"Yesterday morning, Lopez Jr. mobilized 10,000 fortress defenders to launch an attack on the Brazilian army behind him. The battle lasted all afternoon. In the end, due to the diversion and attack of the main Brazilian troops from the front, Lopez Jr. was forced to withdraw his 10,000 troops to the Humeita Fortress.
, Paraguay’s attempt to break the encirclement of the Brazilian army failed,
There are still 5,000 garrison troops left in the direction of Asunción, but because of the need to defend the security of the capital, Lopez Jr. will not transfer these 5,000 troops to our command. Next, we can only rely on the Chinese Independence Army to deal with the current 5,000 Brazilian troops."
On the Paraguay River, Li Mingyuan introduced the military situation to his officers.
"The Brazilian army is marching in the mountains, and the number of heavy weapons they carry with the army should not be large. The 40,000 field troops of the Chinese Independence Army are overwhelming, so it is not difficult to deal with the 5,000 Brazilian army."
Li Sandou said.
"We have not fought against the Brazilian army, so we don't know what their combat effectiveness is. However, according to the record of the Brazilian army, ten thousand Paraguayan troops did not capture the positions they defended after a half-day force attack. Presumably, these five thousand Brazilian troops have good combat effectiveness. They are likely to
He is the elite of the Brazilian army. Without knowing the enemy's combat effectiveness, I do not recommend that the entire army attack the enemy and start a war."
Zhou Guozhu and Li Sandou usually did not deal with each other, but what he said made sense.
Garcia hopes to cut off the retreat of the defenders of the American Tiger Tower Fortress and determine the outcome of the Paraguay War in one battle. As the core part of this combat deployment, the 5,000 troops attacking in a roundabout way must be elites selected from the Brazilian coalition forces.
, fighting with such a force, carelessness will lead to big losses.
"The Brazilian troops are indeed elite, but fighting against 10,000 Paraguayan troops for a day will not result in small casualties. At this time, taking advantage of the favorable opportunity when their troops are exhausted, the main force of the army will attack. I believe that the battle will be resolved soon.
If you first send a small number of troops to test the opponent's strength, you may be able to alert the opponent and make the opponent unable to defend, making it more difficult to defeat the enemy later."
What Zhou Guozhu and Li Sandou said made sense to a certain extent. Li Mingyuan put forward his own opinion based on their thoughts: "The rear in the direction of Paraguay is empty. If Lopez wants to seize the stronghold occupied by 5,000 Brazilian troops, he has to mobilize troops from the front."
, the Brazilian coalition forces should have known about these situations for a long time, so they confidently and boldly sent 5,000 troops to surround the retreat of the Humeita Fortress."
"The Brazilian coalition has been fighting with Paraguay for several years. Paraguay's strength is very clear to the opponent. The Asunción defenders are insufficient. Once troops are mobilized from Asuncion to attack the strongholds occupied by the Brazilian outflow troops, it is likely to result in the defeat of the Asunción defenders.
Return, Asunción, which does not have enough troops at this time, will definitely not be able to withstand the attack of five thousand Brazilian troops, and the Brazilian army that has won the battle will not give up the good opportunity to occupy Asunción. In this way, the capital is occupied, regardless of the main force of Paraguay.
Whether the troops are wiped out, little Lopez, who has lost his core base of capital Asunción, will become a grasshopper after autumn and will not be able to jump around for long."
Wang Dashan agreed.
Wang Dashan, Zhou Guozhu and others fought many battles with Li Mingyuan, and they all pointed out the strategic purpose of the Brazilian army in a few words.
It's one thing to know the enemy's strategic goals, but how to crack them requires specific practical operations.
"According to news from Paraguay, the place occupied by Brazil is located sixty miles south of Porto Alegre, in the town of Oliva on the edge of the east bank of the Paraguay River."
After several people discussed it, Li Mingyuan took out the map provided by Paraguay and spread it on the table. He explained, "The town of Oliva is located on a highland, and there are three fortresses built by Paraguay in the part near the river. There are about fourteen meters of slopes on the left and right sides.
, the rear is backed by mountains and forests, it is not easy to capture no matter which side you attack from."
"The town of Oliva is easy to defend but difficult to attack. How could the Paraguayan army take advantage of its geographical advantage and lose it to the Brazilians?"
The town of Oliva has a complete defense system. It was originally a good stronghold for defense, but now it has fallen into the hands of the Brazilians. This means that if they want to capture Oliva Town, the Chinese Independence Army will have to pay a high price. Think about it from this.
, Wang Dashan, who was sitting silently, couldn't help but complain about Paraguay's behavior of cheating his teammates.
"The main force of Paraguay gathered at the Fortress of Humeta, and little Lopez did not expect that the enemy would bypass the Paraguayan army on the front line and penetrate directly into the town of Oliva.
It’s useless to blame the Paraguayans now, let’s think about how to deal with the enemy in person!”
Li Mingyuan left the question to the officer below. He rubbed his eyes and lay on the chair to rest for a while.
Liu Pu was not around, and Sun Bin was left behind to recruit Paraguayan women to join the Chinese Independence Army. All kinds of tedious things were placed on Li Mingyuan alone. He had not slept peacefully for several days, so Li Mingyuan could only
Use the short time to rest, otherwise, the battle command that follows may be even more overwhelming.
The officers below continued the discussion, but after half an hour they still had not found a good way to deal with the enemy.
The discussion lasted a long time, and it was difficult to come up with a good solution if we continued the discussion. Li Mingyuan stopped everyone's discussion and decided to adopt a traditional attack plan, surrounding the Brazilian army on all sides, and then sent some soldiers to attack in turns.
In the early morning of May 26, 1868, the Chinese Independence Army launched an attack on the town of Oliva.
