History of the Inca Empire

The Incas were originally a small country located in Cusco. Major territorial expansion did not begin until the 15th century. Tupac Inca Yupanqui expanded the territory of the Inca Empire to Pasto, Colombia. as well as Tucumán in Argentina and Río Maure in Chile. However, his heirs' fight for the throne caused many civil wars, which led to political instability in the Inca Empire and provided opportunities for subsequent Spanish colonists to sow discord. There are many legends about the creation of the Inca Empire by Manco Capac, the first Sapa Inca, and his wife Mama Oquelho. These legends are fictional, imaginary and fascinating. These legends also constitute the main content of the cultural history of today's Peru, a South American country.

There is a legend that tells the story of four brothers (Ayal Kach, Ayal Uchu, Ayal Oka and Ayal Manco). Their home is in Pacaritambo Cave; a deep cave in the Andes. Four brothers and their four sisters leave home in search of a better life. The eldest brother Ayal Kachi has supernatural powers, which makes his brothers and sisters jealous. The brothers tricked Ayal Kach into returning to the cave, and then sealed the cave with rocks to prevent Ayal Kach from coming out.

The other brothers and sisters continued their journey. When they reached Huacaoli Mountain, Ayal Uchu turned into stone and became a temple (also known as Huaca), which was deeply revered by the Incas. That left Ayal Oka and Ayal Manco; they reached a small village, and Ayal Oka was frightened and ran away. He panicked and trudged across mountains and rivers until he was exhausted. He sat down to rest and turned to stone like his brother.

Ayal Manco and his sisters continued on to a place between the Urubamba and Apurimac rivers. Ayal Manco built the city of Cusco there and settled his people there. These people became the Incas. Manco chose his sister Mama Oculo as his wife because she was amiable and helpful. This marriage explains the historical reason for the Inca custom of Sapa Inca usually marrying his sister.

Ayal Manco changed his name to Manco Capac and declared himself the ruler of this new society. Later the title Sapa Inca was usually passed to the son of the coya (queen). (Sapa Inca may also have had many concubines). The throne does not always pass to the eldest son; whichever son is most suitable for the throne succeeds as king.

Another theory of the origin of the Inca Empire is directly related to Manco Capac, Mama Oculo and the sun god Inti. The story begins with members of a clan migrating with Manco Capac. On the way, the Sun God gave Manco Capac a golden rod and asked him to insert the golden rod into the ground when he reached a place he thought was suitable for settlement. The golden rod disappeared. This is where he and his people built the city of Cusco. Manco Capac then built the temple Intivasi to worship the sun god where the golden rod disappeared.

These legends are passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter. Historians recognize Manco Capac as the ancestor of the people who lived in the Andes and as the first ruler. The city of Cusco still exists today. When the empire began and the circumstances surrounding its origins remain a mystery. The ancestors of the Incas crossed the Bering Strait and came to the American continent about 11,000 years ago. For decades after the Incas arrived in the Americas, the inhabitants of Eurasia had little contact with the Incas. In the long history, Indians created their own civilization in South America and established the Inca Empire with an unprecedentedly vast territory.

Towards the end of the 14th century, the Inca Empire began to expand from Cusco (a city in southern Peru, the capital of the Inca Empire from the early 11th to the 16th century) in the Southern Andes Mountains of South America. But when the Spanish, led by Francisco Pizarro, began to invade in 1532, the expansion was hastily ended. The Incas were mostly Peruvian and Ecuadorian, but also had a large presence in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.

The early history of the Inca Empire seems to be recorded only in myths and legends. Later, Spanish invaders provided an official version of the history of the early Inca Empire, but even this official version struggled to separate the true history of the Inca Empire from the myths and legends with which it was entangled.

The Inca Empire may have just begun as a small kingdom. This small country was no different from many small countries near the Andes Mountains in the fourteenth century. Eventually, the Inca Empire became a powerful state centered on Huari, now located near Ayacucho, Peru, and extending to the north of Cusco. There is clear evidence that this country controlled the land centuries ago, and that it was not until the tenth century that another small, feuding country took over. Why the early Incas were able to prevail over their neighbors is unknown. Even Manco Capac, the legendary leader who founded the Inca Empire, is not known to be a real person. Under the rule of Pachacutec (1438-1471), the extraordinary territorial expansion in Inca history began. According to Spanish records, during the reign of Pachacutec, the Incas gained two-thirds of the territory they had occupied during their heyday. Despite Pachacutec's long tenure, this expansion was quite rapid given the Inca's limited means of transportation and communication.

At that time, not only were vehicles not yet in use, there were even no horses in the area.

The territorial expansion gained was merely an accessory to the Inca army's plans of conquest. The war of conquest is constantly won by crushing the stubborn resistance of neighboring countries, and thus can invade other countries brutally. However, not all of the land gained through imperial expansion was acquired directly through military action. Some territories were added as a result of the Empire's peace proposals. Some other territories joined because they feared that if they refused the Empire's proposal to form an alliance, they would be killed.

