The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
By the time everyone went to bed, it was already the third night of the rooster's crow. Therefore, after dawn, when the Incas invited them to have breakfast, they found that all the Spaniards were lying on the bed with their heads covered and sleeping, and the smoke was thick in the whole room and lingered for a long time. So they put their breakfast on the table and left quietly.
It wasn't until after noon that people began to get up one after another. It was already past noon when Hernando got up. After he got up, he woke up all the soldiers, had a meal together, and then rode around in groups outside the castle to see if there were any Incas. Signs of gathering and rising of troops.
Bambamarca is an important mountain town in the Andes Mountains, with many rivers, abundant water resources, sparse population, but very beautiful scenery. Although it is deep in the mountains, the temperature is not very cold. It is the spring season now, and all kinds of wild flowers are blooming all over the mountains and plains. In the mountains and fields, you can see the nearby Indians peacefully and attentively doing farm work in the fields. As for whether their king is still being imprisoned by the Spaniards, it seems to have nothing to do with them. The Spanish cavalry walked along the path behind the castle to the steep bank of the river. Hernando divided the team into two groups. He led nine people to go south along the river bank, and asked his deputy, Lieutenant Antonio, to lead nine people to go south along the river bank. Go north.
Hernando led the cavalry southward across a steep embankment and came to a relatively gentle valley. As they walked, everyone discussed their achievements and defeats in the gambling battle last night. Hernando was very unlucky last night. Not only did he lose three to four hundred gold pesos, but he also lost the precious gold plate given to him by the Inca King. Because the gold plate had been kept in the leather bag on the horse instead of being kept at home, it became someone else's possession. He was very frustrated and regretful about this. Originally, he had always regarded this gold plate as a priceless treasure, but yesterday, he lost to Santos for two hundred gold pesos. This made him feel very bad, and he almost didn't sleep well. He kept thinking about how to get the plate back.
When they had walked about ten miles, they saw no one in the depths of the mountains and on both sides of the river. There was a wilderness scene everywhere. Therefore, he concluded that the rumored news was actually just unfounded rumors, and decided not to waste time in this silent and desolate mountain field, but should rush back to the castle barracks to find a way to win back the gold plate he lost. .
Therefore, he waved his hand to stop everyone and said, "In this wilderness, there is not even a hare to be seen. How can there be any Incas gathering? Forget it, everyone turns back and prepare to return to the city."
Santos said, "To know this situation, it is better to stay in the house and throw more."
Hernando said unhappily, "You know how to gamble. Let me tell you, my gold plate is just a mortgage with you. When I have two hundred gold pesos, I will exchange it for it."
But Santos said, "It depends on whether I am willing or not."
Hernando said, "Why should you be willing?"
Santos said, "You lost this golden plate to me. Now that it belongs to me, I have the final say."
Hernando asked, "How many gold pesos do you want to give me back the gold plate?"
Santos thought for a while and said, "Do you want at least two thousand gold pesos? This is a rare treasure obtained from the Inca King."
Hernando got agitated, pointed at Santos and cursed, "What the hell, what the hell do you want to do? You want to act rogue in front of me, no way, I tell you it's only two hundred gold pesos, you have to give it, no You have to give even if you give.”
But Santos is also a tough guy. He said to Hernando, "What's the matter, Captain, you want to break the rules? Last time you took away my favorite girl for only fifty gold pesos. I'll give it to you." Have you ever cheated?" Hernando was speechless and could not bring up the golden plate again.
Because of the quarrel between the captain and Santos, everyone was silent on the way back to the city. When I returned to the military camp, I saw that the group of soldiers led by Antonio had already returned and were busy playing dice and gambling. Hernando asked the soldiers to take the horse to feed the grass, then he rushed into the house, squeezed to the table, and said to Antonio who was doing business, "Bring me fifty gold pesos first. I will go back tomorrow." I'll give it back to you." Antonio took out fifty gold pesos from his military bag and gave it to Hernando.
Hernando took out five gold pesos, threw them on the table, and said, "I'll bet five."
However, at this moment, a Spanish cavalry delivered a letter in a hurry and handed it to Hernando. He opened it and saw a letter from his commander. It said that according to the information provided by the Inca king, Pachacamac, about 500 kilometers away from Bambamacac in the south, was the center of Inca worship and rituals. There are buildings such as the Sun Temple, Akiyavas and Tauri Chubi Palace, which contain a large number of gold and silver artifacts. He is asked to take people to rush there immediately and remove the gold and silver artifacts in the palace to prevent the priests from destroying the palace. The personnel and locals hid the gold and silver artifacts secretly.
In fact, the Inca people did not have currency. They paid taxes in physical currency, and traded goods in barter. Therefore, they did not regard gold as a necessity, but as a decoration for palaces or temples.
However, because the Inca king wanted to exchange gold for freedom, he ordered officials from various places to dismantle gold in palaces and temples. The priests of many palaces or temples were worried that the Spanish would damage the palaces and temples by robbing the gold, so they began to hide some gold.
