Hernan Cortes did not simply conquer the Aztec Empire with guns, horses, and disease — he conquered it with lawyers. Before a single battle began, Cortes engineered a series of legal maneuvers that gave his unauthorized expedition a veneer of legitimacy, making himself his own authority in a land where Spanish law did not apply.

This episode reveals the courtroom cunning behind one of history's most dramatic conquests, tracing how Cortes defied the governor of Cuba, founded a town on paper, forged alliances with Aztec enemies, and manipulated both indigenous politics and Spanish legal tradition to topple Montezuma's empire.

• How Cortes defied his orders and used legal loopholes to authorize his own expedition
• The founding of Veracruz as a legal fiction to bypass the governor of Cuba
• Strategic alliances with the Tla ...