However, it has been difficult for the Song and Song dynasties to collect enough horses for border affairs, and the Song Dynasty was unable to breed a large number of horses like the Han and Tang dynasties because at the beginning of its establishment, there were a few fewer northern grasslands for horse grazing than in the heyday of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Therefore, the Song Dynasty spent much more money on horse administration than the Han and Tang dynasties, but it was still difficult to raise enough horses.

In the Song Dynasty, in order to solve the "national horse security problem", the court did not think much more about it than the later generations to solve the energy security problem.

The Song Dynasty's exhaustion of national strength, people's power and imagination in the nationalization of horse breeding was one of the reasons why the Song Empire had fewer and fewer horses.

In the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, and even the Yuan and Ming dynasties, once they paid attention to the country's "horse safety problem" and solemnly engaged in "horse administration," all of them were nationalized ideas, that is, the way of building government-run horse farms on a large scale.

This is understandable, because once the country feels that horses are a strategically scarce commodity, it is natural that it will want to hold all horses firmly in its hands.

The Han and Tang dynasties pursued a market economy dominated by nationalization and allowed the coexistence of multiple property rights systems.

The Han Dynasty invested heavily in the official horse industry, adopted a resigned attitude to the people's horse economy, and even adopted tax exemption to encourage, so under the stimulus of the imperial court's policy, the folk horse breeding and horse love was flourishing, which was unprecedented in Chinese history.

Children understand, don't think that the mixed economy is just the invention and creation of later generations, there was a system of coexistence of state-owned and non-governmental and multiple economies in the Han and Tang dynasties, and Ma Zheng is the most prominent embodiment.

During the Han Dynasty, the demand for horses was not only a national strategic demand, but also a strong private demand, so the whole society not only increased the number of horses unprecedentedly, but also stimulated the enthusiasm for horse breed improvement.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty alone, several large-scale expeditions were made, and the total number of horses requisitioned exceeded one million. The number of civilian horses is also considerable, because the cavalry stationed on the border also mostly uses their own horses.

Therefore, even if the border war often causes tens of thousands of horses to be lost at every turn, it can afford to consume, and the horses in the state-run horse farm are almost consumed, but the total amount of society can be quickly recovered, so although the state-owned horse government declined in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the people can still get horses.

In the Tang Dynasty, because of the importance of horses, began to adopt a policy of suppression and suppression of private horse breeding, and the style of horse breeding in society did not return to the old concept of the Han Dynasty, not to mention the cultivation and improvement of horse breeds.

After a long period of war, the horse species in the Central Plains region have long degraded to the same level as the inferior horses of Mongolia, but the grassland area of the country is vast, and the number of horses owned by the country has reached a historical peak of 700,000.

In the Song Dynasty, at the beginning of the founding of the country, it was surrounded by strong enemies, and until its demise, there was never a chance to breathe.

Therefore, the problem is that despite the attention of the government at all levels and the huge financial investment, it will always fail to produce good horses.

For example, the land is limited, and some horses have to be raised in a scattered manner, so they have engaged in state-owned and private enterprises for a period of time, that is, the country's horses are distributed to the common people as a task to raise on their behalf, because these are scarce strategic resources, so there are preferential policies that can exempt the corresponding labor tax burden, etc., and at the same time there are various tasks and harsh punishment measures.

This kind of forced apportionment by the state-owned and private enterprises has caused some ordinary people who have received this glorious task to abandon their homes and run away.

Of course, those who defend the New Deal like to give examples, but in fact, there were still people who signed up and were willing to take the initiative to claim the official horse.

In the Song Dynasty, there were few places suitable for grazing, but it was not embarrassing to no, the Northern Song Dynasty distributed a total of 14 horse herding supervisors in various places, but in the end there were fewer and fewer horses, and even some cavalry units were only 1/10 of the people with horses, which was not all due to war consumption.

If you want to talk about the loss of war, the loss of the Han and Tang dynasties is much more staggering, and the defeat of Ma Zheng in the Song Dynasty and the complete nationalization are the most important factors.

