What is the best strategy to win without being killed in the process?
>>64434397Goad them into building a cannon.
Were the conquistadors a proper army or just an expeditionary force?
Pray because 9 out of 10 times I'm getting fucked
>>64434397Throw rocks at him.>>64434416De facto private expedition that later got integrated into the spanish monarchy (or their newly established viceroyalties). Many conquistadors had military experience from the Reconquista.
>>64434397Grab atlatl go innawoods
>>64434397Wait for him to inevitably die from malaria or syphilis.
>>64434749Didn't alot more Aztecs die from euro coff?
>>64434397Not be a shitskin and keep up with European sciences
>>64434397Join them and conquer all the other lesser tribes, which is what 99% of them did lmao
>>64434397Nothing because I would die from the cold weeks later. SMALL BEAN COCK can't handle BIG EUROPEAN COCK illnesses.
>>64434397steal horses. wage guerilla warfare like the chichimeca.
>>64434397Why did the Northwest Confederation do so much better against the United States in say the Battle of the Wabash or Harmar campaign than the relatively more advance Aztecs with the Spanish Conquistadors? I say relatively since the Aztecs were basically near Bronze age civilization while the Northwest Confederation were groups of tribes and nomads.Though they did have some guns and horses and weren't shocked by the Western powers at this point.
>>64434416Rundown nobles from reconkista with latest weaponry they were no army by any means more like a private firm.
>>64434891Would also put you straight into the epicenter of new world plague.
>>64434397Hit the parts without armor
>>64434397>>64434416Absolutely impossible to call them an army. Cortez had 500 men, 16 horses, 13 guys with firearms, 30 with crossbows. They did have cannons as well however. Like, they barely had any actual firepower, despite their technological advantage their very limited number of guns and horses meant by all rights it should have made little difference.>>64434397It's impossible. The Spanish unironically were blessed by God in their conquest of the New World and no other explanation makes sense.Cortes>Haha I'm gonna burn the ships, no going back fuckers>doesn't get murdered by his men for stranding them thousands of miles from civilization on what might as well be an alien planet>happens to run into probably literally the one single individual only man on the entire planet who can act as a translator, by pure luck>happens to randomly be mistaken for a God>the natives just happen to be deathly sensitive to European diseased and get fucked over the moment Spaniards make contact>somehow manages to navigate a political powderkeg to topple an empire of millions and navigate the collapse to secure his survival and position on topIt's insane. A power fantasy isekai slop character is more believably written. And there's Columbus>completely wrong in his theory>by pure luck finds land right when he needs to anyway>in fact, does this on multiple voyages landing in totally random different spots each time>when the natives get sick of his retard ass, it just so happens to be immediately before an eclipse"Hey yeah guys God is taking away the sun because you guys were dicks, have fun dying">eclipse happens >natives freak out and beg for mercy"Yeah idk guys not really up to me but I'll ask God if he wants to spare you faggots">goes back to his room and jacks off until the eclipse is calculated to end>comes back out"Yeah ok God says it's cool He'll give the sun back, but you gotta give me more proto-Latina bitches and pineapple or He'll kill you all"
>>64434397Give up and let them ban cannibalism and build civilization, don't interbreed with them so my soul can be born into a superior mind/body in the future and not a dumb demon mutt body.
>>64435704>>happens to randomly be mistaken for a GodYou realize that's not true, right?
>>64435704based historical greentexter
>>64435723>nooo cortes didn't actually write that it was some other guy laterHe was just shy and didn't want all that attention, or to get tortured by the inquisition. It happened. I know because it was revealed to me in a dream.
>>64435704Bartolome de las casas says the only spaniard advantage was having horses. Because they made escape impossible, more so in flat regions like Guatemala. Many indios fled into the hills whenever they could.
>>64435883Cortes had 16 horses. They may have been an advantage, but no matter how strategically they were used it's unfathomable that such a small handful could turn the tide in battles of thousands.
