Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 107: Care and Maintenance of War Horses
Therefore, such an open village is naturally very suitable for Wang Gensheng's cavalry.

In order to obtain an excellent view, Wang Gensheng also built a watchtower more than ten meters high in the center of the village, so that he could better observe the movements around him.

In the village threshing ground, Wang Gensheng was very satisfied looking at the soldiers whose average height was 1.8 meters.

You have to know that this era is not the era of several decades later. Those people born in the 1920s who can grow to 1.8 meters tall despite poor food due to long-term wars are the ones who have good family genes.

Although height does not mean strength, a person who is less than 1.6 meters tall is definitely not very strong.

Overall, Wang Gensheng was very satisfied with this group of soldiers who joined the cavalry regiment and became cavalrymen.

Of course, Wang Gensheng naturally asked them to learn how to ride horses first. If they wanted to become special cavalry, they had to at least learn the most basic riding skills such as riding, slashing, and controlling the horse without reins.

As for the skills required for special warfare, such as rope climbing, close combat, wilderness survival, swimming and skiing, we should wait until they have learned the basic skills of cavalry.

However, when Wang Gensheng was teaching these new cavalry soldiers horse riding skills, Baili Xiu told Wang Gensheng:

"Captain, the horses we originally rode, captured from the puppet army, are almost unusable. The horseshoes on the good horses are so thin they're deformed, and some have even fallen off. If we don't replace them, these horses will be useless."

When Wang Gensheng heard this, he remembered that since he snatched this batch of war horses from the puppet army last year, he seemed to have never taken care of these horseshoes. He only used them for training and combat.

At this moment, Wang Gensheng suddenly remembered that he had heard before he traveled through time that in addition to eating and drinking well, war horses also need to be maintained, especially the maintenance of horseshoes, which is of paramount importance.

At the same time, Wang Gensheng began to recall how the horseshoe was maintained. Wang Gensheng remembered that he had watched a video tutorial on how to install and replace horseshoes before.

First of all, before installing the horseshoes, you have to trim the horseshoes first. Although this seems as easy as cutting someone's nails, it actually requires solid experience to ensure the correct judgment of the trimmed shape of the horseshoes.

Moreover, maintaining the balance of the horse's hoof is the most important criterion when trimming and shaping the hoof, not just the beauty of the shape.

In addition, trimming the horseshoe is also to facilitate the next step of nailing the horseshoe. Otherwise, the gap between the bottom of the horseshoe and the horseshoe will cause the horseshoe to deform, and the nails will loosen, causing the horseshoe to fall off easily.

Replacing horseshoes is a complex process. First, four U-shaped horseshoes are prepared and compared to the hoof base. They are then hammered and shaped on a mold until they match the hoof base. Marks are made on the horseshoes to prevent confusion later. Then, soft iron sheets are heated over a flame and bent into the appropriate shape based on the horse's hoof. The horseshoes are then nailed to the pony's hoof. The horseshoes not only protect the hoof but also adjust the hoof angle and balance, improving the pony's walking comfort and stability.

The process of installing horseshoes is divided into hot nails and cold nails. Generally speaking, hot nails are better than cold nails.

The hot nailing process involves heating the horseshoe. The horseshoe is heated to over a thousand degrees Celsius until it glows red, then hammered flat. After cooling slightly, the horseshoe is placed on the bottom of the hoof, creating a burning smell and smoke. This process not only helps eliminate inflammation but also ensures a smoother hoof.

In the final step, the horseshoe needs to be securely fastened to the horse's hoof. First, the horseshoe needs to be positioned precisely around the hoof wall. The shoe should be flush with the hoof wall and should not extend beyond it to prevent the shoe from picking up debris or mud during walking.

Once the shoe is positioned correctly, six long nails are used to hammer three nails equally spaced on either side of the bottom. This allows the hind quarter of the hoof to move freely while walking. Although shoeing may appear painful, it's actually quite painless for the horse. A trimmed hoof consists of two parts: the living keratin and the hard keratin. The living keratin contains blood vessels and nerves, and is therefore sensitive to pain.

The layer beneath is a hard keratin layer about two centimeters thick. Even if it burns to the point of smoking, it's as painless as burning a fingernail. During the shoeing process, the nails aren't driven vertically, but rather diagonally outwards, with the tips of the nails fixed one to two centimeters from the bottom of the hoof and bent downwards to avoid contact with the living keratin.

Although Wang Gensheng remembered the content of the video clearly, he had no idea how to operate it. After all, there is a big difference between watching pigs run and eating pork and killing pigs yourself.

Therefore, Wang Gensheng finally decided to go to the county town to find a blacksmith who could nail horseshoes. The reason for finding a blacksmith was that, after all, horseshoes needed to be forged by a blacksmith.

Of course, it is different from the hundred or so war horses before. Wang Gensheng is now the commander of the cavalry regiment. Although he only has 800 war horses under his command now, there will definitely be more and more in the future.

So his cavalry regiment had to set up a blacksmith shop specifically to make horseshoes for his war horses.

Wang Gensheng remembered clearly that horseshoes should be replaced and maintained every two or three months.

It's been more than a year now, so it's no wonder that the horseshoes are almost worn out.

Fortunately, the war horses that had just been captured from the Japanese cavalry regiment had their horseshoes maintained not long ago, so they could still be used for training in the cavalry company.

As for the war horses captured from the puppet army and accompanying the special cavalry company for more than a year, they had to be abandoned temporarily. Using them again when the horseshoes were almost gone would damage the hooves.

If a warhorse's hoof is damaged, it will have to be scrapped.

In this era of material scarcity, it was naturally impossible to bury the scrapped war horses as they would have done decades later.

Thinking of this, Wang Gensheng said to Baili Xiu:

"I'm going to go find a blacksmith who can make horseshoes. I'll leave this cavalry regiment to you and Li Xiu! If any Japanese find us here, don't fight them. Lead the cavalry regiment directly to the heart of our 129 Lions base."

There was no other way. Although the cavalry regiment had been established, no political cadres had been sent, so Wang Gensheng could only let Baili Xiu and Li Xiu, who had been promoted to battalion commanders, take charge of the cavalry regiment first.

In fact, Wang Gensheng had no idea that the reason why the Lion Commander did not send Zheng Wei was because he was worried that it would hinder Wang Gensheng's training and command of the special cavalry regiment, so he did not send Zheng Wei.

In fact, during the Eighth Route Army period, newly established regiments generally would not send out political guards. They would only consider sending political guards after they had stabilized, or after suffering a major setback like the Independent Regiment.

(End of this chapter)