Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 86 Attack Failure
The Chinese Independence Army will join Liu Pu's Chinese troops to rest for a day and launch an exploratory attack on the city of La Paz the next day.

La Paz is located on a high ground at an altitude of 3640 meters. El Alto, not far from La Paz in the north, is a satellite city of La Paz. From El Alto, you can have a bird's eye view of the entire city of La Paz.

El Alto is an important stronghold for guarding La Paz. After Melgarejo's order was issued, Balivian sent additional troops to strengthen the defense of El Alto. Before the Chinese Independence Army began its attack, the number of soldiers defending El Alto reached 5,000, only 3,000 less than the defenders of La Paz.

Under the city of El Alto, the Bolivian defenders set up three lines of defense on the mountainside, preparing to use the steep terrain of the Real Mountains to block the attack of the Chinese Independence Army.

The first line of defense was 400 meters away from the front line of the Chinese position at the foot of the mountain. The Bolivians placed about 500 soldiers on this line of defense.

The Real Mountains are long and steep, and the high elevation angle is not conducive to using heavy artillery to attack the positions on the mountain. If the Chinese Independence Army wants to capture the enemy's defense line, they can only order the soldiers to climb and attack.

At the foot of the mountain, a row of more than 700 Chinese soldiers were ready, and under the leadership of the leading officer, they dispersed and launched an attack on the mountain.

When the Chinese soldiers holding shields approached within a hundred meters of the first line of defense, the Bolivian defenders began to attack with small artillery, firing from top to bottom. The roar of artillery shells continued to sound around the Chinese soldiers. Five or six Chinese soldiers were unfortunately hit by artillery shells and died in the first round of attack.

The team leader hid behind a rock and ordered his soldiers to find cover. After a round of shelling ended, the Chinese soldiers continued to climb up.

The attacking Chinese soldiers were equipped with Dreiser rifles with a range of 600 meters. However, at a distance of 100 meters, the shooting accuracy was very poor, so when facing the artillery attacks of the Bolivian soldiers, the Chinese soldiers did not fight back with their rifles.

The overall quality of Bolivian soldiers was not as good as that of the Peruvian army, let alone the Chinese Independence Army. After a round of shelling, the Bolivian soldiers saw that they had not repelled the attacking Chinese soldiers, so they continued to shell.
It takes a certain time interval for the artillery to fire ammunition. The continuous shelling caused the gun body to overheat. Four guns exploded one after another, injuring more than a dozen Bolivian soldiers next to the artillery.

Four guns burst in succession, and the guns overheated, so the Bolivian defense forces had to stop firing. At this time, the Chinese troops advanced nearly 50 meters and were still more than 50 meters away from the Bolivian position.

The attacking Chinese soldiers encountered a problem at this time. The mountain road ahead was suddenly cut off, and a steep slope nearly two meters high blocked the Chinese soldiers and the Bolivian troops.

With no way to go on either side, the leader of the team gritted his teeth and sent a dozen soldiers to climb up. As a result, the Chinese soldiers were intensively shot by Bolivian soldiers as soon as they climbed up the steep slope. Eight of the thirteen soldiers who climbed up were killed or injured in an instant. The other five soldiers saw that the situation was not right and jumped down in time to avoid the same fate as them.

"Captain, the area above is flat and there is no cover. As soon as our brothers show their heads, they will become sitting ducks for the Bolivians." The Chinese soldier who jumped down reported.

After listening to the soldiers' report, the Chinese commander observed the terrain from the side and said, "Brothers, the terrain above is open. As long as we cross this steep slope, we can kill the enemy. Everyone, work harder. Once we occupy the enemy's position, I will ask for credit for you brothers."

The enemy's defense line was right in front of them, and the officer in charge did not want to give up the opportunity gained by the casualties of more than 30 Chinese soldiers, so he encouraged.

Li Mingyuan and a number of Chinese Independence Army high-ranking officers were watching the battle below. The attacking Chinese soldiers did not want to bring shame to the troops, so they continued their attack with all their might.

