The Incas, a rather small people who lived
in the center of the Andes Mountains, had a rather interesting fate - they created the
largest empire in pre-Columbian America with the best infrastructure, the best administration,
the largest army, the highest level of technology, the most gold and silver, the coolest llamas,
and so on. The fall of this empire at the hands of the
conquistadors was also the most. The most ridiculous. 168 conquistadors, smallpox and measles - that's
pretty much the reci
pe for the fall of the Incas. But today I'm going to tell a slightly different
story. Welcome to the synthetic history channel,
where we talk about events that didn't happen as if they did. And today, using Europa Universalis IV with
the mod MEIOU & TAXES, I will tell you my story of how this empire was formed, what
it was and how it was able to survive the invasions of Europeans, and adapt to the world
that suddenly appeared before them, in the form of a historical narrative. The Rise and Moder
nization of the Inca Empire
in EU4. The Incas, of course, did not emerge from
nothing. The civilizational process in the Andes began
in the first millennium A.D., and a large number of those technical achievements of
the ancient Incas which they are known for, were invented by their predecessors. The Incas themselves appeared on the political
arena somewhere in the beginning of XIII century, (it will not be possible to say more precisely,
the reason I will tell you later), having moved from the
area of Lake Titicaca to Cuzco. According to the legend they headed 10 communities
- Ayllus, left one of such collapsed semi-states of predecessors, and founded in Cuzco the
city of the same name. The rulers of this new state were kings-gods
who bore title Sapa Inca, literally translated as "The only Inca", sort of limited by the
council of the highest nobility, and this highest nobility were their relatives - Incas,
from them went the trivial name of their future state. They were all descendant
s of Manco Capac,
the first Sapa Inca, and his sister-wife Mama Uqllu, who in turn were descendants of the
gods. The practice of sister-wives, by the way,
became a tradition. Their promised land was fertile mountain valleys
and plains, sounds like an oxymoron, but it looked something like this - looks pretty
"arable", you must agree. A century and a half Incas gradually built
up their power, constantly fighting in “defensive wars for survival”, in quotes, because we
have information only from In
ca sources, and there is not much trust in them, and expanded
their zone of influence at the expense of surrounding tribes - somewhere by diplomacy,
and somewhere by war. And by the next century they created a state
approximately equal in strength to their neighbors. By then second half of XIV century the population
of the state was about 500 thousand people, which was quite a lot. At that time Inca Roq'a the Magnanimous established
himself as the head of the state, and under him the meaning of
wars, or, rather, their
justification, finally changed. If before they were kind of wars for survival,
now they were outright wars for expansion and spread of the only true religion, about
which I will tell you later. The first such war was the war against the
Quispicanchi. The difference in strength was too great,
and the latter surrendered after a brief siege. The next target of the Incas were their longtime
rivals - the confederacy of Chanka tribes, who were among those with whom the very war
s
for survival were waged. There was obviously no question of surrender. The opposing armies met in battle on the territory
of the Chanka, and they lost the battle - according to the Incas thanks to the ambush they had
set up. Inca armies were usually commanded by Incas,
in the sense of relatives of the ruler, the rulers themselves rarely went to war. After one more battle the Chanka army was
finally defeated and their lands were left defenseless. But Inca Roq'a was not in vain nicknamed Magnani
mous,
and forbade the army to plunder the local population, though there was pretty much nothing
to plunder there - Chanka hardly had any cities. As a result of the war, the Incas conquered
most of their lands. Thus they became the strongest force in the
Andes, at least in their southern half. Consequently, defensive alliances began to
form against them. And, of course, kings-gods and nobility of
relatives at their level of technological and social development would not surprise
anyone, although
the Incas had their own features that gave them an advantage. The most important of these was the Inca army,
known for its... quality? (Actually, Inca army and quality are antonyms,
so if the mod developers are watching this video, change Cusco ideas to quantity, it
will be more historical, and I'll let myself change them manually while no one sees), known
for its quantity - tens of thousands of soldiers even at that time. It owed this to its system of labor duties
- Mit'a, which in the Inca st
ate was used instead of taxes. I will tell about it... now, because it was
the base on which the future empire was built, and before the arrival of Europeans stood. Every year practically all men aged from 15
to 50 years had to work for the state for a certain number of days, usually it was about
three months. There were many forms of labor - from cultivation
of the fields of the sovereign and nobility, the state fields made up about a third of
the arable land, to work in mines and construction
of roads and warehouses. Usually, if a person had some special skills,
he practiced his duty by means of them - blacksmiths forged (Incas were skilled in bronze processing),
weavers created gorgeous fabric from alpaca fiber, craftsmen created all sorts of pots
for the state, while dancers danced, and this is not a joke. And one of the forms of Mit'a was seasonal
military service. The state in turn provided the soldiers with
everything they needed, from food and water to equipment, but equipment
was usually limited
to clubs, maces and axes with stone and bronze tops and short spears, wooden helmets and
shields, quilted tunics and slingshots as long-range weapons, there were enough stones
for projectiles in the mountains. So as you can understand, the quality of such
an army of seasonally conscripted peasants left much to be desired. However, it more than compensated for this
with its huge numbers, several times larger than its neighbors. And wars happened so often that a conscript
had a
