Chapter 738 Re-Establishing the Power of Spain

Colorado River Estuary.

The general headquarters of the Spanish army, Army General Francisco Rivera, summoned all his generals. Lieutenant General Alvarez and Major General Jose Rivera, the former commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army, were also among them.

They had also previously won the welcome of Francisco Rivera, the commander-in-chief of the Spanish colonial army, because after a period of busy work, the two brought a total of 20,000 reinforcements to Francisco Rivera, as well as fifty cannons. and corresponding rockets.

The previous battles had used up all the rockets in the West Route Army. These are the latest batch produced by the rear.

"We had a good start before. The Chinese were caught off guard by our rockets. They abandoned this place and fled back to San Diego in panic. Countless Chinese immigrants fled north in a hurry, abandoning a large number of houses and open fields. Land. But we made a mistake in San Diego. The huge casualties made us feel scared, so we tasted the taste of failure and failed to recapture San Diego in one go and cut off the land connection between Upper and Lower California."

As he spoke, Rivera waved his arms to make his words more convincing.

"Now that we have new reinforcements, our troops are more powerful than before."

"We also have the supplement of artillery and rockets, and we don't need to be afraid of each other."

"However, we must admit that the Chinese army has a strong combat effectiveness, and before the morale of our army has returned to its highest level," Rivera paused, then emphasized his tone, "Although I don't want to admit it, But as a general, we must face up to our opponents. Our soldiers are indeed not as capable as the Chinese."

"But we have more troops than they do."

"We have at least three times their strength."

"Look at the scale of the Chinese counterattacks on the battlefield."

"Two thousand people, three thousand people, the highest is no more than five thousand people."

"After winning the Battle of San Diego, they did not attack the mouth of the Colorado River with much fanfare, but only carried out tactical counterattacks at the regiment and brigade level on the front. What does this mean?"

Rivera shouted, his eyes like burning flames scanning the entire conference room.

"Your Excellency, Commander, I think the Chinese are not sure of victory. They dare not fight a decisive battle with us." Alvarez said.

A smile appeared on Rivera's face, and he looked like the host delivering a congratulatory speech at a successful, happy and joyful dinner. "Yes, Alvarez is right. The Chinese are not sure of victory. . So they only dare to send out small-scale troops for tactical counterattacks, but they dare not gather all their forces to overwhelm the mouth of the Colorado River and fight to the death with us. "

"But we have to admit, San Diego is a hard nut to crack."

Although Rivera really didn't want to admit the combat effectiveness of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the battles during this period made it clear to him that, not to mention the colonial legions in the Americas, the Spanish Army, which was simply composed of peninsula people, had a fighting will. It is no match for the Chinese.

The latter's patrols have been ambushed by superior Spanish troops more than once, but they persisted until reinforcements arrived or fought until the entire army was annihilated, often causing the Spaniards to pay similarly tragic figures.

The Spanish army rarely captured Chinese soldiers alive. Rivera had never believed the rumors that the Eastern army was ashamed of surrendering because it was so common in Western wars, but now he couldn't help but disbelieve it.

Therefore, although Rivera holds a large army in his hands, he believes that if the Spanish colonial army goes to fight with more than 20,000 Chinese soldiers, it will inevitably be a battle that will send everyone here to hell. disaster.

"Don't deny their combat effectiveness anymore. Facts have proven their strength. Our enemy is a powerful army. But they also have weaknesses that they cannot overcome."

"There are too few of them."

"There are only 20,000 Chinese across from us."

"The number of Chinese soldiers on the entire west coast will not reach 30,000."

"So we have to work at that point and spread them out as much as possible."

"The combat effectiveness of one thousand Chinese soldiers is that of a sheep, the combat effectiveness of five thousand Chinese soldiers is that of a bull, and the combat effectiveness of twenty thousand Chinese soldiers is that of a dragon. We do not need our enemies to be ferocious dragons, but want them to become A group of sheep, even if we ourselves change from a god-killing Fenrir [Norse magic wolf] to a group of hyenas.”

Rivera's attitude has become obvious. With the support of reinforcements, he will divide his troops.

