History UsefulNotes / SpanishConquestOfTheIncaEmpire

Hualpa died poisoned, likely by Atahualpists, requiring yet another replacement, so Pizarro supported the election of Huascarist general Manco Inca. More battles followed, with the Spanish-Huascarist alliance beating their enemies in Maraycalla, Teocaxas and Pancallo. A bizarre event came in 1534 when Pedro de Alvarado, Hernán Cortés' former lieutenant, came from the [[UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheMaya Conquest of the Maya]] with 500 Spaniards and 2,000 Mayan warriors, trying to steal his piece of the Inca. However, Pizarro sent Almagro to negotiate with him, and after many deliberations, Alvarado joined them in exchange for (you guessed it) a lot of gold. In the end, the allies defeated Quizquiz, who died betrayed by another chieftain, and Rumiñahui, who was captured and executed.

The Inca Empire -- called ''Tahuantinsuyo'' in Quechua, their main administrative language -- was likely the largest and most advanced of the UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations; estimates place their pre-contact population at around 12 million people. It started off in the Peruvian Andes, when the city state of Cusco started a campaign of expansion, though more bureaucratic and regulated than savage or militaristic. Unlike the Mexicas, HumanSacrifice was not instrumental in Inca culture, although they did practice it in small numbers, mainly sacrificing children in the mountains.

At the time of the conquest, the empire had no real political competition around. Their only great conflict had been against invasions of Guarani tribes from the heart of South America, who were seen by the Incas as something like the early barbarian migrations of the Roman Empire, but which were more or less under control by the time of king Huayna Cápac. Note the curiosity that one of those Guarani invasions was captained by a MightyWhitey, a Spanish-Portuguese castaway named Aleixo Garcia, but the Inca Empire managed to repeal his incursion and he died shortly after without leaving a mark. Anyway, Huayna also died, supposedly from one of the strains of smallpox accidentally brought by the Spanish presence in Mesoamerica,[[note]]Spanish chroniclers identified his death by smallpox in Inca records, but modern historians have questioned it, as other Spaniards had the chance to see Huayna's mummy and they reported no pox marks on him, which they would have no doubt recognized due to their own familiarity with the disease. A second version, maybe the correct one, has Huayna dying of pneumonia after bathing on a lake.[[/note]] and without him, a bloody civil war for the throne exploded between his sons Huáscar and Atahualpa.

In order to get permission to expand towards the empire, Pizarro sailed back to Spain with his amazing findings and managed to convince King UsefulNotes/CharlesV himself to authorize his further exploits (folklore claims that his relative UsefulNotes/HernanCortez helped him, but there is controversy whether Pizarro and Cortés even knew each other personally). Francisco then returned with his half-brothers, the PowerTrio of Gonzalo, Hernando and Juan, and after gathering a fleet with Almagro again in the supply lines, he commenced his third and definitive travel to the lands of the Incas. This time there was success in finding valuable gold and jewels, which prompted many people back home to follow them.

Pizarro and Atahualpa traded messages of peace, after which the Inca invited him to meet in the city of Cajamarca. However, one of the indigenous chieftains in the Spanish party, Guachapuro, unmasked an Inca spy and warned that Atahualpa was luring them into a trap. Apparently, the emperor planned to destroy them and retain some Spanish slaves as artisans to capitalize on their advanced crafts and weapons.[[note]]Specifically, Atahualpa wanted three Spaniards alive: the expedition's weaponsmith Juan de Salinas (because he could make weapons, obviously), the soldier Hernán Sánchez (because he was an excellent horseman and knew how to handle the beasts) and the barber Francisco López (this one because the Inca spies had mistakenly thought he knew how to rejuvenate people).[[/note]] Certainly, Pizarro found Cajamarca empty and shadowed by an army of 30,000-50,000 headed by Atahualpa, and a tumultuous first interview between the emperor and Hernando Pizarro seemed to confirm their fears. The oncoming battle seemed utterly hopeless for the meager 150 Spaniards, but Francisco decided to [[OutGambitted turn the trap on its head]] and pretend to invite Atahualpa to their camp. The emperor, overconfident by his superiority, arrived with just his civilian entourage, shadowed from afar by 8,000 warriors under his general Rumiñahui, and this gave Pizarro the chance he needed: he captured Atahualpa and charged against Rumiñahui while unveiling the Spanish cavalry and firearms, easily routing the indigenous natives by sheer confusion and terror.[[note]]Modern accounts unsympathetic to Pizarro and the Spaniards tend to leave out everything about Atahualpa's trap and Cajamarca being empty and surrounded, making it look like Pizarro suddenly attacked a perfectly friendly chieftain in midst of a peace meeting. Ironically, this was one of the few things Pizarro's political enemies did ''not'' accused him of, probably because they were all too aware of how things had really transpired.[[/note]]

The Inca treasure was bigger than anything the conquistadores had ever dreamed of, but [[GoldFever as it often happens]], it would end up bringing only trouble. After their arrival, Almagro and his people were annoyed that their part was way smaller due to having missed the fight, while other crewmen who chose to return to Spain found their own parts confiscated by King Charles V, who wanted it (and all money in America, really) to fund his wars in Europe. And while all of this happened, the Spanish captains and allies argued unceasingly about what to do with Atahualpa, fueled by apparently believable reports that the Inca might still be planning to catch them off guard and revolt. In the end, on July 1533, and very much against Pizarro's wishes to just send Atahualpa to Spain, the emperor was put on trial and executed on rather absurd charges, being replaced by a PuppetKing in the form of another brother, Túpac Hualpa.

