Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
When they arrived at the outskirts of the city, the fields were filled with darkness and silence, instead of the bonfires that were as dense as stars. This surprised the Spaniards, and even caused some panic, thinking that the Indians had changed some tactics. Therefore, Hernando did not dare to let the cavalry reveal their target. While continuing to hide in a narrow passage, he sent people out to conduct reconnaissance.
After a while, the sky gradually became brighter. Under the bright morning light, the fields were a mess. The ashes and remnants of the bonfire were piled everywhere, and all kinds of discarded household debris were scattered everywhere. Judging from this scene, the Indians seemed to have withdrawn from the entire countryside. They tentatively walked to the ashes of the campfire in the field and looked carefully, only to find that the ashes of the campfire were cold. Therefore, the Spanish judged that the Indians had withdrawn at least before midnight.
But why did the Indians withdraw like this? This puzzled the Spaniards. Because if the Indians continue to besiege for another two to three days, the Spaniards may no longer be able to hold on. In order to understand the truth and reasons for the Indians' withdrawal. Hernando sent several cavalrymen to nearby areas to capture prisoners or farmers for interrogation. After a while, the cavalry captured an Indian man from a village not far away.
Hernando asked the man, "What do you do?" The Indian man said, "You work in farming." Hernando said, "I think you look like an Indian soldier." The man immediately panicked. , said, "I am not an Indian soldier, I am really a farmer." Hernando said, "Well, let me ask you why all the Indians withdrew overnight?" The Indian man said, "Now is the time. During the planting season, if crops are not planted on the ground now, farmers will have no food to eat next year. If there is no food to eat, people will starve to death. Therefore, the Inca king must let the soldiers go home to farm."
Hearing this, the Spaniards smiled excitedly. After being besieged by the Indians for more than five months, they finally made it to the end. Now they can rush out of the countryside more freely to grab food.
Hernando asked the Indian man again, "Tell me, where can I get food outside the city?" The Indian man hesitated and said, "Now there is almost no food in every village. All the food has been given away. The Inca army collected the goods and took them away. Later, all the food was collected, and even the soldiers of the Inca army had no food to eat." Hernando asked, "Tell me where I can get food or food now. Something?" The Indian man shook his head and said, "I don't know." Hernando said to the soldier, "Hang him up and beat him hard."
Several soldiers used ropes to hang the Indians on a large tree that had half of its burned body, and began to beat them with whips. The Indian man himself wore very little and could no longer bear the whippings, so he said, "There is a ranch owned by a prince on the other side of the North Mountain. There are many vicuñas there."
Hernando asked the soldiers to untie the Indians and let him lead the way. At this time, the sun has risen from the east mountain. The bright red sun casts a bright light on the fields outside Cusco. But an unpleasant mixture of odors still lingered around the fields. After passing the fields, we entered Beishan. Beishan is very empty and quiet, so quiet that people almost dare not make a sound. I was afraid that some noise would disturb the surroundings and cause the Indians to suddenly fall from the sky.
However, near the Maharaja Ranch, they actually had a fight with a small group of Indian troops. There were about seven or eight hundred Indians. They were not timid when facing seventy or eighty Spanish cavalry. They fought tenaciously with spears, hatchets, short arrows, and even lassoes against the Spanish. The battle lasted nearly half an hour, and most of the Indians were killed. The remaining more than 300 people were captured by Spanish cavalry.
In this fierce battle, the Indians' tenacity and fight to the death made Spain feel a rare fear. Although they won, a dozen Spanish cavalrymen fell in a pool of blood. This loss was disastrous for the Spaniards. In order to vent their hatred towards the Indians, they prepared to severely punish these captured Indian soldiers.
In the past, Hernando was relatively tolerant to the Indians. However, after being deceived by the Inca King Manco, he changed his attitude towards the Indians. He felt that he could not be merciful to the Indians. If you were merciful to them, they would I'll kill you with a knife. Therefore, he also decided to use cruel or even brutal methods to deal with the captured Indian soldiers in order to shock other Indians. After capturing the Sacsayhuaman Castle, he ordered his soldiers to kill all more than 5,000 Indian prisoners. Now, he ordered the soldiers to cut off the right hands of all the captured Indian soldiers, and then released them back to their troops.
This extremely cruel scene is unbearable to watch. The Spanish soldiers led each prisoner to a big stone, and several people held him down. They put the prisoner's right hand on a big stone, and then chopped hard with an Indian short ax, and heard an extremely loud sound. There were piercing screams, and bloody hands were chopped off from the wrists and thrown into the soil. The Indians whose right hands had been cut off were lying on the ground rolling and howling, and some of them fainted immediately. However, regarding this kind of scene, the Spaniards were like cold-blooded animals, showing no mercy or compassion. Instead, they showed a kind of pleasure and satisfaction in revenge.
