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   Fash-E :windmill_of_friendship: (fash-e@poa.st)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Feb-2025 11:25:41 JST Fash-E :windmill_of_friendship:

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   The greatest conquistador of the New World was Hernán Cortés. Son of minor nobility, Hernan decided to sail for the New World. While living in Spanish Cuba, Hernan used his own private wealth to fund the third expedition into the mainland. The Governor of Cuba gave Hernan explicit orders not to conquer new lands. When he suspected Cortés would not follow that command he cancelled the expedition, which Hernán ignored. When Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of the New World with 600 men, he burned his own ships so there would be no possibility of retreat. They would either conquer the Aztec Empire or die trying.
   
   Marching into unknown territory, they soon found themselves surrounded on a hill by an army of tens of thousands of tribal warriors. Hernan negotiated with their leader, who was already looking to rebel against the Aztec overlords. The Aztecs were a particularly brutal tribe that descended from the North and conquered Mexico. They practiced human sacrifices estimated anywhere from 20,000 to 250,000 per year. After helping this chief crush a rival tribe, he took Hernan and his men to their capital Tenochtitlan where they were greeted by their leader Moctezuma II. Invited into the royal chamber, Moctezuma explained that their arrival was the fulfillment of an ancient Aztec prophecy, that pale men would descend from the direction of the sunrise to rule.
   
   Cortés received word another spanish force had landed seeking to arrest him, Hernan left a small force in the palace to guard the emperor then led a night attack on the Spaniards, capturing their leader and convincing the remaining men to join with his cause. Returning to Tenochtitlan with his new army of 1400 soldiers, Hernan discovered the men he had left in his place had committed a massacre in the Great Temple. Apparently reacting to human sacrifices and a plot to kill the conquistadors in their sleep, they had executed a large number of Aztec chiefs in their holy temple. Now the entire city had risen up against both Moctezuma and the Spaniards.
   
   They were forced the flee the city, but many Spaniards and Moctezuma were killed by the Aztecs. Hernán wept over the heavy losses he suffered that day, vowing to take revenge. He began a campaign against the Aztecs that employed every tactic and strategy that Europeans had developed in the art of war over centuries. Effectively cutting the city off from all supply, annihilating or converting surrounding tribes to his cause, waging total war on the Aztecs. Eventually with less than 2,500 Spaniards and tens of thousands of tribal allies, they assaulted the city in a final battle against over 300,000 Aztecs. Ending the Aztec Empire, Cortez became the first Governor of New Spain, ruling in the name of Emperor Charles V.
   
   Conquistador Francisco Pizarro landed on the shore of the Inca Empire in 1532. Perhaps seeking to out do his second cousin Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizarro had brought only 168 men. That year, Francisco won a major battle at Cajamarca, where 168 Conquistadors fought and killed over 8000 Inca warriors. Eventually by following the strategy of building a tribal coalition, he toppled the Aztec Empire in 1572, having only ever commanded a total of 3000 Spaniards against the 150,000 Inca forces.