Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
After crossing the river bank, the Inca king had nothing but to give the old man the dagger he carried with him. But the old man waved his hand and said with a smile, "My respected king, it is my honor to row across the shore for you. I don't want anything." The Inca King asked doubtfully, "How do you know that I am the Inca King?" The old man said, "I have participated in the Cusco Sun Festival and met King Huascar, so I know that your clothes can only be worn by the Inca King." The Inca King smiled and said, "That's right, I am Man The King of Science and Technology fled here after being defeated by the Spaniards." When the old man heard this, he said, "Please thank the King for your honor and rest in his humble house." After saying that, he took the Inca King and Princess to a place not far from the river. In a village far away.
This village is quite big, the farmhouses in the village are not as shabby as in the mountains, and there are more people. Before the Inca King and Princess entered the village, they met some villagers on the road. The boatman would say to anyone he met, "Look, this is our Inca King." It was as if the Inca King was a friend or relative of his. As a result, people looked at the Inca King with happy smiling faces and knelt down to pay homage to the Inca King. Because only on this occasion would they dare to look at the Inca King with awe and curiosity. Normally, this would be regarded as disrespectful and would cause their heads to fall off.
When they first arrived at the entrance of the village, they saw the village chief and some old men already standing at the entrance to greet them. The village chief is an old man who is nearly sixty years old. He is followed by more than 20 old people, and behind him are people from the entire village. There are hundreds of men, women, old and young. Seeing the arrival of the Inca King, the whole village immediately knelt down. Manco asked everyone to get up, and then the village chief asked everyone to get up, and surrounded the Inca King into the village and came to the village chief's mansion.
Entering the village chief's courtyard, he saw seven or eight of the village chief's wives standing in a row, kneeling to greet the Inca King. After King Inca entered the big house and sat down, some of the ladies were serving wine, some were standing by to wait, and some were busy cooking. The village chief and some old men sat nearby and talked with the Inca King.
The Inca King asked the village chief, "How far is it from Urubamba?" The village chief replied proudly, "This is the town of Puchu in Urubamba. In the past, King Huascar passed by here when he went to Machu Picchu. He also stayed at my house for one night." King Inca asked again, "Where is Machu Picchu?" The village chief said, "It's still twenty or thirty miles away from here." Then he added, "That place is very remote. The road is also very difficult. I have been there once more than ten years ago, but I have not been there for many years." King Inca said, "I heard that there is a palace there?" The village chief said, "Yes, the palace there is not very big. , but the terrain is very dangerous, and there are many palace ladies living there, all of them concubines of the late king Wayna Kabak. There is also a temple there, and many people used to visit it, but in the past two years, no one has gone there. "The Inca King said, "I came here this time just to see the palace there, and I may stay there for a while." The village chief said, "There may be no defenders there anymore."
After a while, the meal was cooked, and the village chief took the Inca King to a dining room nearby. There is a big table in the room. There were more than twenty dishes on the table, including rabbit, wolf, dried venison, vicuña meat, and especially fish. In addition, there are cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, fresh pears and grapes. The Inca King and Princess had not eaten a delicious meal for two days in a row. Seeing such a large table of exquisite and delicious food, their appetites were whetted and they ate a lot.
After dinner, the Inca King asked the village chief to find him a loyal and reliable young man to send a letter to General Mokwa in Matucana, between Lima and Haoha. The village chief quickly called for a young man wearing an Indian military uniform. When Manco saw this young man wearing a military uniform, he asked, "Where did you serve as a soldier in the past?" The young man said, "You served as a soldier in the army led by Kunzu. Later, Commander Kunzu was killed and the team dispersed, so I Ran back from Lima." The Inca King asked again, "Do you know that place in Matucana?" The young man said, "We stayed in that town for one night." The Inca King said, "Very good , I have a very important letter for you to send to General Mokwa." The young man said, "Please don't worry, Your Majesty. I will definitely deliver it as quickly as possible."
So Manco asked the village chief to bring him some rope, and then he sat at a big table alone and started weaving knots. After about an hour or two, the knot was finally finished. Manco wrapped the knotted rope in a cloth bag, then called the young man waiting in the next room and handed him the knotted letter.
After staying at the village chief's house for two or three days, Manco felt it was time to leave, because this was not a royal palace after all, so he said goodbye to the village chief and rushed to Machu Picchu. The village chief has also made some preparations for the Inca King's trip. Not only did they rush to build two small sedan chairs, but they also organized a team of twenty or thirty people for the Inca King. These people were all young and middle-aged men who had come down from the front line in the past. Some were wearing military uniforms, some were wearing civilian clothes, and they had hatchets or short knives in their hands. They carried the king and princess and set off from the village towards Machu Picchu.
Although it is only twenty or thirty miles away from Machu Picchu, the journey is very difficult and dangerous, especially after crossing the Urubamba River, the road is basically dead. In some places, you have to ask the locals while walking forward. There was simply no way to walk in many places, so the Inca King and Princess had to get out of the sedan and walk. We set off at noon and didn’t arrive at the foot of Machu Picchu until the sun turned westward in the afternoon.
At the foot of the mountain is the turbulent Urubamba River. Standing by the river and looking up, half of the Machu Picchu peak is in the clouds and half is outside the clouds. The road up the mountain is narrow and steep. Walking up the path makes people feel like they are walking towards the clouds. In fact, the original meaning of Machu Picchu is the ancient mountain top.
