The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
In order to ensure the victory and eliminate the paralysis of pride and slackness among the officers and soldiers, the commander of the Spanish Expeditionary Force, Marquis Pizarro, asked trumpeter Candia to blow the assembly horn early the next morning. All officers and soldiers immediately came out of the barracks to assemble. Marquis Pizarro stood in front of the team and spoke to the officers and soldiers, "All officers and soldiers, although we defeated the Indians and captured their king alive, this does not mean that we have achieved a comprehensive victory. Because we We are in a strange country that is full of hatred for foreigners. The Indians who are loyal to the Inca king have many troops stationed near us and in other places. They will come to fight us at any time and will find ways to rescue them. King. Therefore, each of us must be vigilant at all times, set up sentries, and be ready for battle, especially to strengthen the vigilance and protection of King Inca. Anyone must maintain a high degree of vigilance when on duty and must not desert. Or relax a little, this is a military order, if you violate it, you will be killed. Can everyone remember my words?"
All the officers and soldiers replied, "Remember."
Marquis Pizarro nodded with satisfaction and said, "Very good, I will check all the time. If anyone deserts and relaxes their vigilance, if there is a problem, the general will deal with it." Then, he ordered to send his own troops His younger brother Juan Pizarro led more than 30 cavalry to the courtyard where the Inca king lived, the Inca baths and nearby areas to clear out the remaining Inca armed forces; the remaining soldiers cleaned and cleared the square in front of the door.
To clean and clear the square, you must first remove the corpses piled in the square. Of course, the Spaniards would not do such a thing. They opened the door of the house where many prisoners were held, directed the prisoners to carry away the bodies, and dumped them in a deep ditch not far from the barracks. Because there were so many captured Incas, the prisoners kept carrying them. When it was almost dark, they lifted thousands of corpses from the square and moved them away, almost filling the deep ditch. Then, the prisoners were asked to dig and bury the body with soil.
After the prisoners had cleaned up the square, the Spaniards regrouped the prisoners and lined them up in the square. There were so many prisoners that the formation was many times larger than that of the Spaniards. Taking care of so many prisoners, not to mention how many Spanish troops were consumed in a day, just taking care of the food and housing was a huge burden. Therefore, the Spaniards certainly do not want to bear this responsibility and burden.
So, everyone discussed in the square what to do with these captured Inca soldiers. Most Spanish soldiers tended to kill all these prisoners; otherwise, simply chop off their hands, so that they would lose their ability to fight and would not be able to riot, but it would also serve as a warning to others. Everyone felt that this method had the best of both worlds and killed three birds with one stone, so they went to Commander Pizarro to report it.
When Pizarro heard this, he became angry and cursed, "You are all Christians, but you are so cruel in your actions? You chopped off their hands, how will they live in the future? You chopped off their hands , they can no longer riot and resist, but their relatives and compatriots will hate us and will be enemies with us from generation to generation. If so many people are enemies with us, you think we can still stay here? Is that so?" The commander's words choked them so much that they couldn't say a word, so they dispersed one by one in dejection.
Pizarro asked Martin to call his secretary Robert, and said to Robert, "Take some people to carefully select some young and docile soldiers among these prisoners, and let them serve us as slaves and servants."
Robert asked, "Approximately how many people are needed?"
Pizarro thought for a while and said, "Just two to three hundred people."
Robert said, "Why do we need so many people?"
Pizarro said, "I want to assign a servant to each soldier, so that they will live like a master. Then I will assign a servant to the barracks."
Robert said, "But they have to take care of their food and accommodation every day. But how can we have so much food and housing?"
Pizarro said, "Don't worry about it. Think about it, the Inca king can take care of the food and accommodation of 80,000 troops. What do we mean?"
Within a few minutes, Robert led people to select some people among the prisoners, and asked them to stand aside. Then he reported to Pizarro, "Report to the commander, everyone has been selected, a total of two hundred Thirty people. Please take a look at it, Commander."
Pizarro came over, glanced at the neatly arranged Indians carefully, and said with satisfaction, "Very good, take them to the military camp."
Robert said, "Yes."
