As for why the armor used by cavalry only has light half-body armor, no full-body armor or even standard half-body armor.
That's because the cavalry of the Great Chu Empire was never equipped with heavy armor. They used to use light half-body armor like the musketeers... Not to mention the cavalry of the Great Chu Empire, the cavalry of the Liaoxi Army in the north and the cavalry of the Mongolian captives in the east were basically the same. None of them are equipped with heavy armor.
Because there are no heavy cavalry in the traditional sense on today's Eastern battlefield. They are basically all Eastern classical light cavalry, including the famous so-called Liaodong cavalry, Guanning cavalry, and the Eastern Capture Mongolian cavalry, as well as the Chu army. The large numbers of cavalry recruited here are typical Eastern classical cavalry, with mounted shooting and scattered formation fighting as the main combat methods.
In addition, the Chu army developed some new types of cavalry, but they were all light cavalry.
Why only light cavalry? There is no special reason, it’s just that there is a lack of tall war horses suitable for heavy cavalry!
In recent years, the Chu army has considered many new types of cavalry in order to offset the cavalry advantage of the northern enemy.
For example, dragoons that use Suifa guns as their main combat weapons, mainly maneuver on horseback and dismount to fight on foot;
The hussars used the saber as the main combat weapon and the pistol as the auxiliary weapon. They mainly charged in dense formations. Well, this kind of cavalry used to be pistol cavalry, but because the pistol performed too poorly when used as the main combat weapon. Damn, the army's top brass has converted all pistol cavalry into hussars, with sabers as their main weapons and pistols as auxiliary weapons.
In addition, an attempt was made to train a group of light lancers with cavalry lances as their main combat weapons.
The cavalry developed by the Chu army on their own were more particular about dense formations, and they successively achieved some results on the battlefield.
However, because these new cavalry are new products, many tactical applications are immature, the soldiers are not trained enough, and the overall number is relatively small, making it difficult to take advantage of collective combat. Therefore, they have not yet shown a particularly large advantage on the battlefield. .
On the contrary, sometimes I was defeated by the enemy's elite cavalry in small-scale battles...
I have to say, this is a very sad thing.
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The various cavalry in the Chu army are all light cavalry without exception, and the armor they wear is all light armor, or simply leather armor or even no armor.
You have to know that some of the cavalry units of the Chu army fighting in the south are still using southwestern horses with a shoulder height of about one meter... If a cavalryman comes with a tall and powerful horse, he can crush the horse without wearing armor. Not getting up, let alone putting on a suit of heavy armor.
And if the cavalry is very tall, their feet can touch the ground directly when riding on them... Then the horseback charge will not be running on four legs, but six legs!
Sounds funny... but it's reality!
The Da Chu Empire Army also wants to obtain taller and better war horses, and then acquire a group of heavy cavalry wearing heavy armor. Whether that is possible is another question, but at least it looks very powerful...
But there is no suitable war horse!
Not to mention excellent horse breeds such as Arabian horses, even Mongolian horses are lacking...
Although the Chu Empire has tried to obtain a large number of horses from the Western Regions and even further western regions through the northwest region, don't expect to obtain many in the short term. At this stage, Mongolian horses are still the main ones.
This also means that the Chu Empire Army will actually only be able to use light cavalry for a long time in the future.
The Army attaches great importance to the armor used by the light cavalry. Several cavalry generals in the army's senior ranks hope that this new type of plate armor can improve the protection of bows, arrows and swords as much as possible while ensuring that their cavalry has a light load. The protective ability of cold weapons such as spears.
However, using better light armor is only a compromise. The most important thing is to obtain a large number of excellent horses.
Regarding this issue, Luo Zhixue convened the Director of Cavalry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for a rare civil and military meeting in October of the fifth year of Chengshun.
The meeting was dedicated to discussing how to solve the problem of high-quality war horses. After a meeting, a number of horse-related resolutions were finalized.
These include increasing funding for the Damanying Military Horse Farm and striving to build a large-scale comprehensive war horse breeding base in the northwest region.
In addition to the Damaying Military Horse Farm, relying on the relatively rich horse management resources in Gansu and Shaanxi, we will expand or restore several military horse farms and rebuild them, with Shaanxi and Gansu as important military horse breeding origins.
Expand the scale of the Yidu Military Horse Farm in Shandong to ensure the supply of military horses in North and Central China.
At the same time, in each province, we should choose places suitable for horse breeding to build more military horse farms. It does not necessarily have to be large in scale, but there should be a certain number.
In addition, Luo Zhixue personally assigned the task to the horse administration agencies, asking them to introduce and cultivate excellent horse breeds from all over the Western Regions, and try to use Arabian horses, horses from Central Asia and other places in the Western Regions and their own Mongolian horses for cross-breeding, and try to breed Better, an excellent war horse that is more suitable for the needs of the country.
This horse policy meeting was aimed at solving the Army's shortage of military horses, especially the lack of excellent war horses.
At present, the Great Chu Empire has very few external sources of horses. This is because the Eastern Mongolia have almost complete control over Eastern Mongolia, and they also have a certain degree of control over the Mongolian region. The Eastern captives will definitely not be willing to see a large number of high-quality war horses flowing in. into the hands of the Chu Empire.
