This time, Zhou Lang planned to continue to promote the new army, and in this battle with the Manchus, the army led by Gou Quan performed particularly well, and the biggest difference between them and other armies was that they always maintained high fighting enthusiasm.

It is these officers who recruit soldiers, whether it is these officers who train soldiers, whether it is these officers, the establishment of the army, and the weapons and equipment, all of which are built by them.

So many things are different from the old soldiers.

They abolished corporal punishment, the greatest punishment being confinement and refusal to accept corporal punishment on soldiers.

Their officers are always enthusiastic about mobilizing the soldiers and teaching them to sing military songs together.

The officers were more enthusiastic about fighting, they were always in the front, and such a team was more able to seize the fighters in the battle with the Manchus. They also made more use of new tactics, not only had the courage to carry out resolute assaults in accordance with the offensive habits of the French army, made a wide range of detours, and attached importance to the role of artillery, but also learned the thin red line tactics from the opponent's British army, using the dense firepower of short-range bursts to suppress the opponent and inflict great damage.

Officers and men are more equal, the concept of hierarchy has been erased, and the relationship between officers and men has become more harmonious.

Napoleon's ideas and systems for army building, which the whole West is learning, are indeed unique.

These officers, who completed their studies in the regular military academies after the French Revolution and fought in actual combat in the French army, almost transplanted the French as a whole to China.

Now that he has shown combat effectiveness and has made many military achievements, Zhou Lang has fulfilled his promise.

The number of the 10th Army of Gou Quan's old department was restored, and the number of the 11th Army and the 12th Army was restored at one time, so that he could form three new armies at one time, each of which had a mixed establishment of independent cavalry, artillery, and archerymen, and it was also a strengthened army, with a total strength of 100,000 troops in the three armies.

The new army should be expanded, and the old soldiers should also be expanded, but not as much as the new army, only from 100,000 to 200,000.

Soldiers were drawn from auxiliaries who already had combat experience.

In this way, the number of troops was expanded to 300,000, and the auxiliary force was intended to be expanded to 700,000.

It takes time to form a new army, but the war waits for no one, and while the winter freeze has not yet begun, while organizing troops, it actively transports grain and grass. Even the traditional civil administration system was mobilized, and civil officials in Shaanxi and Gansu formed teams of civil servants to transport weapons along the Hexi Corridor to deliver as many supplies as possible to Ili before the onset of winter.

The army immediately launched a military operation, and the Russian army retreated to the Kazakh steppe, followed by the Chinese army.

In the Kazakh steppe, there are no cities, and the Kazakhs are still nomadic, and it is difficult for this economic form to maintain a population of more than one million, and cities cannot be established without a population base. They were divided into large, medium and small yuz, which literally translates as big tents, middle tents and small tents, and their khans camped in tents.

The only settlements were founded by the Russians, and a chain of castles formed around military castles, which was how the Russians controlled the steppe peoples.

Such a chain of castles could not maintain too many armies, so the Russians entered Ili, but only 30,000 people, and most of them were Cossacks equipped with a large number of horses, and now the Chinese army that is pursuing is not too many, 50,000 people is already the limit, most of them are also cavalry, mainly composed of Mongolians in the Qinghai area, Inner and outer Mongolia after the last war, the population is thin, and there is no way to recruit a large number of people to serve in the army.

There were still many nomadic herders in the Qinghai-Tibet region, and after China restored its rule in the Hexi Corridor, it also regained control of Qinghai-Tibet, and recruited many herders from here to form cavalry.

The 50,000 troops occupied the castles of the Russians, and at this time the cities of Almaty and Astana had not yet been formed, but the prototype was already there, that is, the castles built by the Russians.

The Chinese army fought all the way to the Astana position, capturing the Russian military citadel, which was located on the banks of the Ishim River, which went west to Derzhavin and then turned at a right angle to the north, like the Yellow River at the junction of the mountains and Shaanxi, all the way north to Siberia and into the Irtysh River.

There are Russian castles along the river, because most of these castles were built from Siberia, and most of the later cities were built on the basis of these castles. After all, the Russians built castles on the same principle as they did when choosing a city. That is, the proximity to the river with easy access.

Most of these castles have been built in recent years, probably due to the political changes in the Ili region, and without the defeat of the Manchus, Russia may not have accelerated its penetration into the Kazakh steppe. There is a big problem with these newly built castles, just as Siberia is suitable for Russian development and not suitable for Chinese development, it is easy for the Russians to come along the river, but it is difficult for China because from Ili to Astana, in the middle is a vast steppe, and there is no navigable river.

Therefore, the Chinese army's front came to an abrupt end in Astana, and then stuck to castles to survive the winter.

The other was along the Irtysh River and captured the Russian fortress of Ust-Kamenogorsk.

While the Chinese army was fighting, it was communicating with local forces.

At this time, the Kazakh Khanate had not yet fallen, and Russia had built a line of pillboxes, but it was unable to destroy the nomadic tribal system in the depths of the steppe, and only achieved control by forcing the chiefs of the tribes to pay allegiance to Russia and pay taxes.

Now that Russia had been driven out, and the tribal leaders and even the Khans had jumped out again, the Chinese army had promised them more preferential treatment, and their historical contact with the Manchus was much more comfortable than with Tsarist Russia, so they decided to turn to China.

The two routes in Xinjiang are only small-scale operations, and the real large-scale actions are in the middle line of the Sino-Russian trade route.

The battalion transferred to Kulen broke into Russian territory and, with lightning speed, took advantage of the emptiness of the garrison here and took Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk on both sides of Lake Baikal.

The Russian defenders defended very tenaciously, but the Great Zhou army was not Kangxi's army, and it would not be possible to defeat the Yaksa Russian army through a long siege. China's heavy artillery is more and better than the Russian army's. The rifle firepower is also stronger, and the veterans of the Shuai battalion have combat experience and fighting will, all of which are the best in the Chinese army.

Relying on the water system of the Selenga River, the transportation is also very convenient, and there is no reason why this battle cannot be won.

The three-way army was sent out together, but it was only a small-scale military operation, and the total number of troops in the attack was less than 100,000. The aim is only to seize the forward positions for next year's attack. And the real battle of the whole country is next year, I don't know if Xiao Na can withstand this winter?