The court struggle in the Tang Dynasty is the same as that of herding horses, and it has not stopped since the beginning of the dynasty, of course, the real palace fight is not like the "palace fight drama" that Gao Yue participated in the screenwriting before he crossed, busy with love, tearing and abortion, to put it bluntly, whoever controls the armed forces will win in the end, and those who stand in the way can die regardless of his gege and brother.

Therefore, in the continuous and fierce struggle, the power of the forbidden army (the inner army, defending the palace) is expanding more and more, and the 12 guards of the Southern Ya (foreign army, defending the imperial city) based on the government military system quickly existed in name only, and whoever has the support of the forbidden army can have the last laugh in the pool of blood. The combat effectiveness of the forbidden army of the Tang Dynasty is, of course, based on war horses, and the so-called flying horses and ten thousand horses are also. So gradually, the "war horses" of the twelve guards of the Southern Ya were raised in the "idle stables inside the battle", and from the Empress Wu to the Xuanzong period, the war horses of the forbidden army were raised in the "idle stables outside the battle", and the inside and outside of the battle began to be distinct.

The stables are the places where the royal family feeds horses.

After the forbidden army became strong, the emperor understood that mastering the "idle stables outside the battle" was the key to mastering the forbidden army, and the forbidden army was stationed in the forbidden garden of the palace, so the "idle stables outside the battle" was always located in the palace and was run by the emperor's most trusted henchmen; The "idle stables in the battle" have been neglected, and the place where the horses are kept has been in the "Horse Workshop" outside the palace, which has slowly been reduced to decoration.

That is, the idle stables outside the battle are actually in the palace, and the idle stables inside the battle are outside the palace, so don't be confused by their names.

The reason why Tang Xuanzong, as everyone knows, was able to seize the throne was naturally supported by the Ten Thousand Cavalry Forbidden Army. His affection for the Forbidden Army is unquestionable.

An important manifestation of pampering is to buy a large number of humas and fill them into the "idle stables outside the battle".

Why buy a Huma instead of a national horse that is overseen by Helong?

Xuanzong's superficial explanation was actually a bit cover-up, saying that the number of national horses was insufficient, so he could only buy Huma to replenish it. But if you take it seriously, this reason is untenable, there are still more than 200,000 national horses in Helong in the Kaiyuan period, how can they be enough to supply the forbidden army, right?

In fact, the reason is very simple, after all, Huma is better than the national horse, just like the best horse at the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was still Dawan Horse.

The best horses, of course, should be given to the forbidden army!

How did Xuanzong buy Huma? In addition to using cloth, it was also sent to Liuhu Prefecture (also in the river meander, where most of the people living there are nine surnamed Hu) "empty name farewell", saying that whoever gave 30 horses would be awarded the guerrilla general's farewell, and once asked the messenger to carry 300 farewells to Liuhu Prefecture to change horses, which can be said to be very social, converted into conversion, these 300 farewells can get thousands of horses for nothing! (So Director Chen, you made Emperor Xuanzong so obscene, like the second master who walked birds in Beiping City before the liberation, won't your conscience hurt?) ）

After a few years of buying and cheating, the number of horses in the idle stables in the battle quickly reached tens of thousands, which can really be said to be "strong and strong"!

Then that is to say, the vast majority of the horses in the stables in the forbidden army were Hu horses obtained by the emperor, not the state horses brought by the Helong supervisor. Therefore, the Ma politics of the Tang Dynasty underwent profound changes.

At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, it was the 48th eunuch of Helong of Taifu Temple who herded horses, and the institution in charge of raising horses in the court was the AMTD Bureau.

In the Xuanzong period, it was like this, the 48 eunuchs of Helong in Taifu Temple were still herding horses, and they were in charge of the herdsmen, but most of the national horses raised were supplied to the border army, or sent to the idle stables in the battle to serve as the horses of the Nanya; The Beiya Forbidden Army had its own independent stables outside the battle, and most of the horses used were purchased horses.

As for the AMTD Bureau, it has long been cold.

So what is the job of managing the off-site stables?

The answer is that in the early stage, it was the idle stable envoy, so all the emperors from the Empress Wu to the Xuanzong period all attached importance to the candidates of the idle stable envoy.

