Querétaro is one of the oldest cities in the Americas, having appeared on this fertile land five hundred years ago, decades before the predecessor of Mexico City, Tenochtitlan. After the Spanish colonists occupied this ancient Indian city, they built a city with a strong Spanish style on the ruins of Indian civilization, and named it Querétaro.

The city's strategic location is a transportation hub from Mexico City to the north and west. Because of the geographical topography, it is not easy to build a smooth road in this era, Mexico City is located in the valley of the south-central highlands of Mexico, and it is not easy to build a road directly from Mexico City to the west in this era of backward technology.

The only way to do this is to go north to Querétaro, more than 400 miles away, and then from Querétaro to the west, and finally to Manzanillo by the sea.

The other avenue in Querétaro runs straight to the north, leading to the war zone.

This shows the importance of the city's location.

If the expeditionary force only wanted to cut off the logistical supply lines of the Spanish colonial army on the front line, it would have actually captured Querétaro.

- The Spaniards really did their best to drain the entire force of Mexico City, and now Mexico City is only left with a cavalry force of a few hundred men to suppress the situation, and the rest of the army is all driven to Querétaro.

But to the south of Querétaro is Mexico City, and in the middle is a smooth road, without any obstacles, and no one will leave a large piece of fat in front of them and not eat it.

The expeditionary force that fought Manzanillo, the Indian armed coalition, has now reached the outside of Querétaro, and this is a decisive battle in the true sense of the word. Mexico City amassed all its troops, some of which had been urgently repatriated from the West Indies. The Spanish colonial army on the front line has been ordered to retreat, of course, the expeditionary force opposite them is desperately holding them back, but there are still many units of the Spanish colonial army withdrawing from the front line. This is a message from the Mexicans, so the coalition forces don't have too much time, they have to hurry.

"Boom ......"

"Boom ......"

Bursting flames exploded on the positions of the Spanish colonial troops. The breastwork collapsed, and earth and rocks splattered. But for the Spanish colonial soldiers hidden deep in the trenches, the lethality was far less powerful than it seemed.

The time has come to September 1783 in the Western calendar, and the coalition forces attacked Manzanillo and conquered the four cities of Guadalajara, de Hidalgo, Irapuato, and León. The Indians in the team played a great role, and these Indians were vengeful, and they fought desperately when they fought, and they were ruthless when they killed their opponents!

In addition to these four tough battles with the Spanish colonial army, many small towns and cities along the way of the coalition army seemed to be a peaceful evolution.

Many Indians supported the coalition because they were among them, and many Mexicans chose 'neutrality', and after secret negotiations with the expeditionary force, these people paid a certain price, but also took the opportunity to turn their armed forces into real militias.

This was a big risk for the coalition forces, who were now 'neutral', but if the coalition offensive was thwarted, they could turn into real Spanish militias.

But for the expeditionary force, what can they do if they don't do this?

Destroy them?

This would push the Mexicans, who were inclined to the expeditionary force, to the side of the Spaniards. These big manor owners are like local heroes, and their strength cannot be underestimated. Otherwise, the Spanish Bourbon royal family would not have seen them as a thorn in the side.

Therefore, the expeditionary force can only choose to default.

The whole situation is a bit like the Wubao in the early history of northern China, in fact, it is a small local tyrant, with its own land, its own labor, and its own armed forces. The individual power of each dock fort is not strong, but all the dock forts together are a powerful force.

When war broke out between the dynasties of northern China, these forts maintained a 'neutral' posture with the power at their disposal, and when their interests were touched, these people could quickly stand on the opposite side of the enemy in order to protect their rights.

In the land of Mexico, the owners of those big estates are the owners of the dock forts, and the estates are the dock forts.

This risky decision of the expeditionary force really won the 'heart' of the Mexicans, who had forgotten the 'possible threat' of the expeditionary force, and only remembered their fierce conflict with the Spaniards. Everything becomes 'you and me'!

Even in the large city of Guanajuato, a battalion sent by the expeditionary force did not spend a single shot, and the local Mexican leaders and local militia chose to 'surrender'. As a result, the expeditionary force successfully took away 100 metric tons of corn, sorghum, potatoes and other grains from Guanajuato, as well as more than 1,000 cattle, horses and livestock, 100,000 eagles, and a large number of munitions and materials.

