Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 625 Two Attacks on Chiloe Island

On the last day of September 1647, the heavy rain over the Channel had just stopped.On the beach outside Chachao Harbor, a large group of soldiers wearing khaki military uniforms, large caps, and cowhide military boots were holding up their bayonet-mounted rifles, jumping out of small boats like dumplings, and then stepped on The knee-high sea water formed a small team and moved quickly towards the shore.

There were a few small bronze cannons on the shore firing towards the sea one after another, but this was almost meaningless in front of thousands of soldiers on the east coast who landed quickly. More than 300 Kelandi people armed with standard spears and sabers on the east coast quickly rushed towards the enemy's fort under the command of the east bank officer. One-third of the ransom collected from the hands of the people will go to them alone, and this successfully arouses their fighting enthusiasm.

The Spaniard's fort had been bombarded by three large warships on the east coast before, and three artillery pieces were blown up. Of course, they also successfully damaged the flagship of the Pacific Temporary Task Force on the east coast and forced it to give up. Instead of directly blowing up the fort, they sent the army to land and try to occupy it.

The Spanish soldiers guarding the fort were condescending and fired a volley of muskets. Seven or eight of the Kelandi who were rushing upwards were knocked down, and the rest of the pace suddenly slowed down, but at this time they couldn't help themselves, because More companions were embracing forward with spears held high, they could only bite the bullet and continue to charge forward.

The Spaniards took out a small 6-pound cannon. After charging and reloading, dense grape shells were fired from the muzzle, causing more than 20 casualties among the turbulent army crowd on the east bank.The Kelandi people who were rushing forward were a little scared, so they rushed towards the bushes on both sides of the road, and under the bushes was a steep hillside, which was extremely slippery after the rain. Many Kelandi servant soldiers screamed and fell down. go down.

"The mob!" Xie Hansan, who was the commander-in-chief of the army's former enemy, put down the binoculars hanging on his chest, then pulled out the shiny command knife from his waist, pointed at the position of the Spanish fort, and said, "Go and inform Bianchi ( Crandy Volunteer Leader), tell him that if he can’t take down the fort within an hour, then pack up his mother’s stuff and go back to the muddy water in Santa Fe and roll with the Spaniards! Want to come to Chile, Chalkas and Peru to make a fortune, no It’s not okay to do something!”

After the orderer repeated the order correctly and went to deliver the order, Xie Hansan looked at the beachhead again, where two companies of soldiers from the east bank had already landed and lined up, and a large number of small boats by the sea were full of follow-up troops and supplies. Paddle to the beach.

"Tell Malecki (the leader of the Polish mercenary army) that after the troops are assembled, they will go out to attack Chakao City, and the second battery of the artillery will cooperate with their actions. In addition, Vicente's Araucan Liberation Army will cooperate with the Tatar cavalry to start Occupy the traffic points outside the city, and strictly prevent the enemy reinforcements from attacking or the enemy in the city retreating." Xie Hansan gave orders in an orderly manner. In his arrangement, the troops used were almost all servants and mercenaries, and the troops from the east bank were mostly Still waiting near the beach, as the general reserve team.From here we can clearly see that his combat strategy is to consume the servants and mercenaries who have no regrets, minimize the casualties of the direct line troops on the east bank, and at the same time achieve his own strategic goals.

Although Chacao was the capital of the Spanish colony on Chiloe Island, after the Araucan uprising against Spanish rule broke out on the island more than ten years ago (1633-1634, after the east coast army evacuated the island, Araucan The Kan people retaliated and massacred the Spanish settlers), the population here dropped sharply, and the economic base also plummeted.The originally prosperous fur and timber trade shrank sharply. Although the Spaniards continued to move here and some immigrants from Granada and South Germany to enrich the white power here, the serious ethnic antagonism on the island and the outbreak of conflicts from time to time The racial vendetta made it difficult to calm down here for a long time.

Especially in Puerto Castro, which was completely handed over to the Araucans by the East Coast people, almost all the local Spanish white settlers died in the vendettas of the Araucans who turned over, and the colonial career for many years was destroyed.Later, the Spaniards mobilized a large number of colonial legionaries from Peru to fight on the island for several months before they wiped out the Araucan rebels who occupied Castro Port and its vicinity. As for the elimination of Araucan on the entire island People, it took the Spaniards more than a year.And when the whole island finally calmed down under the crazy suppression of the Spanish colonial army at the end of 1634, according to statistics, there were less than 1000 living people left on the whole island, about half of them were Araucans, and the rest Most of them are mixed-race people, and there are only a hundred pure white people.

