With great emotion, he sighed melancholy, and Liu She didn't forget to stretch out his hand and make a 'please' gesture, leading Liu Sheng to the old tree outside the Shaofu workshop.

Inviting Liu Sheng to sit down on the boulder under the root of the tree, Liu Shecai put his hands behind his back, stood beside the old tree, looked into the distance at Liu Sheng, and let out a long sigh.

"Since Emperor Taizu Gao established the Han Dynasty, and the battle between the Han and Hun Pingcheng, the Xiongnu have always been a big trouble for my Han family."

"And the war horses obtained by the Taifu Ma and the cavalry formed from these war horses are the indispensable combat force for the decisive battle against the Xiongnu."

"Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the progress of Taifu Ma Zheng is actually directly related to the decisive battle between Han and Hungary, whether it is fleeting or unattainable."

"——If Ma Zheng is unimpeded, the horses are abundant, and the cavalry is clustered, then the decisive battle between Han and Hungary is not far away;"

"However, if Ma Zheng has twists and turns, costing a lot of people, money, and materials, but he can't wait for the harvest, then the Han-Hun decisive battle will ······."

···

"Alas~"

"Such a simple truth, of course, the Huns also understand."

"Of course, the Huns understand: the reason why my Han family has to swallow their anger and repeatedly make peace with Yiyi Hu is not really weaker than the Huns, but just that the Huns are riding Hu, so that my Han family is helpless for the time being."

"For my Han family, forming a cavalry army means that there is no need to be false to the Huns;"

"On the contrary, for the Huns, preventing our Han family from forming a cavalry army can ensure that our Han family will never be able to defeat the Huns' army in the front."

"Therefore, the Huns have set their sights on the horse gardens set up one after another by the two generations of emperors of the first emperor and His Majesty in the north, and the two generations of emperors have been frugal for decades."

"Its plan is to prevent my Han family from raising war horses and forming a cavalry army, and by the way, to plunder those horses······"

Speaking of this, Liu She couldn't help but shake his head and sigh bitterly, and his brows, which were still quite stretched, also quietly wrinkled in this short moment;

Turning sideways slightly, he looked at Liu Sheng, who was sitting on the big stone, and stared thoughtfully for a while;

In the end, he lowered his head with a wry smile, took two steps forward, and sat down on the stone not far in front of Liu Sheng.

"Yanmen Garden is Emperor Xiaowen of the First Taizong, and it is also the first horse garden set up by my Han family in the north."

"——In the third year before Emperor Taizong, the first emperor wanted to fight a decisive battle against the Xiongnu, but was disrupted by the rebellion of Liu Xingju, the king of Jibei;"

"The following year, that is, the fourth year before Emperor Taizong, Shaofu was ordered to allocate 150 million yuan, 500,000 stones of grain and grass, plus all kinds of things to the servants, to set up Yanmen Garden."

"In order to buy stallions and mares needed to raise horses, Shi Tai's servant: Ruyin Hou Teng Gong Xia Hou Ying, can be described as racking his brains."

"In the end, I got in touch with the king of Donghu outside the Saiwai, that is, the tribe of the Hou Lu clan of Chang'an, and paid a lot of money to finally get the first batch of horse ······."

···

"From the original seventeen stallions and hundreds of mares, to the time when the first emperor died and His Majesty succeeded to the throne, Yanmen Yuan already had hundreds of stallions and thousands of mares;"

"And since the first year of Your Majesty, Yanmen Yuan has begun to have the ability to stably slaughter hundreds of useful war horses every year."

"At the end of last year, the Huns went south to loot, and the more than 20 years of hard work invested by the first emperor in Yanmen Garden, tens of thousands of dollars allocated by Shaofu, and even tens of thousands of dollars, millions of stones, grains and grass, were all in vain."

"The first horse garden of my Han family to enter the 'harvest' stage has also returned to zero······"

Listening to Liu She's almost desolate, as if he had lost a child in his later years, he described to himself the significance of Yanmen Garden to the Han family, even if he had been mentally prepared, Liu Sheng couldn't help but be silent for a while.

Yanmen Garden is the first emperor, and it is also the first court of the Han family, and the horse garden built for the sole purpose of raising war horses, Liu Sheng naturally knew about it.

