The second fleet sent by the Portuguese to India was led by an arrogant nobleman, Cabral, who, upon his arrival in India, was very arrogant and demanded that the small states of the country give him priority in the purchase of spices, which seriously damaged the interests of the Muslim merchants who had a monopoly on the spice trade at the time, and the Muslims had great influence in each of the small countries, so that the conflict inevitably broke out.

At first, the Portuguese nobleman who led the fleet, Cabrall, sacked a Muslim merchant ship by force and killed all the people on board, which aroused the anger of the local Muslims, so they united to attack the Portuguese trading post in India, killing more than 50 Portuguese, which made Cabral even more angry, and bombarded the important Indian port where the merchant post was located, sacked the merchant ships in the port, and slaughtered more than 600 innocent boat people.

The brutality of the Portuguese naturally made the local Muslim merchants extremely hostile to them, but at that time, there were many small countries on the west coast of India, and the massacre of the Portuguese in that state caused some countries with enemies to make overtures with this state, so the Portuguese took advantage of the division of the Indians and soon gained a foothold in other parts of the west coast of India, but their hatred with the Muslim merchants was even more irresolvable.

Two years later, Da. Gamma once again arrived in India with a large Portuguese fleet, a Portuguese noble-turned-navigator who was even tougher and more brutal than the previous Cabral, who, as soon as he arrived in India, captured a pilgrimage ship to Mecca, and slaughtered nearly 400 people on board, many of whom were women and children.

In addition, up to. Gamma also threatened the small states on the west coast of India with force, and signed a trade agreement with another state that was very favorable to Portugal. And in the meantime. Reach. Gamma also engaged in naval battles with the local states. However, he only used four ships to defeat more than 50 ships of the opponent, and the Portuguese themselves suffered very little losses, and the most important reason for such a disparity in battle results was the huge gap in technology.

The ships used by the Portuguese were the most popular ships in Europe, the Clark ships, the forerunners of the famous Galen, which were numerous times more powerful than the Indian ships, and they also carried heavy guns. The primitive warships of the Indians were in front of them, and they had no power to fight back at all.

After this naval battle, the Portuguese finally gained a complete foothold in India, and they also snatched some of the maritime trade from the Muslim merchants, and although they had not yet been able to completely conquer the entire west coast of India, they had grown into a force to be reckoned with in the region, and began to encroach on the maritime trade of the Muslim merchants.

In 1504, a year before Emperor Zhengde ascended the throne, Portugal formally allied itself with a small Indian state called Cochin, with the help of the other party. Manuel, a port that truly belonged to the Portuguese, was built, and this port was named after the Portuguese king at the time. This shows the importance of this port, and in the same year, the Portuguese defeated 150 Indian ships with only three ships, and the Indians were sunk 25 ships in this battle, and tens of thousands of people died, but the Portuguese were actually zero casualties.

Zhou Zhong did not believe the above result at first, but Father John and Chilawa swore together that this result was absolutely true, and it was recorded in the history books of the Portuguese, not only the Europeans, but also the defeated Indians, and this disparity was not just a special case, and later there were even more surprising results.

In the Battle of Hormuz in 1507, Portugal lost six ships with nearly 500 men against 170 Persian ships, and as a result, the Persians were sunk more than 30 ships and killed more than 3,000 people, while the Portuguese had zero deaths and only 11 people were wounded.

In the Battle of Dou in 1509, 12 Portuguese ships and 150 Egyptian, Ottoman and Indian ships were jointly dispatched, and the result was another great Portuguese victory, this time not with zero casualties, but also with minimal losses. Moreover, after the Battle of Diu, the Muslims completely withdrew from the Indian Ocean, and the Portuguese became the masters of the Indian Ocean from then on.

Through the disparity in the results of the above series of naval battles, Zhou Zhong finally saw a clear fact, that is, the Europeans have surpassed the Arabs and Indians in navigation and weapons, so there will be a one-sided situation in the naval battle, and Zhou Zhong also has to admit that although the Central Plains region was once at the forefront of the world in terms of navigation, but after so many years of sea ban, shipbuilding and navigation technology have regressed significantly, and now it is estimated that it is also not the opponent of the Portuguese.

As far as Father John and Chilawa knew, the power of the Grapes in India was no longer limited to the port of Manuel, they had occupied Goa, an important port city for the Indians, and moved their political, economic and military loyalties there, while the Portuguese had 20 warships and more than 2,000 soldiers stationed in India all year round, although the number seemed small, but with advanced ships and weapons, they had actually controlled the entire west coast of India. At the same time, it also monopolized the maritime trade there, transporting huge wealth to Portugal every year.

