page_title: Horses in East Asian warfare
section_title: Inner Asia
hierarchical_section_title: Horses in East Asian warfare / Inner Asia
caption_attribution_description: English: Section of mural depicting victory of general Zhang Yichao who expelled the Tibetans from Dunhuang. Cave 156, Late Tang Dynasty.
context_page_description: Horses in East Asian warfare are inextricably linked with the strategic and tactical evolution of armed conflict. A warrior on horseback or horse-drawn chariot changed the balance of power between civilizations.
  When people with horses clashed with those without, horses provided a huge advantage. When both sides had horses, battles turned on the strength and strategy of their mounted horsemen, or cavalry. Military tactics were refined in terms of the use of horses.
  As in most cultures, a war horse in East Asia was trained to be controlled with limited use of reins, responding primarily to the rider's legs and weight. Horses were significant factors in the Han-Hun Wars and Wuhu incursions against past kingdoms of China, and the Mongol conquest of much of Eurasia and into Europe; and they played a part in military conflicts on a smaller, more localized scale.
context_section_description: The empires of China had at various points in history engaged their nomadic neighbors in combat with reduced effectiveness in cavalry combat, and have a various times instituted reforms to meet a highly mobile adversary that fought principally on horseback; one such important reform as clearly recorded in Chinese historical text was King Wuling of Zhao (340BC-395BC), who advocated the principle of 胡服骑射, the "wearing of Hu nomadic people's clothing, and the firing of arrows from horseback" during the Spring and Autumn period, which greatly helped increase combat effectiveness against the cavalries of the nomadic combatants.
  Nomadic opponents at the borders of the various empires of China generally used the horse effectively in warfare, which only slowly developed into changes in the way horses were used.  The Chinese scholar Song Qi (宋祁, 998-1061) explained,
  "The reason why our enemies to the north and west are able to withstand China is precisely because they have many horses and their men are adept at riding; this is their strength.  China has few horses, and its men are not accustomed to riding; this is China's weakness....  The court constantly tries, with our weakness, to oppose our enemies' strength, so that we lose every battle .... Those who propose remedies for this situation merely wish to increase our armed forces in order to overwhelm the enemy.  They do not realize that, without horses, we can never create an effective military force."
caption: Mural commemorating victory of General Zhang Yichao over the Tibetan Empire in 848. Mogao cave 156, late Chinese Tang Dynasty
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