Compared with the combat effectiveness of the British colonial army, the army of the Russian vassal Khiva Khanate was so far behind that Bai Lang even suspected that they could not even defeat the slightly stronger troops of the Qing army in the past, and it was no wonder that Aguba's invasion of Xinjiang was unsuccessful. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info And not only is the quality not good, but the quantity is also strictly limited by Tsarist Russia, even now when the Russian army is retreating, it is only allowed to expand to 30,000 people, there is no use at all, Bai Lang's side only suffered more than 100 casualties, and he took the capital of the Khiva Khanate. And it must be noted that only one of the more than 100 people was from the 7th Brigade (and only slightly wounded), the rest were all servants.

Due to the tempering of continuous battles during this period of time, as well as the greatly enhanced confidence after successive victories, the strength of the servant army, which has increased to more than 50,000 people, is not what it used to be, if it is not for the precautionary situation, and does not want the servant army to swell too much, in fact, it doesn't matter if the soldiers of the seventh brigade are not on the line, they can still win this war.

Although the central government did not have a plan to annex Central Asia in this war, Bai Lang did not leave the so-called Great Khan of Khiva, because he was established by the Russians, even if he surrendered temporarily, maybe he would rebel back when he saw that the Russian army was strong, and he would definitely be much more loyal after he was abolished and re-established, because once the Russians came back, the Khan of Khiva who was established by the Chinese army would inevitably die a miserable death......

Not only the original Great Khan, but also the northern part of the Khiva Khanate (and the southern part was separated by a desert, so Bai Lang actually fought down only half of the Khiva Khanate. All the tribes and individuals closer to Russia were purged, and tens of thousands of people died under the butcher's knife, and if it weren't for the Amu Darya, a large river with runoff close to the Yellow River, the river would have been completely stained red. The property and land of these "pro-Russian people" were distributed to his servants according to their previous performance, and thus gained their more firm support.

In addition, Bai Lang also demanded that all the tribes of the Khiva Khanate must send people and horses, otherwise they would all be regarded as pro-Russian elements, under his grace and power, Bai Lang's servant army quickly increased to more than 80,000 people, and those old and weak women and children who made up the number could not be seen, these more than 80,000 cavalry are young and strong!

In addition to the fact that many tribes around the Aral Sea rushed to join the Russian army after the defeat of the Russian army in northwestern Central Asia, the population of the Amu Darya River is much larger than that of the Kazakh steppes is also an important reason. Because of this, the proportion of ethnic Kazakhs in the 80,000 servant army quickly plummeted to only 40 percent, while the Uzbek ethnic group, which previously accounted for less than half of the army, skyrocketed to more than half. However, due to the stronger combat effectiveness of the Kazakh cavalry, and at the same time the earlier annexation and more trust of Bai Lang, their status in the servant army was higher than that of the Khiva natives, and under the control of Bai Lang's skillful wrists, they were still able to maintain a delicate balance.

Of course, this is also thanks to Bai Lang's outstanding foreign language skills, if you don't understand these Central Asian languages, I am afraid that if you need someone else to translate, I am afraid that it will inevitably be "a small difference, a thousand miles wrong." It's too difficult to get the balance just right. In other words, Bai Lang's language talent is definitely not covered, and now he is proficient in 7 dialects and 6 foreign languages, and this is still done without spending too much effort on the premise of special study, but when he was studying at Lu University, his foreign language scores were also in the middle and upper, because Bai Lang only has super listening and speaking ability, and it is a little difficult for him to write it......

In Bai Lang's hands, the servant army had three main functions, one was to bluff and cover the transfer of the main force, the second was to pursue and kill the enemy's rout and capture prisoners, and the third was to guard the prisoners. The third point does not seem to be important, but in fact the impact is very great, if it is not for the servant army to help watch the prisoners, the Seventh Cavalry Brigade can only keep only middle and senior officers as before, and the other prisoners of war will be released after chopping off their thumbs, although this is a little milder than killing prisoners, but it will inevitably strengthen the enemy's will to resist, and with a large number of servant troops can accept surrender, the fighting spirit of the Russian army will be greatly weakened.

In fact, if it weren't for the bad effects of the previous expeditionary force's thumb-staking practice, which would have taken time to eliminate, the total number of prisoners of the 7th Cavalry Brigade would certainly be more than 30,000 now, and it is entirely possible to exceed 40,000, and its own casualties and ammunition consumption would have been greatly reduced. And prisoners of war are still very useful, in the vast and sparsely populated Central Asia, the lack of labor is a very common situation, especially Bai Lang also recruited so many young and strong, the labor force is even more scarce, just use Russian prisoners of war to fill the gap.

And the former invincible Russian officers and soldiers were actually forced to work for the local residents, which undoubtedly had a great shock to the Khivas, when thousands of Russian troops conquered Khiva, and now the number of Chinese cavalry is only a few thousand is even more exaggerated, and even captured tens of thousands of Russian prisoners of war, doesn't that mean that the current China is much stronger than Tsarist Russia? The steppe people have always revered the strong, and after realizing China's unprecedented strength from this side, the Khiva people are even more obedient to Bai Lang's requirements.

However, after Bai Lang "liberated" the northern part of Khiva, he did not take advantage of the victory to attack the Bukhara Khanate, because the two core cities of the Bukhara Khanate, the capital of the country, Bukhara and Samarkand, the number one historical city in Central Asia, are both on the Central Asian railway line, and the headquarters of the Central Asian Front of Tsarist Russia and its main force are not far away.

There is no way, the Amu Darya River is in the desert, and the narrow corridor of the alluvial plain that can be used as a battlefield, even if Bai Lang has the ability to rise in vain, he can't take the initiative to create an opportunity to move and destroy the enemy in such a narrow terrain, especially now that it is summer, the danger of desert marching has doubled. Even if Bai Lang has always been bold, he doesn't dare to play with fire like this, as an already quite good general, he knows in his heart that taking a risk with a seven-point chance of winning is called a surprise victory, and if it is a risk with only a one-point chance of winning, it is called self-defeat......

But what even Bai Lang himself didn't expect was that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity suddenly appeared in front of him......

Bai Lang did not dare to lead the army to attack south, and the command of the Central Asian Front of Tsarist Russia also did not dare to wave the army down the river to launch an attack, and the performance of the other side in completely annihilating an army and defeating an army in one day was too appalling. And if the troops are transferred from the west, they are afraid that the enemy will attack the west again, and then the Central Asian railway will be cut off by the enemy, and the more than 300,000 troops of the Central Asian Front, which will be cut off from supply, will have to wait for death. After thinking about it, the command of the Central Asian Front, which had nothing to do, could only recruit troops on the spot to replenish its troops, and as a result, it stabbed out Da Louzi at once...... (To be continued.) )