It's just that even so, even if he thought that he had thought of the worst result, Liu Sheng didn't expect it at all: a mere Yanmen Garden, a horse garden that produces only 100 war horses every year, actually cost the Han family so much effort······

"Since the fourth year of the first emperor, it has been more than 20 years;"

"From the initial 150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00

"The manpower and material resources spent during this period, the painstaking effort spent on purchasing, raising horses, and cultivating horse breeds······"

···

"Whew~"

"Twenty years, at least 100,000 yuan of investment, in exchange for a Yanmen Garden that slaughters 100 war horses a year;"

"As a result, as soon as the war horses were slaughtered, they were destroyed by the Huns······"

In a deep voice, Liu Sheng's already unclear expression suddenly sank a little more.

If it is said that food and money are the lifeline of the people and the core key to the internal governance of the Han family, then Ma Zheng is undoubtedly the core of the military construction of the Han family today.

- Now the main, and even the only external enemy of the Han Dynasty, is the Xiongnu.

And Ma Zheng is to the Huns, just like the big mushroom in later generations is to the eagle - with it, you can straighten your waist and not be afraid of threats.

But now the Ma Zheng of the Han family, as Liu She said: difficulties and obstacles emerge one after another······

The reason couldn't be simpler;

If you want to develop horse politics, that is, to raise military war horses for strategic purposes, the first condition is actually a wide enough horse breeding land and a stable source of horses.

To put it bluntly, there must be a way to obtain stallions and equip a place to keep horses.

At this stage, the best horse breeding land in Chinese civilization has only been mentioned by Liu She several times, and every time he mentions it, he can't help but shake his head and lament the land of Henan: Hetao.

In the Qin period, the Hetao area actually belonged to the Chinese civilization.

Relying on the pearl of the Hetao, Ying Qin never worried about war horses or even all kinds of livestock during the 'Qin State' period or the 'Qin Dynasty' period after unification.

- If you want to fight, Hetao can raise enough war horses for Ying Qin to form a huge elite cavalry army;

- If you want to farm, the cattle raised in the Hetao can also be used as farming cattle after a short period of training.

In today's Han family, after the Chinese civilization lost the Hetao, an important horse breeding ground, whether it is military horses or civil/agricultural cattle, they have become highly scarce resources.

The law prohibits the killing and wounding of cattle and horses, but it is secondary;

The scarcity of military horses has led to the stagnation of the construction of cavalry units and the irreparable disadvantage of foreign strategy, which has put the Han family in an extremely embarrassing situation in the foreign strategy, mainly the strategic pattern against Hungary······

"If you want to fight a decisive battle against the Huns, you must have a cavalry army;"

"And to form a cavalry army, you need enough war horses."

"To raise war horses, you must develop horse politics."

"If you lose the land of Henan, you can only set up horse gardens in the north in order to slow down the ······"

As he whispered, Rao is thoughts were heavy, and Liu Sheng had to force himself to come back to his senses, and then cheered up, looking up at Liu She with some depression.

"Taohou just said that Yanmen Garden is the first horse garden of my Han family to raise war horses;"

"In addition to the Yanmen Garden, which has been destroyed by the Huns, my Han family, are there any other horse gardens?"

"Since Yanmen Garden has begun to slaughter hundreds of war horses every year as early as a few years ago, even if other horse gardens have not started to slaughter war horses, it should be almost time to 'harvest fruits', right?"

Hearing Liu Sheng's question, the sad look on Liu She's face faded slightly;

It's just that in the tone, you can still hear Liu She, the former servant, regret and emotion about the destruction of Yanmen Garden.

"Yanmen Garden, flourished in the fourth year before Emperor Taizong."

"That is, from that year onwards, Emperor Taizong issued a strict order in the palace: the harem women do not need brocade in their clothes, their skirts do not mop the floor, the curtains must not be embroidered, and the meals must not be excessive."

"This is precisely because of the establishment of Yanmen Garden, so that Emperor Taizong clearly realized: Ma Zheng is a very money-consuming thing."

"But even so, the first emperor still saved money and built a horse garden near the north wall at a rate of almost every two years."

"——In the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of Emperor Taizong, my Han family built a total of nine horse gardens, including Yanmen Garden, in the area of Daibei and Yanbei."

"In addition to the Yanmen Garden that has been destroyed, the Loufu Garden (Daibei), which was established in the sixth year of Emperor Taizong, and the Zaoyang Garden (Yanbei) in the eighth year of Emperor Taizong, are now ready to slaughter war horses."

"The remaining six places will take another two or three years for the short ones, and the long ones, such as the few built by the first emperor in his later years, will take six or seven years······"

Hearing Liu She's words, Liu Sheng's heart only sank again.

