Chapter 51 Burial
The current territory of Chu State is south of the Yellow River, and the north is Ju County. These places have not been places for raising horses since ancient times. Although after the voyage, sea routes replaced land routes, and China's rich and poor areas were transferred. Before the Song Dynasty, the northwest was rich, and the south of the Yangtze River was mostly developed by immigrants in the northwest Central Plains. After the Song Dynasty, Jiangnan was rich and the northwest was supported by Jiangnan, but no matter how poor the northwest was, it was also one of the best places to raise horses.
The northwest was not only easy to raise horses, but also to Central Asia. Emperor Wu of Han asked BMWs to Dayuan. The national horse breed improvements in the Han Dynasty, even the national horse breed improvements in the Tang Dynasty, and even the New China horse breed improvements were closely related to Central Asia. The Chu State did not connect to the northwest, North China, and the northeast was blocked by Qin and Qi, so it was extremely difficult to obtain horses. The Qin territory prohibited Zhao State's horses from going south. Although Qi State allowed it, it collected heavy taxes.
When the horses arrived in Chu, they could only eat straw roe, but they also had to buy straw roe. The straw was Cao Shu (bean), which was fifteen cents per stone, and the straw was roe and five cents per stone. The most conservative estimate was that feeding a horse would cost three cents a day. Each army costs 1,600 cavalry a year, and according to thirty armies, the money for grass alone costs 5,475 cents a year, accounting for 30% of the country's land rent.
Raising horses is expensive, buying horses is even more expensive. Even if Qi is willing to let 48,000 war horses be allowed, even if they are at the cheapest price of 1.5 gold, it will cost 72,000 gold to buy these horses, which is 2,000 gold more than the annual income of Chu. Raising horses south of the Yellow River was done by the Song people and the Mongolians, so it is OK, but horses can only be raised and cannot breed in the south. Compared with the dry north, it is not only difficult to get pregnant with horses south of the Yellow River, but the foals born are not as short as those in the north. After several generations, they are too short and lose their riding value.
The kings of Chu State all valued horses, but the Chu State had no place to raise horses, so they had to purchase horses from the north every year, otherwise the domestic horse herd would degenerate to the point where they could not control the envoys. In addition to the gap between the cavalry between the Qin and Chu army, the rest was the difference between the growth of horses under different climates and environments.
Xiong Jing did not understand the whole story. Lian Po had been in the Zhao army for a long time and served as the prime minister of Zhao State. Finally, he joined Chu as a general. He naturally knew the whole story. He agreed that Chu State had trained a scout cavalry unit that could compete with Qin State, but he felt that it was unnecessary to train a light and heavy cavalry that was several times more important than a scout cavalry. The Chu State was like transporting ice into the desert, and he had achieved half of the result with several times.
But Xiong Jing was considering not only Chu State, but also East Asian horses he looked down on. Even the Qin cavalry was only five feet and eight inches tall (1.34) and weighed only four hundred kilograms. This was not a good horse in his heart. The only advantage was that these horses were not Mongolian horses, and Mongolian horses were lighter. What he really wanted was West Asian horses and European horses. If time was too late, West Asian stallions were paired with local mares; if time was too late, then silk would be replaced with horses and shipped over.
However, he has never heard of the Southern Mare’s difficulty in pregnancy. If this is true, can we only go to Jeju Island?
Whenever the 63th district in Tanzili talks about cavalry and horse raising, the one people think of most is Jeju Island. The first sentence must be 'There is 80,000 hectares of pasture on Jeju Island, and the Mongols plan to...', so the Linggao people finally captured Jeju Island for horse raising.
The past came to Xiong Jing's mind. He had no time to sigh and had no time to think about when the sailboat would be built. The army Sima Peng Zong came over. His first words were: "Tell the king that the Qin army has withdrawn from Yiyi."
"Have you withdrawn?" Xiong Jing was a little disbelief. The Qin army was newly defeated. He said he should have rested for a night, but he didn't want to withdraw from Yiyi.
"That's right." Peng Zong said, "Our army detained cavalry and saw a fire breaking out in Yiyi and Qin's camps, so they quickly came back to report. The Qin army withdrew their troops overnight, and the general ordered our army to camp on the spot and wait for the next arrival in Yiyi tomorrow."
"This..." Xiong Jing looked at Lian Po, and saw that Lian Po had no reaction, so he said: "There is a fire in Yiyi, what about the people?"
"People?" Peng Zong did not expect Xiong Jing to think of the people of Yiyi, and he was a little sad. "Tell the king: The Qin army earned the merits with its head, and all the countries who are five to sixty feet tall can be soldier..."
"Can't the Qin army and the civilians share the division?" Xiong Jing couldn't help but feel a deep disgust for the Qin army, and then thought of the hundreds of thousands of Chu people drowned by Jiu Ying, with hatred on his face.
Although he hated Peng Zong, Lian Po and others felt it was abrupt. The name of the cruelty of the Qin army was heard of by all the women and children in Guandong, but the king did not know it. Lian Po said: "Using Qin's rules, the attack on the city and beheading 8,000 cities and beheadings can be discussed. If there is no eight,000 heads, even if the city is captured, the title cannot be awarded. The Qin people joined the army, just to grant titles. If the beheadings of less than eight,000 after the city is beheadings, they will be searched and killed for a large number. Fortunately, the Chu army only captured Yiyi, but did not capture Chengyang, and settled the counties, otherwise the death would be in vain..."
"Prepare the horse!" Xiong Jing suddenly stood up. Because he got up too fast, several cases were immediately overturned.
"King..." The people were puzzled when they looked at Xiong Jing. It was late at night, and the Qin army evacuated Yiyi again, but the king wanted to prepare horses to go out of the camp.
