On May 1, 1648, just as the port of Qingdao was hosting a grand autumn fair, a battle had just come to an end outside the city of Santa Fe in the Paraná Valley. The East Bank Army, which had been greatly strengthened by the belligerents, was commanded by Captain Jiang Zhiqing, and the total number of men reached more than 6,000 men; On the other side were some of the soldiers of the Lima Legion of the Kingdom of Spain, numbering about 3,000 people - most of them Indians from Peru.

In late April, the East Coast Army was reinforced by a mixed force of more than 3,000 people from the Second Brigade of the former Front Brigade and the peasant army of Wang Jiazhong's army, led by Pei Qin and others. After the unit had been redressed in Buenos Aires at the end of January, it was rushed aboard and taken to the Corrientes area, where some remnants of the Plato Infantry Regiment were active, and later a few Guarani congregants who had moved south from the north, posing a threat to Santa Fe's flank.

When Pechin's troops arrived there in mid-February, they quickly launched a blow at the Spanish army, which numbered no more than 1,000 men, but the results were quite painful. Although their unit had been fully equipped with high-class equipment such as flintlock rifles, standard spears, armor, sabers, and hand-thrown bombs, and had a company of artillery support, their way of fighting was still medieval, and they fought quite hard against the Guarani people who were commanded by Spanish professional soldiers, not to mention the remnants of the Spanish infantry regiment of La Plata, and several heavy casualties of tens or hundreds of men were caused by these people.

Faced with such a situation, Pei Qin, as the leading officer, was helpless. After all, more than half of their troops had only fought some low-intensity wars in Shandong, and the officers and soldiers from the second brigade of the Standing Brigade, although they had fought many times with the Qing army's green battalion. But in the end, they are all fighting with ancient armies. Combat effectiveness is just like that. This time I came to the vicinity of Corrientes. When encountering those Guaraní people whose minds are full of religious thoughts, it is not difficult to understand that the fighting is relatively difficult when the equipment of the two sides is not much different. To put it mildly, fighting like this is already regarded as a soldier's life, after all, the court divides the house, land and cattle for everyone, and everyone can't help but talk about conscience.

But the good thing is that they just didn't adapt to it at first. After nearly two months of fighting with the Spaniards, they finally learned from the battle and became more and more courageous, and began to defeat the Spaniards one after another. It's mid-to-late April. Pei Qin finally launched a general attack under Jiang Zhiqing's strict orders, and completely defeated this remnant of the Spanish army at the cost of two or three hundred dead and wounded. In this battle, Pei Qin, who was born as a leatherman in Gansu, rode a Turkmen horse and chased almost seven or eight kilometers with a group of cronies. Major Carlos was killed with an arrow, which was the end of the long-running war.

After the "training" of Corrientes, Pei Chin was ordered to rush to the battlefield of Santa Fe, where the army was gathered, to prepare to participate in a military operation commanded by Captain Jiang Zhiqing aimed at ending the war in La Plata once and for all. In this battle, three infantry companies, four cavalry companies, two artillery companies, and two militia brigades were invested on the east coast, plus nearly 3,000 people from Pei Qin's subordinate who came to support them, and the total strength exceeded 6,000.

The Spaniards on the opposite side had only 3,000 troops. And most of them were Indian soldiers from Peru. The news of the harassment and attack of the Pacific Task Force on the east coast had already arrived, and the Spanish front-line commanders, who were greatly alarmed, feared that the back road would be cut off. Therefore, the main force (mostly white soldiers) was immediately ordered to urgently retreat to the area around Córdoba, waiting for the situation to become clear.

After the main force withdrew, there were only more than 2,000 Indian soldiers left in the Spanish camp outside Santa Fe, and an elite force composed of a small number of whites or mixed-race whites, but there was no artillery. They stayed behind to cover the retreat of the main forces, and naturally the upper echelons would not leave their precious artillery to them.

Jiang Zhiqing also quickly sensed the intention of the Spaniards to retreat, so he immediately ordered all his troops to launch a general attack on April 30. The soldiers who were originally stationed in the city of Santa Fe, in the trenches and turrets outside the city, attacked on all fronts, launched a huge counterattack with the reinforcements, and broke through the Spanish camp outside the city that night, and the Spaniards who stayed behind fled at night. The cavalry on the east coast also changed the previous ban on pursuing at night, and hundreds of cavalrymen wielded sabers and searched the vast steppes for formed Spanish troops to encircle and attack.

The fighting was almost over in the afternoon of the next day (1 May). Pei Chin also joined the pursuit with a group of old men who had come to be horsemen, and he personally cut off the head of a Mestizo (half-blood) officer during the battle, and then kept one of his golden cross necklaces as a trophy.

