The vast area north and south of the Tianshan Mountains in the Western Regions was originally a place of endless business travel, but since the outbreak of the Great War in the Western Regions, almost no one has passed through here except for scouts and armies who come and go. In particular, the people of the Qiang tribe often haunt this area, burning, killing and looting, and do all kinds of evil, so that there are fewer merchants who come and go, and now there is a barren area everywhere.

However, in August of the thirteenth year of Hongwu, it was very lively, and the sound of guns and cannons continued. The neighing of war horses, the screams of personnel, the clash of weapons, the shooting of muskets, all kinds of sounds, mixed with each other, completely turned this place into a vast hell on earth. From time to time, there are people who sleep here. A large number of war horses, which have lost their masters, wander helplessly in the wilderness, at a loss.

Since the defeat of Shanshan, Gaochang, and Qiuzi by the Shile army, all parts of the Western Regions have become chaotic. Some nobles from various countries who were secretly dissatisfied with Shile's rule rose up against the Qian, and as a result, all parts of the Western Regions became a pot of porridge.

After the Jin army seized a large area of territory in the eastern part of the Western Regions, Shile immediately integrated all his troops and returned to Shule and Khotan, and he planned to suppress the rebellion in various places before fighting with the Jin army. Although Shile did not take the rebels in various places seriously, they always threatened Shile's rear, so that he could not fully deal with the Jin army in the east.

This rebellion by the Shule people soon swept through the western part of the Western Regions, and Shile immediately encountered rebels everywhere when he turned around. The two sides fought fiercely for control of Shule, and the flames of war continued to spread, and the situation that swept the entire Western Regions was greatly engulfed, and even the area just controlled by the Great Jin showed signs of instability.

In this case. Zhang Fang and Ma Xian temporarily stopped at the front line of Qiuzi and Shanshan, and tried to stabilize the eastern part of the Western Regions first. For the remnants of the nobles in the Western Regions who dared to propose an independent state, they were all disposed of by the Jin army for various reasons. The nobles of the Western Regions who had already been slaughtered by the Qiang people had a lot, and after this catastrophe, there were very few left.

After dealing with the Qiang, Di, Xianbei, and Xiongnu people, the Jin army was simply familiar with the rectification of the people of all ethnic groups in the Western Regions. Later, Emperor Sima Shu ordered the addition of a sandbank, under the jurisdiction of Cheshi, Gaochang, Qiuzi, Shanshan four counties, the imperial court quickly mobilized a group of capable officials to the Western Regions to prepare to receive the new prefectures and counties.

It's just that in this way, the people of all ethnic groups in the Western Regions, who originally had a good impression of the Great Jin, quickly hated the Jin people again, and in the recent period. There were several assassinations against the Jin people in the territory of Shazhou. At the same time, several rebel groups have emerged in the sandbank. The purpose of these militants was to drive out the Qiang and Jin people and realize their desire to restore the country.

In order to quell the rebellions in various places, Zhang Fang ordered to mobilize part of the cavalry of the Xiang Army to take the Xiang as a unit and began to encircle and suppress the rebels in various places. After several days of fighting. The Xiang army gradually drove the rebels from all over the country to the vast grasslands east of the prison sea. Because the rebels were mostly cavalry. Therefore, the four-compartment Jin army participating in this encirclement and suppression mission are all dragoons.

At this time, there were more than 10,000 rebels in the sandbank. In terms of troops, the two sides are evenly matched. Both are cavalry units again, so once a fight starts. Naturally, it is extraordinarily intense and extraordinarily lively.

After the battle began, according to the counterinsurgency plan drawn up by Zhang Fang before, the main force of the rebels should be completely annihilated near the prison sea. Even if it can't be completely annihilated, it will at least inflict a devastating blow on the main rebel army.

After the rebels found out that the box army was menacing, they hurriedly adjusted the deployment army and sent reinforcements. The rebels also hoped to boost the confidence of the local population, who desperately needed a victory over the Jin army to boost morale. To this end, the rebel generals concentrated about 13,000 troops. In addition to this, there were 5,000 temporary soldiers who were temporarily recruited from all over the country, so that the strength of the rebels increased to nearly 20,000.

It was an expected battle, and both the van and the rebels knew very well that both sides would commit heavy troops for their own interests. The Great Jin Dynasty needed to take this opportunity to inflict heavy losses on the rebels in one fell swoop and completely dispel the ambitions of all ethnic groups in the Western Regions to establish an independent state. The rebels, on the other hand, wanted to assert to the Jin that they were the masters of the Western Regions through a victory, and that no force could ignore the opinions of the locals.

In the beginning, the Xiang army was shooting in formation. This is the Jin army's forte. Those who have received rigorous training can maximize the lethality of muskets when shooting in formation. During the attack, the Jin army adopted the most usual means, with a battalion as a small phalanx and a capital as a large phalanx, intertwined and connected with each other, slowly and steadily forcing the main force of the rebels to the past.

On the rebel side, they still launched a group-style and wave-like charge against the Jin army in accordance with the traditional way of fighting. The rebel generals believed that cavalry had a habit of passive defense, especially in field battles, where cavalry always took the initiative to attack. Therefore, they did not hesitate to order an attack with the Jin army.

