José de San Martín Manuel Rodríguez had returned to Chile before the crossing, and began a guerrilla war in Santiago de Chile against the royalists, in support of the upcoming army. He was supported in the south of the city and the countryside. The strategy was to occupy nearby villages, seize the royalists' weapons and flee. The attacks on Melipilla and San Fernando, and a failed one at Curicó, demoralized the royalists. The columns that crossed the Andes began to take military actions. The column in the north led by Cabot defeated the royalists in Salala, seized Coquimbo and then Copiapó. In the south,
Gagauz Republic Gagauz Republic The Gagauz Republic (; ; , "Respublika Gagauzija") was an unrecognised state that separated from the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but later peacefully joined the Republic of Moldova after being "de facto" independent from 1990 and 1994. The Special Congress of Representatives of the Gagauz people was held on 12 November 1989, in which the Gagauz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in the Moldavian SSR, but on the next day the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Moldavian SSR abolished the Special Congress decisions, calling them unconstitutional. The Congress