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On January 25, 1646, the Chang Kaisheng detachment of the 6th Army, which had been resting in Santa Fe for nearly ten days and waiting for supplies, began to move again. Their target this time is Corrientes City, located in the upper reaches of Santa Fe, Corrientes is a small city with a predominantly agricultural base and no decent military facilities, with a population of just over 1,000 people. However, this small city, which was already the last barrier of the wealthy Paraguay at this time, could be breached by the army on the east coast, which was a heavy blow to the Spanish psyche, because no one could threaten Asunción, the pearl of La Plata.

The Spaniards initially chose Buenos Aires as the colonization base in La Plata, but due to the fierce resistance of the nearby Indians, the first efforts of the 2,500 Spanish colonists to build a city here were interrupted, and they had to sail to the upper Paraná River to find a suitable place to build a city, and finally chose Asunción. Buenos Aires was abandoned, and the cattle left behind by the Spaniards eventually multiplied into a large herd of bison due to the region's privileged environment.

It can be said that from that early age, Asunción has always played the image of the mother city in the minds of the Spaniards of the La Plata region. After establishing a foothold in the Paraguay region with Asunción as the core, countless peninsulars and their Indian servants descended the Paraná River, and within a few decades6 the cities of Corrientes, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires dotted the desolate and silent Paraná River basin.

But soon the lower part of the Paraná River will return to desolation. Because the Crandians who have lost their minds are going around in tandem. Attacking the villages or farmsteads of the Spaniards, the wave of revolts was no longer confined to a few areas. And it began to spread everywhere. The Spaniards' weak military forces in the area had been struck by the easterners, and they could no longer effectively suppress any military revolt from the barbarians, so a disaster befell the Spaniards.

Chang Kaisheng's detachment left the 1O6 Company of the 6th Army, which had a large number of recruits, and 300 militiamen in Santa Fe, and his deputy Jiang Zhiqing led people to stay behind. Then he took the remaining four infantry companies, three cavalry companies, and the rest of the militia, totaling about 21oo people, and drove up the river in a large number of river steamboats. As for the cavalry of the three companies, they could only march along the river bank with great difficulty. After all, the tonnage of the steamship is limited, and it can't accommodate those hundreds of tall war horses.

Actually, about how to act next. 6. There are not without disagreement within the military department and even within the headquarters of the Joint Staff. First of all, everyone agreed that the battle must not be satisfied with the capture of Santa Fe, and that the 6th Army must continue to attack the strategically important Spanish towns. It's just that in the vast Argentine plain, the Spanish strongholds are too far apart, and it is extremely difficult to attack. For example, some in the 6th Army Department advocated attacking Córdoba in the west, and then threatening the densely populated northwestern region of Argentina, and then spying on Chalcas and northern Chile.

If only in a strategic sense. Córdoba is indeed a worthy target. Because it was the main transportation route between Chile, Charcas and the eastern region of La Plata, it was the main transit point for the mule gang on the Viceroyalty of Peru, Spain.6 In previous years, the silver mines of Potosí had transported some of the silver bars produced by guò mules to Santa Fe via Córdoba and then shipped back to the mainland via the Río de la Plata. In fact, not only silver bars, but also many goods between the two places have to be transshipped through here, so Córdoba is a true thoroughfare. The capture of this place will inevitably have a great shock to the Spaniards.

However, the distance between Córdoba and Santa Fe is a natural obstacle, and although the savannah is flat, the logistical pressure on the east coast is still very heavy. They had to raise a large number of heavy freight wagons, as well as a large number of coachmen and waffles. Of course, it is also necessary to prepare a considerable number of troops to protect the supply lines, which is simply a fantasy for the people on the east coast who are now severely underarmed. Therefore. After a brief debate, the 6th Army Department quickly rejected this line of attack and instead aimed at the city of Corrientes.

As a city of the same period as Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, Corrientes is not as intelligent as it is today. The agrarian-based economy and the de facto slavery under the cover of the so-called system of guardianship and levy have rendered the whole society as lifeless as a stagnant pool. It was only after the smuggling trade with the East Coast became popular in recent years that the society of Corrientes showed a little vitality thanks to the export of wool, hides, cheese, and fat. The emergence of a small group of merchants and retailers in the local area, reselling goods back and forth between the East Coast and the locals, to be sure, objectively promoted the local economic development and injected a new vitality into the dead society.

But this vitality soon faded with the outbreak of war. With the fall of the fleet of La Plata and the fall of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, Corrientes' otherwise stable society began to rise violently. Many wealthy landowners, ranchers, and big merchants began to transfer their valuable goods to Asunción, and later, with the frenzied influx of the defeated remnants of the infantry regiment of La Plata, these so-called gentlemen also gave up their last illusions, got into carriages and began to march towards Asunción, after all, it was always safer than Corrientes, who had become the front line.

