The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
The smelting of gold began on one day in June 1533. This morning, the troops from Juan and Soto's squadron, plus the troops from Hernando's squadron that was originally guarding the treasury, and the troops from Pizarro's four squadrons, there were already three squadrons with more than 100 people guarding the perimeter of the treasury. . Sentries are scattered hundreds of meters around the treasury. Those officers and soldiers who have just arrived here with Almagro and other unauthorized persons are not allowed to enter. Moreover, there are also guard posts in front of the treasury door and around the smelting furnace. Tighter security.
In this stone house, which Spain calls a treasury and where the Inca king was once imprisoned, the gold accumulated has already exceeded the red line drawn by Atahualpa with his finger. The Marquis of Pizarro asked Soto and Captain Hernando to lead some soldiers to move the gold objects out of the stone house, while he stood on the lawn in front of the door and selected some exquisite gold objects as tributes to the king or the emperor. queen. Because everything they did in the New World was supervised by royal personnel, and the King of Spain controlled their destiny and wealth. Therefore, when they obtained so much gold, they had to choose some fine products as tribute to the king and queen. As long as they satisfy the king and queen, they will be protected by the king and queen even if they have some violations of laws or regulations or are excessively reckless.
Most of these gold objects include various types of wine glasses, kettles, trays, bottles and mirrors, as well as various gold sculptures of animals, plants and women, gold tables, chairs and weapons, as well as items from temples and public buildings. Among the gold bricks, gold foils and gold plates that were dismantled from the building, the most amazing and surprising thing is a kind of gold corn. Golden corn is wrapped in broad silver leaves, hanging from the broad leaves, and countless tassels are also made of gold. There is also a fountain that spurts out a dazzling stream of gold, and there are some golden birds and animals playing in the water at the bottom of the spring, which is also breathtaking.
Of course, there are also many fine carvings and wonderful gold craftsmanship, which show the Inca's superb skills in casting gold. However, for these ornaments, gold objects or art treasures cast by generations of Inca artists, what Marquis Pizarro, who was born as a swineherd, really saw and valued was the gold content of the gold objects, not its artistic value. Therefore, among the mountains of gold objects, Pizarro saw few things that interested him. So, he just selected some wine glasses and gold plates for the king and queen. Because these products contain more gold and are heavier. He thought their king and queen would be interested.
Martin found a group of goldsmiths among the Incas. These craftsmen set up several sheds in the open space in front of the treasury. There was already a blazing fire in the furnace under the shed. Some Indian goldsmiths with bare backs and shorts were adding firewood to the furnace while blowing on thick reed pipes. Other Indians lifted the gold objects that Pizarro had selected and put them into a large refining container.
The furnace was facing the wind outlet, and the mountain wind blew in, blowing the fire in the furnace even more fiercely. The fierce fire heated the air more than ten meters away. The billowing smoke sometimes rises slowly like accumulated fog, and sometimes scatters like floating clouds.
Smelting gold requires very high temperatures, so it sometimes takes several hours to smelt a furnace of gold. The refined gold is poured into molds of the same size. Due to the backward casting process, the weight of the gold ingots coming out of each mold is actually not exactly the same. But they all use the average weight of forty-five pounds as the standard. Because this was stipulated by the Marquis of Pizarro based on the distribution plan formulated by Robert before he left.
Not far from the smelting furnace, more than a dozen soldiers led by Gonzalo were organizing a group of strong Indian men to use llamas to carry thick trees here from the mountains not far away. The trees were felled with axes by dozens of Indian lumberjacks in a large forest not far from the valley.
This scene of smelting and felling goes on day and night, especially at night. The blazing fire of smelting gold almost lights up most of the sky, and can be seen even dozens of miles away. The Indian goldsmiths were so tired from working day and night that they fell asleep by the stove under the shed, but after a while, someone woke them up. But those Spanish soldiers had been on guard for a day. They were tired and sleepy, so they found a wooden board in the warm area of the smelting shed and took turns to sleep for a while holding their guns. When he was hungry, he put the hard corn tortillas next to the fire to bake for a while, then chewed the dried camel meat.
Although they are very hardworking and sleepy standing guard all day long, when they see more and more shiny gold ingots being placed in front of their eyes, they feel the glory, wealth and beauty they have longed for. The wish was immediately displayed in front of their eyes, making them excited and excited.
After about a month of smelting and casting, the gold objects in the stone house called the "treasury" and the silverware in the two huts were all hammered into gold ingots of the same size by the Indian goldsmiths. Silver ingot. One morning after the smelting was completed, Pizarro, at Almagro's request, took Almagro to the smelting plant to inspect. Originally, Pizarro did not want to bring this partner here for inspection at all, because he set up many sentries around the area and did not allow Almagro's soldiers to enter the smelting site and access the vault. However, Almagro asked him many times. As a partner, he felt that it was not easy to hide it from Almagro. The more he concealed, the easier it would be to make people suspicious, so he had to take Almagro with him. Gro came here.
In that stone room called the treasury, the gold objects in the room have been replaced by gold ingots. The gold ingots were quite large, each weighing almost forty-five pounds. The gold ingots shone with a very attractive light color, and they were placed in rows all over the ground. Seeing the room full of glittering gold ingots, Almagro was so surprised that his heart felt like it would jump out of his chest. He kept saying to Pizarro, "Oh, I have never seen so much gold! I am not dreaming!"
Pizarro seemed very disapproving and said, "It doesn't matter. When you get to Cusco, I think you will faint from surprise."
When Almagro heard this, he said, "Really? That's great."
As he spoke, Almagro picked up a gold ingot with both hands, looked at it, and kept looking at it for a long time. Then he couldn't help but sigh and said to Pizarro, "In Spain, if a person has fifty dollars, he can live A good year. It can be imagined that if a person has a piece of gold of this size, it is equivalent to having four to five thousand gold pesos. And one gold peso is sixteen dollars and sixty-seven cents. It is conceivable that a person has If you pay four to five thousand gold pesos, what kind of wealthy family must that be!"
(Please pay attention to Zhang Baotong's signed work "Poetic Emotions", which includes short prose, life essays and short stories. Today's release is the novella "Love Ladder" (24. Coma in the Rain))