Then Guanajuato, a city north of Querétaro, was handed over by the expeditionary force to the local militia to 'defend itself'.

They can safely report to Mexico City that the counterattack of the local militia defeated the Chen Han expeditionary force that entered the city and successfully regained the city. If only this report could be delivered to Mexico City through the 'battlefield'.

"Kill......"

Seeing the artillery and rockets of the expeditionary force, the Spanish colonial army could not raise its head. Seeing the flowering bombs and rockets blowing up the positions of the Spanish colonial army outside Querétaro like a scorched earth, the Indian forces in the coalition army became excited. Lu Long, who served as the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, signaled to the Indians on the side, and several leaders walked to the front of the Indian armed forces in high spirits, brandishing sabers and spears, and shouting 'freedom, freedom', which made the already high fighting spirit and fighting spirit of the Indian armed forces instantly exploded.

"Kill, ......," more than a thousand Native Americans shouted and shouted.

Behind them, there were a large number of armed Indian soldiers who fought with the expeditionary force but were not selected, looking at them with envy.

These Indians, like the remnants of the Eight Banners north of the Amur River, were filled with indelible hatred in their hearts. Their treatment of the Spanish colonial army is irreconcilable like the bitter hatred of the Eight Banners immigrants for Chen Ming.

Therefore, they behaved exceptionally bravely on the battlefield.

Although these soldiers and leaders of the Indian armed forces knew that the expeditionary force contained them and supported them just to make them take the lead on the battlefield, or to use their lives as cannon fodder, it was impossible for them to say in their hearts that they did not care at all. But they are also willing to bear this sacrifice, and they are willing to be used in this way.

- just to be able to take revenge on the Spaniards.

This was all out of their hatred of the Spaniards.

Seeing that the hundreds of cannons and countless rockets of the expeditionary force were constantly bombarding the Spaniards, and the forward positions under the Spanish colonial army were in shambles, the dissatisfaction in the hearts of many Indian armed leaders also disappeared. They thought that the Spanish colonial army would suffer heavy losses in such heavy artillery fire, and that the charge of their own and others would be pure slaughter.

When the Indian forces in the coalition army charged, the artillery of the expeditionary force was still roaring. When the soldiers of the Indian armed forces were still two or three hundred meters away from the forward positions of the Spanish colonial army, the roar of the artillery of the expeditionary force continued. It was not until the soldiers of the Indian armed forces were 100 meters away from the forward positions of the Spanish colonial army that the artillery of the expeditionary force suddenly turned off.

The Spanish commander in Querétarone was overwhelmed by the quality of the artillery of the expeditionary force. This is the essence of a military power, the elite tempered in one war after another, and it is really not something that other countries can catch up with with their casual efforts.

When the artillery fire of the expeditionary force stopped, the soldiers of the forward positions of the Spanish colonial army, who had been prepared, climbed up from the bottom of the trenches, drilled out of the anti-artillery holes, and aimed their muskets at the Indian forces washed by the tide on the opposite side.

A group of Indian rabble, they don't want to waste rockets. The latter is to be left for use on the Chinese.

"Boom, boom, boom......"

The Spanish artillery on the position fired shotguns.

"Bang-"

"Bang-"

"Bang-"

Three veteran companies led three companies of recruits, seven or eight hundred infantry, except for the soldiers who had been damaged in the bombardment, three neat rows of fire, so that the Indian forces that were about to rush like a tide, the brown and black tide suddenly stopped. It's like encountering an invisible wall, the momentum of the violent impact stops, and the entire 'sharpness' is directly gone.

More than a thousand charging Indian forces fell in an instant, and more than a quarter fell in an instant. Looking at the fallen part of their own people in front of them, the rest of the Indian armed forces were dumbfounded.

The flintlock pistol can fire two rounds per minute, and a small number of elite shooters can make three rounds. There were not many soldiers in the entire Spanish colonial army who could reach this level on the battlefield, but the vast majority of soldiers had no problem achieving a rate of fire of one shot per minute on the battlefield.

Six companies on the forward positions of the Spanish colonial army formed a horizontal formation in three columns. That meant that it only took twenty seconds to get a wave of gunfire. And by the time the third column salvo ended, ten seconds had already passed.

