Last time, I mentioned that the foreign trade profits of the Ming Dynasty were mostly divided between the central and local governments, and the "Guangzhou Bosi" was of great significance as the frontier of "tributary trade".

Of course, this incident reflects that Liu Jin, the great eunuch of the Ming Dynasty, is wantonly wielding power, which is not conducive to normal overseas trade, but it also shows the wealth of Guangdong in recent years.

During the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Jin committed a crime and served the crown prince Zhu Houzhao after being pardoned. In the eighteenth year of Hongzhi (1505), Zhu Houzhao ascended the throne as the "Ming Wuzong", and appointed Liu Jin to take charge of the "Bell and Drum Division", and together with seven other favored eunuchs, he was called the "Eight Tigers", and he Liu Gonggong was the first.

Liu Jin also came up with all kinds of tricks for Zhu Houzhao's pastime, and Zhu Houzhao was deeply favored, and soon he was promoted to "the eunuch of the internal official supervisor and the palm seal". At the beginning of the first year of Zhengde (1506), Liu Gonggong, the governor of Ouchi, was ordered to control the "3,000 Battalions", one of the three major battalions of the Beijing Division, which was equivalent to the emperor's personal guard.

The "Three Thousand Battalions" consisted mainly of surrendered Mongol cavalry, that is, the "Three Thousand Battalions" were actually "cavalry regiments" dominated by mercenaries.

When the "3,000 Battalion" was formed, although 3,000 Mongolian cavalry were the backbone, with the development of the troops, its actual number was far more than 3,000.

The "Three Thousand Battalion" is different from the "Five Army Battalions", all of its subordinates are elite cavalry, although this cavalry unit is not large in number, it is the most powerful cavalry force of the Ming Army, which is usually controlled by the emperor himself and is responsible for the security of the imperial city together with the "Jinyi Guard", but mainly plays the role of assault in the war.

In addition, the great eunuch Liu Jin also used the name of the emperor to occupy more than 300 imperial villages. These practices aroused the vigilance of the courtiers. Therefore, Liu Jin was constantly impeached, but not only was he unscathed, but he was also promoted to the "palm seal eunuch" of the "celebrant eunuch".

As a result, Liu Jin used the scholar Jiao Fang as his minions in the "outer court" and vigorously persecuted those courtiers who had openly opposed him. Since the second year of Zhengde (1507), Liu Jin began to control the promotion, appointment and dismissal of hundreds of civil and military officials, so that hundreds of officials had to bow down when they saw him, and there were countless corruptions, and the power was even hotter, and was called "Emperor Li" by the people of the time, and Zhu Houzhao was called "Emperor Sitting", implying that the person who held the power was Liu Jin rather than Zhu Houzhao.

It is rumored that Liu Jin believed the words of the Jianghu warlock Yu Yueming, thinking that his nephew (a grandson) Liu Erhan would be the "emperor" in the future, so he secretly hid his armor. Because he made too many enemies, Zhang Yong, another member of the "Eight Tigers", and Yang Yiqing, a courtier, joined forces to present the Anhua Wang's document hidden by Liu Jin after quelling the "Anhua King Rebellion" in Ningxia in the fifth year of Zhengde (1510 AD), which mentioned Liu Jin's intention to plot misdeeds, resulting in Liu Jin's arrest.

When Emperor Lao Tzu ordered the raid on Liu Jin's house, he found a soldier armor, a jade seal and a fan hiding a dagger, so he sat down on his charge of treason. On August 25 of the same year, Liu Jin was executed by Ling Chi. Liu Jin is a native of Xingping, Shaanxi, born in 1451, and was a famous eunuch (old eunuch) in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Liu Jin's original surname was "Tan", and some people say that his surname was "Dan", and he was adopted by the eunuch Liu Shun at the age of six and changed his surname to "Liu", and later entered the palace as a eunuch.

In the name of "reforming finances," Liu Jin, the "general manager of the Great Interior," sent his cronies to check the treasury everywhere, and after Liu Jin checked in Guangdong, the financial resources had to be spread out in the sun.

Since then, the right to profit from foreign trade can no longer be exclusively enjoyed by the local government of Guangdong, so the "governor" Chen Jin in the fourth year of Zhengde (1509 AD) officially requested that the Fanbo "take three out of ten as the rate, that is, 30%, the precious and detailed Beijing, the gross and heavy sale, and reserve the military salary, which is the result of the equal sharing of the trade rights of the Fanbo between Guangdong and the central government."

In July of the fifth year of Zhengde (1510), Bi Zhen, the "eunuch of the city", under the instruction of Liu Jin, tried to completely control the power of sea trade, but within a month, Liu Jin was imprisoned and executed due to the involvement of the "Ningjiao Rebellion". As a result, Guangdong's "management of the city" was still in the hands of the local officials, and the "system of drawing points" was established at this turning point, and the three-point system of drawing three out of ten also became a system of Sino-foreign trade, which was strictly enforced in various coastal areas from then on, making foreigners hate.

At that time, what the Portuguese saw when they first came to Tuen Mun in 1514 AD was actually an "institutionalized" customs and seaport administration.

After the planning of the local government of the Ming Dynasty, the seaport management of the Pearl River Estuary has been very orderly, and after the arrival of merchant ships from various countries, they are arranged to berth in designated bays and Macao, such as merchant ships from Malacca (Malaysia) are anchored in "Tuen Mun", and merchant ships from Siam (Thailand) are anchored in "Kwai Chung".

