I'm really not King Jing of Zhongshan

Saying a word with great emotion, and sighing melancholy, Liu She did not forget to reach out and make a "please" gesture, leading Liu Sheng to the old tree outside the Shaofu workshop group.

Inviting Liu Sheng to sit down on the boulder under the tree root, Liu Shecai put his hands behind his back, stood beside the old tree, looked sideways at Liu Sheng into the distance, and let out a long sigh.

"Since Emperor Taizu Gao established the Han Guozuo, and every time the Han and Xiong fought against Pingcheng, the Xiongnu have always been the confidant of my Han family."

"And the horses obtained by the eunuch Mazheng, and the cavalry formed with these horses, are indispensable forces for the decisive battle against the Huns."

"Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the progress of the Taipu Mazheng is actually directly related to the decisive battle between the Han and the Hungarians. Whether it will happen in a blink of an eye, or it will be far away."

"——If the Mazheng is unimpeded, the horses are full, and the cavalry is crowded, the decisive battle between the Han and the Hungarians will not be far away;"

"However, if the horse government has twists and turns and consumes a lot of people, money, and things, but it is too late to wait for the harvest, then the Han and the Hungarians will fight..."

···
"Ah~"

"Such a simple truth, of course the Huns understand it."

"——Of course the Huns understand: The reason why our Han family has to swallow their anger and make peace with Anhu every time is not because they are really weaker than the Huns, but because they are just Huns, leaving our Han family helpless for the time being."

"For my Han family, the establishment of a cavalry army means that there is no need to make hypocrisy against the Huns;"

"Conversely, for the Huns, preventing the Han family from forming a cavalry army can ensure that the Han family will never be able to defeat the Huns' army head-on."

"That's why the Huns are eyeing the horse gardens that our Han family set up one after another in the northern border. The two generations of emperors, the late emperor and your majesty, lived frugally for decades."

"The plan is to prevent our Han family from raising war horses, forming a cavalry army, and taking those horses by the way..."

Speaking of this, Liu She couldn't help but shook his head and sighed bitterly again, his brows that were still stretched quietly frowned in this short moment;

Turning around slightly, he looked at Liu Sheng who was sitting on the big rock, and stared thoughtfully for a while;

In the end, he lowered his head with a wry smile, took two steps forward, and sat down on the stone not far in front of Liu Sheng.

"Yanmen Garden is the first horse garden established by the Emperor Taizong Xiaowen in the northern border."

"——Emperor Taizong in the third year of the Yuan Dynasty, the first emperor wanted to fight the Xiongnu, but was disrupted by the rebellion of Jinbei King Liu Xingju;"

"The next year, that is, the fourth year of Emperor Taizong's Yuan Dynasty, the Shaofu was ordered to allocate 5000 million yuan, 50 stones of grain and grass, and various other things to the servants to establish Yanmen Garden."

"In order to buy the stallions and mares needed for raising horses, the servant of the time: Ruyinhou, Tenggong, Xiahouying, racked his brains."

"In the end, I got in touch with the Donghu King outside the Great Wall, that is, the tribe of Chang'an Marquis Lu, and after paying a lot of money, I finally got the first batch of horses..."

···
"From the initial seventeen stallions and hundreds of mares to the death of the first emperor and his majesty's succession, Yanmen Garden already had hundreds of stallions and thousands of mares;"

"And since the first year of His Majesty, Yanmen Court has begun to have the ability to steadily produce hundreds of usable war horses every year."

"And at the end of last year, the Huns went south to plunder. The late emperor's more than 20 years of painstaking efforts in Yanmen Garden, tens of millions, even tens of millions of dollars, and millions of stones, food and grass allocated by the Shaofu were all in vain."

"The first horse garden in my Han family to enter the 'harvest' stage, it has all returned to zero..."

Hearing Liu She describe to himself the meaning of Yanmen Garden to the Han family in an almost desolate tone, as if losing a child in his later years, Liu Sheng couldn't help being silent for a while even though he was mentally prepared.

Yanmen Court was the first court hall of the first emperor of the Han family, and it was built for the sole purpose of raising war horses. Liu Sheng naturally knew about it.

But even so, even though he thought he had thought of the worst outcome, Liu Sheng never expected that a mere Yanmen Garden—a horse garden that sells no more than a hundred war horses every year, would cost the Han family so much effort... ····
"It has been more than 20 years since the fourth year of the first emperor's Yuan Dynasty;"

"From the initial 5000 million yuan to the allocation of tens of millions of dollars every year;"

"The manpower and material resources spent during the period, the hard work spent on buying horses, raising horses, and breeding horse breeds..."

