The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 338 Kazakhstan Layout
January 1734, 1, Middle Juz, Turkestan (now Kazakh Turkestan).

"If we, the Kazakhs, raise an army to attack Dzungaria, you, the Qin people, will definitely support us, right?"

Abu Mansur (later known as Abulai Khan, the Great Khan of Kazakhstan) had burning eyes and leaned forward, staring at the envoy from the Eastern Qin State opposite him, while his right hand tightly grasped the short knife at his waist, as if he was going to draw his sword against the envoy if they disagreed.

Fan Ting, the military commander of the Beiting Protectorate of the Great Qin Dynasty and the deputy general of the Yili Town, narrowed his eyes slightly and looked up and down at the young Kazakh. He was very dissatisfied with his rude questioning.

He turned his head and looked at the Zhongyuzi Khan Abulbanbit who was sitting at the top.

Who the hell is this person? He is shouting and yelling in front of the envoy of the Great Qin. Does he know the respect and hierarchy and any rules?

"Your Excellency..." Khan Abulebanbit said with a smile, "This is the most courageous general of the Kazakh Khanate, Abu Mansur. Two years ago, the Junggars invaded Kazakhstan. It was he who killed Galdan Tseren's son Xiaerxi in the battle and defeated the Junggar army in one fell swoop, thus making him famous on the grassland. Your Excellency, please don't be surprised. Abu Mansur has a straightforward personality and always speaks directly."

"Oh, so you are a warrior who is feared by the grassland. This is a bit disrespectful." Fan Ting said, grabbing the wine jar on the table, filling the bowl with wine, and then holding it up to Abu Mansur, "Since you are a warrior, you should drink a bowl of wine!"

Abu Mansur took the wine bowl and drank it all in one gulp without saying a word.

Fan Ting then poured him two more bowls of wine, and he drank them all without changing his expression. Then, he rolled up his sleeves, wiped the wine off his face and mouth, and looked at him proudly.

"Your Excellency, can you answer my question now?"

"Tell him that even without any help, the Great Qin can wipe out the Dzungars all by itself." Fan Ting glanced at Abu Mansur, then turned to the interpreter and said, "Our Chinese ancestors once said, 'Whoever offends China will be punished no matter how far away they are!'"

"..." After hearing the interpreter's translation, Abu Mansur was stunned, and then his eyes widened, "Your Excellency means... that anyone who offends the Qin Dynasty will be completely destroyed?"

"Our Chinese ancestors once said, 'Those who obey will prosper, and those who resist will perish!'" Fan Ting raised his head high. "The Mongolian tribes in the south of the desert and the Mongolian tribes in Qinghai are respectful and submissive, and have submitted to the king's rule. Our Great Qin treats them like internal ministers, gives them titles, and even the Miao people, registers them as households and counts them as people, just like our people. The U-Tsang Khoshut tribe and the Hami Hui tribe are unruly and have rebelled repeatedly. Our Great Qin will send down thunder from the sky, slaughter their leaders, demote their people, divide their cattle and sheep, and make them unable to stand up forever. The Junggars attempted to challenge the power of our Great Qin with a corner of the grassland. For decades, our Great Qin soldiers have attacked their nests, plowed their caves, and defeated their troops. Given time, after our Great Qin has gathered its strength, it will surely strike them with a thunderbolt and completely destroy the Junggars."

"Then will your Qin country invade Kazakhstan?" Abu Mansur stared at Fan Ting.

"As for whether our Great Qin will invade Kazakhstan in the future, that depends on whether you are our enemy or our ally."

"We, the Kazakhs, have fought with the Dzungars for a hundred years, and the situation is that we will never stop fighting. And your Qin State has also been fighting with the Dzungars for decades, and has experienced many wars. In this way, we, the Kazakhs, and your Qin State are naturally allies, how can we be enemies?"

In 1634, the leader of the Junggar tribe, Kharahula, died and his son Batur Hun Taiji ascended the throne. After Batur Hun Taiji came to power, he quickly integrated the four Oirat tribes and became the "leader" of the tribe. Under his proposal and advocacy, the nearly -year dispute between East and West Mongolia was not only declared over, but the two sides also formed an alliance and jointly formulated the famous "Mongol-Oirat Code".

At the same time, in order to improve relations with other tribes, Batur Hun Taiji married his daughters to Ochirtu, the leader of the Khoshut tribe, and Pengchuk, the leader of the Torghut tribe, and successively married the daughters of He Erleke, the leader of the Torghut tribe, and Gushri Khan, forming in-laws.

In a nutshell, the peaceful and stable social environment provided extremely favorable external conditions for the development and growth of the Junggar tribe.

While seeking unity internally, Batur Hun Taiji launched a rather aggressive offensive against Kazakhstan, the traditional overlord of Central Asia, thus opening the prelude to the "Hundred Years' War" between the two sides.

