Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
One morning a few days later, the clear sky was clear and cloudless. The bright sun had just risen from the East Mountain, shining on the Cusco Valley among the mountains and on the wide and quiet palace square. At this time, there were more sentries in the square than usual, and it seemed calmer than usual, making people feel that something unusual was about to happen here.
A loud bugle sounded, and groups of armed soldiers were seen running out of various palaces in the square and quickly arranged into several square formations on the square. Then, under the command of Antonio, the secretary of the commander of the Spanish Expeditionary Force, several formations formed a large formation and came to a pre-set military tent with neat steps.
Because the soldiers had stopped camping in the square for a long time, the soldiers felt very strange and puzzled about the tent that was set up in the square. Moreover, there were two detachments of twenty-four people standing around the tent. Cavalry on guard duty. They were riding horses, holding long swords in their hands, in a heavily guarded and ready posture. Seeing this, the soldiers couldn't help but wonder if they were going to fight again?
Pizarro and Almagro left majestically and solemnly from the Spanish Expeditionary Force headquarters located in the main hall of Huayna Kabak Palace with three Spanish royal personnel including Treasurer Riquelme and several captains. come over. So, everyone stood up and held their breath, listening to Commander Pizarro issue the battle order.
Pizarro walked to the front of the formation, waved to the soldiers, and said, "Soldiers, you followed me and General Almagro all the way to Cusco, and made great contributions to our expedition." A huge contribution that has brought glory to our Kingdom of Spain and our King. For this, I pay high tribute to you, the brave Spanish warriors."
After a round of warm applause from everyone, Pizarro added, "For your bravery and merits, as the commander of the Spanish Expeditionary Force, I will issue rewards to you today. The provisions of the rewards are still implemented according to the past plan. This is I made the decision after discussing it with General Almagro and all the senior officers. I hope our decision will satisfy everyone." After everyone finally heard the content of today's meeting, they applauded even more warmly.
Antonio first took out a notarial certificate signed by royal officials and read it to everyone, then took out a distribution decision and began to announce to the soldiers, "Except for one-fifth of the gold allocated to the king, , the total amount distributed this time was 580,200 gold pesos and 215,000 silver marks, and the number of people involved in the distribution was 480, including the 40 people who served as guards in Haoha Soldier. Therefore, the headquarters has turned all the gold, totaling 580,200 gold pesos, into gold ingots worth 600 gold pesos, and turned 215,000 silver marks into silver ingots weighing 200 pounds. .
Each infantryman will receive one gold ingot and one silver ingot, and each cavalryman will receive two gold ingots and two silver ingots. In addition, according to each officer's position and merit, the allocated share will be different. "
By this time, several soldiers had taken down the heavily guarded tent. Displayed in front of the soldiers were pieces of gleaming gold ingots and gleaming silver ingots. However, these gold ingots worth 600 gold pesos each weigh only about 6 pounds at best, which is different from the one last time distributed in Cajamarca that was worth 4,440 gold pesos and weighed 45 pounds. Compared to growing gold ingots, they seem much smaller. But for Almagro's soldiers, who had received very little from that distribution, the gold ingots were still a source of joy and excitement.
Antonio then read, "Commanders of the Spanish Expeditionary Force Pizarro and General Almagro each received 13 shares, each worth 7,800 gold pesos." However, in the last distribution, Marquis Pizarro The harvest was 13 gold ingots and 13 silver ingots, a share of 57,222 gold pesos, and 2,350 marks (230 grams per Spanish mark) of silver. In addition, he also received a large 183-pound seat made of pure gold from the Inca king, worth twenty-five thousand gold pesos.
Following Antonio's announcement, Captain Gonzalo, who had just arrived from Cajamarca, directed the distribution staff to distribute the food to the soldiers. Gonzalo originally led people to stay in Cajamarca, but after Pizarro arrived in Cusco, he sent people to summon Gonzalo and all the remaining people from Cajamarca to Cusco. Two soldiers in charge of distribution moved thirteen gold ingots to bamboo baskets in Pizarro and Almagro.
"Captains Hernando, Soto, Juan, and Saavedra each get 4 shares. Captains Gonzalo, Alonso, Antonio, and Leguisano get 3. All the others The cavalry will get two shares, and all the infantry will get one share." After the soldiers got the gold ingots, they took their own gold ingots and left the team, humming a cheerful ditty and walked towards their dormitories.
In Spain at that time, a person with a few gold pesos could live comfortably for a year. However, what kind of concept is it for a person to suddenly have six hundred or thousands of gold pesos!
Suddenly getting such a huge windfall can easily lead to a kind of forgetfulness for those rough and poor people who have never had money. Spaniards love gambling, which can even be called a common national problem. And having so much money at once provides them with the possibility and method of gambling, so that the amount they win or lose in one day is enough to keep the winner from eating and drinking for a lifetime. And more desperate gamblers, because of a throw of dice or a flip of cards, see the fruits of their years of hard work thrown away, and have to start a life of continuous robbery again.
