Invincible urban management

Chapter 26, A Preliminary Exploration of the Aztec Empire

In the center of Central America, on the southern edge of the Mexican plateau, there is a valley with pleasant climate and rich water and grass. It is 200 kilometers long from north to south and 100 kilometers wide from east to west. It has been the most densely populated place in Central America since ancient times, and it is called the Valley of Mexico.

This prosperous and fertile land has raised millions of people of all ethnic groups and gave birth to the oldest civilization in Central America.

The later capital of the United Mexican States, the largest city in the world, and Mexico City, with a population of 2200 million, are also located here.

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Around 1000 AD, seven Navajo-speaking tribes successively left their barren hometowns in the northern desert and marched towards the legendary fertile south.Their common hometown is called Aztlan, which means land of swans.

Among the seven tribes, the Aztecs were the last to set off, 200 years behind the first group of people to leave.They endured the scorching sun and dust, endured hunger and poverty, and wandered on the vast Mexican plateau for an unknown number of years.

The long life of ups and downs and the hard life of fighting against nature have tempered them to be extremely strong.

Finally, the Aztecs came to the fertile Valley of Mexico. This piece of fertile land dazzled them, and they no longer wanted to continue wandering.

However, the fertile land in the Valley of Mexico had already been divided up by the tribes who arrived first, and none of them had the spirit of camaraderie among their fellow tribes. The Aztecs, who arrived last, were not welcome to settle here.

As a result, the Aztecs still had no land of their own, and could only continue to search for their new home in confusion.

They circled around in the valley, being driven to and fro, but they couldn't find a place to stand.

In 1325 A.D., the Aztecs finally saw the prophecy given to them by the sun god Wizilopochtri on a deserted island in the middle of Lake Texcoco: an eagle with a snake in its mouth, Standing on a cactus - according to God's allegory, this is their home.

Since then, they never left again, but filled the lake and built a city here, and took this island called Tenochtitlan as their home.

——Tenochtitlan, in the language of the Aztecs, means "fruit on the rock", that is, cactus.

And the picture in the prophecy—an eagle standing on a cactus with a snake in its mouth—has also become the future national emblem of Mexico.

However, it is not easy to establish a home on such a deserted island.The early Aztecs had to struggle to survive.They went down to the lake to catch fish, cast nets to catch birds, reclaimed swamps, reclaimed fields around the lake, and built so-called "floating islands" to farm on them... Gradually, the Aztecs connected the floating islands into pieces and built them again. Three 3-meter-wide dams across the lake have been built, and their territory has been continuously expanded.

Another 100 years later, the city of Tenochtitlan formed an alliance with the other two city-states to the west to formally establish the Aztec Empire.

Thus, starting from a small island, a great empire with the sun and blood as its totem was announced to be born.

Immediately afterwards, this newly militarized country showed its sharp fangs to its neighbors and began a bloody war of expansion.

Because, through the previous ups and downs, they have deeply understood that if they want to take root in this fertile soil, they can only rely on bloody force!

Today, after a century of brutal warfare, the Aztecs have already completely conquered this fertile Valley of Mexico, and based on this, they have become the overlord of Central America. Even the Mayans in the Yucatan Peninsula were forced to Praise ministers and pay tribute.

At its peak, the Aztec Empire had 38 provinces, 371 vassal tribes, and a population of 1500 million, more than any other European country in the same period, and its population was three times that of Spain in the same period.The capital, Tenochtitlan, has a population of nearly 25 and is the largest city in the entire Western Hemisphere.

As of the beginning of the 16th century, in the entire Mexico region, only two forces remained, the Tlaxcalans and the Hunxiutizgans, who still stubbornly refused to surrender to the Aztec Empire.But the Tlaxcalans were firmly besieged, and the Honxiutizgans were beaten to pieces.

No matter from which point of view, at this time, the great victory of the Aztec Empire's complete unification of Mexico seems to be just around the corner.

If this unprecedented feat can be accomplished, then Montezuma II will be the Qin Shihuang of Mexico!

In short, when the Spanish army invaded, the Aztec Empire was at the most glorious moment in its history.

However, no empire is eternal, they all have birth, growth, prosperity and decline.This powerful empire with the sun and blood as its totem will soon wither suddenly at its prosperous peak, leaving only a thousand emotions and melancholy to history.

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In November 1518, four months before the Spanish expeditionary force landed in Mexico, an unnamed highland on the shore of Lake Texcoco

The Expeditionary Army of the Hongxiutizgan Kingdom, carrying the guard of honor of the envoys, and all the travelers from modern times, are currently camping here.

