The late autumn season was gradually coming, and in the season that was originally the most conducive to cavalry operations, the army led by Xiao Xuan marched into the territory of the Oirat Mongols in relatively scattered multi-way columns. There were relatively reasonable marching arrangements along the way, and there were few hasty marches, so that the troops did not feel excessive fatigue and lack in this expedition of thousands of miles. Approaching the territory of the Oirats, the outposts of only a few divisions engaged in some skirmishes with sporadic Oirats, with no more than a dozen dead and wounded, and no more than a few hundred of them all, as if the enemy had not only avoided the battle, but also seemed to have completely disappeared from the lush steppe in this late autumn season.

After some people in Xiao Xuan's pro-military camp who were in charge of questioning interrogated some prisoners of war, they heard some rumors: after the destruction of the Mongol tribes in Oirat was suppressed by Jianzhou, Ding Zhuang, who was barely able to fight, and even many people were escorted to the Ili area, as if they were preparing to start a decisive battle in the defense of that area. This news made many of the teenagers in the staff office around Xiao Xuan somewhat relieved.

Because of the decisive superiority in most of the previous battles, the decisive battle is not fearful, but rather a means of showing oneself to gain military merits, but if the enemy intends to play hide and seek and fight guerrillas, he needs to waste more time and energy to deal with it.

Only Xiao Xuan and some of the teenagers in the Temporary Staff Office definitely seem to have some troops somewhere. The remaining forces in Jianzhou in the eastern part of Liaodong were already weak, and it was understandable that they chose to rely on the walled fort for defense. However, according to the situation summarized by some previous news, after the main force of Jianzhou was concentrated in the area of the river, it was smooth sailing, and soon integrated the forces of Yarkand and Oirat, roughly calculated that there should be at least more than 100,000 mobile troops in hand, of which the decent main force should also have at least 40,000 armored soldiers, how could such a huge force be willing to only seek a duel with the attacking strong enemy in the defense? What's more, according to some information provided by the merchants, Ili City is also different from those places in Samarkand, not to mention the intolerable number of troops to defend the city, in the Hezhong area, which is not the hinterland of the Central Plains, just the pressure and burden of logistics may not allow so many troops to be trapped for a long time.

"Do we want our army to go south to the Ili area to start a decisive battle with the main force of Jianzhou there?" Tian Xiuying, who went out with the army, wanted the war to end as soon as possible, so she didn't bother to ask.

Xiao Xuan finally did not change the original plan and battle plan: "It is unreliable to understand the whole picture of the battlefield only from these sporadic news, and now our army is not sure what the enemy's main force is fighting, so it is more appropriate to act according to the original plan. ”

Hearing this, Tian Xiuying didn't say much, just worried about whether she would encounter another opponent in the Hezhong area who was comparable to the main force of Jianzhou and had a large number of troops. Although Tian Xiuying has also seen the strength of the main force of the volunteer army, Tian Xiuying has also seen many battles along the way, but if he wants to accumulate and destroy a decent opponent who is several times to ten times the size of the force, he may still encounter unpredictable risks.

When the army moved further west, and had not yet reached the key mountain pass in the area of the river, the military intelligence system responsible for remote reconnaissance was the first to come to the news. At this time, Xiao Xuan also began to understand why the revolutionary army could not be very strong in the combat performance of grassroots officers and soldiers for various reasons, just like the Soviet Red Army during the October Revolution, but it often had various command advantages over various old armies. Just because we do not have the advantages of selection ability brought about by various negative drawbacks, we can have many conveniences and advantages over traditional opponents in terms of military intelligence system.

"An army of far more than 10,000 people, and it doesn't seem to speak Mongolian?"

"It should be the men of Yangir Khan of the Kazakh Khanate," said an intelligence officer who had returned from the news.

This made Xiao Xuan a little surprised at first, but it was not surprising to recall some of the things he had learned about the area in the river in the past. The Oirat Mongols and the Kazakh Khanate have been in confrontation and competition since decades ago, and when the main force of Jianzhou swept away Oirat and Yarkand, it may have brought a great shock to Yangir Khan, so the main force of Kazakh Yangir Khan has not dared to make any moves. However, when the main forces of Jianzhou seem to have abandoned a lot of places and intend to concentrate on other opponents, it is not surprising that the main forces of the Kazakhs came to fight for Dzungar.

After getting the main force of the Kazakhs approaching the steppe in the area of Jungar, Xiao Xuan also ordered to sort out the logistics and even collect the team to the greatest extent, and in the future, after going out as much as possible day and night, prepare to infiltrate the main army of the Kazakhs, and then deal the greatest blow to the attacking opponent as quickly as possible.

Through the previous few battles, Xiao Xuan certainly understood where the biggest shortcoming of the team he led was, that is, the immediate kung fu was lacking, so he had to take fierce and active combat actions in order to strive to annihilate the opponent.

The team led by Xiao Xuan avoided the main duel as much as possible at the beginning, and was soon noticed by Yang Jir Khan, who had entered the Junggar grassland. At this time, Yang Jier Khan couldn't help but be a little disappointed: "I heard that Emperor Chongzhen's pro-army is a quite strong and warlike team, otherwise it would be impossible to force the Jianzhou people who are far away in Liaodong to the northwest, why is the performance at this time so self-conscious?" Do they think this will make us let our guard down against them? Let the armies prepare for action. We're going to test the depth of these people. Don't worry, these Han armies seem to be very rudimentary, even if our army can't win for a while, it won't encounter too much danger... ”

In this way, the main army of the Kazakhs, composed of 60,000 or 70,000 elite main forces, began to follow without hesitation, preparing for a decisive battle with this Han army that had just entered the steppe during the flood season.

The apocalypse is getting colder, and many plants and trees are withering in late autumn and early winter, which also makes the room for maneuver extremely limited. A large-scale decisive battle seemed inevitable.

At this time, although the main force led by Xiao Xuan was concentrated, it was still relatively separated, which also made Yang Jier Khan feel that there was an opportunity to take advantage of it.

(End of chapter)