After Robert took away the selected prisoners, Pizarro and his translator Martin walked to the queue of prisoners and said to the prisoners, "The Spaniards are kind and righteous, but the Spaniards are also brave and strong. The Spaniards did not want to attack the Indians and the Inca King, but they were extremely disrespectful to our Christianity and threw the Bible we believed in on the ground. Therefore, the Inca King was punished for this, and you also fell. Bad luck. However, this is the fault of the Inca King, not yours. Therefore, I will let you go today and let you go home and live together. Don't go out to fight again, let alone be enemies of us Spaniards. You have all witnessed it with your own eyes. Despite the power and bravery of our Spaniards, as long as we fight against our Spaniards, there is only one end, and that is death." After Pizarro finished speaking, he asked Martin to translate the words to the Indians. After hearing this, the Indians put their hands together and shook them gratefully, and let out a low roar of "Ao Ao".
Pizarro was satisfied with the gratitude of the prisoners, so he waved to them and said, "Okay, you go home." Martin waved to the soldiers in the same way and said, "Okay , the commander said, you can go home." The captured Indian soldiers cheered and scattered around the square.
When you win a battle, there will always be a lot of loot. However, because it was dark yesterday, the Spaniards did not bother to get the loot. Therefore, early the next morning, Francisco Pizarro, commander of the Spanish Expeditionary Force, ordered his brother Juan Pizarro to take more than thirty cavalry to the Inca King's palace courtyard and the military camp in the valley to collect trophies.
They first entered the Inca military camp. The corpses of Inca soldiers were lying everywhere in the military camp, but no living person could be found. But there were mountains of corn and dried meat in the military camp, as well as a lot of chicha wine. But these things were not what their cavalry squad was looking for. What they are really looking for is gold and treasure. So, Juan Pizarro asked people to lock the door of the warehouse so that he could enjoy it later when he had time.
There is a strong castle next to the military camp, which was originally guarded by the Inca King's most trusted officers. Yesterday, because it was getting late and attacking the castle would cause great losses, the Spaniards did not attack the castle. I came back today and saw that everyone in the castle had disappeared. So, Juan Pizarro asked the cavalry to wait outside the castle, and he entered the castle with more than ten soldiers holding long swords.
The castle is built with huge stones and is very strong. It can accommodate two people walking together. What surprised the Spaniards was that the castle not only had enough food, but also water. The water source is a trickle introduced from the creek passing by the castle. The trickle passes through the castle and flows into a ditch on the other side of the castle, which is very hidden. Walking a few dozen meters from the castle, you turned a corner and there was a staircase leading to the second floor of the castle. The second floor is actually as high as three stories. When you get to the top, you can have a commanding view of the entire valley and the hills not far away. You can even see a temple and a tall Virgin Palace not far from the castle.
Juan Pizarro looked into the distance on the second floor of the castle for a while, then led the soldiers out of the castle and went directly to the temple. They heard that there was a lot of gold in the temple. However, when they entered the temple, there were only some priests wearing black clothes, and they did not see any gold. They searched the temple and found no gold. So they entered the Palace of the Virgin. The Palace of Virgins was full of young and young girls, and all of them were as beautiful as flowers. Juan himself is a womanizer and a bold guy. He completely ignored the Incas' respect for the virgins, and distributed them as trophies to each officer and soldier according to everyone's suggestions and requests to serve as their wives and servants. So he asked the soldiers to drive out more than a hundred virgins in the palace from every house and take them to the Spanish camp.
Finally, they came to the courtyard of the Inca King's palace. The small courtyard of the palace is the palace of the Inca king, so there are many gold items in it. There is the Inca king's gold seat, as well as some gold and silver trays and cutlery. But the most numerous people here are the concubines, princes, maids and servants of the Inca King, and even the Inca King's queen, Princess Ana Maya, is among them. Of course, the Spaniards did not want to let these unarmed women and servants of the Inca king go in vain. So, the soldiers of the cavalry detachment mixed together more than a hundred virgins brought out from the Virgin Palace and fifty or sixty female relatives from the palace, and escorted them to their military camp.
Although the cavalry detachment led by Juan Pizarro did not bring back much gold, they brought back so many women. Francisco Pizarro had already released so many Inca captives because he was worried about insufficient food and accommodation. However, Juan Pizarro brought him so many more women, so he frowned at his brother. Said, "I said Captain Juan, why did you bring these women here?"
Juan Pizarro said, "All the officers and soldiers are given to be wives and servants. The officers and soldiers are far away from home, what can they do without women?" When Francisco Pizarro heard this, he thought this was what happened. If soldiers had women around them, they would no longer shout to him to go home.
He nodded to his brother with satisfaction and said, "Very good, you can lock these women in those tents set up by the Incas first. I will convene a meeting with the officers to formulate a distribution plan."
