menace in the north, Napoleon was most anxious to secure the Andalusian provinces, where the traditional, rural peasantry was expected to resist Joseph's rule. On 19 June General Dominique Honoré Antoine Vedel with Dupont's 2nd Infantry Division was dispatched south from Toledo to force a passage over the Sierra Morena, hold the mountains from the guerrillas, and link up with Dupont, pacifying Castile-La Mancha along the way. Vedel set out with 6,000 men, 700 horse, and 12 guns, joined during the march by small detachments under Generals Claude Roize and Louis Ligier-Belair. The column raced across the plains, encountering no resistance, although stragglers were seized and cut down by the locals. Reaching the sierra on 26 June, the column found a detachment of Spanish regulars, smugglers, and guerrillas with six guns under Lieutenant-colonel Valdecaños blocking the Puerta del Rey. Napier assigns a strength of 3,000 men to the Spaniards, but claims their colonel defected to Vedel. Vedel's troops stormed the ridge and overran the enemy cannon, losing 17 dead or wounded. They then pushed south over the mountains toward La Carolina. The next day they encountered a detachment of Dupont's troops preparing to attack these same passes from the south side. With this junction, communications between Dupont and Madrid were reestablished after a month of silence. Confused orders Vedel carried new orders from Madrid and Bayonne: Dupont was instructed to stop his march on Cádiz and fall back north-eastwards on the mountains (a fait accompli), watching the Spanish movements in Andalusia while awaiting the reinforcements to be released upon the capitulation of Zaragoza and Valencia. These capitulations never came. For a time Marshal Moncey was simply nowhere to be found; at length his defeat at the gates of Valencia surfaced; some 17,000 Spaniards under the Conde de Cervellón massed victoriously around that city as Moncey gave up in disgust, having lost 1,000 men in a vain attempt to storm the walls. Suddenly, all prospects evaporated of Moncey's corps pivoting west from Valencia toward Granada and coupling with Dupont in a two-pronged invasion of Andalusia. Nor were troops forthcoming from Aragon, as Zaragoza shook off repeated French assaults and vowed to fight to the death. Meanwhile, Savary set to work preparing for the arrival of Joseph in his new capital. Many of the scattered French formations were drawn back around Madrid for security; Dupont would remain close at hand to succour