The town of Oliva is small on all sides and cannot accommodate many soldiers in one attack. In the first attack, the Chinese Independence Army divided five thousand soldiers to attack from the shore, left and right,
The purpose of attacking from the left and right sides was to disperse the strength of the Brazilian army and share the pressure on the Chinese soldiers attacking from the river bank.
Three thousand soldiers gathered on the river bank, personally commanded by the steady character Wang Dashan, to launch the first round of attack.
"Boom, boom, boom" violent artillery shells were fired at the town of Oliva, and a burst of smoke was stirred up on the fortress. The Chinese Independence Army marched from afar, and most of the heavy weapons were left behind, so most of the artillery they carried were small and not very powerful.
Artillery, these artillery can only leave some small craters on the fortress, but it is still impossible to break the wall and fortress.
After a round of artillery fire, before the smoke cleared, the soldiers of Wang Dashan's First Mixed Brigade attacked the Brazilian army's position.
Most of the soldiers of the 1st Mixed Brigade were veterans. In the initial stage of the charge, they slowly accelerated. When they were within 100 meters of the enemy's position, the experienced veterans charged quickly, and in a few seconds they ran to the front five miles away from the Brazilian army's position.
Sixty meters away, and then immediately spread out, hiding behind cover and shooting at each other with the enemy.
Although the distance of fifty or sixty meters is not far, it becomes very difficult for the Chinese soldiers in this position to advance and charge to the front of the enemy's position.
Fifty or sixty meters in front of the Brazilian army's position is a bare open space. Four machine guns on both sides of the position formed a cross blockade. Wang Dashan commanded the troops to launch six attacks without success. Instead, they lost more than 200 soldiers.
There was constant gunfire and artillery fire, and the battle lasted for three hours before it gradually ended. The Chinese Independence Army's first attack ended in failure.
On May 27, the 2nd Mixed Brigade took over from the 1st Mixed Brigade.
Configured with newly equipped grenades to launch an attack on the Brazilian army,
The Chinese soldiers used grenades to blow up a fortress, eliminate three machine gun positions, and rushed to the top of the high ground for the first time an hour after the battle began.
The Chinese soldiers rushed to the high ground and saw that victory was in their hands. Unexpectedly, artillery fire from the back slope and the center of Oliva town hit the top of the mountain. The Chinese independent soldiers suffered heavy casualties in a short period of time. The company commander of the fourth company of the third regiment of the second brigade who led the charge was killed, and the platoon leader
, three deputy platoon leaders were killed, two were injured, and 300 soldiers suffered casualties.
The battle of Oliva was a tough battle from the beginning. After the failure of the two attacks, the Chinese Independence Army successively launched the third and fourth attacks. The surrounding positions of Oliva Town were successively occupied by the Chinese Independence Army.
On May 30, all defensive positions in the town of Oliva were lost, and the remaining Brazilian troops retreated into the town and relied on houses to resist.
The battle lasted for five days. In order to capture the town of Oliva, the Chinese Independence Army paid a total of 3,000 casualties. The number of Brazilian troops in the town was less than 3,000, and more than 1,000 of them were wounded. The battle was fierce, and the Chinese Independence Army suffered casualties.
It was huge, and Li Mingyuan did not intend to continue to waste his troops fighting street battles with the Brazilian army. Using the firewood collected these days, Li Mingyuan planned to burn the remaining Brazilian troops alive.
The scorching flames burned the town of Oliva, and screams continued to be heard from the Brazilian army surrounded by the fire. Many Brazilian soldiers who could not bear it ran out of the town screaming, and they were greeted by bullets.
Li Mingyuan watched the Brazilian soldiers die in front of him indifferently, his expression unchanged at all. The huge casualties had caused the Chinese soldiers to gather a huge amount of resentment. If they were not allowed to vent their resentment, the morale of the Chinese Independence Army would be affected.
Therefore, the Brazilian army can only admit that it is unlucky.
More and more Brazilian soldiers were forced out by the fire. One group of more than ten Brazilian soldiers caught Li Mingyuan's attention because they not only held white flags, but were also equipped with much better weapons than ordinary Brazilian soldiers.
Li Mingyuan realized that they might be senior officers of the Brazilian army, and waved to the guards to escort them over.
"Tell me, what is your identity?" Li Mingyuan asked, focusing on the leading Brazilian soldier.
"Canudut, heir to Duke Forrobert of the Brazilian Empire." The young Brazilian soldier wiped the sweat off his head and whispered.
As someone else's prisoner, Kanudut didn't dare to show off in front of Li Mingyuan. He just wanted to spend money to let his father redeem him.
"Heir to Duke Florentine, what reason do you have for asking me to spare your life?"
"I can ask my father to pay a ransom to buy me back."
"No, we are not short of money. I need other things in exchange for your survival, such as information about the Brazilian army and your route to the town of Oliva."
Seeing Canudut, Li Mingyuan felt that it was a waste to kill all the Brazilian soldiers. Use them to find the road to the Brazilian coalition camp, and then imitate what they did to give the main Brazilian force a fatal surprise attack. This is indeed a good method.
.
"I cannot betray the Imperial Army. You cannot get any information about the Imperial Army from me."
Selling one's own country's intelligence is an unforgivable sin in any country. Kanudut knew the consequences of doing so and immediately refused to export it.
"If you are not willing to cooperate, then there is no use keeping you. Come and throw him into the fire." Li Mingyuan's expression changed, and two soldiers immediately stepped forward to set up the card.
Nudut walked towards the fire.
"Don't throw me into the fire, I said, I'll tell you everything." The hot temperature frightened Canudut, and the painful looks of the Brazilian soldiers who were burned to death frightened the gold-plated man who followed the troops.