As the Inca empire itself still remained technically unconquered, Pizarro marched towards its capital, Cusco, now enjoying the safety (and armies) provided by the Huascarists and the rest of the tribes opposed to the Atahualpa regime. Among them, he found an unvaluable ally in Chilche, an experienced Cañari who had been Huayna Cápac's pageboy and now pledged himself for life to the Spaniards in gratitude. However, [[TheRemnant several Atahualpist generals]], of which Quizquiz and Rumiñahui were the greatest, were preparing to fight him to take over the weakened empire, setting defensive measures that forced Pizarro to strengthen his position before continuing. Pizarro's multi-national army fought several battles, with Almagro and Soto often complicating things due to their eagerness to grab money, but altogether they managed to carve their way towards Cusco, which was taken and divested of its gold reserves.

Being busy with Cusco, Manco deployed his general Quizu Yupanqui to besiege the city of Lima too. Four Spanish parties were ambushed and wiped out before Lima's major Francisco de Godoy realized what was happening, and after finding out about it, they quickly closed the city off. The Spaniards had been caught divided and were confused about each other's whereabouts and status, but they gathered the city's native allies, around 30,000 auxiliars, and set in motion a counterattack, while their civilians took refuge in the city's harbor in case they had to get the heck out. In one of their skirmishes, they managed to kill Yupanqui in a cavalry attack, which disorganized his army, and afterwards, with the arrival of reinforcements led by Diego de Sandoval and Vilchumlay, the Inca were finally forced to withdraw.

Meanwhile, Manco managed to overpower Cusco's defenses and started conquering it with his much greater numbers, but Hernando offered a strong resistance with the local Cañaris, Chachapoyas, black slaves and all defenders he could find, numbering another 30,000, and slowly pushed the Incas out by sheer will. Juan Pizarro died in the fighting, though, and Hernando then failed spectacularly at counterattacking against Manco's camp in Ollantaytambo, where the Incas unveiled battle tactics they had learned from the Spaniards. Hernando seemed to be in trouble, but the arrival of Almagro with another army of 50,000 indigenous allies turned the tide again. Seeing himself outnumbered and realizing he had lost his chance, Manco ultimately abandoned his position for the forests of Vilcabamba.

Almagro easily overtook Cusco, from which he also defeated a Pizarrist army headed by Pedro de Alvarado's nephew Alonso. Almagro seemed to have the advantage, having captured Hernando Pizarro, but the shrewd Francisco feigned a truce to ask the king for arbitration, and when his brother was liberated, the Pizarros went "[[ISurrenderSuckers haha]] [[ILied I lied]]" and marched against Almagro. In the final battle at Las Salinas, Almagro's army was defeated, with the man himself executed by Hernando, reportedly against the wishes of Francisco, who still wanted to keep his old ex-friend alive. The following year, the empire scored a goal on Manco Inca by [[IHaveYourWife capturing his favorite wife Cura]],[[note]]According to tradition, Gonzalo Pizarro and his men raped her, and chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo claims the reason why Manco had revolted in the first place was that the Pizarros had conducted a gang rape on all of his wives and sisters. This has been considered to be quite improbable and most likely [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade anti-Pizarrist propaganda]], though. Oviedo, a highly controversial character in Spain due to his Aristotelian proto-racist theories, was a staunch Almagrist ([[LoonyFan ironically so]], considering that Almagro had a mestizo son). Gonzalo later went on to become a rebel against the crown, meaning that he was even more of an acceptable target for popular slander.[[/note]] but no diplomatic solution was given; as the elder Pizarro learned his negotiators had been executed by Manco, he threw Cura to the vengeful Cañaris for them to kill her.

After this, the original players finished exiting the game. In 1541, Pizarro sent his brother Hernando to Spain to defend his actions against Almagro, only for Hernando to be jailed there for the next 20 years due to his own charges. In his absence, Francisco, the great conquistador, would be murdered by Almagro's followers, who were finally forced to submit by the royal arbiter originally proposed by Hernando, Cristóbal Vaca de Castro (with the help of UsefulNotes/FranciscoDeCarvajal and a younger, presumably sane UsefulNotes/LopeDeAguirre). For his part, Manco Inca would be murdered three years later by runaway Almagrists he had welcomed in his Neo-Inca state as military consultants, while Gonzalo Pizarro, the last brother, would shockingly revolt in 1548 against the Spanish Crown due to their New Laws, being ultimately defeated and executed.