Moctezuma wanted to increase the level of direct control. He started by setting up thirty-eight administrative provinces (there were later fifty-five provinces), each with its own tightly organized bureaucracy. Representatives of his government were sent to live in each. In a town far away in the Toluca valley, they created such neighborhoods as (in Nahuatl) “Place of the Temple Lords,” “Place of the Merchants,” “Place of the Rulers,” and “Place of the Mexica people.”44 Permanent military garrisons were built at key locations in order to support the Mexica who were scattered far and wide.
