The armistice treaty signed between the Tang Dynasty and the Tatars was destined to not last long.

The Tang monarchs and ministers knew this, and the Tatars also knew it.

Because of the relationship between the Central Plains Dynasty and the northern grasslands, they have been in a state of mutual hostility for thousands of years!

When one of the sides is strong, it will inevitably start a war, attack the weaker side, and defeat the weaker side to the end, while when both sides are half-hearted, they will maintain a fragile balance of confrontation with each other.

But it's rare for both parties to sit down and make friends calmly.

The war between the Tang Dynasty and the Tatars will inevitably break out, and the timing of the outbreak is either that the Tang Dynasty completes the war and prepares to attack first, or the Tatars completely unify the steppe and then move south.

This is also the reason why many of the requirements of the two sides for the contract are relatively relaxed, and the Tang Dynasty did not care about some small problems, agreed to the mutual market, and even provided a batch of arquebuses.

The Tatars also opened their mouths, promising to supply a large number of horses, even high-quality war horses.

All this, the purpose of both sides is very simple, even the same, that is, to buy time!

At will, when the Tatar envoy and the canonized envoy sent by the Tang Dynasty had just left Jinling City, Li Xuan convened a meeting of the Imperial Army to discuss the strategy of how to deal with the security of the northern border in the next five years.

At the Imperial Army Conference, Li Xuan repeatedly emphasized the importance of cavalry, asked the army to maintain the importance of cavalry development, and put forward a specific plan for the development of cavalry, requiring the army to increase the total size of cavalry to more than 60,000 cavalry in the next five years!

Regarding Li Xuan's personal strategic request for 60,000 cavalry, although most of the army generals felt pressure and difficulties in their hearts, no one dared to say anything in front of Li Xuan that they couldn't do anything, but they all agreed to it.

After all, 60,000 cavalry sounds like a lot, but as long as you work harder, it's not impossible.

At present, the main body of cavalry in the Tang Army is mainly the divisional cavalry regiments in each infantry division and the cavalry battalions in mixed regiments, in addition to the First Cavalry Brigade.

As for the Guards Cavalry Regiment of the Guards, it does not belong to the Army and is not included in the statistics.

According to the existing establishment of the Tang Army, each mixed regiment has a cavalry battalion, but this cavalry battalion is much smaller than the previous cavalry establishment, more precisely, it is actually an expanded cavalry team, and the cavalry battalion has four cavalry platoons directly under its jurisdiction, with about 250 cavalry horses.

Each infantry division should be accompanied by a light cavalry regiment, with about six hundred and eighty cavalry.

The above-mentioned light cavalry was armed with cavalry swords, cavalry guns, and pistols.

Specifically, each cavalry regiment has four cavalry teams, each team has three platoons of cavalry, each platoon of cavalry has two officers, two heralds and two officer guards, and 50 ordinary cavalry, with a standard establishment of 54 cavalry.

The total number of ordinary cavalry under the jurisdiction of each team is the standard 150 cavalry, 8 officers, and 12 heralds and officers' guards, for a total strength of 170.

In addition, each cavalry regiment also has a cavalry artillery team, equipped with four lightweight five-pound guns specially developed for cavalry, and then there are auxiliary units such as baggage teams and horsemen teams.

Therefore, in each light cavalry regiment, although there are only about 680 combat cavalry, with the addition of other auxiliary forces, the total strength can reach more than 800 people, and the horses attached to it are not just more than 600, but almost 1,000.

But there is not a single full-fledged cavalry regiment in the Tang Dynasty at present!

Yes, not a single one!

Because the Tang Army lacked horses, although all the divisional cavalry battalions were reorganized into cavalry regiments, the actual number of cavalry did not increase much, and the state was relatively good, and the few cavalry regiments fighting in the north were only more than 500 combat cavalry, while the cavalry regiments of other divisions were generally only more than 400 cavalry.

Strictly speaking, at present, there are a total of 15 divisions in the entire Tang Dynasty, and 10 mixed regiments belong to large-scale cavalry teams, but in fact, the total number of combat cavalry is only about 10,000 cavalry, and the overall shortage is about 20 percent.

Even with the addition of about 3,000 cavalry cavalry in the 1st Cavalry Brigade, the total number of light cavalry in the whole army is only about 13,000 cavalry!

However, the cavalry strength on the side of the Guards is not weak, and the Guards accepted a large number of horses captured in the Northern Expedition, so that the Guards directly formed a new cavalry regiment, so the size of the Guards cavalry regiment has swelled quite sharply, from the previous four light cavalry teams, expanded to twelve light cavalry teams, and the cavalry scale reached more than 2,000 cavalry.

The expansion of the scale directly led to the formation of the Second Cavalry Regiment of the Guards on the side of the Guards, so now in the seventh year of Xuanping, the Guards Army has two cavalry regiments, each with six light cavalry teams.

