Why was there a horse shortage in Song Dynasty?

Why was there a horse shortage in Song Dynasty?

One is the geographical location of the Song Dynasty. The ancient horses in China mainly grew in the cold northwest and northeast, while the territory in Song Dynasty was mainly in the south, and the climate was warm and humid, which was not suitable for the growth of horses.

Second, during the Song Dynasty, there was constant friction with neighboring ethnic minority regimes, and most of the horses exchanged through border trade went to the battlefield, or even "sacrificed" on the battlefield. Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, people used ox carts and donkey carts, and carriages were rarely seen between streets.

Reasons for the lack of horses in Song Dynasty

There were two reasons why there were no horses in the Song Dynasty: First, the geographical position of the Song Dynasty. Sixteen states were not recovered when the People's Republic of China was founded in the Song Dynasty, and Xixia in the northwest became independent again, losing two major horse sources. The ancient horses in China mainly grew in the cold northwest and northeast, while the territory in Song Dynasty was mainly in the south, and the climate was warm and humid, which was not suitable for the growth of horses. Second, during the Song Dynasty, there was constant friction with neighboring ethnic minority regimes, and most of the horses exchanged through border trade went to the battlefield, or even "sacrificed" on the battlefield. Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, people used ox carts and donkey carts, and carriages were rarely seen between streets.

Why did the Northern Song Dynasty lack horses?

In the era of cold weapons, cavalry has a natural advantage over infantry. This advantage is mainly manifested in maneuverability and impact. To put it bluntly, the infantry can't catch up with the cavalry if they win, and they can't run away if they lose. When cavalry attacks infantry, they can use the total momentum of men and horses to form a greater impact on their frontal infantry phalanx. The mass of a horse is much greater than that of a human being, and its movement speed exceeds the running speed of a human being. Therefore, the impact that cavalry can give to infantry is generally much greater than that of infantry. To understand this situation, we must apply the momentum theorem of physics. Please refer to the first volume of senior high school physics. More importantly, mobility can reverse the quantitative contrast between armies to some extent. In other words, the party with good mobility can concentrate superior forces to attack a certain area of the other party, forming a regional strength advantage. Although on the whole, the defender may have more troops, but the defender needs to defend many places. In an area, the attacker can form a numerical advantage. And destroy the local garrison before the garrison reinforcements arrive. This is also the role of action. An army with good mobility can always form the strength advantage of a regional battlefield by quickly mobilizing its own troops, thus gradually annihilating the party with poor mobility. Therefore, nomadic people always have an innate military advantage over farming people. It is precisely because of this that the Great Wall of Wan Li was created.

So how should farmers deal with it? One way is to use terrain, that is, to use mountains to stop cavalry from running and attack from above. This is the way of self-defense of the Great Wall. Another way is to fight against nomads by forming a powerful cavalry regiment. Han used this strategy for Huns, and Tang used this strategy for Turks. But in the Song Dynasty, the situation was completely different. First of all, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was impossible for the Song Dynasty to occupy the Yanshan Mountains, and naturally it was impossible to rely on the Great Wall to defend the nomadic people in the north. Since the first way can't be taken, there is a second way to go. However, the Song Dynasty did not raise horses on a large scale to build a powerful cavalry regiment like the Western Han Dynasty. Why?

First of all, the territory of the Song Dynasty lacked a lot of land for raising horses. Horses for military use and horses for civilian use have different requirements. They must be adult stallions with good physical strength. To get such a horse, it is not possible to keep it in captivity. It is necessary to graze, that is, there must be a large pasture for horses to grow and reproduce. Secondly, horses grow in cold northern areas and are not suitable for warm and humid climate. Therefore, it is impossible to cultivate excellent military horses in the Yangtze River basin. Throughout ancient China, there were probably two places where horses could be kept, one in the northwest and the other in the northeast. During the Han and Tang dynasties, horses were raised mainly in the northwest. When the People's Republic of China was founded in the Song Dynasty, these two areas had been occupied by nomadic people, and the Song Dynasty had to recapture these two areas to raise horses there. But without enough war horses, it is impossible to occupy these two areas, and there is nothing the Song Dynasty can do about it. However, it should be noted that the territory of the Song Dynasty includes eastern Gansu and most parts of Shaanxi. The Han Dynasty raised horses on a large scale in this area. Why couldn't the Song Dynasty follow suit? Personally, I think this should be considered from the perspective of local environmental changes. Just because a place was once suitable for raising horses doesn't mean it will be suitable for raising horses in the future.

Generally speaking, human activities always destroy the environment, but the degree of damage is different. Humans need to obtain cultivated land and fuel. Driven by these two main motives, human beings will inevitably destroy the vegetation in their living areas. The natural environment has a certain ability of self-repair, just like organisms. However, this self-repairing ability is undoubtedly limited. Once this limit is exceeded, it will inevitably cause damage that cannot be repaired by itself or damage that takes a long time to repair. We might as well look at a modern example. The whole northeast area was once called black land, and the land here can be cultivated without fertilization. But today, there is basically no black land in Northeast China. Decades of grain cultivation have destroyed the fertility of the land, and the yellow land will inevitably become black land. Moreover, the yellow land here can no longer become black land. Because the only way to change it back is to turn cultivated land into wasteland again, and the land will recover itself after a long time. However, how can the population who have settled in this land meet the demand for food and clothing? Unless the vast majority of the population in Northeast China emigrate to other places, this is an impossible task.

Land and vegetation in the northeast will be destroyed, as will other places. Loulan Gaochang was prosperous that year. ......

