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Compared with Liu Zeqing and Liu Liangzuo stationed in Fengyang Mansion, Zhu Cihong was more concerned about the issue of war horses.

Since the founding of the country, the Ming Dynasty has always paid attention to the equipment of military horses.

During the Hongwu period, there was a horse administration, and during the Yongle period, he repeatedly conquered Mongolia and obtained a lot of good horses.

After that, the Ming court set up a horse market on the border, bought horses from the Mongols, and horses could also be raised in the Ganshan region, so there was no need to worry too much about the supply of war horses.

But by the end of the Ming Dynasty, all that had changed.

Shaanxi Liukou has been in war for many years, and Ma Zheng has naturally been slackened. The Mongolian tribes, which originally had a good relationship with the Ming Dynasty, were also beaten and subdued by the Manchurians and accepted as followers.

When the Jiashen State changed, half of the Manchu Qing Dynasty fell into the hands of thieves.

At this time, the Ming court completely lost the way to obtain war horses from the northwest.

Although relying on well-equipped infantry and artillery can also compete with cavalry, Zhu Cihong still wants to have a sharp cavalry of his own.

This is why he set up a separate cavalry battalion when he formed the Shence Army.

However, the source of Nanming's war horses is very problematic. Most of the war horses were brought by the military leaders of various towns, such as Gao Jie's department and Huang Degong's department.

Most of the horses belonging to the imperial court were supplied by provinces and even vassal states.

It's not a problem to pick and choose a few hundred or thousands of horses, but it's impossible to make tens of thousands.

Now Zhu Cihong can barely equip the Tiancai Battalion of the Shence Army with enough war horses, but when the army is expanded in the future and more cavalry battalions are added, it will be impossible to rely on the supply of horses.

So Zhu Cihong had to find a way from elsewhere.

It was impossible to get the heads of the towns to pay tribute to the horses. War horses were extremely important strategic materials in the late Ming Dynasty, far more important than soldiers.

Huang Degong and Gao Jie may pay tribute to dozens or hundreds of horses in the face of the Son of Heaven, but it is definitely wishful thinking to let them pay tribute to thousands of war horses at once.

It is also unreliable to buy horses from the Mongols.

Not to mention that after the death of Lin Dan Khan, the Mongol tribes submitted to the Qing court one after another, but it is said that there were really small Mongolian tribes who coveted the high price given by the Southern Ming court to sell horses to the Ming court, and how to bring horses back to the south of the Yangtze River from the north is also a problem.

You must know that these are thousands of horses, and the target is too obvious, as long as it is targeted by people, it is difficult to safely transport it to the south.

If you can't do it in the north, you can only find a way in the south.

Zhu Cihong thought of Dian Ma without hesitation.

The Yunnan horse, also known as the Yunnan horse, is a famous horse breed in Chinese history.

As early as the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, Dian Ma has been seen in the history books. "Huayang National Chronicles, Nanzhong Chronicles" cloud: "The elders rumored that there are divine horses in Dianchi Lake, or Jiaoyan, that is, the birth of horses, commonly known as 'Dianchi Horses', and they travel 500 miles a day. ”

During the Tang and Song dynasties, the "Book of Barbarians" recorded: "The horse went out of the eastern part of Yuezhi Mountain...... The tail is high, especially good at galloping, traveling hundreds of miles a day...... Tengchong and Shen Zhen are also out of the horse, the second is especially good, and Dianchi is especially good. Yiyun in "New Tang Dynasty Book: The Biography of Nanzhao": "There is a recommended grass in the west of Yuezhi, which produces good horses, and is known as 'Yuezhi Jun'." The first birth is like a lamb, in the middle of the year, the fine sha, drink the rice, seven years can be royal, the day gallops hundreds of miles. ”

Fan Chengda of the Song Dynasty recorded in "Guihai Yu Hengzhi": "Dali horse is the most in southwest Tibet. ”

Zhou Qufei's "Lingwai Answer" also said: "All the barbarian horses in the south are out of Dali. ”

In the Yuan Dynasty, "Marco Polo's Travels" recorded: "Yunnan Province and Guangxi high-landed healthy horses, small and healthy, sold in India, but those who should know, people extract two or three of their tendons, so that they can not use the tail to hit their riders." ”

In the Ming Dynasty, the "Nanzhong Magazine" recorded: "The horses in central Yunnan are small and strong, go up the mountains, walk on dangerous paths, although they don't know how to sweat for dozens of miles, in order to grow in the valley." ”

People in the world mistakenly think that the Dian horse is short in stature, so it is not suitable for being a war horse.