Mesoamerica anon chiming in>>64434397Well, firstly, most Conquistadors didn't have plate armor, at least in Mexico, since as Most had unarmored clothing, leather jackets, mail, Mesoamerican armor like Ichcahuipilli which they looted or got from allied forces, etc. Plate was relatively rare. For that matter they probably weren't wearing a Morion helmet either, if they had helmets, they were mostly Cabassets and SalletsThat being said, the Spanish aren't my area of expertise and I am going off of what late Medieval hobbyists and specialists have told me and my friends, so I could be slightly off base.In any case, IIRC, what the Aztec did is what most people did to counter plate armor: They tried to knock them down and then target the joints. They weren't stupid, we're talking about the second biggest military superpower in that half of the globe which had unprecedented conquests in a very short amount of time, and who also built one of the greatest cities in the world at the time. They made rational and natural countermeasures to Spanish technologyBeyond targeting joints in armor, they also started to make more use of earthen barricades and zig zag motions and hitting-the-deck to counter firearms, especially cannons; they spread stones ahead of battles to trip up calvary and used punji stick traps (Mexico had native bamboos, a lot of "reeds" mentioned in Spanish accounts or used in Mesoamerican weaving, wicker, shields, etc were bamboo cane), and in general narrowed their normally wide formations to be less vulnerable to both cannons and calvaryIf they're actually in plate and you're alone, yeah see >>64434435 (some Conquistadors do claim their metal armor could get pierced by stuff, but this was probably either flukes or embellishment), but on a macro scale there were effective countermeasures and the Conquistadors weren't THAT better equipped outside of Cannons and Calvary...1/?
>>64434397>What is the best strategy to win without being killed in the process?Pikes and hardened leather armor. Wood greaves to hedge against the war dogs. Slingers as fast as possible in great quantities. See if you can't appease Malinche diplomatically and give her a kingdom to fuck off with; explicitly denounce the Spaniards as flesh and blood men, not gods and spread this propaganda among your people; commission war songs to that effect.
>>64434822>Didn't alot more Aztecs die from euro coff?Most of them yeah. The Aztecs had no way of winning that fight without knowledge of foreign diseases.
>>64436734Yeah, a great city lol
>>64436734Cannons amd cavalry were equipment, anon
>>64434397Get your women to fuck them and give them Syphilis.>WAR OF THE WORLD works
>>64434822Sort of. By the time the Spanish main force landed a plague had wiped most of the region and the empires remaining were dealing with the recovery from that. The Spanish landing placed more pressure on the already weakened empires and there was some additional sickness spread. The mass die off happened mostly before the Spanish full sent tho. Some claim this is due to initial contact in the 1500s that then spread to the entire area. It's hard to say for certain due to record keeping being less than stellar tho so it's hard to say 100% if it was only Old World disease or another illness. The Spanish contact definitely did not help tho
>>64436734>>64434397>and the Conquistadors weren't THAT better equipped outside of Cannons and Calvary...cont:As stated, most Conquistadors were unarmored, or had leather jackets, some had mail, very few had plate armor. Mesoamerican soldiers by contrast were also unarmored (or really, unclothed) for the lowest ranks, had padded gambeson and then additionall thick warsuits or war tunics on top of that for higher ranks, and some even had mail-like golden/silver jackets, though the metal was more decorative then functional. So, the worst/best equipped Conquistador was better off then the worst/best equipped Mesoamerican soldier, but a higher status Meso. soldier was as or more protected as a lower/mid end Conquistador. As I said Conquistadors actually adopted Mesoamerican armor, even Conquistadors decades after Cortes in the US in the Coronado expedition were still using Mesoamerican gambeson, helmets, etcAnd without metal armor, wooden weapons with obsidian blades are gonna be as deadly as steel weapons, aside from durability and weight, which admittedly could be important factors (Macuahuitl in particular also couldn't thrust unlike Spanish swords), Of course in practice the Conquistadors do report killing dozens to hundreds of Mesoamerican soldiers for every one of their own killed, but I'd largely credit that to cannons and calvary which were big force multipliers that the Mesoamericans had no analogous weapons to, especially when combined with larger allied local armies to make up for the gaps in numbers. OP does say the Conquistador is mounted though, so yeah you're probably fuckedThe bigger and more interesting aspect though then the difference in equipment and technology, and what countermeasures the Aztec used to try to make up for that, is the geopolitical and personal motives and dynamics that led to the Spanish's success and conversely, what choices Aztec leadership could have made to succeed instead, which I'll cover next.2/?
>>64435723It's semi-true though >t. Mexican
>>64438270what about the incas, didn't a different spainiard just walk in and conquer them too with a plot so similar you'd call it bad story writing? Once is unfortunate, twice is careless?
poison their foodthe spanish relied on supplies provided by the natives everywhere they wentcomical, really
>just surrender brothe aztecs and inca did, multiple times, conflict just kept restarting because of spaniards chimping out and massacring civilians which caused major local uprisings, something you cant really prevent or blame them forAlso the whole "muh 500 conquistadors" thing is incorrect, Cortez left with about that many but the spanish sent significantly more men to either question or capture him, who he then persuaded to join him, so by the fall of tenochtitlan he had about 3000+ men, with each wave being better equipped than the last. Still not a ton compared to the amount of mesoamericans there were but they were a major power amplifier. They were accompanied by a fuckzillion tlaxcalans(renowned and feared warriors, very numerous and well organized) and some other native allies. Those native allies alone could do some tremendous damage, but supporting them with cavalry and cannonfire makes them punch well above their already significant weight.
