While Feyanku Marched To
Encounter Galdan Wherever He Should Find Him, The Ministers And Courtiers
At Pekin Made A Strenuous Effort To Prevent Kanghi Taking The Field In
Person, Expatiating On The Dangers Of A War In The Desert, And Of The Loss
To The Empire If Anything Happened To Him.
But Kanghi, while thanking them
for their solicitude, was not to be deterred from his purpose.
He led his
army by a parallel route to that pursued by Feyanku across the Gobi Desert
to Kobdo, where Galdan had established his headquarters. The details of
the march are fully described by the Roman Catholic priest, Gerbillon, in
his interesting narrative. They reveal the difficulties of the enterprise
as well as its success. Some detachments of the Chinese army were
compelled to beat a retreat, but the main body succeeded in making its way
to the valley of the Kerulon, where some supplies could be obtained.
Feyanku's corps, when it reached the neighborhood of the modern Ourga, was
reduced to an effective strength of 10,000 men, and of Sapsu's army only
2,000 ever reached the scene of operations, and they formed a junction
with the force under Feyanku. But Galdan did not possess the military
strength to take any advantage of the enfeebled state in which the Chinese
armies reached his neighborhood. He abandoned camp after camp, and sought
to make good his position by establishing an empty alliance with the
Russians in Siberia, from whom he asked 60,000 troops to consummate the
conquest of China.
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