The lack of horses in the Great Song Dynasty has always been accompanied, but Zhao Yu feels that simply blaming the responsibility for the lack of cavalry in the Song Dynasty to "no horse farm" is also one-sided and even unfair, to put it bluntly, it is more like exculpation. Because his most fundamental reason is precisely the attitude of himself, especially the ruling group, towards this.

The historical Western Han Dynasty and the Song Dynasty are strikingly consistent, and there was no horse farm when the country was founded, and its national strength was far inferior to that of the Song Dynasty. However, in order to fight against the Xiongnu, the emperor personally presided over the implementation of "horse politics" throughout the country, and encouraged horse breeding with various policies and even titles. Under this policy, the whole country of the Western Han Dynasty went all out, and it became a common practice for the people to raise horses everywhere. Therefore, in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he accumulated strong strength and made "many horses flooding the market and flooding the mountains".

The Song Dynasty was the opposite, and the Song government, especially the emperor, never encouraged the private sector to raise horses. In order to change the status quo, Song Shenzong carried out the famous Wang Anshi reform, one of the important of which was to try to restore the "horse policy" and encourage the whole people to raise horses. However, it was fully opposed by officials and even the imperial family such as the Empress Dowager and finally miscarried. The reason for this is actually quite simple:

First of all, there is no pasture in the Central Plains, and raising horses must consume a lot of manpower and material resources, especially concentrate feed. At that time, the concentrate feed for horses raised in the Han Dynasty was millet, which was the standard ration of Chinese civilians at that time. If horses are bred in large quantities, the amount of millet needed will be astronomical, and it is very uneconomical to do so; However, the most important thing is that the Song Dynasty has always implemented a policy of 'internal reality and external emptiness', and regarded the prevention of civil strife as the basic national policy of the Song Dynasty. As a result, the Song Dynasty's national defense policy has always been tight at home and loose at the outside, and the main accusation of the officials and troops was to suppress domestic turmoil.

War horses are the most important war resources in ancient times, vital to national defense and even royal rule, the Song Dynasty officials and troops are all infantry, and it is very difficult to fight against cavalry, so they feel that horses must be in the hands of officials and soldiers to sleep peacefully. The implementation of large-scale horse breeding by the people means that a large number of horses will inevitably be controlled by the people, and once a popular rebellion occurs, they will inevitably be turned against the officials and the army, which is absolutely not allowed by the government. Therefore, out of the consideration of 'peace in the world', it is inevitable to make every effort to obstruct the implementation of Ma Zheng.

As a result, the opportunity to enrich the country and strengthen the army was sacrificed, so that the land was lost, and the soldiers died, and it also led to the failure of the entire Wang Anshi reform, including Ma Zheng. So to put it bluntly, Zhao Yu thinks that the Song Dynasty's idea of "emphasizing literature and suppressing martial arts" is still at work, and the lack of horses is more caused by himself, not natural disasters but man-made disasters.

Zhao Hao's idea of breeding war horses should be said to be forced by the situation, after all, the lack of war horses is to give the initiative of the war to the enemy. And the specific implementation still started when the Xing Dynasty moved to Qiongzhou, especially after he saw the dwarf horses in Qiongzhou, this idea was even stronger, and he realized that relying on these horses to fight against the enemy can be said to know the victory without fighting.

In his previous life, Zhao Yu noticed that although the Mongolians claimed to be a horseback people, with the popularization of mechanization, not to mention the city, even the countryside is rare, and good horses have become a luxury, becoming the pets of the rich and zoo exhibits. However, it is nowhere to be found in international equestrian competitions, horse racing and other events, and there are few works bred by Mongolians among the world's famous horses.

And he thinks that the root cause is because the historical Mongols trained horses solely to use them as a tool for production and warfare, unlike European knights who emphasized the social function of horses. The Mongolian horse is far from being a good horse compared to other horse breeds, and even the fastest Mongolian horse is about 30% behind. The Mongols were well aware of this disadvantage, and their solution was to maximize the number of horses.

Even if the horses have less sprint speed and less stamina, they can use the numerical advantage of the horses to recover the quality disadvantage by changing horses. At the same time, the Mongols pursued a minimum in the weight of the horses, their saddles were goose wings, the front was vertical and the back was flat, the stirrups were round, the stirrups were leather, and the leather was poured into the sheep fat to protect from the wind and rain. Generally, it is not more than seven or eight catties, which is convenient for cavalry to gallop on horseback.

After the war, the horses of the Mongolian cavalry had three sources: extracted from herdsmen's homes, supplied by pastures directly under the imperial court, and purchased from the private sector for search and management. Therefore, Mongolian herders have to raise a large number of horses to supply themselves and their neighbors for expeditions, so they are not highly motivated to breed good horse breeds. But just because the Mongols don't work breeding doesn't mean they don't train their horses.

