Three Kingdoms

War horse, or horse.

this is a problem.

Fei Qian listened to the dispute between Cui Cheng and Wang Yun, and then gradually understood the key point.

There is only one stallion in the breeding farm. Regardless of resource allocation or personnel deployment, it is impossible to say that the same stallion group raises both war horses and rogue horses.

War horses are delicate.

In order to maintain the activity and physical strength of the war horse, the cavalry actually has to serve the war horse like a master every day. They are afraid of freezing when it is cold, and they are afraid of heat stroke when they are hot. They need to cool down after running for a long time, and they need to eat more when they lose weight. Woolen cloth?

The one who serves the slaves the most is probably the whip.

This is a completely different concept.

War horses are required to be more fierce, more aggressive, more brave, run faster, jump higher, know how to cooperate with cavalry, have higher sensitivity, and have better controllability...

And what are the requirements for the horse?

Durable.

Therefore, whether they are retired war horses or horses that have been screened out and cannot become war horses, they are actually not suitable for use as draft horses.

Cui Cheng said that he had checked a lot and counted many of these retired or eliminated horses. After becoming horse horses, they were not very qualified for the job of horse horses. They either died of depression soon, or It is because living standards have dropped significantly and they have to bear heavy workloads that they will quickly weaken until they die.

Some people also have questions, isn't it a cow that is suitable for farming and can bear heavier labor in the fields? It is true that the horse can be used for farming, but it is not completely suitable for farming. If we only talk about cultivating acres of land, cattle are indeed better, but for transporting materials, horses are indispensable.

When the war horses themselves are not very wealthy, they have to specially cultivate a breed of horses, which is difficult for ordinary people to understand.

However, what Cui Cheng said really makes sense. Especially now that the Hussar horses span across the east, west, north and south, and there are a lot of things that need to be transported, it is necessary to specially breed the Husband horses...

In ancient times, there were no highways, let alone trains, so when traveling far away, large items could not be carried without animals, which were mainly horses. Until World War II, most transportation on the battlefield relied on livestock, let alone the Han Dynasty?

Why not use bullock carts?

Because the bullock cart is too slow.

Mules and horses?

There is only one generation of mules and horses.

There may happen to be some mules and horses that are quite suitable, but they cannot be passed on or continued. Another factor is that the interracial pregnancy rate is actually not high. Some horses and donkeys have even been together for six years without getting pregnant, so there is no continuity and long-term effect. When the war breaks out, you can't ask the other party to cooperate and wait. , indicating that the animals in our own transportation brigade have not been cultivated and ready, so we cannot start fighting yet...

Even if local transportation is not considered and only cavalry operations are considered, a large number of horses are still needed. For example, for a thousand cavalry, the actual number of horses is often 1,200 to 1,500. A large part of the extra war horses are rogue horses. These horses are taken care of by cavalry when the cavalry is fighting alone. If they are stationed, they are taken care of by grooms who can ride horses and are used to pull carts or carry loads.

There is also the transportation of food and grass during combat. This requires a large number of horses, and using an oxcart is too slow. If the journey is longer, the battle may have been fought for several rounds by the time the oxcart arrives, and it may even be over, leaving just enough time for the enemy on the opposite side. Military supplementary rewards...

There are only two ways to transport troops and food over long distances.

people.

Or a rogue horse.

As the saying goes, if you transport food thousands of miles, you won’t save even one out of ten.

The general army's grain supply process is that the state collects grain from scattered grain production areas, aggregates it to transfer points, and then centrally transports it to the army. If it is peacetime, the destination of food transportation is fixed, and the military station will be located in a place with convenient transportation. In this way, food loss will be reduced to a great extent.

But things are different during wartime. Frontline troops are constantly moving, and grain and grass transportation has become dynamic transportation. Transportation conditions and locations are constantly changing, and transportation losses naturally increase all of a sudden.

