The first thousand one hundred and ninety-two chapters seize the Liaohe horse farm
Jeju Island was not famous for horse breeding in ancient times, but after the Yuan Dynasty conquered the Koryo Peninsula at that time, in order to ensure the demand for military horses, the entire Jeju Island was directly turned into a super-large horse farm.
In fact, it was not just Jeju. In fact, in the area ruled by the Yuan Dynasty at that time, there were more than a dozen government-run super-large horse farms, and there were even more various small and medium-sized horse farms.
The fundamental reason is that the Yuan Dynasty was fundamentally a military power regime that relied on high-pressure military deterrence to maintain its rule, so the demand for military horses was very huge.
In order to ensure the demand for military horses, the Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to horse administration. For this reason, they did not hesitate to set up horse farms in many places with abundant water and grass. In the process, countless people lost their land and grain production was reduced on a large scale. .
But it has to be said that the number of horses owned during the Yuan Dynasty was huge. Even at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, horse administration was relaxed, but the stock of horses in the entire Huaxia region was still very large.
The various rebel armies in the early Ming Dynasty basically had no shortage of horses, especially Zhu Yuanzhang's army. They did not rely on infantry to overthrow the Yuan army, but relied on cavalry to beat the Yuan army to a crawl. The fundamental reason That is, at that time, the Jiangnan region, and even the vast central and southern regions of China, had a large number of horses, and the quality of the horses was not bad.
Luzhou Racecourse was the largest Yuan Dynasty official racecourse in the Central Plains at that time. It was here that he obtained a large number of war horses, and then he conquered Shandong and captured Yidu Racecourse, plus other messy small and medium-sized racecourses, and At that time, the people also kept a large number of horses.
Only then did Zhu Yuanzhang's army possess a large number of horses and arm a large-scale cavalry, thus defeating the Yuan Dynasty.
By the time the Ming Dynasty came, although they also attached great importance to horse administration, they were not as crazy as the Mongols and dared to directly enclose the most fertile land as pasture to raise horses. Therefore, later on, there were fewer and fewer horses. The quality is getting lower and lower.
After the rise of the Tang Dynasty, there were actually no large-scale horse farms in the entire Central Plains. There were only some small and medium-sized horse farms. The Tang Army wanted to develop cavalry, and even military transportation was severely lacking in horses.
In order to develop cavalry and meet the needs of logistics and transportation, the Tang Dynasty opened several government-run horse farms many years ago, but the scales were relatively small. Some of them were concentrated in Guizhou and parts of Yunnan, and they mainly cultivated southwestern horses.
The other part is concentrated in southern Anhui.
In the eighth year of Xuanping, after the domestic regions were completely unified, the scale of government-run racecourses expanded rapidly. Currently, there are more than 50 government-run racecourses in the country, but most of them are small and medium-sized racecourses, and only a few are large-scale racecourses. , they are Northwest Daying Racecourse, which is the first and most prestigious government-run racecourse in China. In addition, Yidu Racecourse in Shandong Province, Liaohetao Racecourse in Liaodong Province, Jezhou Racecourse, and Dali in Yunnan Province The size of the racecourse is also relatively large.
Except for Yidu Racecourse, the above-mentioned racecourses are basically in relatively remote places!
There are many reasons why we went to a relatively remote place, or even to an island like Jeju Island to set up a government-run racecourse.
First of all, the restrictions are relatively large. Now the empire has a large population and the demand for food is very huge. And the empire is not a Yuan Dynasty government. It is impossible to say that it does not care about the life and death of ordinary farmers and directly forcibly encloses their land and classifies it as a government-run horse farm.
, as for paid expropriation, how much will it cost?
Therefore, most of the government-run horse farms in the mainland, especially in the hinterland of the Central Plains, are actually grazing on official land, and there is basically no encroachment on private land. Naturally, the scale of the horse farms set up in this way is not that big.
Therefore, the relatively large racecourses are basically close to the border areas and are inaccessible. There is no problem of too many people and little land. Only Yidu Racecourse is a special example. Others are Damaying Racecourse in the northwest, Yunnan Racecourse, and Liaohetao Racecourse in Liaodong.
As well as the Jeju Racecourse, they are all in remote places, and there is no Qin Guang where horses occupy human land.
Among them, the Liaohe Tao Racecourse, although its geographical location is also very good, is actually occupied by the Chahar tribe and even the Duoyan Sanwei tribe. When the Tang Army entered Liaodong, they were also taken care of.
In order to avoid being caught between the Tang Empire and Ada Khan, the Chahar and other tribes finally chose to reach a secret agreement with the empire.
They gave up part of the Liaohetao area and sold a large number of horses to the Tang Empire in exchange for the empire stopping military attacks on them and allowing the export of various weapons such as musketeers, swords and plate armor.
In this way, the empire also obtained a part of the Liaohetao area. Although it did not take over the entire Liaohetao area, it could be regarded as an area that was extremely suitable for grazing. Then a large horse farm was set up here, which was called "Liaohetao".
Liaohe Tao Racecourse.
In the end, the empire stationed an entire infantry division and cavalry division here to maintain deterrence against the Chahar tribe, and also to protect the Liaohetao Ranch behind them.
It can also be seen from this that this place is actually not safe at the moment and will be invaded by Chahar and other tribes at any time. Therefore, although this place is large, the empire has stationed heavy troops and even started to build dense bastions.
The defense line is generally not very suitable. The army only grazes some ordinary horses here, and the number is not too large.
The Empire breeds horses in the Northeast, mainly at Jeju Racecourse.
Although Jeju Island is an island, its geographical conditions and climate are very suitable for raising horses. Otherwise, the Yuan Dynasty would not have chosen to open a large horse farm here.
Secondly, there are not many indigenous residents in this place, and the Koryo Peninsula had just been conquered. The imperial officials naturally did not consider the feelings of the local indigenous people. They came with a direct forced immigration, which emptied the entire island of indigenous people, leaving
This place has become a complete horse farm.
Except for the staff of the racecourse, there are no other irrelevant people, let alone the indigenous people.
This situation is almost impossible to happen in the Central Plains, because the empire cannot ignore the lives of farmers and use large tracts of fertile land to raise horses. If it does this forcefully, and public resentment boils, the empire will probably face the same situation as the Yuan Dynasty.
It's a crisis. If you are not careful, you will be overturned.