A war horse, or a slow horse.
This is a problem.
Fei Qian listened to the dispute between Cui Cheng and Wang Yun, and then gradually understood the key point.
There is only one stallion in the raising ground. Whether it is resource tilted or personnel allocation, it is impossible to raise both war horses and slow horses in the same stallion herd.
War horses are delicate.
In order to maintain the activity and physical strength of the war horses, the cavalry actually serves the war horses like serving the masters every day. They are afraid of freezing when they are cold, afraid of heatstroke when they are hot, cool down when they are running, and have extra meals when they are fat, etc. What about the slow horses?
The one who serves the most sluggish horses is probably the whip.
This is a completely different concept.
War horses require more fierceness, better fighting, braver, faster running, higher jumping, better cooperation with cavalry, higher sensitivity, better control...
And what are the requirements for slow horses?
Hard to work.
Therefore, whether it is a retired war horse or a horse that has been screened and cannot become a war horse, it is actually not suitable for use as a slow horse.
Cui Cheng said that he had looked at a lot and counted many of these retired or eliminated horses who were not competent for the job of the horse after becoming a slow horse. They either died of depression quickly, or they were greatly reduced in life standards and had to bear heavy labor and quickly weakened until they died.
Some people also have questions. Isn’t it a cattle that is suitable for farming and can bear more heavy labor among the fields? Indeed, the horse can be used for plowing, but it is not completely suitable for plowing. If you only talk about the farming of the fields, it is indeed better to be cattle, but if you want to transport materials, you cannot do without the horse.
When war horses themselves are not very rich, they also need to cultivate breeds of slow horses, which is difficult for ordinary people to understand.
However, what Cui Cheng said really makes sense. Especially now that the cavalry spans east, west, south and north, there are a lot of things that need to be transported, so it is necessary to specialize in cultivating slow horses...
In ancient times, there were no expressways, and there were no trains, so when you go out for a long distance, large items were inseparable from animals, which was mainly slow horses. Until World War II, many battlefield transportation was relied on animals, let alone in the Han Dynasty?
Why not use a ox cart?
Because the ox cart is too slow.
Mule and horse?
There is only one generation of mules and horses.
It may happen that some mules and horses are quite suitable, but they cannot be passed on and cannot be continued. Another factor is that the cross-race fertility rate is actually not high. Some donkeys and horses have not become pregnant for six years, so they have no continuity and long-term nature. When the war breaks out, they cannot ask the other party to cooperate and wait, indicating that the animals in their own transportation brigade have not been cultivated and are not ready, so they cannot start fighting...
Even if local transportation is not considered, but cavalry combat is only considered, a large number of slow horses are required. For example, a thousand cavalry, the actual number of horses is often 1,200 to 1,500. A large part of the additional war horses are slow horses. These horses are taken care of by cavalry when the cavalry fights alone, and if garrisoned, they are taken care of by horse-riding grooms, used to pull carts or carry goods.
Also, during the battle, the transportation of food and grass requires a large number of slow horses. It is too slow to use a ox cart. If the journey is longer, the battle may not have been fought for several rounds when the ox cart arrives, and it may even be over. It just so happens to add rewards to the enemy on the other side...
There are only two ways to transport military food on a long-distance land.
people.
Or a slow horse.
As the saying goes, one ten is not stored when transporting grain from a thousand miles away.
The general military's food supply process is that the state collects grain from scattered grain production areas, summarizes it to the transfer point, and then transports it centrally to the army. If it is a peaceful time, the destination of grain transportation is fixed, and the military base will also be selected in a place with convenient transportation. In this way, food loss will be greatly reduced.
But it was different during the war. Frontline troops were constantly moving, and food transportation became dynamic transportation. The transportation conditions and locations were constantly changing, so transportation losses naturally came up all of a sudden.
During the war, where the troops are far away from the granary, the food consumption will increase exponentially until they can no longer be supplied. Similar problems also existed during World War II. For example, trucks transport oil to front-line tanks, but trucks burn oil themselves. The more the front advances, the lower the efficiency of transporting oil.
Therefore, in order to reduce the loss of food transportation, the dynasties used all methods. The Han Dynasty began to farm farms, while in the Tang Dynasty, in order to reduce the cost of military maintenance, the local financial power was also delegated to the hands of the Jiedushi, so that the Jiedushi could solve the problem of food and grass on the spot.
But it is obvious that farming cannot completely solve the problem, and the Jiedushi also treats the symptoms but not the root cause, and these methods are not perfect. Therefore, the current problem is actually in Fei's hands. What method should he choose to break through this bottleneck bound to the feudal dynasty?
If it is just a loss, it may be possible to use increasing transportation volume to resist, but other problems associated with transportation cannot be compensated by increasing transportation manpower.
Because three serious problems arise during the transportation of food and grass.
First, the problem of grain processing. Grain can be eaten directly from the granary. However, if it is transported to the front line, it must be processed to make finished products that are easy to store and transport. Even if Fei Qian has more advanced storage methods and dry food technology, it is impossible to guarantee that the food state will be more than three months later. Aspergillus aflatoxin and nitrates, etc. did not have any targeted drugs in ancient times...