good chance to fight several times in his life. Moreover, as a result of continuous "defensive"
wars the Incas formed a militaristic culture, the coolest warrior was considered Sapa Inca,
although he did not fight, the soldiers were respected, and the war itself was perceived
as a holiday, because the state provided the soldiers with good food and arranged festivals
on this occasion. Even the symbol of power among the Incas was
a weapon - a halberd, only the highest nobility wielded them. At th
e same time Inca militarism differed
from, for example, the Mesoamerican. If for the latter the main thing was to kill
more people, spill more blood and take more prisoners for sacrifices, for the former it
was important to win. Therefore, the Inca's strategy was simple
- to frighten the opponents with the size of their army and force them to surrender. And the fact that this army of yesterday's
and tomorrow's peasants did not fight very well, no one suspected. The quality of armies in the regio
n in general
was not good. In addition, the Incas before the attack three
times sent their ambassadors with gifts and "requests" to surrender, and if they surrendered,
such as Quispicanchi, the Incas treated them quite well - the lands were not taken from
the elites, just integrated the population into the Mit'a system. But if they had to fight, as with Chanka,
the defeated had a not very enviable fate - some of the local nobles were put under
the knife, Sapa Inca walked over their lying corpses
in front of the rest of the nobility,
who looked at such a spectacle and were charged with loyalty, and their children remained
in Cuzco to learn Inca customs and Quechua language - the future lingua franca of the
empire. Pretty magnanimous, I'd say. The corpses, by the way, were not thrown away
- they were used to make flutes from bones, cups from skulls, drums from leather, and
so on. The next target of the Incas was Colla, a
state south of Cuzco, who made an alliance with the remnants of Cha
nka, which was the
reason for the war. So first they finished the latter, and then
switched to the former, who were just coming to their aid, defeated them, and then chased
them as far as Pocasa and back. The war ended with the complete destruction
of the Chanka, the sacking of the capital Colla, the conquest of Cana, and their payment
of a large contribution. This was the end of Inca Roqa's conquests,
for in about 1380 he died, and his son Yawar Waqaq ascended the throne. It's a good time to ta
lk about the Inca succession
system. And, it's not that there was one. Power was supposed to pass from father to
son, born of a sister-wife, chosen by the ruler and recognized by the council. And in the matter of Yawar Waqaq this was
the case. However, this scheme worked about half the
time. In the other half, in the course of intrigue
or civil war, the throne passed to other sons from other wives, or to relatives. For obvious reasons this was bad - a stable
system of power was better than an un
stable one, but on the other hand it meant that competent
rulers were in power, because if you were recognized by the Inca council, you were a
decent guy (there seemed to be no puppet sovereigns). Inca Roq'a, for example, was probably such
a usurper, because he founded a new dynasty Hanan, translated from Quechua as "upper"
dynasty, and the previous dynasty was, or became, the lower. He also made up the title Sapa Inca, and attributed
all the previous rulers to it. They used to carry the title C
apac, so I fooled
you a bit at the beginning. Another problem that pops up from these is
that the Incas were quite fond of rewriting history and attributing to themselves the
achievements of their predecessors. This was due to the Inca's perception of time
- despite having two types of calendars: solar and lunar, they did not have a linear chronology. Anything earlier than six years ago was called
ñawpa pacha - elapsed time. 10 years or 100 years - it doesn't matter,
ñawpa pacha. Manipulating hi
story in such environment becomes
much easier, and it becomes much more difficult to understand when exactly the Incas appeared
at all. That's why the credibility of Inca sources
is pretty low. There was another reason, but more on that
later. Yawar Waqaq began his reign with a new war
- having made an alliance with Ichma, which later became an autonomy, the Incas attacked
Nazca - quite possibly the descendants of those who made these Nazca Lines. Not yet showing much interest in the coastal
des
ert lowlands, the Incas conquered only lands in the Andes. Then followed a whole series of wars against
Colla and the rest of the Aymara kingdoms - polities formed after the fall of Tiwanaku
state - the very one from which the Incas came. It is not very clear who the Incas were in
this state, quite possibly some influential clan, but in any case, they used it as an
excuse to unify the region. Wars continued under the next ruler, Tupac
Amaru, and his successor, Tupac Hualpa, and the Inca armies m
oved further and further
south from their heartland. The question arises - how did they supply
these huge armies? The answer is the Inca system of logistics. Capturing new lands, the Incas integrated
them into the Mit'a system and took from the local population a part of the fields that
they had to cultivate as a labor duty. The crops harvested from these lands and the
stuff made here did not go to Cuzco, but to a local warehouse next to the road, one a
day's walk away from another, and all of t
hese also were built on Mit'a's orders. Stocks from these warehouses were used to
supply the army by means of caravans of llamas (wagons would be of little use in the mountains),
and also to feed the Mit’a workers, sick, widows, and as a reserve in case of droughts. Thus, the Incas had a reliable source of food
for their troops, without creating an "unplanned burden" on the local population. Even more - Inca soldiers were forbidden to
take or accept food and water from the locals. And so by the
1410th Incas had already formed
the strongest state in the Andes - the only strong rival was the kingdom of Chimor, which
occupied the northern coastal territories. And with the expansion of the state appeared
the problem of management and administration, because it became not so easy to send messengers
with orders from Cuzco. To solve this problem, all lands were divided
into provinces, each province had an administrative center with its own large warehouse and a
governor from the ethnic Incas.
