September 11, 1687, Haji Port.

A drizzle washed away the mud and dust on the stone road, and the soldiers packed their bags, saddled their weapons, and after saying goodbye to their friends, they marched in formation.

They were soldiers of the Black Sea detachment, numbering about 700 men in all, almost all infantry, a mixture of the Portuguese garrison and temporarily recruited volunteers. It happened that two 650-ton flute-shaped transport ships belonging to the mainland came to this port, and Gao Wengang ordered a temporary requisition, and together with a large number of military supplies, these more than 700 soldiers and a large number of military supplies traveled eastward along the coastal currents of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to land in the area of the mouth of the Don River, and find a way to join the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun, who had already gone there.

This is still the first batch. After the ship that was requisitioned by Mao Jun before returns, there will be a second group of about 1,500 people boarding the ship to the east. Gao Wengang can only do this, he has no other choice but to send all the men and horses of the Black Sea Detachment to enhance the strength of the Mao Department, don't let it have any accidents, and the other is to facilitate the search for the Oirat Mongols, after all, there are many people and great strength.

During these few days, Gao Wengang stayed in the courtyard that served as the county government, and while dealing with the accumulated official duties, he also found time to write a proposal for providing land to the nomadic Oirat Mongols (i.e., Kalmyks) in the Don and Volga valleys and establishing an independent state.

At the end of the 16th century and the beginning of this century, because of the rise of the neighboring Turgot tribe (i.e., the Dzungar Mongols), the Turkut tribe, which was afraid of being annexed by it, engulfed some herdsmen from the Heshute tribe and the Dulbert tribe, and moved westward to the Volga River valley for nomadism.

This land, originally part of the Astrakhan Khanate, was destroyed by the Russians in the mid-16th century, and the Russians extended their influence to the Caspian Sea and the lower Volga River. However, due to the factor of strength, the Russians moved many people and Cossack military households here for more than a century, but they still did not complete their control of this vast territory. Even, because of the excessive greed of the Moscow side, under the tyranny of expropriation, even the local Russian serfs and Cossacks rose up against the rule of the tsar, and no one was left.

Everyone remembers that about 20 years ago, the uprising led by Stepanrashin broke out in the Don River valley and then spread all the way to the Volga valley and the Caspian Sea, affecting almost all the territories of the original Astrakhan Khanate and the Nogai Khanate. In this large-scale uprising, not only the Cossacks, who were dissatisfied with the rule of the tsar, rose up to resist, but also the local Tatars, Kalmyks (Turghuts), Bashkirs and other nationalities also participated, either openly joined or secretly supported, in short, it took a lot of effort for the tsar's army to put down the rebellion.

In the last twenty years, there have been no less than three large-scale Cossack or nomadic uprisings in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don rivers, not to mention other small uprisings and rebellions, which are staged almost every year or two.

In the case of the Mongols of the Turghut tribe, they were basically not a tsar, and they did not even submit in name, as if they were an independent nomadic state. Their "country" is currently believed to have 7-80,000 accounts and a population of about 35-400,000, and with the characteristics of the nomadic people, it is possible to pull out 100,000 people at once when they fight for their lives, so they have the capital to call out to the Russians.

You must know that like the Crimean Khanate, which is now making a lot of noise along the northern shore of the Black Sea, the Tatars, the main ethnic group in its country, are only a few hundred thousand years old. This is the result of absorbing a lot of Slavic slaves over the years, otherwise I am afraid that it will be even less. Therefore, the Turkut tribe, with a population of three or four hundred thousand, would of course make the Moscow side very jealous, so it did not dare to force it for many years, so as not to provoke a strong backlash from them, and then lead the other local nomads to attack the Russian Empire, so that the entire lower Volga and even the Don River valley would be in chaos.

At present, the area of activity of the Turkut Department is relatively large, but it is basically in the lower reaches of the Volga River and the Don River, roughly located in the area of the Astrakhan Region, Karelia Region, and Volgograd Region of the Russian Federation in the later period, and sometimes it also moves to the Rostov Region and Saratov Region, but the number of times is not much, and the former is still the main area of activity in general.

According to the limited information at hand, Gao Wengang learned that the current Great Khan of the Turghut Department is named Ayuqi, and he is the fourth generation of the Great Khan of the Ministry. In other words, since the westward migration, the Turkut Department has been operating in the lower Volga region for three generations. For nearly 100 years, this branch of Moxi Mongolia still maintained its own traditions, embraced Tibetan Buddhism, and insisted on not being assimilated by the surrounding Turkic-speaking Green Cultists, so it was contemptuously called "Kalmank" by those people.

Ayuqi Khan was undoubtedly a very tough Great Khan. After his accession to the throne in 1672, this man did not mince words to the Tsar, regarded himself as an equal, and resolutely refused to submit, and felt like a leader among the nomads of the Volga and Don valleys. And it just so happened that Tsarist Russia had been in an eventful period in recent years, fighting Poland and Sweden in the west, fighting the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman Empire in the south, in short, nothing stopped. Coupled with their poor internal political system, the sharp class contradictions in the country, the peasant revolts, the Cossack rebellions, and so on, they were unable to concentrate on dealing with the Turks, so they lived a very leisurely life, the population multiplied, and the nomadic lands expanded day by day.