Zhou Zhong heard that Portugal had so many ships and soldiers in India, and then thought that they would attack Malacca City on a large scale next year, which made his face suddenly become ugly, although the strength of their Nanyang Chamber of Commerce grew rapidly, but the members of the Chamber of Commerce were only a thousand, and the people who could really be used to fight at sea were only five or six hundred, even if he mobilized other chambers of commerce, he was afraid that he would only be able to recruit a thousand people in the end.

In addition, it should be noted that whether it is the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce or other chambers of commerce, they are only civilian forces, and they cannot be compared with the real army, plus their ships and weapons are not comparable to the Portuguese, even if Zhou Zhong takes this thousand people to aid Malacca City, I am afraid that the role played by the last one is very limited, in case his side suffers huge losses and fails to prevent the Portuguese from occupying Malacca, then the consequences are so serious that I am afraid that even Zhou Zhong will not be able to bear it.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chong's face was not difficult to look at all of a sudden, he also knew about the expansion of the Portuguese in the South Seas, Malacca is the main transportation route between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, and it is also the gateway to Southeast Asia.

Think about the complex relationship between the generations of pirate kings and Portugal in history, as well as the war between Zheng Zhilong and the Portuguese at the end of the Ming Dynasty, although they were able to temporarily repel the Portuguese invasion of the Ming coast, but at that time the South Seas had fallen into the hands of Western countries, they could attack and retreat, and soon they could make a comeback, and the most recent was the end of the Qing Dynasty, it evolved into an invasion of the Central Plains by various countries, and the heavenly kingdom finally became a generation of bullying, and the glory of the past no longer exists.

These major aspects aside, if the Portuguese were allowed to enter Southeast Asia, it would definitely not be a good thing for the smugglers of Zhou Chong, because it would mark the addition of a formidable opponent to their future maritime trade, which would also mean that their profits from smuggling would be drastically reduced.

Even Zhou Chong suddenly found that when he was in a very similar situation to the Muslim merchants in India before, the Portuguese crossed the Cape of Good Hope, and finally opened up the route between Europe and the Indian Ocean, so as to compete with the Muslim merchants, and now the Strait of Malacca is the Cape of Good Hope in Southeast Asia and the Ming coast, if Portugal is allowed to occupy there, then for Zhou Chong, these smuggling merchants, it is definitely the beginning of a disaster.

No way! I must not allow the Portuguese to occupy the Strait of Malacca! I saw Zhou Chong, who was sitting in the living room, suddenly stood up, and then walked back and forth in the living room a few times, whether it was public or private, Zhou Chong could not let Portugal succeed, but unfortunately his own strength is limited now, even if he gambled on the old capital, but he was not too sure, which made Zhou Chong anxious.

No, I have another way! Zhou Chong, who was originally anxious, suddenly had a flash of inspiration, thinking of a possibility he had thought of before, and couldn't help but show a little smile on his face at the moment, he was still hesitating whether to do this thing, but now it seems that this is his only hope, so he can only try his best!

The method that Zhou Zhong thought of was actually very simple, since his strength was not enough, he could only ask for help, and in the entire Ming Dynasty, there was only the Emperor Zhengde who was famous for his plaything, and it just so happened that he also promised Ashikaga Kazuki to go to Beijing with the envoy of their Ashikaga family to meet Emperor Zhengtoku, and he could find a way to persuade the other party when the time came.

Speaking of which, although the military strength of the Ming Dynasty in this period declined greatly, in addition to the border army in the north still maintained a fairly strong combat effectiveness, the central and southern armies have almost lost most of their combat effectiveness in a peaceful life, and the strength of the sea has shrunk with the implementation of the sea ban.

However, the so-called rotten ship still has three catties of nails, no matter how corrupt the army of the Ming Dynasty is, but there are still some more elite troops, such as Zhou Zhong's most familiar maritime force, for example, he knows that there are two fleets stationed around Guangzhou and Ningbo, two ports that allow tribute teams from various countries to enter and exit, and if he can persuade Emperor Zhengde to mobilize these two fleets to assist when the Portuguese attack Malacca next year, then he can definitely thwart the Portuguese invasion of the South Seas. At that time, he can also take advantage of the weakness and extend his power to the city of Malacca! (To be continued......)