In the twists and turns, Zhan Donglu described the flood as follows: "The flood is overflowing, and it is more than 100 miles wide. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info the deep ones are extinguished, and the shallow ones are also on horseback. As far as the eye can see, there is a lot of water. ”

Bai Yanhu's hand greatly surprised Zhan Donglu and Liu Jintang, and caused very big trouble to the Western Expeditionary Army:

First, it greatly delayed the advance of the Western Expeditionary Army, especially the artillery, which was almost unable to move. The floodplain was too vast for the sappers of the Xuan army to do so.

Second, and even more serious, this flood washed away most of the heavy grain and straw, and the army of the Western Expedition was originally full of military rations, but in an instant, it faced the dilemma of lack of food.

Without seeing the enemy's trace, without firing a shot, it suffered such a serious loss, since the founding of the Xuan Army, it has never suffered such a major setback, it is truly a great shame!

However, there is no time for Zhan Donglu to beat his chest and feel sorry for himself.

The situation at hand is very urgent.

Bai Yanhu's purpose of coercing the people is obvious: when he arrives in Kuqa and attacks Kuqa City, he wants to put these people in front and force them to take the lead.

This is a very vicious and effective method.

The people of Karasar, for Bai Yanhu, are pure cannon fodder, and they will not care about how much they die, and when they attack the city, the Hui and Kokand people will be driven away with all their strength in the rear, leaving no room for anything.

As far as the militia guarding Kuqa is concerned, this group of people, of the same clan and clan, faces their ragged, unkempt, and crying compatriots -- there are still many old and young women and children -- and it is very difficult for the militia to kill them, and nine times out of ten, their morale will collapse, and Kuqa City will fall with it.

However, knowing that the situation in Kuqa was urgent, the officers and troops were unable to pursue them in a hurry -- the floods were rampant, and it was difficult to move.

Before the army marched into Xinjiang, the iron law of "slow advance and rapid attack" was set, and at no time should the troops stay away from the grain route -- in a place like Xinjiang, once they lost their logistical supplies, even if they had three heads and six arms, they would collapse without a fight!

Of course, supplies could be made from Tuoxun and other places in the rear, but at present, Karasar is a flooded country, and the roads around it are cut off, and in a short time, the vehicles transporting baggage are not passable at all; When the flood waters receded, the roads were restored, the rations were brought in, and the daylilies were cold—the kuqa was lost!

If the Kuqa is lost, it will be beaten down, and the city and land will not be lost; However, the people of Kucha will be greatly poisoned!

Kuqa is not as good as other places, among the eight cities in the south, Kuqa is the only one so far to officially erect the banner of rebellion, raise the city and return to the imperial court, the rebels' revenge on Kucha must be extremely cruel.

Thinking that he was a member of the imperial court, but he couldn't give support and protection to the righteous people anyway, and let them be slaughtered by traitors, Zhan Donglu's eyes were red!

No, no, I can't mess around!

Zhan Donglu tried to collect his mind, and soon, he thought of such a fact:

Karasar is rich in water and grass, rich in ointment, still in Urumqi and Turpan, large households, have grain in stock; Aguba and Haigula operated Karasar, and they must have stored a considerable amount of grain.

Bai Yanhu could never take away all these grains in a hurry; The Karasar has only passed through great waters, not great fires, and these grains -

As soon as he thought of this, Zhan Donglu immediately ordered: After entering the city, dig three feet into the ground and find out the food for me!

Zhan Donglu sent men to block the breach, survey the situation, and then led the army into the city of Karasar.

He reported in his compromises that the city of Karasar at this time was "several feet deep, and the government offices and private houses were empty." All the Uyghurs were coerced and accompanied by Bai Rebellion, and there were survivors who hid in the valley and did not dare to go out. ”

I was sighing, and the good news came: the warehouse where the rebels stored grain was found!

Zhan Donglu is overjoyed, and there is no need to "dig three feet into the ground" at all -- it has been less than an hour since he entered the city!

After counting, the grain stored by the rebels turned out to be hundreds of thousands of catties!

Well, there is no need to go door-to-door to search for the grain of "big households"!

Up and down, they were elated, and the guards came to report, and Taiji on the old Turgot South Road and Taiji on Heshuote Middle Road asked to see Keshuai.

Zhan Donglu was immediately transmitted.

Zhan Donglu word "Ke'an", at this time, he was already called "Keshuai".