Second, if there is not enough horses, a large amount of manpower is needed for transportation. In this way, it will not only consume the original stored grain, but also affect the production in the next year. Suppose an army of tens of thousands of people fight on the front line, but the rear needs to mobilize tens of thousands of civilians to transport them grain. These tens of thousands of people are just walking, not participating in direct battles, nor do they carry out any production.
This means that these civilians not only had to consume extra money, but also lost their original output. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, those protracted wars proved that even if they finally won the victory, famine often occurred in their country.
Third, the farther the distance to transport grain, the higher the probability of being stolen and robbed, especially when encountering people like Cao Cao who likes to play valley roads... Well, guys who sneak attack the grain roads. Can’t you just expect farmers to encounter enemy troops who have broken grain roads and still use bones to fight?
The longer the road, the more grain protection teams are needed, and the more additional consumption is generated...
In addition, there are some related problems in logistics. For example, there is too much grain in a certain place, but there is not enough mules and horses in the transport fleet, which leads to insufficient transportation in the transport warehouse. The warehouse also has this problem. The warehouse clearly has grain, but there is not enough transportation capacity and then it cannot be transported out. Just like there is a game that introduces some logistics concepts. If the logistics is not planned well, the warehouses in the rear will be full and there is nothing on the front line.
There may even be supply chain problems in the entire region and even in the country, with primary raw materials piled up, processing sites unable to supply raw materials, wheat that is near the farmland is in the city, but there is not enough food to eat...
The food problem is improved by agricultural development, but what about transportation?
There are ships on the water, and only livestock on the land, that is, horses.
This kind of directional problem requires Fei Qian to make the final decision.
With the expansion of control territory, Feiqian has been considering transportation-related issues for a long time. In fact, these issues should have been studied in the early days of the Han Dynasty.
With the expansion of China's territory, whether it is information transmission or military control, speed and timeliness will naturally cause more problems. The collapse of the old six kingdoms of the Qin Dynasty has already shown this point, and the county system of Liu Bang in the Han Dynasty was just a product of compromise and cannot be regarded as the best result.
If you want a larger territory, you must have better transportation.
This is not to say that things that only happen after the battle is completed will occur, or even if there is a problem, there is still no idea to change it.
The difficulties in transportation conditions were solved in ancient times by using various livestock and tools.
But this solution is not good, and everyone knows it is not good, but they just don’t think about how to solve the problem, they just think about how to solve the problem...
For example, during the Western Qiang Rebellion, Emperor Ling of Han dispatched 100,000 troops and configured more than 10,000 vehicles to transport food and grass. Even so, it still could not meet the needs of the front line. Therefore, the front line impeached the rear and reported the front line.
For example, during the Western Han Dynasty, the population in Guanzhong area developed rapidly, which made the grain output of Chang'an Sanfu unable to keep up, so that every year, it was necessary to transport millions of stones of grain from Guandong area to replenish Guanzhong. By the Tang Dynasty, the ecology of Guanzhong deteriorated even before the emperor had to go to Luoyang to eat. Therefore, Shandong people complained that Guanzhong wanted excessive food and grass all day long, and Guanzhong people scolded Shandong for not knowing what was right and what was wrong...
Although the population of Chang'an Sanfu has not yet expanded to its peak, Fei Qian must consider these issues. On the one hand, it is necessary to increase the total yield per mu of land, and on the other hand, it is necessary to solve the bottleneck of transportation.
Of course, on this planet, there is no worst, only worse.
If the Han players were described as having difficulty in transportation, then the Roman players of the same period as the Han Dynasty were almost crawling.
In Rome during the same period of the Han Dynasty, agricultural production had not yet entered the era of crop rotation and was still in the leisure system. In other words, a piece of land in Rome took longer to restore its fertility after a year of farming, which means that Rome needed several times the land to achieve the land farming efficiency of the Han Dynasty in terms of farming.
This does not count the backwardness of Roman agricultural tools and breeding technology, as well as the backwardness of understanding of land fertility, climate and environment, and does not include backwardness in agricultural infrastructure and agricultural systems.
It is even more exaggerated outside Rome, and many civilizations are still abandoned!
It is not that there was no more efficient mode of transportation in the Han Dynasty, but there were also water transportation.
During the Warring States Period, the carrying capacity of an ordinary ship was twenty times the efficiency of the vehicle's transportation, and the manpower was still small. If you went downstream, the ship's speed was still fast. Therefore, many wars in China focused on the advancement of water and land.
For example, in the Battle of Changping, Qin and Zhao both rely on water transportation, as the main transportation line, and vehicles are used for short-distance transportation only in places without water. In addition, the Battle of Changping is only a few hundred miles away from the capitals of both countries, so it can support the battle of hundreds of thousands of troops.
However, if you encounter an area like the Western Regions, where the rivers are inland rivers and seasonal rivers, then ships are basically equivalent to being abandoned and can only be transported by carriages and horses. Therefore, the requirements for baggage trucks and slow horses must naturally be raised to a higher and more urgent need.
