"The prisoner confessed that the Spaniards in Santiago City also had two complete columns and a 2,000-man indigenous legion, that is, about 4,000 people. However, considering that Santiago militia and armed civilians would also join, the number of enemies was about 6,000, but this was not a problem for the Marines.

There is one and a half battalions under Beizhi. After the death and casualties, there are more than 1,200 people. Together with Horeshaun's pirates, we can gather 1,500 people. We are confident that we will defeat the Spanish army in Santiago in a head-on battle." Li Su expressed the will of the landing force in a powerful language at the military meeting.

Li Junwei glanced at him and said, "Don't mention it again."

Li Su suddenly became a deflated ball, and Li Junwei believed that the regular legion of the empire had the strength to defeat the Spaniards, but what he wanted was not defeat, but to annihilate it. He also had to control the Santiago regime and maintain order after annihilation. Now the troops were completely insufficient.

Almost everyone looked at Zhao Wenting with bad intentions, and everyone thought they had been deceived by Zhao Wenting. When he was in Jinzhou, Zhao Wenting told everyone that Santiago had the only Spanish formation in the colony, with only 1,250 people. In just a few months, it turned into an infantry regiment of 3,000 people.

Zhao Wenting had no intention of refuting. In fact, such changes were related to Antonio. He deceived the army from Lima through deception, but it also had to do with the lack of intelligence. Or Zhao Wenting himself was a deception, but Li Junwei no longer cared about it. When he came, the problem must be solved. Moreover, in his heart, even if he knew that the Spaniards had such military strength, he would still choose the strategy of advancing south, which was the most promising method.

"Maybe we can contact the army in Nangang and let them go north as soon as possible." Li Su made another suggestion.

Li Junwei directly refuted: "No, it will definitely not be that simple to cross the Andes. I don't want the Imperial Army to die on the snow-capped mountains. If you want to obtain an army, you can only focus on the local area. Zhao Longcheng cannot count on it."

"Then I can only count on Mapuche people." Zhao Wenting said.

"Yes, Lord Zhao, if you go find your relationship between Mapuche, I need their support, money, land or weapons, and they can make any requests." Li Junwei said directly.

According to the confession of captured Spanish officials, the number of Arakan people in the entire Chile region is about 350,000 to 400,000, mainly because the Mapuches in the central region are in a state of autonomy. It cannot be fully counted that the number of Arakan people in the north and south has exceeded 200,000, and whether they are the Mapuches or the enslaved Arakan people are the objects of the unity of the empire.

Therefore, Li Junwei quickly issued thirteen orders in Wacheng. As the basic regulations for the empire to rule the Chile region, the first was to declare the imperial emperors as the protector of all native Americans. The empire protected their lives, freedoms and property, and then to abolish the two most important systems that Spanish ruled the Americas, the commissioned guardianship system and the Mita system.

The commissioned guardianship system was the Spanish king who rewarded the pioneers who pioneered the Americas, which put a large number of Indian population under the custody of these people. The land belonged to the Spanish king, but these pioneers had absolute jurisdiction over the Indians. The pioneers became hereditary officials, and the Indians were essentially their serfs.

However, the Spanish king soon discovered that a large number of commissioned guardianship systems were implemented, which could control the local area and encourage the Indians to tame and naturalize them to Catholics, but also allowed a large number of people to be controlled by the lords. Many important mining areas did not have enough manpower, resulting in low yields. Therefore, the Spanish king implemented the Mita system, requiring all Indian adult males to draw one-seventh of each time to go to designated places to serve in labor and shifts. In this way, a large number of Indians left their hometowns and went to harsh mining areas to serve.

Obviously, there are two biggest beneficiaries of these two systems, one is the powerful and wealthy native whites, and the other is the local merchants, nobles and bureaucrats. These people also have the most wealth. The former owns a lot of land and uses the Mita system to rent a large amount of Indian population to the whites on the peninsula to serve.