···
"Whoo~"

"In 20 years, at least [-] yuan has been invested in exchange for a Yanmen Garden that sells hundreds of war horses every year;"

"As a result, as soon as the war horses began to be slaughtered, they were destroyed by the Huns..."

While murmuring in a deep voice, Liu Sheng's face, which was not very clear at first, suddenly became more serious.

If it is said that food and money systems are the lifelines of the people and the core of the internal governance of the Han family, then horse politics is undoubtedly the core of the military construction of the Han family today.

——Now the main, even the only external strong enemy of the Han Dynasty is the Xiongnu.

And Ma Zheng is to the Xiongnu, just like the big mushrooms of later generations are to the eagles-with them, you can stand upright and not be afraid of threats.

But today's Ma Zheng of the Han family is just as Liu She said: Difficulties and obstacles emerge in endlessly...

The logic couldn't be simpler;
In order to promote horse administration, that is, to raise military war horses for strategic purposes, the first condition is actually a sufficiently wide horse breeding land and a stable source of horses.

To put it bluntly, there must be a channel to obtain stallions and a place to raise horses.

And at this stage, the best horse breeding land in Chinese civilization is officially mentioned by Liu She just a few times, and every time he mentions it, he can't help but shake his head and lament the Henan land: Hetao.

In the Qin Dynasty, the Hetao area actually belonged to the Chinese civilization.

Relying on Hetao, the jewel in the plug, Yingqin never worried about war horses or even all kinds of livestock, whether it was in the "Qin State" period or the unified "Qin Dynasty" period.

——If you want to fight, Hetao can raise enough horses for Ying Qin to form a huge elite cavalry army;
——If you want to farm, the cattle raised in Hetao can also be put into farming production as farming cattle after a short training.

In today's Han family, after the Chinese civilization lost Hetao, an important horse breeding land, both military horses and civilian/agricultural cattle have become highly scarce resources.

The law expressly prohibits the killing and wounding of cattle and horses, but it is still second;

The scarcity of military horses has led to the stagnation of cavalry troops and the irreparable disadvantages of foreign strategy. Now the Han family is in an extremely embarrassing situation in the foreign strategy—mainly the strategic pattern against Hungary...
"If you want to fight the Huns decisively, you need cavalry;"

"And to form a cavalry army, you need enough horses."

"Keeping war horses is necessary to promote horse administration."

"With the loss of Henan, we can only set up horse gardens all over the northern border in order to slow down the plan..."

Whispering like this, although the thoughts in his heart were heavy, Liu Sheng had to force himself to regain his senses, no matter how hard he cheered up, he looked up at Liu She somewhat depressed.

"Tao Hou just said that Yanmen Garden is the first horse garden in my Han family to raise war horses;"

"In addition to the Yanmen Garden that was destroyed by the Huns, is there any other horse gardens in my Han family?"

"Since Yanmen Garden has already started to slaughter hundreds of war horses every year a few years ago, even if other horse gardens have not started to slaughter war horses, it should be time to 'harvest the fruits' soon, right?"

Hearing Liu Sheng's question, the sorrowful look on Liu She's face faded a little;
It's just that in the tone of voice, Liu She, the former imperial servant, can still hear the regret and emotion for the destruction of Yanmen Garden.

"Yanmen Garden was founded in the fourth year of Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Taizong."

"That is to say, from that year onwards, Emperor Taizong strictly enforced orders in the palace: no brocade and skirts for the women in the harem, no embroidery on the curtains, and no excessive meals."

"It is precisely because of the establishment of the Yanmen Garden that Emperor Taizong clearly realized that horse administration is a very expensive matter."

"Even so, the first emperor still lived frugally and built a horse garden near the north wall at a rate of one every two years."

"—In the reign of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen, my Han family built nine horse gardens including Yanmen Garden in Daibei and Yanbei."

"Except for the destroyed Yanmen Garden, the Loufan Garden (Daibei) that flourished in the sixth year of Emperor Taizong's reign, and the Zaoyang Garden (Yanbei) in the eighth year of Emperor Taizong's reign are now ready to sell horses. "

"The remaining six places will need to wait another two or three years for the short ones, and six or seven years for the long ones, such as the few places built by the late emperor..."

Hearing Liu She's words, Liu Sheng's heart sank again.

