Chapter 1227: Time to Screw Over Our Allies! (Please Subscribe)

When Zhu Cilang was mulling over sending his younger brother Zhu Cixuan to India to test Princess Nisha on mathematics and philosophy, Princess Nisha was still in Samarkand in Central Asia, together with her father Aurangzeb!

During this period Aurangzeb was still playing the Great Emperor, and had even declared war on the Dzungar Kingdom. The declaration of war against the Dzungars had hit a small snag, because the Dzungar Kingdom did not know India's customs — they had neither thrown away the slipper nor killed the elephant. Instead, they had "express-delivered" the slipper to Yingtian, and led the elephant off to be raised at the lamasery inside the Stone Fort royal city.

When Shaysta Khan went back and reported, Aurangzeb was also baffled — what was the meaning of this? They had taken both the slipper and the elephant, so was this war or not? So he sent people to ask again, and it was not until the summer of 1665 was nearly over that the situation was finally clarified. It turned out the Dzungars had already been scorching the earth and preparing to meet the Timurid Empire's attack.

Upon learning this news, Aurangzeb finally breathed a huge sigh of relief.

What he feared least was the Dzungar Kingdom scorching the earth. Although he also knew that the Dzungars' bastion forts were all very hard to attack, he had never intended to attack them at all!

Sengge defended his cities, and he, Aurangzeb, would also defend his cities. You don't move, I don't move — how wonderful it would be for everyone to fight a sitting war!

So Aurangzeb did not march south to Termez, but continued training his army in Samarkand while waiting for the armies of Persia, the Turkmen, and the Khanate of Khiva to arrive.

According to the advance route worked out through discussions between Aurangzeb and the envoys of Persia, Khiva, Russia, the Turkmen, and the Kazakhs, the six-party allied force would be divided into a northern route and a southern route. The northern route would be the responsibility of the Russian-Kazakh allied force, with the objectives of attacking the Middle Jüz and the Great Jüz.

The southern army would be the four-party allied force of Timurid, Persia, Khiva, and the Turkmen. It would first complete its assembly in the Samarkand oasis, then march out after the autumn harvest and push north toward the Syr Darya river valley.

The reason for choosing to march after the autumn harvest was, of course, to gather enough grain from the Samarkand oasis and the Khwarezm oasis to support an army of over a hundred thousand in waging war.

Because the important grain-producing areas of Transoxiana were in the hands of the Dzungar Kingdom, the first difficulty the anti-Dzungar coalition encountered was a shortage of grain.

Although the Khwarezm oasis held by the Khanate of Khiva was very large and could produce a fair amount of grain, transporting grain from the Khwarezm oasis to the Samarkand oasis was not easy. It had to go first by the Amu Darya water route, and then overland.

In order to transport grain smoothly, the shipwrights of the Khanate of Khiva had been busy all summer building vessels, but even by early autumn they had not completed all the ships needed for grain transport.

When autumn arrived, Anusha Khan, the khan of the Khanate of Khiva, who had personally led troops to the Samarkand oasis, quarreled with Aurangzeb over the timing of the march. Anusha Khan hoped to advance as soon as possible; he believed that as long as the army could occupy the Fergana Basin, the grain shortage problem would be completely solved.

Aurangzeb, however, believed they should wait for the grain from the Khwarezm oasis to arrive, and then advance steadily and surely — that was the more prudent course.

But by September 10th of the Western calendar, the quarrel between the two monarchs was brought to an end by news that neither of them had expected — the Dzungar Kingdom had marched!

According to the intelligence that came back, the Dzungars had launched a massive offensive this time, personally commanded by their king Sengge, heading straight for the Samarkand oasis!

Within the magnificent and majestic palace of Samarkand, the Great Emperor of the Timurid Empire, dressed in a pure white robe with a pure white turban wrapped around his head, sat upon a throne said to have once been sat upon by Timur himself. Expressionless, he was listening to a report on the front-line military situation from Mirza Raja Jai Singh, the most valiant general of the Timurid Empire, his face covered by a great beard.

Anusha Khan, khan of the Khanate of Khiva, and his son Prince Alim, General Khalifa of the Persian Empire, the Russian envoy Lev Golovin, and several Turkmen tribal chieftains watched the scene before them, all frowning slightly.

The emperor of a great Islamic empire, and the general who could fight best under his command was actually a Hindu!

