On June 12, 1849, Emperor Long Yufei appeared at the General Staff, and in the hall of the War Department, a map of Central Asia hung on the wall. Today, the purpose of Long Yu's flight to the General Staff is to listen to the General Staff's plan for the next step of the Empire's advance in Central Asia. In addition to Long Yufei, the meeting was attended by Field Marshal Niu Meng, deputy commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, General Sun Hao, chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Liu Zhongming, chief of operations, and Lieutenant General Zhao Mingfu, commander of the 2nd Group Army of the Imperial Army, who had specially rushed back from the northwest border.

The 2nd Army of the Imperial Army comprised the 5th Infantry Corps, the 7th Infantry Corps, the 25th Infantry Corps, the 3rd Cavalry Corps and the 4th Cavalry Corps. In addition, during this period, the 2nd Army also recruited more than 100,000 able-bodied people from all ethnic groups on the northwest frontier and trained 20 frontier brigades, including 8 cavalry brigades and 12 infantry brigades. The total strength of the 2nd Army has reached more than 300,000, becoming the most important force in the empire to defend the northwest, and it is also the vanguard of the empire's expansion into Central Asia.

"General Zhao has worked hard to guard the frontier for the empire!" Long Yufei saw Zhao Mingfu's somewhat dark face and patted him on the shoulder. Defending the border for the country is undoubtedly the hardest. The Empire's enemy on land is still Russia. Unless the empire can one day destroy Russia, the threat will not be lifted, and the empire will need to deploy a large army in Central Asia.

"Your Majesty is serious, these are what Weichen should do!" Lieutenant General Zhao Mingfu was a little moved. At the beginning, he was just a pirate on Flying Fish Island. Now he can become an important general of the empire, with hundreds of thousands of male soldiers in his hands. It was something he had never thought about. What he can do is to do his best to serve the emperor and the empire.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Let's go! Long Yufei looked at General Sun Hao of the General Staff.

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Admiral Sun Hao nodded. Immediately, the staff officers of the General Staff began to distribute materials to everyone. Lieutenant General Liu Zhongming, Minister of Operations, will explain the Empire's plans for expansion into Central Asia.

Central Asia, located in the center of the Eurasian continent, is strategically located. Whether the empire is expanding westward or guarding its borders. It is necessary to establish a solid line of defense in Central Asia. The Russians began to expand into Central Asia more than a hundred years ago. At that time, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was basically in the stage of defending, and had no intention of expanding outward. As a result, much of Central Asia fell into Russian hands.

Before the defeat of Russia by the Empire. The Russians have already occupied the Kazakh steppe, the Russian Governorate of Western Siberia, which governs the entire Kazakh steppe. and, further southward invasions. Merely. With the outbreak of the Sino-Russian war. The Russian army was annihilated by millions of troops. The border between the two sides also advanced to the Ergiz, and even Omsk, the former capital of the Western Siberian Governorate, fell into the control of the Chinese Empire. The Russian Viceroyalty of Western Siberia naturally fell apart. At present, the Russians occupy only the western part of the Kazakh steppe. The rest of the region was under the control of the Chinese Empire and the three khanates of Central Asia.

In Central Asia. There were three indigenous powers, which were the Kokand Khanate. Bukhara Khanate and Khiva Khanate. They control the valley of the two rivers and part of the Seven Rivers region. The two river basins in Central Asia refer to the two rivers between the Amu Darya River and the Syr Darya River, which originate from the green mountains and flow into the Aral Sea. The Seven Rivers region refers to the surrounding area centered on Lake Balkhash, Lake Issyk-Kul and the Chu River.

Russia has long coveted the resource-rich and strategically important region of Central Asia. In 1717, Peter the Great, at a cost of 250,000 rubles, sent Bekovic. An expedition of 6,655 men led by Duke Cherkassky set out from Astrakhan to conquer the Khiva Khanate, but Bekovich was killed and the Russian army was almost completely annihilated. Later, Peter the Great pointed out that the Kazakh steppe was the "key gateway" to the countries of Central Asia. In the first half of the 19th century, Tsarist Russia began a full-scale conquest of the Kazakh Khanate, on the one hand, sending a large number of troops to suppress the rebellion of the Kazakh tribes, and on the other hand, inducing the Kazakh upper leaders of the Small, Middle and Big Hordes to submit to themselves. In 1822, the Tsarist government authorized the Siberian Governor Speransky to promulgate the "Regulations on the Kyrgyz of Western Siberia", announcing the abolition of the original Kazakh political system (khan system), dividing the Kazakh region into a number of administrative regions, one according to the Russian political system, ruled by officials sent by the Russian government. At this point, the Kazakh Khanate, which had lasted for 366 years, came to an end. With the conquest of Kazakhstan, Tsarist Russia launched a powerful offensive against the khanates of Central Asia and the Xinjiang region of China.

In 1834, the New Aleksandrovsk Fortress was built on the Mangeshlak Peninsula. In November 1839, Petrovsky, the then governor of Orenburg, sent more than 5,000 men on an expedition to the Khiva Khanate, but was hit by a snowstorm and suffered heavy losses, but still failed. After that, the direction of the Russian attack shifted to the northern part of the Kokand Khanate.

