Throne of Vientiane Civilization

Grassland City is not far from Black Moon City. Under the escort of the Elf Knight, Zhou Xu arrived quickly in a carriage.

Completely different from the prosperous Black Moon City, the existence of Grassland City is now mainly functional.

For the herdsmen on the grassland, Grassland City is actually a large market where they purchase daily necessities.

On weekdays, most herdsmen do not live in the city. Their lives are mainly based on grazing on the grassland. Wherever they graze, they camp and rest.

The whole living state and customs here are completely different from other cities in Da Zhou.

In this way, the scale of Grassland City is not actually large, and it does not need to be built too large. Zhou Xu only spent half a day to complete a simple inspection in the city, and then took a carriage and rushed out of the city.

The next place he is going to is the largest and most important horse farm in their Da Zhou!

"I, your humble servant Ma Guotao, pay my respects to His Majesty!"

There are also restaurants in the Prairie City. As the owner of a horse farm, Ma Guotao is definitely a high-income person in the Great Zhou Dynasty, and naturally he is also a frequent customer of the restaurant.

Through the storyteller, Ma Guotao also knew that their Great Zhou Dynasty has become stronger and stronger in recent years, and the core figure who brought all this is their Majesty!

Under such circumstances, his respect for Zhou Xu is also increasing day by day.

"No need to be polite."

After meeting Ma Guotao, Zhou Xu also cared about the breeding and cultivation of war horses in recent years.

As an excellent talent, Ma Guotao is still very capable. He has managed the Prairie Horse Farm in an orderly manner in recent years.

Under this premise, he selects good horses every year and continuously optimizes and cultivates them. Now the Prairie Horse Farm can produce war horses stably every year, and this number is still increasing year by year.

And BMWs like the Ferghana horses have now been initially cultivated to a certain scale.

While talking, Zhou Xu, who had just finished a brief tour of the horse farm with Ma Guotao, took the opportunity to bring the topic to business.

"It's like this, aren't our troops in the southern border of the Great Zhou fighting the rat people right now? In the battle report sent back from a previous battle, the Xianzhen Camp reported a situation to me..."

That's right, this time he came to the grassland mainly to discuss this issue with Ma Guotao.

During the conversation, Zhou Xu briefly told Ma Guotao about the problem that the horses in the Xianzhen Camp couldn't keep up with the physical strength.

After understanding the situation, Ma Guotao pondered for two seconds, and then slowly spoke...

"Your Majesty, this is actually a common problem of heavy armored cavalry. Take the heavy armored cavalry in our Chinese history as an example. They all have this problem. This is also the biggest reason why heavy armored cavalry was gradually eliminated later."

Although Ma Guotao was a horse ranch owner before crossing, he was more familiar with the cavalry units in the cold weapon era, after all, it was related to horses.

Sometimes, their horse farm would also hold some cavalry battle activities to promote it.

"If your majesty wants to improve this problem, you can consider using draft horses."

"Tell me more about it."

"Draft horses are used to pull goods. They are good at endurance and strength, but poor in flexibility and speed. If the equipment of the trap camp is added, the speed will probably be even slower."

At this point, Ma Guotao hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to express his thoughts.

"In fact, your majesty, have you ever considered giving up the heavy armored cavalry and changing the configuration of the trap camp to light armor? In this way, the physical strength of the warhorse will not be a problem at all."

After saying this, Ma Guotao completely let go and said all his thoughts at once.

"In the era of cold weapons, although the lethality of heavy cavalry is huge, it is basically only one strike, and because of its limited mobility, it requires cooperation from multiple parties to constitute effective killing."

"Although it can achieve significant results once it succeeds, the conditions for use are harsh, the investment is huge, and there are not many occasions where it can be used, and the cost-effectiveness is too low."

"And as long as the crossbow troops appear on the battlefield, it will be easier to target the heavy cavalry. It is better to change to some mobility."

It must be said that Ma Guotao is indeed a bit of a researcher.

But he obviously doesn't know that now they have developed a single-soldier crossbow within the Great Zhou, and even the formation of the crossbow troops has begun.

In addition, the dwarves of Tonglubao have built a crossbow unit earlier than them.

Of course, Zhou Xu has no intention of telling Ma Guotao about these military intelligence for the time being, and the other party does not need to know.

As for the cost-effectiveness of heavy cavalry, no one has discussed this with him before. Now that Ma Guotao has opened his mouth, he doesn't mind discussing it.

"I have actually considered all these issues about heavy cavalry, but have you ever thought that the Xianzhen Camp is not just a cavalry?"

"The Xianzhen Camp has always been positioned as an all-round unit. They are cavalry when mounted and infantry when dismounted. As long as the battlefield requires, they can even become archers."

"From the perspective of cavalry, heavy cavalry is not cost-effective, but what about heavy infantry?"

Zhou Xu's question directly silenced Ma Guotao.

Zhou Xu didn't care about this and continued to talk.

"The positioning of the Xianzhen Camp means that they need to rush to the most dangerous place on the battlefield. They are always at risk of being surrounded by the enemy. They are often surrounded by enemies on all sides. When they fight as heavy infantry, without armor protection, how can they ensure that their combat effectiveness can be fully exerted?"

Ma Guotao really couldn't answer this question at once.

Just as Zhou Xu said, he only considered the value of the Xianzhen Camp as cavalry, but did not consider the value of the Xianzhen Camp as an all-round soldier!

"Then what should we do next to train draft horses for the Xianzhen Camp to serve as mounts?"

Ma Guotao's voice was still a little uncertain.

"As I said just now, if we change to draft horses, the speed of the Xianzhen Camp will probably become slower, and there are actually no excellent draft horses in our Great Zhou. If I start looking for those horses with excellent endurance and strength to breed and breed now, I want to breed suitable draft horses. It will take several years and I guess I won't see any results."

After listening to Ma Guotao's concerns, Zhou Xu shook his head.

"Old Ma, have you heard of strange beasts and extraordinary creatures?"

"I have heard of them."

Ma Guotao was stunned for a moment, and then his expression quickly became interesting.

"Your Majesty, do you want to..."

"I have an idea now."

Zhou Xu spoke slowly...

"If I get a drop of blood from an extraordinary creature and feed it to a good enough sweat-blood horse, is there a chance that it will evolve?"

"..."

"Once successful, it will at least be a strange beast. If lucky, it can evolve into an extraordinary creature in the future! When the time comes, we will use it for breeding, and the war horses born will definitely have better physical fitness than ordinary sweat-blood horses!"

"..."