Since the founding of the empire, in order to show the new atmosphere of the empire, the government has led the abolition of many bad habits in the past, such as kneeling and bowing, prohibiting officials from riding in human-powered sedan chairs, and advocating the promotion of animal-powered vehicles.

Although the cost of the government's use of animal-powered vehicles, especially horse-drawn carriages, is more expensive than that of ordinary human-powered cars, it does not increase the administrative cost of the government much, and at the same time can also drive some economic development.

For example, the carriage manufacturing industry, to know that the modern carriage manufacturing industry, in fact, is the modern automobile industry, but also belongs to a major classification of industry, although the contemporary carriage industry can not have the same huge energy as the automobile industry in later generations, but the output value is not small, and there are more employees.

Although many horse-drawn carriages in China are produced in some small handicraft workshops, and even some people can make their own, but the industry has developed from small workshops, and then to large workshops, and then to large factories with centralized production.

Now the imperial officials have taken the lead in using horse-drawn carriages, and the people have gradually begun to accept this kind of atmosphere, after all, there are good things at the top, and there are some votes at the bottom, those businessmen want to be better local officials, and they can't always be officials can only sit in carriages, but you make a four-lifted, eight-lift sedan chair, doesn't this mean that you are more awesome than the official master? I don't want to mix it up in the future.

However, this kind of atmosphere is generally limited to the official and high society for the time being, and in some remote areas, especially in places where road traffic is not convenient, there are still many manpower sedan chairs, well, some traditional ceremonies still use sedan chairs, such as the sedan chair that the bride rides in weddings.

At the same time, the promotion of horse-drawn carriages will not only drive the development of the horse-drawn carriage manufacturing industry. It will also increase the market demand for horses, mules, etc. You may say that there are not many horses in the country, so it will not be enough.

But the empire was not the Southern Song Dynasty. The sources of horses are actually quite extensive, and when the price of livestock is high, herders and even ordinary farmers will see that it is profitable, so they will raise more livestock, which can also increase some additional income for farmers.

And allowing the private sector to breed more horses has always been a government affairs vigorously promoted by the government and the military.

In recent years, the empire has bred several new horses, which have greatly improved the quality of horses in China, and the Jurong horse and the Yihe horse are among the best.

In order to improve the quality of horses throughout the country, it was necessary to increase the number of horses that could be recruited from the civilian population in times of war, and that were of sufficient quality. The military's Animal Husbandry Department and Cavalry Department and other departments jointly promoted these two types of horses throughout the country, rather than being limited to the military's several horse farms, as is the case now.

In order to make them enthusiastic about introducing and breeding new horses, the military has not only opened up more places for the purchase of military horses, but also increased the purchase price of high-quality military horses.

At the same time, in order to ensure the quality of military horses, especially the quality of cavalry horses, the military has repeatedly raised the standards of military horses. The shoulder height of the cavalry riding horse has been directly increased from 1.3 meters in the past to 1.35 meters, and that's it. That's enough to knock out most of the dwarf original Mongolian horses.

This 1.35 meters is still the standard for ordinary cavalry horses, while in the Guards, the standard for riding horses is even stricter. The shoulder height should be at least one and a half meters, in fact, this standard is formulated according to Jurong Malai.

The Guards were subordinate to three divisions. That is to say, there are three divisional cavalry regiments, and one of the cavalry regiments has been fully equipped with Jurong horses. Next, the Guards will plan to replace the other two cavalry regiments with Jurong horses.

However, Jurong horses are expensive and the cost of feeding is high, and they are destined to be unacceptable to the Royal Army on a large scale.

There are only three cavalry regiments in a Guards, and there are only more than 2,000 cavalry, and there are only a few thousand horses for officers, but the scale of the army is too large, and the scale of the cavalry is even larger.

The ratio of cavalry to the total number of armies in the Royal Army was about ten to one, and the cavalry of the independent cavalry and infantry divisions combined amounted to about 70,000 cavalry.

However, it is worth noting that the Royal Army does not only have an army, but also has a large number of garrison troops, and in the northern, northwest and northeast provinces such as Mongolia, Wutai, Zhili, Xinjiang, Kokand, and Northeast Provinces, its garrison force contains a large number of garrison cavalry, and with the passage of time, the proportion of cavalry in the garrison of these northern provinces is gradually increasing.

At present, there are more than 10,000 cavalry in the garrison, and the military aims to increase it to 18,000 cavalry.

The cavalry of the army and the garrison combined, that is nearly 90,000 cavalry!

At the same time, there are many officers in the army who use horses to ride, and if this is calculated, the huge army needs at least 100,000 horses to ride and start with.

