Battle of Xicaowan

Battle of Xicaowan
Date1522
LocationSai Tso Wan on Lantau Island
Result Ming Chinese victory
Belligerents
Ming Dynasty China Portugal Kingdom of Portugal
Commanders and leaders
Wang Hong (汪鈜),
Zhang Ding (張嵿),
Ke Rong (柯榮),
Wang Ying'en (王應恩)		 Portugal Martim Afonso de Mello
Strength
Squadron of Junks 300 men in Six Caravel ships[1]
Casualties and losses
Unknown 1 ship destroyed, 1 ship captured by China, 42 men captured (Some were executed on the spot)[2]

The Battle of Xicaowan (traditional Chinese: 西草灣之戰; simplified Chinese: 西草湾之战; pinyin: Xicǎo Wān zhī Zhàn) was a 1522 naval battle during which the Ming Dynasty Imperial Navy defeated a Portuguese navy led by Martim Afonso. The battle was fought off the northwestern coast of Lantau Island, Hong Kong at a location called Sai Tso Wan today.

Causes

Due to strained relations between China and Portugal, Martim Afonso de Mello set off from Malacca with six vessels[3] on 10 July 1522 and arrived at Tamao in August to conduct negotiations. Portuguese such as Simão de Andrade had been kidnapping Chinese children to sell in Malacca, and ignoring Chinese sovereign authority at Tamao, built a fort. Among the rumors spread was that Simao and other Portuguese were cannibalizing Chinese children for food.[4][5] The Chinese responded by blockading the Portuguese.

The Portuguese wanted China to allow them to use Tunmen as a base and to construct a fort there.[6]

The Portuguese had also conquered the Muslim Malay Malacca Sultanate at the Capture of Malacca (1511). The Sultanate was an ally of China, and China demanded that the Portuguese withdraw from Malacca and restore the Malay sultan to the throne. The Chinese were notified of the Portuguese conquest of Malacca by the Sultan, and they were displeased about it.[7]

The Chinese held an entire Portuguese diplomatic mission hostage, with Pires as its leader, trying to force the Portuguese to return Malacca to the Sultan in exchange for Pires' release.[8] This occurred in 1521.[9] The Chinese effectively held the Portuguese embassy hostage, using them as a bargaining chip in demanding that the Portuguese restore the deposed Malaccan Sultan (King) to his throne.[10] The Chinese proceeded to execute several Portuguese by beating and strangling them, and torturing the rest. The other Portuguese prisoners were put into iron chains and kept in prison.[11] The Chinese confiscated all Portuguese property and goods in the Pires embassy's possession.[12]

The Portuguese came up with a false explanation that they conquered Melaka due to "the local ruler's tyrannies against the Chinese", which made the Chinese even more suspicious of the Portuguese.[13]

Simao's activities, which were piratical in nature, angered the Chinese people and the Chinese government, which led to the Chinese officials to order the eviction of the Tunmen Portuguese.[14]

The battle

The Chinese had expelled Simão de Andrade and his Portuguese troops from Tamao the year before. The Chinese went on the offensive against Martim, assuming he was there for the same purpose as Simão. The Malay Sultan of Malacca also sent an ambassador to the Chinese, warning that the Portuguese had evil intentions. Muslim traders already present in Canton in China were hostile towards the Portuguese, wanting to keep their monopoly of trade with the Chinese.

The Chinese destroyed one vessel by blowing up its gunpowder magazine, and captured another Portuguese ship. Martim Afonso was forced to escape back to Malacca, which he reached by October.[15][16][17]

During the battle, Chinese artillery destroyed the ship of the Portuguese Captain Diogo De Mello, killing him.[18]

Yang San (Chinese: 楊三; pinyin: yáng sān; Wade–Giles: Yang San) and Dai Ming (Chinese: 戴明; pinyin: dài míng; Wade–Giles: Tai Ming), assisted the Chinese commander Wang Hong in constructing artillery and firearms which were used to defeat the Portuguese. They had experience interacting with Portuguese before.[19]

The Chinese usage of cannons defeated the Portuguese forces.[20]

Aftermath

All sides suffered serious casualties. The Portuguese lost 42 men, who were taken into custody by the Chinese along with two ships after the violent battle. In Guangzhou (Canton), Chinese officials condemned the prisoners to death, and the remaining Portuguese were put to death on September 23, 1523.[21]

The Chinese gained war booty in the form of Portuguese cannons and displayed them at the Imperial Court. The Chinese then reverse-engineered the Portuguese cannons, building their own copies and using them. The cannon were named "Feringis" by the Chinese.[22] (Ferengis is Folangji 佛郎機 in Chinese, which means "Frankish", a word used by many Asian peoples to refer to western Europeans. The Persians and Turks called the Europeans "Farangi".) The Portuguese cannons captured by the Chinese were Breech-loading swivel guns.

He Ru, who had recruited Yang San and Dai Ming to successfully covertly obtain artillery making secrets from the Portuguese, was elevated to higher rank after the battle, and was put in charge of manufacturing breech-loading artillery that was reverse-engineered from captured Portuguese cannons, and which replaced the existing Chinese cannons.[23]

Only three Portuguese ships returned from the battle.[24]

Another battle occurred in 1523 at Hsi-ts'ao wan, when the Chinese again defeated the Portuguese.[25] Hsi-ts'ao an alternate spelling for Xicao.