During combat, when troops are far away from the granary, the consumption of food will increase exponentially until it can no longer be supplied. Similar problems existed during World War II. For example, trucks transport oil to frontline tanks, but the trucks themselves also burn oil. The further the front lines advance, the lower the oil transportation efficiency becomes.

Therefore, in order to reduce the loss of food transportation, various dynasties used all kinds of methods. Farming began in the Han Dynasty, and in the Tang Dynasty, in order to reduce the cost of maintaining the army, local financial power was also delegated to the Jiedushi envoys, allowing them to solve the food and grass problem on the spot.

But it is obvious that farming cannot completely solve the problem, and Jiedushi only treats the symptoms but not the root cause. These methods are not perfect. Therefore, the problem now is actually in Fei Qian's hands. What method should he choose to break through this constraint? The bottleneck of the feudal dynasty?

If it is just loss, it may be possible to increase the transportation volume to counteract it, but other problems associated with transportation cannot be made up for by increasing transportation manpower.

Because in the process of transporting grain and grass, three serious problems will arise.

First, the problem of food processing. You can eat the grain directly from the granary. But to be transported to the front line, it must be processed and made into finished products that are easy to store and transport. Even if Fei Qian has more advanced storage methods and dry food technology, he cannot guarantee the state of the food after more than three months. There were no targeted drugs for aflatoxin and nitrates in ancient times...

Second, if there are not enough horses, a lot of manpower will be needed for transportation. In this way, not only will the original grain reserves be consumed, but it will also affect the next year's production. Assume that an army of 10,000 people is fighting on the front line, and tens of thousands of civilians need to be mobilized to transport food to them in the rear. These tens of thousands of people are just walking, not participating in direct fighting, nor doing any production.

This means that these civilians not only have to consume extra money, but their original output is also lost. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, those protracted wars proved that even if they were victorious in the end, there would often be famine in the country.

Third, the farther the food is transported, the higher the probability of being stolen or robbed, especially when you encounter a guy like Cao Cao who likes to attack grain roads...well, sneak attacks on grain roads. We can't just expect farmers to fight against enemies with bones and sticks when they encounter enemy forces that cut off food roads.

The longer the road, the more food protection teams are needed, and the more extra consumption is incurred...

In addition, there are some logistics-related problems. For example, there is a lot of grain in a certain place, but because there are not enough mules and horses in the transshipment team, the transportation cannot reach the transshipment warehouse. Warehouses also have such problems. Obviously there is grain in the warehouse, but there is not enough transportation capacity and it cannot be transported out. It's like a game that introduces some logistics concepts. If the logistics is not planned well, the rear warehouse will be full and there will be nothing on the front line.

There may even be supply chain problems in the entire region or even the country. Primary raw materials are piled up, but processing sites cannot supply raw materials. Wheat warehouses are bursting near farmland, but there is not enough food in cities... …

Food issues can be improved through agricultural development, but what about transportation?

Those traveling by water had boats, while those traveling by land had only livestock, that is, horses.

This kind of directional issue requires Fei Qian to make the final decision.

With the expansion of the control territory, Fei Qian has already been considering transportation-related issues. In fact, these issues should have been studied in the early days of the Han Dynasty.

With the expansion of China's territory, whether it is information transmission or military control, speed and timeliness have caused problems, which will naturally cause more problems. The collapse of the old six kingdoms in the Qin Dynasty has already illustrated this, and Liu Bang's in the Han Dynasty The county system is just a product of compromise and cannot be considered the best result.

If you want a larger territory, you must have better transportation.

This is not something that you only think about after the battle is over and serious problems arise, or that even if problems arise, you still don't want to change them.

Difficulties in transportation conditions were solved in ancient times by using a large number of livestock and tools.

But this solution is not good, and everyone knows it is not good, but they don’t think about how to solve the problem, they only think about how to solve the problem for the people...

