How did a few hundred Spanish soldiers topple two empires? – Si Sheppard

章节 1：科尔特斯征服阿兹特克：钢铁、战马与盟友

📝 本节摘要：

主持人将西班牙人以数百人征服阿兹特克类比为AI接管。谢泼德回顾科尔特斯违抗古巴总督，结盟不满阿兹特克的特拉斯卡拉人，凭钢铁、军事训练和战马以少胜多。他挟持蒙特祖马二世掌控帝国，击败纳瓦埃斯，却在民变中遭遇“悲伤之夜”惨败；借盟友庇护卷土重来，以火药和帆船围攻特诺奇蒂特兰，大军中西班牙人仅约0.5%。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: Today I'm chatting with professor and military historian Si Sheppard. I want to talk to you about the conquest of the Aztec and the Inca Empires because these are some of the most shocking events in human history, unparalleled among all the military and diplomatic achievements ever made. A few hundred conquistadors show up to a new continent they know nothing about. Within a matter of years, they subjugate empires which have millions of inhabitants in them. In the process of doing so, they are often winning battles where they are outnumbered 100 to 1, 1,000 to 1, and in many cases not even taking a single casualty.

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 今天我请到的是教授、军事历史学家西·谢泼德（Si Sheppard）。我想和你聊聊阿兹特克帝国和印加帝国的征服史，因为这是人类历史上最令人震惊的事件之一，在古往今来所有军事和外交成就中都无出其右。几百名征服者来到一块他们一无所知的新大陆，短短几年之内，就征服了拥有数百万人口的帝国。在这个过程中，他们常常在兵力 1 比 100、甚至 1 比 1000 的劣势下打赢战斗，而且很多时候连一个伤亡都没有。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: They're doing this while upwards of 99% of their fighting forces are made up of the very natives that they're going to subjugate. I wanted to have you on to talk about something this episode. We're not going to focus on it, we're mostly talking about history here, but people think of AI takeover as this crazy sci-fi scenario, but this would not be the first time in history that an alien force, with motivations that the natives don't understand, is able to use diplomatic cunning and technological advantages to outmaneuver and then take over a much larger and well-established order.

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 而且他们做到这一切的时候，作战部队中有超过 99% 恰恰是由他们即将征服的那些原住民组成的。我请你来，是想借这期节目聊一件事。我们不会把重点放在这上面，主要还是谈历史，但人们总觉得 AI 接管是一种疯狂的科幻情节。然而在历史上，这并不是第一次：一股外来力量，怀着原住民无法理解的动机，凭借外交上的狡黠和技术上的优势，智胜并最终接管一个规模大得多、根基深厚的既有秩序。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: I wanted to have you on to understand what happened here. First, I would love to hear the stories. What did Cortés do? What did Pizarro do? How did these conquests actually go down?

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 我请你来，就是想弄明白当时到底发生了什么。首先，我很想听听这些故事。科尔特斯（Cortés）做了什么？皮萨罗（Pizarro）做了什么？这些征服究竟是怎么展开的？