The governor had quite a bit of freedom in
determining the assignment of Mit'a, meaning he managed the allocation of available labor. Also, the Inca army began to be augmented
with auxiliaries from other nations - there were archers, and all sorts of badass warriors
from warlike tribes. A motley mass, in a word. In the 1430s, the Incas shifted the focus
of expansion to the northwest, defeating the Nazca and launching a series of wars against
the Chimor and their allies. There was even a reason
- this time it was
religion. It's time to briefly talk about it. Incas were pagans, I think it will not surprise
anyone, they had a lot of gods, and they just like the Romans included in their pantheon
the gods of conquered peoples. In general, in the course of this story it
was and will be possible to notice a lot of similarities between Incas and Romans, and
also Chinese, so you can write about those that you noticed in comments. The main gods of the Incas were 3 - Viracocha
- the creator of t
he universe and the most popular god because he existed before the
Incas and was worshipped by most peoples of the Andes, Inti - the god of the sun and men,
and partly the main face of Incan expansion, because it was the worship of him that was
planted to the conquered peoples, and his sister-wife Mama Killa - the goddess of the
moon and women. One immediately senses the importance of dualism
in the religion and culture of the Andean peoples - sun and moon, day and night, man
and woman, earth an
d cosmos, life and death. All these things were connected and flowed
into each other. From this was born such a seemingly strange
idea of the Incas about the cyclical nature of time, as well as their fascination with
mummies and statues, which were their representatives in the world of the living, the veneration
of ancestors and child sacrifices. After all, life did not end at death. They even had their own version of the Yin
and Yang symbol - Chakana. At the same time, it was possible that ther
e
is no equality between the dual forces. There's more life on earth than in space,
for example. And here we come to the important part. The Incas considered Inti to be a more powerful
god than Mama Killa, but the Chanka thought the opposite - the moon was really quite important
to the inhabitants of coastal lands - tides, for example. And where can one settle such a dispute but
on the battlefield. The Incas apparently won that dispute, and
the Inti won it with them. As it says, "Are the Incas w
orshiping you
because you are the strongest, or does being worshiped by the Incas make you the strongest?". During these wars, the Inca state was finally
transformed into an empire, with all the hallmarks of an empire. There was no solemn ceremony of the founding
of the empire, just that 1450 is considered the beginning of the imperial transition. The Incas themselves called their state Tawantinsuyu
- "Realm of the Four Parts". The four corners of these quarters met at
the center, Cusco, and had
their own viceroy. This system soon enough - under the next ruler
Tupac Amaru II, turned into a decorative system, viceroys lost almost all power, and the provinces
finally became the main administrative subjects. In general, this emperor did and invented
a lot of things, simply because he ruled for more than 50 years. His main achievement was the creation of a
stable system of middle and lower levels of government. Under him, the cities and communities of the
empire acquired magistrates from l
ocal peoples, appointed through recommendations, who had
judicial, religious and executive powers. From this point on, a separate class of bureaucrats
began to rise in the imperial system of government. These guys owed everything to the empire - the
empire paid their salaries; the empire gave them power. Without the empire, they would turn into mere
collaborators in the eyes of their peoples, because nobody likes a tax collector. And so they had more loyalty to it than the
nobility and were safe
r for the power of the emperors than the greater nobility. At the same time, unlike provincial governors,
there were quite a lot of them - if the first at that time was no more than 100, the latter
were under ten thousand, and there were also officials of smaller ranks. Therefore, bureaucrats began to gradually
replace the nobles and priests, although at first they were the same people. The bureaucratic hierarchy became the main
support of Inca's power. This was facilitated by the fact that hier
archical
nature was initially sewn into the core of Andean society, long before the Incas emerged. Take for instance the age of a person - due
to the fact that time was perceived not as a line, but as a cycle, people did not attach
much importance to age. Some of them probably knew how many winters
had passed since their birth, but for most of them it was not important. Instead of age, there were ranks - 10 basic
ones for men and women, and a few localized ones for different communities. Ranks m
eant your competence in different matters,
gave rights and duties, and the Incas used them to determine Mit'a. A man could remain a helper of a helper all
his life, and in his old age he could move to the rank of a wise grandfather. So meritocracy was justified by itself, but
more on that later. The Tupac Amaru also created a regular imperial
guard, composed of volunteers from the minor nobility of loyal Quechua peoples, but also
distinguished soldiers from other peoples could join it. This guar
d was engaged in rather harsh suppression
of uprisings of these other peoples. The conscription army also changed - instead
of conscription for a season there was now conscription for 4 years, and for both armies
a system of military hierarchy was established, based on a unit of ten soldiers, and the organization
scale was a factor of 5 and then of 2 - 10, 50, 100, 500 and so on. By the way, the Inca duality was present here
as well - two units of the same size were grouped - for example, 50 men
were united
into a hundred, and they and their officers competed with each other for awards and promotions. Those who distinguished themselves in military
and civil service could even become Incas by merit. Classic carrot and stick policy. The Incas were also fond of moving huge masses
