h2> There is a saying that has been widely circulated in both the East and the West, saying: God has closed a door for you, and he will surely open a window for you.

At the end of the first month of the ninth year of Tongzhi, Liu Xian needed to face such a situation.

He had already accepted the reality of the defeat in the southern Xinjiang war, and was only ready to cook Kaufman to pull back a game and make Beijing feel better. It never occurred to me that the Russian army did not want Kaufman to lead his troops to break through from the town of Chelik, but raised a force to relieve the siege, and the main force of this force was still cavalry. It was all about giving him a chance to seal the win once and for all - with the support army in mind, Kaufman was finished. Wouldn't he be able to lead his army straight to Almaty?

A thousand infantry in the reinforcements were militia in Almaty, right?

Forget it, what's the point if it's not? If your own infantry and cavalry are pressed together, and the artillery can be pulled to the front of the city, is there any reason why you can't take Almaty?

Just when everyone's eyes were on Touluck Town, Liu Xian's eyes had already crossed Chelik Town and turned to Turgen. Today, a team of four or five thousand people suddenly arrived here, except for the thousands of infantry escorting supplies, the rest were all cavalry.

This Russian army simply wanted to take Liu Xian by surprise, so as to recover the lost face of the Russian army in northern Xinjiang. But they didn't know that when they first entered Turgen, their whereabouts had already been clearly seen by Liu Xian, who was more than 100 kilometers away.

Although Liu Xian is very suspicious of where the Russian army got such a support army. There were actually three or four thousand cavalry, which was an unprecedented force on the battlefield between China and Russia. Liu Xian regarded this cavalry as a Cossack cavalry.

But he wasn't worried, not the slightest. Because the two hundred miles from Turgen to the town of Chelik had too many opportunities for him to be killed in one blow.

In the Chinese lunar calendar, the thirtieth day of the first month of the ninth year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty.

After two days of exploration, Liu Xian finally figured out what the composition of the Russian reinforcements in front of him was coming straight to Chelik Town. The cavalry unit of three or four thousand men was not a Cossack cavalry, but a Kazakh cavalry with a word difference from it. They are Kazakhs! Serious Cossacks and Slavs, there were less than a hundred.

This is really what Liu Xian expected. The Kazakhs, thirty years ago, were still Manchu vassal states. But after the last Khan Knesazhe Khan was betrayed by traitors and died on the battlefield, the whole of Kazakhstan became Russian.

Now they are heading to the battlefield in Xinjiang again. Originally, the Kazakh cavalry was in southern Xinjiang, and now they are also in northern Xinjiang.

And the thousands of infantry escorting supplies are indeed Russian old Maozi. It was the same militia in Almaty, dressed in rags and armed with muskets and scimitars and hammers.

Liu Xian probed all the qiē clearly. There is a mental calculation and no intention! How could the Russian army, which thought that its whereabouts would never be known to the expeditionary army, would have thought that there would be a small pit in the snow, and there would be a person in the pit?

It took Liu Xian two days to get the information he needed.

Including the separation of this army, there were only four or five thousand troops in total, but they marched in front and back, separated by more than ten miles. However, because the Kazakh cavalry carried very little grass and grain, although they walked in front of the infantry and baggage troops, they could only go beyond a dozen miles and could not be too far away.

In general, the idea of the Russians should be to use the Kazakh cavalry to fight out the cavalry group of the expeditionary army on the back road of the town of Chelik, and then let the infantry baggage of 1,000 men enter the town of Celik safely.

Liu Xian was completely relieved about the upcoming war. The Russians had such a plan, he didn't know it when he was fine, but now he knows it in his heart, the virtual map is in hand, and the Russians are simply sending fat meat into his mouth.

"The battlefield is here!"

The Russian army traveled forty or fifty miles in two days, and the battlefield set by Liu Xian was in the center of the towns of Turgen and Chelik, according to the current pace of the Russian army, that is, two days later.

It was a place with a dense network of rivers. In the distance is Mount Tuben Agul. Although this mountain is not famous, the annual melt of ice and snow merges into more than a dozen streams within a radius of 100 miles around it. The stream here is not wide, but the depth is okay. There is no case of zài sealing. Relying on the shells to bombard the ice and relying on the gunpowder packs laid in advance can play a role in isolating the cavalry at a critical moment.

Little by little, time passed. In two days, Liu Xian chose the battlefield and made ample preparations. Ice and snow do not stop the burial of gunpowder packets, although there are no bamboo pipes, but there is wood here, cut the wood, wrap it into a triangular shape, and pass the fire rope through it. Dryness is fully guaranteed and ignition is not affected at all.

Therefore, when two days later, four or five thousand Russian troops came to this place unsuspectingly, and when three or four thousand Kazakh cavalry still ran to the front of the baggage team, leaving a thousand Slavic militiamen to escort three or four hundred heavy wagons, lined up in a thin line on the snow, and walked slowly.

If Liu Xian's more than 1,000 cavalry don't eat a single bite, then I'm sorry for my hard work in the past few days.

