Chapter 2201 - 1584: Go Forth! My Falcon
The royal banner of Mexica still stands high on the hills, facing the silver mountain peaks from afar. The tonsured veteran Imperial Guards who have served for over three years are armored, holding spears, loyally guarding the Divine King’s tent. The newly selected and formed guards are required to serve as vanguard, charging bravely at the front line of the battlefield, using their courage and their blood to prove their loyalty!
"Your Majesty! The Imperial Guard vanguard has climbed the city wall! The Silver Peak City’s warriors can’t hold on any longer! They’ve retreated, they’ve retreated from the walls... the army has finally entered the city!"
"Haha! Only after three days of siege, Silver Peak City has fallen!"
The Divine King laughed heartily, and the confidants surrounding him all raised their heads high. Xiulote, holding the Divine Eye Glasses, surveyed Silver Peak City a few miles away, taking in the entire battlefield.
This Zapotec city-state, known as the "Wolf Head," is bordered by the gray and white mountains to the north, where forces cannot spread out. But its east, west, and south are open city suburb markets and farmland, making it easy to scale for a strong assault.
The Alliance Army did just that, attacking the city from three sides, dispersing the defending army as much as possible, and then selecting elite vanguards to penetrate. In the rising and falling horn signals, archers and crossbowmen approached within a hundred paces of the walls, shooting volley after volley at the city head. The light-armored strong men stationed there fell like chia seeds off the low walls, grayly tumbling down, while red flowed out like small tomatoes. Then the green-armored warriors, carrying ladders, climbed up, like pumpkin leaves swiftly extending. Until the green completely controlled the city head, the tonsured Imperial Guard vanguard attacked from the sprawling south wall, breaking into the city!
"Guenda! Soul of Ancestors, the death-spreading northern Nava barbarians have invaded the ancestors’ city!"
"White Rock God! Please, protect your people under the mountain!"
"All gods, please save us! Supreme Rain God Cocijo! Sun God Coquihani! Corn God Pitaoctek! Ah!..."
The Zapotec people shouted in despair, like dying hairless dogs, sounding like the eerie howling of wolves, but looked like dogs being devoured. The city’s militia scattered like panicking ants, some jumping outside the city, some into the city itself. Subsequently, they were all struck down by the incoming Alliance Warriors, either killed or captured. More fanatical Mexican Royal Warriors then followed, shouting "Chief Divine protection" slogans, drew their bronze axes, and stormed the streets and alleys of the city, toward the central palace and temple. Everyone knew clearly that the city’s population and wealth would be their spoils of war. As long as they fought fiercely and seized the city’s Divine Descendants, the Divine King would promptly bestow generous rewards!
"Silver Peak City, is broken..."
Xiulote put down the Divine Eye Glasses, with no doubt about victory and firm belief in the Zapotec people’s weakness.
In just three days, this Zapotec stronghold was captured, with only hundreds of Silver Peak City warriors defending. This could only mean that after years of fierce battles at the gorge mouth, having lost an entire army corps, the Zapotec people have no longer enough resilient warriors, only weak, powerless recruited militia left. The blood of Zapotec warriors has long run dry outside the gorge mouth. On that mound where he held the funeral last year, golden twenty-flower calendula bloomed when passing by. Zapotec tribes have no time left, nor did the Divine King give them a chance for a new generation of young warriors to grow up...
"Chief Divine witness! Only a single Silver Peak Divine Descendant’s mountain-pattern banner appeared on the Silver Peak City head. During last year’s melee at the gorge mouth, so many different Divine Descendant banners have all vanished... It seems the Zapotec allied forces have thoroughly disintegrated. Facing the Alliance Army entering the gorge mouth, these people each fled away, to defend their respective city-states! This is good, for establishing us in the valley. But it is also troublesome, to pursue them further, continuing south and east..."
Xiulote rubbed his chin, pondering silently. The Zapotec tribes in Oaxaca have lost all elites, with morale dropping to the lowest point. Every city-state has scattered like sand, independently defending their cities. At this moment, if Alliance envoys arrived to surrender them, they would certainly willingly become the Alliance’s vassals, offering gold, silver, hostages, food, even sacrificial strong men as much as possible!
However, if these Zapotec Divine Descendants are not thoroughly cleansed, replaced by nobles granted by the Alliance, then once the Alliance’s army withdraws, the Divine Descendants of Oaxaca Valley would still reconnect and unify. Within a generation, they would again become disloyal vassals. Such a subjugation can only last one generation, like the former Central America world...
"Zapotec tribes, conservative and closed-off, forming an independent unit, remote and weak, scattered and leaderless... The Alliance attacking the Zapotec is like Qin conquering Yan, akin to penetrating South Yue. The cost of this expedition is truly too large! Even with the Alliance’s wealth, it can only support a twenty thousand army corps. Against these Zapotec people, we must act with thunderous methods, showing no mercy!"
Xiulote lowered his eyes, unknowingly his heart had hardened like the Divine King’s beside him, indifferent to the sight of blood. The two kings watched together, as a vanguard of Forbidden Guard warriors bore the battlefield from the city head, holding aloft spears with bloody heads inserted. Soon, more than ten vanguard Forbidden Guards heavily knelt, kneeling before them, respectfully shouting.