Looking from the bottom of the mountain to the mountain, a path winds up, very steep and dangerous. Due to the mist, the buildings on the mountain could not be seen clearly. But you can see huge stone walls and huge stone barriers everywhere. It is very difficult to walk up this road, let alone carrying a sedan chair. Therefore, everyone walked up step by step on the path paved with stones. When they reached the mountainside, they saw corn growing in many fields. King Inca felt strange and asked the people around him, "The surrounding area is deserted, how come there are still people farming here?" The people next to him told him that people have always lived here because the Palace of the Virgin of the Sun God was built here. There were at most one or two hundred virgins in the palace.
Entering the clouds and mist on the mountain, the scenery of Machu Picchu unfolds one after another. Under the two peaks of Machu Picchu and Huina Picchu, ancient stone buildings are embedded among the green Andean peaks. Clusters of stone buildings and green grassy yards are arranged in sequence. One or two hundred stone houses are connected to each other in an orderly manner. To the south are the residences and to the north are the palaces and temples. The house building is surrounded by green farmland. There is a garden platform made of dense stones in the farmland. A winding and steep path passes through it and leads to a huge stone gatehouse. Through this gatehouse, you can see a building like a horseshoe-shaped tower. This building is called the "Sun-Tethering Stone" because it can tie the sun's rays on the winter solstice and keep the bright and warm sun forever. in the sky.
Inca King Manco and Princess Okoro had heard of this place before, but this was the first time they came here. They saw the buildings and fields on the top of the mountain, especially the palaces and shrines. They felt a kind of holiness and mystery that they had never seen before. The feeling fell and rose in my heart for a long time.
King Inca took everyone to a relatively large house and stopped. When he entered the house, he saw that there was only a loom and some women's fabrics in the house. He knew that a single woman lived in this house. Entering a few rooms next to it, it seems to be the same. He immediately realized that these houses might be occupied by virgins of the Sun God, or perhaps by the maids of the late King Wayna Kabak.
He felt that this place had always been regarded by the Indians as the place closest to the sun. In order to worship the sun god, the late king built the Virgin Palace here. This is very reasonable and easy to understand. However, he did not quite understand why the late king Wayna Kabak wanted to build a harem here. Because it is at least more than a hundred kilometers away from the capital city of Cusco, and the roads are difficult and dangerous, and the rainy season is long, especially from May to September. The rains are constant, and not only are the roads muddy, but there are also frequent floods. and natural phenomena such as landslides. Therefore, he felt that there was really no need for the late king to build a harem here.
Moreover, he also heard that there were many women living in Wayna Kabak's harem. However, in fact, after the palace was built, Huayna Kabak has been leading soldiers in the north to fight continuously, and has never returned to the capital city of Cusco, so he has never been here. Especially after Huascar's arrest, the place was largely forgotten.
At dusk, several women came back from the fields. Their clothes were in tatters, they were taciturn, and they looked like they were aging before they were old, and their expressions were numb. Seeing so many men suddenly arriving in front of their door, they looked like they were happy, surprised and at a loss.
Princess Okoro brought them to Manco and said to them, "This is our Inca King." They were startled after hearing this, and then hurriedly knelt down and saluted Manco. Manco asked what their names were, and a woman who was nearly sixty years old answered first, "My name is Sumanika, and we are all maids in the queen's harem." A woman in her sixties or eighties said, "I My name is Takama." Another woman in her twenties and seventeens introduced herself, "My name is Selinava." Two other women in their twenties and eighties also introduced their names.
The Inca King asked them, "When did you come here?" The youngest Selinava said, "I was only eleven years old when I came here. Tacama was only twenty-one or two years old at that time." The princess Okoro said, "So you have been here for fifteen or sixteen years?" The woman couldn't help but said sadly, "Yes. At that time, King Wayna Kabak said that he would come to live with us for a summer, but later He also said that the army of the Inca Empire was fighting inextricably and cruelly with the army of the Kingdom of Quito in the north. The king had no choice but to personally lead the expedition and never came again. Many years later, when he heard that Huayna Kabak had passed away, His eldest son Huascar succeeded the Inca King. But he only came here once. He arrived at noon that day and left that afternoon. After that, he took all the virgins in the Palace of the Virgins of the Sun God back to Cusco. , just leaving us harem ladies here. I heard that the king was very angry with the late king for giving the entire land of Quito Kingdom to Atahualpa, so he used this method of abandoning us to retaliate against the late king. . Since then, King Huascar has never sent anyone here again, so our place has been slowly forgotten by the world."
As he said that, he pointed to the corn fields and vegetable fields around the mountain and said to the Inca King, "Look, if we hadn't grown our own crops and vegetables, we would have died of hunger long ago." The princess asked, "Don't you have hundreds of people here?" People?" Selinava said, "In the earliest days, there were at most more than three hundred people here, more than a hundred virgins of the sun god, more than a hundred princesses, and dozens of priests. However, Vaina... After King Kabak died, he stopped delivering goods and food here. As a result, a food shortage soon broke out. The priests went out in batches to look for food, but they never came back."
"Although not many people starved to death in that famine, smallpox occurred here not long after, and many people fell ill and died. In the end, only twenty or thirty people were left. Many years later, some women They were taken away by the surrounding men who went up the mountain to worship, and several people got sick and died. So, now there are only a few of us left."
The Inca king nodded sympathetically, and then asked, "How many habitable houses are there here?" Sumanica said, "There are many houses here, but they have been uninhabited for many years and are almost abandoned. But as long as they are repaired and After sorting it out, people can live in it." The Inca king asked again, "How much food is there here?" The woman pointed to a few houses nearby and replied, "Those rooms are full of food, which can feed one or two hundred people. Let's eat for a year or two." The Inca King said with great satisfaction, "Very good, we will stay here to wait for the arrival of General Mokwa."