of people - it was about hundreds of thousands. Such forced migrations served two purposes. The first was assimilation of unruly peoples. The displaced population was forced to communicate
in one way or another w
ith their new neighbors, and they communicated in Quechua. The second objective was colonization outside
and inside the empire. And if with the first one everything is clear
- the Incas expanded their empire at the expense of surrounding tribes, thus reaching more
or less natural borders by the 1480s, then the last one should be explained in more detail. The point is that mountain valleys were places
though fertile, but rather unsafe - it was possible to attack this valley from any direction
and
the locals could not notice the attackers until the moment of meeting. Therefore, such valleys often remained unpopulated
and undeveloped. With the unification of the region under the
rule of one empire, such fears disappeared, and the Incas began to resettle other peoples
there. Thus Quechua became the lingua franca of the
empire, and the population was gradually assimilated. And the population itself with the development
of new lands, construction of irrigation facilities and terraces was con
stantly growing. Peace in general released a large amount of
labor force directed to the construction of cities with sewers, aqueducts and roads - the
latter in the mountains were carved tens of thousands of kilometers, in many ways the
figure was so large because they were ornate and narrow, (incas had no draught animals
and carts), and Cuzco, for example, by the beginning of the 16th century became the largest
city in the empire with a population of about 150 thousand people, ceasing to be jus
t an
administrative center. That's when Titu Cusi Yupanqui became the
ruler, and he continued his predecessor's work of reformation of the empire. I would even say he was more successful at
it. Under his reign, the system of provinces and
districts was reorganized, and their boundaries were drawn in such a way as to divide the
peoples living there into parts if possible, this was done for their more effective assimilation,
the system of control over the implementation of Mit'a was reorganized, t
he judicial system
was expanded - this branch of power was placed under the control of the courts, which were
guided by the later created universal code of laws, which meant that everyone was equal
before the law - from the Incas to the fishermen from the coast. Speaking of fishermen from the coast. From the 1510s to the Incas began to get rumors
about some strange white people from the north - as it turned out later, the English. These at that time no-names even managed to
conquer the local Mui
sca culture, to which the Incas then had too far to go. Over time, their expeditions of up to a hundred
people began to reach the borders of the empire, but they ran into strong defenses and at best
returned with a few captives, or did not return. But these guys brought something worse than
crossbows, harquebuses or swords - they brought diseases, in particular smallpox. The Incas were lucky that they got a rather
light strain with a lethality of about 15%, and the empire was not badly affected
by it. And it is interesting that in 1470th on the
lands of Inca there was a disease, by symptoms resembling smallpox, and its epicenter was
the ocean coast. However, there is a logical question: "How
could smallpox get there 50 years before the arrival of Europeans?". There are three possibilities. The most probable one is that it is just an
error of interpretation and translation of records, because the Incan writing system
was... I will tell you about it later. The second one is that the path
ogen was on
a Chinese junk - these are such big ships, under the Zhou Empire they were exploring
Indonesia at that time. One of these ships could have gotten caught
in a storm, gone off course, and its remains could have landed on the shores of the empire. But the smallpox agent lives in the external
environment no more than a few days, so on these wrecks must have remained people. And there was nothing about unusual people
in Inca records. So this option is the least likely. The third - that th
e spawning of the disease
was attributed to the fact of colonization of the surrounding lands, which becomes available
only on 34 admin tech, so when I colonized it with a console command for a pretty border,
it spawned. Also a very likely scenario. And in 1528, the English also appeared on
this coast, establishing their colony here. The population of the empire after the epidemic
then amounted to about 12 million people - quite a lot. And this event for the Incas was probably
the most shocking
- it could not even be thought that the sea could be used to move large numbers
of people over great distances - the Incas themselves had at best boats at their disposal. The colony itself did not cause great discontent
among the Incas - the power of the Inca there was rather weak, and the profits these lands
practically did not bring - you cannot send fishermen from the lowlands to work in the
mountains, the climate is not suitable. But still the emperor was interested to know
what kind of alie
ns they were, and therefore he invited their representatives to Cuzco. The English took with them the captives taken
earlier, who had learned English and were useful as interpreters. Both sides were surprised that they were in
contact with the same state in the north and in the south. Perhaps even more surprising to the English
was the wealth of the empire, and more specifically the amount of gold and silver. For the Incas, these metals were primarily
of religious value, because they also repres
ented duality: gold is the sun and joy, silver is
the moon and sadness. For the English, however, these metals represented
a completely different value, not yet understood by the Incas, so they in turn were surprised
at the English obsession with these shiny things. Pretty soon they would realize what money
was and change their minds, but at that point both sides considered each other barbarians. Cultural differences, however, did not prevent
the establishment of something like an English embass
y in Cusco. How that embassy was used is another matter. The English expectedly began preparations