"Praise the Chief Divine! Silver Peak City’s Divine Descendant City Lord Yaa Xquidxi’s head is here, presented to the immortal Divine King!"
"Hahaha!"
Avit laughed loudly, receiving a wide-eyed middle-aged head, carefully examining the Divine Descendant’s mountain pattern upon the forehead, and the tightly clenched white teeth, nodding satisfactorily.
"Yaa Xquidxi... the silver, glittering Holy Mountain, what a divine name! Dare they name themselves such in this valley among the Zapotec people!... Take it away, make this head into a candle holder for my collection! This is the first one!..."
"Yes, Divine King!"
"Who among you was the first vanguard warrior to enter the city this time?"
"Witness the Supreme God! It’s me!"
The Kuo Eagle, born from the Asar Lineage, kneeled forward two steps, bowing deeply to the Divine King.
"The Supreme Divine King! It is I, Kuo Eagle, who first entered the city and slew Yaaxquidxi!"
"Oh? It’s you again?! As I recall, you were the one who slew Yun Chen as well? You’ve already been promoted to the third level, you are now a hereditary noble of the Alliance, aren’t you?"
"Yes! Kuo Eagle has been graced by the Divine King’s generosity... I am willing to die for you, unafraid of war clubs and long spears!"
"Ha ha!"
Avit laughed joyfully, extending his hand to firmly grasp Kuo Eagle’s hair. This gesture of confirmed allegiance made Kuo Eagle’s heart stir with excitement, and his eyes brightened. Surely enough, within moments, Avit scanned the generals and loudly proclaimed!
"Kuo Eagle has vanguard battle honors and is already a hereditary noble! Therefore, I promote him to Honorable Nobility! In the Oaxaca Valley, which we are about to conquer, he shall have a vast fief and become a noble City Lord! I shall also reward him with ten chests of gold, silver, and gems, twenty bags of spices and herbs, and the feathered garment of royal nobility!"
"Ah! Praise the Divine King! Praise you!!"
At this moment, Kuo Eagle was overwhelmed with excitement, bowing deeply to the Divine King. He had followed Montezuma II for ten years, only to become a hereditary noble of a local City-State with merely a small fief of hundreds of acres. Yet, with two rewards from the Divine King, he was directly elevated to the Honorable Nobility of the Alliance! Under the Divine King’s generosity, his family’s fief would at least grow tenfold, and the rewards he received were equivalent to three years’ worth of fief yields. Furthermore, he could thereby assume control of a city, becoming a generational City Lord!
Such an elevation disregarding one’s birth, such exceedingly generous rewards, such supreme power of the Divine King! What the Divine King was able to grant, how could it be compared to those under the two fiefs of the Asar Lineage, bound by Montezuma II?
"The Supreme, Great, Holy, and Immortal Divine King! I, Kuo Eagle, am your most loyal falcon! No matter where you point your finger, I will stop at nothing to attack and slay enemies for you!"
"Ha ha! Rise, Kuo Eagle, you are good, very good!"
Divine King Avit raised the corners of his mouth, carefully scrutinizing Kuo Eagle’s grateful and emotional expression. For these Forbidden Guard Warriors recruited from various states, his methods of enlistment were not complex, directly addressing the heart.
That is, first letting these warriors kill for him, charge for him, storm for him, be the vanguard! Later, the bravest and most fearless, those who survive until the end, he would grant fivefold, tenfold rewards, offers that others could neither refuse nor match!
Once the selection with the war club and the diplomacy of herbs were used up, he would then display trust, keeping the person by his side, covertly observing their loyalty until enlisting them was confirmed! This reward of fief, wealth, family legacy, alliance status, and "Divine King’s favored"—who within the Alliance could refuse?
"Very good! Witness the Supreme God! Kuo Eagle, from today forth, you shall lead a two-hundred-man team, guarding by my side! You shall belong to the Thousand-man Camp of Turquoise and serve as Deputy Battalion Captain!"
"Yes! Willing to die for the Divine King!"
Once more, Kuo Eagle bowed, forehead marked with red. Then, he glanced at Turquoise, whose demeanor was serious and silent like the mountains, revealing an uncensored ambition like that of an eagle eager to ascend!
Yet, the master’s eagle was not given much time. Avit once again raised the Divine Eye Glasses, observing the Temple Guards and Priesthood retreating to the towering Pyramid Temple at Silver Peak City, engaged in their final resistance, recalling the cursed stone tablet at the valley mouth. Squinting coldly for a moment, he spoke to the bowing Kuo Eagle.
"Go forth! My falcon, take the warriors and bring back the Silver Peak City’s highest-ranking Elder Priest from the pyramid!"
"Alive!"
"At your command! My Supreme Divine King!..."
Kuo Eagle bowed deeply and then rose with decisiveness. He glanced at Prophet Xiulote nearby, faintly nodded, and once again lifted the golden spear akin to sharp talons, speeding away like a hunting falcon!