However, the Russians' ambitions to annex Central Asia were dashed by the crushing defeat in the war with the Chinese Empire. The Russian army, which has lost millions of main troops, is already very good to be able to hold the current territory, where can it dare to invade again?

On the contrary, it was the Chinese Empire, in order to further attack Russia and ensure that it had an advantageous position in the future war. Therefore, they began to actively infiltrate and attack Central Asia. The establishment of the 2nd Army of the Imperial Army was mainly to undertake this task.

The three khanates of Central Asia, from east to west, were the Kokand Khanate, the Bukhara Khanate, and the Khiva Khanate. The Chinese are very familiar with the Kokand Khanate, and historically the Kokand Khanate's Aquba, with the support of the Tsarist Russia and the British, invaded China's Xinjiang. Later, Zuo Zongtang recovered Xinjiang. However, now the Manchus are gone, and Zuo Zongtang has not become an official of the Manchus, but is serving the empire. After the empire defeated Russia with a thunderous victory, the three khanates of Central Asia were terrified, and naturally did not have the courage to invade the empire again.

The core area of the Kokand Khanate was in the Ferghana Basin, which included the cities of Kokand, Andijan, Marjilan, and Namangan. The main inhabitants are Uzbeks, followed by Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ferghana Basin belonged to the Bukhara Khanate, and then gradually broke away from its control. In 1710, Shahroukh, the leader of the Uzbek Minger clan, established an independent state with the city of Kokand as its capital. In 1760 (the 25th year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty of China), the ruler of Kokand, Erdeni, was annexed to China. His successor, Narbuta, strengthened Kokand's rule over Ferghana and continued to be a vassal to China. Under the reign of Omar Khan and Madari Khan, the khanate entered its heyday. Its territory is bordered by the Aral Sea to the northwest, including the Kazakh steppes near the lower reaches of the Syr Darya River; Northeast expansion to the region south of Lake Balkhash in China; South Dakarati Jin and other mountainous territories. Madari Khan repeatedly invaded the Kashgar region of China and tried his best to support the rebellion of the Hezhuo descendants there.

The current Khan of the Kokand Khanate is Muhammad. Gudeya, however, was the actual ruler of the Grand Mullah Alimakul, and all the power of the Kokand Khanate was in the hands of Alimakul. King Muhammad of Khan. Gudeya is nothing more than a puppet. Alimakul is a radical religious activist who has been building a strong theocratic state in Central Asia and in Xinjiang, China. As the strength of the Kokand Khanate became stronger and stronger, it continued to send troops to expand around. It was not until after the rise of the empire that the expansion of the Kokand Khanate to the east gradually stopped.

The Kokand Khanate was the most powerful of the three Central Asian states, with a population of over four million and a powerful army.

To the west of the Kokand Khanate was the Bukhara Khanate, which included parts of present-day Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, in addition to the basins of the Zeravshan and Kashka rivers, as well as the north bank of the Syr Darya River, the city of Turkestan and its vicinity, and, at its peak, Khorasan in Persia. The capital of the Khanate of Bukhara was originally planned in Samarkand, but it was moved to Bukhara in the middle of the 16th century. The main inhabitants are Uzbeks, followed by Tajiks.

The Bukhara Khanate had a population of 2.5 million and was ruled by Nasr. Allach. Bahadur, among the three Central Asian states, is the second most powerful country after the Kokand Khanate.

The westernmost was the Khiva Khanate. The Khiva Khanate, also known as the Khorezm Khanate, is located in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya River, the Khorezm Oasis on the south bank of the Aral Sea, and its ruling range extends to the Caspian Sea in the west and the northern part of Khorasan in the south. The capital was originally in Urgench, but was diverted by the Amu Darya River and moved to Khiva at the end of the 16th century. The main inhabitants are Uzbeks, followed by Turkmen, Karakalpak and Kazakhs. With a population of just over 700,000 people, the Khiva Khanate was the smallest of the three Central Asian states. The current monarch is Ghazi. Muhammad. Amin. Bahadur Khan.

The goal of the empire's expansion into Central Asia this time was to overthrow the three khanates and ensure the empire's domination of Central Asia.

The three khanates of Central Asia, in terms of overall strength, were not very strong. The total number of troops possessed by the three countries does not exceed two hundred thousand. In addition, the equipment is extremely rudimentary, mainly cold weapons. Not to mention that in the face of the regular army of the 2nd Army of the Imperial Army, even in the face of the border brigade under the 2nd Army, it is definitely not an opponent. After nearly two years of preparation, the conditions were ripe for the Empire to send troops to Central Asia.

"Your Majesty, generals, the situation in Central Asia is probably like this. If the empire wanted to send troops to Central Asia, the first thing it had to deal with was the Kokand Khanate. The Khanate of Kokand, with a population of four million, had an army of about 100,000 people, mostly cavalry. The armament consisted mainly of bows and arrows and scimitars, as well as a small number of muskets. However, behind the Kokand Khanate, there were not only Russians, but also the British! Lieutenant General Liu Zhongming said. (To be continued......)

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