The soldiers, like rich old men who had made a fortune, returned to the barracks and dormitories stationed in the palace, setting up stalls to fight and gamble with each other. Gambling can be said to be a national spirit or nature of the Spaniards, which can especially stimulate their fighting spirit and passion. They rolled dice and gambled as if they were charging into battle regardless of their own safety. Therefore, in various dormitories in the barracks, soldiers gathering and gambling can be seen everywhere at this time.
The most lively place is in a large room of more than 60 square meters in the main hall of the Pachacutik Palace not far from the Wayna Kabak Palace. This room is now used as an office for Juan's cavalry squad. Apart from a small wooden bed for duty, a few large wooden tables and dozens of wooden chairs, there was nothing else in the office. So, at first glance, this place doesn't look like an office, but more like a simple casino.
Normally, this room is relatively large, but at this time, more than half of the more than sixty cavalry squad soldiers gathered here, making the room seem very crowded. Several large wooden tables were occupied by people early on, so those who came late could only stand aside and watch the game, without a chance to play.
However, one table has always been empty. It's not that everyone doesn't want to sit on it, but that everyone doesn't dare to sit on it. Because everyone knows that this table is often used by Juan and the others. Usually, except for people like Letomundo, Alonso and Leguisano, few people dare to compete with Juan on the same stage. This is not about being inferior in skills, but in terms of wealth. There are almost no soldiers who don't like gambling, but most of them only play small games, and Juan and the others basically play for heartbeats and excitement. They win big and lose big every time, which is very entertaining to watch. Therefore, every time Juan and the others set up a battlefield, there would always be many soldiers watching and cheering. Even the soldiers from the barracks in Almagro would have many people come to watch the battle.
After a while, Juan, Gonzalo, Letomundo, Leguisano, Alonso and the other two soldiers sat down at the table one by one. Suddenly, they were surrounded by soldiers from three levels inside and three levels outside. As usual, Juan took out his two small pure gold bowls from a military leather bag. There were four bright ivory dice in the small bowls. He bought it for a few hundred gold pesos from a Spanish soldier who had just returned from Spain.
He put the small bowl on the table and said to everyone, "We still follow the old rules, play big and small, each person shakes three times at a time, whichever is the highest point." Big and small are the most common gambling in Spain. , is also the simplest way to play, which is to compare the size of the points head-on.
Seeing that everyone else said they had no objections, Juan added, "Everyone has distributed a lot of gold. Let's play a heartbeat game today. How about at least five gold pesos at the bottom each time?" We usually play together. Gambling was always done with one or two gold pesos as the bottom. When they heard that Juan wanted to bet at least five gold pesos at a time, they all felt that the game was a bit too much. Although everyone used to gamble with five gold pesos at the bottom, since leaving Cajamarca, everyone feels that the money on hand is getting smaller and tighter, so it is no longer so stressful to play. Big bottom. Usually the price is one gold peso or at most two gold pesos.
One of the soldiers thought it was too much, so he suggested, "Five gold pesos is too much. How about we just press two?" But Gonzalo, who had just arrived from Cajamarca, nodded. Lighting a cigarette, he shook his head with great disdain and said, "It's so boring to play such a small amount of gambling. It's not painful."
At this time, several people nearby shouted at the same time, "Who thinks the bottom is too big? I don't think it's too big." Letomundo and Leguisano originally thought that playing with five bottoms was too big, but seeing Hu An and Gonzalo didn't want to play small, and there were so many people crowding around to watch the fight, so they couldn't look shabby, so they echoed, "Five is five, what are you afraid of? Today we are a lion meeting a tiger. It's hard to say who is afraid of whom." The other two soldiers saw that everyone wanted to play with heartbeats, so they had to give up their seats if they didn't want to play, so they reluctantly agreed.
Leguisano was the first to sit down. He put four dice in two small bowls, put the two small bowls together, shook them a few times, and then put them on the table. The number of the four dices was three. , two are four points, one is six points, a total of seventeen points. Then, he hit another sixteen and thirteen points, whichever was the highest was seventeen points.
Seventeen points are actually just a number that is neither high nor low, and can easily be surpassed by the next few. However, the strange thing is that except for the two people who also scored 17 points, none of the others exceeded 17 points, because Leguisano is the banker. According to the situation where the points are the same, the banker takes the advantage. According to the regulations, his points count as the maximum. Therefore, he was very lucky to win more than sixty gold pesos in the first village and made a small fortune.
The success made Leggisano feel that he was lucky today, so he continued to sit on the bank and won two more games in a row. Next, except for Letomundo, who sat on the first bank, no one else sat on the bank. After everyone played for a while, it was time for lunch. However, no one wanted to leave the gambling game, so Juan asked other soldiers to bring everyone's food from the canteen and have fun while eating.
