Dominic Sandbrook

It is midwinter, which means it's what we would call summer in Peru.

Pizarro is still in the far northwestern corner.

He is about 900 miles north of modern day Lima.

So that is about 1,300 miles north of Cusco, the Inca capital.

No, there's not too much hacking, but there's a lot of crossing of rope bridges.

And everyone knows that's dangerous.

Fertiginous ascents and descents and stuff like that.

Llama action.

Exactly.

But Pizarro wants to make sure that his governorship...

that he has been awarded by the Spanish king is on firm foundations.

So the first thing he does is to establish a new town.

This is from his cousin Cortes' Mexican playbook.

This is what Cortes had done.

You establish a town, you establish a municipal government, and that gives you the legal foundation that means you can't be challenged for governorship of this country.

So as we will discover, under the regulations from, I think, 1513, the Council of Castile,

You read them this thing called the requirement, which explains to them the history of the world, the story of Jesus, and the fact that Charles V, the King of Spain, has been licensed by the Pope to export Christianity to the Americas.

When you read them this, they are legally bound to submit to vassalage.

And if they don't, you can kill them.

I think ideally they'll reach an accommodation, but violence is always part of the Spanish repertoire.