The scorching sun on the grassland is extremely scorching, and the endless green grass makes people feel tired. Lun
Even though the sunset is beginning to appear, the temperature in the air is still unbearably hot. The horses can't stop flicking their tails, as if they can drive away the heat wave.
However, the grassland was flat and there were not many large stones, let alone the shade of trees.
The scout called to the war horse from time to time, calmed his emotions, and gave him water and food, fearing that something might happen to his life-threatening partner.
Dong dong dong——
The scout's eyelids twitched and he quickly lay down on the ground. The vibration went straight to his heart and was like thunder in his ears.
He stood up in a hurry, stepped onto the horse's back with a single stride, then found a hillside and stood there looking at it.
I saw, in the distance, against the light, a black army, stepping on the grass, slowly approaching. Although I couldn't see the details, its scale covered the sky and the sun, making people feel fearful. Lun
On the two wings, there is a white and gray world, which is the rations of the army. The size of the cattle and sheep accompanying the army is no less than the number of the army.
As if they saw the lone scout, a group of light cavalry rushed forward quickly like arrows.
The scouts could even vaguely see the ferocious smile on his face. He looked embarrassed, quickly turned his horse's head, and swung his whip to urge his companions.
The horse also knew that something was wrong, and kept running with its four long legs. It seemed that it had just filled its stomach and had good strength. It quickly broke away from the pursuit and returned to the camp.
"Dear Emir, the Ming army is thirty miles away from us."
The cavalry who returned without success had to report.
On the horse, a burly man wearing a round hat and armor listened carefully to his words. Lun
The so-called emir is actually the military commander of the Bukhara Khanate. This is an official position, a kind of noble and lord, and later evolved into a king, just like the chief of Qatar, he is the emir.
This is a common official position in Hepingjiao countries. In fact, it was the Jiedushi envoy during the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties period.
But now, the rulers in the Peace Religion can only be called Caliph and Sultan. Caliph means the successor of the prophet. In other words, he must be a descendant of the emperor to be called Caliph.
Sultan means the ruler of a foreign race. For example, the Ottomans are actually Turks, not Arabs, so the monarch of the Ottoman Empire is the Sultan.
Today's Bukhara Khanate is naturally of Turkic origin, so its monarch should be called Sultan. However, Bukhara was influenced by the Persians, so it was called "Shah", which means King of Kings.
But internally, he is a descendant of Genghis Khan, also known as Khan.
At that time, Emperor Zhu Yixi met with the Mongolian tribes in the Monan and Mobei regions in Chahar. He was respectfully called Chuluo Khan by the Mongolian nobles because he wanted to exert influence in the country of Mongolian descent. Lun
Emil frowned: "It seems that Akito's riding skills are really good!"
Just through scouting, he realized how difficult the Ming army was to deal with.
"Camp here—"
He raised his hand, his gaze seemed to penetrate the distant clouds and directly witnessed the Ming army.
In fact, he was cautious because he knew so little.
The Bukhara Khanate inherited the Mongolian tradition of feudalism as always. The Great Khan only controlled Bukhara and Samarkand, and the rest were controlled by the nobles.
Now he only knows that this Ming army does not exceed 30,000 to 40,000, but he does not know the details. Lun
At this time, Li Dingguo was shocked when he received the message from the scouts, and his face was full of excitement: "The Bukhara people are finally here."
The next day, the two armies began to confront each other.
There is no doubt that tens of thousands of cavalry came galloping, putting great pressure on the Ming army.
However, Li Dingguo looked upright, holding a telescope in his hand, and said seriously and carefully: "The heavy cavalry is in front, and the light cavalry is on the two wings."
"However, the armor wearing rate of heavy cavalry is not high. How can it be regarded as heavy armor if the leather armor is enough?"
"There are many types of light cavalry with no uniform uniforms, and there are many horses under them.
It’s weight loss——”
Suddenly, Li Dingguo showed surprise. He said to the general beside him: "As the saying goes, horses are fattened by autumn and fattened by summer. Now it is summer. After a winter, the cattle and sheep need to replenish their grass."
"Horses are no exception."
"What does the general's office mean, the other party's people are uncertain?" Jia Daihua immediately found the point: "It was supposed to be a day for grazing, but now it is forced to go to war, so the herdsmen are very reluctant."
Looking at Jia Daihua with admiration, Li Dingguo smiled and gave everyone confidence: "In addition, these cavalry are mostly recruited for the lords. They cherish their troops and will not be happy to fight for the Khan."
