The Battle of Cajamarca [1], where the Incan Emperor was captured, had the emperor arrive with a retinue of some 7000+ experienced soldiers who were armed with

The Battle of Cajamarca [1], where the Incan Emperor was captured, had the emperor arrive with a retinue of some 7000+ experienced soldiers who were armed with weapons such as knives, axes, and lassos. His advisers had already advised him that the Spanish were low in number, probably human, and recommended killing them. The Incan recounting of the battle states that the Spanish attacked after the Emperor threatened to kill them. The slaves the Emperor had around him were the ones who stood impassively as the Spanish butchered them, but that happened after the 'army' of 168 Spaniards had already managed to route the army of 7000+ warriors around the emperor, suffering a total of one injury in the process. In modern times you're conflating conventional warfare with insurgent warfare, which are very different. Conventional warfare is largely defined by sizable groups organizing and intentionally making the presence known in a limited region, setting the stage for 'normal' engagements. So for instance Iraq quickly turned into an insurgency but the Second Battle of Falluja was one of the few conventional encounters. Several thousand disorganized insurgents with limited arms and equipment decided to stick around and engage a modern military, multiple times their size, head on. They were obviously, and knowingly, signing on for a one way trip to Allah. That said, even there a heavily outnumbered, out-gunned, and out-teched rabble suicidally engaging in conventional warfare managed to inflict hundreds of casualties - about 5% of the military force. Imagine a similar scenario in times past where you had a rabble of 4000 peasants equipped with whatever instruments they could manage, against 13,000+ armed and armed soldiers with cavalry and archery support. It's highly unlikely that the army would suffer a single casualty, let alone death. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca