"Be careful, your majesty." The captain of the guard guards guarded Liu Jun into Hami City, holding a bright goose-like sword in his hand. "The city has not been completely wiped out, and there are still many Junggar rebels hiding around the city. These rebels are very fierce. When the brothers of the Imperial Guard entered the city, they rushed out from all corners like crazy. These people are definitely madmen. They have all been defeated, and Hami City has also fallen, but no one is willing to abandon their weapons and surrender."

The Western Regions can actually be divided into three parts, with the southern and northern borders in addition to the northern borders. Geographically, they can be simply summarized into three mountains and two basins.

The so-called Three Mountains refer to the Jinshan Mountains in the north, the Tianshan Mountains in the middle, and the Kunlun Mountains in the south. Between these three major mountain ranges, there are two lowlands, the Junggar Basin and the Tarim Basin, which is called the three mountains and two basins. In this unique terrain, especially the climate characteristics of the entire Western Regions, the basin in the entire Western Regions, which represents fertile land in the Central Plains, has become a large and powerless desert area here.

The Gurbantonggut Desert and Taklamakan Desert in the Junggar Basin are the more impressive of these two basins.

Compared with the continuous oasis on the Hexi Corridor, most of the Western Regions are deserts, Gobi and dry land. Among the three borders, the northern border is slightly better. The snow water on the tall Tianshan Mountains melts, making there are more rivers on the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains and more oasis.

From a geographical point of view, the eastern Xinjiang region, dominated by basins such as Hami and Turpan, is actually only valuable on the west and the mountainous side on the north.

Until the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains dynasty entered the Western Regions, but no development of the Hami Basin was carried out. Even during the Han Dynasty, there were many small cities and basins of the Western Regions, and many small countries had tens of thousands of people, and the small population was only a few dozen people, which was also called a country. But only the Hami Basin had no country.

Hami in later generations was a very important place, and it was very important in terms of the geographical geographical area of ​​the Western Regions. However, it was always a marginalized place during the Han Dynasty. Even now, Hami is far less important than Turpan and Yanqi Basins.

The reason for this is mainly because Hami has a harsh climate compared to Turpan Basin, and lacks natural dams like the Flame Mountain, which helps accumulate snow and water from the Tianshan Mountains. Of course, there are also human factors. Before the Silk Road was developed in the Han Dynasty, land transportation between the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains was better than going to the Hami Basin.

From the Yanqi Basin to Turpan, then enter the northern border. Or simply pass through the Yanqi Basin and directly cross the Ruktag Mountain on the south side of the Eastern Frontier Basin and Juerotag Mountain on the southern part of the Turpan Basin to enter the Turpan Basin.

The Hami Basin was not viewed and excavated at the beginning, mainly because of its relationship with the Hexi Corridor. The large desert Gobi with Hashun Gobi as the core has more opportunities to obtain water and oasis supplies on the first two routes. Although this is closer, it has to travel through the arid road of deserts and Gobi, which seems a lot of waste.

But from the geographical area of ​​the entire Western Regions, Hami's location is very unique. It can communicate with the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and it can also connect with Mobei to the north. In addition, it is also very close to the Hexi Corridor, so although this is a dry place and the road is also drought, it is closest.

Early merchants were unwilling to choose this drought path, but for military purposes, Hami's point is very valuable, and the roads leading to various places are also very military.

Neither the Eastern and Southern Xinjiang can carry too much population, nor do they have too many places to be reclaimed and irrigated, but the Northern Xinjiang is much better. To control the Western Regions, you must control the Northern Xinjiang.

But to enter the northern border, Hami is the first gateway, like Wengcheng in the Western Regions, and Turpan is like the eastern gate of the Western Regions.

Liu Jun stayed in Jiayuguan for two months and was able to accumulate strength.

The Junggar lived like a year in the past two months. The Shiva Khanate and Bukhara Khanate sent troops to the Kazakh grasslands, and the Kazakhs also rebelled. In addition, Poland also took advantage of the situation and sent Cossacks to send troops to the Turguts in the Volga River. There were also Kokan and Yarkand, the Qinghai-Tibet coalition, the princes of the northern Mo River and other groups advanced.

The Junggars had to resist left and right, but although the Junggars were fierce, they could only be called the last glory of Mongolia. Their cavalry and bows were hard to dominate under the attack of cannons and muskets.

Sengge led 50,000 troops to attack the 80,000 Han and Qiang coalition forces at Luntai, two hundred miles outside Tiemen Pass, but almost all the troops were lost. With the counterattack of a large number of artillery and muskets, Sengge suffered heavy losses.

The most fatal thing was that the Han army was still very insidiously deliberately putting two circles of barbed wire in the outer baggage van encirclement in the camp. Ye Muxia, Sengge and others did not notice it at first. When they braved great casualties and desperately broke through the outer horse-rejection and baggage van encirclement, they sighed happily and finally entered the Han army's camp and could finally kill happily, but they found that there were two barbed wire in front of them that they had not seen before.

Behind the barbed wire, more than a thousand doors were aimed at their cannons and tens of thousands of muskets.

The huge camp was not in chaos at all.

Although the Junggars had already broken up and destroyed the Yarkand army, and even cut off the Hoshuot Mongolian and Tibetan army on both wings, the Han army in the central camp was not at all panic. They seemed to have expected them to come and were even looking forward to their arrival.

Never use cavalry to attack the barbed wire array with a large number of artillery guns behind it. This is the last cry of Sengge to God before his death.

Two barbed wire mesh, plus more than a thousand mountain grenades and 30,000 muskets.

In less than an hour, the Junggar army launched a continuous charge, but soon they were defeated like a tide. After these Junggars woke up, they found that they had lost nearly a centaur. At this time, the Yarkand people and the Usi Tibetans who had been defeated and fled by them had actually surrounded them from all directions, and even the Hoshuote tribe who were once the Weilath League surrounded them.

At that time, Sengge realized that the situation was not good and wanted to retreat.

But it's too late.

If his father Batuer personally commanded the battle, he would definitely retreat immediately after his first attack on the barbed wire mesh. However, Sengge was too young and thought that as long as he was willing to pay more casualties, he would definitely break through these two thin barbed wire mesh. As long as he could enter the formation, those artillery would be useless, and those muskets could not fight against the Mongolian cavalry at close range.

What made things worse was that after being surrounded, Sengge realized something was wrong and finally ordered to retreat, but he was hit by a shell of war. He fell off the horse and his legs were pressed under the horse, making it difficult to break free. Then, before he could break free, he was killed by a shrapnel that exploded in the air above his head.

The Junggars were very fierce. They had never received the order from Sengge to retreat. They thought Sengge still wanted them to break through the barbed wire formation of the Han army. They continued to attack. When the situation became worse and worse, they finally couldn't wait for Sengge's order to retreat and took the initiative to retreat, there were not many people left.

The raid turned into a breakout.

The Yarkand soldiers, Wusizang soldiers and Heshuo special soldiers who were killed by them were stubbornly blocking them. The Han army behind them also took the initiative to rush out of the barbed wire formation, and rows of muskets came over. Every time the exhausted Junggar cavalry fell behind.

The battle lasted until dawn.

A few Junggar cavalry rushed out of the siege, but the Han cavalry then chased them one day and one night.

The last defeated Junggar army fled twenty miles in front of Tiemen Pass and still did not escape. They were caught up, surrounded, and finally wiped out.

Sengge and his 50,000 troops, except for a very small number of defeated soldiers who fled into the desert and Gobi, the rest were killed or captured.

As the commander of this 80,000 coalition, Zhang Huangyan, the general of Qinghai, reported the results of the battle to the emperor's letter of victory. After the war, more than 17,000 bodies of the Junggar rebels were counted, more than 23,000 prisoners of rebels were captured, and about 5,000 wounded soldiers were also captured. Most of them were directly ordered by Zhang Huangyan to be executed on the spot by Hoshuote, Wusizang and Yarkand soldiers.

Most of these wounded soldiers were seriously injured. Zhang Huangyan didn't have so many doctors or medical treatments, and he had no time to keep them. He had to rush to Tiemen Pass, so he ordered the execution of these rebel wounded soldiers without asking the emperor. Among the five thousand wounded soldiers, only about a thousand wounded soldiers could still follow the team and Zhang Huangyan saved their lives.

There were about 4,000 rebels in the Junggar world, and they finally fled into the desert and Gobi.

For these rebels, Zhang Huangyan left behind a five thousand Han army to be stationed in Luntai. On the one hand, he took care of the injured coalition wounded soldiers, and on the other hand, he was responsible for pursuing these rebels.

The 80,000 coalition forces also suffered heavy casualties in this battle. The Qinghai Army and the Southern Tibetan Army were both the main forces of the Han army, with a total of 30,000 people. More than 1,000 casualties were killed or killed in this battle. Although the 30,000 Yarkand soldiers were trained by the Han army coach and equipped with many Han-style firearms, they still suffered heavy casualties. They mainly showed chaos when they were just raided and lacked organized defense. As a result, after the war, the casualties reached more than 8,000, of which more than 5,000 were killed in battle and more than 3,000 were injured.

