At this time, Zuo Jigao was completely stunned by the scene in front of him, and he didn't hear what Jin Shun was saying at all.

He could never have imagined that the army that he personally led to attack Urumqi would collapse in an instant at the last moment when he was about to achieve victory.

Zuo Jigao started by suppressing the rebellion of the Shengping Heavenly Kingdom, and he has experienced a lot of battles, but it is the first time he has experienced the instant collapse of the whole army like this.

Now he finally understands why Zeng Bohan wanted to commit suicide by throwing himself into the water after the defeat of Jiujiang.

"Handsome! Handsome! The rebels are coming! You go! Let's go! The end will be cut off by the big handsome! Jin Shun's shout brought Zuo Jigao back to his senses, and when he heard Jin Shun ask him to escape, his face turned purple immediately.

"Ben Shuai is here! No one is allowed to retreat! Zuo Jigao shouted loudly, and reached out to pull out his saber, but Jin Shun held his hand.

"Handsome! It's too close to the battlefield, and if you make a mistake, the whole army will be shaken! The last general is not to run away! It's to ask the marshal to go to the camp immediately! Jin Shun knew that he didn't make his words clear in a hurry, which made Zuo Jigao think that he was afraid of the enemy, and immediately said, "It's good to leave it to the last general here!" The last general is willing to make a military order! Defeat the rebel today, and you can't return to the army! ”

Zuo Jigao listened to Jin Shun's explanation, his anger subsided slightly, and then a shot came from nowhere, hitting a sand dune not far from Zuo Jigao, and let out a scream, Zuo Jigao's heart shrank, he pulled the horse, and said to Jin Shun: "Ben Shuai will go to the camp now, you care carefully!" Be sure to defeat the traitor! ”

"The last general commands!" Jin Soon replied loudly.

Zuo Jigao galloped away with the supervising guards, and Jin Shun watched Zuo Jigao and his party drift away. Only then did he try to calm down. The horses came to a high slope. Raise your binoculars and take a closer look at the battle in front of you.

At this time, it was Kim Shun and his direct troops who remained as calm as Kim Soon. After observing for a while, Jin Shun led the army to retreat to a relatively high terrain, and gathered the troops such as Yu Huen and Tao Dingjin who had not yet fled, and organized them into an army.

At this time, Xu Xuegong, the general of the cadre army, noticed that the rebels were actually very chaotic at this time. Huli Burke rushed too fast, and there were not many soldiers around. More rebels were blocked in front of Urumqi and fought desperately with Liu Chaopei and Dai Zongqian. He immediately led his cavalry over Huli Burke, went around the city, first rescued Liu and Dai, and then turned around and killed behind Hu Li Burke.

When Huli Burke saw that the cadres had launched a counterattack, he was shocked and hurriedly retreated to the side. But at this time, Xu Xuegong had no intention of fighting, and after receiving the two armies of Liu and Dai, he retreated directly to the east.

At this time, 20,000 cadres had already run everywhere, and everyone was rushing to the rear.

That loud explosion came from an artillery position. It became a talisman for the cadres and ran here. They are no longer running because of defeat or fear, but because others are also running, and they have to run.

At this time, the last straw on the camel's body fell.

The rebel reinforcements, Ma Ming's troops, had already arrived at the battlefield, and this rebel army had just rushed to the right flank of the cadre army.

Ma Ming was the leader of the Hui bandits in Gansu, and after being driven into Xinjiang by the cadres, he defected to Agubai, who was fierce and saw an opportunity, and immediately scattered his men and began to massacre. The rebel soldiers were like wild beasts at the moment, brandishing their swords and guns and pounced.

This is an out-and-out pursuit and annihilation battle. The cadres have completely lost the will to resist, and have been reduced from a formed army to a panicked and weak individual, allowing the rebels to kill like chickens, cutting off their heads and ears. The vast area outside Urumqi has become a hell for the cadres, and for a time corpses are strewn all over the field and rivers of blood flow.

Dai Zongqian retreated all the way, and after forming a formation on the high ground to defend himself, he counted the troops and found that the two battalions of his army had suffered more than 200 casualties, and his staff member Zhao Hong was killed. Dong Fuxiang was even more miserable, with less than 100 people left in the three battalions, and the artillery of the cadres operating the mountain-splitting artillery was also not left in the explosion and rout. This is still in the case of an organized retreat, and those troops who have run all the way into scattered sand, I don't know how many casualties there are.

