Donghu, for this tribe on the grassland, Zhao Wuxian's only understanding comes from the records of later generations, as well as the words of the documents of the county border newspaper. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

But in fact, this is an ancient ethnic group, distributed in the south of the Xilamulun River (Chifeng), a tributary of the Liao River. The Chifeng region once gave birth to the glorious Hongshan culture and the lower Xiajiadian culture, but in the climate change of 2000 to 1,000 BC, it gradually became no longer suitable for farming, and the dividing line between agriculture and animal husbandry began to appear. As a result, the lower class culture of Xiajiadian was replaced by the upper culture of Xiajiadian, and the way of life of Donghu, an indigenous or foreign people, changed from farming to animal husbandry, and they should have been one of the earliest nomads in East Asia.

From the classics, the Central Plains record of Donghu is also very early, as early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, after calling the Duke to conquer Yan and Hao, there were Donghu tribes who paid tribute to the Zhou Dynasty "Huang Zhen". However, at that time, there was still a mountain Rong between Donghu and Zhuxia, after the northern expedition of Qi Huan Gong broke through the mountain, the Donghu tribe multiplied, and then gradually went south into the hometown of Shanrong, that is, the western Liaoning region, and began to be neighbors with the Yan State.

Although the distribution range is relatively wide, Donghu is still a loosely divided tribe, although the same origin, but their own politics, dozens of tribes scattered in the vast Yan and Dai to the north, and Dai and Tu He are enemies. Before the Zhao clan's battle to destroy the Daiguo, Yu Xi and Yi Dun went to spy on the military situation, and once encountered a small tribe of Donghu, and a conflict broke out.

From those limited information, Zhao Wuxian knew that the Donghu people were typical nomadic people, living on animal husbandry, migrating from water and grass, and had no fixed residence. They used felt tents as houses, and the doors opened to the east towards the sun. They ate meat, drank cheese, and made clothes out of the hair of birds and beasts. They despised the old and valued the young, and almost every boy was able to ride a horse and shoot a bow and shoot birds and animals for food before he was even grown up.

Although Donghu had entered the Bronze Age and was able to forge simple blades and utensils, its system was still very primitive, and the most basic unit was the yiluo, ranging from tens to hundreds of people. The chieftains of the towns are not inherited from generation to generation, and whoever is the most brave and strong and can decide the battles and lawsuits will be elected by the clansmen as the leaders of the towns. Each tribe has its own small chieftain, and dozens of related districts form a tribe to elect a big chief. Therefore, the population of the Donghu tribe is often as high as thousands, relying on blood ties, obeying the orders of the big chief, occupying a grassland of more than 100 miles, and there is a "Outuo Land" between other tribes, and the exchanges are not frequent.

However, when the cattle and sheep of the grassland die of disease, or the water and grass are not fertile enough, dozens of Donghu tribes north of Yanshan will attack the surrounding cities and states in groups, plundering their grain and population, generally concentrated in autumn and winter, and the people of Liaoxi and Liaodong will suffer greatly. Donghu also became a major border trouble of Yan State after Shanjung, and the reason why Yan State was basically a soy sauce existence in the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States was that in addition to its location in the north, it needed to spend a lot of energy to deal with the invasion of the Hu people.

However, the loose tribal organization of Donghu basically raided the eastern part of Yanshan, and it was difficult to pose a threat to the western Daijun, and it can be said that until a decade ago, Donghu and Zhao only traded through a small amount of trade. Zhao Houzhi was in the unification of the Central Plains, and he had little interest in Donghu for the time being, and Donghu was also afraid of the strength of Zhao and did not dare to intrude.

The two sides should have coexisted in peace like this, but a butterfly named Zhao Wuxian slowly flapped its wings in Lu and Jizhou, affecting not only the Central Plains, but also finally swept to the grassland ten years later.

Both by chance and by necessity, in the increasingly frequent exchanges with Daijun, a tribe of Donghu located in the west stole stirrups and saddles from the Zhao people......

The Zhao people's fine armor and sharp weapons, they can't imitate it, but the stirrup saddle is not complicated, you can imitate it at a glance, the copper and iron are not enough, you can use wood and leather instead.

However, at first, these two harnesses were not quickly accepted, and the Donghu people had already experienced a long period of bareback riding, at most there were saddles called "sheaths", and stirrups were also unheard of, at most equipped with foot buckles when children learned to ride horses. Therefore, at the Akayama ancestor worship meeting ten years ago, they ridiculed the leaders of the Yanagabu who were equipped with saddles and stepped on stirrups.

In the face of everyone's ridicule, the leader of this small tribe named Liuhe returned from humiliation, but he relied on these two things to create a miracle.