The 20,000 Heshuot and Wusizang Army also suffered heavy casualties. When they were camped, they were placed on the left and right wings of the Han army by Zhang Huangyan, and were on the periphery like the Yarkand people. When the Junggar attacked, they were the first to withstand the attack. Although these two armies were incorporated by Zhang Huangyan and brought to the Western Expedition, they did not fully trust them and were always on guard against them. They had few firearms in their army.

In terms of equipment, even the Yarkand Army was inferior to that of the Yarkand Army. After the war, there were 20,000 troops and more than 10,000 casualties.

The 80,000 coalition forces were killed in one battle, and nearly 20,000 were lost to combat personnel.

In this battle, if it were not for the mainstay of the Han army, Sengge would indeed have been able to defeat the coalition forces.

The 80,000 coalition forces fought against 50,000 Junggars, and the result was that the coalition forces suffered 30,000 casualties, which resulted in nearly 50,000 Junggars. On the surface, it seemed to be a fair match. But in fact, the main force of the 30,000 Han army had only more than a thousand casualties, and they were still intact, while the Junggars only had a few thousand defeated troops left to escape into the desert. It can be said that they actually won a great victory.

After Zhang Huangyan won the Luntai, he quickly rushed to the Iron Gate Pass without any obstacles along the way.

The 40-limit canyon in Tiemen Pass was indeed dangerous, but the Sengge army was missing in Luntai, resulting in only three thousand defenders left in Tiemen Pass at this time. Faced with nearly 40,000 coalition forces coming to the gate, they could only stay in seclusion and defend.

But Zhang Huangyan dragged more than a thousand cannons over, even though these cannons were just mountain dredgers, they were also cannons.

The messenger asking for help from Tiemen Pass rushed to Turpan after leaving the pass, but in just half a day, Zhang Huangyan had countless shells blasted Tiemen Pass.

After breaking through Tiemen Pass, more than 40,000 coalition forces entered the Yanqi Basin.

The Yanqi Basin is not big, but it communicates with the transit stations between the Turpan Basin, the Junggar Basin and the Ili River Valley.

When Liu Jun received the good news from Luntai, he immediately ordered the army to leave the customs.

Three 15,000 cavalrymen led the pass first, and the light cavalry rushed to Turpan, and Liu Jun personally led the infantry artillery to follow. Once the Tiemen Pass was lost, the balance of the battle situation in the entire Eastern Xinjiang was broken.

Now Batu's heavy troops gathered in Hami, Turpan was his rear, where a large number of food, grass and equipment were gathered. Now that the iron gate was lost, Zhang Huangyan's more than 40,000 coalition forces would go directly to Turpan. Batu's food, grass and livestock were not protected, and his army in Hami would not only lose food, grass, but also be surrounded.

"A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we can't let Batu run away this time." Liu Jun rode on the horse, unable to help but feel excited.

"The 50,000 troops of Sengge were completely destroyed in Luntai. In this way, the Tiemen Pass was extremely empty, and Zhang Huangyan could definitely quickly take down Guancheng. In this way, he could catch Batu off guard. It's great that Zhang Huangyan made great contributions this time." Liu Yunsheng, the Minister of War, slapped his thigh excitedly.

This breakthrough was really like a sharp knife stabbing directly into Junggar's ribs.

This is a fatal blow.

If the monks cannot attack and defend the gate and have an army of 50,000, even if Zhang Huangyan has artillery and firearms, it will be difficult to quickly take down the Iron Gate Pass. He will have to go through a hard battle and it may take half a month to do so. But now, the Han army can catch Batu off guard.

Some advisers also advised Liu Jun and others to send troops after Zhang Huangyan captured Tiemen Pass.

"When the news came from Tiemen Pass, Batuer had already learned it. If he wanted to run away, we would not be able to stop him. Now is a great opportunity, a good opportunity to surround Batuer. If Batuer and his 100,000 troops can be surrounded, then we can decide to fight and pacify the Western Regions. Once such an opportunity is missed, it will never come again." Liu Jun believed in Zhang Huangyan and was unwilling to miss the opportunity.

Therefore, after receiving the news of the Luntai victory, he immediately led his troops out of seclusion to attack Hami, and he wanted to surround Batu and the main force of Junggar.
Chapter completed!