Horses, herbivorous domestic animals. It was tamed by humans 4,000 years ago. In ancient times, horses were the main driving force for agricultural production, transportation, and military activities.
The ancestor of the horse, the Archaeopteryx, first lived in the forests of North America and fed on young leaves. In the Miocene, the steppe horse appeared and switched to grassland life, and since then the horse has been feeding on hay and living on the grassland. Archaeopteryx horses, European wild horses and other species of horses have become extinct due to the expansion of human activities, environmental changes and other reasons, and many species of horses are on the verge of extinction. The average horse's lifespan is about twenty to thirty years.
As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, horses have been used as a means of transportation. Horses don't have to sleep at night, let alone sleep until dawn. If no one disturbs it, it can sleep anytime, anywhere, standing, lying down. The special ability to sleep makes me envious.
Malaysia can sleep for a day.
Eight or nine times, which adds up to almost six hours. Two hours before dawn, the horses slept soundest. Sleeping standing on horses inherited the Xi of the wild horse's life. In order to escape from predators quickly and in time, wild horses do not dare to sleep on the ground at night. Even during the day, it has to stand and nap, keeping a high level of vigilance in case something happens. Although domestic horses do not encounter natural predators and man-made injuries like wild horses, they are domesticated from wild horses, so the Xi of wild horses sleeping standing still has been preserved to this day.
The history of humans learning to ride horses goes back much further, but until the Iron Age, cavalry was still not widely used in warfare, and relatively both for shock missions and as a firing platform, it was mainly performed by chariots. The main contribution of horses to the war at this time was also largely limited to towing chariots.
The main disadvantages of the chariot were the higher cost and the requirement for flat ground, so its status was gradually reduced, but more tribes chose to use chariots instead of cavalry in their own wars, and cavalry remained unappreciated as a class of troops until the Greek period.
In Chinese history, around the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, cavalry appeared in the army as a branch of the army. In 307 BC, King Wuling of Zhao began to practice Hufu cavalry archery, indicating the official birth of Chinese cavalry. Since the Chinese cavalry was modeled after the Huns, it was the Huns who were the first to use cavalry.
In the West, the cavalry era began with Alexander the Great's defeat of Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. The first Assyrians fought on horseback in the 9th century BC, but it was still common to carry soldiers (archers) to the battlefield on horseback. With the popularization of muskets and the advent of bayonets, cavalry gradually lost its original status due to its large size and easy targeting. In Europe around the 18th century, the light cavalry composed of Polish and Tatar people was once again used for artillery assault and was once again highly praised.
In modern times, the armies of many countries retain only a small number of cavalry, which are mainly used to perform ceremonial tasks, patrols, guards, etc. The most representative is the British Mounted Police.
The Han Dynasty began to improve the crossbreeding of sweat and blood horses
In the history of horse breeding in China, since the early Han Dynasty, the advantages of horses in the Han Dynasty were not as good as those of the surrounding ethnic groups. The Xiongnu in the north invaded many times, and the Han army was defeated. Zhang Qian passed through the Western Regions and saw sweat and blood horses (called "Dawan Horses" at that time). It opened a new chapter in the introduction of the "Western Regions Good Horse", at that time, the Chinese horse was a Mongolian horse system, with a body height of about 130cm. The body height of Dawan horse can reach 150cm, the shape is good, fast and fast, and it is a high-end famous breed. The body is beautiful, fast, flexible and good at dancing. After the Silk Road, the introduction of the world's unparalleled famous horses. The introduction continued for thousands of years until the beginning of the Tang Dynasty. Introduce sweat and blood horses to cross with local horses to breed "Han horses".
Mongolians have grown up on horseback since childhood, as the Mongolian proverb goes: the song is the wing, the horse is the companion. Whether it is going out to graze, moving from place to place, or passing on information, visiting relatives and friends, or even getting married, etc., it must be done on horseback. Horses play an extremely important role in their production and life. They love horses so much that they regard them as treasures. In their minds, horses are sacred animals.
Tang Ma cultivates military exploits
Tang Horse, seen in many Tang Horse art models. This is a heavier horse, with slender limbs, and a heavy passenger horse. Due to the aggravation of military armor, new types of horses were required. The situation is similar to that of medieval war horses in Europe.
Ancient Chinese dynasties attached great importance to horse politics, established national horse farms, and focused on the northern and western grasslands. Use the grassland, develop horse breeding, and breed strong horses at a small cost, which is used as a reserve military horse. This practice was retained until after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when the last war horse left, and this line of thinking disintegrated.
Wild horses in Japan are relatively short, and tall horses have been bred by humans in the process of raising horses. Make the artificial horse taller and taller;Europe and the United States are the most developed in this regard.
Before the introduction of thoroughbreds, there were only seven kinds of native ponies, including Kiso horses and Miyako horses, which were completely out of the needs of agricultural production and transportation.
Kisoma. With the advent of the war years, Japan combined the project of improving horse breeds with political prosperity, economic development, and cultural origins, and in 1862, foreigners living in Yokohama were the first to introduce horse racing to Japan, and in 1877, Japan's first horse breeding institution, Mita Breeding Farm, was established, marking the arrival of a new era of breeding horses with excellent qualifications.
After the Meiji Restoration, the transplantation of a new generation of animal husbandry technology in Western Europe, especially the import of a large number of horses of different types from Britain, France, the United States and other countries, enabled Japan to shorten the gap in horses with neighboring countries, and the horses produced by Japan have greatly improved in terms of physique and ability"Oriental Malaysia"Since then, the self-breeding horse has stepped onto the stage of history.
After the Russo-Japanese War, some of the Donhippos were absorbed by the Japanese Army and joined the Japanese army. However, most of them were used to breed with domestic horses, and the mixed horses were not used by cavalry units. Instead, it was assigned to the infantry, artillery, baggage and gendarmerie units. To this day, Japan remains the main thoroughbred producer in Asia.
Don hippopotamus. In the 19th century, the Russian Tsar Alexander II created a large horse farm in the Don Valley, where a great deal of horse breeding was carried out, most importantly a new breed of Don hippopotamus, the main purpose of which was to equip the light cavalry.
Don hippopotamus. The Don hippopotamus is a hard-working horse that is easy to raise and is able to live in the frozen arid steppes of the Don River. It has a good temper and adaptability, but is not physically attractive. Although it has many drawbacks in its body structure, such as restricted movements, unnaturalness, unelegance and unsuitability, few horses are able to work effectively in such a difficult environment.