Forum:Texcoco's Ascendancy

1506---Hernan Cortes participates in Hispanolia conquest, receives an encomienda and Indian slaves. 1509---in a point of historical departure, king of France (Louis XII) loses at Agnadello to the Venetians in the War of the League of Cambrai, and makes peace with the Papacy, England and the Holy Roman Empire in a diplomatic initiative to isolate Spain. He succeeds admirably. Ferdinand II commits a heavily increased Spanish military contingent to the war, in Italy’s Romagna region, blindly and erratically. 1510---Spanish officials, aware of Cortes’ talents as displayed in Hispanolia conquest, recall him to Spain and send him to the Romagna front in the Cambrai War. He is slain in battle by a Swiss detachment. This fate is shared by Juan Ponce de Leon, former governor of Puerto Rico. Spanish involvement in the Papal wars drags on, with no end in sight. In this same year, Colimotl, the chieftain of Colima, fresh from a victory over the Tarascans, casts in his lot with the Aztecs, perhaps fearing a future attack from the P’urhe’pecha state. Sayula ousts its own contingent of invaders and follows suit. 1516---the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velazquez, notes in an unusually frank letter to the Spanish crown that unusual numbers of horse thefts are occurring on the island, particularly the western part. Ferdinand II, now in the last few days of his life, is incapable of even reading correspondence now. Velazquez’s complaint goes unnoticed amidst all the political jockeying and bureaucratic inertia in Madrid. 1519---Indians along the Gulf coast report to a Spanish party of emissaries (bound by ship for a site that would later be named “Vera Cruz” by the Spaniards) that the royal menagerie of Texcoco now has “gray, hornless deer” like the Spaniards have (Spanish Sorraia horses), and that these are now included among its displays, apparently stolen from Cuba and ferried by canoe to the mainland. 1522---Montezuma II, the Aztec emperor, dies in Tenochtitlan, having contracted smallpox. His own complement of horses are taken to Texcoco upon his death, apparently one of his last directives. It would seem that he was a nascent horse lover in the last year or two of his life, though it will never be known if he foresaw the strategic value of equines. Within weeks, Cacamatzin, tlatoani of Texcoco since 1515, also succumbs to the pox. Later that same year, the ruling council of Texcoco breaks its deadlock (which had lasted since Nezahualpilli’s death in 1520), and elects Ixtlilxochitl king of that city. Displaying an almost supernatural political vision and foresight, he takes advantage of political confusion in Tenochtitlan and turns the smallpox plague to his own advantage---he proclaims the catastrophe signifies nothing less than evidence of the falsity of the old gods (Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Tlaloc, and Xipe Totec) to whom Technotitlan has been making sacrifice all these years, and forcing all the other cities of the Nahua/Acolhua world to sacrifice. The priesthoods of these gods, particularly that of Tenochtitlan, declare him anathema. That would probably have been enough to restore the status quo ante, but then they overreach themselves, declaring the plague to be the result of not enough blood sacrifice---and that the sacrifice has not included enough of the blood of warriors or civilian nobility. After all, do they not represent the cream of Aztec society? Don’t the gods deserve nothing less? they aver. Civil war erupts among these clashing factions of the pipiltin in Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Tlacopan, Azcapotzalco. The soldiers and certain noble alumni of the military combine to massacre the priesthoods of the old gods, with commoners lending plenty of hands in a rare display of social solidarity. Less dramatically, the same story repeats in all the other cities of Anahuac. In the end, all the cities declare fealty to Ixtlilxochitl, and bid a glad good-bye to Mexica tyranny. On the day of Three Flower, in the week of One Knife, in the year of Four Rabbit, Ixtlilxochitl proclaims Quetzalcoatl lord, and forbids human sacrifice, whilst simultaneously resisting the temptation to deify himself. The massacre of the blood-drinking gods’ priesthoods and the destruction of their shrines amounts to a social revolution sweeping the Aztec world. Support for the reform is near-universal. The religious ecstasy sweeping the realm sustains the people’s spirit through the horror and tragedy of the smallpox epidemic. 