Although Ajige, the eldest princess of Gulun Jianning, who is only thirteen years old this year, grew up in the Qing Palace, she inherited a lot of sports cells from her father Huang Taiji and her biological mother from the Mongolian Qilei Department. Now wearing a gorgeous Mongolian women's costume and riding a tall and handsome Tianzhu folded ear horse, walking in the team of sending relatives, it is indeed very outstanding.

I don't know if it's because she is about to marry the emperor or if she got a good horse that she has never seen in the Qing court (it was given to her by Zhu Cihong when she crossed the Huai River), Princess Jianning looked very cheerful all the way, and she also talked and laughed with her cousin Fuguo Gong Ban Bu Shan.

This year's 36-year-old Aixin Jueluo. Bambulshan is the son of Nurhachi's concubine Tabai, after his father's death, he only attacked a third-class Fengguo general, and later climbed up the first level with his military merits for several years, and only climbed to the position of auxiliary prince two years ago. At the time of Dorgon's death, he was Sukh Saha's lieutenant and was serving in the forward battalion in Beijing, so he did not participate in the Battle of Jieshi Mountain.

Later, when the Zhengbai Banner people in the Guannai were transferred to Guanwai by Duoduo, he and Suke Saha both stayed in Beijing to continue to be responsible for training the new army because of Bumu Butai's retention, and they also served as the ministers of the guards together (there were six ministers in the Qing Dynasty), so this time they sent a minister to send their relatives.

He is not as cheerful as his little cousin Ajig, when he first went on the road, a 36-year-old uncle and a 13-year-old beautiful little cousin talked and laughed all the way, what else was unpleasant? And Ajige's personality is very lively, and he is a little silly and cute, which is still quite likable.

But when Ban Bushan entered the territory of Xuzhou, that is, the territory of the Ming Dynasty, his mood was immediately not good.

Because he first saw the very strong embankment of the Yellow River - the embankment in Xuzhou is simply the sky and the underground compared with the embankment in Guidefu!

The former is solid, and the latter is tattered.

Then Bamburshan saw the new Xuzhou Castle, which had been occupied by He Luohui's troops a few years ago, and now has a golden soup! The structure of the large fortress formed by the combination of masonry and sand is very complex, the outer wall and the moat are curved......

However, what frightened Bambur the most was that when he crossed the Huai River into Jiangbei Province, Zhu Cihong ordered someone to give Princess Ajige a gift - a castrated Tianzhu folded ear horse!

This horse is five feet three inches tall at the shoulder! And the chest is broad, the waist is round, the legs are muscular, and the saddle ridge is strong and powerful. You don't need to be proficient in the art of Soma to see that this is a rare good horse!

And such a rare good horse actually appeared in front of Bamburshan's eyes in groups!

In addition to the Tianzhu folded ear horse presented to Ajige, there was also a team of Xiaoling guard cuirassier cavalry who came to guard the honor guard, and everyone actually rode a folded ear horse with a shoulder height of five feet and three inches......

The so-called Mongolian good horses under Bamburshan's crotch are about to become donkeys compared to others!

By the way, the cavalry of the Ming army not only had horses, but also mules with a mixture of donkeys and horses, all of which were configured with one person, one horse and one mule. Usually they march on mules to save horsepower.

"Minister of the Interior, there is the Chu River in front, and after crossing the river, it is the ground of the Laoshan Palace."

The one who spoke was Sun Fugui, the commander of the new army of Xiaoling Wei, who used to follow Zhu Cihong in Beijing, but now he has grown into the commander of the first division of the Ming army, and his official rank has also been promoted to the commander of the envoy, and there is also a knighthood of the Earl of Kenan Pingbei.

Emperor Zhu didn't pay much attention to Princess Jianning, and he personally greeted him when he got married in Donggu last time. And this time, he sent Sun Fugui and Hou Fangyu, the waiter of the Ministry of Rites, to Huai'an to greet them.

