Dominate the Country

Querétaro is one of the oldest cities in American history. It appeared on this fertile land as early as 500 years ago, decades earlier than Mexico City's predecessor, Tenochtitlan. After the Spanish colonists occupied this ancient Indian city, they built a city with a strong Spanish style on the ruins of Indian civilization and named it Querétaro.

The geographical location of this city is very critical. It is a transportation hub from Mexico City to the north and west. Because of the geographical terrain, it is not easy to build a smooth road in this era. Mexico City is located in the valley of the central and southern plateau of Mexico. In this era of backward technology, it is not easy to build a road directly from Mexico City to the west.

Then you can only extend north to Querétaro, more than 400 miles away, and then go west from Querétaro, and finally come to Manzanillo on the seaside.

Another avenue in Querétaro goes straight north, all the way to the war zone.

The importance of the city's geographical location can be seen from this.

If the expeditionary force only wanted to cut off the logistical supply line of the Spanish colonial army on the front line, it would actually be enough to just occupy Querétaro.

——The Spaniards really tried their best to withdraw all the troops in Mexico City. Now there is only a cavalry unit of several hundred people left in Mexico City to suppress the situation, and the remaining troops have all gone to Querétaro.

But Mexico City is south of Querétaro, and there is a smooth road in the middle without any obstacles. No one would not eat a big piece of fat meat in front of them.

The expeditionary force that attacked Manzanillo, the Indian armed coalition, has now reached the outskirts of Querétaro. This is a real decisive battle. Mexico City has assembled all the troops in its hands, some of which were urgently transferred back from the West Indies. The Spanish colonial army on the front line has been ordered to withdraw. Of course, the expeditionary force opposite them is desperately holding them back, but many of the Spanish colonial army's troops have still withdrawn from the front line. This is the message conveyed by the Mexicans, so the coalition does not have too much time, and they must hurry up.

"Boom..."

"Boom..."

Balls of exploding flames exploded on the Spanish colonial army's position. The breast wall collapsed, and the earth and rocks flew. But for the Spanish colonial soldiers hidden deep in the trenches, the lethality was far less powerful than it seemed.

It was September of the year 1783 in the Western calendar. After the coalition attacked Manzanillo, it successively conquered Guadalajara, Hidalgo, Irapuato, and Leon. The Indians in the team played a big role. These Indians were eager for revenge. They fought desperately in the war and killed their opponents without mercy!

In addition to these four hard fights with the Spanish colonial army, many small towns along the way of the coalition were like a peaceful evolution.

Many Indians supported the coalition because they had their people in the coalition, and many Mexicans also chose to be "neutral". After secret negotiations with the expeditionary force, these people paid a certain price, but also took the opportunity to turn their armed forces into real militias.

This is a big risk for the coalition forces. These militias are now "neutral", but if the coalition offensive is frustrated, they may turn into real Spanish militias.

But for the expeditionary army, what else can they do if they don't do this?

Destroy them?

This will push the Mexicans who tend to the expeditionary army to the Spanish side. These big estate owners are like local tyrants, and their strength cannot be underestimated. Otherwise, the Spanish Bourbon royal family would not regard them as thorns in the eyes.

Therefore, the expeditionary army can only choose to default.

The whole situation is a bit like the fortresses in the early history of northern China. In fact, they are small local tyrants with their own land, labor and military force. The owner of each fortress is not powerful alone, but all the fortresses together are a powerful force.

When wars broke out between dynasties in northern China, these fortresses maintained a "neutral" posture with the power in their hands, and when one side touched their interests, these people might quickly stand on the opposite side of the enemy in order to protect their rights.

In Mexico, the big estate owners are the owners of the forts, and the estates are the forts.

The expeditionary force's adventurous decision really won the hearts of the Mexicans. These Mexicans have forgotten the "possible threat" of the expeditionary force, and only remember the fierce contradictions between themselves and the Spaniards. Everything has become "willing"!

Even in the big city of Guanajuato, the local Mexican leaders and local militias chose to "surrender" without firing a single shot in a battalion sent by the expeditionary force. So that the expeditionary force successfully took away 100 metric tons of corn, sorghum, potatoes and other grains from Guanajuato, as well as more than a thousand cattle and horses, 100,000 Eagle Dollars, and a large amount of military supplies.

