"The great affairs of the country are in Rong, and the great affairs of Rong are in the horse", war horses were very important strategic materials and means of transportation for the ancient government. From the Water Margin, we can find this that the great battle between Zengtou City and Liangshan began with a good horse.
Cavalry played a decisive role in a battle, but historical records record that the Southern Song Dynasty war horses are scarce materials, and there has even been a strange phenomenon of "dismounting the army today, and no one or two of the ten people has horses", which has to let us mention the story of the Southern Song Dynasty's thousands of miles of horses.
The war horse Xiaoxiao came from a thousand mountains away
1. Find the source of the horse in a thousand miles
The territory of the Southern Song Dynasty was very narrow, so the main source of war horses was through purchasing land along the Chang'an route in Sichuan and Guizhou, Guangxi. Long-distance transportation and procurement were very difficult in an era when roads were not accessible and trafficked, not only facing mountain roads, but also causing horses to be lost in the middle of the way.
Shu road is difficult, difficult to go to the green sky. The river is rugged and the road is rocky. Based on the shortage of horses during the Southern Song Dynasty and the dilemma of transporting horses, in May of the first year of the Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty, Sichuan Xuanfu made Wu Feng propose to transport horses by water.
Water transport is mainly carried by the manufacture of special horse boats to transport horses across rivers, but this consideration is not very mature. Zhang Zhen, a marshal of Cuizhou Road, pointed out: "The annual cost is about 2 million, and the production is not enough, and it is absolutely difficult to handle it."
However, in the face of the intense and severe demand for horses, Xiaozong still very firmly agreed to the process of transporting horses by water. In the second year of the dry road, Wu Feng applied for a trial transportation of a batch of horses by water, in order to discover the needs of the horses on the way and the specific expenses required to transport the horses.
This test also verified the feasibility of water transportation, so when the head of the Transportation Department at that time reported his views on Ma Gang water transport to the imperial court, he expressed his approval of water transportation of horses. And Xiaozong was even more happy, "go to the great goodness", and immediately began to promote water transportation.
2. The first test of Ma Gang water transport and Guangxi bought horses to the south
It is recorded in the "Miscellaneous Notes of the Dynasty and the Wild": "The gorge is turbulent, and the sergeant is not familiar with habits... The people who drove along the stream were boated for it, robbed of their clothes and food, and emptied their chickens and dogs. "Due to the peculiarities of the times and the influence of the environment, even with the support of the emperor, the policy of transporting horses by water in the Southern Song Dynasty was not smooth.
Wu died the year after his attempt to transport horses, and the officials who replaced him were less supportive of transporting horses by water. Yu Yunwen inspected the actual situation and detailed route of horse transportation, and proposed a combination of water transportation and land transportation.
The journey from Lizhou to Jingnan is nearly 3,000 miles, and the smooth wind is okay, and once it goes against the wind, the speed of the ship will be greatly reduced. The land near the Golden State is wide and flat, which is very suitable for horses to move forward, and the combination of the two methods can increase the speed of transportation.
Because Yu's proposal referred to the actual situation on the ground, he received strong support from Emperor Xiaozong, and "the edict allowed Wen to choose its convenience and change it on the one hand." However, in the later period, some important court ministers wrote that the transportation of grain on both sides of the river bank was greatly affected by the method of water transportation, and this method of water transportation was directly abolished in the later period.
Guangxi's horses mainly came from Guizhou, and initially Guizhou people sent horses to areas in need through Hunan and Jiangxi, but because Jiangxi roads were difficult and obstructed, they came all the way north from Tanzhou and Xiangyang.
3. Guarantee the supply of human resources for horses in transit
Transporting horses requires not only thinking about the route the horse travels and the specific way to transport the horse, but also includes all the issues that must be considered in the process of horse transportation, among which the distribution of personnel and property is the most important.
There are two main types of characters in horse transportation, one is the official responsible for the whole line of horse transportation, the general who protects the horse, the doctor who treats the horse, and the other is the person in charge of the horse lead who is responsible for the specific horse, which makes the horse transportation process responsible from top to bottom.
The Sichuan Tea Horse Division has 100 horses per class, including "two envoys, one general and one medical animal, and 50 horse soldiers", a total of 54 people. These 54 people perform their respective duties and are governed by strict reward assessment methods.
If there are no horses injured throughout the delivery process, the officer escorting the horses can be promoted to the rank of rank; But if the horse is damaged by three percent, it will be demoted. In the third year of Shaoxing, there was a law that stated: "If the abbot officer arrives, the loss is less than one point..." with a transfer official; General... loses two points and lowers one's official salute".
Strictly point out possible problems in the process of transporting horses and define the person responsible for the problems to reduce injuries during horse transportation. Even though the imperial court attached great importance to the transportation of horses, purchasing more than 10,000 war horses every year to transport to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Southern Song Dynasty was still very short of horses.
Current events have created a gap in the warhorses of a generation of courtes
1. Poor and weak and unaffordable
In the process of transporting horses, the cost of the horses is very high in order to ensure the survival rate of the horses. It includes not only the rations of the horses, the ships that carry the horses, but also the costs of the officials and stagecoaches who escort the horses along the way, and this is only the cost of preparing for the smooth operation.
