The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
However, by the time of Emperor Huayna Capac, the twelfth generation Inca king with outstanding military exploits, he established the northern part of the empire after inheriting the throne, conquering the Kingdom of Quito, and taking the daughter of King Naquito as his concubine. At the border, I feel that I am successful, my country is strong, my empire is peaceful, and I can't help but feel a little elated. So he sent an order to withdraw his troops, and after the soldiers were dismissed, he began to return to the capital of Cusco. Along the way, he inspected the vassals and provinces of the empire, rewarding those who had meritorious service, and giving gifts to those who asked for help. This inspection lasted for several years. Returning to Cusco, he held a nine-day Sun Festival celebrated by the whole country.
On this day, the Inca king also looked at the sun with a casual and irreverent expression, just like his ancestors had done for generations. After about a while, his uncle, the highest priest of the Inca Empire, who was standing next to him, said to him, "King Inca, what are you doing? Don't you know that it is inappropriate to do this?"
The Inca bowed his head at that moment, but soon he began to stare at the sun with that casual disrespect and disapproval. The highest priest couldn't bear it and rebuked him, "Unique monarch, look what you are doing! Now everyone gathers together to show their due reverence and worship to your father, just like to the unique and supreme Lord. But you Staring at the sun with such disrespectful eyes. You should know that looking at our father, the sun god, with casual eyes is an offensive act and is strictly prohibited and prohibited by the patriarchal rules of the ancestors and the royal family. What you have done is not only It is illegal and sets a very bad precedent for the Manchu ethnic group and the entire empire."
After hearing this, Wayna Capac was very unhappy. He turned to his uncle and said, "I will ask you two questions first, and then I will answer what you just said. I am your king and the ruler of the world. Is there any one of you who dares to tell me to get up from my seat and walk a long way?"
The Inca supreme priest shook his head and replied. "Which bold person would dare to behave like this? Unless he doesn't want his head anymore."
The Inca king said arrogantly, "If I order a chief of my subjects to rush from here to Chili immediately, no matter how rich and powerful the chief may be, will he disobey my order?"
The priest said, "Of course not, my supreme Inca King, even if you order him to die, no one will dare to disobey your edict and orders."
So, King Inca said: "Then I want to tell you, our father the Sun God must have a master who is more noble and powerful than him. This master may be Pachacamac. He ordered him to walk without stopping every day. After completing such a journey. If he were the supreme master, even if it was not necessary, he should have stopped and rested for a while according to his own wishes." After saying these words, the Inca King Huayna Capac described what he had created. Fear was left to his princes, who prepared to start building the largest palace in the Inca Kingdom.
At this time, news suddenly came that there was a rebellion in Calanque Province, located on the border of Quito. The rebels were crazy, ferocious and barbaric. They killed all the provincial governors and officials he had stationed there and left their bodies alive. Eat them and sacrifice their hearts and heads. King Huayna was shocked when he heard the news, because he had never thought that there would be a rebellion in Kalank Province, and that the rebels would be so cruel and shameless. He immediately sent the Yibai envoy to persuade them to surrender. But this group of unreasonable barbarians tried their best to insult the Yibai envoy and almost cut off his head. The king was so furious that he almost fainted from anger. He thought that these northern barbarians were really evil-minded and untamable. How dare they be so bold and rampant? They were simply openly provoking him, the supreme Inca king. If he didn't Killing them all will not eliminate the hatred in his heart, and it will not be able to serve as a warning to others and to control the world.
So, he rushed from the capital city of Cusco to Quito that night, mobilized the army, and personally led the army to take command. He soon surrounded tens of thousands of rebels and forced them to surrender at any cost. After that, he ordered the surrendered rebel prisoners to be taken to the edge of the large lake at the border of the two provinces and beheaded them all. At that time, the blood of the rebel soldiers and soldiers dyed the entire Lake Yabarcocha red. In this way, their descendants will remember their crimes and punishments. However, when he suppressed the rebellion and returned home triumphantly, he was not happy at all. Instead, he felt sad and sad: Someone dared to rebel during his reign, and it was inhumane, forcing him to use violence to fight violence. He used various methods to quell the rebellion, so that he might offend the Sun God and gain a reputation as a brutal killer. He knew that during the period of Inca King Viracocha, there was also a rebellion among the Chanca people. King Viracocha, instead of killing the people who surrendered, comforted those who surrendered, making the Inca Kingdom peaceful and stable for more than a hundred years.
Just when he was depressed and upset about this, he suddenly heard a loud noise, and saw a white-faced giant in a robe rising from the flat waves of the sea on a large ship with wings, and crossed into the blue sky. High in the sky of white clouds, he shouted and lectured at him, "Do you know your sin?" He quickly knelt down and replied, "The supreme god Contic, the Inca King Huayna Capac the Great knows all about killing. Please forgive the sin of surrendering the army to King Inca!"
But God Kontic said, "This crime is serious and cannot be forgiven lightly. Even if I spare the king, the Sun God will not spare the king." After saying that, a deafening loud noise broke out between the heaven and the earth, and then Then he saw a raging fire burning in the sky and rushing towards him quickly. He was so frightened that he desperately called for help and ran towards the palace in despair. However, no matter where he ran, the God of Death always followed him closely, getting closer and closer. Seeing that the fire in the sky was about to burn him, he shouted in horror and despair, and felt that he Already passed out.