"You must not!" After following him for a long time, the right official understood Xiong Jing's thoughts best and immediately stopped him.
"I am the king of Chu. What's wrong with seeing my people? Get out of the way!" Xiong Jing's face seemed to have ice, and his words were colder than Bing. After he said that, he moved out of the right Shi and walked out. Peng Zong was also panicked and wanted to pull him, but he didn't expect that he was short and he would pass by as soon as he lowered his head.
The wind was biting outside the camp, and Xiong Jing, who was not wearing a fox fur, felt that his clothes were filled with knives, so he couldn't help but shivered. But he didn't stop and went straight to the stable to pull out his mount and was about to get on the horse. Only then did he remember that he was not wearing stirrup pants, and he jumped a few times before he sat on the high saddle.
"If the king goes, he should also walk with our knights." Peng Zong ran out and stopped him in front of the horse. The temple people also chased him out, holding Xiong Jing's horse-riding clothes and black fur fur. They knelt in front of the horse: "It's very cold on the winter night, please add more clothes."
From Qisi to Xi County for seventy or eighty kilometers, riding for seven or eight hours; from Qingshuihe Daying to Yiyi for twelve or three kilometers, but because it was against the wind, it was even more tiring to ride for more than seven or eight hours. It was already late at night, but the fire in Yiyi was raging, and there was no shout in the city, only the sound of burning wood.
Xiang Zhi and Xiong Jing walked with each other, while Gui Jing led more than a hundred cavalry to Yiyi first. Seeing a flag floating in the fire, a group of people bowed to salute. Who would have thought that Xiong Jing would not stop horses and rode his horse across the city gate to the city. Xiang Zhi was shocked and shouted and followed him in.
Yiyi is not a big city, but the four gates are still in the structure of the urn city. The city tower on the city was burning with a big fire. In addition to illuminating the faces of the knights entering the city, the fire also illuminating the rows of corpses hanging on the top of the city, the heads of wooden poles inserted into the city were red.
Xiang Zhi drove into the urn city and saw the corpse again, but more corpses were still in the city, especially in the gate of the Yin Mansion. The broken swords and halberds were broken, the defeated carriages and flags were broken, and the headless corpse was crossed, and the horses were simply over. What made Xiang Zhi even more uneasy was that the king was missing. He got off the horse and shouted: "Hurry! Go and find the king quickly!"
The Qin army did not stay in Yiyi, but set up camps outside Yiyi, but actually did not want to clean up. In Yiyi, after the Qin cavalry rushed into the city with lightning speed, the Chu soldiers rushed to fight, and the most intense battle was the gate of the city. After occupying the outer city, the Qin army rushed to the city and the city government with chariots, thus breaking the inner city. Starting from the south gate of the city, there were headless corpses along the road, and the corpses at the gate of the city government were piled up like mountains. There were also many civilian corpses on the streets elsewhere in the city. Like the soldiers, they were all cut off their heads.
The fire burned the city, and Xiong Jing was able to walk on the streets mainly because there were bungalows in the town. The fire started to burn from the roof, and it burned the house only after it burned out. Even so, when Xiang Zhi found him, he was fainted on the street by smoke and dust. If the mount had not been guarding his side, he might have died of the new king of Chu in Yiyi.
"King..." Xiong Jing woke up slowly the next afternoon. When he opened his eyes, besides Youshi and others, the old servant Ge who had broken his arm was also there, and Zhao Yu, who could not ride a horse. When he ran to Yiyi in the middle of the night, Xiong Jing had already fainted.
"Well. Water..." Xiong Jing rolled his eyes and remembered nothing. He only remembered that he had a long dream. In the dream, he was burned by the fire. Qin soldiers with a side bun smiled and added fire to the fire. In the fire, he was like a hand-made puppet, burning smaller and smaller, and finally split into pieces. However, the strangest thing was that he did not feel any pain during the burning, but became more and more awake, and only turned into ashes and was blown into the sky by the wind. His mind was also clear-headed. During this period, he remembered repeatedly: "After your father left, you are the 43rd king of Chu, the 33rd King of Chu...'
"King, the water is coming." Ge used his remaining right hand to hand the water to Xiong Jing, but Xiong Jing did not pick it up and he got up.
"Where is the king?" Everyone in the tent was panicked. The king was so important than Mount Tai. Last night, Xiong Jing was fainted in Yiyi, and everyone was shocked. Now the king woke up and was about to leave the tent again, and everyone was even more shocked.
"Where is the king?" The temple people naturally did not dare to stop the king. When the Youshi and others chased him out, Xiong Jing had already arrived at the tent.
"Greetings to the King." This is Xiang Yan's temple. As soon as Xiong Jing came out, he saw the generals surrounding Xiang Yan, Peng Zong and others discussing matters.
"Greetings to the king." The Qin army retreated without fighting, and the generals felt relieved, and their eyes were full of joy.
"Wait for He Yuezhi?" Xiong Jing didn't say he was exempted from courtesy. When he was about to leave the shogunate, the smiles made him stop.
Those who are smarter or more intelligent, their faces have changed to a look of Qi at this time, but the martial artist is a martial artist. Cai Chi, the general of Cai, did not hide his smile at all: "Tell me, after the battle yesterday, the Qin people were already scared. They retreated from Yiyi last night, and they may withdraw from our Chu territory tonight. As the general discussed, it is how our army will take advantage of this to seize Jiyi."
Cai Chi smiled dazzlingly, but he was not at fault with his words. Xiong Jing sighed and walked straight out of the tent. Xiang Yan certainly knew what happened last night, and he said worriedly: "Where will the king go?"
Chapter completed!