Dai Zongqian looked at the defeated army, and his heart was frustrated and ashamed. Frustrated, the army of 20,000 was easily routed like this; It's a shame that he really wasted the hard work of his old boss Li Shaoquan.

To say that the Huai Army is worthy of being the most reliable unit in the Yong Battalion of the Great Qian Empire Army. When some subordinates persuaded Dai Zongqian to retreat, Dai Zongqian immediately encouraged his subordinates and said: "We are defeated, but Urumqi is the last place of the rebels, and we finally came here. This is the end of the defeat, no matter what, we have to hold here! ”

Dai Zongqian's firmness quickly stabilized the morale of the army, and Liu Chaopei and other generals also agreed with his decision, so Dai Zongqian and Liu Chaopei camped on the spot, gathered the scattered cadres, and prepared to fight a defensive battle. Soon, Wan Huai, Feng Guizeng, Liu Hongfa, and others rushed over to join the division, and their troops were relatively complete.

At this time, Jin Shun also led the army to come. Dai Zongqian repeated what he had just said, hoping that the coach would agree, Jin Shun analyzed the situation, agreed with Dai Zongqian's opinion, and decided to gather troops first, form a defensive formation, first repel the pursuit of the rebels, and then consider re-attacking Urumqi.

But to everyone's surprise, the rebels did not continue the pursuit at all.

Jin Shun couldn't believe it at first, and ordered to send scouts to investigate in many ways, but the scouts returned that the rebels did not pursue again, but collected the team and returned to the city.

Jin Shun convened a meeting of the generals, and he analyzed that there may be two reasons why the rebels did not pursue: first, there was a shortage of food and straw, and they did not dare to advance lightly; Second, there is no time, they have to be busy celebrating.

For the Aquba rebels, this day can be described as a grand festival. Everyone has been cut to the top of the cadre army, everyone has made great contributions, and everyone is smiling. From the brink of total extinction to the triumph, such surprises are truly exciting.

Unbeknownst to Jin Shun, Agu Bai counted the results of the battle afterwards, buried all the severed heads of the cadres into a big pit after the counting, filled them into soil bags, and erected steles and carved stones to show off his victory.

Battle of Urumqi. It was the worst battle that the cadres lost since they entered Xinjiang. It is also the most regrettable war.

The cadres relied on their superior strength several times that of the enemy. started with the momentum of ploughing and sweeping, and when it was closest to victory, it actually collapsed in the middle of the road because of an accidental explosion, and it was a big failure, which really made people sigh.

If it had not been for the accidental explosion of the cannon, the cadres would have been able to storm the city without any problems. Although Zuo Jigao's battle plan was good, this time, his luck was too bad.

When the people of the time wrote about the battle of Urumqi. Only a few words were used: "...... Suddenly, the mountain cannon was broken, the fire and the medicine cabinet were mistakenly missed, the medicine rushed to the sky, and the army was defeated...... that is to say, the victory or defeat of the cadre army completely depended on a cannon. Is it fair to draw such conclusions?

Not really.

The battle of Urumqi did take such a turn because of a fortuitous accident, but in this accident, there is some inevitability.

If before the war, Zuo Jigao did not verify his theory of "complementarity between long and short", he had to use the old-style mountain-splitting cannon and only use Western artillery to attack the city. The situation could be very different.

If it weren't for Zuo Jigao's eagerness to make contributions, he would have encircled and attacked. Instead, it is "encircling three queyi", maybe Agu Bai and Bai Yanhu will choose to flee instead of being trapped in the fortified city.

If Dong Fuxiang's troops had strictly guarded discipline and had not rushed into the city, but had stayed in their positions to protect the artillery positions -- after all, it was only the mountain splitting artillery positions that had been blown up, and the Western siege artillery positions of the main force of the siege were still intact -- perhaps the rebels would not have dared to rush out of the city to kill them easily.

