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Chapter 876 Ready to go
The Yarkand Khanate is a name given by later generations and there is no such name in history. The official records of the Ming Dynasty mostly used Beshbalik or Yilibali, and the Central Asian region was called Moghulistan. When the Mongolian tribes spoke of it, it became the Chagatai Khanate.

In fact, the Yarkand Khanate is indeed a continuation of the Chagatai Khanate, a bit like the relationship between the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty. The Liu family was the emperor, but the branch changed and the territory also changed.

We will not discuss how the Chagatai Khanate became the Yarkand Khanate, but in the book, the Yarkand Khanate is taken as the standard because its capital was in Yarkand City.

If you ever visit southern Xinjiang in the future, especially by car, there is a high probability that you will pass by Shache County, about 300 miles southeast of Kashgar.

This county town is not big, but it has a thousand-year-old ancient city and a magnificent royal tomb, marking its once glorious history.

The ancient city was built by the Shache Kingdom, one of the Thirty-Six Kingdoms in the Western Regions. It was later used as the capital of the Yarkand Khanate. The King's Mausoleum is where 13 kings and 44 royal family members of the Khanate are buried.

In the 8th year of the reign of Emperor Jingyang, the th king, Abdul Latif, lived here and ruled the Yarkand Khanate. The territory covered a vast area west of Jiayuguan, north of Tibet, east of the Bukhara Khanate, and south of the Tianshan Mountains, almost covering the Tarim Basin and its surrounding areas.

Although the nobles of the Yarkand Khanate were basically Mongolian nobles from the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, their beliefs were completely different from those of the Mongols in the south and north of the desert and the Oirat Mongols. They were not shamanists or Tibetan Buddhists, but chose Islam.

The Mongolian nobles who once belonged to the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, in addition to establishing the Yarkand Khanate, also had a branch that established a short-lived khanate, the Timurid Khanate.

In the 16th century, Babur, a descendant of Timur, entered northern India through Afghanistan and established the Mughal Empire.

"Womar" means Mongolia in Mongolian. Although Timur was a Turk, his family had been intermarried with Mongolian nobles of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate for generations. Babur believed that he had more Mongolian blood than Turkish blood.

Genghis Khan's influence on the world, especially on Asia, must be very great, without a doubt. His descendants established many countries from east to west and from south to north, and they have continued to exist until the 21st century.

The Yuan Dynasty was just one of the many countries established by his descendants, just like the endless variety of Khanates. If there is any connection, it is that they were once ruled.

Compared with the Mongols and the Jurchens, the Yarkand Khanate was much stronger. In addition to its large territory, the population and production methods under its rule were also much higher.

How many people were there in the Yarkand Khanate? There are many different answers. For example, the Tumed tribe said there were 50 households! According to Mongolian custom, one household is counted as 5 people, which means 250 million people!

But the captives of the Western Tumed tribe said that the Yarkand Khanate had only 10 households, or 50 people at most. Then the Tushetu tribe's Erlek also said that there were 25 households, or just over 100 million people.

Who should he listen to? Hong Tao was not sure. He had not yet figured out the exact population of the Ming Empire, so how could he have the time to do a census for outsiders? Moreover, a large part of the people in the Yarkand Khanate still retained the habit of nomadism, which made it even more difficult to count.

But when the war was about to start, we had to figure out the enemy's war potential, and population was a very important parameter. What should we do? Hong Tao counted on his toes, removing the highest score and the lowest score, and the answer left was just over 100 million!
In fact, no matter how you calculate it, the population of the Yarkand Khanate is larger than that of the Mongolian tribes south of the desert and the Jurchen tribes. The reason is very simple, it depends on the production method.

The Mongols and Jurchen tribes in the south of the desert were still nomadic and hunting, but the Yarkand Khanate had already started farming and had fixed and large cities, such as Fergana, Kashgar (Kashgar), Yingshaji, Khotan (Hotan), Wushi, Aksu, Baicheng, Yanqi (Korla), Turpan, etc.

This further shows that in addition to farming and nomadism, they will also develop urban handicrafts and commerce. With the support of these industries, the population will inevitably increase significantly, technology will surely advance, and combat effectiveness will inevitably increase relatively.

With the emperor's arrival in Lanzhou, all preparations for the Western Expedition were completed. The 5 troops and 12 logistics support staff could set out immediately at the command, heading straight for Jiayuguan.

But the emperor seemed to be in no hurry anymore. He stayed in the temporary camp outside Lanzhou for two days. Apart from constantly summoning the leaders of various armies, he did nothing.

The only person summoned on the third day was Qinghai Dusi Du Wenhuan. As soon as he entered the tent, he saw the emperor leaning on a rattan chair, puffing on a cigar. On the carpet next to him were dozens of maps of various sizes, each of which had been drawn.

"Tao Wu, I'm afraid that we will have to kill a lot of people in this Western Expedition. With just this one battle, you might be labeled a butcher and attract unwarranted criticism. Are you afraid?"

Hong Tao has not been idle these two days. Apart from summoning the leaders of various armies to ask about their understanding and implementation of the combat plan, he spent the rest of his time carefully reading the information on the current situation of the Yarkand Khanate collected through various channels.

Before formulating the combat plan, the General Staff has fully referred to this type of information, but as time goes by, some information will be constantly updated and must be referenced and judged at any time, and the original plan must be constantly supplemented and fine-tuned.

But no matter how much intelligence is collected, the Yarkand Khanate is still a mystery. We cannot blame the General Staff and the Statistics Department for not being effective. Due to transportation limitations, it is impossible to collect effective intelligence in areas that are slightly farther away and have less communication.

It is not easy to rely on one third of intelligence, one third of speculation and one third of luck before the war.

Precisely because he could not fully understand the situation, Hong Tao could not come up with any targeted measures, so the fight was mostly a head-on confrontation. In order to reduce casualties on his side, some not-so-honest means and methods that were less moral but proven to be effective by history had to be used.

"...Your Majesty, are you going to massacre the city?" Du Wenhuan immediately thought of a possibility when asked this question out of the blue, and couldn't help but ask back.

"If it were you, would you hesitate?" The emperor grinned slightly, as if smiling, and asked back.

"...If there is a need, I will not hesitate!" Du Wenhuan swallowed his saliva quietly, put away his relaxed look, nodded vigorously and gave an affirmative answer.

I thought that following the emperor to the battle would be as safe and sound as the previous two times, but the first question caused the estimate to drop by several levels. If the emperor had not calculated some insurmountable difficulties, he would not have asked this question.

(End of this chapter)