Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
However, the Spaniards did not wait until midnight to attack the palace, but began to besiege the palace shortly after dark. Different from the previous two attacks, this time the Spaniards attacked from both the front and rear of the palace at the same time. Pizarro brought four to five hundred cavalry and infantry as the main attack from behind the palace, while Gonzalo led more than two hundred cavalry as a feint attack from the front of the palace.
Because the main force was taken away by the Inca King Manco, the Indian general Ibaku stayed at the palace with only about 500 people. Due to the disparity in strength between the two sides, the Spaniards quickly rushed into the inner courtyard of the palace from behind and fought with the Indian soldiers. Because the Spaniards rushed from the backyard to the front yard and had a scuffle with the soldiers in the front yard. Therefore, Gonzalo took the opportunity and led his soldiers to quickly enter the inner courtyard of the palace.
In the palace hall, Ibaku was leading more than a hundred soldiers to retreat to the deep palace where the king and princess lived to fight to the death with the besieging Spaniards. They were driven into several rooms such as the king's chamber and the council chamber, and they resisted desperately with spears and javelins. The Spaniards did not dare to enter the house rashly, so they gathered in front of the door, holding torches and shooting at the inside with double-bounce matchlocks, and then rushed into the house. In this way, the Spaniards quickly occupied most of the rooms in the inner palace, and finally only the last room of the council chamber was left.
At this time, more than thirty Indian soldiers were crowded in the small meeting hall. They closed the door and prepared for a last-ditch fight with the Spaniards. Soon, the door of the room was pushed open by the Spaniards. I saw several torches outside the door, illuminating the outside brightly. When bright light entered the house, a series of gunshots were heard at the door, and several Indian soldiers were immediately seen falling to the ground.
Ibaku knew that if he just hid in the room, he would be killed one by one by Spanish bullets, so he shouted to the soldiers, "Soldiers, we can't wait to die like this, rush out with me, Fight with them." The soldiers responded, "Fight with them!" So, Ibaku and the soldiers rushed towards the door.
However, as soon as they rushed to the door, several soldiers in front were hit by bullets and fell to the ground. The soldiers at the back rushed out of the house without waiting for the Spanish soldiers to shoot again, and started fighting with the Spaniards in the narrow open space outside the house. However, not only were the Indians at a disadvantage in terms of weapons, but they were also not as tall and powerful as the Spanish. They were also surrounded by the Spanish, so they were quickly chopped down by the Spanish. In the end, only Ibaku and a few soldiers were left.
The Spaniards surrounded them and shouted at them to lay down their arms and surrender. However, Ibaku held a spear in his hand and stared at the Spaniards with gritted teeth, as if he wanted to fight the Spaniards to the end. Seeing that Ibaku refused to surrender, Gonzalo ordered to the soldiers, "Come up and kill them all." The soldiers then held spears and swords towards Ibaku and the others. Rushed over. In just a few rounds, the Indian soldiers beside Ibaku were killed to the ground. Ibaku was also seriously injured at this time. Seeing that the Spaniard had pointed both his spear and sword at him, he took out a short knife and stabbed himself in the abdomen. He just heard him let out a sharp scream of pain, and then fell to the ground.
As soon as the battle at the palace ended, Pizarro had already led the guards to the inner courtyard of the palace. At this time, the lieutenants of each team were already waiting in the inner courtyard of the palace to report the battle situation. As soon as Pizarro arrived in the inner courtyard of the palace, he asked the lieutenants, "Have you caught the Inca King?" Everyone remained silent. Seeing that no one answered, Pizarro asked loudly, "I'm asking you, has the Inca King been captured?" Then the lieutenants replied one after another, "I haven't seen the Inca King."
Pizarro blamed him very unhappily, "What did I tell you? The main task of entering the city this time was to capture the Inca King alive, but you let the Inca King go?" Gonzalo walked up to In front of Pizarro, he explained, "Marquis, it's not that we let go of the Inca King, but that the Inca King ran away before we attacked the city." When Pizarro heard this, he became even more angry. , lectured, "Since you know that the Inca king has run away, why don't you chase after him quickly? Why are you still here?" Gonzalo said, "But we still don't know where the Inca dynasty escaped." Pizarro cursed , "Why don't you find a prisoner to roast and ask?" Gonzalo said, "Yes, Marquis."
Having just captured the palace, instead of receiving a reward, Pizarro scolded him. Gonzalo was very angry. He immediately asked his soldiers to find an injured Indian soldier, took him to the open space outside the palace, and pointed at him with a riding crop. With a "bang" in the air, he walked up to the soldier, pointed his whip at him and asked, "Where is your king?" The soldier said, "I don't know." Gonzalo immediately pointed at the soldier's face. He was whipped several times on the head and body, making the soldier hold his head and scream.
