After leaving the palace, Zhao Mengqi did not delay and walked around the political hall. According to the procedures, he took over the official position of Qunmu System Envoy from Dong Huai.
The Chief of Qun Mu said it was important, so he put the Prime Minister in charge. In fact, there was an old practice, and Dong Huai basically didn't ask too much. After all, judging from the situation in the Song Dynasty, no one could do anything in the horse administration.
The official suddenly gave the King of Yan a group herding envoy, which made the ministers a little confused. They didn't see the impact on the government, so they didn't think about it in depth. They just thought that the King of Yan had pleased the official again. I got a title as a reward.
But what they didn't know was that Zhao Mengqi then went to the Qunmu Division to take up his post.
A group of officials from the Qunmu Department looked confused when they saw Zhao Mengqi's arrival.
According to the official establishment, the chief officials who are really in charge of affairs here should be the first governor of Qunmu, the first deputy envoy, the second governor, and the second judge. But right now, there is only one governor surnamed Guo, one judge surnamed Jiao, and more than a dozen subordinates. official.
After paying sullen greetings to the new envoy, Governor Guo didn't know what to do next. He led his subordinates to stand like a pile of wood sculptures, anxiously waiting for Zhao Mengqi's instructions.
Zhao Mengqi, who was sitting behind the public case, was not in a hurry to speak, and slowly looked at these eighth- and ninth-grade 'minor officials'.
This Guo Dujian didn't look like an official at all. He had big hands and feet, and his wrinkled face looked like an old farmer, or in other words, like a horseman.
The other officials are also quite shabby. Their official uniforms are neither new nor old, but they are normal. However, they have no energy and spirit, let alone the magnificence of officials. It seems that these shepherds are completely inconsistent with the fat men Zhao Mengqi imagined. On the contrary, it is a Qingshui Yamen that is cleaner than Qingshui.
Zhao Mengqi, who suddenly felt something bad, raised his eyebrows and said, "Xiao Wang would like to know the current situation of our Great Song Dynasty's Mazheng and the situation of the Group Animal Husbandry Division. Which of you can tell us."
A group of officials, you look at me, I look at you, and finally Guo Dujian said, "Your Highness, let me tell you something..."
Originally, Zhao Mengqi only knew that the Song Dynasty was short of horses, but he did not fully understand why there was a shortage and to what extent it was. After Guo Dujian's explanation, he had an intuitive impression.
It can be said that before the emergence of machine guns, cavalry was the most decisive arm. Without a strong cavalry, it is impossible to become a military power, and war horses are naturally the most important equipment of cavalry.
Throughout Chinese history, any dynasty that can control the central and northern Shaanxi and Gansu regions will always be militarily strong, and vice versa, all because these places are the traditional production areas of excellent war horses.
Generally speaking, it can be said that the farther to the northwest, the better the quality of war horses, and the farther to the southeast, the worse. Horses produced in the southwest are actually not suitable for use as war horses.
The Song Dynasty completely lost the horse-producing areas in the northwest precisely because of the founding of Xixia. This resulted in a shortage of war horses and a weak cavalry force, making it increasingly difficult to resist the impact and invasion of nomadic cavalry.
Therefore, in order to obtain war horses in the Song Dynasty, one of them relied on buying, and the other was to establish a total of 81 horse prisons in various places to raise horses, and most of these horse prisons were located north of the Yellow River.
After crossing to the south, all the land in Hebei was lost. The imperial court still worked hard to re-establish more than 30 new horse prisons. However, due to various reasons, after Zhao Yun ascended the throne, only Lin'an was left with one place to keep the royal horses. Except for the horse prison, there are no other horse prisons used for breeding war horses.
In other words, the Song Dynasty basically has no other source of war horses except buying and buying.
The key is that the area where horses can be purchased has also shrunk, and they can only be bought from the southwest. Therefore, these southwest mountain horse breeds that are not suitable for use as war horses became the main source of cavalry in the Song Dynasty.
If the quality is not good, you can make do with quantity, and you can barely make do, but the horses available in the southwest are also very limited.
Generally speaking, the Song Dynasty had a maximum number of 200,000 war horses, which was during the Taizong and Zhenzong periods. There was no Xixia at that time.
By the time of Renzong, there were only 100,000 horses left. Later, during the time of Shenzong, due to the opening of Hehuang River, the number increased to 150,000, and then it continued to decline.
Guo Dujian said sadly, "Nowadays, most of the horses purchased are directly allocated to the army, so the Group Herding Department can be said to have no horses to herd."
Zhao Mengqi looked extremely ugly, "How many war horses are there in the country now?"
"There are more than 20,000 troops in the Mabu Three Divisions, but half of them are weak, old and sick. The number of troops on the river does not exceed 50,000. I'm afraid they all have a lot of water."
Guo Dujian is an honest man and will tell you what he knows. "As far as I know, the horse army stationed in Jiankang should have 7,830 horses according to the military registration. However, during the inspection the year before last, But there are less than 2,200 horses, and the shortfall is as high as three-quarters."
"Why is there so much missing, but what's the disadvantage!?" Zhao Mengqi's voice turned cold.
"This... has always been like this in the army. There will certainly be some emotional problems, but they are not so serious. The shortfall is mainly due to battle damage and the old, weak, sick and disabled horses themselves."
"Didn't you just say that horse inspectors in Southwest China and other places have been buying horses? What about the horses they bought?"
"Your Highness, the southwest is far away and the journey is difficult. Even if we buy horses, it is very inconvenient to transport them."
"Is it difficult to transport it by sea?"
"Uh, shipping by sea? This horse can't stand the bumpy sea route. I'm afraid half of it will die before it's shipped."
When Zhao Mengqi heard this, his head felt heavy and he couldn't help pinching his forehead.
This stall was worse than the worst-case scenario that I had expected. Not to mention the quality of the horses. The war horses used by the Song Army were of the lowest quality on the continent, and Kenima could not even guarantee their quantity.
Ma Xingsi's troop strength is 30,000. Originally, more than 7,000 horses were already four or five soldiers per horse, but now there are actually more than a dozen people sharing one horse. This can still be called cavalry! ?
It seems that the immediate solution is to solve the transportation problem first.
It would still be possible to transport war horses by sea if they could be improved. Horses cannot tolerate bumps, so let them adapt to the bumps for a period of time, then transport them in sections, turn long distances into short distances, and give the horses time to recuperate. It should not be a big problem.
Since the Song Dynasty had absolute technological advantages in shipbuilding and navigation, how could it not make good use of it?
What's more, if you want to go overseas to buy horses in the future, you must first accumulate experience and skills in this area.
Alas, this is not something that can be solved in the short term, but let’s start by cultivating the private horse market.
Since there are so many horses that are not suitable for use as war horses, we might as well use them for civilian use first!
