Chapter 10: Establishing Cavalry (Central)

Zheng Tai has a lot of gentlemanly styles, and it is rare to see him keep him like this, which makes people feel so enticed. It really surprised and depressed Wu Ji and the other two. The three of them complained in the same voice: "Mr. Zheng, you are talking! You are so indifferent!"

"Haha!" Listening to the anxious words of Wu Ji and the other two, Zheng Tai was particularly happy, stroked his chin and smiled, "Wait, I'll tell you now." His right hand was dipped in tea, and he struck on the table, explaining as he struck: "This is the territory of the Han Dynasty when Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne, and it was not as great as the Song Dynasty. In the south, the place south of the Five Ridges belonged to Baiyue (now Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan Island, Vietnam). Although his name was under the jurisdiction of the Han Dynasty, he was obeying the tune but not the Xuan Dynasty, which was not very helpful to the Han Dynasty. In the north, there was only one more Yanyun prefecture than the Song Dynasty."

His right hand pointed at the map drawn and said, "This is the place in Hexi, where the Xixia is now. It is true that good horses are abundant here. However, when Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne, it belonged to the Xiongnu, not the land of the Han Dynasty. The horses produced can only cause harm to the Han Dynasty and will not be of any help."

The Hexi Corridor was defeated by Huo Qubing. At the beginning of the Han-Hungarian War, the good horses here were not helpful to the Han Dynasty.

The index finger of his right hand moved again, and the tone turned higher, saying, "This is the land of Hetao, a famous place for producing horses. It is located south of Yinshan Mountain. The climate is warm, the land is rich, the water is beautiful, and the grass is green, and it is the pasture that the Huns yearn for. There are many horses produced here, which are very majestic. It is the main place for producing horses in the desert. If it falls into the hands of the Huns, it will be very harmful. It is precisely because of this that after unifying China, Meng Tian ordered Meng Tian to lead a 300,000 army to attack the Huns, defeat the Huns in the Hetao area and seize the Hetao area. Without the Hetao area, the strength of the Huns was greatly damaged. At the end of the Qin Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and the Maodun Shanyu of the Huns took the opportunity to relocate to the Hetao area. In this way, the best place for producing horses was no longer in the hands of the Han Dynasty."

The finger moved again and pointed to the eastern section of Inner Mongolia: "This is the southern part of the Moon. Although it is not as warm as the Hetao area, it is much warmer than the northern part of Moon. It is suitable for raising horses. It is a beautiful pasture in the minds of the Huns, and it produces many horses. However, in the hands of the Huns, the Han Dynasty could only sigh. Needless to say, Moon North, it was the old nest of the Huns, far away from the Han Dynasty."

Speaking of this, he stopped, looked at Wu Ji and the other two, and smiled and said, "Is the Han Dynasty similar to the Song Dynasty when Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne? The famous horse-producing land in the world is not in the hands of China, but is controlled by foreign races. In the Han Dynasty, the Huns were occupied by the Xixia and the Khitans in the Song Dynasty."

After his statement, Wu Ji also understood it, and couldn't help but nodded and said secretly: "It turns out that the discussion posts circulating on the Internet are so unrealistic. Even the history of the Han Dynasty was not clear, and just to draw conclusions. In the early days of Emperor Wu of Han, the Han Dynasty was not large in the territory, and the places where horses were raised were not in the hands of the Han Dynasty. However, Emperor Wu of Han was able to build cavalry, which was really shocking."

"That's right!" Huangfu Song and Qi Dabao claimed: "If we hadn't heard from Master Zheng, we would have been misled by others. These scholars are really unaware. Oh, Master Zheng and Commander Wu are knowledgeable and quite knowledgeable."

The two of them found that there was a slip of the tongue and felt a little embarrassed and were busy correcting it.

"Haha!" Zheng Tai stroked his forehead and smiled: "Shu is not dead, but the people who read are too dull. When Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne, there were no such places to raise horses, and the Han Dynasty still had excellent war horses, which was due to horse politics."

