Chapter 496 The Rich Man’s Mount

"Governor General, Marines Chen Zhouwei reported to you!"

Zhang Zhun lay on the wooden board and looked out. A strong young man came up to report it. It was Chen Zhouwei, the Marine Corps team leader. Zhang Zhun remembered the past and said with a chuckle: "Xiao Chen! Have you turned your mind now?"

Chen Zhouwei's face turned a little red and said embarrassedly: "Sir, I was ignorant before, so I was unwilling to go to the new army. Now, I like the Marine Corps. After we take down Dongjiang Town, we want to set foot on the land of Liaodong, our Marine Corps will definitely be the first to directly compete with the Tartars. Sir, do you think so?"

Zhang Zhun smiled and said, "You kid, finally realized it. Who is the first to set foot on the land of Liaodong? Who else is besides you? Such a simple thing will take so long to think about it!"

Chen Zhouwei smiled a little awkwardly.

He turned out to be the commander of the Chuangzi Camp, and his military skills were excellent. When Zhang Zhun formed the Marine Corps, he also placed him to the Marine Corps. As a result, he was unwilling to go, and made a lot of jokes about it, which made people laugh and cry. However, the military orders were as high as a mountain, and he had to go even if he didn't want to go.

After Chen Zhouwei arrived at the Marine Corps, his thoughts were still a little twitching. He always felt that the Marine Corps had no war and had no chance to meet the Tartars. His mood was not very high. It was not until the Hu Ben Army Navy entered the Dongjiang Town area and directly fought with the Tartars that he became interested. Thinking that if the Hu Ben Army landed in Liaodong, the Marine Corps would definitely be the first batch of landing combat troops, he became energetic and finally corrected his thoughts.

Behind Chen Zhouwei, the Marine Corps soldiers were holding more than a dozen war horses. It turned out that Zhou Zhengyu learned that the battle in Huang County had ended and all the Tartars were locked in Dengzhou City, so he sent all the seized war horses. These war horses were the best quality seized by Huang Shijun and others.

Zhang Zhun looked at these war horses, all of which were tall and strong, either white, black, red, gray, or brown. Their fur color was quite pure, without any miscellaneous hair, and he felt that he should be a first-class good horse. However, after all, he didn't know much about horses, and he couldn't be sure whether the fur color was pure or a good horse. So he ordered someone to call Chen Guoxi.

When Chen Guoxi was in Liaodong, she was a groom, so she naturally had the deepest understanding of war horses. As a result, after Chen Guoxi came, he only took a look and shouted in surprise: "Good horse! It's really a good horse!"

Chen Zhouwei said proudly: "It is said that it was Dorgon and Duoduo and others who were supposed to send them to Dengzhou City, but we snatched them."

Chen Guoxi shouted happily: "No wonder, no wonder!"

I only saw him wandering around more than a dozen war horses, and I couldn't let go, especially one of the white horses and a big red horses, which made Chen Guoxi feel very much liked. He used to being a groom, but naturally he couldn't let go of his good horses. If it were before, he might have to turn over and take a walk. Unfortunately, he is old now and dare not to toss.

Zhang Zhun had an injury on his waist and was unable to ride a horse for the time being, so he could only watch it. However, even so, he wanted to see if these war horses were really that powerful. Not to mention Dorgon and Duoduo's mounts, let's see what their ability is.

"Liu Mang!"

Zhang Zhun shouted casually.

"arrive!"

Liu Mang agreed beside him.

"Go! Come and find Li Zhaohui! Ask him to bring ten good horse riders!"

Zhang Zhun said in a deep voice.

Liu Mang agreed to go.

Li Zhaohui and his friends were born in the Guanning Iron Cavalry. After being sent to the army, they naturally trained in the cavalry battalion. Since the Tartars had been huddling in Dengzhou City, most of the soldiers in the Dragon Cavalry and Leopard Cavalry battalion were conducting daily training in the open space east of Huang County, and were also responsible for monitoring the movements of the Tartars in Dengzhou City. Li Zhaohui and his friends were also there, not far from Huang County.