According to the records, Mongolian war horses have the following advantages, "thousands of herds, no neighing", "strong and powerful, supple and sexless, can be cold and long years", "riding hundreds of miles naturally without sweat, so they can endure long distances and fight", simply put, they are hard-working, obedient to orders, and very disciplined, and are the "migrant workers" among horses.

During the battle, the Mongolian horse can also set up a dummy immediately, drag the branches and wood to raise dust, drive out the cattle and sheep to attack the enemy formation, and other actions. They also obeyed the command of strangers, and when the Mongol cavalry attacked, the women and children who stayed behind in the large camp could keep them quiet. Under the command of the cavalry, it can not only complete the flank flank attack, roundabout outflanking and other actions, but also gather and scatter so that the enemy can't scratch his head.

All kinds of advantages make the Mongolian cavalry and the war horse can cooperate tacitly, only rely on the support of the legs during the battle, coupled with a simple password, the change of the center of gravity of the body, and the power transmitted by the waist to the horse's back through the saddle, you can make the war horse accelerate, forward, turn, decelerate and so on A variety of different reactions. Good obedience, hard-working and numerical superiority made the Mongol cavalry invincible.

However, Zhao Yu also knew that in a corner of Qiongzhou, not only could he not achieve large-scale stocking, but at the same time, the embarrassing financial situation did not allow him to establish a large-scale cavalry force, so he could only find another way. He is definitely a layman on how to raise horses, but he knows that the species can be improved by breeding good breeds to avoid inbreeding and the establishment of pedigrees. In order to breed a war horse that surpasses the Mongolian horse in terms of overall quality, take the elite route to gain an advantage on the battlefield.

So Zhao Yu set up a horse breeding farm based on the imperial horse battalion of the Inner Servant Province, and recruited capable people who were good at horses and horse breeding to enrich the team, but limited to the conditions at that time The scale was very small, and the test field was also set up on a river island with abundant water and grass outside the city, and changed the extensive horse grazing method in the past, but the good horses selected through various channels were divided into open breeding, and the mares and stallions were divided into groups, and they were bred through human intervention, and a detailed pedigree was established to avoid inbreeding.

However, due to the limited access to war horses, the impact of the environment and climate, and the limitation of the site, it is difficult to implement large-scale stocking, and the results are not large, but it is not without harvest. Through years of experiments, Zhao Yu first cultivated a scientific research team for breeding war horses, gained experience, and established relevant systems, laying the foundation for future development.

In addition, the test site is not without breeding good horses, this kind of war horse adopts the traditional hybrid method of Central Asian horse and Mongolian horse, combines the advantages of the two horses, improves the sprint speed, and inherits the advantages of Mongolian horse endurance and tolerance to rough food. The height of the horse's shoulders has also reached more than 15 palms, which is more than 1.5 meters in modern times.

According to the evaluation criteria formed over the ages, a shoulder height of 1.5 meters already belongs to the category of high-class horses. For example, the famous emperor Tang Taizong Li Shimin is known for his love of horses, and the "Sa Lu Purple" in his "Zhaoling Six Horses" is about 150 cm to 160 cm according to the restored shoulder height; According to the French Horse Decree in the 19th century, horses of 1.529 m to 1.597 m were used to supply cuirassiers, horses of 1.502 m to 1.543 m were used to supply dragoons, and horses of hussars were 1.434 m to 1.489 m. It can be seen that until modern times, horses with a height of about 1.5 meters are still excellent war horses.

It can be seen that the ancient Chinese war horses are not inferior compared to other regions, and the horse breeds bred by Zhao Hao's imperial horse place are also good breeds, but it is a pity that less than a thousand horses have been obtained after years of hard work, and the huge demand can only be said to be a drop in the bucket, which cannot solve the problem of the century at all. Fortunately, after the recovery of Jiangnan, it was able to turn around, and the channels for obtaining stallions were smoother, and the increase in land also made large-scale breeding possible.

Whenever Zhao Yu won a battle, he paid attention to collecting good horses as stallions. After Jiangnan gradually stabilized, he also obtained good horses through trade, but this road was very difficult, you must know that it took a long time to sail at sea from the sea to Persia, and in the process of trafficking horses were extremely unsuitable, the mortality rate was very high, and there was often no one in ten when it arrived in the Great Song Dynasty, which could not fundamentally solve the current situation of lack of good horses.

The large-scale acquisition of war horses from Central Asia can only be achieved after the large-scale operation of clippers, when the shipping time is shortened, and the survival rate of horses will naturally be greatly improved. However, Zhao Hao was slightly relieved that the maritime horse trade could not alleviate the shortage of horses, but he obtained stallions from the place of origin. After the Yuma Camp moved to Jiangnan, he began to choose a suitable horse farm, and he remembered the Chongming Prefecture he had visited.

