Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 85 Follow-up Troops
After the negotiations with the Bolivian army failed, the Chinese Independence Army had no choice but to join forces with the Indians and fight against the Bolivian army.

The long route was difficult to travel, and the heavy artillery needed for the siege was attached to the artillery brigade at the back.

Li Mingyuan led the vanguard troops to station near the Aymara village, waiting for the arrival of the artillery brigade.

During the days of waiting for the follow-up troops to join forces, Li Mingyuan and the Aymara people agreed to jointly deal with the Bolivian army, and the Aymara people also sent a large number of personnel to contact Indians from other tribes, persuading them to unite to fight against Melgarejo's army.

It had only been two years since the Indian uprising of 1866, and the Indians in Bolivia still had vivid memories of the tragic experience. Now that someone had offered to lend a helping hand, providing weapons and promising to jointly fight against the Melgarejo regime, they were of course happy to agree.

There is no conflict of interest between the Chinese Independence Army and the Indians. The Indians want to take back their land, while the Chinese Independence Army just wants to pass through Bolivia safely.

The Indians did not have to worry about the Chinese independence army snatching their land after the uprising was successful. Therefore, the two sides reached a consensus without a long period of wrangling.
The Indians in La Paz Province were the first to arrive at the Chinese Independence Army’s base and receive weapons allocated to them by the Chinese Independence Army.

During the four days of negotiations, a total of fifteen Indian groups gathered at the Chinese Independence Army’s base, totaling 5,000 people.

There were 700 muskets seized from the Bolivian soldiers. After deducting the 200 that were handed over to the Aymara people, there were still 500 left. There was no way 500 muskets were enough to be divided among 5,000 Indians.

Therefore, Li Mingyuan ordered the cavalry brigade to be divided into three units based on regiments to attack and capture the small towns in La Paz Province. The big city of La Paz was difficult to break through without heavy artillery, but the other small towns did not require such a complicated attack. Often, the Chinese cavalry would rush into the city with a rapid charge or surround the city and fire their guns, and the Bolivian soldiers defending the small town would then surrender voluntarily.

South America is sparsely populated. Except for some strategic locations, other small cities have low walls and some even have no wall protection. Therefore, the Chinese cavalry achieved great results. Within a few days, they captured nine small cities and seized 1,500 muskets.

Fifteen hundred plus the remaining five hundred made a total of two thousand muskets, enough to arm two thousand Indian soldiers.

Two thousand Indian musketeers are a large number, and Li Mingyuan does not plan to continue expanding the size of the Indian musketeers because the main force fighting against Bolivia is the Chinese Independence Army, and the purpose of winning over the Indians is to appease the locals and let them provide stable logistical support for the Chinese Independence Army.

Inside the military tent, Li Mingyuan stood in front of the map and carefully examined the terrain near La Paz.

La Paz is located in the La Paz River Valley in the east of the Bolivian Plateau. It is surrounded by plateaus in the southwest, mountains in the southeast, tropical river valleys in the east, and rainforests on the edge of the Amazon River in the north. La Paz is a typical mountain city, surrounded by mountains, which is easy to defend but difficult to attack.

Moreover, La Paz is located at the intersection of the Peruvian Plains and the Bolivian Plateau. The high altitude will have a certain impact on the operations of the Chinese Independence Army that has just entered the plateau area.

Li Mingyuan stared at the city of La Paz for a long time, thinking about how to attack the city.

Because La Paz is located at a high altitude and the roads are difficult to travel, it is very difficult to attack the city with artillery.
During the days that the Chinese Independence Army stayed, the garrisons from various cities in La Paz Province and the reinforcements sent by Melgarejo have arrived in La Paz. According to reports from Indians who had gathered information, the total number of garrison troops in La Paz exceeded 10,000, and in two days, Melgarejo would personally lead 10,000 Bolivian troops to reinforce.

By then, it will be even more difficult for the Chinese Independence Army to capture La Paz.

It is theoretically feasible for the Chinese Independence Army's field troops to advance directly into the heart of Bolivia without attacking the city of La Paz. However, in this case, the subsequent large force of 90,000 people carrying a large amount of supplies would encounter obstacles.

The 90,000-strong Chinese army is not as strong as the main force of the field army, and is burdened by a large amount of supplies. Once they are entangled by the army in the city of La Paz, it will bring very bad consequences.

