Chapter Twelve: Horseshoes and Cell Phones

The object Zhang Bo referred to was the last of the three great cavalry artifacts, aside from the Takahashi saddle and the double stirrups.

The horseshoe.

The earliest records of horseshoes trace back to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period; prior to that, the Central Plains had no horseshoes at all.

Moreover, the earliest horseshoes were not made of iron but wood.

Large-scale application of true iron horseshoes did not occur until the Yuan Dynasty.

Upon hearing that Zhang Bo had an item related to horses, Huo Qubing’s lips involuntarily curled into a smile, and his face showed keen interest.

For Huo Qubing, he did not want to miss any method that could enhance the cavalry’s combat effectiveness.

“Please, feel free to explain,” he said.

“It is called a horseshoe.”

“Horseshoe? Iron?”

Huo Qubing was somewhat puzzled; horses and iron seemed unrelated, so how were they connected?

“Marquis Champion, I suppose you already know that when a horse runs heavily burdened for a long time or walks on hard surfaces, its hooves wear down easily, causing lameness, and in severe cases, the horse cannot move at all.”

Huo Qubing nodded in agreement.

“Have you ever considered putting shoes on horses, just as people wear shoes?”

“To put shoes on horses? What do you mean by that?”

Originally, Zhang Bo intended to describe the horseshoe's shape and function in words, but after some thought, he realized it would be difficult to do so adequately. Instead, he decided to find some existing material and began searching for videos of horseshoes on his phone to show Huo Qubing.

Although Huo Qubing did not understand why Zhang Bo handed him a small black object the size of a palm, he accepted it.

Zhang Bo pressed the play button, and the phone began to play a video about horseshoes.

This startled Huo Qubing so much that his hands trembled, causing the phone to drop in free fall.

Fortunately, Zhang Bo was prepared and swiftly caught the phone.

“Phew,” Zhang Bo exhaled deeply.

If this “far ahead” device were to break, even selling the five-coin pieces wouldn’t cover the loss.

“Shopkeeper, what is this brick? Why are there people’s voices and images inside?”

“Well, that’s a bit complicated to explain, Marquis Champion. How about first seeing how the horseshoe works?”

Despite some reluctance toward this brick-like object, Huo Qubing, recalling the wonders the shopkeeper had described about the horseshoe, took the phone from Zhang Bo and began watching.

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Liu Ju also leaned in close to Huo Qubing, curious about why this brick was producing sound.

After about five minutes, the video ended.

It was clear that Huo Qubing had gained much from the video; his eyes were tightly closed, seemingly deep in thought.

Liu Ju’s gaze was fixed intently on the phone Zhang Bo had taken back, his face full of longing.

“Brother, I wonder what this black brick is.”

“This is called a mobile phone. Don’t be fooled by its small size—it can store tens of thousands of books.”

Liu Ju looked at the phone in Zhang Bo’s hand with disbelief.

To him, the book with the most characters he had ever seen was the *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* Zhang Bo had previously given him. Although it weighed about the same as a bundle of bamboo slips, the content was vastly different.

In the Han Dynasty, a single bamboo slip recorded only twenty or thirty characters. A volume of slips might contain a dozen to several dozen slips, meaning a maximum of around a thousand characters per volume.

But *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* was different. Liu Ju, idly estimating, reckoned it contained hundreds of thousands of characters.

What did that mean? The content in ten bundles of bamboo slips did not equal that of this tiny book, no larger than two or three hands.

And this phone in front of him, even if the characters on it were as tiny as ants, could only show at most a hundred or so characters at once—how could it contain tens of thousands of books?

“Little Ju, don’t you believe me?”

“Well, Brother, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just…”

Zhang Bo said nothing but silently searched online for *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* and handed the phone to Liu Ju.

With just a glance, Liu Ju recognized it as the beginning of the *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*.

“Brother, this seems to be only about a hundred or eighty characters.”

“Try scrolling down.”

Following Zhang Bo’s instruction, Liu Ju swiped down, and the lines of text rolled across the screen.

Seeing Liu Ju’s expression as if he had seen a ghost, Zhang Bo almost laughed aloud.

This was the shock of tiny technology.

After about five minutes, Liu Ju raised his head, looking eagerly at Zhang Bo.

“Brother, I wonder how much this phone is worth.”

Hmm?

Business already at the doorstep so soon?

Although Liu Ju was just over ten years old, squarely in elementary school age, and shouldn’t have been exposed to phones so early in the current era,

Otherwise, he would be shouting “*Spirit, activate!*”

But the Western Han had no internet; even if he wanted to activate it, it was impossible. Thus, contact with the phone was not really an issue.

At worst, there was a youth mode.

Zhang Bo roughly estimated.

In modern times, a slightly better phone from a domestic manufacturer costs about a thousand yuan.

“Brother, would one gold ingot be enough?”

A gold ingot! That should weigh nearly half a pound.

“That’s enough, but Little Ju, the phone might take some time to arrive.”

“Shopkeeper, I would also like to buy one. Is that possible?”

Huo Qubing had just witnessed this wondrous item; hearing that it only cost one gold ingot, he was tempted.

However, Zhang Bo hesitated as he looked at Huo Qubing.

To be honest, he wanted to earn that gold ingot too.

But there was no way—the characters on the phone could not be set to seal script.

He was buying it for Liu Ju because Liu Ju had already roughly finished reading *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, indicating he had no difficulty using the phone in daily life.

But Huo Qubing was different.

Unless he were as gifted as Liu Ju and spent a... no, given the time difference between the two worlds, roughly five months learning simplified characters.

“Marquis Champion, because the characters displayed on the phone differ greatly from the Western Han’s seal script, even if you buy it, you won’t be able to use it properly.”

Though somewhat disappointed by Zhang Bo’s explanation, Huo Qubing understood.

After all, he had flipped through *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* that day and indeed did not recognize most of the characters, just as the shopkeeper said.

It would be best to wait and see how the Crown Prince used it before deciding.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince, shall we return?”

Now, Huo Qubing was eager to return to the Han Dynasty to inform his uncle about the improvements to the Han cavalry horses.