Liu Min, Zhe Yuzhong, and Grandpa Huo came to Qingshichuan under the guidance of Zhang Jing, and sure enough, they saw a wide horse farm in the encirclement of the mountains.

The horse farm is a prairie surrounded by mountains, and the four fields are extremely visible; The horses of all colors came into view.

Zhang Jing, who was walking in front, stopped and pointed his hand forward to Liu Min and the others: "This is the horse herding supervisor of Qingshichuan in the imperial court, and the villain has heard what Qin Jian is talking about; There are thousands of military horses in the horse farm, and there is more than enough to arm a cavalry unit! ”

Liu Min was surprised, surprised that the Great Song Dynasty still had such a place to domesticate war horses; I was very excited.

Liu Min read the history books of all dynasties in later generations, and the powerful Han Dynasty and the prosperous Tang Dynasty both won on Ma Zheng; The Song Dynasty was repeatedly bullied by the Liao, Xia, Jin, and Mongols, which was due to the lack of war horses.

During the Han Dynasty, the border troubles in the north originated from the constant raids of the Xiongnu cavalry; In order to completely eliminate the border troubles, the Han Dynasty launched a mighty war against Hungary since the founding emperor Liu Bang.

It is a pity that the advantages and disadvantages of war horses and cavalry play a great role on the battlefield.

The "Siege of Baideng" was caused in this way, and Liu Bang almost lost his life in the siege of the Xiongnu; Thanks to Chen Ping's tricks, Liu Bang was out of danger.

In order to have a bloody vengeance, the Han Dynasty began to recuperate and recuperate, especially in horse politics.

War horse is a kind of strategic resource, in order to enrich this strategic resource, the Han Dynasty court began a majestic and majestic horse administration.

In addition to the establishment of a special horse administration management agency - Taifu Temple, the imperial court also encouraged the people to raise horses.

Moreover, with the purchase of high-quality horses from the private sector at a high price, there was a rich mass base to have the Han-Hungarian War for more than 300 years; There was always a steady supply of mounts under the crotch of the Han soldiers.

In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, in addition to vigorously raising horses, they also developed horse armor, saddles, and horse pedals, so that riders could free up their hands to hold weapons and kill the enemy; You can also get armor and helmet protection.

The upper echelons of society in the Han Dynasty admired the style of riding and archery, from the royal Shanglin Garden to the folk gatherings; The children of wealthy families are proud to drive Atletico in the limelight.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty relied on this strength to wage war against the Xiongnu in 133 BC, and after several generations of conquest by the Han dynasty until 36 BC, the Han army captured the city of Zhizhidan, and the Xiongnu surrendered and moved away; The deadly threat to the agrarian civilization south of the Great Wall was eliminated.

During the Han-Hungarian War, the Han cavalry was not inferior to the opponent in terms of speed, impact power, carrying force and horsemanship, and the number was more than that of the Xiongnu, thus changing the previous passive situation of riding on foot and responding to speed with slowness.

The Han army had a large cavalry group, and was able to repeatedly attack the Mobei grassland through hundreds of kilometers of water-scarce land outside the Great Wall, which had always been difficult for infantry to cross; In this way, there is an active position of defense and attack.

In 119 BC, Emperor Wu ordered the largest sortie to be carried out, with 140,000 cavalry, hundreds of thousands of infantry and transport personnel, and 100,000 transport horses.

This battle once occupied the central area of the Xiongnu and forced them to flee to the Baikal area, but the Han army also paid a heavy price due to the epidemic and tens of thousands of soldiers and 100,000 dead horses in the battle.

In his later years, when Emperor Wu sent Li Ling to the north, he could only give 5,000 foot soldiers, but he was pursued and destroyed by the Hun cavalry; Horses proved to be a long war and a huge drain, and the Han army had to halt the offensive to restore the economy and replenish the horses.

In order to obtain sweat and blood horses to improve horse breeds, Emperor Wu did not hesitate to send troops thousands of miles to expedition to Dawan, and horse politics has become the top strategic industry at that time.

The Han Dynasty finally defeated the Xiongnu after a hundred years of protracted attrition, which was also a victory for the horse industry supported by superior economic strength.

However, with the continuous development of the economy of the Han Dynasty, the free feudal small peasant economy gradually developed into a local monopoly economy.