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be here. Yes, we're talking about the birth of our modern world, which played out between 600 to 500 years ago and created the modern globalized community that we all participate in today. It began in the 15th century when Europe, backed up against the wall of the Atlantic, under immense pressure from external forces and cut off from the core economic power bases of the East — the sources of the spice and silk that had driven the global economy historically throughout Eurasia — was finally forced to innovate. Key names like Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal work on turning the Atlantic Ocean from a barrier into a superhighway.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 谢谢，很荣幸来到这里。没错，我们谈的是现代世界的诞生。它发生在大约 600 到 500 年前，造就了我们今天所有人身处其中的全球化共同体。这一切始于 15 世纪：当时的欧洲背靠大西洋这堵墙，承受着来自外部势力的巨大压力，又被切断了与东方核心经济重镇的联系——那里是香料和丝绸的产地，历史上一直驱动着整个欧亚大陆的全球经济——欧洲最终被逼得不得不创新。像葡萄牙的“航海家”恩里克王子（Prince Henry the Navigator）这样的关键人物，致力于把大西洋从一道屏障变成一条高速公路。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: Generational knowledge accrued from captains reporting on tides and wind currents and whatever land they've managed to reconnoiter, building out the map as they go along, enables them to find a way around the southern tip of Africa directly to India and therefore cut out the middleman. The Spanish, meanwhile, are heading west. We all know the story of Christopher Columbus: "In 1492, he sailed the ocean blue." That was entrepreneurship. This was an expedition to arrive at the Oriental markets by traveling west. Of course, his figures were completely wrong. He was saved by the fact that, unknown to him, there was an entire continent in the place where he thought Japan, China, and the Spice Islands would be. Initially, that was perceived, ironically, as a disappointment. But over time, it became increasingly apparent this was a source of potential in land, in wealth, and in people that could be exploited.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 船长们汇报潮汐、风向洋流以及他们所勘察到的各处陆地，一边航行一边把地图补全，这些代代积累的知识让他们找到了一条绕过非洲南端、直达印度的航路，从而甩掉了中间商。与此同时，西班牙人则在向西进发。我们都知道哥伦布（Christopher Columbus）的故事：“1492 年，他扬帆驶向蔚蓝大海。”那是一次创业冒险——一次向西航行、抵达东方市场的远征。当然，他的计算完全是错的。救了他的是一个他自己并不知道的事实：在他以为是日本、中国和香料群岛的位置上，横亘着一整块大陆。讽刺的是，这起初被视为一种失望。但随着时间推移，人们越来越清楚地意识到，这里蕴藏着可供开发利用的土地、财富和人口。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: A key turning point happened in 1511 when an ambitious Spanish nobleman, Diego Velázquez, seizes control of Cuba. He sends out from this power base expeditions exploring the coast of what we would call Mesoamerica, Central America. Later in 1518, he assigns that task to a man with whom he's had a somewhat tempestuous relationship, a man named Hernán Cortés. He'd arrived in the New World in Cuba in 1511. He had some legal training, so he served as a notary and worked his way up to being alcalde, which is chief magistrate, on Cuba. But he had much greater ambition.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 一个关键转折点出现在 1511 年：雄心勃勃的西班牙贵族迭戈·贝拉斯克斯（Diego Velázquez）夺取了古巴的控制权。他以此为据点，派出远征队去探索我们今天所说的中部美洲（Mesoamerica）、也就是中美洲的海岸。后来在 1518 年，他把这项任务交给了一个与他关系有些动荡的人——埃尔南·科尔特斯（Hernán Cortés）。科尔特斯 1511 年来到新大陆的古巴。他受过一些法律训练，所以当过公证人，一路升到古巴的“阿尔卡尔德”（alcalde），也就是首席地方法官。但他的野心远不止于此。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: He takes this warrant from the governor and runs with it. He begins recruiting men to a much wider and much more ambitious goal: not just to explore the coast, but to penetrate into the interior, to find out what's there, and to seize control of it. When the governor realizes what Cortés is up to, he tries to stop him. There's this great moment on 18th November 1518. He arrives at the waterfront just as Cortés gets into a boat to go out to his ships offshore. The governor calls out to him, "What are you up to?" Cortés assures him, "Don't worry.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他拿着总督的这纸授权，便放手大干起来。他开始招募人手，奔向一个范围更广、野心更大的目标：不只是探索海岸，而是深入内陆，弄清那里有什么，并将其据为己有。总督察觉到科尔特斯的意图后，试图阻止他。1518 年 11 月 18 日有个精彩的场面：总督赶到岸边时，科尔特斯正好登上小艇，准备划向停在近海的船队。总督冲他喊道：“你这是要干什么？”科尔特斯向他保证：“别担心。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: I have this all under control." But of course, the governor had lost control at that point. Now it was Cortés's expedition. This is the background. Again, as you say, he is literally going off the side of the map. He's entering terra incognita, unknown to Europeans previously. His political antenna, honed by years in the islands, enables him to appreciate at a very early stage that there is a significant imperial power which has hegemony here in the mainland, and that its subject peoples chafe under the authority of whoever this lord or imperial power is.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 一切都在我掌控之中。”但当然，那一刻总督已经失去了控制。从此这成了科尔特斯自己的远征。这就是背景。正如你所说，他真的是驶出了地图的边缘，进入了一片此前欧洲人一无所知的未知之地（terra incognita）。他在海岛上多年磨炼出的政治嗅觉，让他很早就意识到：这片大陆上有一个强大的帝国势力称霸一方，而它治下的各个民族，对这位领主或帝国势力的统治——无论它是谁——都心怀不满。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: He arrives in the lands of the Totonacs, who had recently been incorporated into the imperial orbit of a people who call themselves the Mexica — hence Mexico as we know it — but who have come down to history based on their mythical origins in a land called Aztlán as the Aztecs. For simplicity's sake, that's what we'll refer to them as. The Totonacs resented this authority, as all subjugated and subordinated peoples do, and they saw the arrival of these outsiders as a potential opportunity to throw off the authority that had been imposed on them. Having established this relationship with the Totonacs, Cortés begins to march inland, and he enters the territory of the Tlaxcalans, who, like an autoimmune system, immediately rallied to defeat him, to expel him from their territory.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他来到托托纳克人（Totonacs）的土地。托托纳克人不久前刚被纳入一个民族的帝国势力范围，这个民族自称“墨西卡”（Mexica）——这就是“墨西哥”一名的由来——但由于传说他们起源于一个叫阿兹特兰（Aztlán）的地方，他们以“阿兹特克人”之名载入史册。为简便起见，我们就这么称呼他们。和所有被征服、被支配的民族一样，托托纳克人对这种统治心怀怨恨，他们把这些外来者的到来视为摆脱强加于己身之统治的潜在良机。与托托纳克人建立关系后，科尔特斯开始向内陆进军，进入了特拉斯卡拉人（Tlaxcalans）的地盘。特拉斯卡拉人就像免疫系统一样，立刻集结起来要打败他，把他逐出自己的领土。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: But he fights them to a standstill for such a period of time that the Tlaxcalans and he arrive at a new kind of arrangement. The Tlaxcalans again appreciate his strength, his power, his potential. They swing over to his side and will henceforward serve as guides and reinforcements for his expedition deeper into the interior.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 但他与他们鏖战，长时间相持不下，以至于特拉斯卡拉人和他达成了一种新的安排。特拉斯卡拉人同样认识到了他的实力、他的力量和他的潜力。他们倒向了他这一边，此后为他深入内陆的远征充当向导和援军。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: Can we pause here and talk about the numbers? How many men had Cortés brought with him? Even the Tlaxcalans had much larger numbers than Cortés did. So even the standstill is an impressive military achievement, especially because he's fighting without native support. What are the numbers even at this point?