In the territory of Karasar, there are two Mongol settlements, one is the Four Banners of the Old Turghut South Road, and the other is the Three Banners of the Middle Road of Heshuot.

Among them, the four banners of the old Turghut South Road are the descendants of the Turghut Khan Wobasi who returned to China from Russia after a thousand hardships and dangers, a hundred deaths, and the return of Turghut from Russia is the new and the old, and the old Turghut, led by Worbasi, is divided into four roads, east, west, north and south, with a total of ten flags; The new Turgot, led by another chieftain, Sheleng, was divided into two banners.

The pasturelands of the old and new Turks are all settled in Xinjiang.

When the Xinjiang rebellion broke out, the Mongols resolutely refused to go against it, and their basic attitude towards the separatist regimes was: if we want to pay a certain amount of taxes, we can; However, if you want us to join your army and fight against the imperial court, we must not.

If they can't do well water without river water, then they have to fight to the death.

The grass-headed kings who seized the power of the Mongols were still quite jealous, and since you were willing to pay taxes, I didn't think much of it, and for several years, the two sides basically maintained a situation of "well water does not interfere with river water".

Therefore, Bai Yanhu fled westward, and did not think of the idea of fighting the Mongols, and all the people he coerced were Uyghurs.

The two Mongolian Taiji, when they saw Zhan Donglu, were very excited, and they all said that they were looking forward to Wang Shi day and night, and Wang Shi was really here! Bai is a great crime, he dug the Kaidu River and flooded Karasar, naturally in order to delay the action of the imperial army, well, our herdsmen, know a few shallow paths, may be able to swim lightly, please Ke Shuai take a look, this, is it helpful to the actions of the army?

Nature helps!

Zhan Donglu comforted the two Taiji, and ordered the engineer company, led by the subordinates of the Mongolian Taiji, to go to the relevant ferry port to investigate on the spot.

At the same time, he ordered that part of the captured grain be distributed to the "Mongolian brothers", and the two Taiji were overjoyed and thanked them repeatedly.

Zhan Donglu asked the Second Mongolian Department to assist the officers and soldiers, recruit and appease the refugees, and the two Taiji naturally agreed.

Soon after, the sappers reported that the conditions of the several ferries identified by the Mongols were quite good, and they could cross the river smoothly by building bridges or swimming crossings.

Zhan Donglu gave an order, immediately rushed to make dry food, rested a little today, and early tomorrow morning, crossed the river to pursue Bai Yi!

The next morning, before leaving, I received a report from Liu Jintang that the situation in Korla was roughly similar to that of Karasar, "all the houses along the way have been burned down, and there are no residents." "When the official army entered Korla," the city was empty, full of devastation, and the embers were still there, and no one was visible. ”

Korla was not as serious as Karasar, but the fire was much more serious than Karasar, so Liu Jintang's luck was not as good as Zhan Donglu, and he did not find edible food, so he could only wait for Karasar's help, and could not continue to march for the time being.

Zhan Donglu and Liu Jintang agreed that the pursuit of Bai Yanhu would be left to the Xuan army alone for the time being, and when the dry food from Karashar was transported to Korla, the old Hunan army would catch up again.

With the assistance of the Mongols, the Xuan army was in a shallow place, reduced its light cavalry, and crossed the turbulent current.

"Reduced light cavalry" means that the artillery stays behind and cannot keep up for the time being.

However, it didn't take long for the reconnaissance cavalry of the Xuan army to catch up with Bai Yanhu's rear guard troops, and found that the rebels were coerced by a large number of people to accompany them, and their movements were very slow.

Zhan Donglu got retribution, put his mind at ease, Kuqa didn't have to worry, but at the same time, he also found that this battle was actually not easy to fight.

The combat power of the traitors is not to be worried, but the following things can be worried: first, they cannot fight head-on, otherwise, the rebels will inevitably force the people to be coerced and placed in front of the battle to act as a "human shield"; Second, even if the first point is avoided, gunfire and bullets rain down, and in the midst of the chaos, the people panic and flee, and it is likely that they will trample on each other, suffering heavy casualties.

If Zhan Donglu doesn't care about the lives and deaths of these people, this battle will naturally be easy to fight, but in this way, how can he be regarded as a "king" who "saves the people's water and fire" and "relieves the people's upside down"?

Before leaving Beijing, Guan Zhuofan repeatedly told that the situation in Xinjiang is quite different from that in Shaanxi and Gansu, and we have a set of practices in Shaanxi and Gansu; In Xinjiang, there has to be a different approach.

*(To be continued.) )