The Barefooted Flight or also known as the Years of Great Disasters () is a name given to the defeat, indiscriminate attacks on civilians and expulsion of the Kazakhs from Kazakhstan from 1723 to 1725/1727. The expulsion and the indiscriminate attacks on civilians included the Senior Jüz, Middle Jüz and the Junior Jüz, as the Kyrgyz and Karakalpaks. As it was described as the "worst case of nomadic-sedentary relations: steppe pastoralists ravaged the cultivated land of sedentary neighbours".Holzwarth, Wolfgang. "Relations between Uzbek Central Asia, the Great Steppe and Iran, 1700-1750," in Shifts and Drifts in Nomad-Sedentary Relations Edited by Stefan Leder and Bernhard Streck. Wiesbaden, 2005.
Background The death of Tauke Khan in 1718 left the Kazakhs without a recognized leader and plunged them into a succession crisis. Following this, the Kazakhs faced internal rivalries and disputes, while the Dzungar ruler Tsewang Rabtan mobilized his forces for an invasion with the following death of the Kangxi Emperor in 1722, which he had fought against in the Second Dzungar-Qing War. The end of war against the Qing dynasty allowed Tsewang to focus on Kazakhstan, which he made a sudden invasion against them. The Barefooted Flight Tsewang Rabtan and his commanders, such as Lobsangsür invaded the upper reach of the Irtysh river, and attacked the nomadic camps of the Jüz, specifically, the Middle Jüz and the Senior Jüz on 1723. Another major Dzungar army attacked to the Chu, Nura, Shelek and Talas rivers, Balkash Steppe—as they swiftly occupied the regions. This allowed for the invasion of Jetisu and Southern Kazakhstan and sacking their territory. Afterwards, a Kazakh militia fought the Dzungars, in which the Kazakhs were expulsed, a Kazakh militia led by an unknown batyr battled the Dzungar army led by Lobsangsür at the city of Sayram and the Kazakhs were defeated again on Tashkent. This led to its capture and plunder by the Dzungars. The Kazakhs retreated to Khara Murut, where they, again, suffered defeat; the Dzungars sacked the city, following this, they went deep on the Syr Darya, defeating the Kazakhs at Turkistan. The Dzungars then swept through the Fergana Valley, which the Dzungars captured Khujand, Andijan and Samarkand.Suleimenov RB, Moiseev VA From the history of Kazakhstan in the 18th century (about the foreign and domestic policies of Ablai) : [Russian] . — Alma-Ata: Science: Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography named after. CH Valikhanov Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, 1988. - 144 p. 21. They later captured more cities throughout the rivers of Chirchiq, Arys and Borolday, consolidating their occupation.
In national history The Kazakh political activist and historian Mukhamedzhan Tynyshpaev wrote several works which described the Flight. His narrative of the events would later form the basis of Soviet-era and Post-Soviet histories of the event.
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