for a major expedition against the Incas, and used this embassy to gather information. Therefore, when in 1533 Titu Cusi Yupanqui
died, and his son Atahualpa took his place, and the state was in the usual turmoil, they
provoked a scandal related to religion, closed the embassy and left. At the same time their army was to launch
an attack on Cuzco from the north. At least that was the plan. But ther
e were two problems. Moving tens of thousands of soldiers across
the Atlantic was a super complicated logistical task at the time, so it dragged on for two
years. And Titu Cusi Yupanqui was not a fool, even
on the contrary - as soon as it became clear that the whites from the south and the whites
from the north were the same people, he began preparations for war, having previously informed
the heir and the Incas. And when that scandal occurred Atahualpa detained
the ambassadors and had them all
executed. Bit Cruel, but fair. Then the Inca army itself went on the offensive
and raided the colonies of the English, destroying their food supplies, and by the time their
army arrived, they had already gone back and prepared for defense. This, however, did not help them much - 120
thousand Inca army was defeated by 16 thousand English one. It became obvious to the Incas that something
had to change. The main problem for them was not cannons
and harquebuses, but cavalry, and it is understandabl
e - they had not yet invented ways to fight it. But a few more such defeats gave them the
experience they needed, and they came up with an answer pretty quickly. The horseman himself is a rather vulnerable
target, and cavalry is a threat only in a large strike group, and therefore the main
strategy was guerrilla warfare, aimed at exhausting the enemy forces with small skirmishes before
the general battle. In the battle itself it is necessary to use
a dense formation with long spears or halberds,
so that the cavalry could not trample soldiers
unpunished. So the Incas invented the phalanx. And these changes helped - they began to win
more battles than they lost. The last major battle took place in December
1543, almost in the same place as the first, but this time it ended in a crushing defeat
for the English and their retreat. They did not return again - their resources
were exhausted. Nevertheless, a formal peace was not concluded
until 6 years later. According to this peace treaty, th
e English
were only allowed to have the port of Camana - the very first settlement they founded and
where they traded with them, plus the payment of symbolic compensation. By that time Incas learned about the existence
of two more European states - Spain and Portugal, and quickly realized that these guys were
no different from each other - all of them wanted to conquer their country and all of
them wanted to take more shiny things. Incas as in the good old days again had to
fight wars for surviv
al, and they will drag on for a whole century and will be accompanied
by consistent changes of power dynamic - but I think you will notice it yourself. At that, it was certainly easier for them
to survive than for all other Indians, first of all I mean the Indians of Mesoamerica,
who were on approximately equal level of social development with the Incas. There were several reasons: geographical - it
was more difficult to get to the Incas; technological - the Incas were a society that knew blacks
mithing,
and it was much easier to move from bronze processing to the creation of cannons than
to move to the latter from stone processing, even if this stone was volcanic glass; and
statehood - the Incas were a single empire with a huge mobilization resource, and Mesoamerica
was a bunch of tribes and kingdoms. This treaty also initiated honest diplomatic
relations with the Europeans, which I would characterize as marriage to a rich abuser
who yet loves your joint child and you can't get away wi
th divorcing them because your
country has bribed judges. The child here is trade - as much as Europeans
would have liked to get all Inca gold and silver for free, something is clearly better
than nothing, and in exchange for these metals they assisted the Incas in westernizing, or
rather, to put it more accurately, Easternizing the Inca state and society. But let's talk about everything in order. What was most interesting and important to
the Incas? Weapons, obviously. Even during the war they
were able to get
as war trophies all sorts of swords, crossbows, helmets, breastplates, cannons, and recognized
their effectiveness. So to fight the Europeans, you had to get
more of their weapons. And obviously they had to learn to produce
them themselves - the latter sold weapons very reluctantly and at a high margin. The captives, taken after the battles, informed
the Incas about the principles of firearms and told them that the metal from which the
equipment was made was called iron. And thi
s iron ore had to be found, processed,
and made into the needed stuff. And it was impossible to do without specialists,
and they could be obtained only in Europe and their colonies - about other countries
at that time Incas didn’t know. So they spread a rumor in Camana that they
would hire European specialists versed in metallurgy, engineering and other sciences
for a generous reward. The rumor reached Europe, and Europe was just
finishing the Renaissance, and there were plenty of these Renaissa
nce people, or polymaths
- people versed in all spheres of science and life - from music to economics, and they
sailed to South America for easy money. Then went mostly people from Germany and Italy,
less from Scandinavia and France, with it by the way the Incas would later have the
warmest relations. To receive the ships of Europeans city of
Pachacamac was equipped with a harbor and something like a university, so that Europeans
mostly did not have to go to the mountains. The number of people w
illing to go south to
work increased under the new Inca, Coyllas. While still a prince, he became fascinated
with the alien religion and when he became emperor, he converted to Christianity. The choice fell on Protestantism - Incas did
not want to recognize the religious power of some other Europeans. And if some Jesuit had learned what the Incas
then called Christianity, the main difference from the Inca religion in which was the renaming