Chongming Prefecture is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, near a sandbar in the south of the Yangtze River, although the area is not as large as in later generations, but it also has a radius of hundreds of miles. In addition, the island has a small population, a large area of undeveloped land, abundant water and grass, and rivers criss-cross, suitable for grazing. And this is the area closest to the north-south dividing line in the south of the Yangtze River, which is the closest to the northern climate conditions.

Of course, this place is not perfect, it is across the water from Meng Yuan, it is at the forefront of the confrontation between the two armies, and it is not the best place to be in the security considerations. However, Zhao Yu felt that the advantages of this place outweighed the disadvantages, and it would not occupy arable land, and the first landing brigade was stationed on the island, which was not as dangerous as imagined. So the Yuma camp moved to Chongming Prefecture as a breeding base for stallions......

"Your Majesty is it a temporary rest, or is it a ......" The boat traveled overnight, docked at the Chongming Prefecture wharf, Zheng Yong, the commander of the 1st Marine Brigade, and Yi Jie, the commander of the Royal Horse Battalion, were already waiting at the wharf, and after getting off the boat, Zheng Yong stepped forward to salute and asked.

"I've been away from Beijing for many days, so let's go straight to the racecourse!" Zhao Yu interrupted without waiting for him to finish.

"Your Majesty, please get on the horse!" After hearing this, Yi Jie immediately took a war horse, grabbed the reins, and asked the little emperor to get on the horse.

"Good horse, this is also bred by our horse farm?" Although Zhao Yu is not an expert, he also has some vision, looking at this horse's slender legs, big hooves, pointed ears, no flesh on the head, small belly, short waist, high back hips, black hair, and the most important point is that the nostrils are large, which means that the lung capacity is large, and the body is healthy and good at running. And the horse is also ten palms up at a rough glance, he patted the horse's head and asked with a smile.

"Your Majesty, yes. This horse was bred when he was in Qiongzhou, and he is five years old this year! Yi Jie said.

"Alas, after the horse farm came, I came for the first time, you have worked hard!" Zhao Yu sighed lightly when he heard this.

"Your Majesty, the horse farm is now bigger than in Qiongzhou, I don't know how many times, everyone is looking forward to Your Majesty's coming!" Yi Jie replied with a smile.

"Okay, I'll take a look today!" Zhao Yu took the whip, flicked the reins, grabbed the saddle and flew onto the horse. The most important thing in the horse farm is horses, knowing that the little emperor and his party came by boat, they have already prepared horses, and everyone has also mounted their horses to follow.

"How's this horse?" Although Zhao Hao can ride a horse and has good riding skills, this is still a dangerous sport after all, so everyone is still safe, and the guards in front of him suppress the horse's speed, just let the horse run slowly. This made him very helpless, and he turned his face and asked Zhao Mengjindao, who followed closely.

"Your Majesty, these horses are really good, they are authentic riding breeds!" Zhao Mengjin heard the emperor's question, and replied loudly as soon as he lifted the reins of the horse. But he did not dare to go with the horse, but was a head behind. He had been in the army for nearly thirty years, and naturally knew the good and bad of horses, which were tall and strong, with long necks and smooth legs, and a keen response to the reins, which felt very good.

"It's a pity that there are too few good horses, and it is still difficult to meet the needs of the military!" Zhao Yu said helplessly. He knew that in ancient times, the numerical size of the army was an important indicator. If the cavalry wants to play a leading and decisive role in the war, it must form a strong heavy group. The nomadic people are all soldiers and have plenty of horses, and they must be crippled by a heavy army against such a strong enemy. The reason why the Han and Tang dynasties were able to deal a decisive blow to the Xiongnu and the Turks was because they had hundreds of thousands or even more cavalry groups, and the breeding of horse farms alone was still far from quenching their thirst.

"What Your Majesty said is that the two armies are fighting, the war horses are very expensive, and after a big battle, there are often five or six out of ten casualties, and the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains is imminent, and all departments are suffering from a shortage of horses!" Zhao Mengjin thought it was authentic.

He knew that when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty attacked the Xiongnu in the battle of Mobei alone, he used more than 100,000 regular cavalry alone, as well as a large number of horses, camels and 300,000 infantry for logistical support; Tang Taizong's extermination of the Eastern Turks, as well as a series of subsequent expeditions of the Tang Dynasty to the west, used hundreds of thousands of cavalry, and countless horses and livestock for logistical support. This is absolutely impossible for them to compare with at the moment, but in the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains, they have to face the enemy's large-scale cavalry, and the lack of horses has become an unavoidable hurdle......