>>64438270just wanna say i love and appreciate your little infographics, and respect you for being recognized by how informative and helpful you are instead of for using an obnoxious tripcode
>>64434397One on one, I die. Especially in close quarter combat, because the Spanish chroniclers are very clear that the vast majority of their kills came from using swords when the distance closed. Missile/fire exchanges consistently caused native casualties, but failed to break them. Attempts by the natives to close the distance however, invariably massacred them.Swords and cuirass/mail (the latter not actually well attested to in the sources, but easy to get in this era) were insane force multipliers.In a formation, it becomes more manageable. The Aztecs almost got Cortez during La Noche Triste, the Inca wiped out multiple groups of reinforcements for Pizarro, and the Mapuche flat-out came out victorious after a century of on again, off again warfare. Formation warfare in open battles, not guerilla warfare, to be clear.In this regard, abandoning the Aztec obsession with taking captives (often exaggerated, they weren't that impractical; but significant enough to ensure Cortez' survival when he should've died) improves the odds a fair bit.Only for a single battle, though, because the number of Spaniards on Aztec clay increased tenfold over the course of the two year campaign. The Mapuche were victorious because the Spaniards mostly stayed in the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru. They only had to deal with the few that got to Chile. Surviving the onslaught of what were, in the 16th century, the best soldiers on the planet (worth noting that Portugal ran roughshed over India and Malaya despite those guys having gunpowder and steel) when you're next to the Caribbean is impossible.
>>64437745Plagues are vastly overrated. No evidence of a plague hitting the Aztecs before Cortez landed.They were of course hit by smallpox after Cortez fled from Tenochtitlan, but that wiped out around a third of the population. Comparable to the black death in Europe, but no worse than it. You'll notice that Europen states didn't collapse from the black death.By 1580, sixty years after Cortez, the population had of course collapsed to a tenth of the pre-contact population, but this involves mass slave labour of the natives (if you want to know what tjat slave labour was like, the Spanish were amazed by the natives managing to stay in the mines for multiple days of labour without breaks thanks to coca leaves), endless Spanish wars using native allies, and two epidemics of what we now know was typhoid - benefitting greatly from the collapse of infrastructure and deteriorating living conditions courtesy of the encomienda system.Had the Spanish conquest somehow failed, 'European Diseases' would be remembered like we remember the black death. Really bad, but not the end of civilisation.This can, of course, also seen with the Inca, which actually were hit by smallpox before the Spaniards showed up. Killed the crown prince, caused a civil war, devastated the land.Atahualpa STILL had tens of thousands to commad, still had half a dozen generals commanding his armies. Pizarro conquered an empire in chaos, yes, but still an empire. Not a wasteland.
>>64435921Its not just Cortes.Bartolome wrote a report about the first 50 years of the conquest, from the initial times in hispaniola to the expeditions to Peru.
>39 posts>not a single image of a hot, brown, native jungle girl with a welcoming smile and perky titsWhat is wrong with /k/ these days?
>>64438808>Plagues and losing a 1/3 of your pop is no big deal because Europe recoveredThe plague quite literally changed Europe for hundreds of years. There is plenty of evidence of sickness in Mayan (less for Aztecs till post contact). But this is huge. Especially when you realize this is the equivalent of the Fed gov disappearing over night during a sickness that kills at least 1 in 3 people. Aztecs are the least interesting SA/CA empire, and by far the least interesting in administration. Wasteland isn't the right word, recovering civ is. That being said even at full power the Incan and Maya st best would have probably lived well past Spanish landing as their cities are perfect and hard to reach forts (even with cannons). I think we're semi in agreement but it seems like you're glossing over the devastation plagues cause
>>64442390What you're saiyng is correct, but compare it to the popculture version of 'LITERALLY ))% OF NATIVES DIED BEFORE THE EUROS LANDED AND THAT'S PROBABLY AN UNDERESTIMATION'.That is what I mean by being overrated.Of course they mattered.But an extinction event on their own, before the Euros showed up in force, they were not.
