Horses, the foundation of armor, the great use of the country, peace is in the order of respect and humility, and there is a change to help the near and far difficulties.

Whether the war horse is good or not is of great significance to the rise and fall of the country and the tranquility, which is something that the ancients also knew.

Ma Yuan, who has Ma as his surname, knows this even better.

The original horse breed in the Central Plains, due to long-term captivity and driving, its running ability and endurance are greatly reduced, for the cavalry with extremely high speed and endurance requirements, this kind of horse is not ideal.

Therefore, it is very important to introduce war horses with excellent bloodlines to improve the bloodline of war horses.

However, this is not the solution to the problem, and the reason for the difference between horses in the Central Plains and horses in the plateau is the breeding environment of war horses.

There are vast grasslands and plateaus in the north and west of the Central Plains, which are vast and sparsely populated, which is convenient for horses to run and gallop, and the breeding of horses belongs to free-range.

In the Central Plains, due to geographical restrictions, the traditional method of raising horses is captivity, which limits the range of horses' activities.

At first, it was okay, but as the days went by, the effects of free-range and captive breeding on the horses were reflected.

If the custom of captive horses in the Central Plains cannot be changed, then unless the bloodline of the war horse is continuously improved, the advantage of the bloodline improvement will still be lost, and the excellent war horse will still degenerate into a horse.

This is dangerous, because Guo does not guarantee this, or that the Wei Empire does not always guarantee that it will be able to introduce war horses of excellent blood in time to improve the bloodline.

And the number of war horses that can be raised in Bingzhou and Hexi is still limited.

Therefore, Guo decided to take the grassland area occupied by the Western Regions and the region and the Xianbei in the north, occupy it for a long time, and use it as a livestock area in the Central Plains, build a grassland animal husbandry economy, and revitalize this idea.

He wanted to raise livestock in these places, provide meat and dairy products for the Central Plains, and also raise war horses in these places, supplemented by bloodline improvement, so as to completely change the dilemma of the continuous degradation of war horses in the Central Plains.

War horses are tanks in the era of cold weapons, especially after being equipped with the three artifacts of cavalry, with the continuous increase in the number of cavalry in the Wei army system, the examples of cavalry victories continue to appear, which has been continuously proven.

Yu Ban's raid on the Buyeo King City relied on the cavalry equipped with the three artifacts, galloping at high speed, and not even resting, so when the raid on the royal city in one fell swoop, the Buyeo Kingdom did not react at all.

This is especially true of the heavily armored cavalry, which is made of tall horses and strong warriors, although they do not have much actual combat experience on the battlefield, but every time they appear, they will inevitably cause a bloody storm in the enemy's military formation.

And it's really expensive to raise horses in the Central Plains.

Without pasture, war horses can only eat rice, and the land needed to raise a horse can feed thirty to fifty people.

In the end, I'm afraid it's not going to be a horse cannibalistic enclosure movement.

The Song people suffered a big loss for this, and Guo will definitely not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The grassland animal husbandry economic zone must be completed, the grassland must be controlled, the grassland must be turned into a military buffer zone, and a solid defense line must be built for the northern part of the Central Plains.

So Guo handed over this arduous task to Ma Yuan.

Let him know that one of the major tasks of his westward journey is to obtain excellent war horses from Dawan Kingdom, and then bring them back to Wei State to improve the bloodline of war horses.

So Ma Yuan advanced all the way to the western end of the Pamir Plateau, and finally found the country of Dawan.

When they arrived in Dawan Kingdom, Ma Yuan and the others' equipment was already different from when they set off.

In order to better walk in the desert, they exchanged a lot of horses for camels with the merchants of the Western Regions, so the entire caravan was no different from a caravan in the Western Regions except for the war horses.

And the camel is worthy of the title of the ship of the desert, and it is indeed faster, better, and more patient than the horse to move forward in the vast and sparsely populated desert of the Western Regions.

The huge camel caravan carried the weight in the desert and slowly arrived in the country of Dawan.

At this moment, Dawan has long lost the fearless attitude of the ignorant back then.

The past of being ruthlessly cleaned up by the Han army and being bullied by the Shache people made them no longer arrogant, and they expressed a warm welcome in the face of the arrival of the combined caravan of the Wei State.

