After three months of preparation, the fleet of the high year became an inland river fleet, and three relatively small low-level sea vessels were selected from the sea ships to be the flagship of the river fleet, which were equipped with two cannons, mainly used to deal with the city walls and gates of the port cities along the river, and the rest of the flat-bottomed river boats were equipped with mortars, this fleet included a total of one hundred and twenty large and small ships, each with forty or fifty people, of which a quarter were rowed, and the paddle was pedal wheel. In any case, the strength of a person's feet is stronger than that of his arms, especially when he is in battle, and he can squat down, which can avoid casualties as much as possible.

The team of this expedition contains 1,500 Ming soldiers, more than 2,000 Indian soldiers, Gao Nian as the commander of the fleet, the first tribal leader Monkey who approached the Ming Dynasty is the commander-in-chief of the Indian soldiers, he can now fluently use Chinese and communicate with the Gundam Nian, including the soldiers who follow the expedition can basically have a simple dialogue and exchange, which is also the basic requirement of this expedition, everyone knows that the officials of the Ming Dynasty will not treat themselves badly, and the Gundam Nian promises to have rich rewards, So the soldiers who joined the army were very enthusiastic.

The more than 500 soldiers left behind were commanded by Qian Shoulian, and cooperated with the seventeen warships of the Ming Dynasty to defend the new Chang'an, mainly to prevent the armies of Spain or other European countries from coming from the coast, but the general merchant ships can still be supplied here, but there will definitely not be too much, the most is that the Portuguese come here to conduct some trade, as for the fleet of Italy and France, there are still not too many, because if you go south, it has been almost cleaned up by the warships led by Yu Hualong and Niu Jinxing. Only a few indigenous Indians deal in some simple goods.

The mighty fleet sailed upstream along the Jing River, in front of the brigade were several survey boats, and many tools for measuring the waterway were placed on the survey boats, which was also the careful place of the high year, and it was necessary to act carefully in a strange place, so as not to be taken by the enemy in the case of dominance, and the survey boats left a certain mark wherever they passed, it is now December of the sixth year of the Apocalypse, and it is also the summer of South America, this is the most abundant time of the Jing River, the water area of the middle and lower reaches is very large, and the river channel is also very wide. The reason why Gao Nian chose such a season to go out is also to consider that only at this time can these three relatively small sea ships be used to enter the middle reaches of the Jing River, and it is difficult to determine whether they can enter in the dry season, if these three powerful sea ships do not join the fleet, if they encounter a fortified city, ordinary mortars will not be able to blow up the city wall.

Choosing this season is not all good, although the water is abundant and easy to enter a larger area, but now the speed of the water flow is relatively large, and it takes a long time to go upstream, and it is not easy to drive upward, the solution for up to one year is to use three sea ships to drive behind the survey ship, relying on their steam engine power, and use the fiber rope to pull up the flat-bottomed boat behind to form a string, so that a lot of effort is saved, and the speed of the ship is relatively fast, but it is not very convenient to move, which is also no way. You can't just drive slowly by manpower.

The huge fleet went upriver along the Jing River, because of the traction of sea ships, much faster than ordinary ships, and it took a few days to reach the first fortress of the Spaniards along the Jing River - Corrientes, Corrientes is located at the junction of the two main tributaries of the Jing River, built on the east bank of the Jing River, it is a fortress point established by the Spaniards in the thirties of the last century, and a fortress point can be built here to control the transportation of the entire Jing River, which is a town that must be taken by the high year.

Corrientes' garrison has more than 3,000 people, and the commander and governor of the garrison is Pilar, who manages all the areas below the city, including the ships that go to New Chang'an to collect taxes are all sent by him, but he has been here for a long time, and he also knows that these subordinates are very sloppy, even if they haven't come back for almost half a year, he doesn't care, maybe these people can't return until the water is stable after Christmas, and he doesn't worry about these people not coming back, their families are still living here.

The huge fleet arrived at the riverside port of Corrientes, Pilar's men thought they had encountered a large caravan, and sent the officials who collected taxes to negotiate, when they saw the three huge sea ships, they thought that they had made a fortune this time, and even wanted to keep these big ships for their own use, they had done these things many times in private, and they were no better than the robbers, but this time they completely miscalculated, this is a warship of the Gundam year, not only did they not grab the big ships, but even their small tax collection ships were detained, All those who boarded the ship were taken down.

The Spanish troops in the port were still vigilant and could see the situation through the telescope, but their reaction was still slow, and the well-trained Gundam Nian men had already rushed to the port before they were ready to open fire, after all, there had been no war here for many years, and their artillery needed to be adjusted. The subordinates of the Gundam Nian, who had been prepared, attacked the fort in the first time, stabilized the steam engine of the sea ship, and the mortars on the river boat quickly covered the entire battery, because the current battery is open, and there is no consideration for the attack of the protection sea ship, and the soldiers on the battery cannot hide, and under the leadership of the Ming soldiers, the Indian soldiers quickly occupied the port.

Behind the port is the city of Corrientes, the fort is the first pass of the fortress, the Ming soldiers who occupied the fort immediately set up mortar positions, and the transport team composed of Indian soldiers began to carry shells from the ship, the artillery on the fort was not used, their muzzles were aimed at the outside, so they could only use * to suppress the attack from the city wall.

Due to the rapid action of the Ming army, the forts in the port did not play a corresponding role, but these Spanish soldiers still reacted relatively quickly, and the troops of the Gundam Nian were attacking from the back, which gave them time to escape, and soon the soldiers on these forts ran into the city, quickly closed the city gates, and notified the garrison commander Pilar to prepare for battle.

After seizing the port, Gao Nian was not in a hurry to attack, he had been driving on the Jing River for several days, and the soldiers also needed to rest, in addition to obtaining a support point to seize the port, another reason was to get enough rest, as long as he stood here, there were Indian tribes nearby, and it would not take long to be attracted by the Indian soldiers he led, and he didn't need to spend too many resources to storm this fortress, maybe the Spaniards themselves couldn't bear the attack.

This is a contiguous swampy area, but also a sparsely populated place, most of the population lives outside the city of Corrientes, most of the people living in the fortress are Spaniards, Gao Nian asked the monkey to take his soldiers to live in the indigenous population area outside the fortress, and told him not to harass the local residents, he still has to rely on the local residents to besiege this fortress, and when the Spaniards feel that life is difficult, maybe they will come out to attack themselves, or take the initiative to surrender, After all, living in a small fortress still requires a lot of daily necessities.

The monkey has been following Gundam for so long, and he still understands Gundam's strategy very well, and it is not impossible for his thousands of soldiers to break through this fortress that has been built for seventy or eighty years, but it will definitely pay a lot of price. But if these Indians outside the city are subdued under their own hands, not only will they increase their strength, but also make the Spaniards in the fortress lose their source of livelihood, food and water may not be lacking, but there must always be some meat and vegetables, these Spaniards who are used to living more comfortably, if they do not have a comfortable life, then what is the point of staying here.

The reason why the monkey is called a monkey is that he is smarter than ordinary people, he asked the soldiers to organize and enter the indigenous Indian tribes outside the fortress, using iron knives and daily necessities in their hands to exchange vegetables and some food in the hands of the residents, and sold these things short within a few days, that is, the Spaniards on the fortress shouted loudly, and there were no residents to sell vegetables and other things to them, so that they could only eat dry steamed buns in the fortress, and after a few days, even the firewood for cooking was not enough, I had to tear down some of the door panels to burn them.