Sure enough, after a while, the sound of horse hooves came, and Li Zhaohui arrived. Not only did Li Zhaohui come, but Xie Youzhi also arrived. When the two arrived, they were talking and laughing, and it seemed that their relationship was quite intimate.

Zhang Zhun asked suspiciously: "Xie Youzhi, do you know Li Zhaohui?"

Xie Youzhi stood attentively and said, "Sir, we have met several times before, but we are not very familiar with each other. I turned out to be stationed in Ningyuan, and he was in Songshan Fort. During the joint battle, he was General Qian, I was a soldier, I knew him, but he didn't know me."

Zhang Zhun nodded suddenly.

No wonder, both of them came from western Liaoning, and they were both affiliated with the battle sequences of Guanning Iron Cavalry. After going down the army, they naturally felt a little more intimate. However, in the past, Li Zhaohui was the General Manager of the Cavalry and Xie Youzhi was the soldier. Now, it just happened to be reversed. Li Zhaohui was the soldier for the time being, but Xie Youzhi was the deputy commander and team leader.

In fact, at that time, there was no such name as "Guanning Iron Cavalry". The name Guanning Iron Cavalry was added by later generations. This name actually includes 20,000 cavalry troops of the Ming army in Liaodong. These 20,000 cavalry troops are divided into five battalions, front, back, left, right, and middle, and are stationed in different areas such as Jinzhou, Ningyuan, Shanhaiguan, and Jizhen.

For ordinary Ming army soldiers, the troops of each battalion are about 4,000. Of course, the premise is that the battalion-level commander is generally garrison or guerrilla, and the higher one is garrison. For example, Li Chengdong was the garrison before, and Song Degang was originally guerrilla.

However, the commander of the five battalions of the Ming cavalry of the Liaodong Ming army was all held as the deputy general, and some even had the title of the general. For example, Wu Shangui's Lao Wu Xiang directly commanded the cavalry of the first battalion. It can be seen that the Ming army in Liaodong was completely centered on 20,000 cavalry. In the future, Wu Sangui and Li Zicheng fought in great battles, and the main force of the Guanning Iron Cavalry was dispatched.

Li Zhaohui brought nine people, plus Xie Youzhi, a total of eleven people. Each of them was agile young man, all of whom looked very neat. Seeing the war horses in front of them, they couldn't help but shiny. Guanning Iron Cavalry actually had a lot of war horses, but not many good horses. Because their war horses were mainly bought in large quantities from Lin Danhan, and passed by the second dealer of the Imperial Horse Supervision, the number of good horses was basically zero.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was a special agency responsible for the purchase of horses. This special agency was called the Imperial Horse Prison. Every year, the Imperial Horse Prison used tea, silk, medicinal materials, porcelain, etc. as exchanges in the Horse Market in Datong to purchase a large number of war horses from the Mongols. At the peak, they bought 300,000 war horses a year. At the very least, there were about 100,000 war horses a year. Therefore, most Ming troops would not lack war horses.

However, the freaks are here. The war horses purchased by the Imperial Horse Prison are not directly allocated to the army for use, but are reserved in various ranches. If the army wants to use the war horses, they have to get their own money and buy them again from the Imperial Horse Prison. In other words, if your army does not pay, I would rather let the war horses die in the ranch than use them for you.

Do you think it's very weird? It's very incredible? Yes, the power of the eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty is so powerful. Regardless of whether you are in a hurry or not, whether you want to destroy the country or not, anyway, if you don't pay the money, don't think I'll give you the war horses. In other words, as long as you are willing to pay the money, you will have as many war horses as you want.