King Dawan personally met with Ma Yuan, and when he learned that Ma Yuan wanted to buy a sweaty BMW and other excellent Dawan horses, he looked at the hundreds of elite knights who followed behind Ma Yuan, swallowed his saliva, and nodded his head without saying a word.

Not only promised to trade horses, but also promised to carry out a large-scale mutual market with the joint caravan, and then personally set up a banquet to entertain Ma Yuan and other key people in the joint caravan.

The Central Plains products brought by the combined caravan were loved by the Dawan nobles, silk, porcelain, and other handicrafts, and then, unsurprisingly, the iron pot was once again welcomed by them.

Along the way, the iron pot has always become a hot-selling product, so Ma Yuan set the rules.

First raise the price of the iron pot, and then restrict the sale of each place, and only sell a part, so that all subsequent countries in the Western Regions can buy and use it, so as to open up the market and strive for more shares.

After all, the iron pot is not the kind that can't be used at all, and if it does, they will buy it.

Transplant the living customs of the Central Plains to the Western Regions as a whole, complete this moisturizing and silent change, and then do it after completion, they will not feel pain, and then resist violently.

They will be better at accepting this fact.

That's what Guo thinks.

Therefore, Ma Yuan communicated with King Dawan very politely and enthusiastically, and sold him some handicrafts and some luxury goods, King Dawan was very happy and liked it very much, and then he was also very willing to exchange goods with Dawan horses and the combined caravan.

The atmosphere of the talks between the two sides was generally good.

After three rounds of drinking, both parties were happy, Ma Yuan asked King Dawan about his question.

He wanted to know some specific information about the Kushan Empire, which was said to be very close to Dawan and had a lot of contacts.

King Dawan did not hide it, saying that decades ago, Dawan was indeed ruled by Kushan and became a vassal state similar to them.

However, it didn't take long for Dawan to take advantage of the chaos within the Kushan Empire and its subsequent decline, and together with Kangju, Huathornzimo and other countries, he got rid of their fetters and became an independent country.

It was only later that he was unfortunately forced to listen to Shache Guo.

King Dawan didn't say this kind of thing openly, but Ma Yuan could hear it.

The Kushan Kingdom is related to the former Yueshi people, and it is said that the descendants of the Yueshi people destroyed the country established after the Great Xia Kingdom, which once established the country here, and it is said that the territory is thousands of miles in circumference, with a population of millions and an army of more than 200,000.

"More than 200,000 troops?!"

Ma Yuan was surprised.

Guo Peng once explained to him, saying that the Guishan Kingdom is a big country, and the number of troops will not be less, at least not less than 100,000, which is the strength of their attack on the Western Regions back then, but who would have thought that the total strength of the Guishan Kingdom actually reached 200,000.

This is enough to prove that the Kushan country is indeed a big country that cannot be ignored.

However, it seems that this big country is also a little bad now, otherwise according to the number of their troops, the Great Wan Kingdom will not be able to get rid of the fetters and rule no matter what.

But it's also important.

More than 200,000 troops, even if they are heaps of men, are not something that a small number of troops can defeat.

It seems that Guo Peng's judgment is also correct, and it is necessary to establish a stable bilateral cooperative partnership with the Kushan countries, and not to be hostile to each other.

"They used to be very strong, but in the eyes of the recent period of infighting, there is a lot of friction with the country of rest, our country in the north, as well as the country of Kangju, and the country of Huathornzimo, we all resist the country of Kushan, and the country of Kushan has no way to take us, until now."

King Dawan explained what he knew.

Ma Yuan nodded.

"I see, I see...... By the way, do the Kushans welcome business travelers to their country? Is there anything to avoid if you go? ”

Ma Yuan, who is well versed in the principles of following the customs of the countryside, asked.

King Dawan knew that Ma Yuan might be planning to go to the Guishan Kingdom to do business, so he nodded.

"Naturally, it is possible, I can send someone to lead the way, so that the envoy can enter the Kushan country to trade, the Kushan country does not exclude foreign merchants from entering the business, and the people of Anshan can also enter, and it is said that there are merchants from further west who will also do business, anyway, there are a lot of people."

Ma Yuan was very happy and thanked King Dawan.