Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 730: The Battle of Bogota Begins
“Your Highness…”
The three masked men looked at each other calmly. Barudis, who was old enough to retire at any time and was fearless, and Raimondo, who had grown up with Philip since he was sixteen and whose so-called holy favor was so strong that even the sea could not melt it, chose to ignore Louis's idiotic question.
Finally, Cromwell, who had been away from Europe for a long time and knew that His Majesty Philip was increasingly dissatisfied with his performance in America, had to bite the bullet and start explaining to the young prince.
"Your Highness, before I answer your question, I would like to ask you first. Why did His Majesty Philip send ten divisions of reinforcements across the Atlantic to America?"
"Of course, to eliminate the rebels here and restore order in America."
"So, we just need to destroy the rebels. As long as we can achieve this goal, we don't need to care whether we take the initiative to attack or the rebels attack on their own. We can destroy them in the counterattack, right? In fact, did you see this map just now? The area near Xibat Mountain is very conducive to deployment. We just need to wait here, and the rebels will definitely be beaten to a pulp."
"But..." The young man's face was full of dissatisfaction: "The rebel generals are not stupid, right? Knowing that we have a geographical advantage, they still stupidly rush in?"
"The rebel generals are certainly not stupid, but they have to attack Bogota." Cromwell smiled slightly: "First, the Eastern Cordillera Mountains on the east side of Bogota is the largest gold mine in South America. The Chinese got the big silver mine in Lima, so they must want the big gold mine. Secondly, the puppet Inca Kingdom supported by the Chinese has always clamored to restore the Inca Kingdom and drive out the colonists. They must take Bogota to prove their position and strength to the Indians throughout America. Finally, from a strategic perspective, starting from Lima to Quito is a long journey from Ping The transportation from the original to the plateau is much more difficult than from Bogota to Quito. Now that the enemy has occupied Quito, if they don't want to give up, they must take Bogota. And if they give up Quito, then, in terms of terrain, we will be completely overlooking Lima, which will seriously threaten the survival of the puppet Inca Kingdom... In short, my highness, whether from a political, military, or economic perspective, the Chinese must take Bogota. Therefore, even though they know that we have gathered a large number of troops here and occupy the geographical advantage, they must bite the bullet and come up to die. "
"But..." Louis scratched his head in confusion: "Since the Chinese are not stupid, facing our defense line based on mountains and lakes, don't they know to bypass it?"
"Of course they will go around. In fact, there is a large enough gap in the middle of the Xibat Mountains. The enemy will most likely go around here. And here, we have prepared an ambush of five divisions for them. As long as the Chinese who think they are smart dare to enter this gap, we can bury them completely in the valley."
"Apart from this gap, can't the enemy take a detour somewhere else?"
"Of course, after all, the South American continent is so big. However, the most taboo thing for us soldiers to do when we fight is to make battle plans based on a flat map. Your Highness, please look at this three-dimensional topographic map. If the enemy wants to go to Bogota, it is the fastest way to pass through Sibat, and it also puts the least pressure on logistics. The enemy's large forces must take this route to ensure logistics supply. Therefore, we have also prepared seven divisions of the main force here to rely on fortifications to meet them.
The road conditions in this gap on the north side of Lake West Butte are much worse. But fortunately, it is not too far from the main route. So if the enemy only sends two or three divisions to take this road, the logistics support can keep up.
In addition to these two routes, if the enemy still wants to reach Bogota, they can either go around the Amazon rainforest and then cross the Eastern Cordillera Mountains with an average altitude of about 6,000 meters... Or they can go north along the northwest coast of South America for a thousand kilometers and then cross the Western Cordillera Mountains with an average altitude of 5,800 meters... Your Highness, there is a reason why we chose the area around Bogota as the place for the decisive battle. This is a plateau basin surrounded by many mountains. As long as the enemy's brain has a little more brain capacity than a monkey, they can only honestly take the two routes we have reserved for them. "
"...I understand. Thank you for your guidance, Your Excellency."
"It's been a pleasure to serve you."
"Then I hope to lead a company to participate in the blocking operation at the gap north of Xibaite, is ?"
"Oh! That won't do, my Lord." This time, Raimondo and Barudis, who had been watching the show with a smile, were not happy. "Your Highness, you are a prince. Your future limit is definitely not a low-ranking officer who charges into battle. So, please stay with us and watch how we deploy from a global perspective."
