The fifty guards who followed Guo Bin south were the most loyal to him, so it didn't take much effort to boost the morale of the army, because as long as Guo Bin gave an order, they could go to the soup. But when he ordered them to take all the food they were carrying out of their blankets and put them in burlap bags, they were still a little confused.

Combined with the strategic objectives of the trip and the form of the battle, everyone had to reduce the weight as much as possible, so in addition to the necessary corn, they also brought dried meat from Yingchuan all the way, and of course, cheese and other high-calorie foods. These things, along with the black beans that were specially used to feed the horses, were packed in sacks and tied to the backs of each pack horse, and each person carried it on his horse.

In order to make it easy to carry, each horse also has a blanket on its buttocks, which is specially used to hold these foods, daily necessities and blades that need to be accessed at all times.

The so-called blanket is a kind of pocket that is open in the middle and holds things at both ends, the big one can be put on the shoulder, and the small one can be hung on the belt, which is a kind of cloth pocket that has been used by the people of our country for a long time in the past. This object is placed behind the horse's butt, which can not only put everyone's trivial items, but also put equipment and food in it, and it will not interfere with the normal riding of the horse's butt, which is very convenient.

Now, before Guo Bin was about to enter the country of Linyi, he asked everyone to take out all the items in the blanket, how could it not make people wonder? It's just that since it is the lord's order, everyone is hesitant in their hearts, and they can only carry it out immediately. Therefore, according to Guo Bin's instructions, everyone took out all the sundries in the blanket and put them in the burlap bag, and then received them in a tent in the camp. Weapons are carried on their bodies according to the requirements of wartime, and the military uniforms of Yangzhai County are equipped with armed belts similar to those of later generations, which are specially used to carry weapons. The camp in this valley will not be demolished, but will be guarded by caravan guides who led Guo Bin and his party all the way south from Yingchuan to Jiaozhou. Not only do these surplus materials that are not conducive to combat need to be placed here, but also the surplus war horses must be left behind.

Everyone is going to go deep into the capital of Zhanren this time, and they are going to work hard, where can they bring any bits and pieces? Besides, there are only fifty people in this line, and if you want to achieve great success, you need to move in and out quickly, and never drag mud and water, otherwise once you fall into it, there will be no way out.

In addition to putting the excess supplies here, Guo Bin also ordered someone to untie and take down the Takahashi saddle. After placing the empty blanket on the horse's back, and tying the two ends of the blanket with ropes to the horse's belly, and fixing it, then tie the Takahashi saddle again. Just when everyone was confused, Guo Bin jumped on the horse, and actually put his two feet in the pockets at both ends of the blanket.

And when everyone put their feet in the blankets in the same way, the whole team was boiling: it was too much effort.

It turned out that Guo Bin realized a very important problem since he learned riding, that is, the development of horse harness at this time was not complete, and it lacked an extremely important component, that is, the stirrup.

Everyone knows that the triangle is a simple but extremely stable shape, and it is the same when a person wants to be stable when he is riding a horse. Later harnesses included bridles, saddles, and whips, and of course stirrups were also attached to the saddle. Among them, the bridle is the main tool for the rider to control the horse, and the rider should use it to control the direction of the horse's progress, and also use it to control the speed of the horse's travel. The main function of a saddle is to help the rider maintain balance on the horse's back. Naturally, the whip was used to drive the war horse.

In Mulan's speech, there is also such a paragraph, the so-called: "The east market buys horses, and the west market buys saddles." The south market buys the bridle head, and the north market buys the long whip. These two sentences are about Mulan's purchase of war horses and related supporting harness when she joined the army. From these two sentences, we can not only see that the army in the time and space where Mulan was located at that time had to bring their own war horses, but also the composition of the harness at that time. Among the harnesses she was to buy were bridles and whips, as well as saddle sheaths. The saddle should be looked at separately, and the so-called saddle refers to the saddle; The sheath refers to something that cushions the saddle.

When ancient humans tamed war horses, the bridle was the first to be invented. Just put a bridle on a horse and you can control it. Because as long as the bridle is on, the horse will not be able to run. It's like a cow's nose ring, it hurts when you strangle it, who will run around? But the bridle of the horse shall be put in the mouth of the horse, and the ring of the ox's nose shall be pierced in the nose.

The history of the development of the saddle is much more complicated.

In the earliest days, people rode on slick horses without saddles. Later, either they felt that their private parts were not very elegant on the horse's back, or in order to increase the comfort of riding, they put a cushion on the horse's back. After all, the back of the horse is the backbone of the horse, and after riding for a long time, it is also panicked. The earliest saddles appeared around the Warring States period, and were made of leather on the outside and wool on the inside. This saddle is very similar to the saddle of the saddle horse warriors unearthed in the terracotta warrior pit of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.

This saddle improves the comfort of riding, relieves the direct friction of man on the horse while riding, and is conducive to the control of the horse by man. If you don't understand it, you can do a test. Then put his girlfriend around his neck and walk two steps in the so-called posture of riding a big horse, and then try to put a pillow on his neck and then ride a big horse, whether it is a rider or a "horse" under the crotch, the comfort has been greatly improved. How can people be like this, let alone livestock? If you ride on a horse's bare back for a long time, can the horse not be irritable?

