Morisco irregulars could defeat disciplined royal forces when discipline broke down

Evidence

From Galera, after razing all the houses (“and sowing them with salt,” adds M´armol in what I take to be a classicizing rhetorical flourish, although can we be sure?), Don John of Austria took his army off southwest toward Baza and turned his attention to the Morisco strongholds of T´ıjola and Ser´on. His success here was no greater, and indeed whereas at Galera he had until the end contrived, at such cost, to keep tight control over the operation, at Ser´on discipline did break down very badly, and the Moriscos as a result were able to inflict a severe defeat on him, a defeat that must have been felt the more bitterly because, in the confusion, his admired mentor and former tutor, the respected soldier Luis Quijada, received wounds of which within a few hour he died. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1050

Categorization

• QUESTION: Harvey’s parenthetical doubt about the ‘sowing with salt’ detail — did Marmol actually witness or invent this classicizing flourish?