"All sick horses, that is, the right to stay, such as forensic treatment", for sick horses need timely medical treatment; It is also necessary to maintain a good environment at the post station and smooth roads along the way at all times. Chunxi spent ten years "rebuilding the road to make it tall and flat, without mud", and everywhere the horses traveled was expense.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, due to a series of unoutstanding fiscal policies, the state revenue was very limited, especially the prefectures along the horse transportation were simply unable to support the huge expenses required during the horse transportation, which could not maintain the enthusiasm of continuing to transport horses everywhere.
As far as the transportation of horses in Sichuan is concerned, every year, "Sichuan Prefecture sends more than 4,000 horse soldiers and borrows more than 300,000 yuan", and the transportation of horses brings huge economic and personnel costs to the local areas passing through, not to mention the cost of shipbuilding and sailors for water transportation.
Zhang Zhen said: "From Li to the eleventh prefecture of the gorge, the annual fee is about two million yarns. The central government's policy of transporting horses only considered the transportation of horses, but did not consider the economy, and the lack of funds made the Southern Song Dynasty unable to support the huge expenses of horse transportation, further leading to its own insufficient troops.
2. Internal and external troubles lead to the scarcity of horses
The Southern Song Dynasty has always endured oppression from surrounding ethnic minorities, and the military situation is very bad. In the "Qunshu Sokao", it is said: "The minister of the Song Dynasty, Pingzhang, first the army and then the country; The group of ministers first the army and then the state. It can be seen that everything at that time was military-oriented, and it can also be seen that the urgent environment faced by the Southern Song Dynasty.
War horses as a first-class combat readiness is even more important, but horses are afraid of heat and drought-tolerant animals, their breeding environment is very affected by geographical factors, "border people and livestock migration, galloping water and grass... As for China... Xuanhuang Sui (tired horse), thus reducing consumption".
The Central Plains where the Song Dynasty was located was not suitable for breeding horses, and the Southern Song Dynasty was not very strict with the official pasture management, resulting in horse quality was not good, and even easy to get sick, and could not support the needs of the war, at which time procurement became the largest source of horses.
The largest horse breeding base, the Khitan, had countless horses of perfect quality, but at that time, the relationship between Liao and the Song Dynasty was opposite, and it was impossible to sell horses to the Song Dynasty. It was not until Jin destroyed Liao that a contract was established with the Song Dynasty, but horses were still forbidden to be sold to the Southern Song Dynasty as strategic goods.
On the other hand, the source of the party horse in "Buy the Party Horse in the North, Capture the Parrot in the West", the Western Xia Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty prohibited trade with each other, even if the market was opened occasionally for many years, it could not support long-term stable trading. Under internal and external troubles, the Southern Song Dynasty, which was unfriendly with its neighbors, could not obtain a stable source of horses for a long time.
3. Uneven distribution of resources makes it difficult to transport horses
Because the native horses in the Southern Song Dynasty were very limited, the main source of horses was from other places, and horses needed to be transported long distances, which would greatly disturb the people during the long transportation, and would greatly stimulate social contradictions, which required more military manpower to maintain stability.
Wang Shipeng said in the compromise of the above, "Cuizhou is also ruled by the minister, Kui is the marshal's mansion, the place of the garrison, and the number is still insufficient" shows the lack of government manpower in the process of transporting horses, and the lack of government manpower must select personnel from ordinary people to join the transportation process.
"So the people who drove the people along the river were boated for it, and the food and clothing were taken away by it, and the chickens and dogs were empty," said local officials, expressing unease about the enormous pressure on horse transport, and the enormous pressure on state capitals on the way.
The opposition of the subordinate state governments made the implementation of the horse transportation policy quite difficult, and the loss of horses by water transportation became very large. Ships laden with horses died nine times after encountering strong winds and waves, which forced the Southern Song court to cancel the most efficient mode of transportation.
At the same time, in ancient times, large canals also played a very huge role in transportation, and the resources needed by large cities would reach the city through water transportation, and large horse ships would crowd the river, which greatly affected the daily life of residents, which shows that the situation of horse shortage in the Southern Song Dynasty will inevitably appear.
summary
The transportation of horses itself has been a very difficult task in the long history of history, and the continuous operation mechanism, the strong support of the central government and the economic support are indispensable. And the Southern Song Dynasty's blind advance not only did not alleviate the lack of horses, but also put itself in a difficult situation for a while.
The congenital lack of horses in the Southern Song Dynasty and the acquired policy created such an environment, so that we found that in the administrative management system, we must have a pair of eyes that can find the shortcomings of the policy, and at the same time boldly improve and break through the defects of our own system, so that we can be invincible in development.
Bibliography:
1. Process management of horse transportation in the Southern Song Dynasty;
2. Examination of water transport in the Southern Song Dynasty;
3. Southern Song Dynasty tea and horse trade and horse administration related silver collars.
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