In the horse policy in the Central Plains, the empire mainly relies on policy support and voluntary private breeding, and the effect is much better than the official push. Because the demand for horses among the people is huge nowadays, the price of horses is rising day by day, and raising horses is beneficial.
If it is profitable, many people are happy to raise cattle to plow the fields, and also raise one or two horses to sell for money!
After combining many circumstances, Jeju Island, the former Mongolian horse racing farm, has now become a maritime horse farm of the Tang Dynasty. It is different from the time when the Mongols did not care about the life and death of the local people, and directly enclosed the land to raise horses, allowing the local people to raise horses.
Unlike being unable to grow food and starving to death, the Tang Dynasty was relatively benevolent.
They gathered all the locals and arranged for them to immigrate to Luzon!
Whether it was before or now, the islands of Luzon Prefecture are very short of people. The land there is fertile. In addition to the more indigenous people, there are more various diseases and pests. As a result, the mortality rate of immigrants is a bit higher, which can be regarded as a
Nice place!
As for your question, how high is the immigrant mortality rate?
According to the official report of the Tang Dynasty Newspaper, it is only a mere 1%, not worth mentioning! Only one in a hundred will die, which is even smaller than the chance of falling to death while walking!
What, you don’t believe it?
Whether you believe it or not, I do!
But then again, if these immigrants can take root in Luzon Island, with the large free land they have obtained, coupled with the good local climate conditions, their lives will be better than in Jeju Island.
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Now a few years have passed, and the Jeju Racecourse has gradually developed into a racecourse that is most valued by the army. Not only is it far away from overseas, as long as the Tang Navy is here, absolute safety can be guaranteed. At the same time, the geographical isolation can also make the horses
The breeding work has become easier, at least there is no need to worry about inexplicable uncontrollable crossbreeding, resulting in a decrease in the quality of horses.
Such excellent conditions have led to the fact that although the number of horses grazing in Jeju Racecourse is not large, the quality is the highest, and they are all Northwestern horses.
The so-called northwest horses do not actually refer to the original horses in the northwest, but refer to the descendants of the Tang Empire’s crossbreeding of Central Asian horses and Mongolian horses!
The many Central Asian horses introduced by the Datang Empire were actually not a single horse breed. According to the judgment of the perverts at the Department of Medicine at the Royal Institute of Technology, the Central Asian horses introduced by the Datang Empire should actually be many different types of horses.
,Central Asian Horse is just a general term.
But they all have one characteristic, that is, they generally have Arabian blood, and some of them retain quite a lot of Arabian horse blood, so they are generally tall, have strong sprinting power, but have poor endurance and are troublesome to raise.
Today's Central Asian horses are actually quite good as riding military horses. The Tang Empire selected some of the many Central Asian horses introduced for breeding and breeding. The Central Asian horses generally have more
Arabian horses are of bloodline, and the shoulder height can generally reach more than 1.43 meters, and excellent ones can even reach more than 1.48 meters. To a certain extent, this can be regarded as a close relative of the Arabian horse, and at the same time, it also retains some local horses in Central Asia.
characteristics.
This kind of Central Asian horses bred after screening is no longer a general term, but a horse species. At present, it can be regarded as initially meeting the needs of the cavalry riding horses of the Tang Army.
But the army always hopes to get better horses. They also hope that the horses can have better endurance and be easier to feed.
They say that these Central Asian horses are big in size and have good short-distance sprinting capabilities. They are currently the best riding horses for the military. However, these horses have poor adaptability to the climate and are very delicate.
, feeding is expensive and troublesome. If you are not careful, you may lose weight or even die if you keep it.
Later, with the support of the Department of Medicine of the Royal Institute of Technology of the Tang Dynasty, well, I don’t know how these medical perverts still know how to cross-breed horses. Anyway, they are now providing technical support for the horse administration of the entire Datang Empire.
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The breeding and cross-breeding of Central Asian horses began at the Damaying Racecourse in Gansu. In order to ensure the purity of the horse breed, the original inferior horses in the racecourse and even some of the imported unqualified Central Asian horses were not allowed to be used.
To get involved, the military directly requisitioned all the suitable horses in the camp or transferred them to other places for breeding.
The entire Damaying Horse Farm is used for the breeding and cultivation of Central Asian horses. They found the best stallions and mares they could find from this batch of Central Asian horses and Mongolian horses for cross-breeding.
These hybrid horses are then called Northwest horses. After preliminary breeding, they are sent to other government-run horse farms in the country for breeding.
Of course, the number of newly bred Northwest horses is still small, and it is difficult to meet the needs of the military and even civilians in large quantities in a short period of time. Therefore, many domestic horse farms continue to breed Mongolian horses and even Southwest horses.
The Damaying Racecourse has a more suitable geographical location. Although they breed northwest horses, they actually mainly breed, cultivate and improve Central Asian horses. Now they have introduced pure-blooded Arabian horses and bred them.
While developing purebred Arabian horses, we further improved the performance of Central Asian horses.
On the other hand, Jeju Horse Farm has become the only horse farm in the country that focuses on breeding, cultivating, and improving northwest horses.
This kind of northwest horse has successfully retained most of the body shape of the Central Asian horse. When it reaches adulthood, the shoulder height can generally reach about 1.4 meters. It is slightly shorter than the Central Asian horse, but not too short. The best among them can
Reaching about 1.45 meters.
But more importantly, this kind of horse has much better endurance than the Central Asian horse. Although it is more troublesome to feed, it is still slightly stronger than the original Central Asian horse.