1523---the smallpox plague dies out. Although upwards of a third of Anahuac’s population is gone now, the empire has managed to endure. In this same year, a raiding party of die-hard Mexica ambushes an Azcapotzalcan equestrian detachment (west of Lake Zumpango), slaying the cavalrymen and stealing their horses---about two dozen. Certain artifacts left at the scene leave no doubt who has committed the crime. The king of Azcapotzalco and Ixtlilxochitl himself offer bounties for the heads of the culprits. Soon after, Acolhua is made the official language of the empire. Nahuatl continues in private use, in commerce and in educational use within the calmecacs. 1525---Spain’s army is reduced to less than fifteen thousand now as a result of the lingering bloodbath in Cambrai. This is down from an early-century high of thirty thousand. 1529---Indian informants along the coast report to the Spanish voyagers around the Gulf coast (Gulf of Anahuac, as it is called) that the new Emperor, residing in the new capital of Texcoco, has a large herd of the “gray, hornless deer” now, who are capable of jumping over mountains (superstitious lore), and has warriors who ride them in battle now. It is also reported that they have steel weaponry, which fits with Spanish observations that thefts from armories in Cuba have occurred, and with observations of  butchered guards being found without their weaponry. 1532---Tlaxcalan spies in Texcoco report there are now public reviews of the Texcocan cavalry, and that the military commands in the other cities are creating their own. All horse ownership in these cities---about two hundred in Texcoco, and a combined total of about three hundred in the other cities---is a royal monopoly, with horse stables kept under heavy armed guard. There is also an increasing number of steel weapons in evidence among the troops, although stolen samples show most of it is cruder than that of the Spanish---apparently, the Aztec metal smiths have at least partially reverse-engineered the iron smelting process. 1535---the governor of Cuba, Gonzalo de Guzman, having made a convincing case to King Charles I, sends a diplomatic delegation to Texcoco, with the intention of opening trade and diplomatic relations with the empire. The tlatoani receives them in grand style at the top of Texcoco‘s main shrine for Quetzalcoatl (one formerly dedicated to Tlaloc, the rain god), with his cavalry commandant staging a showy review of the Texcocan cavalry that goes all the way around the temple precinct, culminating with a demonstration of the new crossbow weapons with which the Texcocan army has recently been trained and equipped. 1544---the nomadic northern Mexica, wandering northward toward Aztlan and probing into areas to the west as well (where old trade contacts exist with the Pueblo peoples), have become an increasingly equine-oriented people, developing a fully-mounted military caste and a mostly-mounted population of females and older children as well. They have successfully engaged, diplomatically and commercially, with the Shoshone and Apache and Ute peoples as well as the Pueblos and Navajos. The Texcocans have also tenuously engaged with these peoples, but find it increasingly difficult, given the militant, highly-mobile, bison-hunting culture the northern Mexica have developed. Having become the first to trade horses to the Shoshone, Apache, and Ute, the Mexica have a pre-eminent commercial position as well as geographical position, and jealously guard it. Their religiously-motivated butchery finds an outlet that does not conflict with these peoples---instead, they raid Wichita settlements in the Red River area for sacrificial captives. Of course, they also raid south, taking Tarascan and Texcocan subjects captive for the altar. A Texcocan military offensive on the Plains begins, one aiming at correcting this situation. The young warriors, exploding with zeal to carry the banner of Quetzalcoatl to the unbelievers, and most especially to the apostate Mexica, are a coiled spring that must be given some release before they revolt. The campaign is led by Lord Three House, and the climactic battle occurs at a place named Black Water Drinking Towers. The war will afterward be known as the Four Eagle War, after the date of its inception, old calendar. I say “old calendar” for a reason. In order to fundamentally strip legitimacy from the old regime and the old religious order in the most final, radical way possible, the emperor of Texcoco, an avid calendrical interpreter, embraces the Julian calendar on the day after the war’s inception. The date on the Julian calendar? May 15, 1544. It is a heretical notion, to be sure, this abandonment of the device that had (in the minds of believers of the old religion) apportioned time, life, and energy equitably among the gods and prevented a fight to the finish