Three Questions On Horse Politics

In the age of cold steel,cavalry can play an important role in the war,have the quantity and quality horses can have good mobility in the war,and thus more likely to victory in the war.The Song Dynasty was faced with the threat of the Liao,the Western Xia,the Jin and other nomads,who were good at riding and shooting.In the face of their strong cavalry,the Song Dynasty was always at a disadvantage in the war,largely because of the shortage of horses and the lack of strong cavalry.In order to win the war,the rulers of the Song Dynasty made many efforts to raise horses.On the basis of inheriting the horse administration system of Tang Dynasty,it established its own horse administration system,which was dominated by market horses and supplemented by raising horses.There are many researches on horse politics in Song Dynasty in academic circles,but there are not many discussions on the relationship between horse politics and war.This paper hopes to make a more systematic exposition of horse politics in Song Dynasty on the basis of predecessors.This article will discuss the horse politics of the ong Dynasties from three issues:The first part is about the horse administration and system in Song Dynasty.This part will be elaborated from three aspects.This paper first analyzes the horse administration and management system in the Song Dynasty,and then lists the law system involved in the supervision and husbandry system and the horse domestication technology.The second part is the "dispute between tillage and grazing" in Song Dynasty."The dispute of tillage and grazing" is a clue running through the Song Dynasty.From the beginning of the dispute,the transformation and results of horse rearing system appeared in the process of the debate are discussed,showing that the grazing land of the Song Dynasty was gradually occupied by farmland,and the monitoring of grazing was gradually abolished.The third part is the use of horses in war.In this part,through the use of Song cavalry in the war,the tactics of Song cavalry and the results of the war between infantry and Liao,Western Xia and other cavalry in the absence of cavalry are analyzed,and the reasons for the failure of the war and the low power of the cavalry are analyzed.Through the elaboration of the above three parts,the reasons for the poor development of Ma politics in the two Song Dynasties and the influence of Ma politics on the military are presented.