This Hindu spoke a highly Persianized Urdu, which no one could understand except the civil and military officials Aurangzeb had brought from India, and General Khalifa of the Persian Empire. However, Aurangzeb had arranged interpreters for all the visitors, so that they could understand the situation of the Dzungar army's southward advance.

"According to reconnaissance by the New Army cavalry, the Dzungar army set out from the guard city on the left bank of the Syr Darya, carrying large quantities of baggage and artillery. They have already crossed the Hungry Steppe and entered the oasis north of the Jizzakh Pass. Their numbers are very large, estimated at around 10."

"Our army, meanwhile, has deployed south of the Jizzakh Pass, blocking the route the Dzungar army must take to advance south. The two armies now face each other across the Turkestan Mountains, and the front remains calm for the time being."

The Turkestan Mountains are an east-west mountain range lying across the north of the Samarkand oasis, separating Samarkand from the Hungry Steppe. However, this range, five or six hundred li long, is not some impassable natural barrier. There are many passes along it, and if they divided their forces to hold each pass, the coalition troops concentrated at Samarkand would be scattered. And if they did not hold all those passes, the Dzungar cavalry would charge through them into the Samarkand oasis — and the autumn harvest was imminent, with the fields of the Samarkand oasis full of wheat about to ripen! If the Dzungars were allowed to ruin it, where would the hundred thousand-plus coalition troops concentrated at Samarkand, the two or three hundred thousand head of large livestock, the refugees numbering as many as a million, and the countless oasis inhabitants find food?

The Great Emperor Aurangzeb swept his sharp gaze around the great hall, taking in the anxious expressions of the two Uzbeks, Anusha Khan and Prince Alim.

Among the coalition leaders gathered in the Samarkand palace, those two were the least able to keep their composure.

The Russians' and Kazakhs' battlefields were in Siberia and the Middle Jüz — they would be only too glad for the Dzungar main force to penetrate deep into the Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khwarezm oases!

The Persians and Turkmen were not in much of a hurry either. The reason Abbas II had sent troops into Transoxiana was fear of a repeat of Hulegu's conquest. But after a period of observation, the Persians had discovered that the Dzungars were not traditional Mongols, but semi-settled, semi-nomadic Mongols who had also absorbed Western military technology transmitted from the Great Ming. Their military strength was similar to Persia's Ghulam New Army and Russia's Cossacks.

Such an army, though formidable, did not pose a particularly great threat to the Persian Safavid dynasty, which possessed the Ghulam New Army.

So if the fighting here at Samarkand could not be sustained, they could at worst retreat across the Black Desert.

And the Turkmen who had come from the oases south of the Black Desert cared only about Aurangzeb's silver rupees. If they had the chance, they would also like to do a bit of plundering in the Samarkand oasis.

Aurangzeb was even less anxious — running out of grain and withdrawing the army was a fine way to step down! As long as he could lead a few hundred thousand people back to India from Samarkand, then unifying India would no longer be a dream!

"We should let the Dzungars come into the Samarkand oasis and fight them there!" Anusha Khan of the Khanate of Khiva indeed could not hold back. Before Mirza Raja Jai Singh had even finished speaking, he shouted, "The warriors now concentrated at Samarkand number as many as 150,000, while the enemy has at most 100,000. Our numerical superiority is obvious, so we should seek a decisive battle immediately!

Moreover, we have the strong city of Samarkand behind us to fall back on. Even if the decisive battle goes badly, we can retreat and hold the citadel, then send cavalry around to the Hungry Steppe to cut the Dzungars' grain route and force them to withdraw."

General Khalifa of the Persian Empire also agreed with drawing the Dzungars into the Samarkand oasis, but he did not want a fight to the death; he wanted to fight a clever battle. He said: "I suggest drawing the Dzungars into the Samarkand oasis, then holding them in a standoff, and then sending the elite Red Head troops and Turkmen cavalry over the Turkestan Mountains by small paths to strike behind the Dzungars, and then attacking from both sides to rout King Sengge's army in one blow!"

Aurangzeb looked again at Anusha Khan. The khan of the Khanate of Khiva thought for a moment and said: "General Khalifa's plan is workable. However, the flanking maneuver around the Hungry Steppe does not require the Red Head troops — the Turkmen alone will suffice. Your Majesty Alamgir, what do you say?"