The current situation of the West Coast War is that the Chinese can divide their forces more easily, their fleet can completely defeat the Spanish, and they have the power to occupy any port on the west coast of Spain's American region. However, the Chinese do not have excess troops, so they can only find Sporadic assaults on port cities, or shelling of some heavily guarded port cities, that's all.

As for the Spaniards, they have far more troops than China, but the lack of sea routes allows them to only think of ways on land, and this method is to divide their troops.

The Chinese Expeditionary Force did not dare to come to the mouth of the Colorado River to fight a decisive battle with the Spanish, and Rivera did not dare to lead the Spanish army to fight a protracted and difficult battle with the Chinese Expeditionary Force in San Diego.

When you fight with a stick, you are afraid of both ends. Both sides are afraid.

But Rivera did not dare to delay for a long time. That was not a solution to the problem. Rivera's subconscious mind told him that the Chinese would not sit idly by and watch the battle in North America. The Chinese have now developed a route from the East to the West Coast of North America, which is no more difficult than transferring troops from Europe to America.

In recent years, the Chinese have established countless material supply stations and ports on the sea route. Rivera is very clear about the time point for the two sides to travel back and forth.

There is not much time left for him. In winter, the Chinese reinforcements will arrive in North America.

It is still not far from now.

Rivera hopes that he can win a certain victory before the reinforcements from mainland China arrive, so that the two sides can negotiate and at least let them take back the Gulf of California and Lower California.

Rivera certainly dreamed of sweeping the West Coast before the war, but the disastrous defeat of the Eastern Route Army and the defeat in San Diego made him sober up.

Compared with the "ambition" of sweeping the Chinese out of North America, it is more realistic to regain some benefits and re-establish Spain's prestige.

Drivilla's eyes were fixed on a cavalry major general, Atsa de Segre, a middle-aged officer from a noble family in Madrid.

"Major General, I need you to lead your cavalry to charge north, north, north..."

After crossing San Diego, the cavalry's target is Los Angeles, San Francisco [San Francisco].

"These two cities are the ruling centers of the Chinese on the west coast. Your assault will inevitably cause panic in the two cities. I don't need you to take these two cities, but you must appear beside them."

"Those Chinese immigrant villages will be your best targets for attack."

"Burn everything you encounter, drive the Chinese to wander, and deprive them of all their wealth."

Drivilla waved his fist, and then his eyes looked at Alvarez...

...

"Tell Mr. Wang that the comprehensive counterattack led by Drivera this time is extraordinary. At least 3,000 cavalry are advancing towards Tokyo and Hanjin. The Peninsula people have invested a lot of money."

The narrow sea inside the Gulf of California is a paradise for Mexican smugglers, which is much more refreshing than land transportation. At the same time, useful and useless news are also coming to the expeditionary force.

"Mr. Casado's information is very important. Please rest assured that we will not forget our friends."

"Haha, I hope I can help you. You know, the Peninsula people are not only your enemies, but also our enemies." A mixed-race man with obvious Indian ancestry laughed heartily.

He and the forces behind him were obviously standing against the Spaniards.

Two days later, Gao Yuanhou in San Diego received urgent news from the patrol team that a Spanish cavalry unit was heading north along the southwest edge of the Salton Basin. Fortunately, his troops were alert, otherwise they might have ignored this hungry wolf.

In addition, this also made Gao Yuanhou know that the patrol team's patrol rules must be changed, which made the Spaniards feel a little bit of the rules.

…

Atsa Desegre leaned on the back chair, looking up at the ceiling of the military tent, his gaze seemed to be able to see through the tent and look straight at the sky. A quarter of an hour ago, his mood suddenly became very bad.

Today is the day he led the army out of the Salton Basin. The distance of Salton is not long, only 120 to 30 miles from south to north, plus the distance from the mouth of the Colorado River to Salton, it is only 400 miles.

And this distance is exactly the distance from the Salton Basin to Los Angeles.

Just an hour ago, they captured a small Chinese transport team. Desegre attacked without hesitation and ate up the Chinese transport team of only 30 to 50 people.

The Chinese were still very brave. Only seven of them were captured alive.

Then after executing five people, the remaining people finally spoke.

But what Desegre got from it was a painful news for him. The Chinese had already known his actions. It took him seven days to travel 400 miles. During these seven days, the news had spread all over the West Coast.

