Then, after a few cups of two pots, everyone can open the conversation box and chat casually. Men complain about injustices, and women complain about the hardships of life.

From their words, Hong Tao will get a lot of useful information. For example, the irrationality of tax policies, and the corruption in the conscription system.

What bothered him the most was the corruption of Ma Zheng, because this matter was not under his jurisdiction, and the imperial court had a special pastoral supervisor, which belonged to the central enterprise, and directly obeyed the orders of the central government, and the local government could not interfere.

The lack of horses in the Northern Song Dynasty seems to be recognized, but this is a false proposition. From the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, there was really no shortage of horses, but war horses that could be used as cavalry.

War horses are a bit like hunting dogs, it doesn't mean that a certain breed of dog is naturally suitable for being a hunting dog, and it will definitely become a hunting dog when it grows up. In addition to variety, there are many factors that need to be met. For example, physique, personality, training, and so on.

The degree of training can be strengthened by nurture, but the physique and character are innate. Some horses are stupid, a little too smart, some are short-tempered, some are too gentle, some are shorter, and some are too tall, and none of them can be qualified horses.

In terms of region, only horses from the northwest and northern regions of East Asia are likely to meet the conditions of war horses, and horses from Yunnan-Guizhou, Sichuan, and the central and southern regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are generally short and lack of running ability, so they cannot fight on the plains for a long time. They are more like donkeys and are suitable for use in mountainous areas.

Since the day the Song Dynasty was founded, it has lost a main production area of war horses, and there is a Liao State in the north, no matter what method is used, people will not export a large number of war horses to the Song Dynasty.

The northwest was in the hands at first, but it was almost the same as not, because the party members had essentially seized this area since the Tang Dynasty, and they were nominally obedient, but in fact they did not listen to orders. After the establishment of the Xia Kingdom, don't count on it at all.

The Song people also understood the reason for not having enough cavalry to fight and suffer losses, and they didn't think of a way. On the contrary, many policies have also been introduced, from state-owned to private, to encourage horse breeding in an all-round way, especially war horses. The effect can't be said to be good or bad, it has to be analyzed from two aspects.

Since the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Taizu has followed the habits of the Tang Dynasty and set up the left and right Qiji courtyards to raise horses for the royal family and the army. Later, it was changed to the Department of Herding Affairs, which was handled by internal officials, and there were envoys, deputy envoys, capital supervisors, judges and other officials. His responsibilities are:

"The matter of the internal and external stables, the government of the country and horses, and the observation of its consumption. Those who receive edicts and documents will be sent to the court and prison at the moment, and the envoys will be appointed to sign for major matters, and their deputy envoys will be sent for small matters. The capital prison is not prepared, and the judges and the capital prison go out of the state to patrol the prison every year, and point to the people who are the people who are in the country and horses. There are three officials on the left and right Qiji Yuan, and they are filled with envoys, deputies and internal attendants, and are in charge of shepherding the national horses, so as to ride the public opinion and award the princes and ministers, Fanyi, and give them to the cavalry stables. ”

With the increase in the number of horses and the wider use, it was no longer enough to rely on the left and right Qiji Courtyard and the Herding Division, and then the Shepherd Upper and Lower Prisons were added, which were specially responsible for curing diseases and breeding ponies; The Horse Appraisal Division is responsible for evaluating the quality of horses and approving the market price; Selling horses, reselling horses that are not suitable for war horses to the people.

In the period of Song Zhenzong, the scale of horse breeding in the Northern Song Dynasty reached its peak, Kaifeng has two courtyards, four prisons, two squares, 14 pastoral prisons, seven breeding prisons distributed in each prefecture and county, and there are more than 200,000 military horses. Even if the military horses are not all war horses, and the waist is halved, there are at least more than 100,000 war horses available.

However, with the signing of the Tanyuan Alliance, the war between the Song and Liao countries subsided, and the emperor of the Song Dynasty did not want to regain the lost territory. The sixteen states of Yanyun were never included in the territory of the Song Dynasty at all, and not all Song people thought that it was a loss of land, and they couldn't do their best to grab it.

As for the strategic position of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, if there is no analysis by various experts in later generations, coupled with the spread of the Internet, how many people in later generations can realize its importance? I'm afraid that the word strategic position alone is enough for most people to ponder for a long time.

Therefore, we can't ask the ancients and modern people to think about it, their vision is not so far, and most people only know the states and counties near their homes after living all their lives, and they are not clear at all if they are more than one or two hundred miles away. Under such cognitive conditions, it is useless to talk about any strategic significance.

The emperors and ministers of the Song Dynasty were less powerful than ordinary people, and they thought that since there would be no more wars with the Liao State in a short period of time, what was the use of having so many war horses? Raising horses is basically similar to raising cars in later generations, even if you don't drive it for a day, it will cost a lot of money and food every year, especially the war horse will cost more.

Let's all sum up, simply, raise less, and save money to do something else. Xiang Minzhong, the prime minister at the time, wrote to the emperor:

"The number of national horses, the first dynasty is doubled, and the cost is extensive, if the herdsmen are sold and scattered among the people, they will be taken slowly, and they will be outside the stable. It was autumn, and it was Zhao over thirteen years old who was sold with military horses. ”

Just retiring some of the war horses and reselling them to the people as means of production The ministers of the Song Dynasty still don't feel that it is enjoyable, and so many state-owned units that raise horses are also waste, so simply, cut off some of them.