In 1652, Batur Hun Taiji led his army to defeat the Kazakh army in the heart of Central Asia, and Yangjir Khan, the leader of the Kazakh Khanate, was killed on the battlefield. After Yangjir Khan's death, the Kazakh Khanate fell into a state of disunity, and could no longer pose a threat to the Dzungar Khanate. In 1653, Batur Hun Taiji died, and internal strife over the right of succession broke out in the Dzungar Khanate, and the Dzungar-Kazakh War entered a truce phase. In 1680, Yangjir Khan's son Touk Khan became the new leader of the Kazakh Khanate. After Touk Khan came to power, he began to strengthen the power and status of the Khan, gradually eliminated the opposition forces, and the Kazakh Khanate regained stability and unity.

At almost the same time, Galdan, the third leader of Dzungar, came to power. Galdan was a man of great talent and strategy, and he dreamed of restoring the glory of the Mongol Empire. Galdan knew that in order to compete with the Qin Empire in the east, he had to eliminate the worries in the west.

As a result, Galdan launched two consecutive wars against the Kazakh Khanate. The Junggar army broke through the important city of Sayram, the Kazakh Khanate, and incorporated the Seven Rivers Basin and the middle and upper reaches of the Syr Darya into the territory of the Junggar Khanate. The strength of the Junggar Khanate was greatly enhanced.

After weakening the power of the Kazakh Khanate, Galdan began to provoke the Qin Dynasty. However, he hit a "wall of iron" and was defeated successively by the Qin army in Mobei, Kobdo and Beiting. Not only was the connection between the Khalkha Mongols cut off, but he also lost a large area of ​​fertile territory with abundant grass and water in the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains. He was pressed to the Ili River Valley by the Qin army with fortresses and superior forces. Galdan himself died of depression after a series of blows. The road to the rise of Dzungar encountered serious setbacks.

After Galdan's death, the Kazakh Khan took the opportunity to "recapture" Sailimu, Tashkent and other places. This was also a rare victory for the Kazakh Khanate in the Dzungar-Kazakh War.

But the good times did not last long. In 1718, Touk Khan died and the Kazakh Khanate was in turmoil again. The new Khan of the Dzungar Khanate, Tsewang Arabtan, led his army to recapture Sayram and Tashkent and fought all the way to the Talas River Basin. Later, the Dzungarian army invaded the Syr Darya River Basin, the core area of ​​the Kazakh Khanate, which was the "great disaster period" in Kazakh history.

After this battle, the Kazakh Khanate was completely defeated and obediently paid tribute to the Dzungar Khanate.

However, this was not the most tragic time for the Kazakh Khanate.

In 1727, Yue Zhongqi, the Grand Commander of the Beiting Protectorate of the Qin Dynasty, took advantage of the internal chaos of the Junggars to lead his troops to attack Ili, dealing a heavy blow to the Junggars. He not only captured the capital, but also captured and killed more than people. The new Khan of the Junggars, Galdan Tseren, led the remnants to flee to the Issyk-Kul grasslands. In the spring and summer of that year, more than Qin troops came out of the Ili River Valley and attacked the Junggars again. Galdan Tseren was defeated and fled to Lake Balkhash.

In line with the principle of losing in the east and making up in the west, after the Dzungars had gained a firm foothold in Lake Balkhash, Galdan Tseren drew a large number of troops from the Irtysh River Basin and launched a surprise attack on the Kazakhs in the Talas River Valley in August 1728. The unprepared Kazakhs had to abandon their livestock, yurts and clothes and flee in all directions. Those who did not have time to escape were either killed or captured, suffering heavy losses.

In September of the following year, in order to relieve their worries, the Junggars sent troops to attack Kazakhstan again, successively captured Turkestan (the seat of the Kazakh royal court) and Tashkent, defeated and conquered the Middle Juz, and also took part of the Great Juz. Those Kazakh tribes who were unwilling to "submit" to the Junggar Khanate had to migrate westward. Part of the Middle Juz moved to Samarkand, the Small Juz moved to Khiva and Bukhara and the areas controlled by Daqin, and the remnants of the Great Juz roamed to Huzhen - they occupied all the grasslands between Weihai, the Caspian Sea, and the Ural River, and caused new tribal unrest in Siberia.

Against this backdrop, the three Yuzu tribes, which were originally "independent of each other", decided to unite and fight back against the Dzungar Khanate.

In 1730, the Kazakhs defeated the Dzungar army on the banks of the Buleta River, west of the middle reaches of the Sarysu River. The following year, they took advantage of the fierce battle between the Dzungars and the Qin army to inflict heavy damage on the Dzungar army southwest of Balkhash, beheading more than people, killing Galdan Tseren's son Xiaerxi in battle, and recaptured Turkestan and Tashkent. They also advanced to Hengrus (now Taraz, Kazakhstan), threatening the Dzungar retreat.

However, when the Kazakhs heard that the Dzungars had defeated the Qin army at Moint Ridge, they were so frightened that they retreated back to the Syr Darya Valley, abandoned the Talas area, and fortified their cities in preparation for revenge against the Dzungars.

Fortunately, the Qin army replaced the commander of the Western Regions and continued to launch oppressive attacks on Dzungar, building cities and forts, relocating Han people, and continuously sending small groups of elite cavalry to attack and kill Dzungar tribesmen, leaving the Dzungars no time to retaliate and allowing the Kazakhs to escape temporarily.

