The next day

In the evening of June 7, 1867

More than 20,000 cavalry motorized cavalry regiments belonging to the Governor's Palace, which had made a long way to assault, overcame all difficulties and finally arrived at the north of the fortress of Umata in the Great River Fort within the specified time, and they hid in a woodland col about 21 kilometers away from the fortress, many officers and soldiers fell asleep on the ground tiredly, and the jungle was full of snoring.

The rest of the officers and men who still had energy helped their comrades-in-arms lead the horses to the river to drink water, feed them with concentrate, and hurry up to eat some dry food with cold water. After filling his stomach, he brought the war horse back and placed it, and then he found a random place to lie down and fall asleep.

"Your Highness, how are you?" Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo asked with a concerned face.

The young Eleventh Highness Tang Li Xin smiled bitterly, and said to his guard officer with his legs a little staggering; "Find two people to help me block it, the inner thighs are worn out, I need to change the ointment."

"Your Highness!"

Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo held back a laugh, summoned a few officers of the guard, and quickly set up a tent for His Highness, and he was just about to follow in, but was driven out by His Highness. 漼

There is no way, the young highness is thin-skinned, even if he grins in pain and opens the blood-stained silk underwear, he will not want anyone to see it around.

"Your Highness, don't reveal it hard, soak it in some warm water, be careful, don't be too anxious!"

"Okay, okay, I can save myself, don't be verbose, I'm not a squeamish little girl."

"Okay then."

Listening to the sound of gasping air from the tent, Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo straightened up, his face full of regret and admiration;

Sure enough, it is a dragon species that inherits the noble bloodline of the Holy Lord! This is ruthless, not mixed with water at all.

As the Tang royal family, which started as a war horse, the princes are naturally skilled in equestrianism, but this kind of ultra-difficult cavalry tactics of thousands of miles of assault has really not been experienced. 漼

Even if he was well prepared, His Royal Highness the Eleventh Prince still wore out the inside of his legs, and it was not easy to persevere!

Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo took more than a dozen steps forward, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and was about to light them, when he saw Master Wu Erbao hurrying over.

Seeing that he took the initiative to give a military salute, he said respectfully; "Your Excellency, Your Excellency, I have just settled the trivial matters in the division, come and see if Your Highness has any orders here,"

"Do you have a heart, Your Highness is all right, smoke a cigarette?"

"Thank you, Lord Lord, how dare you disobey your orders."

Division Commander Wu Erbao took the cigarette with both hands, took the initiative to light the kerosene lighter for Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo to light it first, and then lit his own cigarette, and the two of them swallowed the clouds and spit out the fog to enjoy it.

"Your Excellency Lord, there is still one matter of coming here, and the corps headquarters has convened the commanders of all divisions to discuss and agree on the next operational deployment. Why don't I come and invite Your Highness and Your Excellency to attend the meeting, I wonder what Your Excellency thinks? Lieutenant Colonel Wu Erbao looked respectful and released kindness. 漼

His humble title of "humble duty" was correct, the 10th Volunteer Division was armed in the nature of a militia, and the officers in the division were all temporary in nature, and they were immediately disbanded when the war ended.

The Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo in front of him is different, he belongs to the top imperial guard of the empire, he is a professional officer who has been trained through the academy, and his establishment belongs to the "Royal Chamber", which is an authoritarian military institution alongside the royal secretariat, and the real confidant officer of His Majesty the Emperor.

To put it mildly, the royal guard officers are the third level of officials in the military system, and if they are called guards with knives in the Qing Dynasty, all of them are Praetorian Guard officers.

Originally, it was impossible for the fate lines of the two people to be intertwined, one was the high-ranking aristocratic son, and all the friends were princes and nobles, and the pride of the sky.

One is an ordinary manor owner, who has more than 400,000 and more than 300,000 in the Tang Empire, although the area of the Wu family's ranch is larger, and there can be tens of thousands of hectares, but it is really not uncommon in the Tang Empire, which is rich in land and resources.

Wu Erbao doesn't even have the most basic aristocratic title, and the difference is like a grass chicken seeing a phoenix.

"Your Highness's identity should not be publicized and conspicuous, so let's do it, I will go with you as soon as I explain, and I will report to His Highness when I come back from the specific deployment of the military meeting." Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo acted prudently, and after taking a hard puff of his cigarette, he decided to come down. 漼

Lieutenant Colonel Wu Erbao obeyed himself and replied in a loud voice; "Your Excellency has considered it properly, and you can only admire your humble position."

After taking two more puffs of cigarette, Lieutenant Colonel Pan Shouguo dropped the cigarette butt and stepped on it with his foot and said; "Okay, you wait a minute, I will go with you after reporting to Your Highness."

"Your Excellency, please take care of yourself, and just wait for your humble duties."

On the beach by the stream

More than 40 officers of the Mobile Corps sat on the ground, and a rudimentary hand-drawn map hung from a tree branch in front of them, which was the topographical map of the surrounding area of the fortress of Umaita.

The military meeting was presided over by the commander of the Mobile Corps, Major General Mak Hsiao-cho, who was formerly the commander of the First Army of the Northern Corps and a member of the army, a member of the temporarily strengthened senior officer corps of the Andean Governor's Office, and served as the commander of the mobile corps.

Due to the urgency of the military situation, there was no discussion session. 漼

After giving a briefing on the relevant military situation, Commander Major General Mai Hsiao-cho directly made military arrangements and arranged for the divisions to carry out combat missions at dawn tomorrow.

According to the sentinels;

The fortress of the great river fortress Umata is located in the section between the two rivers of the Paraná River and the Paraguay River, relying on the remaining veins of the mountain to build, the altitude is higher than 270 meters, although the mountain is not high, but the fortress fortress is quite steep, it is a pass fortress that is difficult to capture.

