Chapter 385: Horse breeding is not taken seriously
Ma Jun said with emotion: "Yes, I have read through the records of horse breeding in the Eastern Han Dynasty and found that the Eastern Han Dynasty did not have better horse breeds, technology and better feed alfalfa than the Western Han Dynasty. But these did not have much effect. After all,
The power gained from the power struggle in the court comes faster than military exploits."
How few horses were there in the Eastern Han Dynasty? In the early Yuan Dynasty, Ren Shang led his army to fight against the Qiang people. Originally, the Han army had a great advantage in terms of the number of troops, but the Qiang people were all cavalry and their troops were strong, and the Han army was unable to resist for a while.
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At this time, a man named Yu Xu proposed that to defeat the Qiang people, cavalry must fight against cavalry. The only solution for now was to withdraw the county soldiers and let them buy a horse for every twenty people, and then come with ten thousand cavalry.
Against the Qiang cavalry.
It can be seen that the proportion of cavalry in the army at that time was so small that it took "twenty soldiers and one horse" to gather "thousands of cavalry".
It is said that the great reduction in the number of horses in the Eastern Han Dynasty will definitely put the cavalry at a disadvantage in foreign wars, but in fact this is not the case.
Although the Xiongnu had split into northern and southern parts during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the northern Xiongnu still entrenched themselves in the northern part of the empire and were eyeing the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Faced with repeated border invasions by the Northern Xiongnu, the Han court repeatedly united with the surrendered Southern Xiongnu and launched cavalry troops to severely attack the Northern Xiongnu.
In the 16th year of Yongping (AD 73), Emperor Ming sent generals Dou Gu, Geng Bing and other troops to attack the Northern Xiongnu in four directions.
Dou Gu defeated the Huyan King's tribe in the Tianshan Mountains, and then captured Yiwulu City and established farming here.
In the first year of Yongyuan (89 years), Dou Xian, Geng Bing and the Southern Huns allied forces attacked the Northern Huns. They marched out of the fortress for more than 3,000 miles and returned to Yanran. In this battle, more than 13,000 people were beheaded and captured.
There were more than 200,000 soldiers, but the Han army only dispatched 38,000 cavalry.
After this battle, the Northern Xiongnu suffered a major blow, their vitality was severely damaged, and they soon fled to Europe. During the Ming and Zhang Dynasties, the Han Dynasty relied on cavalry power to continue to attack Wuhuan and Xianbei, consolidate border defenses, and manage the Western Regions.
The Han Dynasty began to pay attention to the introduction of well-bred horses very early. After Zhang Qian traveled to the Western Regions, he discovered that the horses in the Xiongnu area were strong and active.
and endurance are very low.
Therefore, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty vigorously introduced fine horses from the Western Regions to improve the horse breeds in the Central Plains.
Since then, the entire Han Dynasty has been focusing on introducing excellent horse breeds from various places. Not only the northwest region, but also the horse breeds that are good at carrying horses in the southwestern mountainous areas were also introduced to the Central Plains.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Guoxia horses were also introduced from Tibet (today's North Korea). After generations of improvements, by the Eastern Han Dynasty, the types of horses in the Central Plains were not only diverse, but also very excellent.
Not only did he breed a variety of good horses, but he also developed advanced horsemanship.
The art of horsemanship has appeared as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, and among horsemen, Bole is the most famous.
The art of horse-drawing in the Eastern Han Dynasty was further developed on the basis of Bole's "Horse Showing Classic".
At that time, in addition to paying attention to the body and appearance of the horse, more attention was paid to the horse's inner physique and spirit.
Xue Weng, a horseman from Chang'an, happened to see a horse in a border county one day. The horse had an ugly appearance, but Xue Weng recognized the horse as a good horse at a glance, and later it was confirmed that it was indeed a good horse.
What is more worth mentioning is that General Fubo Ma Yuan created the Xiangma Bone Method after integrating the experiences of four generations of famous Xiangma masters. Based on this method, he also cast bronze horses in the Luoyang Palace and spread them all over the world.