About 1470, the Incas defeated the Chimu Kingdom, a wealthy and powerful kingdom on the northern coast of Peru. With the victory of this major conquest, there were few remaining small nations in South America capable of challenging the Inca Empire, let alone preventing its expansion. Therefore, the Inca Empire expanded throughout South America, and subsequently formed the so-called "civilized world" of South America.

Before the Inca successor Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1471-1493) succeeded to the throne, the borders of the Inca Empire had advanced to the northern border of today's Republic of Ecuador. During the reign of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, the southern coast of Peru (1476), northern Chile, much of northwestern Argentina, and part of the Bolivian plateau were conquered. Part of the empire's vast territory, apparently along Peru's southern coastline, the conquest was also costly, with the outcome of the war not only causing huge losses to both warring parties, but even leading to the overall demise of some small tribes. In addition, periodic rebellions in previously conquered lands had to be suppressed.

In the final years before the Spanish invasion, the Inca Empire was still expanding in the north. Huayna Capac (1493-1527), the father of Atahualpa, the last emperor of the Inca dynasty, had already ruled the northern frontier of the empire in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, when he died in 1527. In 1492 AD, Columbus arrived at the Caribbean islands. From then on, the advanced "Old World" and the American "New World" began to collide. Accompanied by religious fanaticism and the dream of treasure hunting, groups of European colonists set foot on American soil. Among them, the most dramatic one was when Spanish colonist Pizarro led 169 soldiers to conquer the huge Inca Empire.

The rich gold and silver in the Americas attracted greedy European colonists. With the arrival of Europeans, smallpox, which had not been present on the American continent, became widespread. In 1526, smallpox killed the Inca emperor Huayna Capac, and then many of his ministers and the intended heir to the throne, Ninan Cuyuch.

Due to the civil war, the Inca army had been fragmented and lost one-tenth of its troops in the civil war. This chaotic situation played into the hands of the colonists. In 1531, with permission from the King of Spain, Francisco Pizarro set sail from a Spanish port with less than 200 men and began a journey to conquer an empire of six million people. In fact, Francisco had already obtained the secret of the ongoing civil war in Inca through the Aztecs, so he realized that this was the best time to conquer the Inca Empire. In 1531, 169 Spanish colonists under his leadership launched an attack on the Inca Empire.

Although the Inca Empire was still expanding when the Spanish arrived, theoretically speaking, the Inca Empire had approached a series of geopolitical limits, and the approach to these limits excluded expansion. Inca rulers always believed that a relatively stable indigenous way of life not only provided a system of political rule, but also became the basis for the production of products needed to maintain the organization of the empire. The Incas' attempts to invade the eastern jungle and other immigrant areas were never successful. The effort required to rule those immigrants was enormous and was not conducive to the full concentration and mobilization of resources.

One of Pizarro’s subordinates once wrote in his memoirs: “Pizarro wanted to get information from the Incas from Cajamarca, so he ordered people to torture them. The Inca confessed, and they It was said that Atahualpa was awaiting the arrival of Pizarro in Cajamarca. The Indian camp looked like a beautiful city, and their tents were so numerous that we were filled with fear." Before Cajamarca Square, the Spaniards carefully discussed countermeasures. After all, their number was too small, with only 169 people including Pizarro, and it was impossible to get support. The Inca Empire's elite troops numbered as many as 80,000. That night, everyone in the Spanish colonial army, regardless of their position, infantry or cavalry, took up arms and stood guard; even Pizarro himself kept running around to cheer up his men. In order to reassure the soldiers, Pizarro's brother Hernando deceived them that there were only 40,000 Inca soldiers - a number that was enough to make his soldiers shudder.

On November 16, 1532, the day after the Spanish arrived in Cajamarca, a messenger from Atahualpa came to the Spanish. Pizarro said to the messenger: "Please tell the monarch of your country that he is welcome to come. As for when and how to come, you can do it according to his wishes. No matter how he comes, I will treat him as a friend and brother." reception. I begged him to come quickly, for I longed to see him without any harm or insult.