There was really not much time left for the Indians to be stupid, and if they could always rush forward heroically, they should be able to rush to the position before the Spaniards fired a new salvo, but they were just stupid, and they were frightened by the grenade explosion thrown by the colonial army immediately after the salvo, and after the stupidity was over, they fired the musket in their hands in a daze, which delayed for some time, so they could only bear the second round of shooting sadly.

Lu Long was angry on the battlefield and just wanted to scold his mother, this group of Indians really didn't change their ways. They had already learned such a lesson in previous battles, what did the instructor say? They kept rushing forward and kept rushing forward, but they learned to dodge the shelling and lay down and crawl very quickly, and they learned to rush forward all the time too slowly.

In the previous four tough battles, this kind of scene will occur in that battle.

If you don't dare to attack, if you want to retreat but don't retreat, and you can't form an array to shoot, you can only eat guns.

More than 1,000 Indian forces were directly crushed and defeated. The men who charged the most fiercely were still twenty or thirty meters away from the forward positions and trenches.

Lu Long's brows furrowed without frowning. He had long known that the Spanish colonial army was not easy to deal with, and he charged the Indian armed forces, just to test the firepower of the opponent's position!

Look at the locations of the artillery eruptions, and where to wait for the artillery to bombard the key areas......

Now the Spaniards are short of artillery and have a lot of rockets, but they have lost a lot of artillery and lost a large number of artillery, and it is now difficult to mobilize firepower comparable to that of the expeditionary force to Querétaro.

And as for how many Indian armed forces died? What's the matter! Even if all the people are dead, they can't bite off a single hair of him!

"Commander-in-chief, let's go up. With our quality, the Spaniards will not be our opponents. ”

The person who spoke was an officer of the Praetorian Guard, and as the right lieutenant, the team he led was only a team, but the guns in the hands of the soldiers in this team were all rifled guns, although they were not the most advanced Mini rifles, but a team of rifle shooters, if used well, would definitely be able to cause a lot of trouble for the Spaniards.

The Praetorian Guard, who had followed the second group of troops to North America, had mostly turned their hands from the old flintlock pistols to muskets, which had begun to equip their troops on a large scale, although they were not much more powerful than the flintlock pistols.

Lu Long did not give the order for the Praetorian Guard and the Dispatch Army to attack immediately. Lu Long, who was experienced in combat, knew very well how difficult it would be to destroy the Spanish colonial army, which had the advantage of trenches and breastprints.

Breastworks and trenches negate all advantages. It was a waste of time to use the rifle shooters against the Spaniards hiding in the trenches and behind the breastwork. "The artillery continued to bombard, destroying all the fortifications on the Spanish positions."

Lu Long's eyes were cautious.

As the commander-in-chief of this army, he not only pursued victory in battle, not only for the sake of the lives of his soldiers, but also for the overall situation.

The situation was now that the Spaniards were coming back with reinforcements, and he had to get rid of Querétaro and open the gates to attack Mexico City before then.

So he can't go to grind time. Lu Long is not prepared to take this risk.

Querétarone, the Spanish commander looked at the expeditionary force that continued to 'vigorously' with a slight raised eyebrow. He did not continue to send troops to attack, but chose to continue the shelling!

What's going on?

Didn't these Chinese look down on the Spanish colonial army and look down on Spain? Why not attack immediately? Didn't they know that the Spanish troops at the front were rapidly turning back?

But Luroun did not attack, and the Spanish commanders were helpless. I had to give the order to withdraw three companies from the forward positions, pay attention to the protection of the artillery, and then watch the expeditionary force shoot the artillery.

Flowering bombs exploded on the position, and dust and sand flew ......

The Spaniards as a whole may be rotten, but that doesn't mean there aren't smart people among them. From the war for more than a year, the Spaniards clearly saw the negative response of the Mexicans, although these people did not explicitly drag the Spanish colonial authorities back, but the things they did were also faintly challenging the bottom line of the colonial authorities.

In this case, if you want to say that these people will not hook up with the Chinese, the pig will not believe it.

Imagine the Chinese goods that have appeared on the Mexican market in recent years, and the smuggling ships in the Gulf of California should not be too rampant. In this case, the Spaniards certainly have the ability to confuse the expeditionary force with some information that seems to be true or false.

And it's not fake information.

However, the defeated Spaniards also sent some troops from the West Indies, including some French......