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 我们能在这里停一下，聊聊兵力数字吗？科尔特斯带了多少人？就连特拉斯卡拉人的人数也比科尔特斯多得多。所以即便只是打成僵局，也已经是了不起的军事成就了，尤其是他当时还没有原住民的支援。到这个时候，双方的兵力到底是多少？

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: A few hundred on Cortés' side and multiple thousands on the Tlaxcalans' side. It's at this point that the critical technological differentials from the Old and New World really begin to come into effect. The classic text which got me invested in this whole scenario in the first place is Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. He enumerates in the title those critical advantages that the Spaniards had. Guns in reality weren't so significant. Once the Native peoples got over the shock value, they appreciated, given the very slow reloading times involved in firearms at that time, that they weren't so significant as assets on the battlefield.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 科尔特斯这边只有几百人，特拉斯卡拉人（Tlaxcalans）那边则有好几千。正是在这个时候，新旧大陆之间关键的技术差距真正开始发挥作用。最初让我迷上这整段历史的经典之作，是贾雷德·戴蒙德（Jared Diamond）的《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》（Guns, Germs, and Steel）。他在书名里就列出了西班牙人拥有的那些关键优势。其实枪炮并没有那么重要。原住民一旦从最初的震惊中缓过神来，就意识到当时的火器装填极其缓慢，在战场上并不算多大的优势。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: But steel was critical. Local weapons were carved from wood and from stone and from obsidian, that volcanic glass which is razor sharp when honed to a point and quite dangerous as a slashing weapon. But against the steel armor, and especially the steel helmets that the conquistadors were wearing, it was much less effective. The conquistadors were drawing on military traditions of the Old World that went back generations, incorporating long Toledo steel sword blades. They used those as thrusting weapons to take out indigenous warriors who were coming in with cut-and-slash weapons, which of course open up the side of the body to be taken out very early. The combination of the technology with generations of inherited military training and skill meant that the conquistadors had that critical edge on the battlefield. Now, they weren't invincible. Cortés was again playing those mind games. He was taking casualties, and he was careful to bury his dead underneath the houses that they were sheltering in so the

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 但钢铁至关重要。当地的武器是用木头、石头和黑曜石制成的——黑曜石是一种火山玻璃，磨尖后锋利如剃刀，用来劈砍相当危险。可面对征服者身上的钢甲，尤其是他们戴的钢盔，它的威力就大打折扣了。征服者继承的是旧大陆延续了好几代的军事传统，配备托莱多（Toledo）出产的长钢剑。他们把剑当作刺击武器，去对付挥舞劈砍兵器冲上来的原住民战士——劈砍动作自然会让身体侧面门户大开，很早就会被击倒。技术优势加上世代传承的军事训练和技艺，让征服者在战场上占据了决定性的优势。不过，他们并非无敌。科尔特斯又在打心理战。他也有伤亡，于是他小心地把阵亡者埋在他们藏身的房屋底下，好让

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: Tlaxcalans wouldn't be aware that they were even having some successes in hand-to-hand combat. It was as much a mind game as it was a physical game. The ultimate weapon, of course, that the conquistadors brought with them was their horses. I cannot overemphasize how vital the horse was to the conquistadors once they entered into the interior of the American continents. They had the external asset. They had sail power, which enabled them to land anywhere they wanted on the coast. But in the interior, the horse was decisive. There were no native equivalents.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 特拉斯卡拉人根本察觉不到自己在白刃战中其实也取得了一些战果。这既是一场体力的较量，也是一场心理的较量。当然，征服者带来的终极武器是他们的马。我怎么强调都不为过：一旦深入美洲大陆内陆，马对征服者来说是何等关键。他们有外部优势——帆船，能让他们在海岸任意地点登陆。但到了内陆，马才是决定性的。当地根本没有能与之相比的东西。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: The horse originated in North America, but it had subsequently died out. The local peoples had not just no horses, but no beast of burden generally. That was not integrated into their economies, into their ways of life, or into their military. The Inca, whom we'll discuss in a moment, did have one, which was the llama. When they campaigned, trailing for miles behind their armies would be these endless baggage trains of pack animals, llamas. The Aztecs had no equivalent. Their only domestic animals were the turkey and the Chihuahua.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 马起源于北美，但后来在那里灭绝了。当地人不仅没有马，总体上也没有任何驮畜。这类动物从未融入他们的经济、生活方式或军事之中。我们稍后会谈到的印加人倒是有一种，那就是羊驼。他们出征时，军队后面会拖着绵延数英里、望不到头的辎重队，全是驮货的羊驼。阿兹特克人则没有类似的动物。他们仅有的家养动物是火鸡和吉娃娃。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: Speaking of dogs, the conquistadors also brought these big war mastiffs, these fighting dogs which wore armor and were trained to take down men. Again, imagine the terrifying impact that would have for the indigenous people. But the horse was the critical asset. On attack, you could blast through any native formation which didn't have not just the weapons, but the training or discipline to be able to stand up to massed shock cavalry. If things were going bad for the conquistadors, they could retreat much faster than, of course, the enemies could chase them. The Tlaxcalans appreciate all these assets coming together, and they see this as their opportunity. They were the holdouts, the last remaining major entity in Mesoamerica which was still able to go toe-to-toe with the Aztecs.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 说到狗，征服者还带来了一种大型战獒——披着护甲、受过扑杀人类训练的斗犬。同样，想象一下这会给原住民带来怎样的恐惧。但马才是最关键的优势。进攻时，骑兵可以冲垮任何原住民阵形，因为他们不仅缺乏相应的武器，也缺乏抵挡大规模冲击骑兵的训练和纪律。一旦战况不利，征服者撤退的速度当然也远快于敌人追击的速度。特拉斯卡拉人看清了这些优势的结合，把它视为自己的机会。他们是最后的坚守者，是中部美洲（Mesoamerica）仅存的、还能与阿兹特克人正面抗衡的主要势力。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: They'd been completely surrounded. The Aztecs were upping the ante every year with these ceremonial flower wars, which were becoming more and more obviously wars of conquest. The Tlaxcalans had been cut off from the coast and from sources of salt. So they were being pushed to the brink. This is a Hail Mary for them. "If we ally with these outsiders, these strangers, who are just few in number after all, we may have some potential way to break out of this strategic trap that has been imposed upon us."

