The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
There is a small town called Bambamarca nearly a hundred kilometers away from Cajamarca. The small town is surrounded by river forks and waterways extending in all directions. There is a simple and solid castle built of smooth and thick large stones on the edge of the town. There is a high wall in the castle that is two people high. There are strict sentries inside the high walls. Further inside is a very open playground surrounded by soldier barracks. There are mobile and fixed sentry patrols on the playground at all times. There is a three-story tower platform in the middle of the playground. The platform is surrounded by sentries holding tomahawks or spears, because the circular tower in the middle of the platform houses the original Inca King Huascar who was not executed.
It's a sunny morning. The sun just shines in through the small hole in the top of the tower. A handsome man in his mid-thirties, wearing heavy shackles, sat on a dirty little bed and looked at the bright light to catch lice on his clothes. There were a lot of lice, but he skillfully squeezed them away with his thumbnails. Every time his thumb nails clicked, a pool of blood sprayed on his clothes. He didn't know how many days and nights he had lived in this tower hut, and he didn't know how many more days and nights he would live in this hut, but he knew that maybe he would never be able to escape from this small stone house in this life. If he really walked out of this hut one day, it would be when his death came, because he knew that Atahualpa would never let him get out alive. For a person who is idle and bored all day long waiting to die, catching lice becomes his only work and pleasure in the day.
After witnessing the murder of his wife, children, children, aunts, uncles, princes and ministers by Atahualpa, he knew that he would not survive. However, Atahualpa did not kill him immediately, but took him from Cusco to the small town of Joha, and then from the small town of Joha to the castle of Bambamarca. For a long time he could not understand why Atahualpa did not kill him. It was only later that I realized that the reason why Atahualpa did not kill him immediately was because the Incas would not submit to a prince who was not of pure Inca blood as the Inca king. Although the Inca Empire experienced a bloody massacre, and almost all the royal family members and princes and nobles of the Inca Empire were wiped out, the Inca people were not wiped out, nor were the Inca princes. When appropriate, stand up and raise an uprising to attack the traitor. Just like in spring, as the temperature rises, mountain flowers and wild grasses will appear in clusters like everything else. The Incas would also regroup, and Atahualpa would probably use his power to persuade them to surrender or quell the uprising. Therefore, he sometimes wants to feel that he is worse off than alive. That's right, because of his mistakes and carelessness, he caused the destruction of the Inca army and the loss of the capital city of Cusco. Thousands of relatives and princes were killed, and tens of thousands of slaves and handymen were killed. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the city of Tumebamba alone. Therefore, he felt that he really had no value and meaning in living anymore. However, he had no way to end his life.
These days, except for someone who brings him food through the small hole in the iron door in the morning and afternoon every day, and then takes his excrement out, no one comes to reason with him. What made him feel alive was the vent above the stone house. Sunlight shines in through the vents every morning until it gets dark after the sun goes down. Sometimes, there would be birds flying in and out of the air vents. He was envious of the free and carefree joy and flight of the birds. However, he did not have wings. Even if he had wings, he would fly. Don't go out because the vent is too small.
Because he witnessed the torture and killing of his relatives, members of the royal family, and the kings and nobles, Huascar was greatly stimulated and hurt mentally. In addition, he had been imprisoned for several months, and his physical condition Already very weak, coughing frequently, sometimes vomiting blood, and feeling dizzy. He didn't even dare to squat on the ground because he would faint when he stood up and would need to lie down for a long time to recover. Because every day was very long, he could only kill time by catching lice. Moreover, there were so many lice on his clothes that he couldn't catch them all. If he finished catching them today, there would be another one tomorrow.
The days are long, but the long nights are even harder. He lay in bed, tossing and turning, thinking wildly, and often suffered from insomnia until late at night. Sometimes he heard the crowing of cocks and dogs in the nearby village, and he could not fall asleep until dawn. When he can't sleep, he thinks about many things. You will think that he should not have let down his guard and become careless, allowing the Quito army to take advantage of the loophole; he would have thought that he should not have allowed Commander Chamul to leave Cusco; he should not have even sent a large army to attack before he was ready. Atahualpa. However, what he thought about most was that his father, Emperor Huayna Capac, should not have favored Atahualpa, who was not of pure Inca blood, and insisted on dividing the Inca Kingdom into two kingdoms and dividing the Kingdom of Quito. Gave it to Atahualpa. It was his father's serious mistake in violating the Inca throne inheritance laws that had existed for hundreds of years that caused his tragedy today. Therefore, he hated his father very much.
After catching lice for a while, he felt a little tired, so he put his clothes on the bed and looked towards the air outlet high on the wall. Because that's the only place outside where you can freely enter the hut. That beam of sunlight was very bright, and it also had a fresh feeling, which made people smell a kind of frost. It makes one think that almost half a year has passed since his arrest in early spring last year. Half a year is not a long time in a person's life, but for a person imprisoned in such an environment, it is a very long period of suffering and suffering. He was now seriously ill and his hopes were shattered. He was just waiting for Atahualpa's order to die. But he wished that Atahualpa would let him die, instead of torturing him to death slowly and painfully.
Suddenly, the iron door clanged loudly, and he hurriedly turned around and looked towards the iron door. The iron door opened with a bang, and an officer led several soldiers into the room aggressively, and then shouted to him, "Come with us right away."
Seeing this attitude, Huascar couldn't help but tremble all over. He thought he was going to be executed. Although he felt that the life of being imprisoned was unbearable and wanted to die quickly so that he would no longer suffer pain, but when he was actually faced with death, he still felt extremely scared.
He stood up from the bed, picked up his clothes and put them on, and then was escorted out of the cell by the soldiers. There was a bright golden sun outside the cell, which was very dazzling. He immediately stopped and closed his eyes to let them adjust. He hadn't gone out for several months, and his eyes were not used to it. He blinked his eyes vigorously, rubbed his eyes again, and then slowly opened his eyes.
However, as soon as he opened his eyes, he felt that the sky in front of him was dark and the earth was spinning. He felt his head was dizzy and he was about to fall to the ground. Fortunately, several soldiers helped him up so that he did not fall to the ground. As a cool breeze blew, he began to cough feebly and desperately. After coughing, he vomited a pool of blood.
When the soldiers saw that he was so ill, they picked him up and walked forward. Only then did he see sentries standing on the rooftops around the cell. Moreover, there were two more soldiers guarding the stairs from the roof to the bottom. Going downstairs downstairs, there is a very open playground. There are sentries everywhere on the playground. Huascar thought he could only die here.
However, the soldiers did not take him to the execution ground or outside the castle. Instead, they took him to a large room next to the playground and asked him to sit on a small stool in the middle of the room. Huascar sat on the stool for a while and felt less dizzy. At this time, he saw sitting on the chairs opposite the palace guard Usaka, Chalkuchma's deputy General Supaipa, as well as General Huancayales and General Utahama. Except for Usaka, they were all the most trusted and capable generals in Atahualpa's northern army.
(Please pay attention to Zhang Baotong's signed work "Poetic Emotions", which includes short prose, life essays and short and medium-sized novels. Today's release is "The Harem of the Ming Dynasty (4)")
