Besides the army which they authorized Alvarado to raise and command in Las Charcas, the judges thought it necessary to raise another army at Lima, of which Santillan, one of themselves and the archbishop of Lima were appointed conjunct generals.  Orders were likewise transmitted to all the cities, commanding all loyal subjects to take up arms in the service of his majesty, and a general pardon was proclaimed to all who had been engaged in the late rebellions, under Gonzalo Pizarro, Don Sebastian de Castilla, and others, provided they joined the royal army within a certain given time.  They likewise suspended the execution of the decrees for freeing the Indians from personal services, during two years, and repealed several other regulations which had given great and general offence to the soldiers and inhabitants, and had been the cause of all the commotions and rebellions which distracted the kingdom for so long a time.

While these measures were carrying on against him, Hernandez, Giron was not negligent of his own concerns.  He sent off officers with detachments of troops to Arequipa and Guamanga, to induce the inhabitants of these cities to join him, and requiring them by solemn acts of their cabildos to confirm and acknowledge him in the offices he had usurped.  He caused the cabildo of Cuzco to write letters to the other cities of Peru to concur in his elevation and to give assistance in the cause, and wrote many letters himself to various individuals in Las Charcas and other places, soliciting them to join him.  Having collected an army of above four hundred men, besides the detachments sent to Guamanga and Arequipa, he resolved to march for Lima, to give battle to the army of the judges, as he called it, pretending that his own was the royal army, and that he acted in the service of his majesty.  At the first he was undetermined, whether it might not be better to march previously against Alvarado, whose party he considered to be the weakest, owing to the great and cruel severity which that officer had exerted against the adherents of the late rebellions:  And many judicious persons are of opinion that he would have succeeded better if he had first attacked the marshal, as in all probability he would have got possession of these provinces, and his men would not have deserted from him to a person so universally disliked for his cruelty, as they afterwards did when they marched towards Lima.  He accordingly marched from Cuzco and crossed the river Apurimac; immediately after which Juan Vera de Mendoza and five others deserted from him, re-crossed the bridge, which they burnt to prevent pursuit, and returned to Cuzco, where they persuaded about forty of the inhabitants to set out for Las Charcas to join the marshal Alvarado.