However, it is troublesome to feed and slightly smaller than the Central Asian horses. This is nothing compared to its advantages. After all, feeding the previous Central Asian horses was also troublesome. However, the Tang Army did not desperately cultivate the Central Asian horses, and then
Used to form cavalry.
Today, on the basis of Central Asian horses, some of the long-distance endurance of Mongolian horses are also integrated, which is very suitable for the current military.
This kind of horse is of great use to the current Tang Empire. It can be used as a riding horse for heavy cavalry, as a riding horse for light cavalry, as a draft horse for artillery, and as a transport troop.
It can be used as a draft horse or as a pack horse. It can basically do anything. Although it is not very good at everything, it can be used. It can be regarded as a versatile horse.
Although the cavalry of the Tang Empire also had heavy cuirassiers, the number was too small. The main body of the cavalry of the Tang Empire was light cavalry, and the light cavalry did not have too much demand for the size of the war horse, but rather the endurance of long distances.
The demand is greater.
Of course, this demand is not big, which means that no matter what, they must have a shoulder height of 1.4 meters, and those 1.23-meter Mongolian horses are obviously unqualified.
Next, there are a large number of draft horses, and the northwest horses can also do the job!
Combined with each other, the Tang Imperial Army now attaches great importance to northwest horses. Otherwise, it would not allow several large horse farms across the country to breed them at the same time.
Jeju Racecourse is the largest and currently the most professional horse breeding and training farm in the northwest.
As for Damaying Racecourse, their focus is on the breeding of Central Asian horses, and at the same time they are trying to breed a new generation of better horses.
Northwest horses, Central Asian horses, Mongolian horses, southwest horses, and Arabian horses. It can be said that the current Tang Empire has many types of horses, including tall ones, short ones, and explosive ones.
, there are also horses with good endurance. The specific type of horse to use depends on the specific needs and environment.
If it is a heavily armored cuirassier using a horse, it goes without saying that it must be a tall horse with powerful explosive power.
Under such high requirements, in fact, the Central Asian horses commonly used by the Tang Dynasty heavy cavalry are actually a bit inferior. The general height of the Central Asian horses is 1.43 meters at the shoulder. However, the Datang Army’s vision is that the heavy cavalry can be used as passengers.
For a horse, it is ideal to have a shoulder height of more than 1.5 meters. It would be even better if it could be 1.55 meters high at the withers.
It's a pity that the ideal is beautiful, but the reality is even crueler. At present, the Central Asian horses in the Tang Empire cannot meet such requirements. Even pure-blooded Arabian horses, only a few outstanding horses can reach 1.5 meters.
As for being 1.55 meters tall at the shoulders, don't even think about it.
As for the northwest horses, it is even more difficult. The general shoulder height of northwest horses is only 1.4 meters, but a few outstanding horses can also reach 1.45 meters. When there is really no other way, the only choice is to let the heavy cavalry reduce the weight of their equipment.
, let these few outstanding northwest horses be reluctantly used as riding horses for the cuirassiers, but the effect will definitely not be good.
If it is a light cavalry horse, it needs a certain size and explosive power, endurance and ease of feeding, etc., because the demand is too large, and the cost of breeding and feeding cannot be too high. In this case, the newly bred northwest horse
It is more suitable, and the performance and cost are relatively comprehensive, although they are not great.
Although Central Asian horses are a bit more expensive, they can still be used, but the overall price/performance ratio is not as good as that of Northwest horses.
But if we look at the ideal standard proposed by the Army, Central Asia Mana is not enough. The ideal standard proposed by the Army is that the shoulder height needs to be 1.45 meters. It would be better if the shoulder height is 1.5 meters.
This is basically an extravagant hope. Only a few excellent horses in the northwest Mali can meet the minimum requirements. As for the ideal requirement of 1.5 meters, only a few excellent Arabian horses, not even Central Asian horses.
If it is a draft horse, the Army does not have too strict ideal requirements. Basically, it is a horse.
Therefore, the military believes that the Mongolian horse is more suitable. It has excellent endurance, is easy to feed, and has low cost. It is most suitable for doing dirty and tiring work.
As for the horses being too weak to pull, just use a few more.
Northwest horses can also be used, but it is a bit wasteful to use them as draft horses, and the overall cost performance is lower than Mongolian horses.
If you are fighting in mountainous areas such as the southwest, it is more suitable to use the southwest horse as a logistics service horse, because although this kind of horse is short, it is very powerful at climbing mountains and wading, and its endurance is also very strong, and it is also adapted to the southern climate.
Depending on the specific environment and combat needs, the demand for horses is also different. This is why various horses in the Tang Empire were bred on a large scale.
The Army of the Tang Dynasty was still not satisfied with the above-mentioned horse breeds, especially for riding horses. They hoped to get a kind of horse with a shoulder height that can generally reach more than 1.55 meters, strong explosive power, good endurance, and easy to raise.
It is cold-resistant and heat-resistant, can go to high altitudes, and can also be used at low altitudes. It is best to take into account both riding and drafting horses!
Therefore, over the years, the Army has not given up on collecting the sources of various horses. Especially after learning from foreigners that there are taller horses in Western Europe and North Africa, it is entrusting the Datang Western Company to find a way to source horses from North Africa and North Africa.
Stallions and mares were introduced from Europe in preparation for cross-breeding.
But even if they get horses from Europe and North Africa for breeding, don't expect to get their ideal war horses. That thing doesn't exist at all for the time being, at least it won't appear in the next few hundred years!
If technology develops and we can cultivate this kind of super war horse, it is estimated that tanks will be eliminated by then, and there will be no need to play cavalry!