"So, don't worry about the light cavalry in this battle, and just attack the heavy cavalry and elites in the middle. I'm sure the others won't bother to save them——"
The task was assigned, and everyone had no objections.
Combat on the grasslands is different from that in the Central Plains. The formation requirements are not high, but the order is different.
The Bukhara cavalry came with great momentum. Their armors shone with light, and the sound of horse hooves echoed in the sky. They seemed to be showing off their riding skills. The cavalry flew up and down on their horses, showing the unique style of the grassland people. Lun
Their expressions were ferocious, and they were already reminded of the fear and retreat of the Ming army.
Yes, who can withstand the impact of tens of thousands of cavalry?
Although they knew that the cavalry charging the infantry phalanx was seeking death, this group of Bukhara cavalry, which had been roaming the grasslands for hundreds of years, remained unafraid.
Sure enough, the phalanx formed by the Haokand vassal army faced the overwhelming dust, their legs were trembling and their minds were unsteady.
Li Dingguo glanced at it and said, "Mud can't hold up a wall."
"Go and send out the artillery."
"Yes——" Lun
When the messengers received the news, they immediately began to fill the cannon and light the fuse after being prepared for a long time.
Boom——
The power of Shaowu-style artillery allowed this group of herdsmen to see the power of field artillery for the first time.
The cannonballs passed through beautiful arcs and fell directly into the battle formation, tearing apart many cavalrymen.
The roar of the artillery was deafening. As the air vibrated, the horses driven by the cavalry could not help but panic and wanted to run away.
Frankly speaking, the power of artillery is not great at this time, but its greatest role is deterrence.
The artillery that had never been seen before, with the scythe of death, easily took away the lives of dozens of people, which was nothing to the army, even scratching the itch. Lun
But a large number of horses were frightened and ran away uncontrollably.
The cavalry charge was stopped.
An unprecedented danger frightened everyone, and some even prayed on horseback.
Unfortunately, artillery cannot stop the general trend.
The Bukhara cavalry were certainly not stupid. They did not directly rush into the copper wall. Instead, they kept flying kites and shooting cold arrows, putting great pressure on the infantry phalanx.
At the same time, these cold arrows were like ants moving, constantly hollowing out the infantry phalanx like a city wall.
It can be said that as long as there is a little negligence, the loophole will expand and be used as a gap, and the cavalry will continue to enter and march into the square formation. Lun
In this regard, the training is acceptable, but the infantry phalanx formed by the inexperienced Kokand vassal army is already in danger.
"The people of Haokandu are unreliable." Li Dingguo said without changing his expression, "Let the cavalry charge."
Soon, under the strange eyes of the Bukhara cavalry, the Ming cavalry began to walk out of the square formation in a line formation to reduce the pressure on the infantry and face the enemy directly.
The cavalry were also arranged in a square formation, with horses next to horses, as close as infantry.
At the same time, what he held in his hand turned out to be a long stick.
"Prepare, put-"
Crackling——Lun
A burst of smoke filled the air, and a row of bullets was fired.
Suddenly, a group of Bukhara cavalry fell.
"Bless me, please, destroy this group of evil enemies, and we will go to heaven——"
With the blessing of faith, the Bukhara cavalry are still fearless.
Frankly speaking, there is a reason for the Peace Cult to dominate the Middle Ages.
Their faith and fearlessness made them invincible in the era of cold weapons.
So, a swarm of cavalry continued to attack. Lun
Naturally, the Ming army would not be afraid of this.
The cavalry in the front specializes in shooting, and the rear does the filling.
This resulted in a continuous flow of muskets, and in the blink of an eye there was a round of muskets, with extremely exaggerated power.
In the short distance of a few hundred feet, naturally more than a thousand corpses fell down, blocking the road and making people feel weak.
The continuous firing of muskets made the Bukhara cavalry panic. No matter how inspiring their faith was, it was nothing in the face of death.
Their confidence was shattered and they understood that what they were facing was not an ordinary enemy, but an extremely deadly weapon. The cavalry began to think about how to fight back.
Unfortunately, the back foot pushes forward. Once the cavalry runs, they cannot stop, otherwise they will be squeezed, which is several times more dangerous than fighting. Lun
And the command from the emir made them die one after another.
