Quote Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
It is still admirable. Even with 2 million left, do you think Spain could afford 2 million soldiers in the field?

And as you said, initially it was more of a few hundred soldiers against thousands if not hundreds of thousands at a time. Famously Cortes had only 200 men when he began his campaign.
i doubt that in a population of 2 million, 2 million can fight. I think there were more left then 2 million but that is not the point. The spanish did not conquered on their own, they made clever use of the rivalry of the clans/citystates present in middle-america. They defeated the aztecs with the help of the enemies of the aztecs (name slipped away) and those native warriors did the hard fighting, the spanish mere scared the enemy with musket fire and artillery. And cortez had more then 200 men... 200 riders maybe... but definitly more men. Apart from that, they had more crossbows than muskets and were quite spare with their ammo... had the aztecs been kinder for their enemies and enviroment the spanish never would have conquered america. had the natives joined togethrer to face the spanish threat (which was no threat when they arrived, more than 200 but not a big army) the spanish would have also conquered nothing.