What needs to be purchased for the second time is actually not just war horses, but also various military supplies stored in the ten warehouses of the inner palace. Most of the firearms produced in the Ming Dynasty were concentrated in the hands of the inner court, rather than being directly distributed to the Ming army. These firearms also require the army to pay for money to get them. Therefore, there are often cases where large troops set out to the front line but no weapons were in their hands.

For this reason, many generals who led their troops to fight had to bribe the eunuchs of the Imperial Horse Supervisor and the Sili Supervisor before leaving, so as to obtain enough weapons and equipment from them. Because the power of the inner court is too great, even a great man like Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan had to pay for firearms and war horses. Otherwise, you would wait to go to the front line and die!

After all, the Guanning Iron Cavalry was piled up with a large amount of silver. The silver was limited, but the price of a good war horse was quite expensive. What the troops needed was a large number of war horses, and it was impossible to pay a large amount of silver for one or two good horses. Therefore, the Guanning Iron Cavalry used all of them, all of which were ordinary Mongolian horses. It was not realistic to expect that there were too many good horses in the Mongolian horses. Good horses were kept by the Imperial Horses themselves and sold to rich people quietly.

There are only a few standards for war horses. First, the camel has a strong ability to bear more than 300 kilograms. Second, the speed is fast. Third, the endurance is good, at least it can gallop continuously for 100 miles without rest. Fourth, obedient and easy to control. Fifth, not afraid of gunfire. Sixth, easy to raise, not picky about food, and strong resistance to disease.

Of course, no war horse can have all the advantages mentioned above. Generally speaking, the performance data of war horses that are large in number and easy to raise are generally not outstanding. For example, the speed of Mongolian horses is not good. If you want to use Mongolian horses to charge in the battle, it is insufficient. The advantages of Mongolian horses lies in their hard work, rough breeding, strong resistance to illness, and easy to reproduce in large quantities. If you fight one-on-one, Mongolian horses are definitely not the opponent of Dayuan horses.

The tall and big horses in front of you should be all breeds of Dayuan horses. The advantages of Dayuan horses are that they are very fast, have strong sprinting ability, and have strong camel-blade ability. They can form heavy cavalry to charge in the battle. In the short-distance competition, Dayuan horses will win. However, the shortcomings of Dayuan horses are also obvious.

First of all, the endurance is not very good. You must stop and rest after running for one or two hundred miles. In fact, the Dayuan horse will have a lot of damage to itself by forcing a hundred miles. Once it is damaged, it will take a lot of time to recover. In addition, the Dayuan horse must be raised by a dedicated person and specially prepared for fodder. If you only eat grass, you will be finished in half a month. The Dayuan horse is still prone to illness. Once you get sick and cannot receive timely treatment, it will soon disappear.

Due to the differences in horse breeds, Chinese cavalry generally like to use Mongolian horses. The main reason is that they are rough and crude, which is cheap, easy to serve, and have low requirements. As long as they overwhelm the opponent in quantity, Mongolian horses can also defeat Dayuan horses. In the past, Mongolian cavalry conquered the world by relying on the rough and crude Mongolian horses. The Ming army bought a Mongolian horse, which was about fifteen taels of silver, which was so cheap that it could not be cheaper.

After listening to Li Zhaohui and the others' brief explanation, Zhang Zhun said casually: "Don't worry about these first, you can go up and talk about it."

Li Zhaohui agreed and began to assign tasks.

Eleven people just controlled eleven horses. Strangely, Li Zhaohui was not the first to go up the white war horse, but instead appointed another warrior to go up. After introduction, the warrior who controlled the horse was named Chen Musheng. In the original Guanning Iron Cavalry, Chen Musheng's level was very good. In terms of riding, even Li Zhaohui was willing to give up the disadvantage.

Sure enough, as soon as Chen Musheng got on the horse, the white war horse seemed very anxious, and he repeatedly stuck out his butt, trying to lift Chen Musheng down. Its movement was so fierce that even Zhang Zhun next to him couldn't help but worry. However, Chen Musheng firmly pressed against the horse's back and refused to get off. The white war horse kept spinning around in the same place, sticking out his butt, and even lying down, rushing and braked rapidly. He was really a very irritable guy.

