ann
(Ann)
#1
Additionally, authorities like the Yongzheng emperor recognized that
it was more difficult, even in normal times, to raise horses in the south
than in the north. The import of this critical environmental difference
on ethnic identity has been explored in Yan Gao’sexemplarywork
on horse pastures in Hubei’s Jingzhou garrison. Anthropogenic and
ecogenic problems, including population pressure for conversion to
grainfields and calcium-deficient water and soil that debilitated herds,
compelled radical reductions in pastures and horses from the mid–
eighteenth century. Garrison pastures, which could sprawl eighty-four
thousandmuacross the six pastures of the Hangzhou garrison or twenty
thousandmuof the Jingzhou garrison’s spread, had been established
with comparatively modest goals of simply feeding rather than breeding
horses.^102
For many large garrisons south of the Great Wall, and especially in
the humid climate south of the Yangzi, however, even this goal was
unattainable by the mid–eighteenth century for mainly ecological reasons.
The Fuzhou garrison’s herd of 5 , 018 head was cut by 66 percent to 1 , 698
head in 1731 and again by 50 percentfive years later. These losses were
all attributed to the region’s “sweltering weather” that could inflict
annual mortality rates of 30 to 36 percent, as had happened in the interim
in 1734. Unfavorable climate also induced an identical pattern of reduc-
tion in the Jingzhou garrison, which cut its twelve thousand head by
66 percent in 1742 , and cut the remainder again by 50 percent in 1833.
In 1766 , the Hangzhou garrison culled its 10 , 227 head by 45 percent,
which rose to 55 percent three years later. The Guangzhou garrison held
out until 1771 , when it reduced its three thousand head by 78 percent.
Guangzhou was losing horses to the climate, which“was no different
from Fuzhou’s,”so fast that 17 percent of the original three thousand
had died by the time the proposal was approved.^103
The brevity of equine life expectancy locally was also reflected in the
garrison’s regulations for the care and feeding of horses. Penalties were
prescribed for mortalities of new arrivals at intervals of three, six, and
nine months and rewards for those lasting more than a year. Penalties
were subsequently extended out to three years, with rewards being
bestowed for each year of life after that. Conditions in Fuzhou were so
bad that officials were making annual supplementary purchases of“big
horses”ranging the pasture complexes beyond Zhangjiakou.^104 In some
southern cases, however, incentives, punishments, and extra purchases
were not enough to surmount deep-rooted ecological problems.“Toxic
grasses,”for example, killed off enough horses in some Yunnan banner
148 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