Last night more than 600 cavalry followed the fleeing Spaniards in pursuit, and by the time they had gathered their troops and returned to camp in the afternoon, there was no longer a single formed Spanish army in sight on the steppe. The meadows, hillsides, and streams were littered with the corpses of the headless Indians, Mestizos, Creoles, and Peninsulars, all of whom were rewound by the sabers of the ferocious cavalry of the East Coast, and even their heads were taken away as battle exploits.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Jiang Zhiqing received statistics on the results of the battle, and more than 6,000 Spanish soldiers were killed, wounded, and captured! This figure made him sigh deeply, the total number of Spanish troops outside Santa Fe was only more than 3,000, and the total number of the results (the number of heads handed in) of these various divisions had exceeded 6,000 when combined. In fact, there is only one explanation for this outrageous situation, that is, there is a large number of acts of killing good and reckless deeds in the cavalry units that attacked last night and some of the infantry units that attacked during the day today! That is, they killed the Krandi, and perhaps a few Mestizos, Creoles, or gauchos, and then cut off their heads and returned to repay their efforts.

Most of this kind of thing was done by the officers and soldiers under Pei Qin's command, who were accustomed to this way of calculating merit in the Ming Dynasty, so when they saw a large number of "two-legged sheep" in the wild, they couldn't help but besiege and kill these people. However, they also put in a lot of effort in yesterday's battle, and the battle was relatively heroic, and at this time, we can't criticize them harshly because of some "trivial things", so just turn a blind eye and report it to the military headquarters. Well, kill 6,000 enemies, a great victory!

After clearing the Spanish army near Santa Fe, the Spaniards' attempt to open up links between Paraguay and Chile and Peru was completely bankrupt. On the contrary, Jiang Zhiqing, who had just won the victory, was full of ambition and wanted to march westward, following the route of the Spaniards to Córdoba, and completely destroying these rich areas that the Spaniards had been running for a long time, which were undoubtedly much richer and more populous than Buenos Aires and other places.

However, there are many problems, the biggest of which is the supply of supplies, which is hundreds of kilometers from Santa Fe to Córdoba, and the roads are in poor condition, full of forests, swamps, and rivers, which undoubtedly make transportation more difficult. The Spaniards relied on a large number of Clandifu mules and horses levied in Córdoba, Turkmenistan, Jujuy, etc., while the people on the east coast did not have this condition.

More than 300 donkeys and mules were captured in last night's battle, but this was obviously not enough, more than 6,000 people attacked Córdoba, and it was difficult to maintain the supply line without thousands of carts and tens of thousands of donkeys and mules. The only way to do this is to move forward gradually, setting up a military station at the intermediate node between Santa Fe and Córdoba, and storing supplies in advance, so that it is possible to support the activities of the army on the east coast in this area. After all, in any war, logistical transportation is always the most head-scratching.

Jiang Zhiqing's battle plan was reported back to the mainland the next day (May 2). On May 11, the first order of the military headquarters was sent back, which basically means that Mo San, the government's envoy in Europe, may have been negotiating peace with the Spaniards, and at this time, the army should carry forward the spirit of not being afraid of sacrifice and fighting continuously, seize the favorable opportunity, and quickly expand the results of the war, without any hesitation!

At the same time, in recognition of the great victory in the Battle of Santa Fe commanded by Captain Jiang Zhiqing, the military department specially promoted him to the rank of army major, which was the same rank as Chang Kaisheng. Dozens of officers and non-commissioned officers were promoted together, and a batch of trophies was also distributed, and the morale of the soldiers was immediately mobilized.

Jiang Zhiqing, who was promoted to the rank of official, suddenly became in high spirits, and he began to order all his troops to go to the field to recruit the Krandi people to act as masters, and at the same time, he also recruited all the livestock within his line of sight to be used as pack animals for transportation and logistics. In the meantime, of course, three of the four cavalry companies had already been released, and they were to collect and pursue the Spanish army, which had not yet retreated to Córdoba, which had not yet retreated to Córdoba, which by this time still numbered more than 2,000 men, and was well equipped and trained.

On 15 May, the first troops began to move westward. Pei Qin led the way with his old brothers, who had shrunk to 2,700 men by this time, and with the help of more than 2,000 Clandevs, they drove hundreds of carts that had been recruited with great difficulty to transport a large number of building materials (planks, bricks, etc., mostly taken from demolished houses in Santa Fe) to the west.

Eventually, they would stop in the San Francisco area, west of Santa Fe, and use simple tools to build a small stronghold in advance, and then wait for the arrival of the follow-up troops to strengthen it into a complete military station, so that they could store all kinds of supplies needed for the long term of the army. (To be continued......)