"Ma Zheng?" Huangfu Song and Qi Dabao exclaimed in unison and said angrily: "That harsh rule that wants the people to raise horses and harm the people?"

Wu Ji didn't know much about Ma Zheng and listened to him a little confusedly.

"Oh!" Zheng Tai sighed and said, "Ma Zheng was a good law during the Han and Tang dynasties. It was because of the horse politics that China tamed countless war horses, and the Chinese army was able to gallop and be invincible. Emperor Wu of Han defeated the Huns, and Emperor Taizong of Tang defeated the Eastern Turks and fought in the east to fight Goryeo. The Han Dynasty vigorously promoted horse politics, not only encouraged the people to raise horses, but the government opened ranches and shepherded many war horses. There were few horses in the early Han Dynasty, and even the generals in the court could only ride ox carts when traveling. The degree of lack of horses can be seen from this. The Han Dynasty purchased a large number of horses from the Huns. In addition to some of these horses for use by the army, the other part was used to cross and improve horse breeds. Therefore, the horses of the Han Dynasty were very majestic and were not worse than the war horses of the Huns."

"Improved horse breeds?" This is not surprising at all in modern society. It was a bit unbelievable in the Han Dynasty. Wu Ji was very surprised.

"Yes!" Zheng Tai nodded slightly and said, "The Han Dynasty improved the horse breeds and achieved great success, and many horses were tamed. At the foot of Mount Li, there was a horse farm in the Han Dynasty, which shepherded tens of thousands of horses. This shows the prosperity of the horse government in the Han Dynasty. However, in the Song Dynasty, the management was not good, and the improvement of horse breeds was not done in its own way, turning the horse government, which achieved great success in the Han and Tang Dynasties, into a harsh government that deceived the people."

He said it was true, and Wu Ji and the other two believed that what he said was true, and couldn't help but sigh.

"The Song Dynasty has twelve horse farms on Hebei Road, and only 2,400 horses are tamed a year." Zheng Tai sighed long: "Oh! Corruption, corruption, caused."

"There are only 2,400 horse horses in a year for twelve horse farms, which is impossible." Huangfu Song screamed.

"It's impossible to be so few in any case." Qi Dabao was also shocked.

"I sold it to someone. He Wanquan dared to sell the war horses of the Converted Army. How could those horse-raising officials not have the courage?" Wu Ji thought and understood the whole story.

"The commander Wu Du is right. It's not that he can't raise a horse, but that he sells all the good horses." Zheng Tai looked up at the sky and sighed: "The horses of the Song Dynasty are very expensive, and they are not well-managed, and they are corrupt. How can they miss this kind of money-making good thing? The court urgently needs war horses. After checking war horses several times, the numbers found are not credible. It is inevitable that the good horses will not appear, and it is inevitable that they will hide."

Even the horses shepherded on the horse farm dared to sell privately. If the Song Dynasty could accurately find out the number of horses, it would have become a strange thing, and it would be inevitable that it would be hidden and not reported.

"Although China is mainly farming and is not good at pastoral care. However, as long as it obtains good methods, there is no problem with shepherding war horses. As for this pastoral land, there is no need to worry about it. The 100 million people in the Song Dynasty occupied not much farming land. The remaining barren mountains and wildernesses were used to shepherd war horses, which was the best thing to do." Zheng Tai said last.

After hearing his words, Wu Ji highly praised the modern society, the population explosion reached 1.3 billion, with little land and shortage of resources. However, in the Song Dynasty, there was only 100 million people. More importantly, the living standards of the people in the Song Dynasty were compared with those in the modern people, one was in the sky and the other was underground.

In the Song Dynasty, only food and clothing were needed to have food and clothing, which was basically a well-off life, and the resources needed were much less. In this way, there would not be too much use of land and there would be a lot of wasteland. As long as you use the Deji method and taming a large number of war horses is not a problem.