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他们已经被完全包围了。阿兹特克人每年都借着仪式性的「花之战争」步步加码，而这些战争越来越明显地变成了征服战争。特拉斯卡拉人被切断了通往海岸的道路，也断了盐的来源。所以他们已被逼到了绝境。对他们来说，这是孤注一掷的一搏：「如果我们和这些外来者、这些陌生人结盟——毕竟他们人数很少——或许就有办法冲破强加在我们身上的战略困局。」

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: They lean over to the side of Cortés, and they travel with him to Tenochtitlan, the capital, the glittering jewel in the midst of Lake Texcoco, the capital of the Aztec Empire. Again, this is a dramatic moment when Cortés passes through the causeways out into the city and encounters Moctezuma II, the huey tlatoani as he was called, the Great Speaker, the emperor of the Aztec Empire. These two worlds come together at that moment. The interface between them was Cortés's interpreter/mistress, Doña Marina, Malinche as she became known, who is translating from one side to the other.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他们倒向了科尔特斯一边，随他一同前往特诺奇蒂特兰（Tenochtitlan）——这座首都是镶嵌在特斯科科湖（Lake Texcoco）中央的璀璨明珠，阿兹特克帝国的都城。这又是一个极具戏剧性的时刻：科尔特斯穿过堤道进入城中，见到了蒙特祖马二世（Moctezuma II）——他被称为「休伊·特拉托阿尼」（huey tlatoani），即「大发言者」，阿兹特克帝国的皇帝。两个世界就在这一刻交汇。双方之间的桥梁是科尔特斯的翻译兼情妇唐娜·玛丽娜（Doña Marina），也就是后来人们所熟知的玛琳切（Malinche），由她在两边之间来回翻译。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: The dialogue that occurs then is one of those great tipping points in history. What was the perspective of Moctezuma II? He was aware Cortés was coming. This is his empire. He has envoys and emissaries and scouts and spies everywhere. They're reporting back to him, "Something has washed up on the shores of our empire, and it is determined to meet with us." He initially bargains with Cortés, urging him to leave. He provides him with precious gifts, which of course just inflames Cortés even more. Once he's got hold of Aztec gold, he's just determined to go all the way to the center. Moctezuma continues playing this double game.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 当时发生的那场对话，是历史上重大的转折点之一。蒙特祖马二世是怎么看的？他知道科尔特斯要来。这是他的帝国，他的使节、特使、斥候和密探遍布各地。他们向他回报：「有个东西漂到了我们帝国的海岸上，而且一心要来见我们。」起初他和科尔特斯讨价还价，劝他离开。他送给科尔特斯珍贵的礼物，而这当然只会让科尔特斯更加贪欲炽盛。一旦拿到了阿兹特克的黄金，他就铁了心要一路直捣中心。蒙特祖马则继续玩着这种两面手法。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: His advisors, his council, urge him not to allow Cortés to proceed to the capital. His own brother, Cuitláhuac, tells him, "If you allow this man inside your house, he will take your house away from you." But Moctezuma proceeds, and for that he's been condemned by generations of historians. This was a mistake to bring the conquistadors into the heart of the empire itself. I actually think that was his best option, whether he was aware of it or not, because it was better for him to have Cortés as his guest within Tenochtitlan than it was to have Cortés, this random element, at loose within his empire, talking to the subject peoples, inflaming them possibly against central authority.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他的谋臣和议事会都劝他不要让科尔特斯进入首都。他的亲弟弟奎特拉瓦克（Cuitláhuac）对他说：「如果你让这个人进了你的家门，他就会把你的家夺走。」但蒙特祖马还是这么做了，也因此被一代又一代的历史学家所谴责——把征服者引入帝国的心脏，是一个错误。但我其实认为，不管他本人是否意识到，这都是他最好的选择。因为让科尔特斯在特诺奇蒂特兰做他的客人，总好过让科尔特斯这个不可控的因素在他的帝国里四处游荡，和那些臣属民族接触，煽动他们反抗中央权威。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: He felt perhaps Cortés was what he said he was, an envoy from a great emperor on the far side of the vast ocean. Cortés, again with the mind games, had no warrant to say he was a diplomat or ambassador for anybody. He kept telling anyone who'd listen, "I speak for the mighty Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor." Of course, Charles V had no idea who Hernán Cortés was. Cortés, again, is just winging it, just incredible improvisation here. And for a moment… stasis. The great turning point comes when word arrives from the coast that one of the Aztec regional military officers, on his own initiative, has taken action against the conquistadors left behind on the coast, the ones with the Totonacs, and some of them have been killed.