Negotiations with the Bolivian army collapsed, and the Chinese Independence Army had no choice but to fight with the Indians and the Bolivian army.

The long turn road is difficult to walk, and the heavy artillery required for the siege is attached to the artillery brigade behind,

Li Mingyuan led the forward troops to camp near the Aymara village, waiting for the arrival of the artillery brigade.

In the days of waiting for the follow-up forces to converge, Li Mingyuan and the Aymara negotiated a joint attack on the Bolivian army, and the Aymara also sent a large number of people to contact the Indians of other tribes and persuade them to unite against Melgarejo's army.

Only two years after the events of the 1866 Indian uprising, the Indians in Bolivia remember the bitter experience and are now willing to offer a helping hand to provide weapons and pledge to fight the Mergarejo regime.

There is no conflict of interest between the Chinese Independence Army and the Indians, the Indians want to recapture the land that belongs to them, and the Chinese Independence Army just wants to pass through Bolivia safely.

The Indians did not have to worry about the Chinese Independence Army grabbing land with them after the success of the uprising, so the two sides hit it off and reached an agreement without a long time of arguing.

The Indians in La Paz were the first to arrive at the Chinese Independence Army (CIA) garrison and receive the weapons allocated to them by the Chinese Independence Army.

In four days of negotiations, a total of fifteen groups of Indians gathered at the Chinese Independence Army garrison, numbering 5,000 people.

Seven hundred muskets were initially seized from the Bolivian soldiers, and five hundred were left in addition to the two hundred handed over to the Aymara, and five hundred muskets were not enough for the five thousand Indians.

Therefore, Li Mingyuan ordered the cavalry brigade to be divided into three units to attack and capture the small cities in La Paz Province, which were difficult to break without heavy artillery, but other small cities were not so complicated, and often the Chinese cavalry would enter the city with a rapid charge or surround the city for a while and release their guns, and the Bolivian soldiers defending the small city would surrender on their own initiative.

South America is sparsely populated, except for some strategic points, other small cities have low walls and some are not even protected by city walls, so the Chinese cavalry has a wealth of results, breaking through nine small cities in a few days and capturing 1,500 muskets.

Fifteen hundred, plus the remaining five hundred, made a total of two thousand muskets, which could arm two thousand Indian soldiers.

The 2,000 Indian musketeers were quite numerous, and Li Mingyuan did not plan to continue to expand the size of the Indian musketeers, because the main force fighting against Bolivia was the Chinese Independence Army, and the role of winning over the Indians was to appease the locals and let them provide stable logistics for the Chinese Independence Army.

In the military tent, Li Mingyuan stood in front of the map and carefully inspected the terrain near La Paz.

La Paz is located in the eastern part of the Bolivian Altiplano, bordered by plateaus to the southwest, mountains to the southeast, tropical valleys to the east, and rainforest belts on the edge of the Amazon River basin to the north. La Paz is a typical mountain town, surrounded by mountains, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Moreover, La Paz is located at the intersection of the Peruvian plain and the Bolivian plateau, and the increase in altitude will have a certain impact on the operation of the Chinese Independence Army that has just entered the plateau.

Li Mingyuan stared at the city of La Paz for a long time, thinking about how to siege it.

Because the city of La Paz is high and the roads are difficult to walk, it is very difficult to attack the city with artillery.

In the past few days when the Chinese Independent Army has been stationed, the garrisons of the cities of La Paz and the reinforcements sent by Melgarejo have arrived in La Paz, and according to the reports of the Indians who heard the news, the total number of troops stationed in La Paz has exceeded 10,000, and in two days, Melgarejo will personally lead 10,000 Bolivian troops to reinforce.

At that time, it will be more difficult for the Chinese Independence Army to break through La Paz.

Without attacking La Paz, it is theoretically feasible for the field troops of the Chinese Independence Army to advance directly into the heart of Bolivia, but in this way, the subsequent large force of 90,000 people carrying a large amount of supplies will be blocked.

The combat strength of the 90,000-strong Chinese troops is not comparable to that of the main force of the field army, and there is a large amount of material drag, once it is glued by the army in La Paz, it will bring very bad consequences.