So from the fifth year of Tiansheng, the pastoral supervisors began to decrease year by year, and the rest were mainly placed near Hebei and Kaifeng.

After more than ten years, the war horses were basically replaced in two or three batches, and many pastoral supervisors were abandoned for a long time, and the northwest was suddenly chaotic, and then the Xia State was established, and several big victories were fought, and the cavalry of the Northern Song Dynasty was not very rich a lot.

At this time, the monarchs and ministers of the Northern Song Dynasty were a little dumbfounded, and only then did they remember the importance of raising horses, and they were busy trying to recover. Wang Anshi carried out those horse political reforms in order to quickly restore the number of war horses.

However, after all, an agrarian nation is an agrarian nation, and no matter how good poetry is, it cannot replace the laws of nature. Horses are social animals, and they can't reproduce quickly until they reach a certain level.

In addition, the Xiliang Prefectures, which could have brought in stallions and healthy horses, have become enemies, and even seeds are a problem, let alone a large number of breeding.

Counting on Liao for help? I'm afraid that the stupidest ministers of the Song Dynasty didn't think about it either, because it was impossible. Although the Song and Liao countries have been at peace for decades, they are still the main opponents in the long run, and it is okay not to fight, but it is impossible to help you engage in military affairs.

In desperation, these theorists of the Northern Song Dynasty, who had read too many books and had too much imagination, began to make crooked moves again, devised various policies to try to quickly restore the number of horses, but with little success.

Hong Tao didn't see the other methods with his own eyes, so he couldn't evaluate the good or bad, anyway, the efficiency of Qin Fenglu's horse herding supervisor was very low. How low is it? In three years, less than 400 horses were slaughtered, of which only more than 80 were able to wear armor and go into battle, and the rest could only be used as stagecoaches.

A few days ago, Hong Tao read this official document in the government office, and he didn't think it was less at the time, but after talking to these herdsmen, his feelings were completely different.

People say that according to the foundation, investment and manpower of the three horse herding supervisors in Qinfeng Road, more than 500 war horses should be beheaded every year, which is still a conservative estimate after taking into account natural disasters and epidemic attrition.

Because these states and counties north of Qinfeng Road are good horse farms, although there are more mountains, there is no large grassland in Liangzhou, but only the river valley basin and the slopes of the gentle slope are enough to raise tens of thousands of good horses.

With this base, coupled with proper management and qualified domestication, it is really not a problem for thousands of good horses of appropriate age to be slaughtered every year. Remove more than half of the horses that are not suitable for war, then there are still a few hundred left, and you can't count the number of eighty.

Then why is the efficiency of Qin Fenglu's horse herding supervisor so low? Several herders have answers. People said that they were hired to work as horse breeders in the horse herding supervisors in the west of Huangzhou, and the Song officials of those horse herding supervisors were not raising horses at all, but harming horses.

Not to mention the money and food for embezzling horses, there are few people who really understand horses, and once the number of horses is not enough, they will go to the surrounding herdsmen to buy them. The herdsmen will definitely not sell their good horses, and it doesn't matter, the next horse family will also want it, if they catch up with the court to inspect them, they will buy them at a high price.

In this way, it will inevitably cause the degradation of the horse herd, a litter is not as good as a litter, and then if you continue to do this, not to mention the war horse, even the stagecoach can not be tamed much, and can only be used to pull the cart.

But Qin Fenglu's horse herding supervisor is so deceitful and perfunctory, doesn't the herd priest of the imperial court know? This question was answered by Fuki. She is an internal official herself, and she has a relationship with the female officials of the Brocade Academy, so she knows a lot about the cats in these prisons.

I don't know who came up with the bad idea, but the chief officers of these horse herding supervisors are actually the same as the chief generals who lead the troops, and they are also rotated regularly, as if they are served every three years.

You said that the main general with the troops is afraid of rebellion, and it is understandable that the replacement is frequent, and it is a bit blind to raise a horse and rotate it. It's an official who doesn't understand technology, even if he wants to study hard, he has to get out of the way if he hasn't learned neatly, and the newcomer is still a mallet, what is this?

This time, it was the Wasp who gave the answer, not to do anything, just to be an official position. As long as you are willing to spend money to buy good horses and get a proper promotion for three years, you will be regarded as spending money to buy an official, and you don't have to bear the charge.

Now Hong Tao fully understood, it was not that he could not find officials who knew how to raise horses, but that these officials had no chance to take office at all. The position of horse warden in various places has become a shortcut to promotion, and all of them have been snatched away by those who have connections and connections.

But how many scholars are willing to raise horses for a lifetime? I'm afraid there aren't any, so they don't plan to raise horses at all, they're just messing around. What are you afraid of spending more money, presumably these people are not short of money at home, and the picture is this shortcut.

In this state, it would be strange if they could raise horses well, no matter how capable and shrewd Wang Anshi and Emperor Shenzong were, they would never have imagined that Ma Zheng, which they had spent a long time trying to restore, would be regarded as a stepping stone for promotion by the officials below.