"This is how many war horses were raised in the Han and Tang dynasties?" Wu Ji stared at Zheng Tai.

"That's right! That's it." Zheng Tai emphasized: "When it comes to Ma Zheng, the success of the Han Dynasty is the most reference."

After hearing what Zheng Tai said, Wu Ji, Huangfu Song and Qi Dabao looked at each other, and their shock was hard to describe. The lack of horses in the Song Dynasty was an indisputable fact, but I didn’t expect that it was not that it was impossible to raise good horses, but because of corruption. The good laws during the Han and Tang Dynasties actually became a harsh policy to cheat the people in the Song Dynasty.

If it weren't for listening to what Zheng Tai said, no one would believe it. The Song Dynasty also wanted to imitate the Han and Tang Dynasties, promote horse administration, and tame war horses, but it was because corruption caused the people to cheat, and the people were suffering and unwilling to raise horses.

During the Han and Tang dynasties, the people were willing to raise horses because of the implementation of the law. Therefore, there were many war horses among the people. The decisive battle in Mobei launched by Emperor Wu of Han invested 300,000 war horses at one time, which is a huge number. Among them, 140,000 official horses and the remaining 160,000 were private horses.

In such a large-scale battle, the number of private horses actually exceeded that of official horses, which shows the success of the Han Dynasty's horse politics.

The four of them sighed for a long time, and Wu Ji then brought the topic to the topic: "Today, we were discussing the formation of cavalry, but unexpectedly, Lord Zheng let us understand more things, which is refreshing. Next, let's continue to discuss the formation of cavalry."

"Well! Horses are the big animals of the country, and they are related to the safety of the country. This time, the Liao army invaded the territory, and the commander of Wu Du had more than 8,000 war horses in his hand, which could be used to build cavalry." Zheng Tai nodded and looked at Wu Ji, and smiled and said, "The commander of Wu Du must be Zhizhu who is holding it. It's better to say it out and open my eyes."

"Wu Du commander said that the cavalry of the Xiongzhou Army was not satisfied with it. There are three shortcomings. One is that the long-range attack is not enough, the second is that the chopping and slaughter is not sharp enough, and the third is that the use is not possible." Huangfu Song smiled and said, "Mr. Zheng, listen, there are three defects, are they amazing?"

"Awesome! Awesome! There are three shortcomings at the first glance! Commander of Wu, can you say it in detail?" Zheng Tai was a little curious: "Xiongzhou Army is one of the few elites in the Song Dynasty. You are not even satisfied with the cavalry of the Xiongzhou Army. This makes people look forward to it! Say it quickly, say it quickly."

"Isn't this obvious that there is insufficient long-range attack?" Wu Ji raised his eyebrows and began to explain: "The equipment of the Xiongzhou Army is bows and arrows, knives, armor, and war horses. With such equipment, the cavalry will waste a lot of fighter jets when they charge."

"The commander of Wu Du, this is a model for the Khitan cavalry training." Qi Dabao was a little surprised: "Although the Khitans are hateful, their cavalry are the elite of the world and their combat power is very strong."

"Although the Liao army is the elite of the world, there are some problems. I have never fought with the Liao army before. After fighting this battle, I understand that the Liao army is not so terrible." Wu Ji continued to explain: "The cavalry of the Liao Kingdom is indeed skillful in cavalry shooting, and its archery skills are excellent. It can shoot arrows at a long distance and effectively kill the enemy. However, if the cavalry is equipped with a hand crossbow, if the range of the hand crossbow can be further and stronger than that of the bow and arrow, what will be the consequences?"

"Ah!" Zheng Tai and the other two were shocked and exclaimed: "If this is the case, you can do it from afar. On the battlefield, distance means victory, not wasting distance, just grabbing the fighter. However, it is a bit troublesome to create a crossbow that shoots farther than a bow and arrow and has stronger strength."
Chapter completed!