Chen Zhouwei whispered: "This guy has a very bad temper. When we were in Weihaiwei, it even threw two people."

Old man Chen Guoxi said next to him: "Overy war horses recognize their masters. The more powerful the war horses are, the more they recognize their masters. Chen Musheng is eroding its temper. When the war horses' temper is almost wiped out, they will slowly accept their new masters."

He further explained that the war horse that has been sluggish and has a period of silence and performance will be sluggish until it has passed this adaptation period. During this period, Zhang Zhun just took the time to spend more time with it and completely tame it. In the future, it and Zhang Zhun will slowly recognize the master after spending a long time together.

"Sir, the place is too narrow."

Li Zhaohui said in a little embarrassed.

The courtyard of Yunfengju is actually quite large, and one horse has enough space to make a lot of trouble. The problem is that there are eleven horses now. All the horses are crowded together, so the space is very small. Besides, the biggest ability of these horses is short-distance straight sprints. There is no such distance in the courtyard.

"Go outside! Go around the city!"

Zhang Zhun said decisively.

Li Zhaohui and others immediately turned their horses and left Yunfengju.

"Da da da da!"

The sound of horse hooves is crisp and it goes away quickly.

These war horses were really fast and disappeared into the city gate in a moment.

"Let's go! Let's go up to the city tower to see!"

Zhang Zhun said excitedly.

The group carried Zhang Zhun to the east gate tower.

I only saw Li Zhaohui, Xie Youzhi, Chen Musheng and others manipulating the war horses, galloping back and forth, and circled around Huangxian. The speed of these war horses was indeed very fast, and it only took half a cup of tea to circle the city. Moreover, in the first ten circles, the speed did not decrease at all. The existing war horses of the Hu Ben Army were no match for these war horses, even if the big red horse of Zhang Zhun had competed, they would have been thrown at least a few streets.

The white war horse was indeed the fastest. Chen Musheng controlled it and seemed to fly. Zhang Zhun estimated that the white war horse's speed might be forty or fifty kilometers per hour, and the short sprint was comparable to that of a car. Following behind was the big red horse riding by Li Zhaohui. Its speed was also not slow, only three or four horses slower than the white war horse.

These war horses were more or less aware of their masters. At the beginning, they kept trying to resist and had to make a little awkward from time to time. However, Li Zhaohui and the others were also masters of horse control, and it was impossible for these war horses to get rid of them. So, during the running process, they continued to fight wits and courage. After two hours of struggle, these war horses finally surrendered.

"Da da da da!"

After running dozens of laps, all the war horses were tired and had to stop slowly. Chen Guoxi had already trained the forage. When Chen Zhouwei arrived from Weihaiwei, he also transported some special forage. All the war horses were eating the forage desperately to replenish their lost physical strength.

Zhang Zhun estimated that these war horses were indeed good horses, but it seemed that it was not that easy to serve them. Look at the forage they ate, they were all specially prepared and contained a large amount of beans. At that time, the price of beans was relatively high. The war horses had a large appetite and needed at least thirty kilograms of such high-nutritional forage every day. If there were thousands of such war horses, they would definitely eat their owners poorly. The cost of such war horses consumed was enough to eat twenty ordinary Mongolian horses. Oh my, it was indeed the mount of a rich man!

After the horse racing just now, everyone knew that the white war horse and the big red horse were obviously the two most powerful horses. These two war horses were naturally left for Zhang Zhun. After Chen Musheng and Li Zhaohui's tossing just now, the tempers of the two war horses were no longer so popular. As long as Zhang Zhun's waist was good and he could completely tame them, there should be no problem.

Chen Guo smiled and said, "Yulin, think of them a nice name."