At this time, Princess Parlia woke him up and asked, "What's wrong with the king?" The king opened his eyes in shock and saw the light of an oil lamp shining in the room, surrounded by Huascar, Manco, Prince Atahualpa and Anna. ·Princess Yama. They were all looking at him with worry and confusion. But he was lying in the arms of his beloved concubine Palia. Only then did he realize that he was not dead, but had a nightmare.
Although he woke up from a nightmare, the fear and forebodings in the dream left him shaken. He lay quietly in the arms of his beloved concubine, panting rapidly, and the cold sweat on his forehead was like rapid raindrops. He knew that this dream was not a good sign, because according to the Inca dream interpretation, burning the body by fire is a harbinger of illness and death, and having nowhere to hide indicates that it is inevitable to escape. The Incas believed not only in superstition and witchcraft, but also in celestial phenomena and omens in dreams. And this frightening nightmare seemed to be conveying a very sad and terrible message to him: that is, he would die soon.
He had never thought about death, nor had he really thought about it. Because he felt that it was impossible for him to die so early. Because he is not very old and has not seen any signs of death. However, now this sign finally appeared.
Lying quietly in his beloved concubine's arms, looking at the magnificent house with golden walls and the faces of his lovely relatives, he really couldn't imagine what death would be like, and he really didn't want to When he passes away, he leaves this world.
The sensitive and clever Princess Anna seemed to sense the fear in King Inca's heart from her father's dull eyes, so she walked to her father, gently touched the king's forehead with her hand, and whispered deeply, "Father, you What's going on?" King Inca said very quietly but with great fear, "I feel like I'm going to die. I'm about to die."
When the princess heard this, she cried loudly, put her face on the king's body and said, "No, you are the son of the Sun God and the Inca Emperor. You will not die. You will never die." However, she was regarded as Although the Inca emperor, the son of the sun, fought all his life and was ambitious about everything, he was still extremely afraid of death. Death heralds the end and destruction of the entire world. This fear made him worried and restless. So, he decided to call the distinguished and elderly palace priest Letika Leba to watch the sky for him and predict the future. Because the Incas believed that what happened in the sky determined what happened on the earth. Each tribe or person has its own planet, and people can predict life, death, misfortune, and fortune by observing celestial phenomena and stars.
That night, the wind was calm and the night sky was clear. Emperor Wayna Kapac, his three beloved princes and Princess Anna Yama sat silently on an open lawn in the palace hall. The distinguished and elderly palace priest Letikaleba was looking at the stars in the Milky Way in the night sky for a long time with his hands behind his back. He is the cousin of Emperor Capac. He is not only in charge of various sacrificial ceremonies and ceremonial celebrations in the Kingdom of Quito and the Palace of Quito, but he also has a very high reputation in observing astronomical phenomena and predicting the future.
The king didn't see the priest reply for a long time, so he pressed, "How are you, my cousin?" Litika Leba quickly knelt down and cried loudly, "My supreme and noble King Huayna Capak, Something bad is going on.”
The princes and princesses around the king saw the priest crying bitterly, and they all cried too. The king said displeased, "Say something quickly, why are you crying!" The distinguished and elderly palace priest still cried loudly and said, "Dear king, see for yourself, Jupiter and Saturn are together again. Every time the two stars When they meet, it is the end and end of a world. I think the Inca Empire is at its end and its end has come."
Looking at Jupiter and Saturn carefully, the two stars did meet together. The oracles handed down from our ancestors say that Jupiter and Saturn have met forty times in the past hundreds of years. The last time they met was eighty years ago. During that conjunction, landslides and landslides occurred everywhere in the Andes Mountains. Volcanic eruptions, continuous heavy rains, floods, and flooding of the capital city of Cusco made all the Incas feel that the end was coming. At this critical moment, the wise Inca emperor quickly summoned all tribes across the country to send delegations to the capital city of Cusco to worship the gods on the winter solstice, because they believed that on this day, the road to their ancestors would be clear. Each delegation is required to bring two innocent young children to worship at the most solemn ceremony in Cusco. When the ceremony is over, some children are taken to high peaks in the Andes Mountains as sacrifices. , dedicated to the great god. The Incas called this sacrificial method bringing children to the stars, that is, bringing the Inca's pleas to heaven, pleading that the sun and moon would be young forever, and begging the Incas for peace and happiness. This kind of prayer may have come true. The floods retreated from the capital Cusco, the volcano gradually subsided, and the Inca Empire returned to its former peace.
Emperor Capac thought for a long time, and said to the priest of Litikaleba in a pleading tone of the sun god, "I would like to have the priests from the whole kingdom come to pray, I would like to have the leaders of every tribe come to offer sacrifices, and I would like to send gifts to the stars. Go and plead earnestly, and I will grant whatever the great Sun God needs.”
However, the noble and elderly palace priest shook his head in extreme helplessness and sobbed sadly, "Everything is useless. My supreme king, my most noble monarch, look at the stars in the Milky Way, the sun has deviated from its orbit. , the door of hope has been closed. Everything is useless."
The king seemed to be in despair. He stood there for a long time, motionless, like a dying clay sculpture. After a long time, he said, "Is there not even a little hope left?" The priest was too grief-stricken to speak, and just said His forehead was tapping hard on the ground. The king lowered his head, as if he was holding back his sorrow, but he still couldn't hold it back and burst into tears. Then, he turned around, covered his face and left alone sadly.
