How many mules and horses can a good groom look after?

A good horse driver can look after 12 mules and horses at most.

Looking after 12 mules and horses can only be done by highly capable horse drivers, and ordinary bags are responsible for seven or eight mules and horses. A horse driver, mules and horses under his care and their goods are called "a handful". In this way, dozens of them formed a caravan. Compared with the rabble of local warlords at that time, the caravan was more like a well-trained and well-organized army.

Ma Guotou, the horse driver and the mule and horse are performing their respective duties step by step and conscientiously. Every time they go out on the road, they act in an orderly way from morning till night every day. The daily life of the caravan is almost like this. In the morning, mules and horses are taken back, horses eat food, people eat, walk, get on and off the bus, camp and cook, put the horse to sleep, cycle after cycle, month after month, year after year.

The organizational form of Yunnan caravan;

1, family style, the whole family participates in the caravan business, and all mules and horses are owned by themselves and named after their own surnames.

2. People who ridicule and help are generally people from the same village or similar villages. Every family has several mules and horses, and they walk in groups. They take care of their mules and horses, and choose a respected and experienced person as the head of the horse pot. They come forward to contact the business, and they can get about 20% more income by settling dividends.

Let's call it a gang for the time being. It has no fixed organization, but it came together because it took the same road, accepted the same business, or was worried about bandits. These organizational forms are sometimes mixed together to form a complex and interesting caravan landscape. Caravans going to Tibet are generally caravans of big family businesses.