And in order to demonstrate to the Northern Qing, he also asked Sun Fugui to bring a battalion of cuirassier lancers - although the Prince of Kong did not advocate that the Southern Ming Dynasty invest in the construction of expensive traditional cavalry, but Emperor Zhu had already spent a lot of money to establish a horse farm for breeding Folded Ear horses and Arabian horses, and it was impossible to give up.

So Emperor Zhu ordered the establishment of a shock cavalry, the wall impact will not be, where is it so easy to practice? It is a cluster shock in platoon or company. And the number is not much, that is, a battalion of cuirassiers is allocated to the Xiaolingwei New Army Division and the Army Guards Division, and the total number is only 1000. This time, Sun Fugui took 500 horses to Huai'an to set up music, Princess Jianning looked happy (the folded ear horse looks cute), but Bamburshan had a feeling that a catastrophe was coming..... I didn't even hear Sun Fugui's shouting.

Seeing that Bambulshan was distracted, Hou Fangyu, who was riding a horse to his left, also raised his voice and said, "Send the envoy, the old mountain palace has arrived!" ”

"Arrived?" Bambulshan was stunned for a moment, and looked up, only to see that about two miles ahead was the river embankment, and a wooden fence could be seen standing on the other side of the river.

"The old mountain palace on the other side?" Bambulshan craned his neck and looked, "I didn't see it!" ”

"Of course I can't see it, the old mountain palace is still more than 20 miles away from here!" Hou Fangyu smiled, "We are now outside the Laoshan Racecourse, and after crossing the Chuhe River, it will be the racecourse......

"The horse farm, is it a horse farm for folding horses?" Princess Ajig's voice rang out like a silver bell.

"Yes," replied Hou Fangyu, "this horse farm is divided into three parts, one part is for Folded horses, one part is for Arabian horses, and some is for Perche oceanic horses, which were introduced from France. ”

"Why three parts?" Ajig asked, "Isn't it good to keep them together?" ”

"Princess," said Bambleshan, "it is easy to breed together, and this good horse pays attention to the breed...... This knowledge is great, and the minions don't understand it very well. ”

Hou Fangyu said: "This is not bad, raising horses is indeed a university question!" Fortunately, when the European mission came back the year before last, we brought some Ottoman horse breeders, all of whom were good hands, and all of them were retained, and now they are in charge of the old mountain horse farm. ”

In fact, before the Song Dynasty, China's native horse breeding technology was not bad, and the introduction of Persian horse breeds was also able to raise good horses.

But later, due to Confucian ethics and morality, inbreeding was gradually banned, and breeding was no longer necessary...... Without breeding, raising horses is a matter of "probability" - the proportion of good horses in the herd is just that, and the more horses, the more good horses. And to equip tens of thousands of cavalry with good horses, don't even think about it without a base of several million.

Therefore, if you can't control the steppe, you won't be able to raise strong cavalry.

At this time, the send-off procession had already entered the boundary of the old mountain horse farm, marching in the passage separated by two wooden fences. Through the wooden fence, you can see a large pasture and the grazing horses on the pasture, with folded ears on one side and Arabian horses on the other, all of which are foals that have not grown up, and they are looked after by special people.

The ponies were very curious, and when they saw people passing by, they all gathered around the fence to watch the excitement, and Aggig, seeing that they were cute, giggled and rode forward, trying to amuse the foals.

"Your Highness," Sun Fugui hurriedly said when he saw it, "It's not too early, we have to hurry up...... And you will live in the old mountain palace in the future, and you can often come to the horse farm to play. ”

"Live in the Old Mountain Palace?" Ajige seemed a little unhappy, "Why not in Nanjing City?" I can hear that Nanjing is fun. ”

Hou Fangyu took over the topic with a smile: "Your Highness, no matter how prosperous Nanjing is, it is also a family in the market, you are the imperial concubine, how honorable?" Of course, it has to be in the deep palace. Nanjing's palaces are two or three hundred years old, no matter how to repair and renovate, that's it, where can it compare with the newly built old mountain palace? Moreover, there is not only one palace in the old mountain palace, but there are palaces, hot springs, towns, hunting grounds, horse farms, and castles...... It can be said that it has everything and has its own pattern. ”