N-A-A Chapter 311 “駃騠”, what kind of horse is it?
Chapter 311 “駃騠”, what kind of horse is it?
Since Queen Mother Xia was not the original consort of King Xiaowen, the father of the real crown prince, she was unable to share the tomb with her son (Shouling) west of Duting, and had her own cemetery.
Nevertheless, in the next hundred years, the surrounding area was divided into part of the royal family, and people were strictly prohibited from migrating and settling there, making it impossible to realize the last wish of Queen Mother Xia - to look east for her descendants, west for her husband, and the surrounding area could be home to tens of thousands of residents in the future.
Therefore, in order to satisfy her regrets and expectations, Fusu decided to settle the families of the Yueqi Camp in this still deserted land.
However, providing thousands of acres of fertile land is not feasible and will never be realized. A more practical approach is to divide some mountain and forest areas around them for these families to use for survival. In fact, for the Vietnamese people who are good at agricultural farming rather than hunting culture, giving them a limited amount of land to grow food crops is enough for them to maintain their livelihood and pay taxes. Too much farmland will become vacant and waste resources.
It would be better to leave the family in the mountains to plant mulberry trees on a large scale and raise silkworms to make silk to make a living and supplement the family income.
After all, collecting mulberry leaves to feed young silkworms is a task that even a toddler can accomplish. As for the grown larvae, Fusu plans to recruit them uniformly.
Hum, would this be considered as imitating the ancient method of replacing rice with mulberry trees?
Fusu smiled, engraved his suggestions on bamboo slips, and prepared to send them to the Shangshu office, where they would be polished and stamped with seals by Xiao He and others before being sent to the outer court.
The first imperial edict that needed to be dealt with today was a victory report from Shangjun. This news recorded the recent victory in the Great Salt Lake War - beheading 2,017 soldiers, which meant that a large amount of rewarded land would be distributed next... or it would be implemented like the Huangshui River Basin - setting up the manor land of the newly added nobles in the northern border.
He was thinking about the specific location - the east side of the Helan Mountains, known as the Saishang Oasis, which covers the Yellow River irrigation area in northern Ningxia where the four cities of Wuzhong, Yinchuan, Shizuishan and Zhongwei are located today.
However, in order to transform it into a region with the same potential for commercial grain exports as it does today, it is imperative to build large-scale water conservancy projects.
It is indeed a pity that the land in the northern grasslands is too barren to support a large population. On the contrary, the counties in the South China Sea are mountainous and contain countless cheap labor. Fusu continued to check the records.
Well, we found a salt lake, that’s great, we now have a source of funds for the construction of the new city!
A total of more than 4,000 pastoral slaves, 20,000 sheep, and 62,000 foals were imprisoned, including more than 10,000 juéti horses!
hiss!
He took a deep breath, which prevented Xianyang from welcoming warm weather again. Although grassland horses are short in stature, they are not picky about roughage. In short, they have a wide range of diets and are cheap to raise, which can promote the possibility of civilian breeding as an alternative labor force.
But the horse?
This sounds like a breed of horse unique to the Huns. Its sale was banned in the past. The former brave general Meng Tian also captured a group of them when he conquered the Huns in the north, but it seems that he failed to breed them successfully.
When Fusu recalled his memories of this species, he immediately understood: This is a mule?
It is a hybrid of a horse and a donkey. The offspring born from the mating of a female donkey and a male horse are called a "horse mule", and the offspring born from the mating of a male donkey and a female horse are called a "donkey mule".
"Horse mule" is extremely strong, and "donkey mule" is good at running, each has its own strengths; even if Fusu had never come to this era, there would still be many examples of the use of these animals in remote areas.
This becomes the advantage of those who cross the times - much of the information belonging to this era will be nothing at all in the future society with highly developed Internet!
However, the joke that people often use to amuse themselves: "Even the donkeys in the production team dare to take a break" does not apply to the current situation in Daqin.
Because horses are more valued than donkeys in the Guanzhong region, many wealthy families raise donkeys for ornamental purposes.
Well, just like the alpacas that are raised in some places in today's society.
There were more than a dozen donkeys raised in the Lan Chi Palace. Among them, a small white donkey was deeply loved by the First Emperor, who often fed them himself, but did not let the white donkeys carry any heavy loads - after all, he was so big that he could crush the donkeys to death when riding on horseback. When Fusu succeeded to the throne and was disgusted with their chaos, he nailed horseshoes on the donkeys and made them take on the work of pulling the mill.
Fortunately, donkeys in this era are still one of the important working animals. Just imagine: "Dragon meat in the sky and donkey meat underground." You can understand it.
Fusu thought about a few strong male donkeys, which could be used to mate with horses to produce larger and easier-to-control mules!
As for the captured slaves, he decided after a little thought that after all, the Qin people themselves started out relying on the horse industry, and they had fought fiercely with the Rongdi for hundreds of years, so there was no shortage of people skilled in animal husbandry in the country.
These pastoral slaves were temporarily arranged in the south of Jiuyuan City and the north of Fushi County.
This place is close to the heartland of the Jiuyuan Army, ensuring that they obey instructions.
And there is no need to worry too much about them enjoying their free time, as there is work waiting for them to complete!
