A long time ago, soldiers fought wars on foot. Then they began to ride horses to battle. Until the invention of the stirrups (马蹬), though, men could not fight well with swords or spears while on horseback.
Without stirrups, soldiers had no place to put their feet. They could not stand up to use their swords without falling off their horses. They could throw spears only with the force of their arms.
Using stirrups, a soldier could stand up in his saddle (鞍). He could put a spear under the top part of his arm and charge with the force of his horse. He could use force when fighting with a sword. And he could win most fights against soldiers who did not use stirrups.
The first stirrups were made in India. Because the weather was warm, people did not wear shoes. The Indian stirrup was made of rope. It fit around the big toes. Later, the Chinese made a foot stirrup of wood. Because the Chinese lived in a colder country, the stirrup had to fit around shoes. Still later, around A. D. 700, soldiers in Asia used strong iron foot stirrups.
【小题1】Around AD. 700, the soldiers in Asia used stirrups made of ________.| A．wood | B．shoes | C．rope | D．iron |
| A．the soldiers in warm and cold countries |
| B．how to throw a spear in the fights |
| C．an invention that changed man’s way of fighting wars |
| D．the history of horse riding |
| A．They looked better when they were using stirrups. |
| B．They could now stand in their saddles to throw spears. |
| C．Horses were safer to ride than before. |
| D．They made soldiers throw spears with the force of wind. |
| A．There were no wars 2,000 years ago. |
| B．Men were fighting 2,000 years ago. |
| C．War is something new. |
| D．Chinese people didn’t wear shoes in the past. |
