Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
The fortress is a fortress in the north of Cusco. It is said that the construction of this castle was started by Pachacuti in 1440 and completed during the reign of Huayna Kabak, which lasted more than 50 years. The castle is built on the mountain, with three towers and twenty-one fortresses, connected by tunnels into a complete system. There are three walls outside the castle: upper, middle and lower. Each fence is 18 meters high and more than 550 meters long. There are observation towers, water storage tanks, granaries and weapons warehouses built in the castle. These buildings are built with huge stones, the largest stone is 8 meters high and weighs more than 220 tons. This castle is extremely strong, easy to defend and difficult to attack. It is an important fortress protecting the city of Cusco.
After hearing this, Hernando was very angry, because as long as he controlled the castle, he could contain the Indians, so that they would have no worries and would not dare to attack and harass the city rashly. He immediately asked Juan, "Why didn't you send anyone to guard the castle?" Juan lowered his head and mumbled, "I just thought the Indians only focused on attacking the city and would not occupy the castle, so I didn't send anyone to guard it. .”
Hernando slapped the table and cursed, "You idiot, you didn't send someone to guard such an important place. How can a dog eat your brain?" Juan was scolded so much that he didn't dare to say a word and kept nodding his head. The other lieutenants present also lowered their heads silently.
Hernando cursed for a while, panted, thought for a while, and said to Juan, "Bring me people to take back that fortress immediately. If you don't take back the fortress, don't come back to see me." Hu Ann said, "Yes."
Hernando attached great importance to this outing to attack the castle, because he knew that in the current situation where the morale of the army was unstable and morale was low, a victory was particularly needed to boost morale. At the same time, he also wanted the Indians to understand how powerful the Spaniards were, so that they would not dare to venture deep into the city to harass them. So, he decided to personally command the battle.
To capture the castle, you must first leave the city. However, leaving the city requires clearing the road of wood and stones. So Hernando sent an Indian auxiliary force to clear the passage. However, the team clearing the passage was blocked by Indian soldiers' short arrows. The auxiliary soldiers fell back. Hernando ordered the infantry to use matchlocks to cover the auxiliary soldiers to clear the passage. The infantry fired a burst of bullets, and the Indians on the opposite side immediately fell to the ground in large pieces, and then hurriedly withdrew.
However, at this time, the Indians buried many wooden stakes and piled many stones on the cleared road to block the passage of the cavalry.
After the passage was cleared, Hernando sent the lieutenant named De Rojas and the second lieutenant Hernan Ponce de Leon each to lead a small group of soldiers to bypass the back and sides of the fortress to form a three-sided attack. to cooperate with Juan's frontal attack.
However, as the three teams approached the fort, they suddenly encountered a large number of Indian troops entering the city. When the two armies met, there was an immediate melee. The Spanish cavalry used long swords to chop at the overwhelmed and chaotic Indians, and the infantry's matchlocks fired continuously to provide reinforcements for the cavalry. The Indians were defenseless at first, and were quickly cut down in large pieces by the Spanish soldiers. But the Indians soon calmed down from the chaos and began to fight the Spanish in an orderly manner. They fought hand-to-hand with the Spanish with spears, hatchets, and bronze hammers, and threw stones, shuttles, and javelins at the enemy. They even pounced on the cavalry without fear and risked their lives to drag the cavalry from their saddles. However, the Spanish cavalry once again strengthened its offensive, violently attacking and killing the Indians, causing many Indians to be knocked down and trampled by their horses, cut down to the ground by Spanish long swords, and shot by matchlock guns. When the Indians saw that the Spanish attack was very brave and that they were suffering heavy losses, they quickly turned around and fled for their lives.
But when the Spanish attacked the fortress, they were immediately hit by a dense rain of short arrows fired by the Indians, making it impossible for them to get close. So, they had to retreat first. Decided to wait until dark before attacking.
This castle is built on a mountain. The side near the city is steep and high, making it almost impossible to climb. The side outside the city is easier to climb, but there are three 550-meter-long walls made of huge stones. A castle, one of which is very high and has some defensive platforms, making it difficult to attack and easy to defend. Therefore, the city must be captured by sneak attacks, not by force.
So Juan led the cavalry squad to rush out of the city from the south at dusk, pretending to go out to grab food. After leaving the city, they rested for a while in a valley. When it got completely dark, they started heading towards the northern suburbs of the city. The Indians had no concept of night fighting, and they didn't even know that sentries should be posted. So, they arrived at the castle in the dead of night without any trouble. They rode quietly around the first semicircular wall and then entered the second wall. At this time, their actions were discovered by Indian soldiers crowded in the inner courtyard.
