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The priests brought the warrior-god to Jerusalem following many months of preparation. He was waiting at the highest point of the pyramid steps for the greatest honour. Soon, he'd join Tonatiuh, the god of sun. The entire life of a warrior prepared him for this glorious moment.

On the summit of the temple pyramid the god of warriors was greeted by the nobleman who had captured the god. The sacred ritual was set to begin. Four priests grabbed the god of war's legs and arms and laid the god on an altar made of stone. The god sat in the infinite blue sky. The chief priest raised his arms high , and sank an axe deep into the warrior-god's chest. With practiced motions, the priest thrust his hand through the cut, grabbed the warrior's heart and ripped it from his chest. Tonatiuh the sun god, the sun god received the body that was still pulsing. Other people pushed the corpse down the steps to the Great Temple. In the end, priests cut off the head to hang it with hundreds of others on a rack for skulls.

The warrior mentioned above represented hundreds of thousands of human beings who were sacrificed to gods during the time of the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs believed that gods had offered their blood to create human beings. They believed that gods were the ones who sucked their blood to safeguard the empire. To satisfy their godlike bloodlust and to satisfy their bloodlust, they sacrificed soldiers killed in battle, as well in other women and men and even their children. But the very beliefs that were designed to preserve the Aztec Empire were the reason for its downfall.

The Mexica

The people who would become the Aztecs were latecomers to the Valley of Mexico, the area which is now surrounded by modern Mexico City. These fierce Nahuatl-speaking people from the Chichimec culture came to the area in the year 1200 A.D. from the north and called the area Atzlan. The nomadic people, also known as the Mexica, arrived from the north to find most of the land which was inhabited by a culture of agriculture. They lived in and around cities.

Itzcoatl

The Mexica king Itzcoatl became the first of six Aztec Emperors. Itzcoatl introduced revolutionary modifications to Aztec lifestyle, and fueled the expansion of the empire for more than a century. Itzcoatl created an Aztec feudal system similar to that of Europe, that concentrated power, wealth, and privilege political power in the hands of the emperor, his warriors and the other nobles. Itzcoatl gave lands to the elite warriors of the Tepanecs who had been defeated. He instituted a new system of honorable titles and privileges that rewarded those who fought for the freedom of captives in combat. To support the new class of titled, Itzcoatl made it clear that the general people owed them economic tribute, labor, and military service.

How did the Empire worked

Itzcoatl was able to conquer other Aztec cities-states within the Valley of Mexico, despite his changes in his religion and his feudal ways. The Aztecs did not have a standing army. All Triple-Alliance males were forced into service whenever a conflict began to break out. Noble warriors were awarded by the number of captives they took in battle.

Aztecs fight to kill, but more importantly, they were fighting to capture captives. Their belief was that if they died in combat, their souls would be joined by the gods. One-on-one combat was usually fought with wooden swords or spears, which were embedded with sharpened obsidian (a form of volcanic glass) which had deadly rows.

Itzcoatl and the emperors after him, would dictate the amount of tribute to be collected from cities-states defeated and the selection of a local noble as their new King. With this method of indirect rule, life usually continued as normal in the city-states that were conquered--as long as the state paid tribute to the Aztec capital. Because the emperor controlled the Aztec kingdom so loosely cities-states that were defeated often revolted and had to be reconquered.

The majority of the rebellions against the empire were triggered because of resentment caused by the weight of the tribute system. The city-states that were conquered close to Tenochtitlan were typically enlisted to supply the Aztec capital's increasing elite of nobles. Other common tribute items included warrior's uniforms as well as animal skins, building materials as well as firewood and pottery. Aztecs demanded conquered nations to provide copper, gold, feathers and incense. These were later used to pay for goods and services. In addition, the Aztec emperor would demand laborers from conquered city states to construct temples, aqueducts or Hernan Westmann other public works.