The thunderous crackle of the muskets was deafening on the battlefield. As the air vibrated, the horses driven by the charging cavalry could no longer remain calm and became panicked and wanted to run away.
When the death toll exceeded 3,000, military morale could no longer be maintained.
"Masumi is on the enemy's side——"
I don't know who shouted something and ran away.
Soon, the army from the Bukhara Khanate collapsed, and a large number of tribal soldiers naturally did not join in the fun and escaped quickly.
Therefore, in Li Dingguo's eyes, the war lasted for less than an hour, and the muskets from the cavalry showed off their power, directly damaging the opponent's morale. Lun
With a crash, like a hundred thousand pigs, a large number of cavalry fled in all directions. Some were running blindly from all directions, and some were shrewd people who found the right time to retreat.
"Collapse——" Li Dingguo raised his hand with confidence written on his face: "In front of the musket, the so-called cavalry is already vulnerable."
"I'm not afraid of Genghis Khan, because firearms will teach him how to behave."
After the collapse, the Bukhara cavalry was even more captured.
"The last piece of clothing in front of Bukhara was stripped clean. This khanate should belong to our Ming Dynasty."
Li Dingguo laughed loudly.
Conquering Bukhara in one battle sounds legendary, but the reality is even more legendary. Lun
At the same time, he also understood that the Bukhara Khanate had been in decay for many years.
…
The Anxi region, thousands of miles away, did not come to a standstill because of the military expedition.
In fact, with the establishment of Anxi Province, General Li Dingguo was retained only for reasons of intimidation. In fact, government affairs were generally handled with the nod of the chief envoy.
For border areas like Anxi, the most important thing at the moment is the expansion of Ili.
At this time, Anxi Province not only included the Xinjiang region of later generations, but also the once-lost Waiyili, which was the area south of Lake Balkhash.
When the provincial capital was in Urumqi, it was natural to consider assistance from Gansu Province and safety issues. Lun
Nowadays, with the stability of Anxi, Urumqi's easterly location is uneasy. More and more people propose to expand Ili and make Ili the provincial government.
Because Anxi was engaged in foreign wars at this time, Ili's position became more prominent, and the construction of Ili City was urgent.
In just two years, the population of Ili has reached 100,000, making it the largest city after Urumqi.
At the same time, Anxi Province opened up hundreds of thousands of acres of land here to maintain material supplies to the Western Expedition Army and Ili.
"It's really lively."
In Ili City, Russian Boris was walking on the street with a few attendants, his face full of emotion and greed.
"A place like this should belong to us in Russia."
Of course, such words were naturally spoken in Russian and he did not dare to shout them openly.
Russia has a large population, probably no less than ten million at this time, but 99% of them live in the countryside and are serfs.
In 1724, when Peter the Great counted the population, there were 14 million people, and only 500,000 people lived in the city.
At this time, Paris, the largest city in Europe, only had a population of 100,000 people. The moat was filled with excrement, making the army intimidated.
At this time, Russia had inherited most of the legacy of the Golden Horde and was already Europe's leading power. However, facing the Ming Dynasty, which had millions of troops at its disposal, it still did not dare to act recklessly.
After all, even Anxi Province has a border army of 30,000 or so, which can make Russia breathless.
Therefore, knowing that Mingren were devouring the Bukhara Khanate, Russia could only swallow its anger. Lun
You know, Russia considers itself the heir to the Golden Horde, and both Bukhara and Kazakhstan are his meals.
Now we can only take some actions privately.
Using themselves to save others, they felt that Ming people would never let the Kazakhs go, so they sold firearms to the Kazakhs privately.
"My lord, despite our protests, Akira still conquered the Bukhara Khanate. His ambition is not small——"
The attendant behind him showed a solemn expression: "This is extremely detrimental to the expansion of the empire..."
"I understand." Boris nodded: "We can't just sit back and watch Akito expand."
"I want to contact the Ming people as soon as possible and ask to see the Ming Emperor." Lun
Thinking of this, Boris sighed.
Just after the war with Poland ended, Russia's treasury was basically empty due to successive years of war, and it had to increase taxes.
As a result, Moscow launched the "Copper Coin Attack."
Therefore, Tsar Alexei I hoped to sign a treaty with the Ming Emperor, like the Meridian between Portugal and Spain, to divide the entire Golden Horde's heritage, that is, the Kipchak Steppe and Central Asia.
Russia, which has more ambition than strength, only hopes that the treaty will slow down Akito's pace.
