Last time, it was mentioned that the Ming Dynasty gained a lot of profits because of the "tributary trade" of the "point system", but it was lost because the Portuguese came to make trouble, and they were angry and sanctioned the ghosts.

During the Zhengde period, Portugal went to Asia and began direct contact with the Ming Dynasty. After several collisions, it found that it was different from other regions, because the Ming Dynasty of China was a country where the emperor spoke and counted, and the Chinese navy was relatively strong in combat and the common people also supported the government.

Therefore, Western colonizers such as the Portuguese, who were armed with the idea of "Eurocentrism", originally thought that they could defeat thousands or tens of thousands of opponents with a few ships, and it was impossible for them to be realized in the Ming Dynasty. For this reason, the Portuguese Empire decided not to use "arrogance" to force the Ming to trade with it.

After the Ming Dynasty used its own strength to show tough methods to the Portuguese colonists, the Portuguese royal family still did not believe in evil, but it was defeated repeatedly.

Several battles of the Jiajing Dynasty made Portugal see that it was impossible to defeat a large number of countries with more advanced weapons than other regions with warships and Francophone guns alone, because in the eyes of the Portuguese Empire and other European powers, among the opponents of the "old Europeans", it seemed that in terms of advanced weapons, at that time, only the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which dominated the Middle East and the Near East, could compare with the Chinese Ming Dynasty in the Far East, especially China's learning speed was too fast.

Under the leadership of Wang Hong, the Ming army quickly absorbed the advantages of the "Francophone" gun and the Portuguese warship, and with the help of the "Messenger Fireman" (translator) Yasan, it also actively imitated it, and quickly took out the imitation of the "Franco" gun and the imitation warship to confront the Portuguese colonial army.

In fact, this is also due to the "Tongshi" system, because this is an important part of the "tributary system" in ancient China, because the "Tongshi" acted as "translators" between the Chinese feudal dynasty and the tributary states, and each dynasty had a specific system to manage the "Tongshi".

However, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, this traditional "general system" was challenged by the West, because with the opening of new shipping routes, Western countries that were not originally Chinese "tributary states" came east to do business with the Ming Dynasty, and Macao, China, was the first place for foreigners to arrive.

Especially after the Portuguese "rented" Macao, the ancient door of China was finally opened to Westerners, and the economic and cultural cultures of China and the West began to meet and collide here. Later, after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, when the Qing Dynasty unified the world, the government implemented the "four-port trade" to facilitate Sino-foreign trade.

As a result, China and the West began comprehensive economic and cultural exchanges. All these have prompted a change in the traditional "general affairs". In addition to the "general affairs" responsible for exchanges with the "tributary states," a new "general affairs" responsible for the affairs of many "non-Chinese tributary states" in Europe began to be formed.

And with the increase of foreign trade in China, the "generalists" gradually formed a group. In order to strengthen the management of "general affairs", the Qing Dynasty incorporated them into the "public banking system" (civil service establishment) before the "Opium War". After the negative impact of the "Opium War", the "general affairs" public banking system was dissolved.

As a result, these "generalists" were forced to gradually become dependent on foreign forces under the pressure of survival, and became the representatives of Western imperialist forces in China. This also reflects the state of exchanges between China and Western countries during the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the changes in the foreign policy of the feudal dynasties during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The "general affairs" generally come from the following three types of people: one is the Chinese who do business in Nanyang and stay in the local area; The second group of people are Chinese and Portuguese who have lived in Macao for a long time; The third category is Chinese-foreign mixed-race children, including many Western sailors who spend a lot of money to buy Qinglou women as sexual partners.

After Zheng He's voyage to the West, there was an endless stream of Chinese merchants trading in Nanyang, and some of them stayed in the local area and became part of the local population, such as the "Old Port Xuanwei Division" set up by the Ming Dynasty in Nanyang, in order to manage the local "Chinese community" and better spread Chinese culture.

In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, Nanyang, which used to be China's "tributary state", gradually became colonies of Western countries, especially Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands carried out large-scale colonial expansion in Southeast Asia, which fundamentally destroyed the "tributary system" that the Ming Dynasty had established with great difficulty.