It is naturally impossible for so many horses to use Jurong horses, which is not a problem that they are expensive and cannot be raised, but the breeding number of Jurong horses is not very large, and it has only been ten years of hard work to breed so many thousands, which is far inferior to the Yihe horse.

The future main force of the military is the Yi hippopotamus!

In addition, the hippopotamus is a dual-riding type, some horses may be more inclined to ride, and some are biased towards harnessing, and the ride of 50 kilometers is about 1 hour and 45 minutes, and 100 kilometers is 7 hours and 30 minutes. For packing, a four-wheeled carriage with a load of 1,000 kilograms travels 20 kilometers on dirt roads, and the maximum speed is just over an hour. If you travel about 35 kilometers for eight hours a day, you can stay in this state for three to four days.

In other words, two Yi hippos can pull a cannon of about a ton to maintain a high-speed march for three to four days, a distance of about one hundred and twenty kilometers.

This kind of speed, endurance and pull power are rare among all kinds of horses in the world.

The quality of Yi Hippo is very comprehensive in all aspects, if you have to talk about the shortcomings, that is, it is not as good as a tall and mighty horse like Jurong Horse in terms of riding explosiveness, but in terms of piggyback, it is a complete Jurong horse, well, as for the Mongolian horse, this kind of small man is even more incomparable.

A standard six-twelve-pounder forward-loading artillery battery requires about 150 Mongolian horses from the original breed, while only 120 with Yi hippos are needed.

The combination of all aspects of quality makes the Yihe horse the first choice of the military, and the military not only needs more than 100,000 riding horses, but also needs at least 150,000 service horses.

In these years, the army's artillery maneuver, logistics and transportation can basically only rely on animal power, well, this mode of maneuver is mule and horse in military terminology.

From ancient times until World War I, the world's armies were all mules and horses, and even after World War II, the armies of many major countries were still mules and horses.

It can be seen from this that horses are very important to the development of contemporary military affairs, so it is not difficult to imagine why the military will make great efforts to promote the Yi hippo, and even build its own horse farm within the military is not enough, but also want to promote the Yi hippo to the domestic people.

Because in the event of a large-scale war, the number of horses that rely on the military is seriously insufficient, and when the time comes, it is inevitable that civilian horses will be conscripted on a large scale, and if it is a war like the First World War, at least more than one million war horses will have to be conscripted to barely be enough, and if the stock of horses is abundant, two or three million horses can be consumed.

And such a huge number of horses is beyond the supply of several internal horse farms of the military, and only by relying on the private sector to raise horses can we ensure that so many horses can be recruited at that time.

Why is it said that during the war, there was a large-scale conscription of supplementary military horses?

Because the number of horses that the military actually keeps in peacetime is not too much, mainly cavalry and officers' horses, if it is artillery, baggage and other troops, in fact, the number of peacetime horses is not much, only a small number of combat units deployed in the border areas will keep full service horses.

Generally speaking, in times of war, a large number of service horses will be replenished after the mobilization of troops.

Why doesn't the army keep a large number of service horses in peacetime? It's not that I can't afford it, it's that I can't afford it.

Generally speaking, the breeding standard of military horses is relatively high, to what extent? The money for a year can basically buy three identical horses, relatively speaking, raising soldiers is much more expensive than raising horses.

Therefore, even the military with deep pockets is actually difficult to keep a large number of service horses in peacetime, but there is no way to use the cavalry's riding horses, because the cavalry horses have to go through a long period of intensive training, and it is difficult for the temporarily recruited horses to exert their combat effectiveness.

The military's huge demand for horses, to be precise, the demand for domestic horse stock, has also prompted the general attention to horse politics in China, and improving horse breeds is only the most basic, and more importantly, increasing the stock of horses in the domestic civilian sector.

The initial requirement of the military was that in wartime, the military should be able to recruit at least 500,000 qualified military horses, in the medium term it was required to recruit at least 1 million military horses, and in the later period, only 2 million military horses could be ensured.

Don't think it's a lot, look at the First World War, the British army with a big fart recruited 1.5 million military horses, and the France next door was even more awesome, they recruited 1.8 million military horses.

And the size of the army is destined to far exceed the imperial army of Britain, France and other European countries, even if the proportion of military horses is less at that time, but it can't be too outrageous, at least millions of war horses must be guaranteed!

Otherwise, how can it be called a world-strong army!

During the Great War, without millions of military horses, you are embarrassed to say that you are the army of the great powers, or play in the mud with those second- and third-rate small armies! (To be continued.) )