The State of Qin was originally a tribe that raised horses for the Zhou royal family, and there was a unique foundation for the development of cavalry. Later, in the development of the country, it first developed to the west, destroyed the country forty, and dominated Xi rong. This also caused the princely states of the Central Plains to regard it as the kingdom of Yidi and exclude it from the Central Plains.
Zhao Guo's Hufu Tuqiang is an allusion that everyone knows. The Zhao state hufu Tuqiang was mainly to develop cavalry against the Xiongnu. However, in the confrontation with the Xiongnu, the Qin state has always had the upper hand. This shows that the cavalry of the Qin State developed earlier and more powerful than the Zhao State.
At the time of the Battle of Changping, a strategic decisive battle between the State of Qin and the State of Zhao, the duel between baiqi of the state of Qin and zhao kuo of the state of Zhao was in the middle. At first, Bai surprised 25,000 soldiers to penetrate the rear of the Zhao army, isolating the rear road of the Zhao army. Then five thousand cavalry were sent to isolate the Zhao army from the camp and divide it into two parts. In the end, the Zhao army ran out of food, Zhao Kuo was killed in battle during the breakthrough, and the whole army surrendered.
In the Battle of Changping, what played a great role in the victory of the Qin army was the assault of five thousand elite cavalry. With a mere 5,000 cavalry, they attacked 400,000 Zhao troops, and also divided the enemy into two sections. This shows the strong combat effectiveness of the Qin army's cavalry. Zhao Guo's Hufu Tuqiang cavalry was not at all an opponent of the Qin cavalry.
This is because the cavalry of the Qin state is mainly from the Northern Di tribes that were originally annexed in the northwest. These people and the Huns were originally of the same kind, and grew up on horseback since childhood. Therefore, the cavalry unit composed of them is unmatched by any country in the Warring States. Having such a lean, powerful, and extremely powerful cavalry is also a reason why the Qin state has won more with less.
In the early years of the Qin Dynasty, after Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms and established China's first unified centralized state, this cavalry was transferred to the northwest. Seduced by the prophecy of fangshi's "Hu Ye the Dead Qin", and at the same time for the needs of the northwest border defense, Qin Shi Huang carried out large-scale development of the northwest. In the Chronicle of History, it is recorded that:
Later Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms, and the First Emperor sent Meng Tian to attack Hu in the north with 100,000 people and take over the southern part of Henan. Because the river is a plug, the forty-four county towns are built near the river, and the migration is suitable for filling it.
Among the 100,000 Qin troops led by Meng Tian included the main force of the Qin army's cavalry. Otherwise, the Qin army would not have been able to defeat the mobile and flexible Hu people so smoothly. Later, when Qin II succeeded to the throne, he killed Meng Tian and replaced Meng Tian with Wang Li.
After the peasant revolt at the end of Qin began, the Qin army repeatedly failed due to the dispersion of troops. At one point, the rebel army reached xianyang city. It was only under the command of Zhang Handan that the pardon used lishan prisoners to temporarily turn the situation around. Zhang Handan went out of the pass to attack the rebel armies in various places, and the Qin army in the northwest was also successively transferred to the interior, which naturally included this elite cavalry.
In the Battle of Julu, Zhang Handan was defeated by Xiang Yu' hands, Wang Li was killed in battle, and his army surrendered to Xiang Yu with Zhang Handan. Xiang Yu fell in love with these masterless cavalrymen and immediately incorporated them into his army and became the main assault force he carried with him.
While the other Qin armies led by Zhang Handan and others, Xiang Yu killed them all. In this way, Xiang Yu led these collected cavalry and three light pole Qin generals into Guanzhong.
Xiang Yu divided the world and established himself as the overlord of Western Chu. These cavalry, which originally belonged to the Qin State, under the leadership of Xiang Yu, glowed with extraordinary brilliance in the later Chu-Han War.
In the Battle of Pengcheng, Xiang Yu led this cavalry of 30,000 people and fought a world-famous battle. When Liu Bang led 560,000 men and horses, taking advantage of Xiang Yu's opportunity to attack the State of Qi to the north, he attacked and occupied Xiang Yu's capital, Pengcheng.
After Xiang Yu heard the news, he immediately led 30,000 cavalry and attacked Liu Bang in the south. He gave full play to the characteristics of his cavalry's mobility, assault power and strong combat effectiveness, and took advantage of Liu Bang's defenseless situation to play the effect of surprise attack. As a result, in a short campaign, Xiang Yu defeated the Han army, killing and drowning hundreds of thousands of Han troops, and Liu Bang was only spared.
The Battle of Pengcheng was the last song of the Qin State Iron Horse. This was because of Xiang Yu's mistake in using soldiers. Although the Qin cavalry was strong, it had not yet reached the point where it could independently carry out strategic tasks. It needs to fight together with other branches of the army to achieve the greatest results.
After the Battle of Pengcheng, Xiang Yu began to abuse cavalry because he was overwhelmed by the victory. He sent cavalry to repeatedly engage Liu Bang's army, and instead of achieving strategic results, he fatigued his cavalry.
In this case, Liu Bang also selected soldiers from Qindi to form his own cavalry in view of the characteristics of Xiang Yu's cavalry. The Historia records the formation of this cavalry:
Chu rode to the crowd, and the King of Han chose the generals who could be knights in the army, and all of them pushed the qin knights Li Bi and Luo Jia to learn cavalry, and now they are lieutenants and can be cavalry generals. The king of Han wanted to worship him, and he said: "The subjects of the Qin people, the fear of the army do not believe in the subjects, the subjects have the great king left and right good rider Fu Zhi." "Although there were few irrigation babies, but several forces fought, naibai irrigation babies as the middle doctor, so that Li Bi and Luo Jia were the left and right lieutenants, and the Langzhong cavalry was attacked and ridden in xingyang east, and it was greatly destroyed."
Therefore, Liu Bang used the cavalry formed by the Qin knights, with his own cronies as commanders, to break the Qin cavalry that Xiang Yu had collected. From then on, Xiang Yu's cavalry began to go downhill.
We have seen the words "Beheading the Building" in many places in the biography of the infant in the "Biography of Fan Li Teng". Lou Fu was the tribe of the original Northern Di, and in Xiang Yu's army, the Lou Fu general in the cavalry was a cavalry from the original Qin State.
Eventually, with the demise of Xiang Yu, the original qin cavalry disappeared. In its place were the Han cavalry established by Liu Bang on the basis of the Qin cavalry. After a long period of training and training, when Emperor Wu of The Han Dynasty arrived, they swept through the Xiongnu, opened up the western regions, laid a vast territory for the Han Dynasty, and established immortal feats.