May was the season of spring plowing. In the prosperous Lake Texcoco region, long trails of black smoke from burned fields rose into the sky, and busy farmers and villagers were everywhere. Farming in the busy season, war in the slack season, and sacrifices after victory—these were the three most traditional and most important duties of the Mexica People. And the spring plowing at the end of spring and start of summer each year was the key season that determined the year's harvest.
"May the Main God bless us! The supreme Main God used his own divine blood to bestow life upon the earth! And I, as the incarnation of the sun, will personally sacrifice the God-descendant Sacrifice, offering blood to the Main God in exchange for the earth's bountiful harvest five months from now!"
After suppressing the most powerful Prince, Xolotl, Divine King Avet did not linger in the capital and settle down into idle rest. On the contrary, the diligent Divine King never stopped moving. He personally led four thousand Shorn Guard to inspect the spring plowing of every city-state in the Lake Texcoco region, and personally conducted the sacrifices for spring plowing!
These four thousand loyal Shorn Guard were precisely the force Avet had personally promoted and formed, gathering elite warriors from every city-state, all equipped with the sturdiest cloth-faced Bronze Armor. In truth, aside from the Lake Kingdom, with the national strength of the Mexica Alliance's population of over four million, the standing Bronze Armor warriors it could support amounted to only two Royal Legions and four thousand Shorn Guard—twenty thousand men in all. But a total of twenty thousand heavy-armored troops was already twice as many as the Lake Kingdom had...
This was the tangible gap in national strength. Across the whole world of Mesoamerica,