After that, the Spanish cavalry broke into the prince's ranch. However, the people in the ranch had already fled, leaving only a large white cloud-like group of vicuñas eating green grass leisurely on the hillside. Hernando asked the soldiers to round up the vicuñas and counted more than two thousand of them. Then, with the soldiers and the herd of llamas, they started to return to the city.
It was now the busy farming season, and the Inca king knew that if his men did not farm, they would suffer a more terrible natural disaster than the invaders. Therefore, they had to disband most of their troops, send the soldiers home, and then come back to blockade Cusco again when the farming was done. For this reason, the Inca king retained a considerable army to protect himself, and returned from Cusco to the palace of Tambo in the Yucai Valley. After the Indian army withdrew, Spanish soldiers began to frequently go out to grab food. However, although the Inca king had dismissed his soldiers and went home to plant crops, he still left a considerable number of soldiers as his own guard force.
Therefore, every time the Spaniards went out to grab food, they would be intercepted and ambushed by the Indians, causing the Spaniards to suffer considerable losses. For this reason, Hernando decided to take advantage of the fact that the Indians were busy with farming and a large number of soldiers were dispersed, and captured the Inca King in one fell swoop, so that the Indians dispersed without a fight. So, he heard that the Inca king was hiding in a place called Tambo, so he led 80 carefully selected cavalry and 60 infantry to conduct a sneak attack at night to destroy the Indian's lair in one fell swoop.
The troops left the northern suburbs, passed through the Beishan Pass, crossed the steep mountains, crossed the towering passes, and bypassed the wild places with few human traces. After marching all night, the Spaniards finally arrived at a steeply rising highland opposite the Yucai River Valley. On the high ground is a palace-style castle built with huge stones. The castle is extremely strong. The stairs into the palace and castle are carved out of very steep rocks, and there is a wall made of stones around the stairs. It can be said that the front of the palace is impenetrable.
So the Spaniards went around to the side of the palace. The side of the palace just faces the spacious Yukai River Valley. From the palace castle to the Yukai River Valley, the terrain is always flat, with a stream running across it. In fact, the Youkai River is a very big river, but when it reaches the flat valley, it suddenly becomes narrow. It is so narrow that it makes people think that it is just a stream, not a big river. There is a relatively smooth and steep slope until the palace city. Obviously, it is much easier to attack the palace castle from the side.
The Spaniards quietly crossed the river, came to the castle, and began to climb the smoother slope below the city. When they climbed the slope and came to the solid stone wall surrounding the inner courtyard of the palace, a ray of light appeared in the east and the sky began to lighten. Seeing that there was no movement in the palace, Hernando waved his hand to the soldiers who climbed to the inner wall, and the soldiers suddenly swarmed towards the inner courtyard wall.
Just as the soldiers were about to climb over the wall and enter the inner courtyard, suddenly, many black shadows appeared on the wall, and then, a heavy rain of javelins, short arrows and stones suddenly flew towards them. The Spanish were caught unawares and suffered heavy casualties. Then, they saw thousands of Indian soldiers rushing into the inner courtyard from the palace and castle, shouting together, making the mountains in the dark echo with frightening shouts. They even saw the Inca king holding a spear and riding a war horse, standing in the inner courtyard and giving command.
The Spaniards were suddenly attacked and immediately fell into chaos. After they retreated to the slope and regrouped, Hernando asked Gonzalo to lead the soldiers of the cavalry squad. Under the cover of the infantry matchlocks, they climbed up the slope again and launched an attack into the courtyard wall. However, before the attack even got close to the wall, it was shot back by a dense barrage of short arrows from the Indians.
Seeing that Gonzalo retreated, Hernando decided to ask Lieutenant De Rojas to cooperate with Gonzalo's team in the attack, and sent some infantrymen with matchlock guns to follow the cover. This attack can be said to be relatively powerful. Not only did they climb up the slope and get close to the courtyard wall, but they almost rushed into the courtyard wall. But there were too many Indian soldiers in the courtyard, which made them afraid to rush into the courtyard. So, I had to retreat again.
Just when they were planning to send more people to attack again, at this time, the Yukai River, which was as narrow as a stream, suddenly overflowed, flooding a low-lying area behind them, and the water became more and more powerful. It was getting bigger and higher, rolling towards them. The Spanish knew that it was the Indians who opened the floodgates and released water to surround them. This made the Spaniards start to feel some fear. So Hernando immediately called Captain Gonzalo, Lieutenant De Rojas and Second Lieutenant Ponce de Leon. After a brief discussion, he decided to give up this fearless attack immediately and withdraw his troops. camp.
Hernando asked the infantry to withdraw first, and he led the cavalry in the center, and asked Gonzalo to lead the cavalry squad to behind to cover. They crossed the Yukai River and began a leisurely and orderly retreat. However, the Indians chased and shot arrows from behind, making the Spanish cavalry look panicked and embarrassed. As they retreated, they kept stopping to make fierce attacks on the pursuing Indians to check their daring pursuit. But even so, the Indians chased them over the pass of the North Mountain.
