Yuan Chonghuan said goodbye to Qiyawen Tusi, negotiated with Yuan Yingtai to let him send a large number of supplies to Xining, and then sent the rest of the trained 30,000 cavalry, and also purchased 5,000 Menyuan horses from nearby, and then when the soldiers and horses arrived, he marched southwest along the west bank of Qinghai Lake, with the goal of the Yarkand Khanate.

The Yarkand Khanate was founded in 1514 by Sultan Saeed Khan on the former land of the former Chagatai Khanate, and lasted for 166 years until the destruction of Dzungar in 1680. The capital of the Khanate was in what is now Shache. The territory includes the Turpan, Hami and Tarim basins. The territory of the Khanate is bordered by Jiayuguan in the east, Tibet in the south, Kashmir in the southwest, Uzbek Bukhara Khanate in the west, Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan as the boundary, Tien Shan Mountains in the north, and Dzungaria in the north.

The reason why Yuan Chonghuan let Li Guo stay is because Li Guo is low-key, witty, steady, good at communication, and has the talent of a general. Originally, he wanted to keep Hong Chengchou, but this person was more murderous, especially with Hao Yongzhong, who had the same smell, and after separating them, neither of them was willing. Moreover, the Yarkand Khanate that will go to the future belongs to the *** sect forces, according to Zhu Youxiao's standards, these people want to be completely eliminated by Ma, and they want to be expelled far away, their beliefs are too extreme, it is difficult to Sinicize, Hong Chengchou and Hao Yongzhong are just the people who are suitable for this kind of work.

Now the entire western part of the Haixi region is occupied by the Yarkand Khanate, according to Zhu Youxiao's requirements, Yuan Chonghuan's task is to destroy the Yarkand Khanate, completely let them naturalize or eliminate, the specific length of time Zhu Youxiao does not have clear regulations, it depends on the specific situation, after all, the current means of supply of reserve materials are extremely poor, especially the firearms of the Ming army, there must be enough bullets, barrels, * reserves, although they are all sabers, muskets are double-matched, but it is safer to shoot guns to kill.

It is about 4,000 miles from Xining to Hotan, but the road is tortuous, and it is estimated that it is more than 5,000 miles, so it must be calculated at least one month, and if there is any major battle on the road, it may take longer, so this expedition must be well prepared. Just when Yuan Chonghuan was fully preparing for the next battle, the soldiers and horses sent by Yuan Yingtai arrived, and there was good news, that is, the son of Su Nang Taiji, Xi Ling Se Taiji, also arrived. It turned out that Su Nang Taiji saw that the power of the Ming Dynasty was getting stronger and stronger, and he had been defeated and surrendered, and the defeat of Bu Shitu Taiji was inevitable, for the sake of future plans, he decided to help Yuan Chonghuan, maybe the emperor would take more care of himself, anyway, he had already been sinicized, and let his son persuade the people of Qinghai that he might be able to do it, after all, he was a descendant of Dayan Khan. Knowing what Su Nang Taiji meant, this also just solved the difficulties he was about to face, Yuan Chonghuan immediately ordered to prepare for the expedition.

On April 15, the fourth year of the Apocalypse, Yuan Chonghuan's troops marched to Hotan along both sides of the Qaidam Basin in two directions. On the left was Hong Chengchou, Yuan Chonghuan asked him to bring 20,000 horses, of which Hao Yongzhong's troops were all replaced by Menyuan horses, which woke Hao Yongzhong up with a smile, and also equipped him with 20,000 horses to transport supplies and more than 3,000 logistics supply personnel, and the destination was assembled at the exit of the Qaidam Basin.

Yuan Chonghuan himself took Li Hongji and Liu Zongmin to Haiyan County on the west bank of Qinghai Lake, accompanied by 15,000 cavalry, 20,000 cavalry, 5,000 men, and 20,000 horses of arms, food, and supplies. After coming here, Yuan Chonghuan asked him to follow Li Hongji with a thousand men and horses to Menyuan to lobby the small tribe of Tumut there, but as soon as he reported his identity, the people there knelt down one after another, and when Li Hongji performed a small mortar and a rifle, the people of these small tribes thought that the gods had descended to earth. Because this is a natural horse farm, nearly 10,000 Menyuan horses were soon sent over, and a herdsman team of 500 people was also brought, and 100 people were selected to be Xi Ling Setaiji's personal soldiers.