The Chinese who remained in the area were the first Chinese to come into contact with Westerners, and for business needs (survival and development), they gradually mastered the Chinese Western dialect. "History of the Ming Dynasty: Biography of the Netherlands" records that "Li Jin, a native of Haicheng, and profiteers Pan Xiu and Guo Zhen lived in Da Ni for a long time, and learned about Chinese affairs with the Dutch. ”

With their mastery of Western languages and familiarity with China's national conditions, the "generals" were hired by foreigners who had just arrived in China, and Marsh's "Chronicle of the East India Company's Trade with China" recorded that in 1624, after the Dutch settled in Taiwan, they traded from there to various ports in Fujian, and hired Dutch-speaking Chinese in Batavia. In 1519, the Portuguese envoy Pires came to China, and the "general secretary" at that time was a man named Yasan the "Fire Man", who "said that he was originally Chinese". This shows that "Tongshi" played an important role in Sino-foreign trade and people-to-people exchanges at that time.

Huang Zuo's "Guangdong Tongzhi" recorded: "Thirty members including Hui Folang Jiyi and Jia Bi Zhu Danmo paid tribute and went to Nanjing. Jiang Bin led the four soldiers and horses from the upstream, upstream Yu, and guided the 'Fire One' Yasan to the top. And at that time, Ming Wuzong even "learned his language as a play". Therefore, Yasan has to "serve the emperor left and right".

Regarding the "fire man", the relevant records of the "History of the Ming Dynasty" are: "The Fujian and Yuehao families do not castrate the son of man as the fire, and the offender is guilty." This shows that the "fire man" is the Fujian and Yuehao families who castrate other people's children for their own drive and let others cut off the incense. So how did Yasan learn Western languages as a "fireman"?

There is no historical data to directly explain this, but it can be inferred from common sense, because the Fujian and Yuehao families in the Ming and Qing dynasties generally relied on overseas trade to make their fortunes, and the Nanyang trade was an important part of their trade. Therefore, when trading with foreigners, the "fire people" will come into contact with the ghosts.

With the arrival of pupae in Portugal and other European countries, Nanyang merchants began to turn to doing business with Europeans. In order to do business better, the problem that needs to be solved urgently is the language barrier. Therefore, it is only natural that Yasan was taken to Nanyang to learn Portuguese.

However, in the 16th century, there were two major colonial empires in the world, Spain and Portugal, and the latter was independent of the former. Spain occupied the gold-and-silver Americas, while Portugal controlled the trade routes to the East. The two empires flourished and spread across the globe.

Compared with Spain, Portugal started earlier, occupied a larger sea area, and had stronger colonial power around the world, making it a veritable "world brother" at that time. At the same time, the Portuguese also burned and looted everywhere in Asia and Africa, making the countries of the South Seas fear Portugal like tigers.

However, although Portugal claimed hegemony in various places, it did not dare to hold on to the Ming Dynasty of China, and has been cautiously trying to contact the central government of the Ming Dynasty, for fear of angering China, because the Ming Dynasty "Zheng He's seven voyages to the West" had great influence. So, why didn't Portugal dare to argue with the Ming Dynasty?

First, the Ming Dynasty was Portugal's most important trading partner in the East. The Ming Dynasty, as the most important commodity exporter in the East, and the most economically developed country in the world at that time, forced Portugal to always hope to maintain good relations with the Ming Dynasty, and tried to monopolize China's foreign trade to make a lot of money!

The Portuguese did not make their fortune by plundering gold and silver from the Americas, as Spain did, they relied on commerce and trade. The purpose of the Portuguese coming to the East was to make money and do business, not to carry out large-scale conquest by force. Of course, the Portuguese also knew they were incapable of conquering the mighty Ming Dynasty in China.

The Portuguese were not as reckless as the arrogant Spaniards, who dared to use 60 soldiers to conquer the Ming Dynasty, and the Spanish royal family was preparing to invade China with a large conscription, but was defeated in a naval battle with the British not long after.