After making the decision to continue to attack Corrientes in the north, Chang Kaisheng did not hesitate and began to lead the main force of the detachment of more than 24oo people to embark on the road of the northern expedition. They sailed comfortably on the waters of the Paraná River, in a comfortable river steamboat. The significance of this river to the people of the east bank at that time cannot be overstated, because the river undertook all the transportation of goods and people on the east bank. Without this river, it would have been more difficult for people on the east bank to get from Buenos Aires to Santa Fe.

Chang Kaisheng's detachment did not go fast along the way, because they needed to keep up with the itinerary of the cavalry units on the shore. Moreover, along the way, they also encountered several Spanish villages under the reminder of the cavalry, and the people on the east coast were naturally not polite to these villages. After the security tax was collected, the Indian slaves in the village were pardoned according to the process, and then they were given weapons to encourage them to "fight for freedom". The people of the East Coast did this in almost every village or farm, and it seemed as if they were vowing to wipe out the Spanish colonization in the Paraná Valley.

Due to the task of liberating the Klandians, Chang Kaisheng and the others did not walk quickly, either freeing Indian slaves along the way, or surveying the terrain and drawing maps, in short, when the calendar turned to November 2o, they had just arrived at the city of Corrientes on the left bank of the Paraná River.

There were just over 1,000 white inhabitants in Corrientes, a number that has also surged in the last decade or so, and at this time there were only about 300 peninsulars or native-born whites. In addition to the more than 1,000 white inhabitants, there were hundreds of gauchos who acted as his thugs and accomplices, and then there were more than 5,000 Indians in the city - Guarani and Klandis. It is worth mentioning that many of these Indians were also on the side of Spain, and most of them were assimilated by Jesuits, Franciscans and other missionary groups, numbering about 1,000 people.

The military strength of the city consisted of more than 200 soldiers of the La Plata Infantry Regiment who had fled from the city of Santa Fe, in addition to some seven or eight hundred militiamen reinforced from the northern Paraguay region - more than 9o% of whom were Guarani. Such a force would not be enough to resist an East Bank army of more than 24oo men, and like Santa Fe or Buenos Aires, they had little chance of winning against an artillery and earth-washing East Bank army.

Before the battle began on the 6th, the four shallow river gunboats accompanying the army had already taken the lead in attacking, knocking several small Spanish dhows on the river to the bottom, and a large amount of food, gunpowder and other materials sank to the bottom of the river, making the Spaniards in the city twitch in the face.

"Prepare to attack!" Chang Kaisheng saw that his subordinates had been very skillfully prepared for the attack, and immediately smiled with satisfaction. He was sitting in a wheat field outside the city, and the fields that were supposed to be sown for spring in this season had been abandoned by war, and it was evident that even if the people on the east coast withdrew their troops, there would be a great famine in Corrientes next year, unless Paraguay mobilized a large number of food supplies.

But what does it matter to me? Chang Kaisheng shook his head, and then decisively gave the order to start a frontal assault, and the battle began.

Due to the thorough preparation, the Spaniards built a fairly strong defense in the city this time, and the supplies were sufficient, and the artillery was as high as 6, which made the progress of Chang Kaisheng's detachment slow in the attack. Even during the night, the Spaniards organized several small-scale night raids, and although they did not achieve much success under the tight defense of the East Coast Army, they eventually caused some trouble to the East Coast and lost some manpower.

However, the Spaniards could only cause some minor trouble. Under the extremely patient and step-by-step combat mode of the people on the east coast, the Spaniards, who were weak in both firepower and troops, could not hold out for long in the end. What's more, there was a steady stream of steamships in the rear of the East Coast to send over the huge military supplies consumed on the front line, but the supply line of the Spaniards had been cut off by the gunboats on the East Coast, which doomed the Spaniards to not be able to hold out for a long time in Corrientes.

On 3o November, after ten days of monotonous and boring siege warfare, the army on the east bank conquered the city of Corrientes at the cost of 58 dead and wounded. The remnants of the Spanish Infantry Regiment of La Plata suffered another heavy blow, and the commander of the regiment, Anthony . 165 men below Major Carlos were killed, and only a few dozen managed to break through. A quarter of the hundreds of native soldiers who had been reinforced from the Paraguayan area were also killed, and the rest fled overnight.

Corrientes Offensive Battle, that's the end! At this time, the army on the east coast also seemed to have reached a certain limit of its own, whether it was physical, psychological or material supply, it had reached a limit, and it needed a short period of rest.