The tide of the Atlantic Ocean murmured low in the coral-reef bay. San Juan Bay was naturally shaped like a teacup, encircled by forest and mangroves. Fifteen Castilian sailing ships that had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, bearing the scars of storm damage, lay anchored in this rich natural harbor. In the distance, the flames of the village had yet to die out; nearby, the colonists laughed and talked, smug with triumph.
"Aha! Blessed by the Holy Mother, I grabbed a little pouch of gold dust!"
"Damn it! I only got a basket of cotton thread balls..."
"Heh heh! Blessed by the Lord, I got a big sack of pearls! Big pale-pink pearls, all of them!..."
"Shh! Keep your voice down. Don't let the captains and officers see! Otherwise they'll definitely come over and take a share of the spoils we hid away..."
After several days of atrocities, the holy-war veterans, Holy Roman Empire mercenaries, and armed sailors had all used the blood and tears of the Taino to vent their resentment from crossing storms and sailing the distant sea. After that, their attention turned to the most fundamental reason they had joined an ocean voyage: "getting rich"!
Only getting rich, only wealth, gold and silver, was the fundamental driving force that made them brave the danger of death and press ten thousand li deep into the Atlantic Ocean. And where did wealth come from? Right now, the answer looked extremely clear: rob it, seize it, take it from the hands of the weak "eastern" natives!
"Though these natives don't have much fat to squeeze, the good thing is they're no threat at all. A village of one or two thousand people—loot it hard once, and you can still get quite a bit of 'goods'! Not to mention the women..."
"Exactly!