The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
After the earthquake, the priests ran back gloating again, thinking that the sun god had appeared and would let them see the cracks in the earth swallow up the invading Spaniards. However, these conquerors were not as timid and unlucky as the priests imagined. They immediately broke down the door and broke into the temple. However, what was displayed in front of them was not a room full of gold and jewels, but a very small and dark cabin. From the stone slabs to the walls, there was an unpleasant musty smell and a smell that could only be seen after slaughtering camels. The smell can only be smelled in a horse slaughterhouse. It’s incredible how a place like this could become a temple that millions of people admire and worship.
The disappointed soldiers of the expeditionary force searched the house carefully and only found a few emeralds and gold pieces in the corners of the ground. After searching for a long time in the dark room, they also found a statue of a god. However, this statue is not made of gold, but carved from wood. Except for the head, which looks a bit like a human, the other parts are completely like a monster.
The furious Hernando dragged the statue from the shrine to the broad daylight outside the temple, picked up an ax, and slashed at the statue. The poor statue had been worshiped by people for many years, but because the Spaniards did not get the gold they wanted, it was chopped and chopped with axes and smashed to pieces.
The priests in the temple were so frightened when they saw the aliens destroying the gods so boldly and crazily that they fell to the ground and kept chanting some incantations. However, what surprised them was that the gods were so brutally blasphemed and destroyed by foreigners. Not only did the gods themselves seem helpless, but the blasphemer was not punished with any due punishment. This made the priests unable to figure it out anyway. This seemed to make them realize that the gods they worshiped were so fragile and helpless in front of foreigners, so they wondered if these foreigners were the kind of people who could surpass the laws of the gods!
Not finding gold in the temple, they went to the palace of Akiyavas. The Ajahuas Palace is an Inca-style palace that was rebuilt by the Incas after they conquered and occupied the area through force. They completely destroyed the Pachacamac Shrine worshiped by the locals. The palace hall is built on a very vast land and is surrounded by a very vast open land. The main hall is built with large stones. Like the main hall of the Cusco Palace, there are many halls and rooms. The hall is magnificent and shining with golden light. The room is also decorated exquisitely and luxuriously. However, the capital of the Incas is thousands of miles away in Cusco. If there had not been a rebellion or riot here, the Inca king would not have gone all the way to come here for vacation or inspection. Therefore, over time, the palace hall became the shrine hall, used for worship.
However, after the Incas overturned the original idol worship of the locals, they built this more magnificent temple, using the sun god worshiped by the Incas as their idol. However, the conquered locals still worshiped Pachacamac as an idol. As a result, for a long time after the Akyawas Palace was built, few people visited and worshiped. Afterwards, the Incas saw that they could not restrict the locals from worshiping Pachacamac, so they changed the main hall of the Akyawas Palace into a worship hall for the Sun God and Pachacamac, which made the people who came here to worship here every day very special. There is so much land that some Incas even came from very far away to worship here.
There were also priests guarding the door of the main hall. Hernando showed the Inca King's knotted rope route to the priest. However, the priest saw that they were coming with guns and swords and riding tall horses, so they still were not allowed to enter. Hernando pushed away a priest and led the soldiers into the hall. I originally imagined that the hall would be filled with splendid golden walls and gold everywhere. However, the Spaniards searched the entire hall and found no gold.
So Hernando took the soldiers to the Tauri Chubi Palace not far away. However, like the Akyawas Palace, there is no gold here. But Hernando and his people worked tirelessly to get here all the way from Cajamarca just for the gold. But wherever they went they found nothing. This made them very angry and disappointed. Was the Inca king lying to them?
He asked the Incas who were their guides, "Didn't you say there is a lot of gold in these temples and palaces? But why didn't we see anything?"
The Inca guide was also puzzled and said, "It turns out that there is a lot of gold in these temples and halls. Because we come to these halls to worship every year."
At this time, he immediately thought that before they came here, the Marquis urged them to rush here quickly, and said that if they arrived late, the gold would be hidden by the locals. Apparently, the gold was indeed hidden by the locals. Moreover, what makes them strange is that wherever they go, as long as they show the Inca road signs, people are very warm and welcome to them. However, the people here seem to be deeply hostile to them.
That afternoon, he ordered the soldiers to arrest all the priests in the temple and the main hall. The soldiers were divided into small teams and arrested people everywhere in the temple and palace halls. Then all the captured people were imprisoned in a temple built with huge rocks, and taken one by one to the stone house next door for torture and confession.
They first brought an old and frail man into the stone house. The room was small and empty, except for a few wooden benches. Hernando was sitting on a wooden bench, holding a cigarette in one hand and holding a sword in the other. His eyes were red and he had a murderous look on his face. Five or six Spanish soldiers stood nearby, holding whips and wooden clubs. As soon as the old Indian priest entered the house, Hernando said to the priest, "Where did you hide all the gold?"
The interpreter beside him translated the words to the priest. The priest shook his head and said, "I don't know."
Hernando said, "You have a tough mouth." Then he waved his hand towards Letomundo.
Letomundo and several soldiers immediately pushed the old priest to the ground and beat him with whips and wooden sticks. After a few moments, the priest was beaten until he was alive and screaming. Hernando saw that if he continued to fight, the old man would definitely die, so the soldiers stopped and asked again, "Where is the gold hidden?"
The old man Yanyan said after a breath, "I was ill and went home some time ago. I really don't know where they hid the gold."
(Please pay attention to Zhang Baotong's signed work "Poetic Emotions", which includes short prose, life essays and short and medium-length novels. Today's release is the novella "Love Ladder" (7. The Bride Touches Teeth))