War horses are obviously very important, but even slow horses cannot be let go because of this.
The Western Regions may cause chaos at any time. Whether it is pacification in advance or recovery after the war, food is essential. When transportation capacity is improved, there will be stronger combat capabilities. Only when combat capacity is strong can the border be ensured and the border stability can the people in the Central Plains of China develop healthily.
These are all related to each other.
The upper limit of agriculture...
The upper limit of traffic...
When connected, it is the upper limit of the entire empire.
Perhaps in another direction, it is the upper limit of the foodie empire.
Everything starts with eating, and everything is restricted by eating.
If there is no food left, who will listen to Fei Qian?
After fully listening to the key points of the debate between the two sides, Fei Qian also made a decision...
…(?▽?)/…
The noise dissipates, and what is left is real material.
In the engineering club not far from the Agricultural Society, Huang Li, a great craftsman, was wandering in front of a newly made baggage truck, occasionally tapping with his hands or dragging various parts of the vehicle.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the chariots were divided into chariots, chariots, heavy chariots, and supplies. There were "clothing chariots" as baggage and loading utensils as heavy. It was obvious that the ancients had already made it clear that the purpose of the baggage chariots was to transport goods.
Before the Han Dynasty, there was no special design and production of supplies for the army. Many vehicles were actually the vehicles of the gentry and gentry officials themselves, and military supplies were mainly transferred by collecting civilian vehicles.
Since the Han Dynasty, military baggage trucks have begun to be produced by official workshops, which ensures the military's combat needs.
The baggage trucks that Huang Li now manufactures are products that require universality, that is, any part of the vehicle is fixed modules, and once damaged, it can be replaced. This requires that these modules adopt a standard production model, and the process of producing these modules is also required to be the same standard.
Due to road factors, the baggage truck cannot be big.
Fei Qian's memories may not be correct. For example, after a period of trial, the four-wheeled baggage truck was changed to two wheels again.
The reason is very simple. The load capacity of a four-wheeled carriage does not double its load capacity because of two wheels. Even in some rough road sections, its ability to move is not as good as that of a two-wheeled carriage.
Just like in Sichuan and Sichuan, four-wheeled vehicles are not as good as two-wheeled vehicles, and two-wheeled vehicles are not as good as one-wheeled vehicles...
The only benefit of a four-wheeled vehicle is that it does not need to increase the weight-bearing capacity of the slow horse, which can increase the weight-bearing capacity of the vehicle. However, when the weight-bearing capacity of the vehicle is high, the wheel mechanism, that is, there must be greater strength and toughness between the wheel and the axle. Although Fei Qian subsequently added shallow bearings to supplement this shortcoming, the weight-bearing capacity of the four-wheeled vehicle is still not as high as expected due to the instability and wear of the material.
At the same time, even if the structural problems of the vehicle itself are really solved, ordinary dirt roads and wild wastelands will also become nightmares for high-loaded baggage trucks.
Therefore, it was unrealistic to blindly improve the load capacity of the baggage truck in the Han Dynasty, where the road system was not sound, and even the subsequent feudal dynasties.
What?
Tricycle?
Yes, tricycles have also been brought up and have been tried between Pingyang and Chang'an for a while.
Like four-wheelers, tricycles can reduce the load on horseback and can also be placed on flat ground. However, tricycles have a fatal problem, that is, once the speed is increased, it is very easy to overturn, especially when turning. If the center of gravity is lowered for the stability of the territory, it will lead to poor passing in some places and the loss is not worth the cost.
That's right, so after I went back after a while, I found that at this stage, under the current technical level, there is a better general and passive logistics vehicle model, which is still two-wheeled. However, due to structural adjustments and the design of general components, all aspects of the logistics vehicle have been raised to the limit of the two-wheeled vehicle itself. If you want to develop further, you must rely on other aspects of the logistics vehicle.
For example...
"Master Huang! Look! What did I bring to you!"
When Huang Li was knocking on a part of the seemingly loose baggage truck, he heard someone calling him in the distance. When he looked up, he laughed, "Are you going to treat me as a stable?"
The person who came was Cui Cheng, who was arguing in the farm farm in the agricultural society.
Cui Cheng laughed and pointed to the horse behind him and said, "The cavalry agrees! Look, these are all good horses! The cavalry said, "The horses are slow and horses are raised separately! From today on, the two of us will be together. I raise horses and you build a car! Then your and my carriages will travel around the east, west, south and north!"
The horse in Cui Cheng's mouth is of course a slow horse, not a war horse.
"Okay! OK!" Huang Li laughed, then stepped forward and looked at the first batch of horses brought by Cui Cheng to the direction of the slow horse, "Hahaha, this horse is good, look at this legs! Thick!"
"Yes, the thicker one can be more powerful..."
"How much do you think the horse is the best height, or do I make an adjustable pull rod?"
"I think it's better to use it to move."
"But what if the horse pulling a cart cannot find the same height?"
"This is a problem...but it can be solved...
Chapter completed!