The Yellow River Basin was not good for breeding horses. Therefore, in the Han and Tang periods, Chinese traded for horses with the nomads at the northern frontier. The Han emperor Wu Di even launched a war just to get his hands on some fabulous horses from Tianzhu (in modern Gansu).
而由於黃淮地區不適合養馬，漢唐時期，中國開始與包括突厥在內的北方游牧民族進行馬匹的交易，漢武帝甚至為得到天竺的汗血馬而不惜發動戰爭。