The young emperor personally tried it, which not only made the heads of the new training camp nervous, but also Zhao Mengjin and others nervous. Although the new training camp is a permanent institution and is fully equipped, it does not maintain many troops. Generally, after the new recruits enter the camp, they will be organized into a temporary division, with the heads of the division commander, and the heads of several teaching teams under their jurisdiction serve as regiment commanders, and so on establishing their organizational system, but they only go down to the capital.

The head of the city is the coach of the teaching team, responsible for organizing basic training and management. The positions of the team chief and team leader are held by martial arts students or the backbone of the pre-training officers who are trained from various departments. This can train the organizational training ability of these reserve officers, and also enable these people to pass on their training and combat experience to the recruits, so that the recruits can adapt to the rhythm of the regular troops as soon as possible after being assigned to each department.

It is precisely because of this configuration that most of these junior officers come from nearby garrisons, and they are also the water army under the charge of Zhao Mengjin and others. Once these people have problems, the young emperor will inevitably remind the situation in the army. According to their temper, it is often not these practitioners and officers who are unlucky, but the relevant chief officers and recommenders of various departments. Thinking that his destiny is now being held in the hands of these low-level officers. Can they not sweat all their palms?

Zhao Bing's school examination started from the head of the city, and then the team leader and the team leader. He asked very carefully, from the key points of the movements to the work and rest system and the daily management of the company. Not only did the candidates who were asked at all times blushed, but even the "bystanders" were trembling. They knew that the little emperor was the first person in the army and was very familiar with the system in the army, but they did not expect that he could be familiar with it and could be easily weighed without thinking, making these generals who hang out in the army every day ashamed.

After the exam, the officers took the exam for the new recruits. At first, they were worried that the young emperor would have problems, but in fact, the scope of the young emperor's school examination was completely within the training outline formulated by the Ministry of War. But this still made them careless. There were questions about the speed of training progress and the degree of mastery of the rules of the new recruits. It can be said that the focus is on the point, and the performance of the new recruits can also reflect the overall situation of the entire new training camp.

The entire random exam took more than an hour, but everyone felt uncomfortable and felt even more nervous. The little emperor did not say a word afterwards. Then he followed the complete process step by step, and lunch was dining with the officers and soldiers in the house without exception. Looking at the meals on the table that were much more abundant than yesterday, he just smiled, but it made everyone feel excited and realized that it was backfiring. He actually forgot that the little emperor had been lurking here for a day yesterday and had already figured out the basics.

After lunch, Zhao Bing convened the officers above the new training camp commander to talk to each other. Everyone was ready to face the storm, but the result was unexpected. The little emperor did not get furious, but pointed out that they had problems one by one, especially in order to deal with the fraud of the inspection, thinking that these things seemed small, but had a very bad impact and would cause bad habits in the army.

Later, Zhao Bing criticized the problem of regional discrimination in the camp, demanding that they break the past small hillism and sectarianism and establish a view of the overall situation that puts national interests first. While strengthening military training, they should not relax their ideological education, especially the sense of glory and pride of soldiers. In addition, they should warn the public that the current peace is only temporary, and a decisive battle with the Mongolian Yuan is inevitable, and they should never relax their vigilance.

After the inspection, Zhao Bing did not stay for a long time. All the officers and soldiers of the new training camp lined up on the dock to see him off. Seeing the emperor passing by the queue, Wu Hong and Ou Bo couldn't help but lit up. Looking at the emperor who was smiling at them, he couldn't help but straighten his back and widen his eyes. The partner leader Liu Datong was surprised and couldn't help but touch the banknotes in his bag. Yesterday, when he was cleaning the kitchen case, he found banknotes. After asking for a long time, no one claimed them. At this moment, he suddenly realized that the rumors in the army were true...

Zhao Bing's fleet set sail again, but this time he did not enter the sea from Taihu Lake, but turned into the Yangtze River and went downstream to Chongming Prefecture. He wanted to see the horse farm. The importance of war horses was not much needed in ancient times, and as the direction of war turned to Jiangbei, the need for war horses was becoming increasingly urgent. However, the lack of horses in Jiangnan was an old problem. At present, the Song army formed twelve cavalry brigades, with a force of only more than 30,000, which was rare in all dynasties.