Seeing that the soldier was scared, Gonzalo put away his whip and asked, "Now do you know where your king is?" The soldier trembled and said, "Our king left with the soldiers before dark. The palace." Gonzalo asked again, "Where did they go?" The soldier said, "I really don't know. I saw them going down the mountain in front of the palace."
Gonzalo said, "I see you don't want to tell the truth." As he said that, he whipped the soldier several times. The soldier then shouted, "They are walking towards the north path, probably to Urubamba." Gonzalo said, "Very good, you can lead the way for us." After that, he asked the trumpeter to The assembly horn was sounded.
More than two hundred soldiers gathered quickly. Gonzalo said to the soldiers, "The Inca king and his soldiers fled in the direction of Urubamba. They can't run far on foot. I order you to run down the mountain. Get on your horse and chase the Inca King at full speed. You are not allowed to stop until you catch up with the Inca King. Have you remembered?" The soldiers said, "Remember." Gonzalo said, "Okay, now run down the mountain." The soldiers He ran down to the foot of the mountain, mounted his horse, and, guided by the Indian soldier tied to the horse, began to run quickly toward the north path.
After a fast pursuit that lasted almost all night, the Spanish cavalry caught up with the Inca troops near a small town called Ampe at dawn. But more than a thousand Indian soldiers, under the leadership of Mokwa, took advantage of the darkness and complex terrain, and kept shooting short arrows and javelins at the chasing Spanish cavalry while retreating.
However, this did not seem to stop the Spanish cavalry from continuing to pursue. Therefore, Mocva decided to adopt an ambush tactic to drag the Spanish cavalry to death, so that the Inca King Manco, his princess, prince and guards could safely delay the Spanish pursuit.
He asked some soldiers to withdraw to a relatively narrow mountain pass area, lay in ambush, and placed many trees and rocks in the mountain area, and then withdrew to this place with the soldiers.
As soon as they retreated here, the Spanish cavalry followed. However, trees and rocks blocked the horses' progress. They could only dismount and walk. However, just as they dismounted and walked, rocks and trees rolled down towards them. Several of the soldiers walking at the front were immediately injured and killed by trees and rocks that they could not dodge.
The Spanish soldiers stopped immediately, but Gonzalo shouted loudly and used his long sword to force the soldiers to pass the mountain pass quickly. Just when the Spanish soldiers came to the mountain pass, they saw Indian short arrows and javelins shooting towards them like rain. Many soldiers fell to the ground with arrows. Seeing that a large number of soldiers in front fell down, the soldiers in the back stopped moving no matter how loud Gonzalo shouted. Seeing this situation, Gonzalo was also worried that the soldiers would suffer too many casualties and affect their combat effectiveness, so he had to ask the soldiers to stop and rest for a while, so as to wait for dawn before launching the attack.
It didn't take long for the sky to get dark. The Spaniards saw from the bright light that there were only a few Indians on the pass, so Gonzalo gathered his troops and began to attack the pass again. Since most of the Indian soldiers had left, the Spaniards attacked the mountain pass in one move and fought with the Indians on the mountain pass. Although the Indians were small in number, they were very tenacious. They used stones, arrows and javelins to resist the Spanish until the Spanish soldiers attacked the high ground. They picked up their spears and hatchets and fought with the Spanish cavalry's spears and swords.
However, there were more and more Spaniards, forcing them to retreat while fighting, until they retreated to the edge of a cliff, and further back was a deep cliff hundreds of meters away. The Spanish soldiers shouted, "Put down your weapons, raise your hands and surrender." The Indian soldiers looked surprised, and then they all focused on an officer. The officer saw everyone looking at him with solicitous eyes, then looked down the deep cliff, and then dropped the spear in his hand on the ground. When the other soldiers saw that the officer had given up resistance, they also dropped their weapons on the ground and raised their hands above their heads.
I saw the Indian soldiers giving up resistance and raising their hands in surrender. Gonzalo stood on the high ground of the mountain pass, shouting loudly, and asked the soldiers to escort the Indian soldiers to a flat grassland on the high ground. There were seven captured Indian soldiers in total, and they were escorted by Spanish soldiers. Go to the flat ground in the highlands. There were corpses lying here and there, and there were patches of blood next to the corpses.
Gonzalo shouted to a second lieutenant, "We must pursue the Inca King immediately. You can get rid of these Indians immediately." The second lieutenant responded and asked the Indian captives to turn around and turn their backs. Yuanfang, then, ordered to the soldiers escorting them, "Kill them." Then the soldiers stabbed their long swords hard in the back of their hearts. The Indian prisoner screamed and fell to the ground.