The high saddle increases the stability of the ride and allows the rider to sit firmly on the horse. The stirrup makes the horse become flat on the ground, and the rider on the horse pedals on the stirrup with a sudden increase in concentration, and his hands can swing freely, which can not only hold the horse pole to lasso, graze, drive the herd, but also open the bow and shoot arrows. For the Donghu people, who are already very skilled in horsemanship, with these two things, they can shoot arrows with bows and arrows on horses, swing spears, and rotate their bodies at large angles, thus greatly improving their combat effectiveness.

In a sense, the nomad got a stirrup saddle, which is tantamount to adding wings to the tiger!

This technological change, which was supposed to take place hundreds of years later, came out ahead of schedule because of Zhao Wuxian, causing a storm on the grassland.

The leader of the Donghuliu River tribe once went to Tuhe County, Daijun, where he saw the majesty of the cavalry of the Zhao State, and he did the same, equipping the stirrup saddle on the horsemen of the tribe. In the winter of that year, when the neighboring tribes were planning to go south to Yanshan to raid again, Liuhe suddenly launched an attack, conquering and annexing the tribe!

This was just the beginning, and the other tribes that had been disdainful of the Liuhe tribe before were taught to be human beings in the following years, which was the beginning of the grassland melee north of Yanshan.

And at this time, the Zhao clan launched a war to eliminate the Wei clan, followed by a big war with Qin, Qi, and Wu, a large number of Daijun cavalry were transferred internally, and the cycle of this southern transfer was very long, and in five or six years, the Daidi was almost empty, and the guards left behind were just sticking to the border of the city, indifferent to what happened at the eastern foot of Yanshan Mountain.

And the conservative and closed Yan State did not realize how much of a threat this unification war that took place within Donghu would bring to itself in the future.

It wasn't until three years ago (484 BC) that Yu Xi finally returned to Daidi with the Daijun cavalry, horses were consumables, and the Central Plains was not like a grassland, with a steady stream of war horses. These five or six years of fierce battles, so that the cavalry suffered heavy losses, more than 1,000 soldiers were killed and wounded, and the horses were simply not enough to fight again, adhering to the national policy of Zhao Hou's "recuperation", Daijun also began to enter a slow recovery period, to wait for the foals to grow up, in order to reproduce the scene of thousands of rides.

At this time, the Liuhe tribe was far from being comparable to the past, and its leader relied on the bonus of stirrups and saddles to sweep north of Yanshan, and he began to set his sights on the Liao River valley, and led his troops to the holy mountain of the Donghu people: Chishan.

As was happening in the Central Plains, it was a bloody annexation, with tribes still resisting in the east, and after the end of the war, there were many more war dead on the green steppes. The custom of Donghu is to respect the death in battle, and Liuhe has people lift the corpse, and along the way they sing and dance, escorting the souls of the dead back to Chishan!

Chishan is also the Chifeng in later generations, which is the place where the Donghu people originated and is also the sacred mountain in the minds of various tribes.

Here, in the name of the conquerors of various tribes, Liuhe sacrificed heaven and earth, sun and moon, stars, mountains and rivers, and declared that the goddess of Chishan had ordered him to be the leader of all Donghu!

"This is what happened last year, Liuhe spent ten years to subdue the Donghu tribes, and called the king of Donghu in Chishan, his country is thousands of miles from east to west, tens of thousands of troops, among which there are more than 10,000 young and strong people who can lead the bow to fight...... In the spring of this year, the grassland at the eastern foot of Yanshan was affected, and Liuhe began to lead the troops to move westward, and now it has entered the north of Yan and Die, and the Tu He and the generation of people grazing on the pasture north of Yanshan were plundered, and the Yan country was also deeply affected. ”

At the end of July of the eighth year of the Marquis of Zhao (481 B.C.), after destroying Zhongshan and turning it into a county, Zhao Wuxian had returned to Yecheng, and Yidun, who was very familiar with the affairs of the grassland, informed him of the latest situation in northern Xinjiang.

Yi Dun originally thought that he needed to explain the threat of a large tribe in detail before Zhao Hou could realize the seriousness of this matter, but unexpectedly, Zhao Wuxian attached more importance to this matter than him.

"The wise see the danger invisible, the wise see the disaster before it sprouts, the widow is busy with the war in the Central Plains, ignoring the land of the raccoon dog, and the fault of the widow is also ...... In the autumn and winter of this year, Donghu will inevitably go south to plunder, and Yan has been in a frequent emergency, if it is left unchecked, Donghu will become a big disaster in the north! ”

He ordered: "After three years of recuperation, the number of horses in the Daijun cavalry has almost recovered, and Yu Xi will lead the Dai, Tu He, and Wuzhi to defeat the Hu who committed the crime!" ”

PS: The second chapter is in the evening