The infantry in formation relied on the muskets in their hands to inflict heavy casualties on the cavalry. Even the hollow array was able to contain the cavalry charge on a certain distance. But when the infantry had no queue at all, and were completely scattered stragglers, they had no power to fight back in the face of the charge of more than a thousand cavalry groups. Especially since these thousand Slavic militias are still just militias!

It only took Liu Xian half an hour and less than 50 casualties to eat and clean up the Russian army, which was responsible for transporting supplies and supplies. Three or four hundred men were killed, and the rest were taken prisoner.

The Kazakh cavalry on the road ahead was shocked. The baggage team is not only about the life and death of more than 2,000 Russian troops in Chelik Town, but also their life and death. They didn't bring any food and grass with the army, and they still relied on the baggage team behind them for supplies every day.

The small 4,000 Kazakh cavalry, at the urging of the Slavs and Cossack officers in the army, turned their horses' heads and galloped to the rear to reinforce with all their might. At this time, they didn't have to think about the big question of why an enemy had touched their backs.

As a result, the river, which had previously been unhindered, became the first line of defense to intercept them.

The scouts of the expeditionary army lit the arquebus, and the first stream was facing the section of the river where the Kazakh cavalry came, and the sound of gunpowder packs exploding was constantly heard from the distance of five or six miles from north to south. The originally solid ice immediately became uninhabited.

When the Kazakh cavalry bypassed the threatening section of the river and rushed to the baggage team again, the sound of fighting and gunfire became so minimal.

Liu Xian left a small number of cavalry to guard the prisoners, and looked at the virtual map as the way the Kazakh cavalry came, and led the main cavalry force to wait for the arrival of the Kazakh cavalry by another stream.

There is a huge disparity in the strength of the enemy and the enemy. However, there is a huge disparity in the armament of both sides of the enemy.

What do Kazakhs have?

Less than a third of the muskets of the three or four thousand cavalry were armed, and even fewer were Mini carbines. Before he was far away, he was beaten by the cavalry of the expeditionary army who dismounted and fought.

When the Kazakh cavalry rushed across the stream with a lot of blood and was about to crash into the expeditionary army, rockets fell into the charging Kazakh cavalry, and even flowering bullets crossed a distance of 200 meters and fell into the ice of the stream.

The ice shattered, the follow-up troops were cut off, and the morale of the Kazakh cavalry, who had already rushed across the stream, was exhausted. Some of the timid or the quick-witted immediately turned their horses and fled to the right and left. And those with stupid heads and dead hearts were eaten by the expeditionary army that was waiting in battle.

The entire combat experience of the Kazakh cavalry to return to the reinforcement was a huge cup. Seven or eight hundred men and horses were lost in vain, and even Liu Xian's hair could not be bitten.

What is even more tragic is that the Kazakh cavalry, which failed to return to help, has since lost its own logistical supplies. And without horse feed, grain and grass, their own fate is also a cup.

Three thousand Kazakh cavalry had nowhere to go. It is at least forty versts to the town of Chelik and back to Turgen, which is no shorter. In this season of heavy snow and ice, their horsepower simply cannot support it.

The Kazakh cavalry did not carry enough supplies for their own independent activities, such as when Liu Xian led the cavalry to attack Qihe Prefecture before, people were equipped with two horses, or even three horses, and each brought enough food and forage for themselves to eat for seven or eight days. Liu Xian stood in the position of the commander of this battle, which was naturally a major reason why the Russian reinforcements were defeated by himself so easily.

Although the failure of the Russian army's rescue was inevitable -- the biggest reason was not the separation of infantry and cavalry -- the main force of the Russian reinforcements was the Kazakh cavalry, not the Cossack cavalry, and there was a difference between heaven and earth in the will to fight. Although the Kazakhs have now completely surrendered to Russia, but the time is not long, when the situation is superior, the Kazakh cavalry may loyally fight for Russia, but when the battle is unfavorable, you expect the Kazakh cavalry to fight for Russia like the Cossack cavalry, fight to the death, that is not to think about.

After Tsarist Russia completely occupied the Kazakh steppe, the exploitation and oppression of the Kazakhs was very heavy. A few years ago, the 12 Kazakh tribes that had been nomadic in the area of Lake Zaisan left their original pastures and moved to the Altai Mountains in Xinjiang because they could not bear the oppression of Tsarist Russia.

Liu Xian knew about this, and therefore concluded that there was a difference between the Kazakh cavalry and the Cossack cavalry in terms of the will to fight for Russia. This shows the 'loyalty' of the Kazakhs to Russia.

Liu Xian had a virtual map in hand, and he carried out a night attack to crush the Kazakh cavalry in waves. If the baggage truck can't be seized, it will be burned. Although it is not as perfect as it is now, it can still contain the rescue of the Russian army.

It's just that this kind of victory can only defeat the Russian reinforcements, but not completely annihilate the Russian reinforcements.

And now, for the Kazakh cavalry who cannot advance or retreat, and at the same time have no food and grass, Liu Xian has too many ways to disintegrate them...... R1152