Chapter 2812: Think more about transportation and cultivate war horses separately
War horse, or rogue horse.
this is a problem.
Fei Qian listened to the argument between Cui Cheng and Wang Yun, and then gradually understood the key point.
There is only one place for stallions in the breeding farm. Regardless of resource allocation or personnel deployment, it is impossible to say that the same stallion group raises both war horses and draft horses.
War horses are delicate.
In order to maintain the activity and physical strength of the war horse, the cavalry actually has to serve the war horse like a master every day. They are afraid of freezing when it is cold, and they are afraid of heat stroke when they are hot. They need to cool down after running for a long time, and they need to eat extra food when they lose weight.
Woolen cloth?
The thing that serves the slaves the most is probably the whip.
This is a completely different concept.
War horses are required to be more fierce, more aggressive, more brave, run faster, jump higher, know how to cooperate with cavalry, have higher sensitivity, and have better controllability...
What are the requirements for the horse?
Durable.
Therefore, whether it is a retired war horse or a horse that has been screened out and cannot become a war horse, it is actually not suitable to be used as a draft horse.
Cui Cheng said that he had checked a lot and counted many of these retired or eliminated horses. After becoming rook horses, they were not very qualified for the job of rook horses. They either died of depression soon, or
Because living standards dropped significantly and they had to bear heavy workload, they quickly weakened until they died.
Some people also have doubts, aren't oxen the ones that are suitable for cooperating with farming and can bear heavier labor in the fields? It is true that the horse can be used for farming, but it is not completely suitable for farming. If we talk about it alone
It is true that cattle are better for cultivating acres of land, but for transporting materials, horses are indispensable.
When the war horses themselves are not very wealthy, they have to specially cultivate a breed of rhinoceros horses, which is difficult for ordinary people to understand.
However, what Cui Cheng said does make sense. Especially now that the Hussar horses span across the east, west, north and south, and there are a lot of things that need to be transported, it is necessary to specially breed the Husband horses...
In ancient times, there were no highways, let alone trains, so when traveling far away, large items could not be separated from animals, which were mainly horses. Until World War II, a lot of battlefield transportation relied on animals, let alone the Han Dynasty?
Why not use bullock carts?
Because the bullock cart is too slow.
Mules and horses?
There is only one generation of mules and horses.
There may happen to be some mules and horses that are quite suitable, but they cannot be passed on and continue. Another factor is that the pregnancy rate of cross-races is actually not high. Some donkeys and horses have even been together for six years without getting pregnant, so there is no continuity and long-term
Sex, when the war breaks out, you can't ask the other party to cooperate and wait, saying that the animals in your transport brigade have not been cultivated and ready, so the war cannot start yet...
Even if local transportation is not considered and only cavalry operations are considered, a large number of horses are still needed. For example, for a thousand cavalry, the actual number of horses is often one thousand two to one thousand five. Among the extra horses, there are
A large part of them are draft horses. These horses are taken care of by cavalry when the cavalry fights alone. If they are stationed in garrison, they are taken care of by grooms who can ride horses and are used to pull carts or carry loads.
There is also the transportation of grain and grass during battles. This requires a large number of horses. Using an oxcart is too slow. If the journey is longer, the battle may have been fought by the time the oxcart arrives.
, it may even be over, just in time to replenish the rewards for the enemy on the opposite side...
There are only two ways to transport troops and food over long distances by land.
people.
Or a rogue horse.
As the saying goes, if you transport food thousands of miles, you will not save even one out of ten.
The general army's grain supply process is that the state collects grain from scattered grain production areas, aggregates it to transfer points, and then centrally transports it to the army. If it is peacetime, the destination of grain transportation is fixed, and the military station will also be selected.
In a place where transportation is convenient. In this case, food loss will be reduced to a great extent.
But things are different during wartime. Frontline troops are constantly moving, and grain and grass transportation has become dynamic transportation. Transportation conditions and locations are constantly changing, and transportation losses naturally increase all of a sudden.
During combat, when troops are far away from the granary, food consumption will increase exponentially until they can no longer supply it. Similar problems also existed during World War II. For example, trucks transported oil to frontline tanks, but the trucks themselves
Burning oil, the further the front advances, the lower the efficiency of oil transportation will be.
Therefore, in order to reduce the loss of grain transportation, various dynasties used various methods. In the Han Dynasty, farming began, and in the Tang Dynasty, in order to reduce the cost of maintaining the army, local financial power was also delegated to the Jiedushi envoys.
Solve the food and grass problem on the spot.
But it is obvious that farming cannot completely solve the problem, and Jiedushi only treats the symptoms but not the root cause. These methods are not perfect. Therefore, the problem now is actually in Fei Qian's hands. What method should he choose to break through this constraint?
The bottleneck of the feudal dynasty?
If it is just loss, it may be possible to increase the transportation volume to counteract it, but other problems associated with transportation cannot be compensated by increasing transportation manpower.
Because in the process of transporting grain and grass, three serious problems will arise.
