The Mongol Empire was powerful, but the Mongolian wild horses had a rough life. What was the speed of the Arabian horses?

"Success at the first sign of success", "leading the way", "dragon-horse spirit" and other idioms with positive meanings all contain the word "horse", which shows the importance of horses to us humans. Whenever this topic is mentioned, everyone will definitely think of the ancient battlefields with golden swords and iron horses, where two armies confront each other, and soldiers ride on good horses under their crotches, wielding spears and swords and rushing towards the enemy formation. The scene of thousands of troops charging is very breathtaking. Among them, the quality of war horses can often determine the victory or defeat of a war. The Mongol Empire is undoubtedly the huge country that Genghis Khan (and his descendants) built on horseback. The Mongol Empire in the 13th century spanned the Eurasian and African continents, with an area of ​​about 35 million square kilometers. By comparison, the Soviet Union in its heyday had a land area of ​​only more than 20 million square kilometers. However, despite its fame, the fate of the Mongolian wild horse population is bumpy, and it was once "extinct".

Mongolian wild horses, also known as Przewalski's horses, originally lived in Russia, Ukraine, China and other places. They have large heads, short and thick necks, and sharp snouts. They have flat backs, are about 210 cm long, about 110 cm high at the shoulder, and weigh about 350 kg. They are sturdy, alert by nature, and good at running. The inner side of their legs is gray, often with two to five obvious black horizontal stripes, and the lower part of their calves is black, commonly known as "outing" legs. Przewalski's horses mainly live in mountain grasslands on gentle slopes and open Gobi deserts. Generally, they form a herd of 5 to 20 horses, led by a strong male horse, and live a nomadic life, mostly active at night.

Since ancient times, horses have been human beings' right-hand men with their intelligence, loyalty, and hardworking nature. With human domestication and breeding, the domestic horse population has gradually grown, but the number of wild horses has been greatly reduced year by year because of humans. It was not until 1876 that the last European wild horse was confirmed to have died on the Ukrainian grasslands. People had to announce with regret: "The wild horse population has been extinct!" Who would have thought that three years later, Russian explorer Przewalski discovered Przewalski's horses near Junggar in the northeast of Tianshan Mountain in Xinjiang. Przewalski's horses have become the only surviving wild horse population in nature, and their rarity is no less than that of giant pandas.

After that, biologists from Russia, France, Britain and other countries entered the Junggar region to search for and capture Przewalski's horses. Adult Przewalski's horses are alert and have strong running ability. Biologists are helpless, so they waited for the newly born foals. By 1903, a total of about 50 young wild horses were transported to Europe, becoming the first batch of artificially raised Przewalski's horses. Since then, due to the two world wars, the number of wild horses raised, which was already small, has decreased again, and there are only a dozen that can reproduce offspring. In recent years, people who are aware of the serious ecological problems have vigorously protected and bred Przewalski's horse populations, and the number of captive horses has reached more than 1,500. However, inbreeding has also led to serious premature aging problems in the population.

We Chinese may not be familiar with Przewalski's horses (Mongolian wild horses), but there is another kind of horse that is definitely a household name - the Ferghana horse. In order to get it, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty went to war with neighboring countries twice. According to legend, Guan Yu's mount, Red Hare, was a purebred Ferghana horse. In many ancient literary works, the Ferghana horse is described as "traveling a thousand miles a day and eight hundred miles a night". In reality, after calculation, it only takes 1 minute and 8 seconds for a Ferghana horse to run a thousand meters on flat ground, which is equivalent to a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. As the name suggests, the sweat of the Ferghana horse when it runs is blood red? In fact, it is not, because the sweat glands in the neck and shoulders of horses are well developed, and sweating is often damp first and then wet. For the common reddish-brown horse, it will give people the illusion of "bloody sweat".

The Akhal-Teke horse, scientifically known as the Ferghana horse, is native to Turkmenistan and is their national treasure. Its tall and handsome image is even painted on the country's banknotes and national emblem. The Akhal-Teke horse has a thin head, a high neck, and slender limbs. It is usually about 1.5 meters tall. They have a full body and beautiful lines, and their curved and high necks are called majestic. They also have light steps, great strength, fast speed, and strong endurance.

The first horse of the Ferghana breed was introduced to China by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. As we all know, the Xiongnu on horseback had always been a major concern for the Han Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the country finally had the strength to defeat the Xiongnu. However, the quality of war horses has always been the shortcoming of the Han army, and the inland areas of the Central Plains do not produce good horses. In order to solve this problem, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty smuggled good horses from the Xiongnu for hybridization, but the effect was not very great. It was not until Zhang Qian, who had been on two missions to the Western Regions, brought back rumors of the Ferghana breed of horses produced in Dayuan. In order to obtain this divine horse, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not hesitate to send more than 100,000 troops twice to the Dayuan Kingdom, which was more than 4,000 kilometers away, and finally made Dayuan surrender and promised to send thousands of good horses, including Ferghana horses, to the Han Dynasty every year. Since then, the galloping Ferghana horses have shed their blood and sweat on the land of China without hesitation.

In the previous article, we talked about Mongolian wild horses and Ferghana horses. Of course, there are more than just these two types of horses today. But where did horses originate? The European plains or the Mongolian plateau? In fact, they originated in the Americas, where the wheel had not even been invented yet! Aren’t the only larger livestock there the “divine beast”, the alpaca?

We’ll talk next time.

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