Inca Elegy (Novel) "The Fall of the Inca Empire" (Volume 2) by Zhang Baotong
Early that morning, the Inca king arranged for Prince Huajical and General Mokwa to go down the mountain with more than a hundred soldiers to collect grain. Recruiting food is a very difficult task. Because Urubamba and Vilcabamba are both barren and uninhabited mountainous areas, it is often necessary to travel hundreds of miles or even hundreds of miles to collect food, and then move the food to the Inca military camp. This work will take at least ten days and a half.
After seeing off Prince Huajical and General Mokwa, Manco stayed in the council room, weaving a letter with knotted ropes to send to a prince in Ayacucho, asking him to prepare to summon the soldiers who went home to work in the fields. They rushed back to the Inca barracks in Vilcabamba before the summer to conduct a large-scale attack on the Spanish residential area of Guamanga, in order to inspire and enhance the Incas' confidence in the Spanish struggle.
At this moment, the guard came and reported, "Your Majesty, Flores and Martinez want to see the King."
Manco said to the guards, "Invite them in."
The guards brought the two Spaniards over. The Inca king asked them to sit down and asked, "Want to drink?"
Flores waved his hand and said, "I won't drink."
Martinez said, "We are here to invite the king to gamble."
The Inca King smiled and said, "Is it because I didn't lose enough yesterday?"
Flores said, "That's just bad luck for the king, but today should be an auspicious day for the king."
The Inca king was startled and asked, "Why is today an auspicious day for me?"
Flores said, "Don't you Incas say that a single day brings luck? Today happens to be an single day."
The Inca King said, "Very good, today I want to clean up your majesty." After saying that, he picked up a gold plate from the table and shouted, "Amapu."
The guard officer Amap heard the sound and rushed over and said, "Your Majesty, are you looking for me?"
Manco said, "Let's go to the Inca barracks with us."
Amap said, "I'm going to assemble the cavalry squad."
Flores said to Manco, "That's not necessary, is it? You are going to our place to gamble, not to fight."
After listening to Flores' words, Manco said to Amap, "No, just go with me."
Amapu said again, "I'll go get the horse."
Manco said, "It's just a few steps away, no more riding."
So Amap followed the Inca king and the Spaniards with a spear in hand, left the Inca compound, and walked towards the Inca military camp.
The sky was overcast, but it wasn't raining, and a thin layer of mist hung over the forest. The four of them soon arrived at the north gate of the Inca barracks. When the guards saw the king approaching, they hurriedly saluted. Manco said to the guards, "The prince and the general have taken people to collect food. You must be more vigilant these days."
The guard replied, "Yes, Your Majesty."
Everyone entered the dormitory where the Spanish soldiers lived. Several Spaniards were gambling. When they saw the Inca King coming, they quickly made way for the Inca King to sit down. The Inca king sat on a chair, put the gold plate in his hand on the table, and asked Flores and the others, "How much do you think this gold plate is worth?"
Flores took the gold plate in his hand, looked at it, bit the edge with his teeth, and said, "The gold content of this plate is not low, even 5,000 gold pesos?"
Another Spanish soldier also looked at the gold plate carefully for a while and said, "It's almost worth 5,000 gold pesos."
Inca King Manco said, "Okay, let's give it 5,000 gold pesos." Then, he, Flores, Martinez and the other two Spanish soldiers began to gamble with dice. There are no markets or shops in the deep mountains and forests, so if you have money, you can't spend it, but you can take it to the city and use it for gambling. Although the Inca king didn't have much money, he had some gold, and gold is money. Whenever he was short of money, he would take out a gold object and exchange it for other people's money.
They were playing a game where the minimum bet was five gold pesos. This kind of gambling is not uncommon for Pizarro's soldiers, because they all have a lot of gold in their hands. But it was a bit too big for Almagro's soldiers, because they only shared gold once when they first arrived in Cusco, and they didn't get a lot, so this kind of gamble was quite scary for them. of. They usually only gamble one to two gold pesos. But gambling with the Inca King and betting too little would make the Inca King feel unmotivated.