Such a bleak situation left the Spanish Kingdom's Viceroy of Peru and Chile's General relatively speechless, who for a time contemplated abandoning the large island.However, with the rise of the Araucan guerrillas in the mountains of southern Chile, these indigenous warriors pulling vicuna or boats attacked the Spanish colonial strongholds in central Chile. After various considerations, the severely damaged Chakao City was finally rebuilt, and at the same time, a large number of new immigrants from Europe moved here.

At the same time, the Spaniards also rebuilt a wooden fortress on the original site of the burnt urban area of ​​Castro Port, and stationed a group of soldiers inside.Together with the small town on the Chaiteng River on the mainland separated by a strait, this constitutes the two important gateways of the Kingdom of Spain to the south of Puerto Barrios (later Puerto Montt), an important town in the south-central region of Chile. Spanish Navy warships often come here Cruising to combat small Araucan fishing boats that might appear on the sea.

When the fleet of the people from the east coast came, they came through Corcova Bay. At that time, they did not encounter any Spanish warships. They had no interest in the two small strongholds of Castro Port and Chaiteng Port, so they concentrated The troops went straight to the richer port of Chachao.After conquering Chacao Port and obtaining key supplies, their next target may be Puerto Barrios or Valdivia, depending on the situation.

More than half an hour passed. At this time, under the strict orders of the East Coasters, the Krandi Volunteer Army led by Gaucho Bianchi finally captured the fort guarded by the Spaniards regardless of casualties.Equipped with only cold weapons, they fell down 80 to [-] people under the artillery fire and muskets of the Spaniards. However, they finally broke the resistance of the Spaniards by relying on their superiority in numbers, and successfully rushed to the top within one hour stipulated by Xie Hansan. fort.After conquering the fort, the Kelandi people, who were extremely angry because of the heavy casualties, brutally killed more than a dozen Spanish fort soldiers who surrendered. .

On the other hand, the Polish mercenary soldiers headed by Malecki fought much harder.The Spaniards had only one artillery in the city of Chakao, and they were destroyed by artillery on the east coast at the beginning of the war. However, the Polish mercenaries who were used to fighting on the plains in Eastern Europe lacked some effective methods for attacking the forts in the temperate coniferous forest mountains.However, they are experienced veterans after all. After more than an hour of groping, they gradually communicated with the artillery and they quickly took down two small strongholds set up by the Spaniards outside the city and killed more than [-] Peruvian Indian soldiers. , with only a dozen casualties.

After the remaining cannons of the Second Artillery Company, which cooperated with them, were all in place, the thousands of Polish officers and soldiers launched a general attack on Chakao City. They fought fiercely with the Spaniards at the city gate, and the advance was quite slow for a time. .However, Malecki has fought battles for nearly 20 years and has quite a lot of combat experience. He judged that the Spaniards have limited strength, and their main force has been attracted to the frontal battlefield on the north side, so he immediately divided up more than 200 elite soldiers. The gunmen detoured back to the east side with two artillery pieces. After a short and fierce battle, the Poles successfully controlled the city gate on the east side.

At this point in the battle, there was basically no suspense.The Spaniards with insufficient troops in the city were faced with the dilemma of being attacked from the front and back. It was already very difficult for them to resist the offensive of the people on the east coast. In order to resist, go to the city and fight and retreat.

At this time, Xie Hansan also decisively invested more than 1100 people from the first artillery company and the Ping'an County Militia Brigade, and gradually advanced into the city from the east side of the captured city.The frontal Poles did not rush forward at this time, they followed the direction of the Spaniards' retreat step by step, and kept clearing the remaining enemies on both sides of the street.

After seeing that the two armies had successfully entered the city, Xie Hansan put down the binoculars, and looked again if he was not interested. The victory and defeat had been decided!As the commander of the army, he has even begun to think about where to go next.But this is the matter of Lieutenant Colonel Lu Ming, the commander of the naval fleet. He has no right to make decisions, at most he can give some suggestions.

At two o'clock in the afternoon on September 1647, 9, the army on the east bank successfully occupied the entire city of Chachao.Most of the 30 Spanish defenders inside and outside the city (including the conscripted men) were wiped out, and a small number were captured by the Tatar cavalry waiting outside the city after fleeing the city. In the hands of those Araucan guerrillas, one can imagine the fate.

After capturing the Spanish capital city on the island of Chiloe, the next step was to interrogate the prisoners, collect ransoms, and collect supplies.When collecting supplies, the rough-printed "temporary military ticket" of the Pacific Temporary Task Force of the East Coast Republic appeared again, which made the Spaniards really want to cry without tears.

(End of this chapter)