The key point is that the frontal area of the fortress is limited, facing the river on two sides and the mountain on the other, and only the slope and mountain about 200 meters wide in front of the fortress can be attacked, and it is under the full cover of the fortress's artillery fire.

It is difficult for a large-scale army to spread out head-on, and it can only use refueling tactics to attack continuously, regardless of casualties.

This is also the main reason why the Triple Alliance forces paused in front of the fortress of Umaita for eight months, and suffered 780,000 casualties.

After a long period of artillery bombardment, the defensive wall in the north of the fortress of Umaita was dilapidated, and there were large areas of collapse in many places, especially two large areas of the city wall collapsed, but they were simply built with bricks and stones, which did not look reliable. 漼

Due to the rush of time, the allied defenders focused on repairing the defensive walls and towers in the south of the fortress, basically rebuilding the defense system, and planning to defend against the heavy army group of the Tang Empire from the direction of Yasensong.

The Allies never expected that a surprise army from the sky would attack from behind.

In today's cavalry reconnaissance, the fortress of the Great River Fortress Umaita was still operating normally, and there was an endless stream of horse convoys transporting supplies and maintenance in the direction of Yasenson through the fortress, and the surprise attack of the Imperial Mobile Corps was completely unexpected, and the defense was quite lax.

More than ten kilometers north of the Umaita Fortress, the original large battalion of the Triple Alliance Army stationed for more than eight months is still there, and there are more than a dozen camps, but now only four camps still have garrisons.

One of them belongs to the Brazilian barracks, one belongs to the logistics battalion, one belongs to the Argentine barracks, and the other belongs to the Uruguayan barracks, with a total garrison of about 15,000 people, scattered in these four large battalions, and the other camps have long been empty.

Such a deployment gave the mobile corps a major opportunity to break through the fortress in a short time.

The commander, Major General Mai Hsiao-zu, planned to steal the camp, and after dawn tomorrow, organize a convoy of horses and more than 300 elite soldiers, each of whom was equipped with a fast and sharp rate of fire, to pretend to be a supply convoy to raid the gate of the fortress of Umaita, and hold on. 漼

The Volunteer 2nd Division was responsible for the follow-up and seized the fortress with a swift attack.

The two reinforced field cavalry artillery battalions of the mobile corps were all assigned to the 2nd Division, and launched a strong attack when the camp could not be stolen, and repeatedly bombarded the once breached places of the fortress with fierce artillery fire, opening a victory channel for the follow-up attack.

The 19th Volunteer Division, as a reserve force of the 2nd Division, quickly followed up after the 2nd Division's sneak attack on the fortress, fully occupying and controlling the fortress of Umaita.

When the sneak attack on the fortress failed, the officers and men of the 2nd Division were converging to fight, storming the breach, and launching a continuous fierce attack to break the city in one fell swoop.

When the battle broke out, the 8th and 10th Cavalry Divisions were responsible for blocking the gates, and the main targets were the 14,000-strong Brazilian and Argentine military camps north of the fortress, so that the Allied soldiers stationed outside the fortress could not support and waited for an opportunity to clear them.

As for the remaining hundreds of people in the Uruguayan military camp, it was easily settled.

After the military meeting, the officers of the divisions returned to the camp to implement the deployment, and there were more than 20,000 cavalrymen hidden in the huge mountain pass. 漼

The most important thing is to wipe the firearms, oil them for maintenance, sharpen the knives, and carefully prepare for a fierce battle.

When you have enough to eat and drink for the rest of the time, lie down and go to bed to recharge your energy for tomorrow's battle.

Around 12 midnight

After the soldiers of the 2nd Volunteer Division and the 19th Volunteer Division in charge of assaulting the fortress were all fed and ready to go, most of the officers and men had to abandon their horses, march 20 kilometers on foot in the night, and enter the starting position before the attack to wait for concealment.

The two field mounted artillery battalions that accompanied the operation, as well as the two field mounted artillery companies of the 2nd and 19th Volunteer Divisions, were all led by soldiers on horses, and the horses carried field guns and shells to follow the advance.

During the march, it was necessary to keep absolute silence in the darkness of the night, so as not to alarm the Allied soldiers stationed along the Paranara River.

At the critical moment

The two volunteer cavalry divisions showed a high degree of discipline, with 11,000 officers and men following the ranks into the dark wilderness of the night, with only the occasional sound of guns clinging, and all officers and men marched in silence.

Even if he fell, he stood up in pain and continued to march.

If you break your leg and foot and can't continue the march, then you will silently climb to the side and wait, waiting until after dawn for your own people to come to the aid of the wounded, or wait until the enemy army comes and fight to the death, there is no third way to go.

The 2nd and 19th Divisions had to march for more than five hours at night, and before dawn they took cover in a wooded area less than 2.6 kilometers from the fortress of Oumaita, which was very close to the Argentine camp.

After daybreak, Allied sentry cavalry often patrolled.

Therefore, the sneak attack on the fortress of Umaita is like walking a tightrope, and it will be exposed if you are not careful, and in addition to strength, it will take a little luck to do it.

4:00 a.m

The 8th and 10th Divisions of the Volunteer Cavalry were drawn one after another, and the cavalry led their horses out of the jungle and headed in the direction of the fortress of Umaita.

All they had to do was get close to the enemy camp before dawn, which was full of barren mountains and mountains that could not be spotted by the Allied soldiers at a distance.

As for the squad of scouts sent by the Allied side, it was just a piece of cake in front of the two volunteer cavalry divisions, and even the tiniest wave could not be turned over, let alone pass the news back.