"After the messenger left, Pizarro quickly deployed defenses around the Plaza of Cajamarca. He divided the 106 infantry into two parts, led by him and his brother Juan respectively; the 62 cavalry were also divided into two parts, led by His other brothers, Hernando and De Soto, benefited greatly from the use of cavalry, because although the Inca Empire was powerful at this time, the Indians in the South American continent did not know how to domesticate horses. Come, the Spanish colonial troops wearing armor and riding horses are simply gods. At the same time, Pizarro ordered Candia and three infantrymen to bring a trumpet and a small cannon to a corner on the edge of Cajamarca Square. Ambush on the small fort. Their plan was: when the Inca army surrounded Atahualpa and entered the square of Cajamarca, Pizarro gave Candia a signal. After receiving the signal, Candia and his men blew the trumpet. , the Spanish cavalry ambushed on both wings rushed out and surrounded the Inca army. At noon that day, Atahualpa gathered his troops and marched towards the square where the Spanish were stationed. At the front were 2,000 Indians who were clearing the road. Wearing colorful checkerboard patterns, they picked up stones and grass on the roadside. Behind them were three groups of Indians wearing different colors, singing and dancing. Behind them were a large number of Inca warriors. A metal plate, a crown made of gold and silver, and many gold and silver products were surrounded by people. The Inca emperor Atahualpa appeared on the shoulder cart. The wooden frame of the shoulder cart was wrapped in silver leather and surrounded by inserts. Colorful parrot feathers, decorated with gold and silver ornaments, were carried on the shoulders of 80 Inca lords. Atahualpa himself was dressed in embroidered clothes, wearing a crown on his head, and a huge necklace made of emeralds around his neck, sitting on the shoulders. On the ornate saddle-shaped stools in the middle, on the sedan chairs and hammocks on both sides of the carriage, senior lords decorated with a large number of gold and silver ornaments were sitting, and behind them were Inca warriors carrying gold and silver products, singing loudly. The singing entered Cajamarca Square and filled every corner of the square. The Spaniards who were ambushing around the square were filled with fear. Many people peed their pants in the center of the square. Valpa was chatting with Vincent de Valverde, a mendicant monk sent by Pizarro. De Valverde held a Bible and declared that "in the name of God and the King of Spain" he asked Atahualpa to convert to Christianity. Atahualpa took the Bible from Brother de Valverde's hand, wanting to see what mysterious power it contained. The Incas didn't know how to make paper at that time, let alone print books. So the emperor didn't know how to open the book. Brother de Valverde reached out to help. Atahualpa felt slighted and punched the monk in the arm. Then Atahualpa opened the book and found out. There was nothing magical in it. He threw the book several meters away in anger and said: "We only believe in the sun, not God and Christ." "Atahuallpa's move gave the Spaniards a reason to take action. De Valverde returned to Pizarro and shouted: "Come out! Come out! Christians! Charge against these enemies who reject the gospel of God! How dare that tyrant throw the Bible on the ground! ...Rush towards them and I will forgive your sins! "At the same time, Pizarro sent a signal to Candia. For a moment, trumpets and cannons sounded, and the heavily armed Spanish colonial troops shouted and rushed out from both wings. The Spaniards had tied many weapons to the horses in advance that could make a huge sound. Loud ringers. Pizarro's troops were equipped with only a dozen muzzle-loading guns. These guns were difficult to load and fire, but they had a huge deterrent effect on the Incas. Although the Inca Empire was vast, it was not productive. Behind. The Inca warriors were only equipped with stone, bronze or wooden sticks, short axes, slingshots and protective pads. The Inca warriors were chopped into several pieces by the Spaniards, and although the Inca sticks could also injure the Spanish colonists. Or horses, but they could not be killed directly. Under the impact of the Spanish cavalry, the Inca army fell into chaos, trampled on each other, and many people suffocated to death. Pizarro himself rushed into the group of Indians with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He wanted to capture the Inca emperor Atahualpa himself. Pizarro rushed to Atahualpa's shoulder cart and killed several Inca lords carrying the shoulder cart with his sword, but several more people ran away immediately. Come over and pick up the shoulder cart. Seeing that Pizarro was unable to succeed, seven or eight Spanish cavalry rushed over and knocked over the emperor's shoulder cart. The Inca emperor was captured alive and managed to knock him down. A section of the wall of the square escaped, and dozens of Spanish cavalry continued to pursue them. The valley was filled with the wailing of the Incas. If the Spanish had not withdrawn due to nightfall, the 80,000 Inca army would have been wiped out. About 7,000 Incas were killed in the Battle of Cajamarca, but the Spanish suffered very little loss. More importantly, they captured the high-ranking lords around the Inca Empire's arrogant emperor, Atahualpa. and ministers, were all killed in this massacre.

The Spanish asked the Incas to fill a room 22 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 8 feet high with gold. Although imprisoned, his subjects obeyed his orders from prison. When gold poured in from all parts of the empire and filled the Spanish treasury, the Spanish colonists treacherously killed Atábal. Pa.

In the months before Atahualpa's death, the once powerful Inca Empire did not mount effective resistance against the 169 Spanish colonists. This gave Pizarro enough time and energy to divide his forces to conquer other parts of the Inca Empire and start from Panama brought in reinforcements. It was not until the death of Atahualpa that the Inca war against the Spanish really started, and at this time the strength of the Spanish colonial army had been greatly strengthened. On his way to Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, Pizarro relied on his superiority in steel and cavalry to defeat the Inca army in four battles: Joja, Vilcacuaman, Vilcaconga and Cusco. There were only 80, 30, 110 and 40 Spaniards in the battles respectively, while the Inca troops defeated in each battle often numbered in the tens of thousands. However, the Inca royal family, under the leadership of Manco and his successors, continued to fight against the Spanish colonists until it was finally eliminated in 1572.