In the 60s of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty, which was in internal and external difficulties, and Tsarist Russia signed the "Treaty on the Survey and Demarcation of the Northwest Boundary".
Outer northwest ceded territory.
Soon after, the Central Asian Khanate of Kokand invaded Xinjiang, nearly causing China to lose the entire north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. Fortunately, Zuo Zongtang and others emphasized the importance of Xinjiang in consolidating the core area of the Central Plains in the court, and then there was the Western Expedition and the return of Xinjiang.
The highway on the shores of Lake Balkhash in the territory of Kazakhstan today.
A family of three drove to Europe, passing through Lake Balkhash and exclamating (from the parallel world of the main of station B).
To this day, many Chinese people have mixed feelings about the short-lived and lost land of the Outer Northwest Region.
Due to the remoteness of Central Asia from the sea, the interior is arid and rainless, and large areas of land are not suitable for farming. More than 4,000 years ago, the nomadic Scythians and Sogdians began to survive tenaciously in the steppe oases of Central Asia.
The high mountains on the windward slopes accumulate a lot of water vapour and slowly release the snow water to the base of the mountain.
Also due to the climate, the windward slopes of the high mountains of Central Asia can receive water vapor from the Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Indian Ocean. The river valleys and basins beneath these mountains have become rare places in Central Asia.
Ili River Valley. 
Fergana Basin.
Amu Darya Basin.
These basins are the treasures of Central Asia nourished by snow-capped mountains, and today they are also the most densely populated areas of Central Asian countries. Among them, the Fergana Basin is the most densely populated region in Central Asia, with a population density similar to that of Anhui, China.
The alpine basins that welcome the water vapor of the Atlantic Ocean give birth to three treasures of Central Asia.
The Outer Northwest of our Chinese impression is actually mainly the area from the lower Ili River Valley to Lake Balkhash. Currently there are 2 3 under the jurisdiction of Kazakhstan.
The Fergana Basin is the most densely populated region of Central Asia, where 1 5 of the population of Central Asia is supported by 1 per cent of the area.
There is also a name for the Outer Northwest"Seven Rivers areaThere are mainly seven rivers that flow into Lake Balkhash, among which the Ili River has the largest flow due to the large amount of fresh water that is injected. The result is that this inland lake is half fresh water and half salt water.
The Ferghana Basin, the Tocharian Basin, the Central Plains Dynasty here only had an impact during the Tang Dynasty and the Western Liao Dynasty. For more than 2,000 years, the Central Plains Dynasty has been connected only to the Qihe region of the Outer Tianshan Mountains.
This is the limit of Chang'an West to 10,000 miles.
Only when the Central Plains Dynasty was strong enough, the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, and the middle of the Qing Dynasty had a strong influence here, but as soon as the Central Plains Dynasty went downhill, it was the first to be abandoned here.
Because of geographical reasons, the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains are the limit of the stable rule of the Central Plains Dynasty, although it is a pity that the outer northwest is lost, but this is also the inevitability of the national strength, China at that time can do its best to keep Xinjiang, and then there is nothing to be done to the west.
The first inhabitants of the Seven Rivers area were the Cypriots, who were later replaced by the Yueshi people. By the time Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian to find the Yueshi people to fight against the Xiongnu, the rulers here had already become Wusun people.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty later married Liu Xijun to the Wusun Kingdom, with the aim of forming an alliance with Wusun. Later, the Han Dynasty occupied the south of the Tianshan Mountains and the west of Wusun. The two sides fought each other against the Xiongnu.
During the Han Dynasty, the outer northwest was ruled by Wusun, an ally of the Han Dynasty, and the two sides formed an anti-Xiongnu alliance.
In 60 BC, the Western Regions Protectorate was established, and Wusun slowly became a vassal state of the Han Dynasty. By the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there were new overlords in the steppe, Rouran and Bada (White Xiongnu), and the Wusun people moved south to the mountains of Afghanistan and disappeared into the long river of history like the previous failed peoples.
In the 6th century AD, the Turks arose, and it became the center of Western Turkic rule.
The Tang Dynasty went further than the Han Dynasty and controlled the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains and the west of the Tianshan Mountains.