In fact, there are countless precedents for the use of Dian horses as war horses in history, and even the Yue Fei Army of the Southern Song Dynasty has a record of using Dian horses.

In fact, although the Dian horse is small in stature, it has great endurance. Maybe the short-distance sprint Dian horse is not as good as the Dawan horse, but the long-distance marching and trekking Dian horse is definitely the best Dawan horse.

There are also many kinds of war horses, some are specially charged, some are used to transport soldiers, and some are used to carry grain and grass for camels, which cannot be generalized.

As far as Dian Ma is concerned, there is no problem at all in traveling eighty or ninety miles a day.

Dian horses can generally breed and reproduce at the age of two to three, and they are fully developed at the age of four.

Broadly speaking, there are three categories of Dian horses.

One of them is the Dali horse.

Dali horses are mainly produced in Heqing, Dali, Jianchuan and other counties in Yunnan. Adult horses of this breed are about 1.1 meters tall and are mainly used as pack horses.

The second is Umunma.

The Umeng horse is produced in the Zhaotong area and is most distributed in the plateau and mountainous areas.

Because of the abundant water and grass in the alpine meadows, the number of Umeng horses is also large, and the average height of adult horses is about one meter. Compared with Dali horses, Wumeng horses can adapt to two different climates of dry and wet in the north and south, and are more suitable for war horses than Dali horses.

The last type is the Tengchong horse, which is also the largest of the three types of Yunnan horses. Generally speaking, an adult Tengchong stallion can reach a height of 1.2 meters. Due to the vast area of grassland in the Tengchong Mountains, the horses are all grazing. Therefore, the wild nature of the horses produced by Tengchong is also the strongest among the three Yunnan horses.

Zhu Cihong has always believed that horses must be grazed and cannot be kept in captivity. Horses that have been bred in captivity have lost their wildness, and it may be okay to be pack horses and pull horses, but it is not qualified to be war horses.

In this way, Tengchong horse is the most suitable type to choose.

In fact, Mongolian horses are also short horses, and the average height of adult horses is about one meter three, which is not much taller than Tengchong horses.

It is only because the Mongolian steppe is too vast that the wildness of the horses can be preserved to the greatest extent, and the endurance and explosiveness are still good.

But even so, the cavalry riding the Mongolian horse was only light cavalry, and the reason for this was that the Mongolian horse had limited load capacity and could not carry too heavy armor.

The reason why heavy cavalry can be formed in Europe is because the horses are tall and have a stronger ability to carry weight.

In this regard, the advantages of the Dian horse are reflected.

Because most of them are born in alpine grasslands, the negative gravity of Yunnan horses is extremely strong, and the negative gravity of adult Yunnan horses can reach 200 catties, and they can even be used as heavy cavalry.

Of course, even the best quality Dian horses could not immediately adapt to marching and fighting, and it was necessary to go through rounds of training to turn the Dian horses into war horses.

Now that Yunnan is still under the rule of Mu Tianbo, Zhu Cihong decided to hand over the purchase of Yunnan horses to this Qianguo Gong.

There is no doubt about this person's loyalty to the Ming Dynasty. In the original history, when Emperor Yongli fled to Burma, Mu Tianbo swore to follow him, and was held hostage by the Burmese army in the difficulty of cursing water, and still killed the enemy with a knife until he died in battle.

Now that the general situation in Nanming is better than the original history, Mu Tianbo will naturally be more loyal to Zhu Cihong, who was succeeded by the crown prince Zhengshuo.

The only problem is that Zhang Xianzhong has already entered Sichuan, and in order to prevent Zhang Xianzhong from entering Yunnan, Mu Tianbo is bound to send a large army to garrison the border of Yunnan and Sichuan.

If Zhu Cihong is not mistaken, the Shamp Rebellion in history happened around this time.

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