Suddenly, dense stones, javelins and short arrows flew towards them. Juan knew that he had to seize the moment to seize the terrain. So, he asked half of the soldiers to dismount, and he led the soldiers to rush towards the inner courtyard to open a gap and attack the castle. However, the Indian soldiers resisted tenaciously, and the flying stones and arrows made it difficult for the Spanish to approach. Juan saw that the situation was not good and knew that if he could not capture the castle quickly, the situation would become even more critical when other Indians arrived. So, he decided to capture the castle as quickly as possible.
He waved his sword and shouted to the soldiers, "God is with us, soldiers, charge!" As he said that, he rushed out at the lead. The soldiers also shouted, "Charge!" and rushed over with Juan. Because he was stabbed on the chin by a spear in the battle with the Indians a few days ago, and half of his face was severely swollen. The straps of the helmet could not be tightened, so he took off the helmet during the charge. . He didn't bother to pick up the helmet and continued to charge forward with the soldiers. Just as he and the soldiers were about to rush to the door of the inner courtyard, a large stone flew over and hit Juan on the head. He immediately felt dizzy, fainted, and fell to the ground.
And other soldiers rushed into the inner courtyard. When the Indians in the inner courtyard saw the Spaniards rushing towards them, they abandoned the courtyard and fled towards the castle tower. The soldiers pursued the victory and quickly captured the first tower.
Hernando, who was responding outside, also quickly led two other cavalry squads into the tower they had just occupied. It was already midnight, the wind was blowing coldly, and the temperature was very low. Juan's body was already cold and stiff. There were other wounded people lying on the cold stone surface, enduring the pain. Hernando sat by Juan's side all night, vowing to take the entire castle and avenge his brother.
If the Indians send enough troops to rescue them at this time, they can completely regain the occupied areas. However, the Indians were too superstitious. They believed that they could not fight at night and could only fight at night when the moon was full or every twenty days. This allowed the Spaniards to use the night time to rest and restore their strength.
Early the next morning, Hernando personally led three squads of cavalry and began to storm the nearest fortress. Some of the castle's platforms were quickly taken. Then, Hernando organized and led the soldiers to launch a fierce attack on the second tower. Under the strong attack of the Spanish, the soldiers in the tower could not resist and had to surrender. The tallest tower in the castle is the most difficult to attack. There were not only some soldiers inside, but also a prince and general named Kasiti who was sitting in command. This prince general is a very trustworthy and capable general under Manco. It was he who came up with the plan to capture the castle. Therefore, Manco gave him the task of occupying and guarding the castle.
This tower is very high and cannot be attacked from the tunnel. It can only be attacked from the bottom of the tower by climbing a ladder upwards. At first, the Spanish set up a ladder to attack upwards. However, every time they attacked the top of the tower, the defending Indians above would shoot down the Spanish soldiers with maces. Seeing that one ladder failed, Hernando set up three ladders and attacked upward at the same time. After a whole day of fighting, almost everyone in the tower was killed. Seeing that the tower could no longer be defended, some of the remaining soldiers suggested surrendering to the prince. However, the determined Inca prince immediately killed the soldiers who wanted to surrender and continued to lead several soldiers around him to defend the tower to the death. . In the end, all the soldiers were killed, leaving only Kaditi. Holding a long sword captured from a Spanish soldier, he continued to fight to the death.
Seeing the prince's incomparable bravery, Hernando couldn't bear to let the soldiers kill him, so he shouted to persuade him to surrender. However, the prince refused to surrender, so Hernando ordered the soldiers to capture him alive. But the prince became more courageous as he fought, holding a long sword and stabbing down several Spanish soldiers who rushed to the top of the tower. It was not until the Spanish soldiers surrounded him from three sides that he faced the siege of the Spanish soldiers. He covered his head and face with a blanket, threw the long sword in his hand at the Spanish soldiers, and then jumped from the tower nearly 200 meters high. He jumped and fell to pieces.
The loss of the tower meant that the entire castle fortress was undefendable. The suicide of the top general left the Indians in the castle leaderless, so many Indian officers and soldiers imitated their generals and jumped from the high castle. Those Indian soldiers who did not die in battle or committed suicide were all captured by the Spaniards. Hernando ordered the soldiers to take all the more than 1,500 captured Indians to an open area under the castle and kill them all. In this way, the Indians besieging the city were shocked.
The loss of the castle caused the Indians to lose the commanding heights and retreat to an area farther away from the castle. After the Spanish occupied the castle, they sent a small group of soldiers to guard it. As a result, the Indians could no longer capture the castle, and the Spanish could not break out of it, thus forming a protracted war against each other. But what is puzzling is why the Indians did not cut off the water supply to the castle or the water supply to the city. If they just cut off the water supply to the castle, the people in the castle might not be able to hold on for even half a month. If the water source of the stream leading to the city was cut off early. They didn't need to keep more than 100,000 troops in the suburbs for several months, and they have been unable to win so far.
