Invincible urban management

72. The Spaniards are advancing

When the [-] expeditionary troops commanded by the traversers gnawed on the modern food delivered by the space-time logistics line, they traveled from the hot and humid Pacific coast to the cool climate of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan in the Valley of Mexico. While the city was advancing slowly, on the other side of the Mexican plateau, near the Atlantic Ocean, the Spanish expedition commanded by Hernan Cortez was also embarking on a great adventure to the city of Tenochtitlan. .

In June 1519, when Emperor Montezuma II made it clear that he did not want to meet with them and withdrew the diplomatic envoys sent before, Cortes was still determined to lead the expedition to abandon the ship and land from Veracruz. Port to the inland city of Tenochtitlan.

This overly bold decision immediately caused a riot within the expedition team.

Most of the Spaniards who followed his adventures, although eager to get more gold, silver, porcelain, spices and silk, were also extremely afraid of the inland areas full of unknown threats-on the coast where ships were moored. Even if they encountered an enemy attack, they could still set sail and leave if they were unable to fight. The Indians' canoes and rafts could not catch up at all.But once they go deep into the inland, if another one accidentally falls into an ambush, they will be in danger of dying without a place to bury them.

As a result, some people quickly became agitated, insisting on refusing to follow Cortez to Tenochtitlan, demanding to return to Cuba immediately, and trying to snatch ships and supplies, and sail back by themselves.

After hearing the news, Cortez hurriedly gathered a group of cronies to suppress the riot and hanged several leading troublemakers, but the morale of the army was still very unstable.

In order to strengthen everyone's will, Cortez racked his brains and deliberately staged a desperate plan. First, he took his cronies to secretly dismantle the ship's metal fittings and store them on a hill near the port for future reconstruction.Then, in front of everyone, he burned his entire fleet on fire, and let them watch these ships sink into the Gulf of Mexico, thus cutting off everyone's escape route.

At this point, all the expedition members had no escape route home, and were all put to death, so they could only follow Cortes all the way to the dark.

In August 1519, after solving the internal problems, Cortés lobbied the nearby Totonac tribes to try to unite them against the rule of the Aztecs, and finally took about 8 of the bravest The Spaniards, as well as the hundreds of Totonac allies who were fooled by him in the Gulf Coast area, totaling nearly 1000 people, and a few light artillery, began to march towards the city of Tenochtitlan.

The remaining more than 100 Spaniards who were resolutely unwilling to venture deep into the interior were left in Veracruz Port to guard the rear base.

From here, it can be seen what a bold gambler this Lord Cortes is—about half a year ago, in November 1518, Wen Desi and several traversers brought Cortes Nearly a thousand troops of almost the same size as the Expedition Team, went from Port Hope to the outskirts of Tenochtitlan smoothly and familiarly, but they were only satisfied with doing business.Hearing that Montezuma II didn't want to meet him, he obediently left a gift and went back. From the beginning to the end, he never thought of directly going to war with the Aztec Empire.

And Cortes didn't even know the road to Tenochtitlan, but he was already ambitious to conquer the Aztec Empire!

As one of the greatest legendary heroes in Spanish history, His Excellency Cortez really has extraordinary courage!

Relatively speaking, the traversers who are familiar with the details of history seem a little timid and dare not give it a go easily.

Of course, those who are astonishingly courageous are not necessarily heroes, they may also be lunatics.

However, although Cortez is a little crazy, he is obviously not a lunatic without reason.Facing the unknown fate, he gambled all his possessions, but he also knew that his military strength was very limited, and he didn't understand the reality of the Aztec Empire.If only relying on less than a thousand mobs, they would recklessly attack the city of Tenochtitlan, and I am afraid that in the end, all of them will become prisoners of the Aztec warriors.

Therefore, he needs to find a strong local ally, not a grasshopper like the Totonacs who will fall at the wind.

But in Mexico in 1519, the Spaniards had few alliances to choose from.

At this time, Cortez had already found out that the Aztec Empire was the current overlord of Central America, and all the four kingdoms bowed their heads and surrendered, and they were beaten out of temper.Looking at the entire Central America, there are only two stubborn du li forces that are still fighting against this powerful military power.

