After the Army of the North's victories during the Battles of Tucumán and Salta, the campaign against the royalists in Upper Peru was restarted upon the insistence of the government in Buenos Aires.

Knowing that the royalist army did not have enough mules to move its artillery and provisions, Belgrano planned to use a pincer movement to attack, confidently believing that Pezuela's lack of mobility would be a decisive factor.

At the end of September 1813, most of Belgrano's army arrived to the plain of Vilcapugio, a plateau surrounded by high mountains several miles north of Potosí.

With these documents Pezuela was able to interrupt Belgrano's plans and began his advance on the mountains on 1 October, long before Zelaya's cavalry from Cochabamba could join the United Provinces army at Vilcapugio.

Had the Northern army continued to persist in pursuing the Spanish troops, victory would have been secured, but the arrival of the royalist cavalry commanded by Saturnino Castro made the rebels panic, causing them to disperse.