However, this saddle still does not prevent the horse from sliding on the horse's back during strenuous exercise, and the rider can only maintain balance by clamping the horse's belly firmly with his legs, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of riding a war horse. It is precisely because it is extremely difficult to maintain balance on horseback, and it is impossible to ride a war horse for a long time, so the cavalry method of warfare at this time is nothing more than riding on a horse and shooting arrows.

Don't underestimate this ability to ride and shoot, in the era when there were no stirrups, let go of the hands holding the reins and the neck of the horse, simply balance with your legs in the gallop, and pick up a weapon to attack the enemy, which is undoubtedly an extremely difficult tactical move. Therefore, the cavalry at this time was mostly used for harassment, or to quickly ride to the battlefield and then dismount to fight.

Sun Bin had a very general summary of the cavalry's tactics at this time: "There are ten advantages to using cavalry: one is to meet the enemy; Second, it is said to take advantage of the void and betray the enemy; The third is to chase and scatter the chaos; Fourth, after facing the enemy's attack; Fifth, it is said to cover its food and cut off its military path; Sixth, it is said that it will defeat its Guanjin and send its bridge; Seven said to cover up its unpreparedness, and attack its uninspiring brigade; Eight said to attack its slackness and surprise; Nine said to burn their savings, empty their city; Ten said that they plundered their fields and burdened their children. These ten are also the benefits of cavalry. ”

Among the ten advantages of cavalry warfare, there is never any mention of the so-called charge. And in fact, in the era when heavy cavalry had not yet appeared, a group charge of cavalry could not have appeared.

In the Han Dynasty, either because of the needs of the war to promote the progress of technology, or because of the progress of technology, the situation of the war has changed dramatically, in short, the Takahashi saddle appeared.

The Takahashi saddle is to solve the problem of the rider swaying back and forth when riding a horse, as the original soft saddle gradually developed into a "sheath", the appearance of the hard saddle and even the Takahashi saddle greatly strengthened the stability of people riding on it. Neither a bare back nor a soft soft saddle provides a sense of security in a wooden saddle. The presence of a rigid saddle allows one to grasp the saddle firmly tied to the horse's back while riding, thereby enhancing its stability, and the appearance of the Takahashi saddle is an excellent way to reduce the rider's forward and backward slippage.

It is the reduction of backward and backward sliding that allows the person on the horse to have a certain impact. Therefore, during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Han cavalry who used the saddle of the high bridge could finally gallop across the desert with long riding spears, using strong armor and sharp ring-head knives to beat the Huns to the ground, fully demonstrating the strong economic strength of the unified dynasty of agricultural civilization and the huge military power formed by iron and fire.

In order to kill the enemy more effectively, and in order to better protect those elite Han iron cavalry, the cavalry is naturally more and more sophisticated. Unlike the Huns, who wore fur coats, the Central Plains cavalry had everything from leather armor to iron armor. The negative effect of such a well-equipped cavalry is that the weight of each cavalry increases considerably. While the increase in overall mass did increase the impact force of the charge, it also made the cavalry mount a chore that needed help. As a result, unilateral stirrups appeared, which only helped heavily armed cavalrymen mount their horses when they were mounted, and lost their function when they were mounted, or simply called single stirrups.

In the early years of history, there was some debate in the history community about whether the stirrup was a stirrup, and at this time it was generally accepted that the stirrup was not a real stirrup. However, even if it is a single stirrup, the exact age of its appearance is still inconclusive. However, both in terms of its shape and the method of making it, the single stirrup made a great contribution to the final molding of the stirrup.

Several groups of clay war horse models have been unearthed in Jinpenling, Changsha, Hunan Province, the stirrups of this model are unilateral stirrups on the left or right, and the riders of the terracotta figurines have never put their feet into the stirrups. This tomb is about the second year of Emperor Hui Yongning of the Western Jin Dynasty, that is, in 302 AD. However, in Xiangshan, Nanjing, about 20 years later, the terracotta figurines found in the tomb of Emperor Yongchang of the Jin Yuan Dynasty, that is, in 322 AD, are nearly triangular stirrups with clay sculptures under the saddle on both sides.

In other words, the transition from single-sided stirrups to double-sided stirrups was probably around 300 AD. In other words, in the Three Kingdoms era, which was full of heroes in history, there were probably no bilateral stirrups, whether it was Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, or Lu Bu, Zhao Yun, or Dian Wei and Ma Chao, the war horse they rode was at most a Takahashi saddle, and they had to clamp their buttocks like a patient with hemorrhoids in the anorectal department, and try to maintain balance on the war horse, so that they would not fall off the high-speed galloping war horse.

Author's note: I finally had the opportunity to write down the development process of the harness, which was a promise made to everyone by Qianyang a long time ago. However, this chapter is only a very superficial summary of the history of the development of horse harnesses, and the formation and development of the real stirrup has not been discussed. Qianyang wants to answer a series of questions such as how the bilateral stirrups are gradually formed from the shape and production method of the stirrups, and how the north and south branches converge in the production and design of the stirrups, but the chapters are too short, and the discussion and comparison are too long and boring. If there are really interested partners in this, you can leave a message below, if there are many people, you will open a chapter in the next meeting, of course, at the beginning of the chapter to make it clear in advance, so as not to spend money on students who are not interested in it.

Finally, thank you for your support.

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