Spain in the 16th century was still a world empire, and its status was the same as that of the British Empire in the 19th century. At that time, Spain had absolute confidence in its own national strength, believing that only 60 excellent soldiers could conquer the Ming Dynasty in the Far East from top to bottom with one block of hundreds!

But later, the Spaniards had to adjust after sending many merchants to pretend to be spies to conduct field investigations on the Ming Dynasty, believing that the Ming Dynasty of China was a very powerful eastern power, even stronger than the "Ottoman Turkish Empire" that dominated the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and it took 20,000 people to do it!

Before completing the plan to conquer the Ming Dynasty in China, Spain had already conquered the so-called "great powers" in other parts of the world, such as the Inca Empire, the most powerful in the American continent, which was conquered by Spain with only 100 musketeers and modern weapons and cannons. For example, in the face of the Mexican Aztecs, known as the "crown of civilization" in North America, the Spaniards only used 300 modern troops to achieve victory.

Another example is the complete domination of Southeast Asia. The Spaniards only sent a few hundred men to recover the local natives, and successfully mined a steady stream of spices from here and transported them to Europe to sell them at high prices, making a lot of money. That's why the Spaniards dared to open fire in the face of the "undefeated East".

Because of the previous successive victories and undefeated legends, the Spaniards burst with self-confidence, and thought that they were already the most powerful country in the world, and no country would be their opponent, so they had the idea of challenging the Ming Dynasty, after all, the robbery came quickly!

However, Spain was still more cautious at that time. After all, after putting forward the idea of "60 excellent soldiers conquering the Ming Dynasty", after high-level discussions in Spain, it was still unlikely, and finally according to the intelligence of commercial spies, the number of soldiers who sent troops to attack the Ming Dynasty was increased to 20,000.

In order to complete this crazy plan, the king of Spain even took out his own treasury, shouting that after getting the land of the Ming Dynasty, he would let the entire Oriental world prostrate under his feet, and the first thing he had to do was to sleep all the beautiful women of the Ming emperor!

The specific proposer of the Spanish plan to conquer the Ming Dynasty was the Spanish Governor General in the Philippines at that time, Recker. At that time, after talking with the Ming Dynasty and the Japanese, he came to the conclusion that the Ming Dynasty seemed to be huge, but in fact it was vulnerable, because during the time of Emperor Jiajing, there were already very absurd and uninhibited things on the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty, such as being harassed by Japanese pirates for a long time but unable to fundamentally solve the piracy problem.

In 1555, Japanese pirates (Japanese pirates), who had long harassed the southeast coast of China and plundered fishermen's property, organized a 72-member "death squad" to land and rob ashore. These Japanese invaders started from Shaoxing all the way to the Ming Dynasty's capital Nanjing, and countless Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers had no way to take this pitiful "Japanese army", and they were almost broken down. This made the surrounding countries have the idea of despising the Ming Dynasty.

This matter was not only spread in the Ming Dynasty, but even the overseas Spaniard Philippine Governor Recker also knew, he personally felt that since 72 Japanese Invaders could hit Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, his own soldiers were more elite than the Ming Dynasty, and their equipment and training were more advanced, so why couldn't he conquer the Ming Dynasty? After all, the Spaniards' "flint guns" at that time had a longer range than the "Japanese guns", and the artillery was also more advanced than the Japanese guns.

After having this idea, he began to write letters to the king of Spain and explain his thoughts, but because he did not get the consent of the king of Spain, even as a noble governor of the Philippines, he was not qualified to take the initiative to wage war against the Ming Dynasty, after all, once defeated, the consequences would be serious.

Although, in the end, this plan was shelved by the Spanish high-ups, and they thought that it would be impossible to conquer an eastern power with only 60 men! The idea is good, but it still needs to be improved. As a result, the Spanish royal family has been thinking about how to put this into practice as soon as possible.

Recker's plan was considered by the Spanish Congress to be incapable of implementation, that is, too unreliable. He himself lost his position as governor because the Spanish community thought he was too stupid to come up with the idea of conquering an empire as great as Rome with 60 men.

Therefore, the king dismissed him from his post and sent another man named Sander to the Philippines as a governor to conduct a field investigation of the Ming Dynasty.

