Dr. Bret Devereaux

And so I wonder, that being quite famous, if that's kind of in Tolkien's head as like, Julius Caesar didn't have any cavalry either.

Not that he could necessarily trust.

And so this sort of thing.

And so like that kind of using auxiliary cavalry is not uncommon.

I will note that also you see in China.

The core territory of China over multiple dynasties produces great infantry, but not a lot of cavalry.

To produce good cavalry, you need good horse lands, which means you need grazing.

In China, the issue is its high-density population.

They are growing wheat and rice, and the horse can't eat rice.

And so internally, China struggles to produce good cavalry, but China is extremely wealthy, so it does the obvious thing.

It buys it.

You go out onto the steppe and you're like, hey, steppe warrior, do you want some cool iron weapons and awesome silk clothes and some money?

Sure, why not?

Join the Han army and you're good to go.

And so one wonders if the Numenoreans, right, their auxiliary cavalry are doing the same thing.

They're like, we're not very good at this, but you guys are, you know, step people vaguely associated with but not identical to the Wainriders.

Do you want to be in our army?

We'll give you a bunch of money.

You know, legally distinct Wainriders.

Legally distinct.