Almost all of the plunder was melted down, and each foot soldier received 20 kilograms of gold—cavalrymen twice that.
Using ChatPT, I researched average income of a Spanish soldier. Based on research, a soldier could have expected 8 ducats per month or 96 ducats a year which amounts to $18,480 today.
Converting 20kg to Spanish ducats, a soldier would have received nearly 5,714 ducats at the end of the conquest. This amounts to $1,100,000 today.
A soldier would have recieved nearly 52 times his annual salary - a lifetimes worth of money.