Liu Sheng is very clear: Liu She's deduction of "two or three years for a decision, and six or seven years for a long time" is just a scene to comfort himself.

——Yanmen Garden was established in the early years of the first emperor, and it began to produce qualified war horses after the death of the first emperor. It took nearly 20 years during this period!

Yanmen Garden is like this, so is it not the case in other horse gardens?

Especially those few horse gardens built by the late emperor in his later years, especially the few years before his death, are only less than ten years old;

If these new gardens can produce qualified horses as steadily as the Yanmen Garden in the past, it will take ten years of effort, so don't even think about it!
And this conclusion made Liu Sheng not optimistic, but only more pessimistic.

This is a very simple arithmetic graph.

During the 20-year reign of the first emperor, a total of nine horse gardens were established;

Among them, Yanmen Garden, which was the first to be built and started to produce war horses, was destroyed by the Huns lightly.

The remaining eight places, not to mention whether they can produce war horses in a short period of time, even if they can, according to the "more than one hundred horses per year" speed of the Yanmen Garden, the eight horse farms are only less than a thousand horses per year. The horses are released.

The construction of cavalry units does not mean that a war horse can be transformed into a cavalry.

Even if you don't imitate the Huns' one man and three horses at every turn, the ratio of one man and two horses to "one rider" means that today's Han Dynasty can only produce enough war horses to equip [-] cavalry each year.

According to the speed of five hundred rides per year, as well as the necessary training time and cost...

"hiss······"

"It's no different from burning money..."

"Why don't you burn it?"

It was originally a soliloquy, but it caused Liu She, who was sitting in front of him, to nod with a wry smile.

"Yes."

"Ma Zheng is actually burning money."

"And it won't work if you don't burn it."

"—If you burn it, you may not be able to get gratifying results;"

"But if it doesn't burn, then our Han family will definitely have no horses, and we will definitely not be able to form a cavalry army, and we will never be able to raise our heads in front of the Huns."

···
"As for the places where Ma Zheng burns money, there are countless places."

"—to buy stallions and mares, both of which are small heads;"

"On weekdays, the fine feed that war horses need to eat, the qualified horse farms that protect the horses' hooves from injury, the horse slaves who are familiar with raising horses, the doctors who treat injured horses, and the medicines they need are bottomless bottomless pits. "

"Such a huge cost, if we can really produce war horses and form an army, it is barely acceptable."

"I'm afraid that in the end, it will end up like Yanmen Garden. After decades of investment of 10,000+ million, it was eventually destroyed by the Huns, and all the horses in the garden were taken away."

···
"Ah~"

"My blood was wasted~"

"Decades of hard work and tens of millions of people in the world have been looking forward to it, but in the end it was all in vain..."

Shaking his head again and sighing, Liu Sheng's face became more serious;
Only then did Liu She finally bring the topic back to the original starting point.

——For the Ma Zheng of the Han family, Liu Sheng, the crown prince, what can he do...

"The charter of Ma Zheng was established as early as Emperor Taizong's time."

"—The Shaofu invests money every year, led by the eunuchs. While there are already horse gardens in the northern border of Weixu, new gardens will be added as much as possible."

"Other than that, there is no other way."

···
"As for Your Highness, if you want to contribute to the horse administration of my Han family, you don't have much choice."

"—The land where the horses are raised: the land of Henan, not to mention your Highness, even with the power of our Han family and the whole country, it can't be taken back easily;"

"As for the existing horse garden, with the lessons learned from Yanmen Garden, His Majesty will naturally increase his troops to garrison, and His Highness does not need to bother."

"If you have to say something, His Highness can help, and can indeed help my Han family's horse administration..."

"Um······"

···
"Perhaps it is not in line with the status of a minister to say so."

'But after all, I was once a servant, and I really can't bear the slow progress of my Han family's Ma Zheng. '

"Boldly, try to tell His Highness one thing."

"——If His Highness can find a way to find a batch of fine stallions and mares for the eunuch, it will be of great benefit to the horse administration of our Han family..."

···
"It doesn't take much;"

"Having [-] stallions and [-] mares is enough to build a new horse farm from nothing!"

"And within three years, this Xinyuan can begin to sell qualified war horses, and there will be no less than a hundred horses every year!"

"—This matter, I dare to vouch for it as the former imperial servant, the current Shaofu, and the current Taohou."

"If His Highness really has a way, then as long as I can help you with the matter of Taifu Mazheng, I will be obliged to do it!!!"