian horses." John said seriously, of course he would not have thought that Ning Yu could also think of the improvement of Japanese horse breeds.

In fact, this point is completely a misunderstanding between Ning Yu, the reason why Japanese horses took so long to complete the improvement of horse breeds, on the one hand, the original foundation was too poor, and it had to take longer to make up for the lessons, on the other hand, the Japanese government due to financial constraints, simply could not come up with so much money to improve horse breeds, so it naturally took a long time.

But China is different after all, on the one hand, the original Mongolian horse roots are still there, and on the other hand, Ning Chu is much more generous in terms of funds, so it is completely possible to shorten the time for the improvement of this horse breed by breeding a large number of horse breeds.