The Great Song Dynasty was less than the previous dynasty, less than the government-run horse pasture, and the previous generation, especially the Han Dynasty, the folk horse breeding was not in the northern grassland area, but scattered in the agricultural area, after all, the folk small-scale horse breeding, there is no need for a large area of grassland.

In fact, a truly good horse could not have been produced in the steppe at all, only in a settled agrarian society, and only inferior horses could be produced in the prairie.

The Song Dynasty horse politics was not as good as the Tang Dynasty, because the Song people compared with the Tang people, although the system was more perfect and the investment was greater, but it was ruined by the policy changes, so the number of state-owned horses in the Song Dynasty reached a peak of 200,000 during the Zhenzong period, and then the reformers lost power, and the number of horses plummeted.

The problem is that Ma Zheng can't do it because the cost of a state-owned horse at that time was as high as 500 yuan; The price of a horse in the northwest border trade is only 25 yuan, and the more state-owned horse assets, the greater the financial pressure, and the more difficult the life of the ordinary people.

In fact, the Ma politics of the Han and Tang dynasties became more and more difficult to carry out in the later period, which is really easy to understand; Horses are not like the monopoly of salt and iron, which is paid directly by the common people, and it will not be able to sustain itself one day by relying on the imperial court finances alone.

According to the idea of national monopoly, there is no doubt that the two Song Dynasty lacked a large area of pasture in the previous generation, so it was naturally impossible to have a large number of horses, but if you believe in the power of the market, horses are not a problem at all......

Liu Min looked at the natural grassland of Qingshichuan, which was a natural grassland for horse grazing, and analyzed the crux of the failure of the two Song Dynasty horse politics against the Han and Tang Dynasties, and then said to Zhang Jing, who was walking in front: "There is such a decent horse farm in Qingshi County, which is something Liu Min didn't expect!" ”

Liu Min shouted to Zhang Jing as he said and asked, "Brother Zhang, is the Qingshichuan Horse Farm under the management of the Herd Husbandry Department of the Imperial Court!" ”

Zhang Qun saw that Liu Min asked professionally, so he smiled and said, "This kid doesn't know, but according to the older generation; Qingshichuan Horse Farm used to be the horse farm of Hou Shu, and the general Wang Quanbin of the Great Song Dynasty conquered Hou Shu and then collected it into the possession of the imperial court; Qin Feng seems to have said that Wang Quanbin has installed a lot of his cronies in the racecourse! ”

Liu Min was stunned and wanted to ask Wang Quanbin what cronies he had arranged at the Qingshichuan Horse Farm, but the four of them had already walked to the depth of the horse farm; Turn a hill; And he saw an open gate in front of him.

Liu Min and the four of them quickened their pace and walked to the open door, only to see six strong characters engraved on the lintel - "Qingshichuan Horse Husbandry".

Originally, in the Song Dynasty, the department in charge of raising military horses was called Taifu Temple and the Department of Pastoral Husbandry, and the Department of Pastoral Affairs was in charge of more than a dozen horse husbandry supervisors across the country.

There is a small house at the gate of the Qingshichuan Horse Husbandry, and there are several guards sitting in it, and when they saw Liu Min and the four of them coming over, the two guards, one tall and one short, immediately stepped forward to question.

Zhang Jing bluntly pointed at Liu Min, Zhe Yuzhong, and Huo Renfu: "This is General Liu, General Zhe, and General Huo sent by the imperial court, and the three generals have urgent military affairs to report to Lord Qin Fengqin!" ”

Zhang Jing deliberately said that Liu Min and the three of them were imperial court generals who had an urgent military affairs report to supervise Lord Qin Feng, which was completely a bluff of pulling tiger skins to make a big banner.

Liu Min didn't say anything, and wanted to get a few war horses to do his leg strength in this unfamiliar place; You can only use this kind of empty and real tone.

However, it was not too much for Zhang Jing to introduce Liu Min to the two guards of the Qingshichuan Horse Husbandry Prison in the name of the general, because Liu Min was dressed as a woman at this time; Needless to say, Zhen Yuzhong is dressed as a military general, and Grandpa Huo and Zhang Jing are also wrapped in clothes and armor; Liu Min is no exception......