The name Shangjun sounds quite unfamiliar, but it was replaced by the name Ordos in the history. Not only that, it also contains extremely rich mineral resources, especially its high-quality open-pit coal, such as the widely respected Dongsheng coalfield is located here.
After conquering a large group of Xiongnu tribes, the large number of sheep that were one of the spoils of war seemed to have allowed the people here to find a new source of wealth, and also revealed the direction of our next activities. Therefore, digging out precious coal in this magnificent territory became a new strategic consideration. Compared with Taiyuan County and other areas that were famous for their coal industry in later generations, this place was not only geographically more convenient for mining - only a short but crucial transportation network was laid - it was enough to transport the coal to the dock continuously, and use the power of the water flow to carry the coal downstream to the Guanzhong area.
After receiving the victory report, Fusu focused his attention on the information in the report detailing the results of the war. Considering the newly acquired abundant livestock, it is imperative to form a four-wheeled horse team! The "caravan movement" that he longed for in his heart, which was inspired by a certain Western power, seemed to emerge before his eyes. Compared with the two-wheeled carriages currently used by the Qin State, although they seem ancient, they actually have fundamental shortcomings: first, the disadvantage of small cargo capacity means that once they are fully loaded, they will seriously threaten the stability of the tires and the road surface; second, the concentrated weight designed on the axle makes the horses have to bear excessive pressure, thereby increasing the risk of fatigue and affecting their ability to continue to pull the carriage efficiently; finally, during the driving process, the dynamic coordination between the heart and the horse is not ideal, the frequent vibration of the carriage and the accompanying ground ups and downs greatly reduce the passengers' perception of environmental stability and comfort, making the entire travel experience full of unpleasantness.
Among these three disadvantages, the last one is particularly distressing, because compared with the future modern industry, the infrastructure investment required to assemble and operate a reliable four-wheeled carriage seems to be more limited. Just adjusting the vehicle chassis structure and adding a few bearings can greatly improve the driving experience. As for the complex spring structure, it may not seem necessary at this moment... In front of such simple and efficient equipment, the Chidao has become a real smooth road. Even though the roads of the Qin Dynasty are still mainly soil, in historical records far earlier than this era, the remote land of the western continent of America also has such basic transportation facilities - the pioneers known as foreign devils can still easily drive a covered wagon across mountains and rivers and overcome obstacles.
As for those post-war memories and symbolic descriptions, during World War II, some countries, despite being strictly disciplined by the great country with a fatherly image, still insisted on retaining four-wheeled horse teams to serve logistics and transportation. Such historical traces are often given a symbolic name - mule-horse, or the Empire of San Mario, etc. Of course, these are just quotations, and what is behind them is a look back at the glorious past and a reflection on the interweaving and integration of modern technology and ancient lifestyles.
Fusu picked up the dry paper on the grass and drafted a design. Considering the complex terrain of the Qin State, he thought that if the vehicle lacked traction when going up, it might cause the risk of falling back. Therefore, he decided to add a braking system to the vehicle body to enhance safety performance.
With human assistance, as long as the upper slope does not exceed a certain angle, smooth driving can be basically guaranteed. As for the steering problem, Fusu initially drew a simple differential, but considering the manufacturing level and technical limitations at the time, he decided to return to tradition and design it according to the prototype of the ancient carriage.
Compared with the traditional four-wheeled carriages in the West, the design of ancient Chinese carriages is unique. The steering method of a four-wheeled carriage is relatively bulky and direct. This is due to the fact that the carriage structure is like a large wooden box with four wheels, which is difficult to turn. It is this design that makes "one track for all vehicles" possible. Therefore, two-wheeled carriages were usually chosen as the basis for travel in ancient times. In the following two thousand years, there was a reason why four-wheeled carriages were rarely used on a large scale: mainly due to the problems of too many people and too little land, insufficient livestock, and damaged road traffic.
Although the Qin Empire's road construction was similar to that of most later times, using rammed earth roads that became muddy during the rainy season, the population was more dispersed and there was a lot of grazing land, providing a better basis for raising horses than later times.
This undoubtedly provides possibilities and conditions for future vehicle innovation.
For individuals, the use of a four-wheeled carriage has limited significance. However, for a country, especially for a regional regime such as the Qin State that gathers resources and develops, this change is of great significance! The huge transportation capacity can not only greatly reduce the cost of land transportation, but also improve logistics efficiency and promote the circulation of goods. This will directly affect the development and growth of the handicraft industry, the driving force of technological progress, and bring about a chain effect of development in multiple fields.
The design of the early four-wheeled carriage was very simple and primitive. The front two wheels were mounted on a body frame, and the rear wheels were fixed on another frame. They were connected by a straight axle to form a structure with two pairs of separate wheels. In this way, the steering problem of the vehicle as a whole was cleverly solved, and four-wheel linkage was achieved.
The so-called "hearing the wind and knowing it" is fully demonstrated in this. Without this understanding, there would be no possibility of subsequent design innovation.
Through meticulous modifications and improvements, Fusu considered not only the basic configuration changes of the vehicle, but also how to ride the horses that pulled the vehicle.
Even though ancient China was at a relatively backward stage in terms of the technical application of four-wheeled vehicles, our research on "horse-drawn carriage driving skills" was undoubtedly more sophisticated than others.