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Although Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, established the Han Dynasty, he still put the country in the predicament of invasion and harassment by the Xiongnu. It is worth noting that at this time, the economic and social conditions of the Han Dynasty were still in turmoil.
If you want to use military means to subdue the Huns, it is simply difficult. So in this case, the Han Dynasty introduced a policy of peace and pro-to-pro in order to ease the tension between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu.
It was not until the time of Emperor Wu of Han that the comprehensive strength of the Han Dynasty developed to the point of being second to none, and then Emperor Wudi of Han sent troops to attack the Xiongnu, and finally won the victory. The main reason why the Han Dynasty achieved such great achievements was that the Han Dynasty promulgated a horse breeding policy.
It is true that at the beginning of the establishment of the Han Dynasty, the entire imperial court faced the embarrassment of horse famine. Even Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, could not find several horses with the same coat color when he traveled. Therefore, Emperor Wen of Han and Emperor Jing of Han frantically raised horses since they succeeded to the throne, thus introducing the horse breeding system.
First, the horse breeding system during the Han Dynasty
At the beginning of the establishment of the Han Dynasty, the country had reached the point of being on the verge of being broken because of the destruction of the country after a long war, and if you wanted to establish a prosperous and prosperous world under such circumstances, the most important premise was to improve the military strength of the country.
Han Gaozu Liu Bang vigorously developed cavalry at this time, after all, in the era of cold weapons, cavalry had more advantages than infantry on the battlefield. And how to build a strong cavalry team, the quality of the horses is the top priority.
In feudal antiquity, it was not easy to train an effective, well-trained, invincible cavalry on the battlefield. The biggest headache for the rulers of the Han Dynasty was the training of war horses.
How to select good horses, how to train these horses to become strong war horses, is not something that can be done overnight, and the manpower and material resources involved in this are also incalculable. Most of the Han Dynasty would choose temperate grasslands to raise warhorses in the Hexi region and west of the Yellow River.
The fertile soil and fresher grass sources on temperate grasslands can give warhorses more nutrients and training space. In addition, the Han Dynasty would also choose places near the western region to breed war horses. After all, in ancient China, most of the high-quality warhorses came from the Western Regions.
The horse breeding system introduced by the rulers of the Han Dynasty could not only help the imperial court cultivate sophisticated war horses, but also the people living in the western regions and other places, bringing a series of preferential policies, so that they could help the imperial court cultivate war horses in exchange for more money.
The most important thing is that before that, the Qin Dynasty had promulgated a relatively perfect horse breeding policy, and Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, once again stood on the shoulders of giants and overlooked the world. In addition, when the Han Dynasty was frantically raising horses, the Xiongnu also resorted to crazy economic warfare and plunder warfare against the Han Dynasty's borders.
In addition to unscrupulously harassing people on the border, it will still pose a certain threat to the country's economic strength. In other words, the real reason for the introduction of the horse breeding system during the Han Dynasty was to completely resist the invasion of the Xiongnu.
Second, the selection of war horse breeds
In fact, there are also some horses in the Central Plains, but these horses are far from those living in the Western Regions. Horses in the Central Plains are relatively small and do not have an innate advantage in war.
However, it is worth noting that these horses also have their own characteristics, that is, they are adaptable and can explode with amazing explosive power in special cases. However, these war horses are usually somewhat mediocre, so in daily life, the imperial court uses these war horses as horses to pull carts.
After a long period of experimentation, the rulers of the Han Dynasty found that horses from the Western Regions had strong staying power, but did not have endurance, but they needed strong staying power to fight on the battlefield, so the rulers of the Han Dynasty considered interbreeding the Horses of the Central Plains with the Horses of the Western Regions.
Thus a new kind of horse was born, which could both pull carts in life and act as war horses on the battlefield. Sure enough, the horses after the hybridization were both explosive and endurance, which was exactly in line with the way Han Soldiers used them.
Therefore, during the Han Dynasty, the han dynasty army used this horse to fight against the Xiongnu on the battlefield, and even defeated the ethnic minorities who had previously dominated the grasslands, completely reversing the humble situation of the Han Dynasty and forming a situation of mutual restraint and mutual resistance with the Xiongnu.
When Emperor Wudi of Han ruled the Han Dynasty, the country's economic strength made rapid progress, which also made the country's military strength develop to the point of peaking, so for various reasons, Emperor Wudi of Han decided to fight back when he ruled.
Several of the best generals of the Han Dynasty were sent, especially to the battlefield, to duel with the Xiongnu, and after several conquests, the once invincible Xiongnu were also beaten to the ground, and finally completely surrendered to the feet of the Han rulers.
To some extent, in the confrontation between the two sides, the victory of the Han Dynasty created a relatively stable atmosphere of development for the society of the Han Dynasty. It is worth noting that after having such a strong power, the rulers of the Han Dynasty still did not give up this way of peace.
After all, although the two sides have formed a situation where you are strong and I am weak, in order to bring better development space to the country, it is still necessary to establish an alliance with the Xiongnu.
It has to be said that the rulers of feudal antiquity had their own set of ideas in the management of the country, and their ideas were also breathtaking, and on the battlefield, perhaps only weapons could achieve the prerequisites for pre-determination, but soldiers were also a crucial key point. The battlefield is terrible, who loses and who wins is only a matter of an instant, and only by grasping the core of the war can we achieve the final victory. And this kind of truth is still practical to this day.