of Viracocha as God, and that no one really was going to
spread Christianity, he would
have been shocked, to say the least. But hey, they had their own vision, and at
least the Coyllas forbade human sacrifices, polygamy, and adopted European chronology
(they didn't have their own, as I said). Anyway, the Europeans were attracted by the
very fact of adoption of Christianity, so it was a workable idea. By the next war against the English and also
the Portuguese, they had already started to establish production of their steel, luckily
they had iron depo
sits in the Andes. But in this war they did not need steel, because
it was as strange as possible - the Spaniards colonized the lands on the route used by the
English in the last war, and refused to let the latter pass, and those were afraid to
provoke their enemies to a possible war in Europe. It was also impossible to transport troops
through the straits in the south, so only the Portuguese had ability to fight. Then the Spaniards themselves attacked the
Incas, but now themselves could not agr
ee with the English, and transporting troops
through the straits in the south was again impossible. However, iron found many other uses, first
of all iron tools. Take stonemasonry, for example. Ancient Inca buildings are known for the use
of polygonal masonry, made of polygonal stones butted against each other, joined at arbitrary
angles. They were made by hewing a stone of lower
hardness with a stone of higher one. There are a lot of stones of different rocks
in the mountains, literally you go
out of the house and already see stones, and man-hours
for labor on selection and fitting of suitable stones were not spared. But iron changed the state of affairs - processing
became easier, and it became more profitable to make stone blocks of the same size and
shape, which was probably influenced by European advisors. The first major structure built using European
technology was the Capitol in Cuzco, the new center of the imperial bureaucracy. Such a center was needed to introduce a unified
t
ax system that replaced the Mit'a. So why abolish such a cool system, and replace
it with soulless taxes? The answer lay in trade, or rather in commercial
activity. Europeans brought with them the idea of commerce,
and brought goods that the Incas were willing to buy: spices, porcelain and silk from Asia,
transported across the Pacific Ocean, and also ivory. And, well, gold and silver was available not
only to the Incas, but also to the simpler people, and for the exchange between them
needed in
termediaries - traders. However, there were no traders in the empire,
they were replaced by Mit'a, which was practiced by peasants and artisans, and it acted as
a kind of redistribution system in the country, just like in a planned economy - you work
for the state, and it gives you the goods you need. There were exchanges between people, of course,
but it was a natural exchange. There was too much gold and silver to be valuable
as money, and there was no need for it. But now there was a bottomle
ss market for
these metals - the rest of the world. And since there were no restrictions on trade
as such, traders appeared by themselves, and got good money from it, which bypassed the
state. The state did not want to put up with it,
but it was not going to strangle the newly formed social class with the state monopoly. Therefore, Mit'a was replaced by taxes, gold
and silver coins began to be minted, most of the state lands were distributed to the
peasantry, a commercial code appeared, and all
this was done according to the best European
models. So the Inca Empire can be considered the first
state in history to make the transition from a planned economy to capitalism. Progress or regress? Anyway. At the end of these wars Inca conquered from
the Europeans almost the entire west coast, the Spaniards, for example, no longer appeared
in South America, and achieved the conduct of trade through their harbors, which by that
time were built quite a lot. And as it turned out transportation by
sea
was much more cost-effective than land transportation, so it began to become a priority, and the
most developed road was the route from Cuzco to the nearest port in Ica. That's when the Incas began to make progress
in providing their soldiers with steel equipment and training them to European standards - last
century standards, but still. This in turn gave the Incas the opportunity
to begin a new phase of colonization, but this time it was much larger - expansion was
all along the border tha
nks to the colonial frontier system, under which settlers were
given free land to farm on the principle of "whoever cultivates it, owns it". The Incas treated the local population better
than the Europeans - they had no slavery, so they persuaded them with gifts and threats
to adopt an agrarian way of life, which worked after a while. And if it didn't work, they were forcibly
relocated to already settled areas of the empire - a continuation of the good old imperial
assimilation program. Coloniza
tion was not only conventionally peaceful,
however. Those who resisted were killed - disadvantage
of the absence of the institution of slavery. For example, against the Mapuche people, who
successfully fought against the Portuguese, the Incas themselves started a colonial war
and subdued them, but not completely. The Mapuche continued guerrilla struggle for
a long time, and they were subdued only by the XVIII century. The English, meanwhile, continued their struggle
for Inca wealth, and in 1584
began a new war. It was the first large-scale war between the
Incas, the Portuguese and the English - the latter had reached the level of logistics
to move large armies without much trouble, and the former had mastered their technology
to an acceptable level, so both sides had major victories and defeats. But I am more interested not in the fighting,
but in the fact that during this war there was a really important event - the opening
of the first printing house in Cuzco. Generally, it was a rea
lly significant event,
because it greatly simplified the spread of knowledge, but I guess you already understand
that. For the Incas it had its own unique significance,
though, so this is a good time to talk about Inca script, and frankly, I haven't talked
