During the Song Dynasty, a poet named Xu Jun wrote a poem called "Wu Han", which fully demonstrated the strength of the "cavalry": "Wisdom and courage have been passed, and the situation supports the Youzhou cavalry." Pulling decay and destroying the world can make the plunder lose its prestige. "On the battlefield, the importance of the cavalry is self-evident. Having a well-equipped cavalry is like having an invincible killing weapon, so the ancients would say that "the one who wins the cavalry wins the world."
According to archaeological and related literature, large-scale cavalry teams have appeared as early as Yin Shang. In a merchant ruin, archaeologists excavated a number of "one man, one horse" knight pits, and many carry-on weapons were found in the pits, which further proved that the earliest cavalry was buried in the pits.
For example, in 636 AD, in order to allow Chong'er to return to China safely, Qin Mugong gave him "two thousand horsemen", and in the Warring States period, there was even a clear cavalry establishment, "Liutao Inutao Junbing" recorded: "Five horses and one long, ten horsemen and one official, one hundred horses and one rate, two hundred horsemen and one general." ”
The golden age of ancient Chinese cavalry was the period from the Qin Dynasty to the Two Han Dynasties. Because of the need for combat against the Huns and nomads, the army changed from the almost comprehensive nature of the original wagon to a single cavalry.
The nomads grew up in the steppes, and their familiarity with horses is self-evident, and it is needless to say how strong their cavalry is, right? At that time, Genghis Khan was able to sweep most of the world, relying on his invincible cavalry.
At first, Genghis Khan only unified the steppe with 100,000 cavalry, and then swept across Eurasia with 400,000 cavalry, and under Genghis Khan's cavalry were brilliant powers such as Germany, France, and Britain.
In the second year of the Yuan Hunt (121 BC), Emperor Wu of Han appointed Huo Toyi as a general of the Dang banner and marched separately with Gongsun Ao, but because Gongsun Ao was lost and delayed, Huo Wentai led thousands of horsemen to go deep, annihilating more than 30,000 enemies and capturing many important figures such as the Five Kings of the Xiongnu, forcing the Hun Evil King to lead more than 40,000 people to han.
Looking back at history, we can see that the general example of "winning more with less" was created by cavalry. It can be seen from this that the phrase "the one who wins the cavalry wins the world" is indeed true, but do you know how much money was burned to train a well-equipped cavalry in ancient times?
It is not easy to first train horses that can fight, and these horses are best from alpine regions, so that horses growing in this environment can have better adaptability. Secondly, good war horses also have great attention to the feed, it is best to eat beans, wheat and other refined feed to cultivate physical hardcover war horses, so the cost of training war horses is usually much higher than that of the soldiers who lead the salary.
Then there is the weapon of the cavalry, and the equipment specifications of the cavalry are much higher than those of ordinary infantry. The armor of the cavalry is generally made of double-layered armor, which is generally a bow and arrow, spear, iron halberd, bronze or fried steel sword, in order to cope with different environments. Therefore, in ancient times, if a cavalry force of 10,000 people was destroyed, then even the emperor would be distressed, because it was too expensive.