[5] Starting from the middle of the 17th century, the strategic goal of the Dzungar was to increase their pastoral territories by invading and annexing the lands of neighboring khanates.

An aggressive foreign policy towards Zhetysu and Central Asia aggravated Kazakhstan-Dzhungar relations and often led to military conflicts.

Starting from 1635, Jahangir sultan-Sultan conducted a series of major battles with Dzhungar troops with varying success.

Unlike some Asian peoples who mastered the “arrowed battle”, firearms with wicks and artillery appeared in service of the Dzungar army as early as the end of the 17th century.

For the war with the Kazakhs, the Dzungars purchased weapons and cannons from Russian gunsmiths and even cast them with the help of Swede Johann Gustav Renat, a captured sergeant of Swedish artillery.

In 1640, a notorious kurultai took place, where the Kazakh steppes and rich cities of the Bukhara Khanate were chosen as the next target of the Dzungarian campaigns.

In the winter of 1643, after short preparation, the expeditionary corps of the Dzungars, headed by the new huntaiji Erdeni-Batur, his relative Orchirtu and his brother-in-law Ablai-Taisha [fr], moved to the Kazakh steppes.

Prominent among them was Tursun Muhammad, who, installed by Imam Quli, the Uzbek ruler of Bukhara, proclaimed himself khan at Tashkent (1614–27) while Ishim ruled in Turkestan.

Over the initial stage of invasion into the Ili valley, the Kazakh Khanate began to retreat due to insufficient army size of only several hundred men[2] This relatively small troops were led by lieutenants Salim Karasai Batyr and Nasiruddin Argyntai Batyr, with Jahangir sultan sultan khan as supreme commander.

The Dzungar army, in contrast, was much larger, having stood at an estimated fifty thousand men, led by newly appointed Erdeni Batur[3] Jahangir sultan sultan chose a mountainous place near the Orbulaq river in the southwestern foot slopes of the Dzungarian Alatau as a place of the battle, resulting in the combat being named after it.

Half of the warriors organized field fortifications along the road, and the rest dispersed on the cliffs, thereby preparing an ambush for the Dzungars.

The battle began with an element of surprise - having stumbled upon an ambush of the Kazakhs, the Dzungars immediately initiated attacks on entrenchment.

In this battle, the Kazakhs used firearms en masse for the first time, and during the first hours the Dzungars lost so many soldiers that they were forced to retreat back to the open plain.

Zhalantos Batyr led Bukhara forces, despite significant distance to cover, managed to march right into the battle, entering the valley and hitting the rear of the Dzungars.

It is highly questionable the huge army of the Emir of Samarkand could cover the roughly 900 kilometers from the border of the Bukhara Khanate to Belzhailyau.

The mystery of the battle between the Dzhungar's Erdeni Batur and the Kazakh's Jahangir sultan sultan-Sultan (who later became Khan) lies in the fact that no one knows where exactly it happened.

For the Dzhungar, the Chinese front was the primary one and the most bloody battles took place there, and it was there that the life and death of Dzhungaria was decided.

Jahangir sultan-Sultan demonstrated the effectiveness of the new combat tactics of salvo firing from guns by foot soldiers.

In tactical terms, the battle in Orbulaq demonstrated the ability of the Kazakh clans to join forces in the face of external threats.