The Inca King Manco did not know how to gamble, but after spending time with these Spaniards, he learned how to gamble. In fact, this method of gambling is very simple. It is to throw two dice made of bone or ivory on the table and compare the numbers of the dice. The one with the most points wins. But the charm of gambling lies not in skill, but in luck. When you are lucky, you will win if you bet; if you are unlucky, you will lose if you bet. However, luck is something that people cannot measure and control.
King Inca had a lot of gold, and each gold object was worth a lot of money. Therefore, he regarded gambling as a kind of entertainment and leisure, but he didn't care so much about winning or losing. But these Spaniards focus on winning and losing. First, because the money they have is very limited. If they lose too much, they will directly go bankrupt and incur a lot of debt; second, because they want to win money for themselves through gambling and get rich overnight. . Therefore, they often cannot afford to lose. For this reason, the Inca kings would often return the money they won to the Spaniards. This is why the Spaniards always like to gamble with the Inca king.
The Inca King first took the throne. He threw two dice on the table. One point was 4, the other was 5, and the total was 9. Because a die has six sides, each side is a point, and the maximum point of two dice is 12, so 9 is considered a relatively large point. Since then, it has caused a certain amount of psychological pressure on others.
Next, Flores scattered points. The points he scattered were 7, Martinez scattered 9 points, and the other two soldiers scattered points 5 and 6 respectively. Because the Inca King was the dealer, the 9 points that Martinez spread were eaten by the dealer. The King of Inca was victorious, winning 20 gold pesos on the first hand, and then continued to play dice. As a result, the Inca king hit a slam this time, which was 12 points. Therefore, no one else needs to give away any money and just pay double the amount to the Inca King. When sitting on the third village, the Inca king cast a 7 o'clock. Originally, this point was not large and could easily be surpassed by others. However, the strange thing is that everyone else's points were very low, so the Inca King took another village.
When the Inca King wanted to sit on the fourth bank again, a soldier hit a high of 11 and pushed the Inca King off the bank. However, King Inca soon became the banker again and won several games in a row until everyone around him started to borrow money from King Inca. So, the Inca King divided the two hundred gold pesos he had won among the losers.
Flores lost the most today and almost never played banker. I finally got the second banker position and even made a high of 10. However, King Inca unexpectedly spread 11 points and pulled his banker down. Flores couldn't help but feel a little annoyed, so he pointed at the Inca King and shouted, "You are cheating."
Usually, these Spaniards respected the Inca King very much and would never say such disrespectful words to the Inca King. Moreover, the Inca King was always generous and honest to them, and would never cheat in front of them. Therefore, when Flores said that he was cheating, the Inca king was naturally very unhappy. He immediately confessed to Flores and said, "I am not cheating." After saying that, he picked up the dice and rolled the dice just now. The action was repeated so that Flores and others could see clearly. However, he did not realize that Flores was giving his associates a hint that they could take action now.
Just when the Inca King was demonstrating the dot-scattering action to them, Flores had already taken the long sword placed by the bed in his hand and stabbed the Inca King. The Inca king saw the sword coming, but he couldn't dodge while sitting on a chair, so Flores stabbed him in the neck. He screamed and slowly fell from the chair to the table. Blood flowed out, staining the table and the ground red. Amap, the bodyguard of the Inca King, was stunned by the scene before him. When he was about to reach for the spear beside him, a Spanish soldier had already stabbed him heavily in the back of the heart with a short knife. He also immediately fell to the ground.
In almost a minute, these Spaniards completed a major event they had planned for a long time. After killing the Inca King and his bodyguards, Flores watched the Inca King fall to the ground and his bodyguards lost their breath. Flores shouted excitedly, "We succeeded." However, when he saw that his body There was a lot of blood on the clothes of his and his accomplices, and they couldn't help but feel a little panicked. At this time, Martinez shouted to everyone, "Quickly change clothes, let's leave."
As a result, these people began to take off their blood-stained clothes in a panic and put on clean clothes. Flores wiped the blood on the sword with the clothes he took off and ordered everyone, "Let's get out of here quickly."