If Fang Chunfa, Chen Baishun and Zhang Jun's cavalry did not flee after the incident, but advanced to support, maybe the rebels' counteroffensive would not only be nipped in the bud, but might also take Urumqi in one fell swoop.

If all the units of the cadre army had managed the army in a proper way like Liu Chaopei, Dai Zongqian, Xu Degong, and others, although they were not panicked, and the battalion slowly retreated, the rebels would not have so many opportunities to carry out massacres.

This series of "ifs" shows that there were already serious discipline problems in the cadres before the attack. All the departments went their own way, and when they fought a favorable war, they rushed in a swarm, and when the battle situation was unfavorable, they scattered in a hurry, lacking overall coordination. Even if Zuo Jigao personally took command, the situation did not improve much. The rebels were faced not with an army of 20,000 men, but with a large number of small and fragmented troops. It is not surprising that such an army will be defeated in the face of a small number of enemies.

And this defeat also shows that although Zuo Jigao is famous for suppressing the rebellion of the Shengping Heavenly Kingdom, in fact, he is good at strategy rather than actual command, in the operation to quell the Shaanxi-Gansu rebellion and recover Xinjiang, he himself has been engaged in logistics work, the main operations are commanded by the generals Liu Songshan (replaced by his nephew Liu Jintang after he was killed), Jin Shun, Zhang Yao, he himself has not commanded a campaign, and this time the westward expedition to Xinjiang to the last moment, in Kashgar, Manas, Dabancheng and other strong strongholds of the rebels were uprooted one after another, and when the rebels of Aguba were at the end of their rope, the battle he personally commanded turned out to be like this, which can be said to have surprised the people of the time, and also made him fall from the clouds of the "Optimus Pillar".

In the battle of Urumqi, the number of casualties of the cadres has always been disputed. The rebels claimed to the Russians and the British that they had beheaded 12,714 cadres, the number was zero and round, and it sounded like that, and the British and Russians believed it, but this number was really large, and even if it was true, it was likely that the rebels had killed civilians in Xinjiang or the people in the city to make up the total number of cadres who had been annihilated.

As a matter of fact, the casualties of the cadres were not as great as the outside world had imagined.

The troops with the greatest casualties among the cadres were Dong Fuxiang's three battalions. This force totaled 1,500 men, and in the end there were less than 100 left, which was basically equivalent to the total annihilation of the army. In addition, Dai Zongqian's troops were 1,200 men in two battalions, and the casualties were about 250, less than a quarter; The casualty rate of Liu Chaopei's troops was similar, with 1,200 people in two battalions and more than 200 killed in battle, that is, the total number of casualties of these troops closest to Urumqi City did not exceed 2,000.

Among the other units of the cadre army, Fang Chunfa, Chen Baishun and Zhang Jun ran away early, and they were cavalry, so they basically did not suffer much losses. Because Xu Degong's troops took the initiative to attack, they took the rebels by surprise, and retreated in time after rescuing Liu and Dai's armies. The casualties were also not significant. Others such as Wan Huai, Feng Guizeng, Liu Hongfa and other armies. It's not on the main battlefield. Running is not something that the rebels can catch up. It is worth noting that no generals died before and after the battle of Urumqi, and the command did not suffer huge losses in the great rout, and they maintained a minimum degree of organization. That is to say, in this rout, the cadres did not completely run into a scattered sand, but took the generals of each army as a small core and desperately moved to the rear. Casualties are basically on the periphery of these small cores and the discrete cadres behind them. These people ran very scattered. It looks like a lot, but in fact the number is not large.

Dong Fuxiang's ministry can be said to be wiped out, regardless of it; Dai Zongqian and Liu Chaopei were deeply trapped in the enemy's formation with infantry, and the casualty rate was about 25%, so the casualties of other cavalry units behind the formation would definitely not exceed this ratio, and the actual casualties of 20,000 cadres were about 3,000.

3,000 people, a full 3,000 cadres and soldiers, fell on the land outside Urumqi, and fell at the moment closest to victory, which can be called the first fiasco since the Western Expedition. If it weren't for Jin Shun, he then conquered the city of Urumqi. This fiasco is enough to become the biggest stain on Zuo Jigao's military career.