among the deities---more daring even than his destruction of the shrines and worship of Huitzilopochtli and his retinue of bloody deities. Ixtlilxochitl, a man accustomed to great gambles, reckons that this may be his greatest and riskiest gamble, but that the success of the campaign gives him the political capital to pull it off. And the campaign IS a success, as the Texcocan cavalry unveils both the crossbows it has adopted, and another innovation as well---horse-drawn chariots. These are a complete surprise to the Mexica, Shoshone, and Apache, more than offsetting the skill that some of the Mexica have developed as mounted archers and atlatl spearsmen. A branch of the Shoshones---one the Texcocans call the “Cumantzin”---forsakes the Mexica alliance, and its head chief declares for the religion of Quetzalcoatl and allegiance to Ixtlilxochitl. The rest of the small Mexica army and its larger contingent of allies have been routed, but they eschew surrender, opting to flee into the vastness of the plains. Emperor Ixtlilxochitl has little doubt there will be other wars, and other victories that have to be paid for. But this victory has come at a politically and religiously crucial time for him. In Spain and the rest of Europe, scholars two centuries hence will be calling Ixtlilxochitl the “Ankhenaton of Aztlan.” But Ankhenaton’s revolution failed. Emperor Black-eyed Flower has succeeded in his. The year of 1544 has been a resounding success for the Texcocan empire! 1548---A slick (but aging) Spaniard con artist with delusions of grandeur, Nuno Beltran de Guzman, a former bodyguard and diplomat of Charles V, arrives in Hispaniola. He has amassed a substantial fortune with his penchant for ferreting out ugly secrets and using them for the blackmail of Spanish diplomats and businessmen, and now takes advantage of his portfolio to milk a number of the local prominent Catholic parishioners of their wealth. Before word of his misdeeds can get back to Madrid, he charters three galleons and hires a hundred veterans away from the garrison of Navidad, using forged government “letters” giving fictitious authorization in order to recruit them. He takes his force to the mainland, and lands at a site he names Vera Cruz. De Guzman’s force, which brazenly marches toward Anahuac, the heartland of the empire, is met halfway there by a diplomatic contingent, backed by a four hundred-man military detachment, including two squadrons of cavalry. When he acts treacherously, battle ensues, and his force is massacred almost to the last man. Ten Spaniards survive and are taken prisoner to Texcoco. Among them is a chaplain named Bernal Diaz. Diaz, after questioning at the university, inadvertently reveals his knowledge concerning gunpowder and firearms. After a prolonged interrogation, one that includes drugging him with psychotropic mushrooms, he is induced to indicate which elements (out of a large display of plant, animal, and mineral substances assembled before him) constitute gunpowder, and the proportions. Another Spaniard, an infantry captain, has been induced (by outright torture) to show the exact procedure for loading, aiming and firing an arquebus. A short time later, in an expanded convocation that included the top military leaders, the Emperor decreed that six thousand of the new weapons would be made, and the officers would be trained in their use by the surviving Spaniard who had provided the initial demonstration. This individual had reached an accommodation with the Texocan government. The officers, in turn, would teach their elite troops the use of the weapons. The building of the forge furnaces was begun, together with the fabrication sites for the wooden components of firearms. Finished-weapon production began soon after. The first batch of firearms was presented to a body of troops, and the training process begun. From the laying of the cornerstones of the first furnaces and manufactories to the beginning of training for the first Texcocan troops, another eighteen months had passed. It was 1550 now. 1550---With the realization that Sayula, an Aztec ally on the Pacific coast, had extensive saltpeter deposits for which the Aztec realm could trade (as Sayula‘s sole trading partner, of course), the last obstacle to self-reliance in the manufacture of firearms is surmounted by the Aztec. The new arquebusero force, along with the Texcocan cavalry, is revealed in the next war with the Tarascans, later in the year. This war begins over the issue of captive raids upon the Tarascans by the northern Mexica; the official party line in the Tangaxuan III’s government was that these (supposed) outlier forces of the Aztecs were still implementing imperial policy in