Then Guanajuato, a city located north of Querétaro, was handed over to the local militia for "self-defense" by the expeditionary force.

They can safely report to Mexico City that the counterattack of the local militia defeated the Chen Han expeditionary force that entered the city and successfully recaptured the city. If this battle report can still be sent to Mexico City through the ‘battlefield’.

“Kill…”

Seeing that the expeditionary army's cannons and rockets suppressed the Spanish colonial army. Seeing that the Spanish colonial army's positions outside Querétaro were blown up like a scorched earth by shrapnel and rockets, the Indian armed forces in the coalition became excited. Lu Long, the commander-in-chief of the coalition, signaled to the Indians on the side, and several leaders walked to the front of the Indian armed forces with high spirits, waving sabers and spears, shouting "freedom, freedom", which instantly made the Indian armed forces' already high morale and fighting spirit explode.

"Kill..." More than a thousand young Indians shouted and shouted forward.

Behind them, there were a large number of Indian armed soldiers who fought with the expeditionary army but were not selected, looking at them with envy.

These Indians were like the Eight Banners survivors north of the Amur River, with indelible hatred in their hearts. Their hatred for the Spanish colonial army was as irreconcilable as the Eight Banners immigrants' deep hatred for Chen Ming.

Therefore, they performed exceptionally bravely on the battlefield.

Although these Indian armed soldiers and leaders knew that the expeditionary army took them in and supported them just to let them fight in the front on the battlefield, and to use their lives as cannon fodder, it was impossible for them to say that they didn't care at all. But they were also willing to bear this sacrifice and be used in this way.

- Just to get revenge on the Spaniards.

This was entirely due to their hatred for the Spaniards in their hearts.

Seeing that the hundreds of cannons and countless rockets of the expeditionary army were constantly bombarding the Spaniards, bombing the front positions of the Spanish colonial army under the city into a mess, the dissatisfaction of many Indian armed leaders also disappeared. They thought that the Spanish colonial army would suffer heavy losses in such fierce artillery fire, and their charge would be a pure massacre.

When the Indian armed forces in the coalition launched a charge, the expeditionary army's cannons were still booming. When the Indian armed soldiers were still two or three hundred meters away from the front positions of the Spanish colonial army, the booming of the expeditionary army's cannons continued. The expeditionary artillery suddenly stopped firing until the Indian armed soldiers were a hundred meters away from the front line of the Spanish colonial army.

The Spanish commander in Querétaro was jealous of the quality of the expeditionary artillery. This is the foundation of a military power, an elite forged in wars, and it is really not something that other countries can catch up with with just a casual effort.

When the expeditionary artillery fire died down, the soldiers at the front line of the Spanish colonial army, who had been prepared, climbed up from the bottom of the trenches and crawled out of the anti-gun holes, aiming their muskets at the Indian armed forces that were washed over like a tide on the opposite side.

A group of Indian rabble, they were unwilling to waste rockets. The latter were to be used on the Chinese.

"Boom boom boom..."

The Spanish artillery on the position fired shotgun shells.

"Bang——"

"Bang——"

"Bang——"

Three veteran companies led three new recruit companies, with 700 to 800 infantrymen. Except for the soldiers injured in the bombardment, three neat volleys of fire made the brown-black tide of the Indian armed forces that were about to rush in like a tide suddenly stop. It was like encountering an invisible wall, the violent impact momentum stopped, and the entire "Sharp" was directly gone.

More than a quarter of the more than a thousand Indian armed forces who charged fell in an instant. Looking at the group of their own people who fell in front of them, the remaining Indian armed forces were dumbfounded.

The flintlock rifle can fire two rounds per minute, and a small number of elite shooters can do three rounds. There are not many soldiers in the entire Spanish colonial army who can reach this level on the battlefield, but for most soldiers, it is not a problem to fire one round per minute on the battlefield.

The six companies on the front line of the Spanish colonial army are arranged in three rows. That means that there will be a wave of bullets every twenty seconds. When the third volley ended, ten seconds had passed.