One of them is the Kingdom of Hunxiutizgan, which is also the source of silk, porcelain and tea. According to Cortez's speculation, there are "suspected" Chinese merchants living there... But this country is far away from the port of Veracruz , the Spaniards couldn't get in touch for a while.

Another old enemy of the Aztecs was the Tlaxcala League. They were entrenched in the Jutara Valley, just between the port of Veracruz and the city of Tenochtitlan, much closer to the Spaniards. , It is said that the military strength of the Tlaxcala people is far stronger than that of the Hongxiutizgan Kingdom.

Therefore, Cortez led his small troops over a steep mountain range, broke through the weak resistance of a few small local tribes who tended to the Aztecs, and successfully entered the Aztec on September 1519, 9. The Zutara Valley, the territory of the Tlaxcalans.

Then, the Spaniards were warmly welcomed by javelins, bows and stones in the Zutara Valley-because Cortes did not do a good job of communication beforehand, and the Tlaxcala people were captured by the Aztec Empire. It has been blocked for too long, and I don't know much about the outside world. When I saw the Spaniards entering the country suddenly, I thought it was a helper hired by the Aztecs from somewhere, so I didn't care about Sanqi 21 and called first!

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On the first day of the war, the expedition encountered a 30-man border patrol team, and then a conflict broke out.Although Cortez sent cavalry to chase after him, trying to catch a few survivors, he failed, and instead wounded several horses——Tlaxcala’s reputation for being tough is indeed true!

On the second day of the war, that is, on September 1519, 9, the famous Tlaxcala general Xicotcatto commanded 2 troops to the battlefield. attack.Seeing the army of the Tlaxcalans coming, the hundreds of Totonacs who were fooled by the Spaniards were frightened for a while, lost the courage to fight, and turned around and fled one after another.

And Cortez, who bit the bullet and directed the remaining 400 people to fight, also found that he had greatly underestimated his opponent.These Tlaxcalan warriors did not, as he had imagined, piss off when they heard the roar of the cannons, but bravely braved the artillery fire to charge.In the end, it was because the Tlaxcalans arranged the attack formation too densely, several important leaders were killed by shells, and the command failed for a while, so they withdrew temporarily.

After such a fierce battle, Cortez's expedition suffered heavy casualties. Most of the Totonac allied forces who came from the port of Veracruz fled. More than [-] Spaniards were killed and injured, only [-] horses. Six horses were killed, and the remaining ten horses were also wounded and unable to participate in the battle.

What's more terrible is that his food was about to run out, so Cortez had to take the initiative to plunder some small nearby villages at night. Who knew that he attacked several villages in succession, but found that there was nothing inside—Tlaxcala People have already fortified the wall and cleared the country, and the Spaniards can't grab anything.

Next, Sicott Cato reorganized the army and launched a fierce attack on the Spaniards again.Cortez relied on his subordinates to form skirmishers, relying on the camp to reload and shoot in turn, and finally repelled the enemy once again.

However, the young Sicott Catto, who was rich in military talent, soon discovered the weakness of firearms, changed his strategy again, and organized a group of warriors to launch a night attack on the Spanish camp.It is believed that under the cover of night, the firepower of the Spaniards will be greatly reduced.

However, unfortunately, Xiaoxi Cotecato forgot that this day was a full moon, and the Spaniards' camp was surrounded by empty plains... As a result, under the bright moonlight, the Tlaxcala night raiders did not move at all. Unable to hide, he was spotted by Spanish sentries at a great distance, and then was met with a short assault directed by Cortes himself.The Tlaxcalans were immediately defeated and more than [-] people died in battle.

In the next ten days, the Tlaxcalans and the Spaniards fought repeatedly, and no one could do anything to the other.Cortés was unable to defeat the Tlaxcalans, who were ten times his size, and Sicotecato the Junior could not break into the Spaniards.

