The territory of the Kazakh Khanate is vast and sparsely populated, but compared to the Mongolian plateau, there are still some agricultural settlements that depend on the rivers as in Xinjiang in the old days. At the same time, the water and grass resources in the grassland are also comparable to those of Eastern Mongolia, which also makes the area in the river area rarely see the common suffering of the nomads in the northern Central Plains whenever winter arrives for thousands of years. The aggressiveness and expansiveness of the entire nation, or of the entire Central Asian civilization, was for the vast majority of the time far from being comparable to that of the Mongol Jurchen tribes in northern East Asia.

When the army led by Xiao Xuan attacked the Kazakh Khanate's approach to the enemy's settlements along the upper reaches of the Erbis River in later generations, it did not encounter the same fierce resistance as when it conquered the headquarters of Liaodong Jianzhou, and the lower levels of the various tribes along the river did not seem to be very tight. This gave the volunteer troops who had gone on a long expedition some rare opportunities to rest and recuperate.

However, although the Kazakh Khanate did not have the level of grassroots organizations like the Later Golden Eight Banners, there were still many left-behind eyeliners, and the news was quickly passed on. With some secret hoarding points that could make effective use of some forage and water sources, the main force of 60,000 or 70,000 men led by Yangar Khan did not need to be dispersed, and soon began to send reinforcements, and prepared to concentrate the main forces on an incoming enemy army of about 5,000 men in charge of the break.

As a relatively powerful steppe monarch in Central Asia, Yangel Khan was certainly not a reckless person, and his many years of dealing with the Oirats made him understand how powerful the Jianzhou people would be, and that only a few tens of thousands of people could make the Jianzhou forces like a strong enemy facing the great enemy, and it would be difficult to win in a short time without more than ten times the number of troops. Moreover, it is not only the superiority of troops, but also the greatest suddenness in order to achieve victory.

For this reason, Yangel Khan did not hesitate to embark on a long journey at night, although this made the army of sixty or seventy thousand people inevitably fall behind, but forty or fifty thousand included most of the elite main force, and it also had enough strength.

The previous battles with the Dzungars and even some rumors from the east made Yangel Khan estimate that the other side was likely to be a team that had always been good at projection and firearms and short of horsemanship, so after completing the encirclement at night, he did not attack from all directions at the same time, but concentrated on one side with mounted infantry approaching a distance of about 100 paces, resisting the threat of the opponent's firearms with a dense wall of large shields and heavy infantry, and attracting enemy fire with the attack of foot infantry, so as to create conditions for a decisive assault of elite cavalry.

In the fields by the river, there was no edge of the enemy forces approaching from three sides, and the strategic group, which was dominated by tens of thousands of cavalry, was obviously much more powerful than an infantry group of the same size.

"Fire!" Seeing that the enemy's army, which was obviously weak, seemed to be completely intent on retreating to the defense, Yangar Khan ordered without hesitation. Over the past 100 years, firearms have had a noticeable impact on the way of warfare, not only in the East and Europe, but also in the middle of Central Asia. It can even be said that in many respects, the strength of firearms and light artillery in the middle of the river is obviously superior because of the fact that more high-quality saltpeter can be imported into India, and the common actual combat has also made the nomads of Central Asia have a deeper understanding of firearms.

Even at a distance of about 100 paces, the power of the projectiles was more obvious than that of bows and arrows, and it also made the officers and men of the Second Division of the Volunteer Right Army who relied on simple trenches to defend themselves feel tremendous pressure. If the trench is not dug according to the requirements and the steel shield shows a certain degree of inclination as much as possible when it is in defense, I am afraid that even the excellent steel shield at this distance will not be able to block the blow of the opponent's firearm, which is not too powerful.

With the help of the cover of firearms, Yangel Khan's army soon approached from a hundred paces to a distance of about sixty or seventy paces, relying on the obvious firepower advantage and even the bow and arrow superiority in the direction of the main attack, it seemed to have an absolute upper hand.

However, at this time, the archers of the 2nd Division of the Volunteer Right Army also unceremoniously launched a counterattack. Although the 2nd Division of the Volunteer Right Army, which is not the main force of the core elite, does not have as many sharpshooter-level elites as the 1st Division of the Left Army, after many months of supplementary training and even elite transfer, it still has about 1,500 archers in the whole division, accounting for about one-third of the number of archers, and they can effectively use strong bows with about one stone, two or three buckets. Not only that, but the huge investment in archery training also made these shooters not inferior to the elite of Jianzhou in actual combat archery.

In the direction of the main attack of the main force of the Kazakhs, about 100 miles, hundreds of elite shooters released more than ten rounds of arrows in just about a minute brought five or six hundred casualties to the attacking Kazakhs, coupled with the fierce fire of firearms and guns, in a short period of time, the losses brought to the opponent's main attack elite nearly 1,000 made the Kazakh offensive quickly wither when it had just reached its peak.

However, seeing this situation, Yangel Khan did not completely lose confidence, judging by common sense: it is clear that this level of marksman is by no means generally attainable by ordinary armies. Yangel Khan did not believe that the emperor of the Han people would use his own or even the most elite forces around him as bait. Therefore, the only possibility is that he is quite unlucky, and the main direction of attack at the beginning is set in the direction of the opponent's elite defense.

In order to prevent the defenders from moving their elite in other directions, Yangel Khan ordered the overseers to further press the heavy infantry to launch a fierce attack on the enemy from the east, and at the same time ordered the elite cavalry that had been prepared long ago to hide among the cavalry corps that had launched a feint attack from all directions, ready to deal a decisive blow to the opponent.

The sound of trumpets accompanied by the rumbling of horses' hooves gave people a great shock, but the 2nd Division of the Volunteer Right Army, which was preparing for battle in all directions, did not waver too much, but calmly launched a precise and steady counterattack when the tide of the enemy army poured out like a flood of about 60 or 70 paces after the cover of the infantry shield wall, and in a very short time thousands of enemy cavalry were shot down on the spot.

Archers in almost all directions possessed not only formidable strength, but also an extraordinary rate of fire and accuracy that the attacking Kazakhs had never expected. The torrent of tens of thousands of horsemen quickly lost its power as if it had poured onto an iron plate. However, at this time, most of the firearms and even melee soldiers did not move, which made it seem that the momentum of the enemy's attack had only been contained, and it was not defeated because of this.

(End of chapter)