CHURCH OF THE JESUITS IN CUZCO, ON THE SITE OF THE PALACE OF HUAYNA CAPAC.
Huascar was delayed by insurrections which broke out among the tribes of northern Peru, and at first could only send a few troops to the assistance of the Cañaris. The latter managed to hold Atahuallpa's generals in check until Huascar's main army advanced. Atahuallpa retired slowly up the plateau to within fifty miles of his capital, pursued by the Inca army. It seemed certain that he would quickly be defeated, and either slain or brought to his brother's feet to receive a rebel's sentence. But against this invasion, inspired by the ruling oligarchy of Cuzco, the warlike people of northern Ecuador stood nobly by the grandson of the last of their ancient line of monarchs. Though the southerners were victorious in the first encounter, Atahuallpa in person rallied his army and drew it up in an advantageous position at Naxichi. The Incas attacked confidently, but this time they were hopelessly routed and the chief generals slain with thousands of the common soldiery. The remnant fled in disorder to the territory of the Cañaris. Atahuallpa could not immediately follow up his advantage, and by the time he had organised his forces for an offensive campaign, Huascar had sent another great army to the rescue under the command of his younger brother, Huanca Auqui. When Atahuallpa crossed the transverse barrier of Azuay and descended into the fertile plateau north of Cuenca, a terrific battle ensued which lasted two days. Both sides suffered severely, but the final advantage lay with the Northerners, and Huanca Auqui sullenly retreated, abandoning Ecuador to Atahuallpa. A fearful vengeance was taken on the Cañaris, while the other tribes joined the victor.
Next year Atahuallpa sent a great force under the command of Quizquiz, the ablest Indian general of the time, into northern Peru. Huanca Auqui was again defeated, and abandoned the disputed territory, while Atahuallpa's troops poured into the northern coast provinces. Having met with no serious resistance there, they ascended the Cordillera to the neighbourhood of Cajamarca, where they met the reinforced Inca army. Again they were victorious and Huascar's forces retreated south of the Cerro de Pasco, followed by Quizquiz, whose army grew like a rolling snowball by enlistments among the warlike and half-independent tribes of northern Peru.
Huascar's resources were, however, by no means exhausted by the crushing defeats he had suffered during the last four years. The great plateaux of Peru and Bolivia, the most populous and richest portion of the empire, remained faithful; the ruling classes regarded Atahuallpa's revolt not only as an impious rebellion against the legitimate emperor, but as a menace to their own continued supremacy in the state. Tens of thousands poured up from the southern provinces to reinforce the army which lay in the valleys south of the Cerro de Pasco in daily expectation of attack. But Tupac's and Huaina Capac's conquests had created a Frankenstein monster. When the ruder nations of the North were first attacked by the Inca armies they did not know how to organise and were easily reduced in detail. Three-quarters of a century of Inca rule had taught them what they lacked without destroying the spirit of individual initiative nourished by local autonomy. The older parts of the empire had been frozen by rigid socialism and ritual, and the people's energies sapped by long centuries of tutelage. The northern tribes who followed Atahuallpa's banner were superior in military prowess to the Incas who fought for Huascar, uniformly beating the latter with numbers constantly inferior. The balance of power had passed from Cuzco and the centre to Quito and the north.
Quizquiz's forces finally crossed the Cerro de Pasco and poured down into the beautiful and populous valley of Jauja. Again they were victorious, and the Incas fled along the road leading toward Cuzco. Huascar and his partisans determined to make their last stand at the capital itself. Reinforcements were hurried up not only from Bolivia, but from Chile, and the Argentine, and an army which is said to have numbered seventy thousand, the largest ever seen in South America, assembled at Cuzco. Meanwhile Quizquiz was relentlessly advancing along the plateau, and his main body reached the neighbourhood of the city intact. After some manœuvres for position in which the able and experienced northern generals obtained a decisive advantage, Huascar's camp was surprised at early dawn. His soldiers could not form and a frightful carnage ensued, in the midst of which he himself was made prisoner. As soon as the capture became known his followers fled in all directions. Quizquiz advanced his camp to the heights overlooking the capital; all idea of further resistance was abandoned; the city submitted, and the principal partisans of Huascar perished in a cruel massacre.
