The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
That night, Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish Marquis and commander of the expeditionary force, tossed and turned and stayed awake all night. He was thinking that although the Spanish had already achieved a major victory in Cajamarca and used the city as a base for their further expansion into the interior. To this end, they transformed the temporary palaces and public houses where the Inca kings and royal nobles lived into residential areas suitable for them, and changed the Palace of the Virgin of the Sun into a church. Everything seemed to go smoothly beyond imagination, as if God was blessing him. For this, all officers and soldiers expressed their admiration and gratitude to him. He himself felt very happy and gratified, even a little proud and proud.
However, as the commander-in-chief, he cannot be blindly optimistic and satisfied with the status quo like soldiers. Otherwise, why would they be far away from their hometown and relatives, go through hardships, and travel thousands of miles to come to this strange country where they have never met before? Yes, they are not here for temporary happiness and enjoyment, but for gold and treasure digging. However, they have not dug up much gold or treasure now. Their goal is not to stop here in Cajamarca, but to go to Cusco and other places with gold and silver treasures.
However, now he can't take everyone to those places known as gold. Because his troops are currently short of men and horses, there are only a total of more than 160 people, in addition to dozens of Inca soldiers. These people would need a lot of troops just to guard the Inca King every day. If they marched to Cusco, they would not only have to bring more troops, but they would also have to stay and station enough soldiers in Cajamarca, because those who were loyal to the Inca King The armed forces will come to rescue their king at any time. Therefore, what he needs most now is reinforcements. Otherwise, he can only stay here and cannot go anywhere.
Thinking like this, he tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. Since he couldn't sleep, he decided to get up and walk outside, checking the barracks and guard posts. Although he sent his brother Hernando Pizarro to lead a team of nearly sixty people to guard Atahualpa, he still felt uneasy. So he put on his clothes and got up from the bed.
Sleeping beside him was a young princess named Marikayas. This young Inca princess was only seventeen or eighteen years old. She had a very humble and gentle temperament, and she was very gentle and considerate towards the Spanish Marquis next to her. She thought that through her diligence and dedication, the Marquis could be more generous to the Inca King, and even exempt him from death or grant him release. Seeing that the Marquis was about to get up in the middle of the night, she opened her eyes, made signs, and asked him what he needed. Because he couldn't understand what she said.
The Marquis understood what she meant and pointed outside. Seeing that the princess wanted to get up and dress him, he immediately waved his hand to her and told her to sleep well. The young princess pointed to the coat, meaning that it was very cold outside and asked him not to forget to wear the coat. The Marquis nodded, then got up from the bed and put his coat on himself.
He went out. The winter night was relatively cold, and the ground was covered with a thin layer of hoarfrost. The night wind was blowing from the distant mountains, and it was very cold. But the sky is very clear. He glanced around the square. In just a few days, the surrounding area was already covered with houses. Because the original houses can no longer meet the needs of the officers and soldiers.
He saw that most of the barracks had their lights turned off, but there were a few rooms with lights on. As soon as he approached the door of a lighted room, he smelled a pungent smoke. Originally, no soldiers would smoke this kind of cigarette, only Indians would smoke it. Because there were several Indians serving as translators and guides in the army, when they had nothing to do, they would crush a yellow sun-dried leaf, roll it up and light it on fire to inhale. He also said that this kind of stuff is very refreshing. No matter how tired or tired you are, as long as you take a few puffs, you can immediately relieve your sleepiness and fatigue. So, it didn't take long for the soldiers to learn to smoke one by one. Some soldiers even felt sleepy and yawned when they were on guard duty at night.
He looked inside along the window. Of course, these houses with windows were all newly built by the Spaniards, because the Inca houses had no windows, only wall holes for ventilation and lighting. He saw twenty or thirty people huddled in a circle in a narrow hut, playing dice and gambling. Among them were his two younger brothers, Juan Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro. This kind of dice is a six-sided cube made of cow bones. Each side is engraved with six points: one, two, three, four, and five. Except for one and four points, which are red, the rest are black. Since the points of the dice can be combined in many different ways, and people cannot predict the points when rolling the dice, gamblers just put the dice directly in a small bowl or cup and roll the dice. The number of points determines the winner. This gambling game is very popular among Spanish nobles and lower classes.
Pizarrodo didn't want to worry about this kind of gambling, because he knew that it was not easy for the soldiers to come out with him, and he couldn't let them feel idle and bored. If you let them feel extremely bored, they will definitely cause trouble for you somewhere. However, as the commander, he still disagreed with them burning the midnight oil to fight like this, which affected their rest. Fortunately, there was nothing urgent at the moment, so he felt that there was no need to worry about it. So, he just shouted out the window, "Don't play too late." However, whether the people inside were too focused on playing or the noise was too loud, no one responded to his words. . He looked at several other lit rooms one after another, and the people inside were also busy gambling. Therefore, the Marquis felt it was inconvenient to take care of it and walked past the door.
When he reached the intersection next to the house, he saw two soldiers sitting on a big rock, smoking and chatting, so he walked up and asked what was going on. One of the sentries replied in a funny tone, "No, I just saw that Martin brought a strange woman into his house. That woman seemed to be the concubine of the Inca King."
Although Pizarro didn't care too much about the people below him having sex with women, he couldn't help but feel a little jealous when he heard that this boy Martin actually had a concubine of the Inca King. I thought that this Indian was so lucky that he actually became the concubine of the Inca King. He was jealous, but he still felt there was no need to disturb or interfere in other people's private affairs. So, after hearing this, he nodded and said to the sentry, "It doesn't matter whether you see this kind of thing or not. What you should see should not be careless. The Inca King's subordinates saw that their King was arrested by us. If he is injured, we will definitely try our best to rescue him. So, don’t say you can’t be careless when standing guard, but you can’t sleep peacefully, understand?” The sentry said hurriedly, “Yes, Marquis.”