When arriving in the Haiyan area, it was still Xi Lingse who went out to lobby the herdsmen of the Tumut tribe here, as Yuan Chonghuan expected, the people here were also very supportive of Xi Lingse Taiji, because the news came earlier, nearly 30,000 herdsmen gathered here, and they heard that they were going to attack the Yarkand Khanate, these herdsmen asked to join the team, it turned out that they were driven from Haixi by the people of the Yarkand Khanate last year, and they killed many people. Yuan Chonghuan was not pretentious, so he selected 1,000 people among them and handed them to Xi Ling Setaiji, selected 3,000 good horses, and let Xi Ling Setaiji's subordinates also be equipped with one person and three horses, and then arranged people to inform Yuan Yingtai and asked him to send people to discuss how to manage these places.

The next place, Delingha, was the target of the attack, and now it had been occupied by the Yarkand Khanate, with Li Hongji and Xi Lingse Taiji as the vanguard, and the Tumut herdsmen as the guides, attacking all the way forward. Li Hongji was better, Xi Lingsetaiji's subordinates saw the people of the Yarkand Khanate, and they rushed up to kill and rob them, and in two days, they only killed the people of the Yarkand Khanate, and they did not dare to graze in this area. The news spread very quickly, and the garrison of the Yarkand Khanate in Delingha knew the information, and they also quickly mobilized the nearby tribes to gather, the biggest advantage of these nomadic tribes was that they moved quickly, and the adult men picked up the sword and were warriors, and soon organized 30,000 young men to come to meet the battle.

The main reason is that Xi ordered Setaiji's subordinates to be too ruthless, so that the people of the Yarkand Khanate did not hear the news, and did not know that it was the army of the Ming army that came to conquest, and 30,000 people came to fight in a daze. Just as Li Hongji's 3,000 men and horses and Xi Lingsetaiji's more than 1,000 people surrounded and annihilated a small tribe, these 30,000 people poured over. According to Li Hongji's original temperament, he rushed up to fight with his subordinates, but Hao Yongzhong was kicked twice and punished for a month, so that Li Hongji calmed down, and it was a pleasure to rush up and fight directly, and the casualties were also very heavy. So, while Li Hongji sent someone to report to Yuan Chonghuan, he retreated and chose a suitable terrain to block the attack. In fact, the terrain is very well chosen, the terrain here is originally a semi-plain area, there is a small dirt bag less than a few miles back, these 4,000 people retreated to the top of the small earth bag, let the rear carry out rapid earthwork, dig out a horse blocking ditch, Li Hongji asked the soldiers to dismount, put the horses in the innermost circle, and then line up to meet the enemy according to the tactics of five rows of cavalry to shoot and kill.

The herdsmen warriors of the Yarkand Khanate, who were swarming on the opposite side, rushed up in the first wave almost without even forming a formation, and Li Hongji commanded the soldiers to calmly wait for the best firing distance. Seeing the soldiers of the Ming army who all dismounted, the herdsmen and warriors of the Yarkand Khanate all had a fantastical idea, can this cavalry still fight when they dismount? The Ming soldiers quickly gave them the answer, when they were fifty zhang apart, in order to prevent the opponent's horses from impacting the formation too quickly, Li Hongji calmly gave the order to shoot, and for a while the gunfire was loud, and the herdsmen soldiers in the front row only saw that the opponent's iron rod was smoking, and someone on their side fell, and the people behind did not have time to avoid it, so they hit the horse in front. Because this is a small slope terrain, their horse speed is not too fast, so that not many people have fallen to death, but the inexplicable dead people are indeed frightening, although there is only a distance of fifty zhang, but this fifty zhang distance is the death zone, almost no one can rush into the twenty zhang, the horses that lose control occasionally break through, but they are also quickly killed by the people in the inner circle. Two quarters of an hour later, with nothing but corpses in one place and not one alive, the first wave of the attack of the Yarkand Khanate failed.

Subsequently, the Yarkand Khanate organized two more groups of attackers, but the result was the same, they could not get close to the Ming army within 20 zhang. Probably a little tired from fighting, after three attacks, the Yarkand Khanate actually rested on the ground. In fact, it's not resting, it's them praying for **** blessings, and then they're going to have a foot fight, because the dead people and dead horses in front of them are blocking the speed of the horses.

Behind the Yarkand Khanate, there were countless shepherds, they were too united, as soon as they heard that the Tumuts had fought back, they automatically ran over to help in the war, looking at more and more Yarkand Khanates, Li Hongji also had a little numb.