First, there is the problem of grain processing. Grain taken directly from the granary can be eaten directly. But to be transported to the front line, it must be processed and made into finished products that are easy to store and transport. Even Feiqian has more advanced storage methods and
Dry food technology cannot guarantee the state of the food after more than three months. There were no targeted drugs for aflatoxin, nitrates, etc. in ancient times...
Second, if there are not enough horses, a lot of manpower will be needed for transportation. This will not only consume the original grain reserves, but also affect the production of the next year. Assume that an army of 10,000 people is fighting at the front, and the rear is
Tens of thousands of civilians need to be mobilized to transport food to them. These tens of thousands of people are just traveling and do not participate in direct battles or engage in any production.
This means that not only do these civilians have to consume extra money, but their original output is also lost. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, those protracted wars proved that even if they won in the end, there would often be problems in their country.
famine.
Third, the farther the distance of transporting grain, the higher the probability of being stolen or robbed, especially when you encounter a guy like Cao Cao who likes to build grain roads... well, he attacks grain roads. You can't just expect farmers to encounter broken grain roads.
How can we resist the enemy with bones and sticks?
The longer the road, the more food protection teams are needed, and the more extra consumption is incurred...
In addition, there are some logistics-related problems. For example, there is a lot of grain in a certain place, but because there are not enough mules and horses in the transshipment team, the transportation cannot reach the transshipment warehouse. Warehouses also have such problems.
There is obviously food in the warehouse, but there is not enough transportation capacity and it cannot be transported out. It is like a game that introduces some logistics concepts. If the logistics is not planned well, there will be a situation where the rear warehouse is full and there is nothing on the front line.
There may even be supply chain problems in the entire region or even the country. Primary raw materials are piled up, but the processing sites cannot supply raw materials. Wheat warehouses near the farmland are full, but there is not enough food in the city...
…
Food issues can be improved through agricultural development, but what about transportation?
Those traveling by water had boats, while those traveling by land only had livestock, that is, horses.
This kind of directional issue requires Fei Qian to make the final decision.
With the expansion of the territory under his control, Fei Qian had already been considering transportation-related issues. 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 have caused problems, which will naturally cause more problems. The collapse of the old six kingdoms in the Qin Dynasty has already illustrated this, and Liu Bang's in the Han Dynasty
The county system is just a product of compromise and cannot be considered the best result.
If you want a larger territory, you must have better transportation.
This is not something that you only think about after the fight is over and serious problems arise, or that even if problems arise, you still don't think about changing them.
Difficulties in transportation conditions were solved in ancient times by using a large number of livestock and tools.
But this solution is not good, and everyone knows it is not good, but they don’t think about how to solve the problem, they only think about how to solve the people who have the problem...
For example, during the Xiqiang Rebellion, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty dispatched 100,000 troops and equipped more than 10,000 vehicles to transport grain and grass. Even so, it was still unable to meet the needs of the front line, so the front line impeached the rear and the rear reported the front.
Another example is that during the Western Han Dynasty, the rapid population development in the Guanzhong area made it impossible for the grain output of the Sanfu of Chang'an to keep up. So every year, tens of thousands of ships were used to transport millions of stones of grain from the Guandong area to supply Guanzhong.
In the Tang Dynasty, the ecology of Guanzhong deteriorated even more. Even the emperor often had to go to Luoyang to eat. Therefore, the people of Shandong complained that Guanzhong was asking for food and grass all day long. The people of Guanzhong scolded Shandong for being ignorant and unreasonable...
Although the population of Chang'an Sanfu has not yet reached its peak, Fei Qian has to consider these issues. On the one hand, he must increase the total yield per mu, and on the other hand, he must solve the transportation bottleneck.
Of course, on this planet, there is no worst, only worse.
If the Han players were struggling in transportation, then the Roman players at the same time 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 fallow system. In other words, after a piece of land in Rome was cultivated for one year, it would take longer to recover its soil fertility, which meant that Rome needed several times more land.
Only in terms of farming can we achieve the land farming efficiency of the Han Dynasty.
This does not include the backwardness of Roman agricultural tools and breeding technology, as well as the backwardness of understanding of land fertility, climate environment, etc. It also does not include the backwardness of agricultural infrastructure and agricultural systems.
Outside of Rome, it’s even more exaggerated. Many civilizations are still abandoned!
It’s not that there wasn’t a more efficient mode of transportation in the Han Dynasty, there was one, and that was water transportation.
During the Warring States Period, the carrying capacity of an ordinary ship was twenty times the transportation efficiency of vehicles, and it required less manpower. If it traveled down the river, the ship's speed was still fast. Therefore, many wars in China focused on advancing on land and water simultaneously.
For example, in the Battle of Changping, both Qin and Zhao relied on water transportation as the main transportation line. Only in places where there was no water, vehicles were used for short-distance transportation. In addition, the Battle of Changping was only a few hundred miles away from the capitals of the two countries.
Therefore, it can support hundreds of thousands of troops in combat.
However, if you encounter an area like the Western Regions, where the rivers are inland rivers and seasonal rivers, then the ships are basically useless and can only be transported by carriages and horses. Therefore, the requirements for baggage carriages and horses must naturally be increased.
to a higher, more urgent need.
The war horse is obviously very important, but the horse cannot be given up just because of this.