The Spaniard hurriedly came out of the house, closed the door forcefully, and then walked quickly towards the south gate of the barracks. Arriving at the south gate of the barracks, there are two Inca soldiers standing guard. Seeing them approaching in a panic, the Inca guard raised his spear and asked them, "Where are you going?"
Flores held a long sword in his hand and said with a smile, "We are going to go hunting and improve our lives."
The Inca guard asked, "Why is there no one to guide you?"
Flores said, "No need, we know the way." As he said that, he led the Spaniards past the Inca guards.
As soon as the Spaniards passed through the south gate, the Inca soldier said to another Inca guard, "It doesn't look like they are out hunting? It's as if they just killed someone, their eyes are all red."
Another Inca guard said, "Yes, look at how panicked they are." Then the guard screamed, "I just saw the king and General Amap enter their room together, but , they came out, why didn’t they see the king and the general come out?”
The Inca guard said, "You stay here while I go to their room to have a look." After saying that, he quickly ran to the door of the room where the Spaniards lived, opened the door and looked inside, and saw Both the Inca king and Amapu fell to the ground, covered with blood. As if he had seen a ghost, he shouted loudly, "The king has been killed." Then he picked up the horn and blew it. While blowing, he ran as fast as he could toward the north gate of the Inca barracks, because he wanted to alert the king's cavalry guards.
The Inca guard blew his horn loudly and ran towards the Inca compound. The Inca compound was only about 500 meters away from the Inca barracks, so when he ran to the forest not far from the Inca compound, he saw the cavalry captain galloping towards him with about 30 cavalrymen. He shouted to the galloping cavalry, "The king has been killed by those Spanish whites. Go kill those Spanish whites."
The cavalry captain rode up to the guard and asked, "Where are the Spanish whites?"
The guard said, "They are running for their lives toward the mountain pass."
The cavalry captain waved his hand at the cavalry and shouted, "Hurry up and kill those nasty Spanish whites."
The cavalry galloped through the Inca barracks, and then pursued them deep into the dense forest. The Spaniards also heard the sound of horns, so they fled desperately towards the mountain pass on the edge of the forest. As long as they get out of the mountain pass, they will be able to escape, because the path over there is very narrow and there are woods beside the road, where they can avoid the pursuit of the Incas. However, before they could reach the mountain pass, they had to get out of the dense forest first. It was seven or eight miles from the Inca barracks to the mountain pass at the edge of the forest, and it would take at least half an hour to walk. Now they have walked most of the distance, and they only need to walk for about ten minutes to reach the mountain pass by the forest.
But the faint sound of running horse hooves could be heard in the forest. Martinez told Flores, "No, they're coming after me."
Flores said to his accomplices, "Brothers, hurry up."
After a while, the cavalry came after them, divided into two teams and surrounded the Spaniards from the left and right. The cavalry captain pointed his sword at them and shouted, "Stop."
The Spaniards panted and stopped. Faced with the siege of the Inca cavalry, Flores ordered his companions, "Get ready to fight." So they pointed their swords and spears at the Inca cavalry. .
Seeing the Spaniards preparing to fight to the death, the Inca cavalry surrounded the Spaniards tightly, making it impossible for them to escape. The cavalry captain asked Flores, "Why did you kill our king? He was so kind to you and always treated you as guests and friends."
Flores replied, "He won't allow us to leave here, but we can't stay here for a day."
The captain of the cavalry said, "You fled here to take refuge on your own, and it was not our king who invited you here." Seeing that these Spaniards had nothing to say, the captain of the cavalry shouted, "Kill me, kill these hateful Spaniards." White people.”
The Inca cavalry held spears and swords and rushed towards the surrounding Spaniards. The Spaniards knew that there was only death in front of them, so they fought to the death. However, how could the seven of them cope with the encirclement of more than thirty Inca cavalry? After a period of fighting, the seven Spaniards fell in a pool of blood. The cavalry captain said, "Cut off their heads and sacrifice them to the Inca king."
The cavalry jumped off their horses, chopped off the heads of the Spaniards with long swords, carried them in their hands, chopped their bodies into pieces, then mounted their horses and disappeared into the dense forest like a gust of wind. middle.