After investigation, Sander believed that the Ming Dynasty had a large number of people and wealthy people, but the combat effectiveness of the army was very poor, and the civilian officials were afraid of war, so they were vulnerable. However, the new governor believed that a sufficient number of men were still needed to carry out his plan to wage a war of aggression against the Ming Dynasty.

Because he believes that the first thing needed is that the Spanish Empire will send 12,000 royal elite troops, and then recruit more than 6,000 samurai and ronin from the Japanese shogunate to dress up as "Japanese robbers" to scare the Ming Dynasty, and finally recruit 5,000 slave troops from the Philippines to clean up the battlefield.

Ten years after this plan was handed over, the Spanish top brass finally decided to send troops to the Ming Dynasty at the famous "Congress of Manila" held in 1586, but to be on the safe side, they added 3,000 European mercenaries, and finally added the Japanese and the indigenous Filipinos to a total of 25,000 people.

The plan of the Spaniards was only to conquer the Ming Dynasty and not to destroy the Ming Dynasty, but to try to keep the Ming Dynasty government and harvest the wealth of the common people for themselves.

However, this plan eventually failed before it could be implemented, because not long after, the Spanish "Invincible Armada" suffered a crushing defeat in a naval battle with the "British Royal Navy", resulting in the sinking of more than 130 ships to only 40, and tens of thousands of sailors and elite army troops were killed!

This naval battle caused Spain to lose its position as the supremacy of the sea, and even the colonies of India and Southeast Asia were divided and seized by Britain and the Netherlands. After that, the Spaniards no longer had the confidence to provoke the Ming Dynasty, because the cannons they lost in naval battles were also picked up and sold to the Ming Dynasty by the Dutch.

Although the Spanish "Manila Military and Political Congress" in 1586 approved a war plan against the Ming Dynasty, only two years later, in 1588, the Battle of Britain and the West almost wiped out the Spanish navy. This made the Spaniards see their own strength, where do they dare to cause trouble everywhere?

The Spaniards' immediate priority now is to keep the country alive, not to conquer the East and dominate the world. Therefore, throughout the Ming Dynasty, the relationship between Portugal and the Ming Dynasty was relatively harmonious, although the two countries had a stalemate at the beginning due to the "splitting" of customs tax collection.

Later, at the most critical moment of the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese also helped the Ming court to deal with the invasion of the Jurchens in the north many times, not only most of the Ming Dynasty's Franc machine and red-coated cannons were provided by Portugal, and even after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Portugal also sent troops to help the "Southern Ming" against the "Manchu Qing".

When Portugal first arrived in the East, it had a fierce battle with the Ming army, and the two sides fought two large-scale naval battles. In 1521, the "Battle of Tuen Mun" broke out between the two countries on the southeast coast, and the "Battle of Sai Cao Wan" broke out the following year. The result of the war was a complete victory for the Ming army, while the Portuguese were beaten to the brink and never dared to fight the Ming again. Until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Portugal still paid rent to the Ming Dynasty for settling in Macao.

Portugal is the dominant force in the East and is the largest force of Western colonizers in the East. But Portugal was not the only colonial power at the time. The Spaniards, the Dutch, and the British were its fierce rivals, while the Portuguese were challenged by pirate smuggling syndicates that were rampant off the coast of China.

Therefore, the Portuguese, knowing that they could not deal with so many competitors, constantly maintained good relations with the Ming Dynasty, hoping to use the power of the Ming Dynasty to protect their rights and interests in the East. In the 17th century, Portugal's national power began to decline, but the Portuguese were unable to prevent the Dutch from entering the southeast coast of China.

As a result, the Portuguese spoke ill of the Dutch in front of the Ming Dynasty, hoping that the Ming Dynasty would send troops to expel the Dutch. The Ming Dynasty really lived up to expectations, in 1633 in the "Battle of Liuluo Bay", the Ming army defeated the Netherlands, the Dutch apologized for the indemnity, fled from Fujian, and no longer dared to argue with the Ming Dynasty, until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, only to make a comeback and steal Taiwan. At this time, the Portuguese could not defeat the Dutch, so they had to support the "Nanming".

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