However, Li Xuan was a requirement for the army, and it had nothing to do with the Guards, and it was not easy for the army to expand the size of the cavalry to more than 60,000 in just a few years.

The reason why Li Xuan put forward the figure of 60,000 cavalry was because he directly demanded it according to the size of the enemy's cavalry, that is, the Tatars and the Warats.

According to the intelligence of the Military Intelligence Department, if there is a large-scale war with the Tatars, if the Tatars take a defensive position, the Tatars are limited by logistical supply problems, and the total number of cavalry that can be dispatched should be less than 100,000 cavalry, and more likely, about 50,000 or 60,000 cavalry.

But if they take the initiative to attack and go deep into the steppe, then the Tatars, who do not have to worry about logistics and supplies, can even organize about 200,000 cavalry to block their own attack.

One was to attack actively, the other was to defend in the north, and the number of cavalry that the Tatars were able to mobilize was very different.

Because of the former, they can only select a small number of situations to participate in the initiative to attack south, but in the case of the latter, Altan Khan can even recruit adult men from each tribe to carry out defensive operations, and for the nomads who are all soldiers, it is very possible to pull out 200,000 horsemen in the case of defensive operations.

If you want to take the initiative in the northern steppe, start a war, kill the Tatars, or even sweep all the way to the north and west, according to Li Xuan, 50,000 elite cavalry is the lowest number.

In the future, it is best to be able to increase this number to 100,000 or even more than 200,000!

After all, whether it is to the steppes in the north or to Central Asia in the west, in the vast plains, deserts, Gobi deserts and other terrain, the main forces will become cavalry, and the infantry will be reduced to auxiliary forces.

The cavalry expanded the territory in front, and the infantry followed, building cities on the spot, maintaining supply lines, and finally penetrating all the way to the hinterland of the enemy, destroying the country, plundering its wealth, killing its youth, and taking its wives and daughters!

To accomplish such a feat, the Tang Army must have an elite and large number of cavalry!

As for how the army will do it, Li Xuan will not care about it for the time being, anyway, more than 20 million army military expenses are thrown out every year, if these generals can't do it, Li Xuan doesn't mind killing a group, removing a group, and replacing it with another group of generals.

Li Xuan set a goal for the army, and the army was also very embarrassed, 60,000 horsemen in five years, which was not an easy thing to do.

What's more, at present, there is no large-scale horse-producing land on the side of the Tang Dynasty, and the expansion of cavalry requires a large number of war horses.

In the mutual market with the Tatars, the number of war horses that can be bought each year is fixed, just six thousand, not much, not less.

But fortunately, the Tang Dynasty was able to obtain horses not only the Tatars, but also the Warats and the Turpan Khanate, and even the Yarkand Khanate, which was not currently bordering the actual control area of the Tang Dynasty, had also sent caravans to trade horses with the Tang Dynasty.

The northwest region is also an important channel for the Tang Dynasty to obtain horses!

In addition, the Tang Dynasty also began to promote horse breeding in the northern region, not only to establish official horse farms to raise horses, but also to encourage private horse breeding, of course, the Tang Dynasty will not force the people to raise horses like other dynasties like stupid forks.

The Tang Dynasty encouraged the people to raise horses, through official procurement!

At present, the cost of obtaining horses from the northern grasslands and even the northwest region of the Tang Dynasty is very high, and if this cost is directly transferred to domestic procurement, it is enough to encourage some people who are suitable for horse breeding areas to raise horses.

Li Xuan personally ordered the army to develop cavalry, naturally to prepare for war in advance!

But even if you want to fight with the Tatars, it will be a matter of several years, and now, the military strategic focus of the Tang Dynasty is still in the southwest, even if it is Liaodong for a while, it can't be compared.

Some time ago, a war report came from the Liaodong Peninsula, saying that the Liaodong Provisional Regiment directly blitzed the Jinzhou Acropolis by launching a landing, and finally conquered the city, but this matter only made Li Xuan take a look at the map of the Liaodong Peninsula more, and then he didn't continue to pay attention.

In the near future, he only pays attention to the war in Sichuan!

The First Army, the Second Army, and the Fifth Army joined forces to sweep the Huguang region north of the Yangtze River, and successively captured the remaining areas of Anlu Prefecture and Jingzhou Prefecture, De'an Prefecture, Xiangyang Prefecture and other areas.

Subsequently, the Fifth Army began to continue northward, and then entered the Shaanxi region, where it entered Hanzhongfu.

The 1st and 2nd armies were stationed in the east of Padang to make final preparations for Irikawa!

Even the Fourth Infantry Division also came with good news, after many months of hard fighting, the Fourth Infantry Division finally conquered Dali in a new round of offensive launched this year, although it failed to completely annihilate the Mu Wang's department, but it also hit the department hard.

Mu Wang's troops fled in embarrassment with thousands of remnants, and finally fled into the Burmese region, and the Fourth Infantry Division handed over the report just to ask for instructions, whether to continue to chase, and if you chase again, you can enter the territory of Burma!