Encyclopedia of the Incas

with their drovers, carrying food and coca leaf; soldiers’ wives; guides; shell-
trumpeters; ancestor effigies; and the bearers of the royal standard. Large armies
move slowly, and the spacing of tambos (way stations) every 15–25 kilometers
(9–15 miles) suggests relatively short stages compared with other ancient
armies.
Moving and feeding such armies was a critical challenge for the empire,
answered by the remarkable armature of the Inca road network and its support
settlements. Large forces could be stationed long-term at major provincial
centers, consistently located on travel corridors and in open plains where an
army could camp. Hundreds of collcas (storehouses) pepper major centers on the
Inca road to the hostile northern frontier; such collcas stored food, and,
according to Cieza, also furnished the army with clothes, shoes, tents, and arms.
As the empire grew, the supply system—storehouses, pack llamas and porters,
and supplies requisitioned at need—became critical, enabling the Incas to
concentrate overwhelming forces at a single point and set prolonged sieges
where necessary. These were fundamental military advantages.
Most campaigns were against chiefdom-level societies at various degrees of
complexity, and some victories were achieved merely by the show of force. The
Incas also manipulated Native groups by allying with one against the other.
Military campaigns doubled as propaganda campaigns; groups who surrendered
were treated leniently, their leaders given enhanced authority, while those who
resisted could be massacred or deported. Archaeological evidence points to
destruction episodes at several sites where enemies offered stiff resistance or
rebelled. Elsewhere, prominent Native buildings were razed and replaced with
new Inca architecture.
Over time, imperial goals shifted from active conquest to stronger control of
the provinces and the defense of the frontier against unconquered people.
Settlement patterns confirm a pax Inca in most provinces with Inca forts on
some frontiers (see Fortifications). But the ideal of conquest was never
abandoned, for it was underpinned by aims and incentives both economic and
ideological. For the ruler, conquests yielded booty and new tributaries to support
the royal lifestyle and the broader regime. For those of Inca caste and the Native
nobility, war was a route to gifts, land grants, and sumptuary privileges.
Common soldiers stood to gain captured women, special clothing, precious
ornaments, and, for exceptional service, a hereditary position in the
administrative hierarchy.