The faint morning mist that permeated the lake, drifting away with the wind under the sunshine, revealing the majestic outline of the distant mountains.

After a night of sound sleep, all the travelers woke up in a daze, got out of their sleeping bags one by one, and walked out of the tent.

Then, they all felt a biting chill, accompanied by the mountain wind.

"...Ah Choo! Ah Choo! Is this place really in the tropics? Why do I feel as cold as an ice cellar?!"

Captain Cai Rong sneezed and muttered incessantly, her round face turned red from the cold wind sweeping across the lake.

"...It's true that this place is tropical, but it's not the Coconut Grove Beach in Port Hope, but a plateau at an altitude of more than 2000 meters!"

Wang Qiu handed her a metal thermos cup, which contained freshly brewed instant hot coffee, "...Drink this quickly, and warm up your body!"

On the other side, although Ma Tong has a strong physique like an athlete because of her long-term exercise, she still looks full of vitality in the cold wind, but she also has her own troubles.

"... Sigh, the ultraviolet rays in this damn place are so strong, my face is peeling off... It's decided! I must go to a beauty salon after I go back..."

While wrapping herself in a woolen scarf, she desperately wiped sunscreen all over her body without asking for money, and then looked at the thermometer placed outside the tent before complaining, "...the temperature is only 10 degrees Celsius... God, this place is simply xi zang!"

Wang Qiu couldn't help rolling his eyes at this, "...Senior sister, I told you not to bring a swimsuit here, you can't swim here at all, don't you believe it... have you suffered a lot?"

——Before they came to Mexico, Wang Qiu’s impression of this country was basically boundless deserts, huge cacti, blazing sunshine, heavy-flavored Mexican chili chicken rolls, and people wearing big straw hats.

And after traveling through time and space for 500 years, they came to the Hongxiutizgan Kingdom on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and their impression of this land was revised to the sea, the beach, coconut trees, tropical fruits, and the aborigines with naked tattoos... Basically, it is similar to the undeveloped Hainan Island.

So, before going through the wormhole this time, Senior Ma Tong prepared a tropical gauze waist, a sea blue full-body swimsuit, and a cute straw hat with lace. Take a few swimsuit photos with the city of Tenochtitlan in the background.

Unexpectedly, when I actually went to the Valley of Mexico, the temperature was so low that it was not like the tropics, and it was a bit cold to wear a sweater... The plan to jump into Lake Descoco for a swim naturally had to fall through——Although Ma Tong has the physique of an athlete, But I don't have the habit of winter swimming yet.

The locals they met after entering the valley were also generally dressed very thickly. There was never a guy who ran around with bare buttocks. He was completely different from the Mayans in the tropical rainforest. In terms of skin tone, hairstyle and appearance, It is indeed somewhat similar to the Xizang people.

"...The latitude of the Valley of Mexico is similar to that of Sanya on Hainan Island, but here is a plateau, so the temperature is much lower. The hottest time is about [-] degrees, and the coldest time is seven or eight degrees. Generally speaking It should be regarded as very livable: in summer, because of the high altitude, it is not very hot here, and in winter, because of the low latitude, it is not very cold here - it is not an exaggeration to say that the four seasons are like spring!"

Professor Yang dug out a Mexico travel brochure from nowhere, and introduced to everyone, "...in the tropics, there are many large cities that choose to build on plateaus for similar reasons, such as Brazil, the capital of Brazil. Lia, Quito, the capital of Ecuador, Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, and so on—after all, it’s cooler in high places!”

Everyone recalled the prosperous scenes they saw along the way, and found that this is indeed the case-the plateau in the tropics is obviously more livable. <, so the population here is definitely much denser than xi zang

——After entering the Valley of Mexico, everyone found that the development level here is very high, with cottages everywhere facing each other, and the cultivated land on the plain has been connected into one piece, and there are few forests that block the line of sight.There are a lot of neat stone houses everywhere, instead of only thatched huts like the Honxiutizgan Kingdom.There are a few rammed-earth avenues built by the Aztecs on the shore of the lake. On the side of the road, you can see many small hotels for merchants to rest, and peddlers with baskets on their backs, selling them various local specialties... People feel as if they have come to the rural areas of China in the 80s.Compared with the desolate scene of the Pacific coast full of jungles and no human habitation for dozens of miles, it is like a sky and a land.

In short, after entering the Valley of Mexico, it took only one day for the mission to reach the place where the city of Tenochtitlan could be seen.