But later, it was the "Inner Flying Dragon Envoy", the full name of which was "Inner Flying Dragon Idle Stable Envoy", and later it was directly simplified to the Flying Dragon Envoy.

The name of the envoy of the Inner Flying Dragon Envoy is derived from the "Inner Flying Dragon Stable", which was established by the Empress Wu and is located in the North Xuanwu Gate, also known as the "Forbidden Horse Ji Courtyard". Xuanwu Gate is the place where the forbidden army stays, and the flying dragon stable is the place where they raise their war horses, which are divided into left flying, right flying (flying riding that is, feather forest), left 10,000, right 10,000 (that is, 10,000 riding forbidden army) four leisure, and two stables in the southeast and northwest (that is, the meaning of the forbidden palace).

The Wyvern was served by eunuchs, and as mentioned above, the emperor always wanted the person he trusted most to be in charge of the stables where the forbidden army rode horses.

During the Su and Dynasty periods, the hot eunuchs Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen all served as flying dragon envoys.

If it comes to the later stage of the history of the plane, the eunuch not only monopolizes all the forbidden horses, but also serves as a lieutenant in the Shence Army, and later serves as a privy envoy to enter the "Yanying Summoning Pair", which means that the forbidden army, the ban on horses, and the government are all under the control of the "Beisi" eunuch group, and the abolition of the throne can be completely manipulated, and the so-called "eunuch dictatorship" comes from this (in fact, although the eunuch is autocratic, it will not pose a substantial threat to the imperial power, so I won't talk about it).

After the matter of the idle stable outside the battle is clear, then return to the "Eight Horse Fang" where Gao Yue plays.

Gao Yue said very clearly in the song, Tang Xuanzong bought Huma, but the Forbidden Garden in the capital is such a large place, tens of thousands of horses are there, just tethered breeding is easy to solve, but the horse is to run, it needs a lot of space, after a long time, I feel that the forbidden garden is not enough, plus the horse has to eat a lot of feed, forage, mainly rely on the Gyeonggi local supply in the form of "grass tax", and soon Gyeonggi will be empty.

Xuanzong could only order, one is to send some of the forbidden horses in the idle stables outside the battle to the border army to increase their combat effectiveness, and the other is to ask the Helong supervisor to stop paying tribute to the horses (I can raise Hu Ma enough, don't come to join in the fun), and finally he accepted a solution:

That is, in Fengxiang, Jingzhou, Pizhou, and Ningzhou between Gyeonggi and Helong, eight horse workshops were set up, that is, Baole, Ganlu, Nan Purun, North Purun, Qiyang, Taiping, Yilu, and Anding (some historical materials call it Qima Fang, which is a combination of North and South Purun), with a total of 1,230 hectares of fields, called "Ma Fang Tian" - the crops needed to grow horses, and then send the forbidden horses here to graze and raise, and only leave enough for the forbidden army to ride in the palace.

Therefore, in fact, the shepherd of Helong is to raise horses and send them to the idle stables in the battle, which belongs to the Taifu Temple system.

The Eight Horse Workshop is to accept the forbidden horses sent by the idle stables outside the battle, and it belongs to the idle stable (flying dragon envoy) system.

The two are actually the relationship between well water and river water, the system functions are different, and the location is also different, how could the emperor of the Tang Dynasty hand over the forbidden horse that he had finally obtained to the outer court? Zhang Guan and Li Dai made a mistake when the Song Confucians wrote the book, and this group of most respected scholars in this era was in charge, and they could do a good job in horse politics, and they couldn't even distinguish the basic concepts of the previous dynasty.

After the Anshi Rebellion, both the shepherd and the horse workshop were abolished.

Helong was all lost to Xifan, and the state and county where Bamafang is located have been killed for many years, and no one has the heart to release forbidden horses with peace of mind.

Many of the original horse shop officials and idlers have become horse thieves and are harmful.

At this time, Gao Yue was sparse and wanted to restore the old "Eight Horse Fang" system, but he changed and asked for the "Four Horse Fang" to be restored in places such as Huangyang (Wei Gao) in Longzhou, Purun (Zhang Juji of the Shence Army) in Fengxiang, Lingtai (myself) in Jingzhou, and Yilu Changwucheng (Li Huaiguang) in Pizhou.