After the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, it continued to expand in the Western Regions, and the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains were successively incorporated into the territory of the Tang Dynasty. However, at first, the Seven Rivers region remained under Western Turkic control.
Broken leaves, the most important stronghold of Tang in the Outer Tianshan Mountains.
In 657, the Tang Dynasty defeated the Western Turkic Shabala Khan in the Western Regions and pushed its sphere of influence into the Seven Rivers region. In 679, the Tang Dynasty established a new stronghold in Shaye (present-day Tokmak in Kyrgyzstan) and became one of the four new towns of Anxi.
Crossing the Tianshan Mountains to influence Central Asia was the embodiment of the national strength of the feudal dynasty.
Anxi Army of the Tang Dynasty.
In the Tang Dynasty, Anxi and Beiting had 44,000 field troops, the number of which was the peak of the previous feudal dynasties, and the combat effectiveness was quite strong. At the beginning of the 8th century, he had many tug-of-war with the surrounding Turks and Tibetans.
In the first half of the 8th century, the Seven Rivers region was ruled by the Turgish Khanate. The khanate occupied the Seven Rivers region for a long time and was strong for a while. It was not until 758 that the Turkishes dissolved due to civil strife. At this time, the Tang Dynasty also encountered a turning point in the national fortunes - the Anshi Rebellion, the main force of the Anxi Ting Army returned to the Central Plains, and the Tang Army withdrew from the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. In the late Tang Dynasty, the Qarlu tribe of the Turks replaced the rule of the Turks in the Qihe region.
After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, Central Asia became an arena for various Turkic powers. The two Song Dynasty were overwhelmed by the northern regime all the way to the Yangtze River valley. For Central Asia, Buddhism here gradually declined after the withdrawal of the Central Plains. Various Turkic peoples in Central Asia converted to Islam one after another, and the Sogdian states on the Silk Road dissolved one after another.
The Turks of Central Asia were very imposing, and at first they served as mercenaries for the Byzantines and Arabs. Over time, they rebelled against the guest and established small states in Western Asia. has become a small bully in the Middle East. The Central Asian homeland was also a major leader, and the Indo-European nomads and peasants living in the plains of Central Asia during this time basically spoke Turkic languages.
The Turkic peoples of Central Asia began to ravage their employers.
Only the people in the mountains continue to speak Persian, which is why only Tajikistan and Afghanistan, two mountain countries, speak Persian in the five Central Asian countries today, and Turkic languages are spoken in several other stans.
During this period, the culture of the Central Plains was briefly restored, and it was the Western Liao that was influenced. Yelu Dashi, a Khitan nobleman who was a good student of the Central Plains culture, established a new regime in Central Asia with the dream of recovering the country. In the vicinity of Lake Ixai established the national capital - Husihan Ear.
Although the founders of Western Liao were Khitans, they still implemented the cultural system of the Central Plains.
The Khitans, who were beaten by the Jin State, were invincible in Central Asia, and defeated the Seljuk Sultan Sanga in a battle in the Ferghana Basin, becoming a veritable overlord of Central Asia. Finally, he commanded the Eastern and Western Qarakhanid and the Qocho Uighurs. "Khitan" became the Russian word for "China".
The Khitans defeated the Turks and established themselves as the supremacy of Central Asia.
He also brought with him the Central Plains and the revival of Buddhist culture, and the last Western Liao monarch even engaged in a forced Buddhist conversion movement for a while.
However, the population of the Western Liao was too small, and the Western Liao regime lasted for 90 years before perishing.
The ruins of Shattered Leaf Castle today.
In 1218, the Mongols destroyed the Western Liao Empire, and the lands of the Qihe region came under the control of the Chagatai Khanate. This became the area where the Mongol suzerains competed for their power.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the power of the ** family in the grassland also collapsed. It has become an area where the Moxi Mongols wrestle with the Turks and the Turkic Mongols, in short, it is not peaceful.
The hundred-year-long struggle between the Jungar and Qing dynasties.
In the late Ming Dynasty, when the Jurchens began to rise between the white mountains and black waters, a branch of Moxi Mongolia also rose north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.
