6 – They Preferred Diplomacy Over Brutality
The Inca were skilled diplomats and typically preferred to offer peace and friendship (on their terms naturally) to enemies before resorting to violence. As you would expect, a number of regions resisted so the Inca were forced to engage in battle. Emperors knew that conquest was crucial to their prestige; not only during their lifetime but also after their deaths when tales of their exploits would be told for generations. The Inca would normally begin by trying to negotiate trade agreements, engage in gift exchanges, inter-marry or offer to relocate rivals. They would only fight if all diplomatic avenues failed.
The Inca Empire really began to expand from 1438 onwards when Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui emerged victorious over the Chancas. This enabled the Inca to control Cuzco Valley. By 1470, they had conquered the Chimu civilization and during the reign of Inca Tupac Yupanqui (1471-1493), the empire doubled in size. The empire reached its peak in 1530 but within three years, Cuzco had been taken by the Spanish and the Incan empire was finished. As it happens, the Spanish benefitted from fortuitous timing because they arrived near the end of a bitter six year Inca Civil War.
The Inca army was mainly comprised of conquered soldiers. As part of the tribute, defeated tribes agreed to send men for use in the empire’s army. Since these soldiers came from different regions and spoke different languages, communication was a problem. Eventually, the Inca created a professional army with units divided into separate groups of 10, 100, 1,000 and finally 10,000 men. Each group had its own leader and officers sometimes had joint command although we don’t know how they divided the duties between them.
Some Inca armies had over 100,000 men with weapons such as wooden clubs, spears and javelins. Most battles involved hand-to-hand combat and were often disjointed and confused affairs. Indeed, the Inca usually won due to sheer weight of numbers rather than tactical brilliance.
The Battle of the Maule was one of the most important battles fought by the Inca. The date of the battle is unknown but it probably happened during the reign of Tupac Yupanqui. The Inca fought the Mapuche people of Chile in what was an extremely bloody battle with tens of thousands of casualties on both sides. After rejecting the diplomatic approaches of the Inca, the Mapuche retreated but claimed a tactical victory as their enemy lost too many men to proceed any further. In fact, this defeat marked the end of southern Inca expansion. It would appear that a lack of tactical innovation was one of the reasons for this loss.