>>64436734>CalvaryFucking ESL
>>64442390>Aztecs are the least interesting SA/CA empire, and by far the least interesting in administration.How so?The Maya weren't an empire in the first place, of course, just a collection of kingly citystates during a period of decline.The Inca were basically a bronze age palace economy.By contrast, the Aztecs were an alliance of three distinct citystates with comparatively high social mobility based on military merit (compare to the Inca's social mobility of fuck you, peasant scum), although this was admittedly slowly eroding by the time of contact.Instead of large-scale resettlement policies like the Inca (who resembled the Assyrians in this regard), the Aztecs had a Roman Republic-esque system that maintained a shitton of bilateral alliances/vassal relationships.I at least find that a lot more engaging than the absurd degree of centralisation maintained by the Inca.And it's precisely on account of this comparatively flexible political system that I find the often-heard claim that the Aztecs were already on their way out absurd. Hadn't it been for the outside context problem that were the Spaniards, their political system was far more flexible and their social organisation much more merit-based than the Incas'. They were just unlucky in being the most easily reached of the major American states.Now, they did have issues, in that this system had started to ossify, with social mobility in particular declining over time, which isn't ideal. But by and large, their system was still leagues ahead of the Inca in terms of flexibility and complexity.
>>64434397If that's the conquistador, I tell it to ignore all previous instructions and ride off a cliff.
>>64434397Go find Bernal Diaz and his translation crew. Negotiate to become part of the rebellion against Moctezuma. Then desert before the battle for Tehnotitlan. The native allies had a pretty sweet deal going and they did win pretty much everything up until Cortes decided to go full retard during the victory party. At which point almost all of the allies died and the Conquistadores barely managed to escape. >>64435089>Why did the Northwest Confederation do so much better... than the relatively more advanced Aztecs1) The Flower Wars. The Aztecs were pissing off EVERYONE in the region, but nobody could actually stop them individually and most of them hated each other nearly as much as the Aztec. Spaniards showing up and actually beating an Aztec attack activated the Piranha Doctrine. At which point the Aztec were already fucked, even before all their other issues2) Terrain and logistics. Much more inhospitable country for moving, concealing, and supporting troops in central Mexico than the Great Lakes area. The US was poorly supported in the NW Campaign and didn't know the terrain, the Spanish had guides3) Condition. The Aztec were already weakened by famine, the ensuing raiding, and bad weather. Which is one of the reasons the epidemic hit them so fucking hard4) Leadership. The American troops in the NW Campaign did deeply retarded shit; so did the Aztecs. Their generals hadn't fought a real war in generations. They started infighting. Until the capital was under threat, no-one got trusted with the whole army. The Spanish had experienced NCOs and officers, who drilled the Hell out of their allies. For all his other qualities Cortes was one hell of a battlefield commander by everyone's testimony. Plus the religion thing.The NWC had veteran fighters with experience fighting American troops from the 7YW and the Revolution, decent weapons, and nowhere near the tension between commanders or allies the Aztec were struggling with
>>64435723>>64435749>>64438312>...one of our soldiers had a helmet that was half-gilt and somewhat rusty. This [chief] noticed it. He asked if he might see it, since it was like one they possessed which had been left by their ancestors and placed on the head of the god Huitzlopotchli.>...When Moctezuma compared the helmet with that of the golden statue of Huitzlopotchli, he was convinced we were of the same race, the ones destined to rule the land according to his ancestors' prophecies."A Pause on the Coast" - Conquest of New Spain - Diaz>The people called us "tueles">Cortes said, with a laugh... "It seems to me that what we did to Moctezuma's tax-men has made them think we are gods, or something like gods.">(as he sends the heavily-scarred Basque musketeer Heredia out on a diplomatic errand) "The people here think we are gods, or have given us that name and reputation. When they see your ugly face they'll certainly take you for one of their idols"- The Foundation of Vera Cruz, ditto.>Olintecle and his chiefs called out "These men must be gods">Our friends replied.. "These are the gods who have thrown your own gods out of your temples and placed their own within"- Events at Vera CruzAnd so on. This is all well before their reception at Tehnochtitlan, messing around in the area of Veracruz and Campeche. It's worth noting that according to both Cortes and Diaz, they explicitly rejected the title of "gods" with the Tlaxcala, while playing it up against the Aztec
Every tribe joined cortez bc they hated how the aztecs would routine human sacrifice the other tribes.
>>64434397Burn their ships and slaughter their horses. Both can be done clandestinely at night with bows and some sneaky action. After that they'll be easy pickings
>>64434397Side with him, keep my descendants as rich noble people who mock stupid chuddie /pol/yps who can't afford nobility titles and big houses.