"...Okay. I have one more question..."
GOD! Please spare us!
Even if His Majesty Philip cannot be called a perfect saint, he is definitely a wise monarch. Why is his eldest son so unbearable?
Seeing Cromwell and Barudis's inquiring eyes , Raimondo, who grew up beside Philip, was also helpless: His Majesty was busy with all kinds of affairs and had no time to educate His Royal Highness personally. During his growth, the people His Royal Highness had the most contact with were the Queen Elizabeth from France and the various court teachers invited by Elizabeth, mainly from France. In such an environment, His Royal Highness might be kind, just, and noble... But these qualities are useless in today's background of the three major powers fighting to the death!
…
Putting aside the frustration of Raimondo and the other three, time soon came to November 15, 1642. With the order of Sun Chuanting, the Ming Dynasty's governor of the Americas, more than 200,000 Ming-Indian troops set out from Quito and began to march towards Bogota. By November 20, the main force led by Li Zicheng had arrived about five kilometers south of the Cibat defense line built by the Spanish army.
"Reporting to the corps commander, our intelligence personnel have obtained the enemy's troop deployment through the Indo-European hybrids lurking in the enemy camp. The enemy's army has a total of 14 divisions, eight of which are in front of us. Five are defending the gap in the West Bat Mountain in the northwest. There is also a general division that is said to have concealed no less than 20,000 troops and is serving as the general reserve in Bogota."
"This master should be the remnant of several Spanish divisions that Cromwell defeated in recent years." Li Zicheng was 36 years old this year. After entering middle age, he became more and more calm. He pondered for a while and said, "Have you heard any news about the enemy navy?"
"I'm sorry, Commander. The pirates' navy is made up entirely of pure Castilians. Half-bloods can't get on board, so they have no idea where the pirates' navy is going."
After all, Spain has colonized America for 150 years. In this era where 15 or 16 years is almost a generation, or 20 years is too slow, there are already Indian coalition army or the Spanish American colonial army, both sides have a large number of mixed-race soldiers under their command.
This made it difficult for both sides to completely conceal their intelligence from each other: in the early years, before Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong landed in America and tightened camp regulations and controls, the camps of Tia and Zhu Shengmiao were often destroyed, which was clear evidence of the constant loopholes in intelligence.
But now, the situation has reversed: Li and Zhang strengthened the camp rules, ensuring that the base area involving the survival of the rebels would not be easily exposed. Zhu Ciyi, on the other hand, successfully resolved the doubts of the Indian soldiers and mobilized their enthusiasm for fighting by strengthening the ideological work of the entire army, especially the pre-war explanation of win-win cooperation. In addition, he cleared out a group of mixed-race people who secretly communicated with the Spaniards as much as possible.
However, Spain could not completely conceal the information. The only thing that made the Spanish feel that they could comfort themselves was that in this battle, 11 of the 14 divisions on their side were composed of pure Castilians. In terms of fighting spirit, there was no need to worry too much.
In short, after clarifying the Spanish pre-war deployment, Li Zicheng began to mobilize the troops of his nine divisions to make pre-war preparations.
On the afternoon and night of the 20th and the morning of the 21st, with the continuous efforts of 30,000 Indian civilians and an engineering battalion from each of the nine divisions, two trenches with a distance of two kilometers and a length of six kilometers were urgently dug. After so many years of fighting in America, Li Zicheng's combat command style has become extremely stable. Before thinking about victory, think about defeat first. Before attacking, at least the foundation of one's own defense must be laid.
On the afternoon of the 21st, nine divisions and the heavy artillery regiment directly under the General Headquarters all entered their artillery positions.
At 10 o'clock in the evening of the 21st, local time, with Li Zicheng's order, 400 75mm guns, 72 105mm guns, and 30 150mm guns all began to fiercely bombard the Western Army's positions!
This dense, seemingly endless, fierce bombardment with no audible explosion point lasted for six hours. At four o'clock in the morning of the 22nd, with the loud charge horn sounded, countless Indian warriors, holding submachine guns and shouting various slogans in Chinese, began to charge forward towards the enemy's position!
To the surprise of the Spanish commander, but seemingly within reason, the Ming-Indian coalition forces chose to fight at night in their first charge upon arriving at the battlefield!