Therefore, the horse feeding of the people has gradually been concentrated in the hands of local heroes.

In the early days of the Han Dynasty, due to the authority of the central government and the weakness of the local powers, the central government was still able to effectively control the vicious development of the local powers.

Due to the easy transition of offense and defense in the later stage, the local heroes continue to be strong; It also laid the foundation for the rise of local princes in the early period of the Three Kingdoms.

Local tycoons regard horses as an extremely important strategic resource, and of course they cannot give up feeding.

Therefore, whether it is Cao Wei's expedition to Wuhuan, Shu Han's expedition to Nanban, or Eastern Wu's expedition to Baiyue, the reserve force of military and horse resources has played an irreplaceable key role.

At the end of the Sui Dynasty, when Li Yuan and Jinyang raised troops, Li father and son only had 30,000 soldiers and 1,000 war horses, although the scale of the infantry in the Tang Dynasty in the later conquest became larger and larger, but the cavalry was still very few, and in the second year of Wude, there were a total of 36,700 war horses in the Tang Dynasty, which showed the lack of domestic war horses in the early Tang Dynasty.

Until the third year of Wude, a key figure who influenced the Ma politics of the Tang Dynasty descended to the Tang Dynasty, and this person was Zhang Wansui.

Zhang Wansui Longyou has his own unique method and management system for raising horses.

During Zhang Wansui's tenure, the Tang Dynasty grew rapidly in the whole country, and the Helong area was rich and rich in land and important strategic position, and a large number of horses were migrated, which provided a horse base for the prosperity of horse husbandry in the Helong area.

After years of hard work by Zhang Wansui, by the time Li Jing conquered the Turks in the third year of Zhenguan, the Tang Dynasty war horses were no longer inferior to the Turkic war horses.

Zhang Wansui's Longxi Horse Ranch not only provided more than 100,000 good horses for the Tang Army, but also more than 100,000 horses remained in the horse farm.

After 40 years of development, the number of war horses in the Tang Dynasty has grown from 5,000 in the early Tang Dynasty to 706,000, and the quality of war horses has been unprecedentedly improved, which is also an important reason why the foreign soldiers used in the Zhenguan period must be successful in every battle.

In the eighth year of Zhenguan, Zhang Wansui died, and his disciples Wei Panti and Hu Sizheng managed the Longxi Horse Ranch, and the two faithfully inherited the mantle of Zhang Wansui, so that the Tang Dynasty Ma Zheng could continue to prosper.

Another important reason why Ma Zheng's career flourished in the early Tang Dynasty was Li Shimin's personal hobby.

Li Shimin has five hobbies, namely fierce horses, hard bows, calligraphy, poetry and hunting.

From the age of 16 to the age of 16 following Yun Dingxing to relieve the siege of Yanmen to the age of 46 to conquer Liaodong, he formed an indissoluble bond with horses.

From the Yindian Ji and Yuji when he was in the army in Jinyang to the Feibai in the last years of Zhenguan, there are at least ten war horses he rode in his life, and Li Shimin has a deep affection for these war horses.

Li Shimin loves horses and understands the importance of horses to a country, so he vigorously supports domestic horse politics, promotes horse transfer talents and makes an exception to award official titles.

The superintendent of the imperial history Ma Zhou once protested to Taizong on this matter: the good horses offered by Siyi were directly sent to the Longxi Horse Ranch as stallions.

It was precisely because of Li Shimin's strong support that Ma Zheng of the Tang Dynasty was able to catch up with and surpass the nomads in the north and the western regions in just over a decade.

The Song Dynasty was an unlucky dynasty, first pressed and beaten by the Liao, then looted by the Jin, and finally swept by the Mongols.

From the failure of the first crusade against the Northern Captives to the cliff mountain and the sea, the Song people almost never won a battle with the outside world, and they died completely in military defeat.

In addition to many institutional reasons, one of the most important congenital factors in the military defeat of the Song people is that the Song Dynasty had a huge military deficiency compared to its predecessors, that is, the lack of horses.

You must know that when it comes to financial resources, the Song people are higher than the Han and Tang Dynasties, so I don't know how high it is.

The Han and Tang dynasties also faced military threats from powerful nomadic regimes in the north, but the Han and Tang dynasties were able to fight back in their heyday because of the large number of horses available......