Why didn't horses come out in the Song Dynasty?

Let's talk about why there was a "congenital" lack of horses in the Song Dynasty, and then why it was impossible to raise horses in the Song Dynasty.

In fact, the lack of horses in the Song Dynasty really can't blame the Song Dynasty, because the land of Yanyun was not lost by the Song people.

However, the Song people were not without responsibility, because another horse-producing area, Ganliang Hetao, was indeed lost by the Song people. The real blunder in the Northern Song Dynasty was not directed at Liao, but at Xixia.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Xixia had no capital, only a small piece of land in five northern Shaanxi States (not the best horse-producing land in the northwest). Li Jiading is a formidable army. It was far from a disaster that he surrendered to the Song Dynasty to help soldiers and raise horses. It is not comparable to the Southern Tang Dynasty and the Northern Han Dynasty, so it is included in the New Five History, not a family.

When I arrived in Song Taizong, I was in a hurry. I wanted to take advantage of the Li family's civil strife, completely abolish the Dingnan Army and escort all relatives above the Li family to Beijing. Li aroused resistance with his people, and only a few dozen people escaped. Ten years later, not only the land of five continents was recovered, but also Lingzhou in the Song Dynasty was captured. It was from Lingzhou in the Song Dynasty that the origin of a good horse was really lost-"Xia thief's life never traded with a horse in the border county, but China rode alone with armor." The Long History of Zi Zhi Tong Jian

During this period, repeated battles were defeated. It is very important that he was named Liao by virtue of the contradiction between Song and Liao, which caused the Song Dynasty to be caught between two sides. This strategy can be implemented because the Song Dynasty foolishly wanted to recover sixteen states and five northwest states at the same time.

When the alliance between Song Zhenzong and Liao was reconciled and the Song-Liao War ended, Song was free. Should we concentrate on recovering lost territory from Xixia? However, when the "Five Ghosts" offered sacrifices, Zhenzong accepted Zen, and the Song Dynasty was a peaceful scene. At this time, Li Deming in Xixia, in order to avoid falling into a two-front battle like that in the former Song Dynasty, resorted to diplomatic means and made peace with Song (also to Liao). After Xixia stabilized the Song and Liao Dynasties, it launched an offensive to the western front with all its strength, destroyed Uighur, defeated Tubo and captured the Hexi Corridor. At this time, neither Song nor Liao realized their ambitions. ......

In the period of (the son of Li Deming), he launched three wars against the Song Dynasty, essentially seeking complete independence, and was defeated in all three wars (but also fought back in Guiniang Valley, Longmenchuan and Tutaochuan). Later, Li Yuanhao took the initiative to call Song Emperor the father, but he didn't think it was mainly Yuan Hao. In fact, it is Yuan Hao's play to depend on-"China's affair is humiliating, and calling" male "is humble; Yi Di is China's business, and "Gong" is Kang. Therefore, the outline is not mentioned by Shi Jin, so it is a taboo for China. This is a straight book, so Yuan Haowen is fierce. " Xixia bookstore

And while claiming to be the son of the Song Emperor, he pretended to be the ancestor of the Song Dynasty, trying to take advantage of you. In ancient ............................................................................................................................................., there is no doubt that Khan and Khan were barbarians. Today, Hao Yuan invented the name for no reason. He called your majesty his father, but the court gave him a letter calling him' my ancestor'. Is it okay? "The long history of continuous capital management is like a mirror.

Steven Song saw through Hao Yuan's cleverness in using his tongue and asked Hao Yuan not to call him his son. He should still be obedient, but Hao Yuan agreed, but the condition was that his age should be raised to 250,000. The two sides reconciled. (In fact, Yuan Hao was still the emperor in China, and everything started from the imperial system. Moreover, in the era of Li Deming, King Xiping wanted to kneel down when he saw the imperial envoys from Liao and Song Dynasties. After Yuan Hao defeated the Liao army in the battle of Hequ, he saw the Liao and Song envoys sitting on the bed. I guess the reason why this boy wants to go to war with Song and Liao is to wait and die and meet people ...)

The war between Song Dynasty and Xixia was uncertain, and the northwest frontier was restless for a long time. No wonder Sima Gong listed Xixia as the first of the "four evils".

Tracing back to the source, this new moon was a curse laid by Tuguhun Tuoba in the Tang Dynasty when he moved the capital. This curse was deeply rooted after the Five Dynasties War, and Song Taizong pulled it too fast to fight in wartime. Song Zhenzong has lost comfort, so it's time to make peace in wartime and lose time in war and peace. After that, we won't quarrel. Although great achievements have been made, they have finally cleaned up the mess of the previous dynasties and ancestors. .........

The following is about the defects of raising horses in the Song Dynasty.

Nomadic people always have an innate military advantage over farming people. It is precisely because of this that the Great Wall of Wan Li was created.

So how should farmers deal with it? One way is to use the terrain, that is, to use mountains to stop riding. ......

Why only say that there was a shortage of horses in the Song Dynasty and not in the Western Jin Dynasty?

In ancient China, as long as the Central Plains dynasty didn't occupy the western regions (now Gansu, Xinjiang, Outer Mongolia and other places), there was a shortage of horses, and there were no good horses, which is why we mainly used infantry. Because raising horses requires a large area of grassland, the Central Plains is densely populated and does not have this condition. This is the reason for the Northern Song Dynasty, especially when the Southern Song Dynasty and the Dynasty were in a peaceful corner.