While Li Junwei banned the two systems, he convicted the lords who had entrusted custody and those who used the Mita system. However, for ordinary native white and mixed races, he treated the Indians equally with his attitude towards the Indians. He would not be investigated unless he held an official position in the Spanish colonial ruling order.

Unifying the exploited and oppressed middle and lower classes, and fighting the oppressed and exploited upper classes is a good way to establish a new order, but this method is not effective quickly. After all, slaves dare to resist on a large scale only when the slave owner is insignificant and cannot survive. There is an insolvent gap between the empire and these local people-the church.

You should know that the Spanish kings required that one tenth of the land produced in the colonies must be handed over to the church, and the church also sold indulgences on a large scale. They were very rich and would be fascinating. The empire would not let them go, but the disposal would arouse disgusts the local people. Only after completely replacing the Spanish, the confrontation between the two sides would be alleviated. Therefore, Li Junwei placed more hope on the Mapuche people.

The negotiations with the Mapuche were neither smooth nor smooth. The success was that many Mapuches had deep-rooted hatred for the Spaniards and were willing to cooperate with the Empire and fight against the Spaniards, but the failure was that the chiefs, doctors, wizards and other upper classes among the Mapuches were unwilling to destroy the peace with the Spaniards for more than fifty-five years.

But fortunately, the Mapuche people did not have an effective organization, no country or tribe, and even a tribal alliance. The Mapuche people with a population of at least 150,000 belonged to more than 80 tribes. These tribes formed various alliances, political, military, economic and even in-laws. They were allied and enemies of each other, so even if the top leaders were unwilling, they could not form a consensus.

In the end, the empire convinced the Mapuches in a war. After Zhao Longcheng occupied Valdivia, they advanced north and south with the army led by Li Su and met at Concepcion at the mouth of the Biobio River. This military fortress that the Mapuches could not do anything, especially the four-angle bastion, made the Mapuches helpless.

After the formation of a siege, the defenders proposed to give up the castle and lead all the soldiers and necessary weapons to evacuate here. The reason was that the defenders saw the siege mortars transported by the Marines ashore and more than 4,000 soldiers. In fact, the defenders did not know that the Mapuche people with more than 3,000 were soldiers from various tribes, and they were just here to watch the battle.

Zhao Longcheng rejected the proposal of the defenders and chose to bomb with mortars. The bombing that lasted for seven days almost collapsed the entire bastion. After suffering huge casualties, the defenders finally chose to surrender unconditionally. The strength of the Marines gave the Mapuche people more confidence. In the end, Zhao Wenting reached the "Biobio River Agreement" with him.

The Empire agreed to maintain all the provisions against the Mapuche in the Treaty of Kirin after the war, that is, like the Spaniards, giving the Mapuches the power to autonomy. The Mapuches did not participate in the war in the name of the Mapuches or in the name of the tribe, but agreed to join the Mapuches warriors as individuals, and the Imperial Army would provide the Mapuches with equal treatment with their own soldiers.

When the agreement was reached, Zhao Wenting hired more than 1,700 Mapuche warriors. The warriors were considered to be the middle class of a tribe. They had their own horses and used crescent spears as their main weapon. The spear was a symbol of the warriors, and the spears represented the strength of the tribe.

In addition to spears, the Mapuche people also use large hockeys and meteor hammers as blunt weapons to deal with armored Spaniards. They have firearms, but very few are long-range weapons. The long-range weapons are bows and arrows, but the bows and arrows with beech wood as bow arms and llama Achilles tendon as bow strings are not very effective, and are more used for hunting.

Li Junwei organized these Mapuche cavalry into the Mapuche cavalry regiment, and the cavalry officers were commanded by them.

The Marines, Pirates and Mapuche Cavalry formed an army of 3,200 people and attacked towards Santiago. Li Junwei told Li Su that this was the only attack. If it failed, he would immediately send a liaison ship to Nangang. However, the commander of the dispatch army, Gao Bicheng, sent the army to Chile by sea to participate in the war, which meant that the troop transport ship would pay a huge price in the Strait of Magellan.

