Why did the Song Dynasty lack horses?

Compared with other tool horses, the advantage of ancient war horses lies in their maneuverability. As the saying goes, they run fast. But at this point, horses are the same as people. If you want to run fast, you should give the horse room to run. Obviously, the Northern Song Dynasty did not have this condition.

Some people may question why when Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty was in power, the Central Plains could raise horses for military purposes, but the Northern Song Dynasty could not.

The reason is that the crowd is different. At the time of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, the national population was only 20 million. At that time, there were still remaining grasslands in the Central Plains for good horses to run.

When Renzong was in the Northern Song Dynasty, the population was close to 1 100 million (high yield accounted for the introduction of rice), and the cultivated land in the Central Plains was close to the saturation of that era, and there was no extra land for horses to stumble.

This is actually not surprising. Since the end of the Western Han Dynasty, there is basically no place to raise war horses in the Central Plains.

Since the Central Plains can't support it, we should look elsewhere.

The south is impossible, then there are only northwest and true north. However, due north of Youzhou is still in the hands of Daliao, and the original Northwest Racecourse was lost because of the rebellion of Xixia.

The new racecourse disappeared, and the old war horses were eliminated with the passage of time. The Northern Song Dynasty naturally lacked war horses.

As for the Southern Song Dynasty, not to mention, the Central Plains has fallen, and the South is not suitable for raising war horses. Most of the elite cavalry in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty were captured by the false state of Qi and existed for only one generation.

There were no excellent war horses in most parts of the Northern Song Dynasty.

You can't just pull a horse to the battlefield. The shoulder height, speed, endurance, bearing capacity and temperament of a horse should be considered comprehensively. There were also many inferior horses in the northern song dynasty, and the breeding technology of ancient fine horses was not high. The good horses introduced by China in the past dynasties were all submerged in the genes of the bad horses. Song Taizong once bought 6.5438+0.7 million horses among the people, and gained more than 40,000 excellent horses when he occupied the Northern Han Dynasty.

At that time, the excellent war horse was a Mongolian horse. The shoulder height was not too high, but the endurance was good. The Western Regions were lost as early as the Tang Dynasty, and there were no horses in the Song Dynasty.

The Northern Song Dynasty also occupied parts of eastern Gansu, bordering on Tubo Baluobu, who was an ally of the Northern Song Dynasty most of the time. Datong horse and Hequ horse are rich in resources in Baliluo and its vicinity, and they are also excellent horse breeds. Datong Horse is a hybrid horse bred by Western Region Horse and kurama. At the peak, there were 65,438+10,000 cavalry. Through the exchange of tea and horses, a large number of war horses were purchased from the brothers in the Northern Song Dynasty. Pommel horse and southwest horse can also be purchased from Tubo and Dali in the Northern Song Dynasty, but these two horses are short and not suitable for cooperative war horses, and can only be used as packhorses.