For example, during the Xiqiang Rebellion, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty dispatched 100,000 troops and equipped more than 10,000 vehicles to transport grain and grass. Even so, it was still unable to meet the needs of the front line, so the front line impeached the rear and the rear reported the front.

Another example is that during the Western Han Dynasty, the rapid population development in the Guanzhong area made it impossible for the grain output of the Sanfu in Chang'an to keep up, so that every year tens of thousands of ships were used to transport millions of stones of grain from the Guanzhong area to supply Guanzhong. In the Tang Dynasty, the ecology of Guanzhong deteriorated even more. Even the emperor often had to go to Luoyang to eat. Therefore, the people of Shandong complained that Guanzhong was asking for food and grass all day long. The people of Guanzhong scolded Shandong for being ignorant and unreasonable...

Although the population of Chang'an Sanfu has not yet reached its peak, Fei Qian has to consider these issues. On the one hand, he must increase the total yield per mu, and on the other hand, he must solve the transportation bottleneck.

Of course, on this planet, there is no worst, only worse.

If the Han players can be described as struggling in transportation, then the Roman players at the same time as the Han Dynasty were almost crawling.

In Rome during the same period of the Han Dynasty, agricultural production had not yet entered the era of crop rotation and was still in a leisure system. In other words, after a piece of land in Rome was cultivated for one year, it would take longer to recover its soil fertility, which meant that Rome needed several times more land to achieve the land cultivation efficiency of the Han Dynasty.

This does not include the backwardness of Roman agricultural tools and breeding technology, as well as the backwardness of understanding of land fertility, climate environment, etc. It also does not include the backwardness of agricultural infrastructure and agricultural systems.

Outside of Rome, it’s even more exaggerated. Many civilizations are still abandoned!

It’s not that there wasn’t a more efficient mode of transportation in the Han Dynasty, there was one, and that was water transportation.

During the Warring States Period, the carrying capacity of an ordinary ship was twenty times the transportation efficiency of vehicles, and it required less manpower. If it traveled down the river, the ship's speed was still fast. Therefore, many wars in China focused on advancing both by water and land.

For example, in the Battle of Changping, both Qin and Zhao relied on water transportation as the main transportation line. Only in places where there was no water, vehicles were used for short-distance transportation. In addition, the Battle of Changping was only a few hundred miles away from the capitals of both countries, so it could support a battle of hundreds of thousands of troops.

However, if you encounter an area like the Western Regions, where the rivers are inland rivers and seasonal rivers, then the ships are basically useless and can only be transported by carriages and horses. Therefore, the requirements for baggage carriages and horses must naturally be increased. to a higher, more urgent need.

The war horse is obviously very important, but the horse cannot be given up just because of this.

Chaos may break out in the Western Region at any time. Whether it is for early pacification or post-war recovery, food is essential. Improved transportation capabilities will lead to stronger combat capabilities. Only strong combat capabilities can ensure the stability of the border. Only stable borders can allow the people of the Central Plains of China to develop healthily.

These are all interconnected.

The upper limit of agriculture...

The upper limit of traffic...

Together, they are the upper limit of the entire empire.

Perhaps to put it another way, it is the upper limit of the big foodie empire.

Everything starts with eating, and everything is limited by eating.

If there was no food left, who would listen to Fei Qian?

After fully listening to the main points of the argument between both parties, Fei Qian also made a decision...

……(?▽?)/……

When the hustle and bustle dissipates, what remains is the real stuff.

In the Engineering Society not far from the Agricultural Society, the great craftsman Huang Li was wandering in front of a newly made baggage truck, tapping or dragging various parts of the vehicle from time to time.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, chariot battles were divided into leather chariots, baggage chariots, heavy chariots, and baggage vehicles. There was a "clothes chariot" as a baggage vehicle, and a "clothes chariot" as a baggage vehicle, and a heavy vehicle as a baggage vehicle. Obviously, the ancients had already clarified the purpose of baggage trucks, which were for transporting goods.