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他觉得，科尔特斯也许真如他自己所说，是浩瀚大洋彼岸一位伟大皇帝派来的使节。科尔特斯又在玩心理战，他根本没有任何授权，不能自称是谁的外交官或大使。可他逢人便说：“我代表强大的查理五世，神圣罗马帝国皇帝。”当然，查理五世压根不知道埃尔南·科尔特斯是何许人也。科尔特斯又一次全凭临场发挥，这种即兴应变简直不可思议。于是，局势一度僵持不动。真正的转折点出现在海岸传来消息的时候：一名阿兹特克地方军官擅自出手，攻击了留在海岸、与托托纳克人（Totonacs）在一起的那批征服者，杀死了其中几个人。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: Cortés seizes this as his pretext. He marches into the palace of Moctezuma II, the Aztec huey tlatoani, and tells him that for his own safety, he is now being taken under the protective custody of the Spanish, and he should come with him, or else there will be violence. This is the moment when Moctezuma's entire worldview just collapses. Nobody had spoken to him like this before. His psychology just disintegrates at that point, and he meekly allows himself to be led away. He tells his people, "Don't resist.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 科尔特斯抓住这件事当借口。他径直闯进阿兹特克最高统治者（huey tlatoani）蒙特祖马二世的宫殿，告诉他：为了他自身的安全，西班牙人现在要对他实施“保护性看管”，他得跟自己走，否则就要动武。就在这一刻，蒙特祖马的整个世界观彻底崩塌了。从来没有人敢这样跟他说话。那一刻他的心理防线完全瓦解，乖乖地任人带走。他对自己的臣民说：“不要反抗。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: I don't want bloodshed. I will pass with these strangers." Then once Cortés has rounded up the officers from the coast responsible for turning on his men there, he has them, in front of the emperor and the entire court, burned alive, which is a form of punishment totally unknown to the Aztecs. They watch this in grim silence. Once Cortés has seized the emperor himself, once he has Moctezuma, he already has the empire. He governs through what is increasingly becoming his puppet. Moctezuma seems to have fallen almost under the spell of Cortés, the classic Stockholm syndrome.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 我不想流血。我会跟这些外乡人走。”接着，科尔特斯把海岸那边袭击他手下的军官们抓了起来，当着皇帝和整个朝廷的面，把他们活活烧死——这种刑罚是阿兹特克人闻所未闻的。众人只能沉默而阴郁地看着。一旦科尔特斯控制了皇帝本人，一旦蒙特祖马落入他手中，整个帝国也就到手了。他通过这个日益沦为傀儡的皇帝来施行统治。蒙特祖马似乎几乎被科尔特斯迷住了，典型的斯德哥尔摩综合征。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: He gives him a grand tour of the city. Cortés, in again a subtle flex of his power, has brigantines, small sailing boats, built. He takes Moctezuma with him on a sailing cruise on Lake Texcoco, and the emperor's astonished at this new technology of using the wind to sail on the water. Having the emperor was the key. The emperor's mistake wasn't inviting Cortés into the city. It was making himself vulnerable by staying there also in an adjacent palace. If he had gone to some further location, made some excuse, a pilgrimage or an expedition of some kind, and had ruled through subordinates, Cortés would've been baffled.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他带科尔特斯把整座城市游览了一遍。科尔特斯则又一次不动声色地秀了一把实力：他让人造了几艘双桅小帆船（brigantines），带着蒙特祖马在特斯科科湖上扬帆巡游。这种借风力在水上航行的新技术让皇帝大为惊叹。掌控皇帝是关键。皇帝的错误不在于把科尔特斯请进城，而在于自己也住在城里、就在隔壁的宫殿，让自己暴露在危险之中。假如他找个借口——比如朝圣，或者某种出征——搬到更远的地方，通过下属来统治，科尔特斯就会束手无策。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: He couldn't go chasing after the emperor. That would be obviously too provocative. But without the emperor there, Cortés would have had his options extremely limited. I don't know what he would've done in that circumstance. But because Moctezuma stayed in his capital, he made himself the target. Once he was taken, this was the key to controlling the entire empire at that point.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他总不能去追着皇帝跑，那显然太具挑衅性了。可要是皇帝不在身边，科尔特斯的选择就会极其有限。我不知道在那种情况下他会怎么办。但正因为蒙特祖马留在了首都，他就让自己成了靶子。一旦他被擒，这就成了当时控制整个帝国的关键。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: Obviously the story continues from there, with La Noche Triste. What people might not appreciate about what happened here, in both the Pizarro story of the Inca Empire which we'll talk about later, and in the Aztec story, is that in both cases the Spanish were themselves divided and in fact fighting each other.