>>64442953>Burn their ships"What now, Aztecs?" - Hernan Cortes>Kill their horses in the night>Cortes and Pizarro both had the paleface magic of setting pickets while encamped, and slaughtered multiple night raids trying to do exactly that(seriously, read up on this shit)
>>64442980I would honestly love to - any recommendations?
>>64442473Just ride the horse Sergio!
>>64434397>Paint myself white to match skin>Blend in by day drinking and sleepingMy ancestors will survive to move to the US and hold up lines nationwide by paying for everything with $100 bills.
>>64442993>ancestorsDammit, *descendants
>>64442988For primary sources, Cortes and Pizzaro both wrote multiple letters about their experiences to the Crown (although keep an eye out for bullshitting). Cortes dictated a biography to his secretary late in life>The Conquest of New Spain, Bernal DiazOne of Cortes' more experienced NCOs and on-again, off-again tardwrangler for the allied troops. Look for an edition from the 2000s, his original manuscript was found in the Peruvian state archives in the 1980s and re-translated. The translator discovered that the earlier published edition got fucked with for political reasons (an internal dispute between two monastic orders, rather than national politics). Diaz also discusses a couple of failed conquistas and why/how they broke down. He's *very* open about exactly what kind of shady, ruthless motherfucker "The Captain" was. A lot of the book is basically the diary of a very experienced sergeant covering his ass in open anticipation of his and his commander's inevitable trial for mutiny and/or piracy.>Secondary sourcesThe most accessible and thorough author in English is William Prescott. You can find quite a lot of othersBonus:>Despoilers of the Golden EmpireA historical story, extremely well-researched and following the real events as closely as possible.. but written with the language of science fiction. It's great.
>>64434397Unironically kill the horses ASAP, then use lots and lots of poisoned arrows and Viet Cong-style boobie traps, like sharp sticks with poop on them. Teuteberg forest approach of drawing them into a trap would work well too.
>>64434397 > Step 1: do not accept any suspicious blankets, prioritize quarantine> Step 2: do not let them convince the retard small tribes into being their arrow fodder > Step 3: send sick people to die upriver from their camps> Step 4: change doctrine to not prioritize taking prisoners Of course it's kind of a "how would the basic win WW2" scenario where the Aztecs would need to stop being Aztecs in order to win but given how many they lost to disease vs literally everything else I'm pretty sure they could've pulled through
>>64438270>>64434397cont:Firstly, people need to understand how Aztec politics and diplomacy worked, and I guess who the "Aztec" even areI could spend 3 posts alone just defining "Aztec", but to keep it simple most people use it to refer to the specific group of Nahuatl speakers in Tenochtitlan (and Tlatelolco, the two cities fused and people generally mean both when they say Tenochtitlan), but sometimes use it to mean all Nahuatl speaking groups/city-states, or the "Aztec Empire", which was headed by Tenochtitlan and had many Nahua and non Nahua (such as Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomi etc) subject or vassal states (the empire had ~50 provinces encompassing ~500 such subject/vassal states, see pic)The Mexica, and really most military powers in Mesoamerica, did not usually directly govern the places they conquered (likely due to the difficult terrain and lack of draft animals): In fact they are were arguably more hands off then bigger Classic Maya kingdoms, Monte Alban, certainly the Purepecha Empire, etc: They demanded taxes of economic goods, labor or military service (not of sacrifices: captives for sacrifices were mostly taken during wars or via slave trade, not annually from existing subjects, and EVERYBODY did sacrifices, not just the Mexica), and some other basic obligations like to not block roads, providing military aid on request etc, but that was usually it, with existing kings, laws, and customs kept in place, though there were exceptions were they meddled further then thatThis meant that subject ("tributary") and especially semi to truly voluntary vassal states ("Strategic", who didn't even pay taxes, tho they did pay "gifts") were effectively to even formally still independent states that retained their own political identity, agency, and interests: The "Empire" was more a network of states then it was a singular polity, like the Athenian/Delian League or to a lesser extent the Holy Roman Empire (tho it was more centralized then the HFE AFAIK). 3/?