Before the Han Dynasty, there were no specially designed and produced baggage vehicles for use by the army. Many of the vehicles were actually the own vehicles of the gentry and officials, and military supplies mainly relied on the collection of civilian vehicles for transfer.

Starting from the Han Dynasty, army baggage vehicles began to be produced by government-run workshops, which ensured the army's combat needs.

The baggage carts Huang Li now manufactures are products that require versatility, which means that every part of the cart is a fixed module and can be replaced once damaged. This requires that these modules adopt a standard production model, and it also requires that the processes for producing these modules be equally standard.

Due to road conditions, baggage trucks cannot be large.

Fei Qian's memories may not always be correct. For example, after a four-wheeled baggage truck was trialled for a period of time, it was changed to a two-wheeled one.

The reason is simple. The load-carrying capacity of a four-wheeled carriage has not doubled just because of the extra two wheels. Even on some rugged road sections, the mobility is not as good as that of a two-wheeled vehicle.

Just like in Sichuan and Sichuan, four-wheeled vehicles are inferior to two-wheeled vehicles, and two-wheeled vehicles are inferior to one-wheeled vehicles...

The only advantage of a four-wheeled vehicle is that it does not need to increase the load-bearing capacity of the horse, and can increase the load-bearing capacity of the vehicle. However, in turn, a higher load-bearing capacity requires a rotation mechanism, that is, greater strength and strength between the wheels and axles. toughness. Although Feiqian later added shallow bearings to supplement this shortcoming, the load-bearing capacity of the four-wheeled carriage was still not as high as imagined due to material instability and wear problems.

At the same time, even if the structural problems of the vehicle itself are really solved, ordinary dirt roads and wild wilderness will still become a nightmare for high-load baggage vehicles.

Therefore, blindly improving the load-carrying capacity of baggage vehicles was unrealistic in the Han Dynasty, when the road system was not yet complete, and even in the subsequent feudal dynasties.

What?

Tricycle?

Yes, tricycles were also proposed and tried for a while between Pingyang and Chang'an.

Tricycles, like four-wheelers, can reduce the weight of the horse and can be placed on flat ground. However, tricycles have a fatal problem. Once the speed increases, they are very easy to overturn, especially when turning. If the center of gravity is lowered in order to stabilize the site, it will lead to very poor passability in some places, and the gain outweighs the loss.

That's right, so now I've turned around and found that at this stage, under the current technical level, the baggage truck model with better versatility and passability is still two-wheeled, but because of the structure The adjustments and the design of common parts have made almost all aspects of the baggage truck to the limit of the two-wheeled vehicle itself. If you want to develop further, you must rely on the strength of other aspects.

For example...

"Master Huang!" have a look! What have I brought you? 』

While Huang Li was banging on a piece of the baggage train that seemed a little loose, he heard someone calling him in the distance. He looked up and laughed, "Are you treating this place as a stable?" 』

The person who came was none other than Cui Cheng, one of the parties involved in the dispute at the Agricultural Society's breeding farm.

Cui Cheng laughed, pointed at the horse behind him and said, "The horse agrees!" Look, these are great horses! The hussar said that the war horses and the horses should be raised separately! From today on, the two of us will be together, I will raise horses and you will build cars! When the time comes, our carriages and horses will travel all over the world! 』

The horse Cui Cheng mentioned was of course a rogue horse, not a war horse.

"good! OK! Huang Li laughed, then stepped forward and looked at the first batch of horses brought by Cui Cheng to be bred in the direction of horses, "Hahaha, this horse is good, look at these legs!" sturdy! 』

"Yes, thicker ones have more strength..."

"What do you think is the best height for the horse? Or should I make an adjustable drawbar?" 』

"I think it's better to use something that can move." 』

"But what if the horses pulling the cart cannot find the same height?" 』

"This is a problem...but it can also be solved..."

The two of them were together, discussing enthusiastically around the horse and cart. They seemed to be full of energy and never tired...