Liu Sheng is very clear: Liu She's inference of 'two or three years, six or seven years long' is just a scene to comfort himself.

——Yanmen Garden was established in the early years of the first emperor and began to produce qualified war horses until the death of the first emperor, and it took nearly 20 years during the period!

If this is the case in Yanmen Garden, won't other horse gardens be like this?

Especially those in the later years of the first emperor, especially the horse garden built a few years before the death of the first emperor, the capital is only less than ten years old;

If you want to make these new gardens also produce qualified war horses stably like the former Yanmen Garden, you don't have to work hard for another ten years, don't even think about it!

And this conclusion made Liu Sheng, who was not optimistic, only more pessimistic.

This is a very simple arithmetic diagram.

For more than 20 years, the first emperor established a total of nine horse gardens;

Among them, the Yanmen Garden, which was built first and began to produce war horses, was also destroyed by the Huns.

There are eight left, not to mention whether it can produce war horses in a short period of time, even if it can, according to the slaughter rate of more than 100 war horses per year in Yanmen Garden, the eight horse gardens are only less than a thousand war horses slaughtered every year.

And the construction of cavalry units is not a war horse that can be transformed into a cavalry.

Even if it is not like the Huns often have one person and three horses, the ratio of one person and two horses for 'one horse' means that today's Han dynasty can only produce enough war horses to equip 500 cavalry every year.

According to the speed of 500 rides per year, as well as the necessary training time, cost······

"Hiss ······"

"It's no different from burning money······"

"Why don't you burn it yet?"

It was a self-talk, but it caused Liu She to nod with a wry smile at Liu She, who was sitting in front of him.

"That's right."

"Ma Zheng, in fact, is to burn money."

"And if you don't burn, you can't do it."

"-burning, may not be able to get gratifying results;"

"But if it is not burned, then my Han family will definitely have no war horses, will definitely not be able to form a cavalry army, and will never be able to raise its head in front of the Huns."

···

"As for the places where Ma Zheng burns money, there are countless places."

"—buy stallions, mares, and they're all just small heads;"

"On weekdays, the fine feed that war horses need to eat, as well as the qualified horse farms to protect the horse's hooves from injury, the horse slaves who are familiar with raising horses, the doctors who treat injured horses, and the medicines needed are the bottomless pit."

"With such a huge cost, if you can really produce war horses and form an army, you can barely accept it."

"I'm afraid that in the end, I will fall into the same fate as Yanmen Yuan - decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment were finally destroyed by the Huns, and all the horses in the garden were taken away."

···

"Alas~"

"The hard work is in vain~"

"Decades of hard work, tens of millions of people around the world have been looking forward to it, but in the end it has been all in vain······"

shook his head and sighed again, causing Liu Sheng's face to sink a little more;

It was only at this time that Liu She finally brought the topic back to the original starting point.

——For Ma Zheng of the Han family, what can Liu Sheng, the crown prince, do······

"Ma Zheng's charter was set as early as the time of Emperor Taizong."

"——The Shaofu invests every year, headed by the servant, and at the same time that there is a horse garden in the north of the order, a new garden is added as much as possible."

"There's nothing else you can do."

···

"As for Your Highness, if you want to make some contributions to my Han family's Ma Zheng, there are not many options."

"——The land of raising horses: Henan, not to mention His Royal Highness, even if it is the power of my Han family, it is easy to take it back;"

"As for the existing Ma Yuan, with the lesson of Yanmen Garden, Your Majesty will naturally increase the number of troops stationed there, and there is no need for His Highness to bother more."

"If there is anything, His Royal Highness can help, and it can indeed help my Han family's horse administration······"

"Hmmm······"

···

"Maybe that's not in line with the status of a minister."

But after all, I have been a servant, and I really can't bear to let the Han family Ma Zheng move slowly. ’

"Then I had the courage to try to say one thing to Your Highness."

"——If Your Highness has any way to find a batch of good breeding horses and mares for the servant, it will be of great benefit to the horse administration of my Han family······"

···

"It doesn't take much;"

"With 100 stallions and 3,000 mares, it's enough to build a new horse garden from scratch!"

"And within three years, this new garden can start to slaughter qualified war horses, and there will be no less than 100 horses every year!"

"-In this matter, the minister dares to pack the ticket as the former servant, the current Shaofu, and the contemporary Taohou."

"If His Royal Highness really has a way, then the matter of the servant Ma Zheng, as long as it is a place where the minister can help, the minister is duty-bound!

！ ”