The rebels tried to rely on the strong impact of the cavalry and the will to fight without fear of death, and broke through the ranks of the Xiang army in one fell swoop. In particular, the soldiers of all ethnic groups in the Western Regions who had a deep hatred with the Jin people behaved very strongly. Like a tidal wave, they attacked the Jin army wave after wave until they were killed.

Originally, according to the meaning of the rebels, they hoped to use the speed of the cavalry to launch a strong impact and directly tear apart the ranks of the Xiang army when the foothold of the Xiang army was not stable, but each one was broken and divided and encircled, so as to completely wipe out the Jin army. This was the usual way of cavalry combat, but although the cavalry of the Jin army did not attack like them, the formation was not overwhelmed by the other side.

The rebels' breakthrough was met with strong resistance. Those phalanxes formed by the Jin army could cope with the surprise attacks of cavalry from all different directions. No matter which direction the rebel cavalry tried to break through, they would encounter a strong counterattack and suffer huge casualties. Sometimes, a single volley of the Xiang army caused three or four hundred casualties among the rebel cavalry. Basically, after two or three volleys, the rebel offensive shrank.

Although the rate of fire of the muskets equipped by the Jin army is not as fast as that of the rifles of later generations, the strength of the Xiang army is strong! An army of 12,000 people! These men took linear tactics such as three-stage strikes and four-stage strikes to the extreme, and each salvo caused the rebel cavalry to suffer an overwhelming rain of bullets.

As a result, in the midst of fierce gunfire, a large number of rebel cavalry, as if defeated, fell from their horses. At this time, the rebel generals finally realized the power of the Xiang army. No wonder they can defeat Shi Le, who is crisscrossing the Western Regions, and defeat Murong Diao and Liu Yuan, they do have some real skills. Facing the frontal attack, the ragged rebels of the Western Regions are no match for the Jin army at all.

The rebels were not fools after all, and after feeling that something was wrong, they quickly withdrew their troops. That is, relying on the advantage of being familiar with the local terrain, the rebels were able to get rid of the ambush circle set up for them by the Jin army. But despite this, the rebels still lost most of their troops, and the rest also lost the courage to fight the Jin army head-on.

The rebels began to disperse their forces, resorting to sporadic guerrilla tactics that were sluggish, exhausted, and depleted by the various flanks. I have to admit that this tactic adopted by the rebels is indeed effective. The Xiang troops stationed in various places really hate this kind of muddy pond-style battle. It is precisely for this reason that the Xiang army had to temporarily slow down the pace of westward expansion.

However, this also gave Shile a chance to breathe. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Schle immediately commanded a large army to suppress the rebellion in various places. For the Shule nobles who participated in the rebellion, all of them were brutally purged by the Qian, and after some actions, the Shule places finally calmed down again.

Shile's troops may not be able to defeat the Xiang army, but they can't be captured by cleaning up these rebels in the Western Regions? Although the people of the Qiang tribe have no peace and no geographical advantages, they have swords, and they use sabers to temporarily make the people of the Western Regions in their jurisdiction honest. With the massacre of the Qiang people, the local people in the Western Regions hated and disgusted the Qiang people day by day, and the resistance became more intense.

After Wang Huazhen left, Chi Hu reported to Xu Xingxia and asked Cao Wenzhao, Ai Wannian, Huang Degong, and Wu Xiang to serve as the commanders of the Ming army in western Liaoning. He divided the Ming army in western Liaoning into four and let them lead the four of them. The purpose of this is, of course, to better control them. Soon, Xu Xingxia approved his request.

Because of the rebellion of the locals, the two warring sides of the entire Western Regions were temporarily stopped, and the Great Jin and the Qianren began to repair the rebels in various places. The Jin people were responsible for rectifying the eastern part of the Western Regions, and Shile was rectifying the western region, and the two sides did not interfere with each other.

Seeing this situation, the people of the Western Regions were even more hated and annoyed, but they were powerless in the face of the situation in front of them, and sure enough, this is the world that needs strength. Without strength, you can only be oppressed by others, and your fate is even in the hands of others.

After several rounds of brutal rectification, the rebels that had been everywhere finally became few and far between. The rebels, numbering more than a thousand, have finally disappeared, and all that remains are a few dozen or a hundred or so. A rebel army of this size could no longer threaten the rule of the Jin people in the Western Regions, and after the establishment of the local governors, it was believed that these rebels would be gradually wiped out.

Of course, in the process of counterinsurgency, the Jin army was not without casualties, after all, the mass base of the Xiang army here is very weak, and any local person may be a rebel. Therefore, in the process of suppressing bandits, the Xiang army lost a total of nearly 2,000 people, most of whom were surrounded and killed by the rebels.

In order to retaliate against the other party, the Jin army also learned from Shile and carried out a bloody purge in the territory, and all towns infested by rebels were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Jin army. As the Jin army gradually became tougher, the locals in the Western Regions, after paying a heavy price, finally began to stop supporting the local rebels, which made it more and more difficult for the rebels to survive. (To be continued......)