Li Mingyuan did not leave the problem to the follow-up troops, and in his plan, the city of La Paz must be attacked, otherwise the Chinese Independence Army's operation across Bolivia will be difficult.

The fortress is the easiest to attack from the inside, in order to break through the city of La Paz, Li Mingyuan selected 100 people from the Indian soldiers to blend into the city of La Paz, preparing to assist the Chinese independent army to break the city at the critical time of the siege.

The follow-up large army set off a day earlier than the main force of the Chinese field army, but because of the drag of the disabled soldiers and a large number of supplies in the ranks, they have been following behind the field army.

According to a letter from Liu Pu, who was in charge of the affairs of the follow-up troops, the front of the follow-up troops was less than 30 miles away from Li Mingyuan's location, and the two units would be able to meet in one day.

In the letter, Liu Pu reported to Li Mingyuan some problems encountered in the process of transferring.

After the Chinese troops set out from Arequipa, they first reached the city of Puno and then marched along Lake Titicaca towards Bolivia.

Because there was a field army in front of the road, in the early stage of the transfer, the follow-up troops were safe and secure along the way, and did not encounter thorny problems.

However, at the end of Lake Titicaca, which was still seventy or eighty miles away from the Bolivian border, the follow-up troops entered the mountainous and forested area.

The roads deep in the mountains and forests were difficult to walk, and even with the markers left by the field army, the advance of the follow-up troops slowed down considerably, from the initial advance of 60 li a day to less than 30 li a day.

Due to the influence of the topography, although the mountains and forests on the border between Peru and Bolivia do not have strange snakes and beasts in the tropical mountains, the high altitude of the mountains and forests still caused great difficulties for the advancing follow-up troops.

Food, gunpowder, and artillery required horse-drawn wagons and a large number of men to move forward, and in order to transport these important weapons and supplies out of the mountains, Liu Pu sent 5,000 Chinese soldiers to level the mountain roads and build improvised bridges between the rivers.

Then the healthy Chinese were divided into three groups and took turns to take over the transportation of supplies.

Coming out of Arequipa, a distance of several hundred miles, the follow-up Chinese troops walked for 18 days, and in 18 days, because of the transportation of supplies and weapons, 100 people fell into the mountains and died, 24 people fell into the water and died, and 91 people were attacked by the Indians living on the shore of Lake Titicaca, of whom 45 died.

The Indians around Lake Titicaca were tribes fleeing the Inca Empire, and they were enclosed on islands in the lake, with no contact with the outside world, so they showed great hostility towards the Chinese troops who moved in.

Later, Liu Pu sent a regiment of Chinese soldiers to capture five Indian villages in one fell swoop and execute more than 120 Indians who attacked the Chinese, so that they did not dare to attack the Chinese troops again.

At the time of Liu Pu's writing, the follow-up troops lost 400 people due to various reasons in the process of transferring to Bolivia, including 169 Chinese who died in accidents and Indian attacks, and the rest were old and weak Chinese who died of injuries and diseases.

The loss of 400 Chinese was not a small amount, and Liu Pu admitted his mistake to Li Mingyuan in the letter, blaming the loss of the Chinese on his own mistakes.

After reading the letter, Li Mingyuan sighed lowly, it was his decision to transfer to Brazil, and he had already expected the losses suffered by the Chinese. However, seeing the number of losses of the Chinese Independence Army, he couldn't help but feel sad in his heart.

The field army was lightly armed, and it did not take much time to cross the shores of Lake Titicaca, and because the field army marched some distance from Lake Titicaca, it was not attacked by the Indians who lived on the islands on the lake.

However, the follow-up troops were attacked by the Indians, which Li Mingyuan did not expect.

He wrote back to Liu Pu, and Li Mingyuan advised him that in the process of transferring, the losses of the Chinese were inevitable, and only when the Chinese Independent Army succeeded in establishing a state in southern Brazil could it be worthy of the dead Chinese. What needs to be done now is to improve the security and protection system in the process of transfer and minimize the casualties of Chinese soldiers.

After writing the letter, Li Mingyuan exhaled and ordered the herald to send the letter.