The steep slope was difficult to climb. If the soldiers continued to climb up one by one like they did just now, it would not only easily cause heavy casualties, but also make it difficult to capture the enemy's position. So, at the suggestion of the staff, the leading officer cut down small trees on the mountain to make simple slanted wooden boards, and then stepped on the slanted wooden boards to attack forward.

With the help of the inclined planks, the Chinese soldiers quickly climbed up the steep slope. Under the shooting of the Bolivian soldiers, the Chinese soldiers continued to climb the steep slope. Within a few minutes, there were more than 100 Chinese soldiers on the steep slope. The machine gun platoon built positions on the spot to cover the soldiers' attack.

The leading officer stepped onto the steep slope and gave loud commands. Five machine guns were quickly set up on the ground, with two soldiers placing ammunition beside each machine gun and a machine gunner aiming and ready to fire.

"Da da da," five Gatling machine guns fired five lines of fire, and the ammunition shells fell to the ground, making a clinking sound.

The five machine guns limited the Bolivian firepower.
The advancing Chinese soldiers advanced to within twenty meters of the Bolivian position. "Boom boom" a Chinese soldier threw the grenade on his waist and eliminated the three Bolivian soldiers in front of him.

In close combat, the Chinese Independence Army soldiers showed their superiority, using grenades and bayonets to continuously harvest the lives of Bolivian soldiers. Finally, the Bolivian defense line was broken, and many Bolivian soldiers ran out of their positions and ran towards the mountains.

The leading Chinese officer sent half of his soldiers to besiege the Bolivian soldiers in the defense line, and personally led more than 300 Chinese soldiers to chase the fleeing Bolivian soldiers, hoping to break through the Bolivian second line of defense in one fell swoop.

There were more than a hundred Bolivian soldiers who escaped. Chased by the Chinese soldiers, they desperately ran towards the second line of defense set up by their own side.

After chasing for a distance of two hundred meters, more than half of the fleeing Bolivian soldiers were killed, leaving only more than thirty soldiers still running desperately forward.

The Chinese officer in charge was chasing too fast and had already run ahead of the pursuing soldiers, only thirty meters away from the Bolivian deserter.

The leading officer shot and hit a Bolivian soldier. At this moment, he heard the chirping sound of a shell being fired. Without thinking too much, the leading Chinese officer quickly fell to the ground. Then a shell fell less than five meters away from him.

As the first shell landed, dozens of shells fell on the team pursuing the Chinese soldiers within a minute, and more than 500 muskets fired from behind the hidden stone bunkers.

The smoke from the artillery shells enveloped the pursuing Chinese soldiers. Caught off guard, the pursuing Chinese soldiers suffered heavy casualties. Many of the fast-pursuing Chinese soldiers were hit directly in the vitals by the ammunition and fell to the ground.

"Back off, everyone back off."

Realizing that they had fallen into an ambush by the Bolivians, the Chinese officer in charge stood up and shouted loudly, regardless of his own safety.

The leading Chinese officer was at the forefront of the Bolivian shooting. He stood up and shouted, attracting a large number of Bolivian bullets. As a result, he was hit by more than a dozen bullets and became the highest-ranking officer to die since the Chinese Independence Army uprising.

Witnessing the death of their supreme commander, many Chinese soldiers rushed forward to retrieve their commander's body, but not only did they fail to retrieve the body, they also lost their own lives.

The situation was serious. After the Chinese commander of the pursuit force was killed, a battalion commander took over the command of the troops and reluctantly issued a retreat order.

In the ambush in front of the second line of defense, only more than 80 of the more than 300 Chinese soldiers retreated. Including the regiment commander, more than 240 Chinese soldiers were left in front of the position. Except for a small number of people who were captured, most of the Chinese soldiers died on the spot. This battle also became the first disastrous defeat suffered by the Chinese Independence Army.

(End of this chapter)