Abstract
Horses were a critical asset in premodern warfare; they significantly shaped the military capacity of states. Rulers and officials of Ming China were dedicated to breeding strong horses. After the watershed Tumu Crisis in 1449, a Ming official named Yang Yiqing (1454–1530) in order to strengthen the Ming’s border defenses was tasked with revitalizing the depleted horse ranches along the border. Yang’s writings reveal that the very borders intended to keep the Mongols at bay inadvertently impeded the Ming state’s acquisition of equine knowledge. With limited horses and limited expertise at its disposal, the Ming court found itself in a predicament of its own making — a result of its border defense structure. Ultimately, the Ming resorted to a complex tea–horse trade scheme, which permitted horses to cross its borders. This study is an interdisciplinary exploration of the role of animals in matters of statecraft and warfare; it offers a fresh perspective on broader borderlands issues and transcends the constraints of environmental determinism and anthropocentrism in late-imperial China and Inner Asia.
Keywords
war logistics, statecraft, animal history, environmental history, Ming institutional history
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