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 当然，故事并没有就此结束，后面还有“悲伤之夜”（La Noche Triste）。有一点人们可能没有意识到：无论是我们稍后会谈到的皮萨罗征服印加帝国的故事，还是阿兹特克的故事，在这两个案例里，西班牙人内部本身就是分裂的，实际上还在互相打仗。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: So maybe you should tell the story of how Velázquez sends another expedition to capture and arrest Cortés for going beyond the prerogative of his mission.

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 所以也许你可以讲讲，贝拉斯克斯是怎么因为科尔特斯越权行事，又派出一支远征队去抓捕他的。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: We left the governor on Cuba, of course, fuming. He rallies another expeditionary force because Cortés is stealing his thunder. He sends this under Pánfilo de Narváez, a larger force than the one Cortés brought with him originally. This lands on the coast. Cortés appreciates he has to move, so he leaves one of his subordinates, the hot-blooded Alvarado, behind in charge in Tenochtitlan, takes as many men as he can to the coast, confronts de Narváez, and defeats him in a minor battle.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 前面说到，古巴的总督自然是怒不可遏。因为科尔特斯抢了他的风头，他又纠集了一支远征军，交由潘菲洛·德·纳瓦埃斯（Pánfilo de Narváez）率领，规模比科尔特斯当初带去的人马还要大。这支部队在海岸登陆。科尔特斯明白自己必须行动，于是让手下脾气火爆的阿尔瓦拉多留守特诺奇蒂特兰，自己尽可能多地带上人马赶往海岸，与纳瓦埃斯正面交锋，在一场小规模战斗中击败了他。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: Again, diplomacy wins over the entire expeditionary force that the governor had dispatched. He tells them, "My friends, why are we fighting? We have the empire at my disposal. Join with me and we can share in the riches." So he wins over the vast majority of this new force. It effectively becomes reinforcements, and he marches back to the capital. He finds the mood has turned against him. The problem with being in charge is you can't be everywhere. His subordinate, assuming that the Aztecs were mobilizing against him, decided on a preemptive strike.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 又一次，外交手腕让他把总督派来的整支远征军都争取了过来。他对他们说：“朋友们，我们为什么要自相残杀？整个帝国都任我支配。加入我吧，我们一起分享财富。”就这样，他拉拢了这支新部队的绝大多数人，这支部队实际上成了他的援军。他随即率军返回首都，却发现民心已经倒向了反对他的一边。当领导的难处就在于你不可能无处不在。他的那个下属以为阿兹特克人正在动员起来对付他，于是决定先发制人。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: There was a festival. The aristocracy, particularly the warrior caste, were celebrating, and Alvarado just descended on them and massacred everybody. The survivors rally the population. When Cortés returns, he finds himself effectively under siege. The people are so appalled now with the failure of their huey tlatoani that when he tries to pacify them, they throw stones at him. Mortally wounded, he either dies or the Spanish finish him off, because he's no longer of any use to them. Now Cortés is trapped in Tenochtitlan. He determines to break out, and that is, as you say, La Noche Triste, the Tragic Night, because so many of his men are left behind. They're either killed as they try to escape the city across the causeways or forced to retreat back to the palaces, where they're taken alive and sacrificed subsequently. Cortés gets away with a minority of the troops still at his disposal and makes it back to Tlaxcalan territory.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 当时正值一个节日，贵族们，尤其是武士阶层，正在庆祝，阿尔瓦拉多突然杀到，把所有人屠戮殆尽。幸存者们发动了民众。科尔特斯回来时，发现自己实际上已陷入重围。民众对他们的最高统治者的无能深感愤慨，当蒙特祖马试图安抚他们时，他们竟朝他扔石头。他身受致命伤，要么伤重而死，要么被西班牙人补了刀——因为他对西班牙人已经毫无用处。如今科尔特斯被困在特诺奇蒂特兰。他决意突围，这就是你说的“悲伤之夜”，之所以叫这个名字，是因为他有太多手下被丢下了。他们要么在沿着堤道逃出城时被杀，要么被迫退回宫殿，在那里被活捉，随后被献祭。科尔特斯只带着少部分还能调遣的部队逃了出来，退回了特拉斯卡拉人的地盘。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: That was the critical aspect, the two features of the entire campaign. One, he has enough strike power with enough horses to defeat the Aztecs when they try to finish him off, at the Battle of Otumba. They feel he's on the run. They have the numbers. The conquistadors are dragging their tails between their legs as they flee. Cortés himself is grievously wounded. "We can finish them off." They had the numbers. They were winning. But again, Cortés identifies where the Aztec general is. He rallies enough horsemen to blast through the Aztec ranks and take out their command and control. The Aztec army disintegrates, and the Spanish are able to flee. The battlefield advantages, their horses, their steel, were critical, but just as critical was the diplomacy.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 这正是关键所在，也是整场战役的两大特点。