Santiago City is located in the basin on the west side of the Andes. The mild climate, rich vegetation and the Mapuchu River made the colonists at that time choose this place. The terrain of Santiago is somewhat like the Luoyang Basin, which is located in the empire. It is surrounded by mountains, but there are passages between mountains. If there is sufficient force, it can defend the enemy outside the territory. However, this basin is too large, so large that it cannot be defended by the army under Antonio.

During the march, the Mapuche Cavalry regiment played a very important role. The generals of the Empire knew that the indigenous cavalry were similar to those of the Lifanyuan. As scouts, the light cavalry were qualified, but they could not be used as heavy cavalry, and they could not fight tough battles. Along the way, the Mapuche Cavalry, as a vanguard unit, swept away all obstacles on the road with the Marines riding horses. The Spaniards carried out some ambushings, but the imperial army was always detected step by step. Once the two sides faced head-on, the Marines' volleys would strike the Spaniards in scattered and flee, and the Mapuche's pursuit expanded the results.

When crossing the Maipo River, the Spanish ambush had some results. Their army set up at the ferry was easily defeated by the Marines. The Mapuche cavalry took the opportunity to cross the river in the shallows and scattered during the pursuit. They were ambushed by Diego's cavalry for a second time, losing more than 100 people. But this was not a bad thing for Li Su. This battle made the Mapuche people more aware of themselves. In the subsequent decisive battle, the Spanish were not seized by the opportunity.

There were more than 14,000 people in Santiago City, but now the population exceeds 30,000. The white people in Chile who were worried about being liquidated entered the city with their families, slaves and wealth. These people brought weapons and militias, but the significance was not great. Only coastal cities like Lima had walls to guard against pirates, and Santiago City did not even have a wall.

On Mount St. Lucia, which is only 230 meters high, there is a Krup Fort with a history of more than 150 years. A seven-angle castle was built with this center, but it has not been completed. The main urban area is built around this hill, with churches, weapons squares and town halls surrounding it, with no other defenses.

The residents of the city will not allow the enemy to destroy the city, so it is inevitable to defend the enemy outside the city. Therefore, around the Maip Ferry Quay in the southwest corner of the city, the two sides launched a long tug-of-war. After seeing the sharp guns and cannons of the Imperial Marines, the Spaniards chose to build fortifications, with trenches and chest walls as the foundation. Such fortifications obviously cannot stop the Marines, but Li Su did not want to suffer major casualties. Now any warrior in Chile is precious.

Therefore, Li Su always commanded the army to spare the fortifications of the Spaniards and made the illusion of entering Santiago City, forcing them to make for the fortifications or rebuilt new fortifications. In this process, the line infantry always distanced more than 350 meters from the enemy, allowing artillery and hunters equipped with rifled rifles to be responsible for attacking the enemy.

The frontal battle ended in a night attack. When the snow-lit bayonets appeared in the camp in rows, the Spanish troops that had been suppressed collapsed and fled to the city one after another. This time, the Mapuche people chased and killed the Mapoch River until the collapsed Spanish soldiers broke out in civil strife.

Antonio only allowed the infantry regiment and Creole soldiers to enter the Seventh Point Castle in Saint Lucia, the Peruvian regiment, and the local militia were completely abandoned outside.

Li Su released some prisoners and asked them to bring back the thirteen orders of King Yu. As a result, a large number of rich people and powerful people flocked to the Seven-Key Castle and threw the city completely to the Imperial Marines. In this case, the army entered the city without any crime and surrounded Mount Saint Lucia.

Facing this hill with a height of 230 meters, full of cactus, and only one road up the mountain, Li Su had no good idea. In fact, the Marines had lost one third of the grenades, and the howitzer grenades had been exhausted, and they could only use locally made shotguns. There were more than 40 artillery and more than one thousand defenders in the castle on the mountain.
Chapter completed!