But the Tlaxcalans were fighting at home after all, and had plenty of food supplies, while the Spaniards had only a few days of rations, and soon gradually fell into desperation—the [-] Spaniards in the expedition team died successively. Many others were injured or fell ill.As for the hundreds of Totonac Allied Forces who came from the port of Veracruz, they died or fled soon, and only a few dozen people remained in the end.

Next, the food in the team was basically finished, and the bark was about to be gnawed, and the gunpowder was almost exhausted due to the high-intensity fighting.Even Cortez himself had a high fever and was delirious... The whole team was on the verge of collapse, thanks to Cortez and his Indian mistress Marina coaxing and cheating, always reluctantly support.

For Cortez, this battle is absolutely unbeatable. Once he loses, there will be no place for him in Mexico—his team cannot retreat. The Totonacs near Puerto de la Cruz will also turn against him because of his failure, re-confine the Aztecs, and wipe out the Spanish expedition that has burned the ship on the beach... He must persist !

Fortunately, when Cortez was struggling to hold on, the attitude of the Tlaxcalans also changed.

——The envoy sent by Cortez for the peace talks, went through all kinds of difficulties and dangers, and at this time finally bypassed the battlefield and arrived at the capital of the Tlaxcalans.The elders of the Tlaxcalans finally figured out that these Spaniards who came out of nowhere were not thugs invited by the old enemy Aztec Empire to attack them, but hoped to attack Aztec with them. potential ally of the Ottomans.

They continued to fight with the Spaniards. Even if they won a disastrous victory, it would be of no benefit to the current situation of the Tlaxcalans being besieged by the Aztec Empire on all sides. An attack by the Aztecs.

Rather than hurting both sides so meaninglessly, it is better to join hands with the Spaniards to deal with the Aztecs and solve this century-old enemy.

After a heated debate, Masisicato, the leader of the peace faction of the Tlaxcalans, overwhelmed the leader of the main combat faction, Old Sea Cote Catto, the father of the front-line commander Xiao Xi Cote Catto. Gained the upper hand in the meeting of chiefs.

The chiefs immediately ordered a truce to the front and prepared to hold peace talks with the Spaniards.This order was sternly rejected by Koshikotkato, the hardline main combat faction.But the frontline troops of the Tlaxcalans were no longer willing to fight because of heavy casualties, and they began to mutiny.And the meeting of chiefs in the capital of Tlaxcala issued three truce orders in a row, and Koshiko Tecato finally conceded.

In late September 1519, Cortes led a Spanish expedition with less than 9 people left, entered the capital of the Tlaxcalans, reached a peace agreement with the chiefs of the Tlaxcala Alliance, and decided to form an alliance to attack the Aztecs .

At the beginning of October, Cortez led the rested expedition team and thousands of Tlaxcala Confederates to set out again from the Zutara Valley.Then, the coalition easily broke through the Aztec blockade, defeated an Aztec army of about 10 people, and reached the important trade center and religious shrine in the eastern part of the Valley of Mexico. Lula City.

The city was once an ally of the Tlaxcalans and the Hunxiutizcans, who formed the Triple Alliance to compete with the Aztec Empire for Central America.But at the most critical moment in the war, the Cholula people suddenly turned against each other, causing the Tlaxcala people and the Hongxiutizgan people to suffer a complete defeat. The former has been blocked in the Zutara Valley for many years. Completely cut it off, and recently it has become so noisy that I can't even eat salt.The latter lost all the rich territory on the Mexican plateau, and shrunk to the poor places on the Pacific coast, where they could not live in peace. In the end, they were almost destroyed by the Aztec expeditionary force.

If it is said that a strong opponent can still give people a sliver of respect, then one's own traitor can only be hated.

This time, the Cholula people who were caught off guard finally suffered retribution. After asking for help from the Aztec Empire in vain, and being threatened and lured by the envoys of the Tlaxcalans, the Cholula people had no choice but to open the city to the coalition forces. Surrender and welcome Cortez's presence with the most solemn etiquette.

However, the cowardly Cholula people don't know that their all kinds of flattery and flattery are actually opening the door to death for themselves.

Treat wolves with wine instead of shotguns, and you will only reap blood, tears and sorrow in the end!