After Hernando read the letter, he excitedly shouted to everyone, "Guys, our chance to make a fortune has come."
Everyone was busy playing, and when they heard the captain shout, they all raised their heads and looked at the captain, and someone asked, "What's so good, captain?"
Hernando said, "Pachacamac, do you know?"
The soldiers all shook their heads and said, "We have only heard of Cusco, not Pachacamac."
The captain said, "Pachacamac is a place of worship and pilgrimage for Indians. There are many palaces and temples there, and there are a lot of gold and silver treasures. This is what the Inca King said."
Some soldiers asked, "Why not let us go to Cusco? I heard that there is gold everywhere."
The captain said, "The Marquis asked us to go to Pachacamac, not to Cusco." However, he added, "We will go to Cusco sooner or later."
With that, he informed everyone, "Listen, everyone, after dinner, no one is allowed to play anymore. We have to go to bed early. We will hit the road after dinner early tomorrow morning. The Marquis wants us to rest less and walk more, day and night. I'm afraid that if we go too late, the gold will be hidden by the priests or locals."
The road from Bambamarca to Pachacamac is mostly in the Cordillera Occidental Mountains. This mountain range consists of a series of parallel mountains and transverse mountains interspersed with plateau valleys, running through the western part of the South American continent. Hundreds of millions of years of orogeny have made the Cordillera Mountains full of painful sufferings of life and death. Sometimes strong earthquakes tear the mountain into cracks; sometimes lava erupts from the crater and rushes into the blue sky. It fell like fire and rain again; some places continued to subside and submerged into the seabed; some places were rising year by year, exposing ancient rocks to the surface and stubbornly forming the majestic mountain systems today.
This restless mountain range is full of wild nature. Countless earthquakes and volcanic activities, as well as landslides, mudslides, flash floods, and landslides caused by earthquakes and volcanoes, continue to destroy people's towns and homes, leaving a period of time for people. A nightmarish and terrifying memory. However, when the Cordillera Mountains calm down, they are as beautiful and spectacular as all the mountains. They provide humans with abundant rainfall, ice and snow water, and support a wide variety of tropical mountain evergreen forests.
To be able to walk on such a road, the journey must be full of indescribable hardships and dangers. However, a grand and spacious royal road from Quito to Cusco runs through it, making this mountain range that crosses thousands of deep valleys and tens of thousands of high mountains and dangerous peaks into a smooth road in the world. This cannot help but admire the talent and wisdom of the Incas.
However, even so, the road is still unimaginably difficult and dangerous. In some places, the rock walls are so steep that the stone steps are almost vertical, and pedestrians can only climb on the rock walls. Although there are strong and tall fences and protective walls on both sides of the rock walls, it is difficult to It is extremely difficult for horses to climb these stone steps. Moreover, there are rivers crisscrossing the road, some of which are deep and fast and turbulent; some of which are bottomless and thrilling. But there are stone bridges or wooden bridges built by the Incas on the river, which can pass smoothly.
Although these Spaniards rode horses through the boundless mountains for several days, they were full of enthusiasm and optimism, because they thought that there would be piles of gold at the destination they arrived at. Waiting for them. Therefore, as they marched, they kept singing the song that expressed the Spanish knight errant spirit:
"Those Spanish adventurers,
They neither eat nor drink,
Because, when they pass,
desolate regions and vast deserts,
Unless they chew grass,
Their fodder is never mentioned in their stories;
This is the legend that some people think they are,
They can fight without eating or drinking. "
However, on the third or fourth day of Hernando's cavalry detachment walking, they came to a rope bridge along the Royal Avenue. The rope bridge is made of wicker, which is as thick as a person. There are four wicker ropes on the bridge, and there is a rope on both sides as guardrails. Both ends of the rope are fixed in huge stone holes dug on the banks of the two mountains. The ropes on the bridge deck are paved with some wooden boards, and under the bridge is a tumbling and rapid river nearly a hundred meters deep.
No one has ever seen this kind of rope bridge made of wicker. Moreover, this kind of rope bridge is obviously designed and built for pedestrians and light llamas. If horses are allowed to pass, the hoofs of the horses will easily crush or trample through the wicker. The woven bridge deck caused the entire bridge deck to collapse. In fact, let alone letting horses pass, even passing by alone is very dangerous and terrifying. Antonio, Hernando's deputy, was walking at the front. He was so frightened that he watched the bridge, which was about a hundred meters long, swinging in the air from time to time. Under the bridge was a deep stream that could not be seen to the bottom. , hurriedly asked everyone to stop in a large open space beside the bridge, shouting loudly for Hernando.
Hernando was walking at the end of the team. When he heard someone calling him, he thought something had happened, so he hurried over on horseback. When he reached the bridge, he saw a rope bridge that he had never seen before.
Antonio asked Hernando, "What to do, Captain?"
The captain shook the bridge with his hand, and the bridge only swayed slightly. Hernando couldn't help but frowned and said, "A single person may be able to cross it, but what about horses?" Because he had never heard of a bridge made of wicker, and he didn't know how much this kind of bridge could carry. How much weight.