Zhang Zhun's cultural level is indeed not very good. Fortunately, he has read a lot of novels in Romance, such as Jade Flower Test, Zhaoye Lion, etc., and he still knows some. However, those names are only found in novels, and there are no such difficult names in reality. Therefore, he thought about it and said, "The white one is called the white dragon horse. The red one is called the fire dragon horse."

These two names sound simple and catchy, and everyone accepted it. Chen Guoxi volunteered to take care of these two big guys. However, this was obviously not a good job, because when eating grass, the White Dragon Cat had some problems with the Fire Dragon Cat, and the two horses almost fought. Chen Guoxi hurriedly took both horses away.

Zhang Zhun was itchy and wanted to turn over the horse immediately and gallop. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to watch for the time being. In the end, Zhang Zhun left behind the White Dragon Horse and Fire Dragon Horse, and other war horses to the sniper team around him. The White Dragon Horse and Fire Dragon Horse were too fast, and if the war horses of the sniper team could not keep up, it would not work.

While Chen Zhouwei sent the war horses, he also sent the navy's battle situation report some time ago.

In the past ten days, the navy's harvest has been too abundant. It is like a homeless man who broke into the vault and seized a large amount of supplies from the Tatars. All the warships that went to war were full of things when they came back. Especially Huang Shijun, Mao Huihui and others, the materials they plundered were too late to send back.

The most valuable seizure is of course the total number of war horses up to 1,400. The two thousand war horses that the Tatars were preparing to send to Dengzhou City, except for a very few who missed the net, all the others were intercepted by the Hu Ben Navy. Now, all the war horses are in the Weihaiwei Navy Port. In addition to the batch given to Zhang Zhun, other war horses will also be sent one after another.

"Stop giving it!"

"Li Zhaohui! Xie Youzhi!"

"You bring people directly to Weihaiwei to receive them!"

Zhang Zhun said decisively.

"clear!"

Li Zhaohui said excitedly.

The original cavalry troops basically had one horse, one carrot and one pit, and there was no extra. The newly joined soldiers could only share a war horse with others. Now, with more war horses, each of them could have their own horses. At the same time, there were more war horses that could be rotated by cavalry troops. If the war horses were sick or unexpected, it would not lead to a shortage of cavalry personnel.

For cavalry units, the rotation of war horses is very necessary. Because war horses, like humans, will be born, old, sick and dead, and are even more fragile than humans. In case of war horses, other war horses must be replaced to avoid shortage of personnel. In fact, for truly powerful cavalry units, each person must have more than two war horses.

From a broad perspective, a cavalry of one thousand people must be equipped with at least 1,200 war horses to meet the most basic rotation needs. If you consider the rotation of marching and war, a cavalry of one thousand people should have more than 2,500 war horses to be considered as a free conversion and can be rotated for a long time.

In the past, Mongolian cavalry had even three, four, or even five war horses per person. A team of 1,000 Mongolian cavalry team often had more than four thousand war horses, so there were many things that could be done. Not only could they rotate in large quantities, ensuring that each soldier could ride a horse to fight, but he could even continuously change the war horses to ride to save energy and launch the longest-distance raid.

The power of war horses is limited. If you ride a horse and rush on the road, it is almost the limit. This is still the occasional situation. If you march continuously, it will definitely be difficult for the horses to travel 100 miles a day. The data of marching for five consecutive days or marching for two thousand miles a day will only appear in dreams. The advancement speed of Mongolian cavalry is so fast that it once advanced three to four hundred miles a year at the highest speed, which is based on the replacement of a large number of war horses.

The cavalry of the Hu Ben Army is gradually working towards this direction. Each cavalry battalion of the Hu Ben Army has about 600 people, and the number of war horses is only about 650, which obviously cannot meet the basic needs. It must be increased to at least 800 to ensure that there will be no shortage of cavalry when the battle is launched. If it can be increased to 1,000, the mobility will be much stronger. If it can be increased to 2,000, it can continue to advance and marches for a long time.
To be continued...