其一，当阿兹特克人在奥通巴战役（Battle of Otumba）中试图将他赶尽杀绝时，他手里有足够的马匹、足够的突击力量击败他们。阿兹特克人觉得他已在逃命，自己人多势众，征服者们正夹着尾巴狼狈逃窜，科尔特斯本人也身受重伤。“我们可以把他们一网打尽。”他们人数占优，眼看就要赢了。但科尔特斯又一次找准了阿兹特克统帅的位置，集结起足够的骑兵冲破阿兹特克军阵，摧毁了他们的指挥中枢。阿兹特克大军随即土崩瓦解，西班牙人得以脱身。战场上的优势——马匹和钢铁——固然至关重要，但同样重要的是外交。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: If the Tlaxcalans had turned on Cortés at that point, he would’ve been finished. Not one Spaniard would’ve survived. None of them would’ve made it back to the coast. But the Tlaxcalans, for their own reasons, not out of any generosity or humanitarian impulse to welcome back the conquistadors, still say, "We are committed to these people and to our alliance." So they give Cortés shelter. He recovers physically, begins to rebuild his strength, and is determined to go back to Tenochtitlan for round two: "This time we’re not going to be indulging diplomatic niceties." The Tlaxcalans have their own perspective on this.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 如果特拉斯卡拉人在那个时候倒戈，科尔特斯就彻底完了。一个西班牙人都活不下来，没有一个能逃回海岸。但特拉斯卡拉人出于自己的考虑，并不是出于什么慷慨或人道主义冲动去接纳这些征服者，他们依然表示：“我们会信守对这些人的承诺，信守我们的同盟。”于是他们收留了科尔特斯。他身体逐渐恢复，开始重整旗鼓，决心杀回特诺奇蒂特兰，再战一回合：“这次我们可不跟你讲什么外交礼节了。”而特拉斯卡拉人对此也有自己的看法。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: If you go to Tlaxcala, the territory today, the governor’s mansion there has murals on the wall, and these depict Cortés and the conquistadors from the Tlaxcalan point of view. It’s fascinating to look at how the relationship is not between a superior and an inferior. It’s between equals. You see them depicted in the same scale, engaged in diplomacy between partners, not between subordinates and dominant figures. The Tlaxcalans drove a hard bargain. "We want territory carved out of the Aztecs. We want our own fortress in Tenochtitlan after this is over." They saw this as them using the conquistadors, not the other way around, which is very important to bear in mind.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 如果你今天去特拉斯卡拉州，那里的州长府邸墙上有壁画，从特拉斯卡拉人的视角描绘了科尔特斯和征服者们。很有意思的是，画中双方的关系并不是上级与下级，而是平起平坐。你会看到他们被画得一样大，像伙伴一样进行外交，而不是附庸与主宰者之间的关系。特拉斯卡拉人讨价还价毫不手软：“我们要从阿兹特克人那里划出领土。等这事结束后，我们要在特诺奇蒂特兰拥有自己的要塞。”在他们看来，是他们在利用征服者，而不是反过来，这一点非常需要记住。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: The Aztec Empire from a distance, if you look at a map, seemed impressive. But this was an imperial construct, and not just the remaining independent entities like the Tlaxcalans, like the Tarascans, who we can discuss later, were hostile to the Aztecs. So were so many of their subordinated peoples. The Totonacs on the coast, the Chalco states on the shores of Lake Texcoco, they chafed under Aztec hegemony and authority. They too saw the conquistadors as an opportunity to finally shrug off the authority and the demands of the Aztecs, and get revenge in a lot of ways. Cortés builds up for the final campaign against Tenochtitlan, against the new huey tlatoani, Cuitláhuac, and then, after he died, his brother, the last of the huey tlatoanis, Cuauhtémoc. He has indigenous people flocking to his banner from all over Mesoamerica. He emphasizes that he’s still in the fight.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 远远看去，如果你看地图，阿兹特克帝国似乎声势浩大。但它是一个帝国式的拼凑体，敌视阿兹特克人的不仅有特拉斯卡拉人、塔拉斯科人（Tarascans，我们之后可以再聊）这些仅存的独立政权，许多被征服的附属民族也是如此。海岸边的托托纳克人、特斯科科湖畔的查尔科诸城邦，都对阿兹特克的霸权和统治深感不满。他们同样把征服者视为一个机会，终于可以摆脱阿兹特克人的统治和盘剥，而且在很多方面还能报仇雪恨。科尔特斯为攻打特诺奇蒂特兰的最后一战积蓄力量，对手是新任大特拉托阿尼（huey tlatoani，最高统治者）奎特拉瓦克，在他死后，则是他的兄弟、最后一位大特拉托阿尼夸乌特莫克。中美洲各地的原住民纷纷投奔到他的旗下。他向外界强调，自己仍在战斗。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: He still has those advantages. More reinforcements are arriving at the coast, and they’re being integrated into the conquistador army. But of the force that marches on Tenochtitlan, the conquistadors were maybe 0.5% in raw numbers. The overwhelming majority were other Mesoamerican peoples who see this as their final reckoning with the Aztecs. This is the integration again of the technology with the diplomacy. Cortés knows that to take the city, he has to control the lake. Again, the innovations… They need sulfur for their gunpowder. Their guns are useless without gunpowder.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 他依然握有那些优势。更多援军正抵达海岸，并被编入征服者的队伍。但在进军特诺奇蒂特兰的大军中，按人数算，征服者大概只占0.5%。绝大多数是中美洲的其他民族，他们把这一战视为与阿兹特克人的最终清算。这又一次体现了技术与外交的结合。科尔特斯明白，要拿下这座城，就必须控制湖面。再说说那些创新……他们需要硫磺来制造火药。没有火药，枪炮就毫无用处。