In addition, in order to block the captives from the East, the Chu Empire adopted comprehensive blockade measures on the Jiliao and Xuanda lines, directly demarcating these border areas as military restricted areas, prohibiting civilians, and also prohibiting merchants from carrying out maritime trade and the Eastern Captures. People trade.
With both warring parties locked down, the Chu Empire is currently unable to obtain high-quality war horses from central and eastern Mongolia through official channels.
Only some of the Mongols and even the Western Region further west, where the Eastern captives do not have strong control, can still obtain war horses, but the current number is too small, which is a drop in the bucket for the huge demand for war horses.
The current sources of war horses in the Dachu Empire are actually similar to those of the Ming Dynasty, and they mainly rely on their own sources of horses.
Don't think that there are no horses in the area within the Great Wall of China. In fact, there are horses, but the number is small and the quality is relatively poor.
A large number of horses were raised in the Central Plains. This must be said about the Yuan Dynasty. After the Mongols went south to the Central Plains, in order to solve the problem of war horses for the Central Plains garrison, they opened horse farms in many places. In the process, a large number of people lost their land, resulting in The family was broken up and people died.
By enclosing a large amount of land as pasture to raise horses, the Yuan Dynasty built many large horse farms in the hinterland of the Central Plains and even in the prosperous places south of the Yangtze River.
"Lie to Kangxi"
This is also the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang was able to have a large number of cavalry troops when he was entrenched along the Yangtze River in the early Ming Dynasty. At that time, there was no shortage of horses in the land of China, especially in areas such as Jiangnan and East China.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, like all traditional dynasties in the Central Plains, still attached great importance to horse administration and allowed the people to raise a large number of horses. Therefore, in the early Ming Dynasty, there were actually a large number of horses, but the quality was not good.
After all, most private horse raising is just a task assigned by the government. As long as the horses can't be raised to death, the task is completed. As for whether the horses raised are tall or not, it doesn't matter.
Later, the horse administration gradually fell into disuse. At its peak, the Ming Dynasty had more than 90 military horse farms, but by the end of the Ming Dynasty, only nine were left.
The Da Chu Empire has always paid great attention to horse political issues.
Even when they were still nestled in the north of Chu, the Chu Empire at that time had already begun planning to build an official racecourse due to the lack of war horses that led to strategic passivity.
Later, it gradually expanded, reaching Jiliao and Xuanda in the north, and Jiayuguan in the west. On the one hand, the Chu Empire took over the few remaining military horse farms of the Ming Dynasty, and on the other hand, it built dozens of military horse farms on its own. .
These military horse farms cover a wide area from south to north. At the same time, they also strongly encourage the people to raise horses on their own. The Chu Empire did not force people to raise horses like the traditional dynasty, but instead used subsidies and increased the purchase price of horses. Encourage people to raise horses.
In order to encourage private horse breeding, the Dachu Empire raised the purchase price. Incidentally, it also wanted to stimulate those with channels to purchase or smuggle excellent war horses from Mongolia, the Western Regions and other places to meet their urgent needs.
The official purchase price for a Mongolian war horse with a shoulder height of 1.3 meters has more than doubled than before. If it is a Central Asian or even Arabian horse from the west, the price is even higher.
In a word, the Chu Empire is now purchasing horses from all over the world, regardless of high prices!
Anyway, the Dachu Empire had money, and it did not lack the money to purchase horses. What it lacked was excellent and large numbers of war horses.
The high price can greatly stimulate people's enthusiasm for raising horses in large numbers.
Moreover, there are official standards for purchasing horses. Only horses with good quality can get better prices. This also encourages people to be more attentive in raising horses.
In order to better manage horse affairs, the Chu Empire had also established relevant institutions a long time ago.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has a special Mule and Horse Division of the Animal Husbandry Department, which is responsible for all kinds of mules and horses. It is responsible for all kinds of encouraging private horse breeding and purchasing horses.
Under the military's cavalry director, there is also a horse racing department, which is mainly responsible for the military's own military horse farms.
Raising horses among the people is not something that can be done in a hurry, and it is difficult for horses raised by the people to be used directly as war horses without special training. Therefore, horses raised by the people are mostly used as draft horses.
Because war horses require special castration and training to adapt to the environment on the battlefield, such as the sound of gunfire, the military horse farm is responsible for this.
Among the current major military horse farms, the one with the largest scale and greatest potential is Damaying Caotan in the northwest region. Here, the Chu army relied on the military horse farms that survived the Ming Dynasty to establish a large-scale military horse farm, called Damaying Caotan. Camp Army Racecourse.
The horse administration department of the Da Chu Empire planned to use this natural horse farm to train a large number of war horses.
And they are not only breeding a large number of Mongolian horses, they are also preparing to introduce a large number of horses from Central Asia and even other regions from the Western Regions to breed better horses.
Because the prices they paid for purchasing all kinds of high-quality mares and uncastrated male horses were very high, many foreign businessmen in the Western Region were ready to make moves after hearing about it.
After all, no one has trouble with money!
In addition to the Shaanxi-Gansu military horse breeding horse farms represented by Damaying, the Dachu Empire is also preparing to focus on the development of Shandong Yidu Horse Farm. This place is also very suitable for horse breeding, and it is in the Central Plains region and is close to it.
When the Army was vigorously engaged in horse politics, people from the Navy intervened and said: If your Army wants to raise horses, you can go to Jeju!
