Retrospect:The history of chinese saddlery

The saddle appeared after halter and bit, evolved from the saddle pad. Engels said that, "On ancient sculpture, the warrior rides horse without saddle; Later, we discovered one kind of similar mattress or something like a cushion, finally we have high saddles which are popular in current Eastern countries"(from understanding of the archaeology material, the horses in the south of Yellow River area, of Yin time, were mainly used for driving, there was no saddle on the horseback. The saddle pad for riding appeared in the War Times, or called " low saddle").

The stirrup appeared soon followed the invention of the saddle. People could sit for a long time safely on the horseback and freely make each kind of movement like archery, horse-wrapping. Therefore, under some significance, the invention of stirrup was to meet the need of archery and horse-wrapping. The initial stirrup was made of string. There is no other invention in the world simpler than it, but actually it had a huge catalytic effect in human history. Regarding this, Needham wrote: "We may say like this that, like Chinese gunpowder contributed to the destruction of European feudalism in the feudalism final stage, China’s stirrup has been helping the initial establishment of Europe feudalism. There is no real changes but only further perfection in the transition from string stirrup and metal stirrup.
About the origin of stirrup, some people thought the nomads invented the stirrup for riding; Also some people thought the agriculture nationality did in order to grasp the riding skill to carry the soldiers to battle. According to the historical record, Warring States Zhao Wuling the king, south of Yellow River, introduced "Hu Fu riding shoots", started to use each kind of harness including the stirrup. According to experts’ researches, B.C.E. a century either north part of two centuries central Asia nomads or our country the nomads already have invented the stirrup. Therefore, the latter view is not persuasive enough. Until the Southern and Northern Dynasties time, the people in Southern Dynasty dud bit ride a horse, therefore the rich often went by carriage.
The invention of hobbles should have been earlier than the saddle and the stirrup, possibly at the same time with the halter, because sorts of hobbles were the necessary tool to tame a wild horse. The hobbles and the halter in their beginning stage were made of rope, it continues to develop to the ones we are seeing now.
There are nearly 20 kinds of aiding equipment, each of them is unique and indispensable to each other. Together with the six basic equipment, a full set of harness was made. Among them, Ma Gan (hunting pole), the nose rope, tying rope etc are the necessary tool for the Nomad. The nose rope, tying rope might be the oldest harness as like the halter, the stirrup, bit, hobbles, they all evolved from a string.
Besides the above harness, the vehicles were also the most important tool for the Nomad. There were lots of record of the invention and usage of vehicles in China. Such as, the vehicles were invented by Huang Di (the first ancient emperor in China) or Xia Yu or Xi Zhong in Xia Yu’s time. And vehicles were used in many ancient wars.
Vehicles were put into wide use in Mongolia grassland as early as the Bronze Times. It initiated from cargo-pulling to field labor. The invention of wheels and vehicles in the Bronze Times is a revolutionary step ahead in human history. The Nomad started to use them for production, cargo-transportation, fighting with wild animals or enemies.