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: So an expedition goes into the mountains to the volcano, Popocatépetl, and they dangle with ropes inside the caldera of the volcano, scooping out the sulfur they need as the critical ingredient for their gunpowder. Another one builds prefabricated brigantines, boats, in their different sections, and then has untold numbers of porters, human load-bearers, bring these prefabricated pieces over the mountains to the lake. They’re assembled and let loose in the lake, and now they have control over the lake. Bringing together the technology and the innovations with the local manpower, this is the force directed against Tenochtitlan in the final battle.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 于是一支队伍深入山区，来到波波卡特佩特火山，用绳索吊进火山口，舀出他们所需的硫磺，这是制造火药的关键原料。另一支队伍则分段预制双桅帆船，再让数不清的脚夫，也就是人力搬运工，把这些预制部件翻山越岭运到湖边。船组装好后下水，他们就此掌控了湖面。把技术和创新与当地人力结合起来，这就是在最后决战中进攻特诺奇蒂特兰的力量。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: I actually didn’t know those stories. That’s crazy. One of the ways in which, to the extent people are even aware of the story, they might not understand what actually happened, is that they have this model of the Aztecs or the Incas as this cohesive single nation. A better model might be something like, imagine Russia and Ukraine have been doing trench warfare for 100 years. Imagine the animosity, and then also the Russians are taking tens of thousands of Ukrainians and doing human sacrifices with them. Then some foreign force comes in and says to the Ukrainians, "We can help you march into Moscow."

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 这些故事我还真不知道，太疯狂了。就算有人听说过这段历史，他们也可能没弄明白当时究竟发生了什么，原因之一是他们把阿兹特克或印加想象成一个团结统一的国家。更贴切的类比也许是这样：想象俄罗斯和乌克兰已经打了100年的堑壕战。想象那种仇恨，再加上俄罗斯人还抓走数以万计的乌克兰人拿去献祭。这时某支外国势力过来对乌克兰人说：“我们可以帮你们打进莫斯科。”

[原文] [Si Sheppard]: I think they’d have pretty decent odds of getting some agreement there. The old phrase is, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," and in diplomacy and war, that’s always very true.

[译文] [Si Sheppard]: 我想他们很有可能谈成某种协议。老话说得好，“敌人的敌人就是朋友”，在外交和战争中，这句话永远都很灵验。

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: I don't think I actually appreciated the ambition of Jane Street's intern projects until last week, when I got to see some of them for myself. For example, one intern spent part of his summer researching LLM memorization, figuring out how to quantify and reduce it without hurting out-of-sample performance. This matters because whenever Jane Street evaluates a new model on historical data, they need to know that its performance reflects predictive power, not just memorization of past outcomes. Another intern built a custom activation checkpointing scheme. Activation checkpointing lets you trade compute for memory: you recalculate some activations during backprop instead of storing them all after the forward pass. This intern found a way to identify the

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 直到上周亲眼看到一些 Jane Street 的实习生项目，我才真正体会到它们有多大的野心。比如，有位实习生花了部分暑假时间研究大语言模型（LLM）的记忆问题，探索如何在不损害样本外表现的前提下量化并减少这种记忆。这很重要，因为每当 Jane Street 用历史数据评估一个新模型时，他们都需要确认模型的表现反映的是预测能力，而不只是记住了过去的结果。另一位实习生打造了一套定制的激活检查点方案。激活检查点让你可以用算力换内存：在反向传播时重新计算部分激活值，而不是在前向传播后把它们全部存下来。这位实习生找到了一种方法，能识别出那些

[原文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: activations that are cheapest to recompute, but that still free up a lot of memory. And this allowed his version to outperform PyTorch's native one. These are just two examples, but Jane Street has written about a bunch more. These write-ups are coming out in batches. The first few are live now, including these two, and the rest will be published in the coming weeks. If you want to read them, or if you want to apply for Jane Street's 2027 summer internships, go to janestreet.com/dwarkesh. There are so many interesting questions to ask, everything from technology to diplomacy to disease to tactics.

[译文] [Dwarkesh Patel]: 重算成本最低、却仍能释放大量内存的激活值。这让他的版本胜过了 PyTorch 的原生实现。这只是两个例子，Jane Street 还介绍了更多项目。这些文章会分批发布，最早的几篇已经上线，包括这两篇，其余的将在接下来几周陆续发布。如果你想阅读这些文章，或者想申请 Jane Street 2027年的暑期实习，请访问 janestreet.com/dwarkesh。值得探讨的有趣问题实在太多了，从技术到外交，从疾病到战术，无所不包。