The main reason for this situation is the lack of horses, and the ability to reach such a scale depends entirely on the capture in the battle to recover Jiangnan. With the formation of the chariot army and the baggage army, the contradiction of lack of horses became increasingly prominent. Zhao Bing knew that if this situation was not changed, it would cause great difficulties for the Northern Expedition in the future. Therefore, while collecting horses through various channels, he also established a horse farm to breed horses, while Chongmingzhou horse farm was a stallion.

In his previous life, whenever Zhao Bing saw foreign military parades or equestrian performances on TV, he was often attracted by the agile knights and tall horses. Because in China, it is rare to see such tall horses. Even if he went to places with large grasslands such as Inner Mongolia to ride horses, the horses he saw were often relatively short, and some horses were just about the same size as donkeys.

Coincidentally, the "Oriental Horses" riding by the Japanese army during the War of Resistance Against Japan were also known for their tallness and strength. Although they were not tall, the war horses they rode were generally very tall. "Wearing flowers with big red flowers, and riding horses with East Asian horses" reflected the excellence and preciousness of the war horses used by the Japanese army at that time. These situations led to a lot of contempt for domestic horse breeds and doubts about the strength of ancient Chinese cavalry. After all, the quality of war horses is not good enough, and the combat effectiveness of the cavalry will be greatly reduced.

However, Zhao Bing, who had some understanding of ancient Chinese military, knew that there was no shortage of heavy cavalry in ancient China. If there were no tall and excellent war horses, there would be no way to talk about armored horses. So, were there any tall horses in ancient China? Zhao Bing came to this era, and wanted to solve this mystery from a realistic perspective or in the previous life's questions.

Before solving this mystery, Zhao Bing first understood two important concepts about the physique indicators of horses, namely "shoulder height" and "palm". Generally, animals like horses measure the height based on shoulder height. The so-called shoulder height refers to the distance between the shoulder blade and the foot of the horse. The palm is a concept of length. Traditionally, the unit of the palm is often used to measure the height of a horse. In fact, there is no clear scale, because each person's palm size is different, which leads to the blurring of the concept. He thought it was only about ten centimeters, but it also made it difficult to explain the height of the horse.

The Chinese have a long history of using horses, and they started riding horses as early as the Shang Dynasty. However, Zhao Bing felt that from the heart, the breeds of local Chinese horses were not good. In the pre-Qin period, most of them were mainly smaller Mongolian horses. Judging from the horse images reflected in the Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses, at this time, the horses in China had long ears, small horse hooves, short horse mane, thin horse tail, and low shoulders.

According to the records in the "Book of Zhou": "A dragon is above eight feet, a trench is above seven feet, and a horse is above six feet." After conversion, it can be seen that the average number of local horses in China in the pre-Qin period was about 138 centimeters, which is about fourteen palms. In the Han Dynasty, horses with shoulder heights of fourteen palms were forbidden to leave the pass, which can also be used as an example.

However, we all know that in the Central Asia region around the Western Regions, there are excellent riding horse breeds, especially the Dayuan horse, known as the "sweat-blooded BMW". It has a common ancestor with Nesama, which is famous for the Parthian heavy cavalry. It was also one of the best horse breeds in the world at that time. The average shoulder height is generally around fifteen palms.

The famous conqueror Emperor Wu of Han attacked the Xiongnu in the north and explored the Western Regions. He introduced the "Wusun Tianma" and "sweat-blooded BMW" from the countries in the Western Regions, which greatly improved the horse breeds in the Central Plains. Compared with the Qin Dynasty horse sculptures, the ears of war horses became shorter, the mouths were cracked, the horse's hooves were larger, the chest was wider, and the shoulder height was significantly increased. This shows the improvement effect of good horses in the Western Regions on Chinese horses.

Since then, all dynasties have attached great importance to the maintenance of horses. They have clearly realized that "Since ancient times, all countries in the world have taken horse politics as the priority, so those who ask the kings of wealth must count horses to match them." For emperors and generals, having a tall BMW good horse is a symbol of identity and ability, and can also gain great advantages on the battlefield. Coincidentally, after Mongolians marched westward to Central Asia, they began to quickly eliminate Mongolian horses and switch to Central Asia.

