Jingwen had an idea in his heart, and immediately planned to enter the palace to ask for Li Shimin, because this tea can be said to be a good thing for controlling the northern nomads. And as long as Li Shimin knows, I'm afraid this will be a great achievement! And Jingwen finally came to the palace in a hurry, and he wanted to report to the emperor in the next few days. If those Turks were to be deceived into obtaining tea, I am afraid it would be a big trouble.

"Jingwen Yushi, the emperor is inside to meet the imperial servant, you go in later. Now the imperial court just needs war horses, so you don't bother them. The guard at the door said.

Jingwen heard that the imperial court needed war horses, and immediately said: "I have a way to help them solve the war horse problem, you go and report it quickly!" ”

When the guard heard this, he didn't dare to slack off, and immediately went in to report it. Soon, a word came from inside, telling Jingwen to hurry in.

As soon as Jing Wen entered, an old man in his fifties walked over, grabbed Jing Wen and asked, "You said you can solve the war horse problem for my Datang?" Hurry up! ”

"Zhang Qing, let go, don't freak him out." Li Shimin's voice came.

The old man immediately let go of his hand and said, "The old man's name is Zhang Wansui, he is a servant, and he is in charge of the affairs of the world's horses. You say you can solve the war horse problem, so what can you do? ”

It turned out that this guy was Tai Fuqing, the supreme leader who was in charge of raising horses. And Tai Fuqing is from the third grade, and his level is much higher than Jingwen, how dare Jingwen care about his behavior just now?

"Your Majesty, Lord Zhang, the minister has a way to get a large number of good horses. However, the minister wants to know how many war horses we have in Datang? How many war horses are needed! Jingwen said.

That Zhang Wansui looked at Li Shimin, and Li Shimin nodded.

Zhang Wansui said: "We have 130,000 war horses in Datang, and these are all in the barn. After I took charge of the Tang Dynasty horse administration, I have provided more than 100,000 war horses for my Datang for more than ten years, but this is still not enough for my Datang. ”

"Oh? More than 100,000 horses, it should be enough! Jingwen asked a little ignorantly.

But Li Shimin said: "Jingwen, you haven't fought before, so naturally you don't know the problem of cavalry. The normal lifespan of a horse is only about 20 years, but it does not mean that he can serve for 20 years. A war horse can probably serve for two to eight years, so many cavalrymen have to replace many war horses in their lifetime. What's more, it is impossible for a cavalry to have only one war horse at the same time, most of them are one man and two horses. Even, some elite cavalry had to be three horses per man. Therefore, don't look at the fact that we have more than 100,000 war horses, even if we ignore the damage on the battlefield, we can only provide 10,000 or 20,000 cavalry. ”

"So little? One or two thousand cavalry, it's a fart! Jingwen was a little surprised.

Jingwen didn't expect that the cavalry would consume war horses so much, and a cavalry would have to have two horses. Jing Wen originally thought that one cavalryman and one war horse were enough, but now he told him that one cavalry needed at least two horses. This is not only to allow the cavalry to change horses, but also to change horses in battle, and can also be used to change horses to continue the battle once the horse is killed. And on the battlefield, horses are also very much killed, so it is impossible to calculate according to the maximum number of years of service.

What's more, war horses can only serve for two to eight years, which is not very long. Once the service period has passed, it cannot be a war horse. Jingwen couldn't help but sigh, the cost of ancient cavalry was really high enough, just the war horses had to be so expensive, no wonder the Central Plains Dynasty had not been able to have a large number of cavalry!

"Your Majesty, are our war horses all bred by ourselves?" Jingwen asked.

Zhang Wansui, the servant, immediately shook his head and said, "Relying on our own breeding, I'm afraid we won't be able to grow from thousands to more than 100,000 horses in more than ten years." We are so big that most of our war horses are obtained from the Hu people. Some were captured on the battlefield, and some relied on the tribute of the Hu people. There is also the use of copper coins and cloth to trade, this is the source of our Tang Dynasty war horses. Do you have any good ideas? ”

Jingwen thought for a moment and said, "Is there any problem with the copper money and cloth trade?" ”

Jingwen also wanted to take the opportunity to learn about the situation of Datang's horse politics, and wanted to see how Datang's war horses came about. If you don't ask clearly, you won't be able to start the tea and horse trading program. Jingwen wants to start the tea and horse trading method in advance, so that he can get a large number of war horses for Datang. Jingwen knew that many dynasties used tea to trade war horses with ethnic minorities, so as to maintain the source of war horses.

"My Datang now uses copper coins or cloth to trade, but these two problems are also very many. Copper coins are metal, and once they are used by those Hu people to cast weapons, it will be a threat to my Datang. And the cloth is too expensive for us to trade. When I first established the Tang Dynasty, I couldn't provide a large amount of cloth, so naturally I couldn't afford to trade with a large amount of cloth. In the past few years, the source of our Datang War Horse has become slower and slower, and the growth rate is not as good as in previous years. Li Shimin also said helplessly.

Li Shimin's worries are also reasonable, because once the copper coins are melted down by those Hu people to make weapons, I am afraid that it will be the Tang Dynasty that will suffer. And the cost of cloth was too high, because the Tang Dynasty was not productive enough, so it could not provide a large amount of cloth for trading. If cloth is really traded, then Datang's finances will collapse. But now Datang doesn't have any good way, because there is nothing that Hu people like, and he has a lot of them. Now you can only trade with a combination of copper coins and cloth, so that you can get some war horses. However, because of the worry of various problems, the import of war horses has become less and less in recent years.

After Jingwen heard this, he immediately knew that his tea was finally going to appear. Because tea cannot be turned into a weapon to threaten Datang, and the cost is low. Tea is grown in hilly areas and does not threaten food production, so it is certainly a good thing. What's more, those Hu people also need a lot of tea, and they will not refuse the Han people to trade tea with them for war horses. This has been proven in history, that is, the Hu people did not hesitate to trade war horses for tea. The Hu people also knew that the war horses might be used by the Han to arm their cavalry, but they still had to drink to quench their thirst, which shows how important tea was to them.

Therefore, Jingwen knew that his tea would definitely be successful. When the time comes, as the first to enter the tea market, you will definitely be able to obtain a lot of benefits.