Seeing Huang Xie hurriedly go down to give orders, Liu Xun sat on the main seat. Seeing that Huo Guang was also seated, he continued to speak: "Prime Minister, how many Northland knights are there now?" ”

Hearing the Son of Heaven's inquiry, Huo Guang thought for a while and opened his mouth and said: "Your Majesty, the knights of the Northern Land are tested every three years, and according to the regulations of Emperor Xiaowu, the number of full personnel is 20,000, and now there are more than 18,000 registered in the Prime Minister's Mansion. In November this year, he was recruited again to fill the missing quota. ”

During the period of Emperor Xiaowu, the Northland Knight lacked a large number of qualified cavalry and military talents in the war against the Xiongnu. In order to solve this dilemma, Emperor Xiaowu recruited the nobles of Longxi, Tianshui, Anding, Beidi, Shangjun, and Lianghe to choose from the six counties. At the same time, because of the Gaozu Liu Bang's order, the scholars could not be levied if they did not teach. The one selected, the twenty-third year of the people, is positive, and the one year old is the guardian of the palace. At the age of one, he was a knight officer, learning military formations, and practicing the strategy of shooting and driving formations. And because Emperor Taizong started in the Northland, and the annual training is in the Northland County, the knight is named the Northland Knight.

The assessment of the knights of the Northland is very strict, and the most elite young people in the world are selected. After a rigorous assessment, the height cannot be less than seven feet, the body is burly and wonderful, and can operate all the standard equipment of the Han army. Can be literate and martial, you must know that the cavalry of the Western Han Dynasty uses a halberd, an all-round weapon that can be used to peck and peck, this kind of weapon with a head of more than two meters long and a pound is wielded with great power, but because the development of horse harness in the early period of the Western Han Dynasty is not complete, only a few warriors with high martial arts can control it on a horse, and the preliminary condition of the knight of the North is to use it skillfully on a horse.

In the years of war against the Xiongnu, the cavalry became the absolute core of the army, and it was an "all-round player" who could harass and attack infantry at horseback. The Northland knights wore heavy armor, and took the lead in every fateful war in the Han Dynasty, using their own powerful strength to change the direction of the battlefield, and they constituted the sixth lieutenant of the Northern Army, the strongest combat force of the Han army to the outside world.

The Han family has also made great efforts to cultivate this group of war elites, and the annual training cost is tens of millions of yuan, not to mention the distribution and maintenance of equipment. Moreover, the Northland knights have extremely high privileges, and each Northland knight can be exempted from his own family, in addition to his own exemption from the conscription, the three of them can be exempted from the conscription. In the Han Dynasty, even the top aristocratic lieves were only exempted from one person, and their real power in the army was even higher than that of the liehous.

Because the soldiers on the front line know that the few Northland knights they have in their team are important bargaining chips for them to win the war. The officers and soldiers at the bottom are extremely supportive, and the Han army is a gladiatorial arena where the capable can eat all. Even Wei Kang, the sister-in-law of the first generation of military god Wei Qing, was kicked out of the barracks because of incompetence, not to mention others.

Liu Xun heard Huo Guang's accurate answer, thought about it and said: "I, I am grateful for the great achievements of the ancestor Emperor Xiaowu, and I have selected 3,000 knights from the Northland to take a thorough examination in Chang'an. The Queen Mother is imminent, and the knights of the Northland have contributed to the Han family, taking the lead in every battle, carrying forward the past and forging ahead into the future. I am very pleased, and I reward each knight in the north with 500 acres of Hexi, Hetao, and Liaodongtian.