So, how did the situation in which Chinese local horses were significantly shorter than Europe and even Japan in the last century? First of all, the tall horses in modern Europe and Japan were not found "since ancient times". These tall horses were gradually bred by artificially around the 17th century. For example, the world-class British purebred horses were cultivated since the mid-17th century. Most of the "Oriental Horses" used by the Japanese army during the War of Resistance Against Japan were actually introduced from Western countries, especially France.

In the long medieval period in Europe, having several war horses was the standard for knights. The more war horses, the better it was the noblest of the knight's identity. During marching, fighting and even hunting, the knights had different mounts. The performance of horses during knights can determine the outcome more, which is related to the ransom of bonuses and equipment, so knights always select the best horses to participate in the competition, which also led to the prosperity of the horse breeding industry in European history.

Although the soldiers in the Middle East fought to the death with their European counterparts, they had many common languages ​​in selecting and raising horses. The horses used by the Middle East played polo and hunted even needed to be imported from India and other places. The medieval Europe and the Middle East were typical feudal lord systems. A lord with hundreds of knights could get the king close, and a guard officer who could command hundreds of Gulam cavalry could also determine the ownership of the sultan, so they were willing to make a fortune on their mounts.

In addition, the concepts of cold-blooded horses, hot-blooded horses and warm-blooded horses are also modern products. Among them, cold-blooded horses are docile and strong in nature, so they are generally used for labor, and some are even used as carnivorous breeding, especially the Ardennes horses produced in northern France, which are typical cold-blooded horses, strong in size, hard-working, gentle in character, but slow in body. Of course, after the 18th century, with the development of human breeding technology, cold-blooded horses suitable for riding emerged, such as Persh horses.

Hot-blooded horses are generally the kind of "thousand-mile horses" that people traditionally believe. They run very fast and have a violent temperament, so they are difficult to control. Because the hot-blooded horses are very fast, they are mainly used as riding horses. The famous Arab horses are typical hot-blooded horses. The famous modern British thoroughbred horses are also such horses.

As the name suggests, warm-blooded horses are generally bred by hybridizing and selecting hot-blooded horses. Warm-blooded horses often have relatively strong bodies and flexible and elegant bodies, and can undertake some light farming work or be very tame riding horses. In many modern equestrian competitions, many riders ride warm-blooded horses.

Secondly, while European horse breeds entered artificial scientific breeding, Chinese horse breeds were degenerated. Especially after the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, in order to prevent the Han people from rebelling, the Qing rulers who started with cavalry had a deep understanding of the importance of horses and strictly prohibited Han civilians from raising horses. If civilians ride horses, they would confiscate horses and be punished with 50 rods. In addition, horses on Mongolian grasslands were strictly prohibited from entering the mainland. As a result, horses in the mainland began to degenerate.

After the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, due to years of war and political turmoil, there was no way to talk about systematic breeding of horses, so the horse breeds further degenerated. Before the founding of New China, the average height of Chinese horses dropped by as much as five centimeters. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the New Fourth Army collected qualified horses everywhere in order to establish cavalry. As a result, the regiment commander Peng Xuefeng could only hand over his horses to the cavalry regiment for use, which indirectly explained the difficulty of finding good horses at that time. In this case, it naturally highlighted the height of the artificially selected European horse breeds of the Japanese invaders.

What Zhao Bing learned was that there was no shortage of good horses in this era, but the lack of horses in the Song Dynasty was also a fact, and the poor quality of horses was also a reason for many aspects. First, after losing the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, the Song Dynasty lost the place to herd horses and could only rely on introducing horses through trade from Guangxi and Yunnan. The horse breeds there were even shorter, which aggravated the degeneration of horse breeds. Furthermore, even if they had good relations with nomadic peoples, they could buy horses from them, but they were all selected inferior horses, and they were mostly castrated and rude horses, and it was difficult to improve the horse breeds in the mainland.
Chapter completed!