The Indians didn't have much time to be stupid. If they could keep charging forward heroically, they should be able to rush to the position before the Spanish fired a new round of volleys, but they were just stupid, and they were frightened by the explosion of the grenade thrown by the colonial army right after the volley. After the stupidity ended, they stupidly fired their muskets, which delayed some time, so they could only bear the second round of shooting tragically.

Lu Long was so angry that he wanted to curse at his mother on the position. This group of Indians really didn't learn from their mistakes. They had learned such a lesson in the previous battle. What did the instructor say? Keep charging forward, keep charging forward, but they learned to lie down and crawl to avoid artillery fire quickly, but they were too slow to learn to keep charging forward.

This kind of scene would appear in any of the four previous tough battles.

They didn't dare to attack, they wanted to retreat but didn't retreat, and they couldn't form an array to shoot, so they could only eat bullets.

More than a thousand Indian armed forces were crushed and defeated. The most aggressive of them were still 20 to 30 meters away from the front trenches.

Lu Long frowned without even frowning. He had long known that the Spanish colonial army was difficult to deal with, so he charged with Indian armed forces just to test the firepower arrangement of the opponent's position!

Look at the locations where the artillery erupted, which places will be the key areas for artillery bombardment later...

Now the Spanish are short of artillery power, but they have a lot of rockets, but they have been defeated in succession and lost a large number of artillery. Now it is difficult to mobilize firepower comparable to the expeditionary force to come to Queretaro.

As for how many people died from the Indian armed forces? What the hell! Even if all the people are dead, you can't bite off a single hair on him!

"Commander-in-Chief, let us go up. With our strength, the Spaniards will not be our opponents."

The speaker was an officer of the Guards. As the right colonel, the team he led was just a team, but the guns equipped by the soldiers in this team were all rifled guns, although they were not the most advanced Mini rifles. , but a team of rifle shooters, if used well, can definitely cause a lot of trouble for the Spaniards.

Following the second batch of dispatched troops to the Royal Guards in North America, most of the soldiers were no longer holding old-fashioned flintlock guns, but turned into percussion cap guns. The latter has begun to equip troops on a large scale. , although its performance is not much better than that of a flintlock gun.

Lu Long did not order the imperial guards and dispatched troops to attack immediately. Lulong, who had rich combat experience, knew very well how difficult it would be to eliminate the Spanish colonial army with the advantages of trenches and parapets.

Breastworks and trenches would negate any advantage. It was a waste of time to use riflemen against the Spaniards hiding in the trenches and behind parapets. "The artillery bombardment continued and destroyed all the fortifications on the Spanish position."

Lu Long's eyes were cautious.

As the commander-in-chief of this army, he not only pursues victory in the battle, not only thinks about the lives of his soldiers, but also considers the overall situation in a unified manner.

The current situation is that the Spanish reinforcements are coming back soon, and he must solve Queretaro before then and open the door to attack Mexico City.

So he can't waste time. Lu Long was not prepared to take this risk.

In Queretarone, the Spanish commander looked at the expeditionary force that continued to 'vigorously' with a slightly raised eyebrow. Instead of continuing to send troops to attack, they chose to continue the bombardment!

What's going on?

Don’t these Chinese look down on the Spanish colonial army and Spain? Why don't you attack immediately? Don't they know that the Spanish troops on the front line are quickly turning back?

But Lulong did not attack, and the Spanish commander had nothing to do. I had no choice but to send an order to withdraw three companies from the forward position, pay attention to protecting the artillery, and then watch the expeditionary force fire artillery.

Bombs exploded on the battlefield, dust and sand flew...

The Spaniards may be rotten as a whole, but that doesn't mean there aren't smart people among them. From the war that lasted more than a year, the Spaniards clearly saw the negative response of the Mexicans. Although these people did not explicitly hinder the Spanish colonial authorities, the things they did were also faintly challenging the colonial authorities. The bottom line of the authorities.

Under such circumstances, even Zhuang would not believe it if these people would not flirt with the Chinese.

Just imagine the Chinese goods that have appeared in the Mexican market in recent years. Smuggling ships in the Gulf of California should not be too rampant. In this case, the Spaniards certainly have the ability to use some true and false intelligence to confuse the expeditionary force.

And this is not considered false information.

It’s just that the Spaniards, who had been defeated repeatedly, also dispatched some troops from the West Indies, including some French...