Li Mingyuan had no intention of leaving the problem to the follow-up troops. In his plan, the city of La Paz must be captured, otherwise the Chinese Independence Army's movement across Bolivia would be full of difficulties.

The easiest way to break through a fortress is from the inside. In order to break through La Paz, Li Mingyuan selected 100 Indian soldiers and infiltrated the city of La Paz, preparing to assist the Chinese Independence Army in breaking through the city at the critical moment of the siege. The follow-up large force set out one day earlier than the main force of the Chinese Field Army, but because of the disabled soldiers and a large amount of supplies in the team, they followed behind the field army.
The field army troops stayed near La Paz for four days, and the distance between the follow-up troops and the field army gradually shortened. According to a letter from Liu Pu, who was in charge of the follow-up troops' affairs, the front of the follow-up troops was less than 30 miles away from where Li Mingyuan was, and the two troops would be able to meet in one day.

In the letter, Liu Pu reported to Li Mingyuan some problems encountered during the transfer process.

After setting out from Arequipa, the subsequent Chinese troops first arrived at the city of Puno, and then headed towards Bolivia along Lake Titicaca.

Because the field army led the way, the follow-up troops were safe and sound during the initial stage of the transition, and did not encounter any difficult problems.

However, when they reached the end of Lake Titicaca, about 70 to 80 miles from the Bolivian border, the follow-up troops entered a densely forested area.

The roads were difficult to travel in the deep mountains and forests. Even with the marks left by the field army, the advance speed of the follow-up troops was greatly slowed down, from 60 miles a day at the beginning to less than 30 miles a day.

Due to the influence of the terrain, although there are no strange venomous snakes and ferocious beasts in the mountains and forests on the border between Peru and Bolivia like in the tropical forests, the high-altitude mountains and forests still cause great difficulties for the advancing follow-up troops.

Food, gunpowder, and artillery needed to be pulled by horse-drawn carriages and a large number of people to move forward. In order to transport these important weapons and supplies out of the mountains, Liu Pu dispatched 5,000 Chinese soldiers to level the mountain roads and build simple bridges across the river.

Then the healthy Chinese were divided into three groups, who took turns to transport supplies.

It took the follow-up Chinese troops eighteen days to walk several hundred miles from Arequipa. During these eighteen days, one hundred people fell into the mountains and died, twenty-four people fell into the water and died, and ninety-one people were attacked by Indians living on the shores of Lake Titicaca, of whom forty-five died.

The Indians around Lake Titicaca were tribes that fled the rule of the Inca Empire. They lived on islands in the lake and had no contact with the outside world. Therefore, they showed great hostility towards the incoming Chinese troops.

The attacks by the Indians in Lake Titicaca greatly delayed the Chinese troops' transfer process. Later, Liu Pu sent a regiment of Chinese soldiers to capture five Indian villages in one fell swoop and executed more than 120 Indians who attacked the Chinese. Only then did they frighten them and dare not attack the Chinese troops again.

When Liu Pu wrote the letter, the follow-up troops lost 169 people due to various reasons during their transfer into Bolivia. Among them, in addition to Chinese who died in accidents and Indian attacks, the rest were elderly and weak Chinese who died of injuries and illnesses.

The loss of four hundred Chinese was not a small amount. In his letter, Liu Pu admitted his mistake to Li Mingyuan and attributed the loss of the Chinese to his own mishandling.

After reading the letter, Li Mingyuan sighed. It was his decision to move to Brazil, and he had anticipated the losses suffered by the Chinese. However, when he saw the number of casualties of the Chinese Independence Army, he couldn't help but feel sad.

The field army was lightly equipped and did not spend much time crossing the coast of Lake Titicaca. Moreover, because the field army was some distance away from Lake Titicaca during its march, it did not encounter attacks from the Indians living on the small islands on the lake.

However, the follow-up troops were attacked by Indians, which Li Mingyuan had not expected.

Li Mingyuan wrote back to Liu Pu, advising him that the loss of Chinese soldiers during the transition was inevitable, and that only when the Chinese Independence Army successfully established a country in southern Brazil could they justify the deaths of Chinese soldiers. What needed to be done now was to improve the security protection system during the transition and minimize the casualties of Chinese soldiers.

After writing the letter, Li Mingyuan breathed a sigh of relief and ordered the messenger to deliver the letter.

(End of this chapter)