making these raids. This was consonant with the Tarascan government’s official non-recognition of the social and religious revolution that had swept the Aztec world---probably out of fear of its importation into their own society, which still practiced human sacrifice. Texcoco’s victory in this conflict was a costly and inconclusive one---a first for Ixtlilxochitl. The crude steel cutlery of the Aztecs, their cavalry and their arquebusero force take a massive toll of the P’urhe’pechan army, but their tactics are still underdeveloped, and the Tarascans have a substantial numerical edge. A line of strategic high-points along the frontier are seized from them, however, and held by Texcocan and Technochca arquebuseros, indicating that the Aztec emperor has begun to understand and emulate some of the Tarascans’ military effectiveness. Ixtlilxochitl, capitalizing on a series of good harvests throughout the Basin of Anahuac, pursues modernization of the Aztec army with a vengeance now, arming an increasingly large portion of the soldiery with firearms, horses, and steel cutlery and armor. Organizational reforms are undertaken as well, as the army is turned into a standing force, grouped at first by weaponry, but later as combined force units. A new corps of government administrators is created to supply and support this force. The things that had formerly eaten up so much of the Aztec city-states’ economic resources---most notably monument construction---are halted for the foreseeable future. Quetzalcoatl and his priesthood seem content with the monuments they have for the time being, and Ixtlilxochitl seems bent on loftier goals than self-aggrandizement. 1553---the payoff for this huge military build-up comes in this year, when the next Tarascan conflict erupts. It would seem that knowledge of the manner and underlying meaning of the Aztec social revolution has gradually filtered through to the P’urhe’pechan populace. They have grown weary of bearing their own yoke of sacrificial duty for the state and the priesthood (and for Lord Curicaueri), and have risen up. They are also aware that slavery, as a form of social penalty, has been the thing to replace human sacrifice in the Aztec state, and are well-acquainted with the institution of slavery within their own state, though its use has been confined to the royal lineage. Inevitably, the ascendance of Quetzalcoatl to the supreme (and almost solitary) position in the Aztec pantheon and its coincidence with the uprising of the macehualtin in that society leads to a sudden appearance of a Tarascan cult revolving around the deity---a militant and revolution-minded cult. The suspicion rages in cazonci Tangaxuan III’s mind that the Texcocans and northern Mexica are fomenting this unrest purposefully, and undertakes---for the first time in Tarascan history---an offensive war against the Aztec realm. Aside from their previous advantages, the inventive and intelligent Tarascans had inevitably acquired a fair-sized stockpile of firearms from slain Aztec soldiers during the previous war, and though still unable to make the weaponry, they have figured out the composition of gunpowder, and are nearly a match for the Aztec in iron-smelting. They have also begun to assimilate the equestrian way of life on their own (capturing and taming feral horses wandering far afield from the Anahuac Valley area). Another ten years might have seen them able to fight and beat the Aztec at their own game. But this is not to be. The social upheaval in their own society makes war inevitable again at a time too soon to benefit the Tarascans. The Aztec army, presenting an increasingly professional aspect, systematically isolates and reduces Tarascan strong points even as they engage Tarascan forces in set-piece battles, butchering them in droves with armored pikemen wielding steel-pointed lances and arquebusero cavalry and footmen. Strategic layers of defenses are progressively peeled away until the road to the capital, Tzintzuntzan, lies open. Yielding the capital, Tangaxuan III and a picked group of hardcore followers escape by horseback to the north, vowing always to fight against Ixtlilxochitl and Quetzalcoatl. Tangaxuan’s goal is to join the northern Mexica-Shoshone-Apache alliance. Word travels ahead of him by fire and smoke signal to Tarascan outposts in the north. When he and his band reach the place the Cumantzin call Two River Forks, the Mexica are there to meet him. No Shoshone or Apache are there, however. At long last, the Aztec have surmounted the barrier that the Tarascans have always presented in the northwest and to the Pacific coast. On October 1, 1553, after an exhausting three-month campaign, Emperor Ixtlilxochitl and