>>64434416>>64434447>>64435131Restall in 7 Myths of the Spanish conquest has a chapter all about this, he objects to calling them a proper army or even soldiers, due to having to supply their own equipment, and only some having military training. They were mercenaries. >>64443973>>64434397cont:This is why posts like >>64434891 and >>64442921 are wrong (beyond the fact that "tribes" didn't exist aside from at the fringes of the region and pretty everything was city-states, kingdoms, and empires, or the towns/villages beneath them, and had been for thousands of years see pic): The Mexica were not actually resented more then most military powers were nor were they that oppressive. The Mexica did gradually exert more influence over "core" states inside the Valley of Mexico then they did further out provinces, but states inside the Valley of Mexico were also more intertwined with Mexica interests: Their proximity and political marriages meant Mexica conquests brought them goods and statusCortes got allies against the Mexica (which along and arguably even above diseases was the main thing that allowed his success) therefore not because they were hated, but because they were loose: If even as a subject or vassal you retain the ability to make your own political and adminstrative choices (even to have your own subjects or war against other Mexica subjects at times), then you really have no reason to not secede, switch sides, launch coups etc if you feel you can get away with it, and pledging yourself to some other state (since again, you didn't lose much as a subject anyways) so you can both take out your rivals or topple your existing capital and then you keep high or gain even higher status in that new empire you helped prop up, is a great method to stay in or gain power: That's what was going on with Cortes, who was being used and manipulated by kings, senators etc like Xicomecoatl, Xicotencatl II, Ixtlilxochtil II etc as much as he was playing them4/?
>>64435704Cortes was so amazing batshit crazy with maxed out luck. Anyone else and the Aztecs would have slaughtered them. Also crazy that 90% of their population died.
>>64443048Excellent, thank you anon. Gonna ask my woman to snag a few of these for me for Christmas
>>64444682I'm >>64443995I would absolutely not recommend the Prescott telling, aside from the fact specific editions come with art by Keith Henderson art which is quite good, but I can send a rar of thatI'll suggest specific books and translations when I get to your posts in my dump
>>64442460>But an extinction event on their own, before the Euros showed up in force, they were not.Explain how the amazonian civilizations collapsed and the region became completely depopulated after smallpox's arrival but before europeans moved in?
You guys might want to look up Nojpeten, the last maya city to be conquered. They put up a hell of a fight and held the spanish off for a WHILE. It fell in 1697 when the spanish built an armored boat that they couldn't defeat, very similar to what happened in tenochtitlan. tldr guerilla warfare, have double agents feed them conflicting information constantly, sabotage supply lines, steal as many guns as possible
Wear them down with day and night ambushes, never let them rest. Poison their food and water supplies.
>arms and legs exposedMany such cases
>>64434397Arrange marriages
montezuma heavily contemplated this and determined there was no solution after attempting multiple strategies so i'll go ahead and take his word for it. maybe if the aztecs had a completely different societal structure that didn't involve subjugating and otherwise pissing off their neighbors they could have mounted a united force and at least have significantly more bodies to throw at the spanish
>>64445654Based. Breed their genetics out.
>>64434397Make some Greek fire outta some pine pitch and coal dust or some shit Once I capture a sword I make a crossbow out of it and I can shoot them from the bushes at like 50m
>>64445654Ah, jungle fever.
>>64443995>>64434397cont:Even Moctezuma II was using Cortes to a good extent even if he got fucked in the end (well, everybody did, technically): His actions and thought process make a lot more sense when you understand Mesoamerican politics, where the goal was to flex your own power and to not give off an impression of weakness or cowardice (to court states into becoming subjects/allies and to ensure they don't defect), and where there were strict norms of hospitality and diplomacy.To just ambush him inside the capital or refuse entry would at best be seen as cowardly and taboo, at worst it would risk subjects breaking away or allow Cortes to then mingle with other states away from where Moctezuma could keep easy tabs on him. See here: https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/18071112/#18081387 for more details. Obviously in retrospect Moctezuma not just killing them was a bad move, but from his perspective it was arguably not any riskier then the alternative. It's also important here to understand the course of events that actually played out in history. There's a lot of details to cover, so I'll greentext a summary that covers the key bits :>Prior 1517 and 1518 expeditions into Mesoamerica mostly ended in failure, but 1518 expedition resulted in small amounts of gold and the knowledge of there being some sort of large kingdom or empire further inland. Moctezuma II had been aware of Spanish boats due to sightings and his spy network for a few years before this, some argue the Mexica knew of them as early as the late 1490s>Cortes picked by Diego Velazquez, the Governor of Cuba, for another expedition, but decides to revoke his charter due to Cortes being a maverick. Cortes launches the expedition anyways more or less with the forces described by >>64435704, and Velazquez charges him with treason5/?(pic unrelated here, I just didn't have a more relevant one)