However, this kind of leisurely life should not last long. Gao Wengang has also dealt with Russia for several years and is well aware of the country's potential. Since the beginning of this century, they have continuously introduced advanced technology and talents from the West, as evidenced by the large number of foreign officers who served in the Russian army. All these have greatly improved the quality of the Russian army, not only the new army such as the shooting army has improved, but even the combat effectiveness of the old army has also improved a lot, and some indigenous khanates or nomadic tribes in the border areas have begun to slowly crush the border areas, and this is the main reason why their territory has been expanding in the past 100 years and the number of tribes they have conquered has been increasing. Historically, it was not the Cossacks who conquered Central Asia (in fact, they were beaten by the Central Asian nomads, so they could only stand in front of the Manchu Eight Banners), but the hard-working Russian infantry, who were the backbone of the Russian army's combat effectiveness.

Therefore, as Russia's strength continues to grow, neighboring countries such as the Ukrainian Cossacks, the Crimean Tatars, and the Mongol Turks will basically collapse and be annexed by them under the continuous military and political offensive. The Crimean Khanate, which lasted the longest in history, was also covered by the Ottoman Turks until the 18th century, and the Turks could not stay and returned directly to China.

This time, the Russian army went south to besiege the Azov fortress and failed miserably, which was an excellent opportunity to save the fate of the Turkut department. The 100,000 Russian troops led by Golitsyn were defeated by the Crimeans and the southern provinces were in turmoil, and Moscow's control over the local area was reduced to another level. Especially in the lower reaches of the Don and Volga rivers, which had been plowed by the Racine uprising twenty years earlier, the local aristocracy was relatively weak, and once the Tatar cavalry or even the people on the east bank were killed, I am afraid that a large number of nomads would immediately rise up against the rule of the tsar. In this turbulent and chaotic situation, it seems that it will not be so difficult to get the Turkuts out of the dead place in the Volga valley and into the Don valley and the North Caucasus westward.

But there is still a question, that is, why did Ayuqi Khan of the Turkut tribe follow the advice of your people on the east coast and leave the Astrakhan region, which has been in operation for several generations, and go to the relatively unfamiliar Don River and the North Caucasus? You know, Ayuqi Khan is a very assertive person, although the Turks have also suffered from great pressure from the Russian side over the years, but their lives are quite passable, and the population is quite large, as for fleeing like a lost dog?

The only thing that can be used to persuade them is probably that the Russian Empire is strong, and the Turks are surrounded by Russian territory, and the surrounding Bashkirs and Tatars are also unsuccessful, and sooner or later they will be cleaned up by the tsar one by one, and in the end, the Turks will be unable to support themselves, and they can only surrender or flee. This reason sounds a little reasonable, but whether people recognize it or not, no one dares to pack a ticket, so they can only try it.

However, Gao Wengang still hopes that this matter will be successful. The establishment of a yellow Buddhist state influenced by the Don River and the North Caucasus undoubtedly played a crucial role in the influence of the East Coast Republic of China in the Black Sea and the Caucasus. With more than 70,000 households and a population of 300,000 or 400,000, the Turks are barely able to do so, and as long as the people on the east coast are willing to spend money to help them, there is still hope for them to gain a firm foothold, and now it depends on how the situation develops.

On September 16, 1687, shortly after the second group of 1,500 soldiers boarded the ship and left, several ships that had been requisitioned by Mao Jun returned to Haji Port, and they also brought Gao Wengang the latest news on the front, which can be summarized as a total of three points: 1. The Russian army suffered a crushing defeat under the city of Azov, the 150,000 army collapsed, and the commander of the army, Golitsyn, fled to eastern Ukraine with a part of the remnants of the defeated army, trying to stabilize his position with the help of the local remaining Russian troops and Cossacks; 2. The Crimean Tatars divided into two routes, one side along the Don River to pursue the Russian army that had fled in this direction, and the main force all the way to the north, intending to enter eastern Ukraine and launch a new round of offensive against Golitsyn, who had fled there; 3. Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun has already led the first batch of more than 800 elite cavalry to go deep along the Don River, they let go of the defeated Russian soldiers who have almost become frightened birds, and concentrate on finding the herdsmen of the Turghut tribe, but at present, there is no result, they do not intend to give up easily, and will continue to search deeply.

In addition, Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun also pointed out that the foundation of the Russian Empire's rule in the lower reaches of the Don River was very weak, and there were hardly many towns and cities, and there were not many people. Wherever their cavalry went, there were very few settled peasants, but nomadic tribesmen, which was very common, which shows that after a century of annexation, the Russians did not develop this place enough, which can be seen from the reluctance of Golitsyn's army to advance along the Don River, but from the relatively densely populated Ukrainian march, which was really a deserted place of the Russian Empire.

Seeing this, Gao Wengang's heart finally settled down a little. It seems that there is no decent Russian army in the Don River Valley, and those grass-headed armed forces can be swept away during the Racine Uprising, which made the tsar want to recruit peace for a while, and finally transferred troops from other provinces to suppress it, which shows the weakness of the Russian army here. So Mao Jun led these thousands of people over, well-equipped and advanced weapons, they shouldn't be so easy to fail, right?

Ah, by the way, the remaining 3,000 people must also be transferred over as soon as possible. A few ships came back this time, and it just so happened that all of them were requisitioned! It should not be a problem to transfer 1,500 more people and a large amount of supplies to the area of the Don River, so that the front line will be more stable!