about it before for comic effect. Well, here it is. This thing is called a quipu, and it was the
Inca equivalent of writing - information was encoded using knots, depending on the color
of the thread and the type of warp - corn cob, wood, copp
er, gold, and so on. As you can understand, this thing was, to
put it mildly, rather inconvenient - imagine, for example, a tax return made of such knots,
so those who knew how to use it could already be said to be a representative of the intelligentsia,
and the whole, whole imperial bureaucracy was kept on it. That was at least until the Europeans arrived. When they saw the quippu, they were probably
as shocked as we are, and advised the emperor to switch to "normal" writing - you know:
paper,
ink, pen, these things. The emperor listened. The transcription of Quechua into the Latin
alphabet began, it made little sense to invent their own from scratch in this case, and the
final version looked like this - 28 letters, of which only 3 vowels. However, the complete transition from quipu
to the new writing system was hindered by the very Incas who knew quipu, and specifically
by bureaucracy, because the others had a lot of work to transcript the information from
quipu to paper, so for some
time these two systems coexisted. But the printing press was the last blow for
quipu, and for the next century they virtually disappeared. But back to the war. By 1592 the forces of the English and the
Incas were exhausted - total losses reached 150 thousand people, and the only thing that
led the Incas to victory then was the endless flow of people into the army. Overwhelmed with numbers, so to speak. Under the peace treaty, the Incas took over
some of the English and Portuguese colonies. Now
they definitely controlled the entire
west coast. Moreover, they got a small piece of the Atlantic
coast, and began to build ports and transshipment points to facilitate trade with Europeans
- the latter, in addition to Inca silver, were interested in potatoes, tobacco and cloth
made of alpaca fiber. These ports didn't come in much use, but more
on that later. More importantly, trade and the seizure of
European colonies gave the Incas access to the entire world's variety of domesticated
animals
and crops, from horses, dogs and chickens to grapes, olives and garlic. And in this respect, they can generally be
called the greatest beneficiaries of the Columbian exchange. Horses, though little used in the military,
performed well as draft animals outside the mountains. New crops and animals were useful in colonization,
for example, in the tropics rice proved itself well, and on the southern plains it was profitable
to arrange pastures for sheep and cows. In general, people have always loved
to eat
good food, and more ingredients means a wider scope of cooking. Although potatoes remained the main source
of carbohydrates. Well, it's not surprising - potatoes were
the biggest crop. Back to politics. In 1608, Coyllas died - another ruler who
had ruled for 50 years. His son Quispe Titu came to the throne, but
he died 6 years later without having done anything much. The next ruler was his son Pachacutec. Before and during his reign in the empire
for a long time came peace - first of all
, it was due to the fact that the English realized
that the war with the Incas is not profitable, and their riches can not be taken away by
force. But time passed, the Incas continued their
expansion to the east, and bang - they encountered Portuguese colonists. By that time they had already learned that
they were on a continent separate from Europeans, and on this continent lived people similar
to them, more backward, of course, but still similar. Definitely more similar than the Europeans. And
a good half of the continent was colonized
by the latter, subjugating this local population. So the Incas came up with the idea of attacking
the Europeans themselves, taking their colonies and controlling the whole continent. It was a pretty natural idea, especially given
the Inca's past and their struggle for survival in the last century. It was called Chahuaparaq anti, literally
"To reach the East". There were enough forces to realize this plan
- the regular army reached the size of more than
a hundred thousand, and all of it was
armed and trained according to European standards, forty years old, but still. The population of the empire at that time
was 22 million, I know you like those statistics. The war started in 1637 without its declaration,
which was done at Pachacutec's wish - it was a reference to the first Inca-English war. And this war was already comparable in bloodiness
to the European wars - the total losses reached 300 thousand. But it did not become so immediately. In
March, Inca troops began an invasion along
the entire border and without much trouble occupied a significant part of the colonies
of the English and Portuguese, encountering resistance only from the colonial troops. The Incas were lucky - they attacked when
the armies of both countries were engaged in colonial warfare in West Africa, and therefore
up to the 1640s there were no major battles. But the British did move a huge contingent
to Brazil and the balance of power was equalized. And the main
battle at Mato Grosso took place
only in 1643, and the Incas won it with difficulty. The war, probably, could continue for another
5 years, but in the Inca Empire began a rebellion of the nobility, and it was ethnic Inca nobility,
and they had to send troops to suppress it. The rebellion itself had been brewing for
quite a long time and was caused by the reaction to the consistent policy of the state to reduce
the role of the higher nobility - the emergence of a system of state examinations for
positions
in the bureaucracy, the opening of the post of governors and generals for non-ethnic Incas,
the complete exemption of peasants from duties, the reduction of noble privileges and so on. A reaction to the advance of meritocracy,
to summarize, and as it turned out a failed one. The rebellion was brutally suppressed, and
the property of the rebels became the property of the state. The English did not know about the rebellion,
so the result of that battle determined the outcome of the war
in 1644 - the Incas gained