The Oirat Mongols established the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th century, which recaptured the Qihe region to the west, the Khalkha Mongols to the east, and Qinghai** to the south. became the strongest enemy in the early and middle Qing Dynasty, and the two sides began a confrontation for more than 100 years.
However, the war potential of the Jungar Khanate was far lower than that of the Qing Dynasty, and every change of leadership of the Khanate was basically not smooth, and every time the new Great Khan ascended the throne, it was a bloody storm. Beginning with the second generation of the Great Khan Zenge, Geldan and Geldan Tse have changed power every time. In order to compete for the throne of the Khan, sons, uncles and nephews always had to fight into a pot of porridge, which further weakened the strength of the Khanate.
The critical moment is civil strife + competition for the throne. The internal leading party of Jungar invited the Qing army into the Tianshan Mountains. In 1755, Qianlong conquered Ili, and after repeated rebellions in Zungar, the Qing army lasted five years to destroy the Dzungar Khanate and eliminate the remnants of the power of Daxiao and Zhuo, and since then the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains and the outer northwest have been included in the territory.
* The people are coming, and the end of all the steppe khans has come.
When the Qing Dynasty destroyed Dzungaria, Kazakhstan and Tsarist Russia also used to fish in troubled waters. However, this period coincided with the recovery of the Qing army's combat strength. The Qing army, from the nobles to the grassroots soldiers, had a strong will to fight and combat effectiveness. Kazakhstan and Tsarist Russia did not take advantage of the slightest.
You can see an example, Qianlong's nephew, Mingrui of the Fucha family, took the initiative to ask for help soon after the war in the northwest began. Participated in the second half of the Pingzhun War, including the Heishui Battalion where the Qing army was besieged, and the final stage of the Qing army's pursuit of Daxiao and Zhuo across the Pamir Plateau, taking the lead all the way.
Qianlong's nephew Fucha. Mingrui held out in the battle of Heishui Camp for more than 100 days, and then led the Qing army to pursue the Hezhuo rebels to the Pamir Plateau, and finally died on the battlefield in Burma.
This was also the last time when the Central Plains Dynasty ruled the Seven Rivers Valley.
After the fall of the Dzungar Khanate, Russia took the opportunity to annex its northern territories. After that, Russia actively expanded in Kazakhstan. Gradually turn the khanates of Central Asia into satrapies.
* The organization and combat effectiveness of the people were far stronger than those of the khanates of Central Asia.
At one time, Kazakhs became a minority in their country.
* For 200 years, people have been infiltrating Kazakhstan for the majority of the Kazakh population, and once it returned to the pre-liberation period, now only a few northern oblasts have a predominantly Russian population.
In 1822, Russia completely occupied Zhongyuz, and in 1847, Russia destroyed Great Yuz and occupied the Qihe region. In 1854, Russia founded the city of Almaty on Seven Rivers, which later became the capital of Kazakhstan for a time. In 1864, Russia and the Qing Dynasty signed the Treaty of the Northwest Boundary, which divided the western border of the two countries and divided the Outer Northwest Region.
Zuo Zongtang regained Xinjiang campaign.
But Russia was not satisfied, and later he supported Kokand in attacking Xinjiang, and himself took the opportunity to occupy Ili. After Zuo Zongtang recovered Xinjiang, Zeng Jize negotiated with Russia, and finally signed the Treaty of Ili, and the Qing Dynasty was able to keep Ili. Today, Ili is China's only major city in the Qihe region.
The Qihe region has been the center of the nomadic khanates of Central Asia since ancient times, but it is difficult for the peoples of Central Asia to establish a very strong ruling state, whether it is Wusun in the Han Dynasty, the Bada in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Chagatai Khanate established by the Mongols, or the Kazakh or Dzungar Khanate in modern times. It was inevitably influenced by other powerful regimes, such as the Arabs or the Central Plains Dynasty. Due to inconvenient transportation and logistical reasons, only powerful dynasties were able to exert influence across the Tien Shan Mountains in ancient times.
Today's China is back, and although we will not expand our territory, it is a bright road and a cause worth paying to integrate a broken Eurasia continent to lead the world in a new direction and bring a happy life to the people of all parts of the continent.