Chaos may occur in the Western Region at any time. Whether it is for early pacification or post-war recovery, food is indispensable. Improved transportation capabilities will lead to stronger combat capabilities. Only strong combat capabilities can ensure the stability of the border. Only when the border is stable can the Central Plains of China be restored.
People develop healthily.
These are all interconnected.
The upper limit of agriculture...
The upper limit of traffic...
Together, they are the upper limit of the entire empire.
Perhaps to put it another way, it is the upper limit of a big foodie empire.
Everything starts with eating, and everything is limited by eating.
If there is no food left, who will listen to Fei Qian?
After fully listening to the main points of the argument between both parties, Fei Qian also made a decision...
……(?▽?)/……
When the hustle and bustle dissipates, what remains is the real stuff.
In the Engineering Society not far from the Agricultural Society, the great craftsman Huang Li was wandering in front of a newly made baggage truck, tapping or dragging various parts of the vehicle from time to time.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were chariot battles, divided leather carts, baggage carts, heavy carts, and baggage carts. There were "clothes carts" as the baggage carts and equipment-carrying carts as the heavy ones. Obviously, the ancients had already clarified the purpose of the baggage carts, that is,
For the purpose of transporting goods.
Before the Han Dynasty, there were no specially designed and produced baggage vehicles for use by the army. Many of the vehicles were actually the own vehicles of the gentry and officials, and military supplies mainly relied on the collection of civilian vehicles for transfer.
Starting from the Han Dynasty, army baggage vehicles began to be produced by government-run workshops, which ensured the army's combat needs.
The baggage trucks currently manufactured by Huang Li are products that require versatility, which means that any part of the vehicle is a fixed module. Once damaged, it can be replaced. This requires that these modules adopt the standard
The production model also requires that the processes for producing these modules be the same standard.
Due to road conditions, baggage trucks cannot be large.
Fei Qian's memory may not always be correct. For example, after a four-wheeled baggage truck was trialled for a period of time, it was changed to a two-wheeled one.
The reason is very simple. The load capacity of a four-wheeled carriage has not doubled just because of the extra two wheels. Even on some rugged road sections, the mobility is not as good as that of a two-wheeled vehicle.
Just like in Sichuan and Sichuan, four-wheeled vehicles are not as good as two-wheeled ones, and two-wheeled vehicles are not as good as one-wheeled ones...
The only advantage of a four-wheeled vehicle is that it does not need to increase the load-bearing capacity of the horse. It can increase the load-bearing capacity of the vehicle. However, in turn, a higher load-bearing capacity requires a rotation mechanism, that is, greater strength and strength between the wheels and axles.
Toughness. Although Feiqian later added shallow bearings to supplement this shortcoming, the load-bearing capacity of the four-wheeled carriage was still not as high as imagined due to the instability of the material and wear and tear.
At the same time, even if the structural problems of the vehicle itself are really solved, ordinary dirt roads and wild wilderness will still become a nightmare for high-load baggage vehicles.
Therefore, blindly improving the load-carrying capacity of baggage vehicles was unrealistic in the Han Dynasty, when the road system was not yet complete, and even in the subsequent feudal dynasties.
What?
Tricycle?
Yes, tricycles have also been proposed and tried for a while between Pingyang and Chang'an.
Tricycles, like four-wheelers, can reduce the load of the horse and can be placed on flat ground. However, tricycles have a fatal problem. Once the speed increases, they are very easy to overturn, especially when turning. If you want to
If the site is stable and the center of gravity is lowered, the trafficability in some places will be very poor, and the gain will outweigh the loss.
That's right, so now I've gone around and found that at this stage, under the current technical level, the baggage truck model with better versatility and passability is still two-wheeled, but because of the structure
The adjustments and the design of common components have made almost all aspects of the baggage truck to the limit of the two-wheeled vehicle itself. If you want to develop further, you must rely on the strength of other aspects.
For example...
"Master Huang! Look! What I brought you!"
While Huang Li was banging on a loose baggage truck part, he heard someone calling him in the distance. He looked up and laughed, "Are you going to use this place as a stable?"
The person who came was none other than Cui Cheng, one of the parties involved in the dispute at the Agricultural Society's breeding farm.
Cui Cheng laughed loudly, pointed to the horses behind him and said, "The hussar agreed! Look, these are all good horses! The hussar said that the war horses and the horses will be raised separately! From today on, the two of us will be together."
Let’s get together, I’ll raise the horses, and you build the chariots! By then, our chariots and horses will be able to travel all over the world!”
The horse Cui Cheng mentioned was of course a rogue horse, not a war horse.
"Okay! Okay!" Huang Li laughed, and then stepped forward to look at the first batch of horses brought by Cui Cheng to be bred in the direction of horses, "Hahaha, this horse is good, look at these legs! Strong!"
"Yes, thicker ones have more strength..."
"What do you think is the best height for the horse, or should I make an adjustable drawbar?"
"I think it's better to use something that can move."
"But what if the horses pulling the cart cannot be found to be of the same height?"
"This is a problem...but it can also be solved..."
The two of them were together, discussing enthusiastically around the horse and cart. They seemed to be full of energy and never tired...