huge territories along the entire line of border. And they certainly did not intend to stop
there. Ten years later, already under the new Inca
Tupac Amaru, they began a new war, this time a declared one - the Inca ambassador in the
capital of the English colonial administration in Colombia gave them an ultimatum with the
condition of surrendering all English colonies in South America. The demands were large, but had a basis, because
it was becoming unprofitable for Eng
land to keep these colonies - wars with the Incas
took away too much manpower and material resources, compared to the revenues from the colonies. But it would have been humiliating to accept
the ultimatum just like that. So they left only colonial troops there, instructing
them to use scorched earth tactics and guerrilla warfare, depleting the Inca forces while terrorizing
their coasts and merchant ships. By 1657, the Incas were still able to occupy
all of South America, but the English and Port
uguese continued to hold dominance at
sea. Thus, these lands still had an undefined status. And so it would have continued, but the Incas
by that time had acquired a good fleet, and therefore began to go beyond the continent. Firstly they occupied the Isthmus of Panama,
and then plundered the capital of the English colonial administration of the Caribbean Islands. As a result, the Europeans lost impunity at
sea and agreed to peace with the recognition of the transition to the Incas part of the
c
olonies. Most notable was the transfer of the Isthmus
of Panama, and with it the inter-oceanic infrastructure, so the ports built by the Incas became of
little use. A few centuries later, the Incas would build
the Quchapura Canal there, but that's another story. In the European colonies, first of all in
the Portuguese colonies, at that time there was a period of anarchy - it was already clear
that the Incas would seize these lands and there was no point in fighting for them. Perhaps it would hav
e been reasonable to sell
these lands to the Incas, but no one initiated such a deal out of spite. Soon, in 1676, the Incas began another war,
namely against Portugal and Spain, and then five years later against England. The course of these wars was essentially the
same as the previous one, only the Inca fleet became bigger, and they became more brazen
because of it - they raided Cuba and Mexico, and put an end to the European presence on
the continent. Well, Europeans, of course, remained in th
e
empire, both as inhabitants of the captured territories, and as invited intellectuals,
but the latter by the way became less, and now I will tell you why. The reason is quite simple - the Incas themselves
began to produce such smarties. They quickly realized that relying on foreigners
in achieving progress is unreliable, and therefore began to create their own universities, which
perform two tasks at once - training bureaucrats, and creating their own scientific base. And it can be said that t
hey succeeded. In 1701 they even founded their own Academy
of Sciences, and from that time Inca scientists and inventors began to make achievements independent
of the Europeans - among the earliest is the improvement of the plow design and the invention
of the Flying shuttle loom. So because of the competition that emerged,
payments to European scientists were decreasing and it became unprofitable for them to work
there. However, I wouldn't say that European influence
decreased, in some ways it
even increased, primarily in religion. By absorbing the European colonies, the Incas
had on top of them a huge number of Catholics, who did not react well to the power of the
paganism, which was largely what the Inca religion remained, and therefore constantly
revolted. There was also a local animist population,
whose religion was poorly molded with Inca Christianity, and they, too, were constantly
revolting. Neither ours nor yours, in short. Therefore, Incas increased the degree of Christianiza
tion
- at that time their official religion turned into a relatively decent direction of Protestantism. And the population of the east of the empire
was forcibly converted to this religion. Because of this legitimacy from the change
of religions did not shake much - the transition itself was quite mild, and for the Incas not
even necessary. Also Incas after this war captured several
coastal islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The English tried to reclaim them, and ended
up losing the Galapagos Island
s as well. Not very pleasantly. The Europeans made no further claims on South
America. And they already had plenty to do elsewhere. The XVIII century came - the century of the
beginning of the domination of European imperialism, when Europeans began to actively terrorize
not only the New World, but also the rest of the world, caused first by a sheer technological
advantage, and then by the industrial revolution. And the Incas managed to jump into this train
of progress, and moreover not in the l
ast carriage, but we can even say that in one
of the first. Cuzco for a while became the largest city
in the world with a population of 570 thousand. The reason was primarily due to the Chinese
interregnum, but it was still a significant achievement. The population of the empire was somewhere
around 37 million at the time, and of that, the Incas were somewhere around 1/5th of it
- pretty good compared to what it was a couple centuries earlier. So the Inca assimilation program was working
well, a
nd with the expansion of cities serving as a melting pot it began to work even better. And it had to continue to work, because many
people were still dissatisfied with the imperial power, especially in the east, but whether
it was good or bad is another question. The empire itself assimilated into the European
world for the sake of modernization, sacrificing part of its religion and culture, and here
the answer to the previously posed question is even more complicated. And then there was a quest
ion of revenge - having
conquered the whole continent, the Incas began to look to the north, and they had the idea
of further conquest of both Americas. But what happened to the Incas and their empire
next is material for another story, and this one ends here. Subscribe to the channel if you want to see
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