After Kim Soon gathered the defeated troops, the Qianguo regrouped. At this time, the artillery team led by the French instructor Gudepe did not withdraw from the position, and with the support of the Jianrui battalion officer and Zhenxing, successfully held the artillery position, not only repelled the attack of the rebels, but also used artillery to shoot flat, killing more than 500 rebels. After the news came, Jin Shun was overjoyed and immediately led the army forward to join He Zhenxing and Gao Depei.

The cadres came to Urumqi again, the rebels saw the cadres go and return, and couldn't help but be surprised, and Jin Shun in order to seize the fighter, immediately began to attack, at this time the Urumqi city gate that was collapsed by the cadres artillery has not had time to repair, the cadres artillery began to attack again, soon, under the command of Gao Depei, the 140 mm Schneider cannon knocked down the city wall again, the cadres and soldiers swarmed in, this time the first to enter the city was Dai Zongqian and Liu Chaopei, and then Dong Fuxiang and Feng Guizeng, these people with their men, After an hour and a half of fierce fighting, the city of Urumqi was finally conquered by the cadres.

After returning to the camp, Zuo Jigao was restless, he sent people to send a letter to Liu Jintang and Zhang Yao, who had divided their troops to attack the rebels, asking them to send troops to support, and the news of the disastrous defeat under the city of Urumqi reached Liu Jintang's army, which was attacking the rebels. When Liu Jintang heard this, he was shocked. If the Chinese army is defeated, it means that the rebels in other places can reinforce him or Zhang Yao with impunity, and the morale will be weakened, and the future battle will not be easy to fight. Liu Jintang hurriedly sent his subordinate Tan Bacui to lead his troops to the Chinese army to support, and when Tan Bacui rushed to Zuo Jigao's camp, Zuo Jigao was preparing to celebrate with a spring breeze on his face - Jin Shun had already conquered Urumqi, so Tan Bacui sent people to fly to report to Liu Jintang and Zhang Yao, so as to avoid confusion between the left and right cadres.

Although the city of Urumqi was recovered, Zuo Jigao was not satisfied in his heart, and his dissatisfaction was not because of the more than 4,000 casualties of the army (more than 1,000 people were lost in the siege and street battles), but because he failed to catch any of the rebel chieftains.

It turned out that after the pursuit out of the city, it was expected that the Qianjun would soon attack again, Aguba's son Huli Burke and another chief of the rebel army, Bai Yanhu, did not return to the city, but ran directly and ran to the territory of Russia, after Aguba learned the news, he was angry and hateful, he still wanted to hold on, so he ordered the department to hold on, the second son Haigula was the supreme commander, but Haigula knew that in the previous artillery attack of the Qian's army, his subordinates had suffered heavy casualties, and now the city gate was destroyed, and the city wall was also seriously damaged, and it was impossible to hold on, It was he who secretly prepared to escape. After the Qianjun broke into the inner city, Haigula took advantage of the fact that the Qianjun army did not form a siege of Urumqi, and escaped from the city with his father Aguba, and like his brother Huli Burke, he fled straight to the Russian border.

Although Urumqi was captured, none of the rebel leaders were caught, only Agubai's subordinate general Alidash and Bai Yanhu's subordinate general Xiaohu and a few Turkish military instructors were captured.

In order to capture Agu Bai, Jin Shun sent cavalry to chase and send people to inquire about the news, and soon there was a very important news for Zuo Jigao: Agu Bai died.

After escaping from Urumqi, Aguba had a premonition that a catastrophe had befallen him, and he suddenly died on the way to Russia. The cause of his death remains a mystery to this day. Some people say that he saw that death was approaching, so he simply drank poisoned wine and died, others say that at this time, Aguba had lost his mind, had hysterical attacks, quarreled with his second son Haigula over a trivial matter, drew a knife to kill Haigula, and was killed by Haigula's guards, and so on. But in any case, what is more credible is that this Agubai, whose hands were stained with the blood of the Xinjiang people and who committed heinous crimes, is indeed dead. Haigura escorted Aguba's body to join his brother Huli Burke, and in order to prevent his brother from coming to fight for power with him, Huli Burke's officer Muhammad? Ziya shot and killed the unprepared Haigura. After the conspiracy was realized, Aguba and Hygura were buried in the desert by Huli Burke. (To be continued......)

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