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group to ask that it submit to Tenochtitlan and become a tributary of the Aztec state. If it refused, the area was a candidate for conquest, and the killing of an ambassador definitively meant war.
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The Aztecs used a system of messengers to transmit information within the empire and maintain contact with distant cities and armies in the field. Messengers existed elsewhere in Mesoamerica (for instance, in Tlaxcallan),21 but the system was apparently developed to its greatest extent by the Aztecs.22 |
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Messages were carried by relays of men stationed about two leagues (1 league = 4.2 kilometers or 2.6 miles) apart along the main roads. Like the ambassadors, the runners were nominally free from abuse as long as they remained on the main roads.23 General intelligence from all over Mesoamerica reached Tenochtitlan via the messengers,24 and information was dispatched from the capital in the same way, as, for instance, when a king died.25 But the runners' primary function was to relay political messages to and from the king, and these often involved war. For example, the king dispatched runners to inform allied kings about rebelling provinces,26 to instruct allies to mobilize men for a war,27 to order the gathering of arms and foodstuffs for the impending war,28 and to advise tributary towns along the army's line of march of its imminent arrival and of its food needs.29 Before a battle runners also took messages between the opposing armies.30 And during the war, if necessary, messengers were sent to Tenochtitlan for more assistance.31 |
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On the return from war, runners were again sent to towns en route to indicate the needs of the passing army,32 and news of the war's outcome was sent back to Tenochtitlan by messenger.33 |
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For tactical intelligence formal spies were employed. Once war had been decided on but before mobilization, spies (quimichtin, literally, mice; sing. quimichin) were sent into enemy territory dressed like the foes and speaking their language, but they traveled at night and tried to remain hidden. Their job was to observe the enemy's fortifications, army, preparations, and so forth. They also sought out the dissidents present in virtually every land and paid them for informa- |
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