Viceroyalty of Peru on July 21, 1821. The independence of Peru was proclaimed on July 28, 1821. Viceroy José de la Serna e Hinojosa, still in command of a sizable military force, retired to Jauja, and later to Cusco. On July 26, 1822, San Martín and Simón Bolívar met in Guayaquil to define a strategy for the liberation of the rest of Peru. The meeting was secret, and exactly what occurred is not known. However, afterwards San Martín returned to Argentina while Bolívar prepared to launch an offensive against the remaining royalist forces in Peru and Upper Peru (Bolivia). In September 1823 Bolívar
First Upper Peru campaign richest cities of Upper Peru, an open cabildo calls Goyeneche to withdraw from their territory, which he obeys as he did not have military strength to prevail. The Bishop of La Paz, Remigio La Santa y Ortega, flees with him. Castelli is received in Potosí, where he required an oath of allegiance to the Junta and the surrender of the royalist generals Francisco de Paula Sanz and José de Córdoba y Rojas. He arranged that the operation to capture Vicente Nieto was carried out exclusively by the surviving patricians at the mines of Potosi, who had been incorporated with honors