A large number of Chinese troops left San Diego, and a large number of Chinese immigrants abandoned their houses and fields outside the city and fled to nearby towns with only livestock and food.

Desegre's troops have not yet arrived in Los Angeles.

He didn't know if this counted as "causing panic in Los Angeles and San Francisco" and whether this counted as completing the task assigned by Rivera, but he knew that his danger was increasing linearly, and his strategic goal was faintly likely to fail.

The Chinese not only knew about his troops, but also made preparations. This news gave him a headache and annoyance.

The movement of the Chinese Expeditionary Force was obvious. Even this lowly logistics soldier had heard some news. A large number of troops returned to Los Angeles and San Francisco by ship. Now they may have set up pockets and waited for him to get in. He only had more than 3,000 people under his command, which was not enough to swallow a Chinese regiment.

If he was really trapped by the Chinese, how could he resist their attack with such a small force?

Atsa Desegré was worried to death.

He is not the same person he was before the war. At that time, he despised the Chinese Expeditionary Force and still equated the animal "monkey" with it. But if he still thinks like this now, he himself is a monkey.

The Chinese are not natives of Southeast Asia. The image of "China" that has been circulated in Spain for two hundred years is like a joke.

In the past two hundred years, countless Spaniards have laughed at the Chinese. Now they themselves have become a big joke.

It was not because of the failure of the Eastern Route Army, nor because of the troubles encountered by the Western Route Army in San Diego. Those were not as shocking as when he led the cavalry to attack the Chinese patrol.

Such a strong army made him feel afraid.

But he dared not not advance to Los Angeles, otherwise if Rivera's plan went wrong, the blame for the failure would be completely on his head.

"Los Angeles, San Francisco; Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Francisco--" Atsa de Segre slapped the table with a slap, and made up his mind.

Just a try. Men must have courage, and cavalry officers must use courage even more.

They are cavalrymen, men galloping on horseback, warriors like the wind.

Los Angeles, Los Angeles, go straight into Los Angeles. Take advantage of the disadvantage of the Chinese cavalry and give them a hard blow!

The north wind was blowing, and more than 3,000 Spanish cavalrymen turned out of the valley, circled a perfect semi-arc, and rushed to the palm forest without anyone knowing.

That is the closest settlement to the Salton Basin in China. There are many sulfur mines and hot springs there, and there are countless ancient palm trees under the snow-covered foothills.

These naturally generated palm forests became an immigration point for the Chinese as soon as they were discovered by the Chinese.

Palm wood can be used to make utensils. The palm leaf sheath is fan-shaped, with palm fiber. The leaves can be made into fans, hats and other crafts, and the roots are used as medicine. So many natural palm forests can be said to be a wealth given by God, and it can also serve as a support point for the Salton Basin. The tactical position is also very important. Of course, the rich sulfur resources here are also a necessity for the expeditionary force.

Therefore, Palm Grove Town is one of the first towns established by China on the west coast, and there are still two to three thousand people living here.

Palm Grove Town is only more than 300 miles away from Tokyo [Los Angeles]. The sulfur mines and various palm products here are still competitive, which also ensures the healthy development of the economy of this town.

The temperature in Jiazhou is not as high as that in Mexico. The weather in October is a bit cool, especially after the rain.

Should it be a coincidence or something? Anyway, the next day after Atsa Desegre made up his mind, the drizzle began before dawn. So, this Spanish cavalry of more than 3,000 people, regardless of their status, were all soaked in the rain. The horses' hooves stepped on the rain-soaked ground, splashing endless mud and water.

Seeing the continuous drizzle, there was still a little green on the untrampled road in the distance, which was pleasing to the eye. Desegre could only choose a good place for the troops to camp and rest, otherwise the troops would fall down before he could lead the army to Palm Grove.

"This heavy rain comes at a really bad time." Desegre's adjutant complained.

"It's okay, the rain keeps on falling, which helps us to march in secret."

There are not many roads that can approach the palm forest quietly, but there should be Chinese guards at the wide road entrances. The number may not be large, but the position is critical. If they are not taken down by surprise, their whereabouts will be exposed.

This risk is too great, and Desegre is unwilling to take it.