under his command now more than 1,000 strong, Cortés learned to his chagrin that Pedro de Alvarado had slaughtered hundreds of Mexican nobility during a religious celebration Trapped for several days, the Spanish force barely escaped the city in its withdrawal of La Noche Triste (The Sorrowful Night) of July 1, 1520, in which an estimated 400–600 Spaniards were killed During the fighting, the emperor Moctezuma was slain, by which side remaining a matter of debate Regrouping his forces near the coast, Cortés decided to lay siege to the great city In an audacious and monumental undertaking, he supervised the construction of 13 brigantines, which were then carried in sections over the mountains, assembled, and launched on Lake Texcoco By this time, his forces numbered some 900 well-armed Spaniards, 86 horses, and thousands of Indian allies The siege of the island city of Tenochtitlán began in May 1521 Meanwhile an epidemic, probably of smallpox, was laying waste to the Aztec capital Even before the siege had begun, an estimated one-third of the city’s inhabitants had succumbed to European diseases against which they had no immunity After three months of furious fighting, the Spanish invaders and their Indian allies reduced Tenochtitlán to rubble Leading the city’s defense was Cuauhtemoc, Moctezuma’s cousin, whom much Indian lore later came to memorialize as a hero The city fell on August 13, 1521—some two and a half years after the invaders’ first landfall at Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz Scholars have emphasized various factors that made possible the defeat of the mighty and war-hardened Aztecs by a few hundred Spanish invaders Near the top of all such lists is Cortés’s political brilliance, combined with his unshakable will to conquer, acquire riches, and spread the Christian faith His ability to perceive and exploit preexisting divisions within the Aztec polity, and success in gaining thousands of loyal Indian allies, are often cited as sine qua non of the conquest Also emphasized in this vein is that no native inhabitants could have known that Cortés was but the advance guard of an aggressive and expanding kingdom, accustomed to campaigns of conquest, inspired by an exclusive and highly militarized religion, determined to create an overseas empire Other major factors most often cited in making the conquest possible include Spanish superiority in the technologies of warfare, especially their horses, swords, and armor; the invaders’ skills in the arts of war, steely resolve, unity of purpose, and loyalty to each other and their leader; the adversaries’ very dif- Ming, Southern 247 ferent cultural conceptions of warfare, with the Spaniards focused on killing the enemy, and the Aztecs more concerned with capturing prisoners for later sacrifice; the Spaniards’ advantage of language, thanks to Jerónimo de Aguilar and La Malinche; the weak and indecisive leadership of Moctezuma; the role of myth, legend, and fatalism in weakening Aztec resolve; and the role of disease in weakening the Aztec capacity to resist once the final siege had begun Atop the smoldering ruins of Tenochtitlán the Spaniards built a new capital city—Mexico City— often using the same blocks of stone they had just toppled, and foundations already in place, using the labor of the vanquished Indians to realize their vision of the Spanish Christian kingdom spread to the New World For the next 300 years, New Spain would be Spain’s most important colony Soon many of the victorious conquistadores and their countrymen began looking beyond Mexico, as New Spain served as a launching point for further campaigns of conquest See also Central America, conquest of; Díaz del Castillo, Bernal; epidemics in the Americas; Northwestern South America, conquest of; Peru, conquest of; Yucatán, conquest of Further reading: Cortés, Hernándo Five Letters of Cortés to the Emperor New York: W W Norton, 1969; Díaz del Castillo, Bernal The Conquest of New Spain Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1963; León-Portilla, Miguel The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico Boston: Beacon Press, 1992; Thomas, Hugh Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993; Todorov, Tzvetan The Conquest of America New York: Harper & Row, 1984 Michael J Schroeder Ming, Southern When a frontier people, the Manchus, took over control of China in 1644, Ming dynasty loyalists fled to southern China, where they held out for many years; they became known as the Southern Ming Over several centuries, descendants of the Ming emperor surnamed Zhu (Chu) were settled throughout the Chinese empire As a result when the last Ming emperor committed suicide there were members of the imperial family throughout China, especially in the south, and it was natural that anti-Manchu forces would use them to legitimize their rebellions