This is much better than the situation of "different bays" during the Chenghua and Hongzhi periods. When the foreign ships docked in the port, the "city officials" and Chinese merchant ships from Guangzhou arrived, and the appraisers composed of officially recognized people boarded the foreign ships to estimate the value of the goods. At that time, city officials were present to supervise the customs rate of 20% for pepper, 50% for sumac and ebony, and 10% for other goods, and it was not until the estimate was completed that Chinese and foreigners were allowed to start trading.

Foreign merchant ships paid large sums of taxes to city officials at the rate of duty. Then, as merchants, the appraisers engaged in ship-to-ship trade with foreign merchants on the goods brought from Guangzhou, which was in fact the "big comprador bourgeoisie" mode of operation monopolized by the government, which was convenient for the government to collect taxes and raise prices.

Before the middle of the Zhengde period, trade was carried out in a peaceful and orderly atmosphere. Foreign businessmen, bureaucrats, and Chinese businessmen all benefited and satisfied, and the initial relationship was good. Despite the imperial court's "sea ban", trade was allowed and the common people were satisfied, so there was no need to take risks.

At that time, the smuggling trade along the coast of the Pearl River estuary in Guangzhou was not active, because the Ming government had been severely suppressing it. However, with the emergence and "normalization" of this harmonious Haikou trade, as well as the gradual increase in trade volume later, coupled with the strong opposition of the Western colonizers represented by the Portuguese, the trade industry of the vassal countries to China was stimulated and affected, and even slowly evolved into an impact and challenge.

In the twenty-third year of Chenghua (1486), the king of Zhancheng returned to China, and was escorted back to China by Zhang Xuan, a "Dongguan maritime merchant", in 20 boats. This reflected the close relationship between the "maritime merchants" and the "local governments" at that time, after all, the governments at all levels also needed a group of "big comprador bourgeoisie" to collect wealth for themselves.

There is reason to believe that the 20 sea ships led by Zhang Xuan will continue to trade in Malacca and other places in the south, just like Feng Yi and Zhang Jin, the canonized envoys who went to Champa, because they accepted bribes, and then appointed the puppet Tepa Moss of the Annamite people as the king of Champa and then continued to transfer to Malacca to "return all their private goods".

In other words, taking advantage of the opportunity of "business trips", or trade covered by officials, or even smuggling trade, was already very active during the Chenghua and Hongzhi periods (1488-1505). During this period, many Ming Chinese ships were already engaged in trading activities in the South China Sea.

The Portuguese Tomé Pires mentioned in "The Legends of the Oriental Kingdoms" that in Malacca, it is common to see Chinese sailing ships bringing a very rich and colorful large number of Chinese goods. When Chinese sailing ships arrived in Malacca, the Chinese did not have to pay customs duties, but only had to offer a gift to trade.

He also heard that thousands of Chinese sailing ships were on their way to trade where they had found fit. It can be seen that coastal trade activities can no longer be stopped. In particular, after the establishment of the "point system," it caused a boom, making the trade of "Guangzhou" and Haikou prosperous, which was greatly conducive to alleviating the financial pressure.

"Tuen Mun" "sea to Guangzhou City, sails are lined up. However, the Ming bureaucrats did not expect that the new Portuguese were too ignorant to bring the "bandit mentality" of the Western powers to China into practice, so they created a "catastrophic" incident for the upcoming "foreign trade" of Guangzhou, China.

On August 15, 1517 (the twelfth year of Zhengde), eight sea ships led by Andrade, commander of the Portuguese fleet, arrived at "Tuen Mun". An important task of his trip was to send Tomé Pires, the emissary of the King of Portugal, to China in order to maintain long-term trade cooperation with the Ming Dynasty in China.

Therefore, after Andrade arrived at the mouth of the Pearl River by boat, he immediately applied to the "Commander of the Prepared Guard" to go to Guangzhou to meet with the local chief executive.

However, the Guangzhou authorities did not reply for a long time, and Andrade could not hold back his desire to force his way into the Pearl River, which forced the "Bei Wei Si Order" to send a pilot to bring water. So, after the Portuguese fleet arrived in Canton, it anchored in Huaiyuan, and Andrade seemed very excited.

According to the custom of Westerners, every time they sailed to a new country, the supreme governor would fire a cannon salute in accordance with the "European custom" to show respect.

As a result, the commander of the Portuguese fleet ordered a cannon salute to the Chinese and raised the Portuguese Royal Navy flag on the mast, which caused Wu Hong to be extremely shocked by the behavior of the Portuguese, after all, China has never seen such a situation in the "tributary trade" since ancient times.

Immediately, Wu Hong notified Gu Yingxiang, the "Guangdong Inspector" who was also in charge of the sea route, because they had never met such a foreigner who did not understand the rules.

And "Francoji" was not a "vassal state" and a "tributary state" of the Ming Dynasty, so the matter was immediately transferred to the "Governor of Wuzhou". As a result, Ning Cheng, the eunuch guarding the town in Wuzhou, Guo Xun, the "chief military officer" Guo Xun, and the governor Chen Jin rushed to Guangzhou to deal with the matter, but due to the differences between Chinese and Western cultural customs, it led to adverse consequences.

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