Research on Reduction of Military Horses in 23rd Year of Daoguang
In the 23rd year of Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty,a top-down reduction of military horses was imple-mented to cut expenditure and ease financial crisis.First of all,the number of horses for the capital Eight Banners was re-duced.Except for the number of horses in the Shangsiyuan(the department in charge of royal horses in the Qing Dynasty),the Eight Banners Infantry troops and the military headquarters,which was already rather small,the number of horses in other troops was reduced in accordance with the principle of"halving".A total of 6,425 horses were cut down.Subsequently,mili-tary horses of the Eight Banners garrisoned in the south of the Yangtze River and those of the Lu Standard Army in nine prov-inces were appropriately reduced.In the garrisons of the Eight Banners in the south of the Yangtze River,except for Jingzhou and Zhapu,which were exempted from reduction due to original horse insufficiency,a total of 860 horses were cut in Jiangn-ing,Jingkou,Hangzhou,Fuzhou,and Guangzhou.Among the Lu Standard Army in the nine provinces south of the Yangtze River,the number of horses in Jiangxi,Hunan,Hubei,Anhui,and Jiangsu remained unchanged for insufficiency in horses and multitudes of defense.A total of 2,735 horses were cut in Fujian,Guangdong,Guangxi,and Zhejiang provinces.Al-though the number of military horses in the south of the Yangtze River which was actually cut was very small,far from the principle of"halving",continuous horse reduction resulted in the situation that military horses for the Qing army south of the Yangtze River became very scarce and the military strength of the Qing Dynasty was increasingly weakened.It was only e-nough to maintain daily defense and local security,and impossible to manage large-scale military operations.
Daoguanggarrisons of the Eight Bannersthe Lu Standard Armymilitary horses,reduction
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