In their current state, the Kazakhs simply did not have the strength to fight the Dzungars head-on. They could just make small moves, harass the Dzungars' isolated tribes, or hit them with clubs when they were not paying attention. But if the Dzungars got serious and assembled a large army to attack them, the Kazakhs could only flee, jumping into the vast uninhabited desert to avoid being killed by the other side.

Because, after a century of war, the entire Kazakhs were not only divided into three major, medium and small Yuz and more than a hundred tribes of different affiliations, but also suffered extremely heavy losses in population, tribes, horses, cattle and sheep. Worse still, the long years of war not only almost cut off trade in the Kazakh region, but also lost a large number of craftsmen and artists, which made it impossible for the Kazakhs to obtain the necessary weapons and equipment, and they were completely unable to deal with the well-armed Dzungar cavalry.

The Torghut tribe in the west, the Khanate of Khiva and the Khanate of Bukhara in the south, and the Russians in the north would come from time to time to take advantage of the situation, plundering people and property, and plundering countless Kazakhs into a tragic fate.

Half a month ago, a group of Qin envoys, led by several guides from the Xiaoyuzi tribe, braved the bitter cold winter weather, passed through the Dzungar-controlled area, and arrived in Turkestan, which immediately caused a huge sensation.

The Khan of the Central Yuzz tribe, Abulbanbit, held a grand welcoming ceremony and warmly entertained the envoys from the Celestial Empire.

In fact, decades ago, when the Qin Dynasty and the Dzungars were fighting for Beiting, they had sent envoys to Kazakhstan to make an agreement with the then Touk Khan to attack the Dzungars. However, the Kazakhs were too useless. Not only did they not pose a real threat to the Dzungars' rear, but they became their blood supplement. The repeatedly injured Dzungars could get much-needed supplements from the Kazakhs, and then slowly recovered. Finally, the Qin Dynasty had to go to Russia thousands of miles away to join forces with this European country with completely different culture, race, and religion to attack the Dzungars.

Now, the Khalkha Mongols were in rebellion, and Beiting was ordered to dispatch 7,000 elite cavalry to Kobdo to quell the rebellion, leaving the Qin army without any available mobile forces in the Western Regions.

It is a cold winter with heavy snow, which is not the right time to use military force. The Qin army agreed to march in April when the spring is warm to suppress the Khalkha Mongolian tribes. Even if the war goes well, it will take at least three or four days. By the time the army returns to Beiting, it will probably be autumn or winter.

During this period, if the Junggars broke their promise and suddenly attacked the border from the east, the Beiting Qin army would not be able to deal with the vast Western Regions and could only passively defend with their fortresses. If the Junggars were allowed to wreak havoc in the Western Regions, although they would not be able to capture the Qin army's fortresses one by one, the farming affairs of the season would inevitably be delayed, which would likely cause the entire Beiting to fall into a food crisis.

Therefore, in order to find something for the Dzungars to do and prevent them from harassing Beiting, Yue Zhongqi sent several delegations to risk passing through the Dzungar-controlled area to contact the Kazakhs, hoping that they would muster up their courage again and bravely launch an attack on the Dzungars.

"As long as you capture Kangju City (now Chu City in Kazakhstan) on the banks of the Chu River during the spring thaw, it will be only 250 kilometers away from Jingxi City of the Great Qin. By then, no matter how many weapons you want, just come and get them. We can provide them to you. Even artillery can be provided to you!"

"Your Excellency, this is true!" Abu Mansur was very excited after hearing this.

Now, my Central Yuz has more than 20,000 tents. If we can have enough military equipment, we can recruit more than 10,000 soldiers and cavalry. There is no need to worry about not being able to conquer the Big and Small Yuz (the Small Yuz is controlled by Daqin and Junggar respectively), drive out Junggar, and then unify the whole Kazakhstan, and regain the dominance of the grassland!

"How can we make fun of our great Qin Empire?"

"If so, we Kazakhs will definitely attack the Dzungar Khanate in the east and capture Kangju City as promised when the spring comes."

When Fan Ting heard this, he felt relieved.

Great thing accomplished!

The Grand Commander contacted the Kazakhs and provided them with a certain degree of military support. In addition to restraining the Dzungars and harassing their retreat, another important consideration was to make necessary political and military preparations for the post-Dzungar era.

It is said that the Torghut tribe, Kazakhstan's western neighbor, has received strong support from the State of Qi and is conquering cities and territories in the surrounding areas with great momentum.

If, after our Great Qin conquered Dzungar, the people of Qi would have encouraged the Torghut tribe to expand eastward and annex the vast Kazakh steppe?

If this is the case, my Great Qin will probably usher in a new grassland empire after destroying Dzungar.

As a result, the northwestern border of our Great Qin will never have peace and will be plunged into war for a long time.

In order to plan for the future, our Great Qin must prepare for the future and make arrangements in advance so that we can deal with possible geopolitical threats.

(End of this chapter)