the kings of Technotitlan, Tlacopan, Azcapotalco, together with the head chieftains of Sayula and Colima, ride triumphantly down Tzintzuntzan’s main street, with hastily-made, makeshift Quetzalcoatl banners and flags flying from hundreds of rooftops on the round-terraced buildings. Even on Lake Patzcuaro, kilometers distant, some large canoes can be seen flying similar heraldic devices. Defecting units of the Tarascan army have joined them, and move swiftly to prevent looting in the now-open city. After housing and provisioning a permanent garrison in the city, Ixtlilxochitl, his generals and his royal guests march onward to the Pacific’s shore, there to plant the banner of Quetzalcoatl and another permanent garrison to monitor the coast around a place the Spaniards would name Puerto Vallarta, known to the Aztec as Akaltepachol. The Aztec empire stretches from one sea to another now. En route to the Pacific, and on the way back to Tzintzuntzan, Ixtlilxochitl must pause while more local tribes and communities swear fealty to the emperor and to the Feathered Serpent god. In future years, Ixtlilxochitl will be assiduously cultivating the goodwill of the Tarascan nobility, a potential source of many good military leaders and government administrators. 1559---Don Tristan de Luna Arellano establishes a colony at Pensacola, on the Florida peninsula, on September 1, with most of the colonists having come from Cuba or Hispanolia. Before long, he encounters a local Aztec garrison, an enlargement upon one of the old horse-smuggling stations that once extended in a chain down the Gulf coast. The Aztec horse population has grown to numbers that obviate any further need of theft or smuggling, but some of the old stations are maintained as garrisons, as this one is. A parley is held, and a message sent to Texcoco, announcing Spanish intentions for the territory of Florida. Ixtlilxochitl’s emissary conveys the emperor’s greetings and his gratification that Spain has resolved enough of its own internal problems that it can once again embark upon an imperial path. It is clear that Ixtlilxochitl considers King Phillip II an equal, and that his PERMISSION for the Spanish venture is implicit in his missive. But he is careful not to push him too far. The Tarascan War has proven costly, and he is anxious to avoid another war. Conversations with trader/spies who have traded with the Spaniards has revealed to him and his military commanders that not only has Spain has had its own share of problems, but that there are other European powers showing an interest in this part of the world. France, in particular, has had its vessels nosing around the waters between Florida and Cuba. Sensing that his own end is coming, Ixtlilxochitl devotes his remaining years to diplomacy and administrative consolidation, being especially curious about the Tarascan governmental and military administrative system and anxious to rebuild it in its homeland and to emulate it in his own. 1565---A Spanish colony is founded at St. Augustine, Florida. Apprised of the move, Ixtlilxochitl, as one of his last imperial directives, orders his most illustrious diplomat, a Franciscan friar named Domingo Garcia-Diagozon, on a diplomatic mission to negotiate a firm trade and political alliance with the nation inhabiting the marsh lands slightly north of the mouth of the Huehueintiatl River, which lies northeast of Anahuac and Aztlan, emptying into the Gulf of Texcoco. The emperor sends him to negotiate with an iron fist concealed within the velvet glove---a nearby Aztec garrison is to be moved closer to the settlement as a prelude to the offer, and this is to be stated upfront in the negotiations. Ixtlilxochitl dies the same year, at the age of 63. The title of Tepeuani Ixachi Tlamatintl (Conquering Great Savior) is conferred on him by the military fraternity of Teopixki Quetzalcoatl (Brotherhood of the Feathered Serpent) at the magnificent state funeral held for him, one for which the Brotherhood largely foots the bill---though the Jaguar and Eagle fraternities pitch in a token amount as well. This is fitting---the emperor was the founder and first master of the order. His biographers, Aztec and European alike, are powerless to deny that his reign has transformed his nation into a more equitable and peaceful one, and reenergized and redirected its imperial expansion, making of it an empire that has vanquished its existing enemies and forestalled all potential enemies. Fray Bernardino Sahagun labels him “a dazzlingly effective leader who may have changed the path of history---akin to a combination of Scipio Africanus and Alexander of Macedon.”74.194.30.58 00:02, May 20, 2012 (UTC)baronsternberg Aztec America