The Soma Bone Method contains specific methods for selecting a thousand-mile horse, and provides precise and detailed reference standards for each part of the horse.
Fine breeds alone can only guarantee innate advantages. To a certain extent, acquired breeding plays a decisive role in the development of fine horses. The Eastern Han Dynasty already had this advanced feeding and management technology.
The most important thing is horse feed, and Zhang Qian has to be mentioned again. Zhang Qian, who came back from the Western Regions, not only brought back well-bred horses, but also brought back high-quality forage seeds-alfalfa seeds.
Compared with other forages, alfalfa is rich in protein, inorganic salts, vitamins and other substances. At the same time, it has less fiber content, is rich in nutrients, and is easy to digest.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, alfalfa cultivation technology became more mature and was vigorously promoted from the Central Plains to the border areas, which provided conditions for the large-scale breeding of fine horses.
At that time, there was already a scientific feed feeding method, using a combination of refined and coarse feed supplemented by deep processing. The concentrate feed was mainly millet and bean sprouts, and the rough feed was mainly straw and water chestnut, and the two were mixed according to a scientific ratio.
When feeding, abandon the traditional direct feeding method and deeply process the feed first, which greatly improves the horse's absorption of nutrients.
At that time, the advanced method of separate trough feeding was also adopted, and each horse was fed and cared for individually.
The first thing is that the tools used to feed horses must be specific to the horse. They are usually marked and cannot be confused. Even the horses must be branded and strictly managed.
Secondly, each horse has its own independent food bowl and water bottle, which ensures that the horse can get enough nutrition every day.
According to the characteristics of the horse, people would also give the horse a "late night snack" at that time. As the saying goes, "a horse will not be fat without night grass." Adding a meal at night can effectively enhance the horse's physique.
With such advanced and refined breeding and management technology, the horses bred are naturally either BMWs or good horses, capable of galloping on the battlefield and charging into battle.
But Liu Xiu did not kill the heroes, so the heroes became big landlords and big bureaucrats, and the gentry class emerged, which profoundly affected the subsequent Three Kingdoms.
The Eastern Han Dynasty began the prototype of the Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System, and also started the prototype of the aristocratic clans, which eventually evolved into the aristocratic group of aristocratic families. They held the greatest power besides the imperial power.
Various relatives, eunuchs, little emperors, party officials, even though there are figures like Dou Xian, but in the environment where relatives and eunuchs are notorious for interfering with each other's politics,
The rise of the first powerful force directly affected later generations, creating obstacles for the feudal central government to govern society.
The second was the disaster of party control. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the struggle between Qingliu, relatives, and heroes was very fierce, which weakened the imperial power.
The third is the exclusive power of eunuchs. The eunuchs in the Eastern Han Dynasty had the power of life and death over the emperor, which led to the loss of the emperor's authority in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty.
After the fourth emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty for three generations, he was either a young emperor or a puppet emperor, and the imperial power was in name only.
Cao Shuang thought that these four things have hindered the development of many industries, such as horse breeding. Therefore, even though there have been so many developments in horse breeding and horse breeding technology, the rotating power holders in these courts have not been correct no matter how they change.
Pay enough attention to horse breeding,
After all, this is the power to control the military and political affairs of the empire. Who can not be tempted by this? You can ignore everything else.
But at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when war broke out all over the world, I looked back and wanted to pay attention to these things, and said it was too late. No matter how hard I worked, there was not much time to train horses when fighting every day.
The Wei Dynasty was slightly better. It inherited some of the foundations of the Eastern Han Dynasty and had horses that were barely enough for use in the army. There were also some horses that could be used by the children of aristocratic families to train horse dancing for entertainment, but this was only limited to the uppermost aristocratic families in the Wei Dynasty.
Only children of wealthy families, such as Cao Zhi, can have this condition.