Hengqin island is located to the south of Tunmen, Xicao Bay is located to the south of Zhuhai city's Sanzao island.[26]

The Chinese used Portuguese prisoners to compose letters demanding that Portugal cease its occupation of Malacca to hand it back to the Malay Sultan. The Malay Ambassador to China was fearful for his life, so he refused to deliver the message to the Portuguese lest he be killed by them. The Chinese did not even know if the Malay Sultan was alive, so they sent a junk to track him down. It found him, and the Malay Sultan sent a message requesting assistance from the Chinese since the Malays were under Portuguese attack.[27] In 1524 the Chinese sent the Malay ambassadors Tuan Mohammed and Cojacao to send the message to the Portuguese. They got lost at sea.[28] The Chinese forced Pires to write letters for them, demanding that the Portuguese restore the deposed Malaccan Sultahn (King) back onto his throne. The Malay ambassador to China was to deliver the letter.[29]

The Chinese had sent a message to the deposed Sultan (King) of Malacca concerning the fate of the Portuguese embassy, which the Chinese held prisoner. When they received his reply, the Chinese officials then proceeded to execute the Portuguese embassy, slicing their bodies into multiple pieces. The Portuguese had their genitalia cut off and inserted into their oral cavities by the Chinese. The Portuguese were executed in public in multiple areas in Guangzhou, deliberately by the Chinese in order to show that the Portuguese were insignificant in the eyes of the Chinese.[30] When more Portuguese ships landed and were seized by the Chinese, the Chinese then executed them as well, cutting off the genitalia and beheading the bodies and forcing their fellow Portuguese to wear the body parts, while the Chinese celebrated with music. The genitalia and heads were displayed strung up for display in public, after which they were discarded.[31]

The Portuguese Jorge de Albuquerque requested immediate assistance from the King of Portugal on January 1, 1524, for him to send the Captain-major, because he feared that the Chinese would come to retake Malacca and punish the Portuguese for destroying the Sultanate.[32]

The Chinese built several new massive naval fleets of war junks to prepare for new Portuguese invasions, however, the attacks did not happen, and the fleet was left to decay, the entire fleet disappearing by 1528.[33]

Over the decades, as hostilities began to wane, the Portuguese were finally allowed to establish a trade colony at Macau in 1557, following assistance given to Ming China to expel Wokou Japanese pirates from China's southern shores.[34] The Malay Sultanate of Johor also improved relations with the Portuguese and fought alongside them against the Aceh Sultanate.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Zhidong Hao (2011). Macau History and Society (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 12. ISBN 988-8028-54-5. Retrieved 21 November 2011. In 1522, a fleet of six ships and 300 men led by Martim Afonso de Melo Coutinho came to China. They encountered and fought the Chinese naval forces in Xicaowan, an area in Xinhui county in what is Dayushan of Hong Kong, close to Macau. In the military conflict with the Chinese, however, dozens of them were captured, and some were executed. The Battle of Xicaowan frustrated the Portuguese so much that they decided to try other places.
  2. ↑ Bailey W. Diffie, George D. Winius (1977). Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Volume 1. Volume 1 of Europe and the World in Age of Expansion (illustrated ed.). U of Minnesota Press. p. 385. ISBN 0-8166-0850-4. Retrieved 21 November 2011. Instead, he ended up in a fierce battle in which two of six Portuguese ships were lost and forty-two Portuguese sailors were captured. Among these about half were executed out of hand. Thereafter, both sides feared a renewal of the fighting, and the Chinese not only built up their navy, but they closed the port of Canton completely. Pires appears to have died in prison by 1524.
  3. ↑ Peter Y. L. Ng, ed. (1983). New peace county: a Chinese gazetteer of the Hong Kong region. Hong Kong University Press. p. 25. ISBN 962-209-043-5. Retrieved 21 November 2011. In 1522 another expedition set sail from Malacca. They were met outside T'un Mun by a large[located at the University of California]
  4. ↑ John E. Wills, Jr., John Cranmer-Byng, John W. Witek (2010). John E. Wills, Jr., ed. China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN 0-521-17945-9. Retrieved 21 November 2011. They bought Chinese children, some of whom, sons and daughters of good families, were found several years later by the Portuguese authorities at Diu in western India. Buying and selling of children was scarcely unknown in Ming China, but the large new demands of the Portuguese may have stimulated kidnappings from good families and also contributed to the stories that s0on were circulating of how the Portuguese were buying the children to cook and eat.
  5. ↑ John King Fairbank, Denis Crispin Twitchett, ed. (1998). The Cambridge history of China, Volume 2; Volume 8. Cambridge University Press. p. 338. ISBN 0-521-24333-5. Retrieved 21 November 2011. They bought Chinese children, some of whom, sons and daughters of good families, wer found several years later by the Portuguese authorities at Diu in western India. Buying and selling of children was scarcely unknown in Ming China, but the large new demands of the Portuguese may have stimulated kidnappings from good families and also contributed to the stories that sson were circulating of how the Portuguese were buying the children to cook and eat.
  6. ↑ Tianze Zhang (1934). Sino-Portuguese trade from 1514 to 1644: a synthesis of Portuguese and Chinese sources. date=. Late E. J. Brill. p. 57. Retrieved 21 November 2011. friendship with the Emperor of China, and to try to obtain permission to erect a fortress at Tunmen where he was to stay with his subordinates. Upon arriving at Malacca, he learned of the unfortunate change in the Sino-Portuguese relations.[located at the University of Michigan]
  7. ↑ Zhidong Hao (2011). Macau History and Society (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 11. ISBN 988-8028-54-5. Retrieved 21 November 2011. while Pires was in Beijing, the dethroned Sultan of Malacca also sent an envoy to Beijing to complan to the emperor about the Portuguese attack and conquest of Malacca. Malacca was part of China's suzerainty when the Portuguese took it. The Chinese were apparently not happy with what the Portuguese did there.
  8. ↑ Bailey W. Diffie, George D. Winius (1977). Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Volume 1. Volume 1 of Europe and the World in Age of Expansion (illustrated ed.). U of Minnesota Press. p. 385. ISBN 0-8166-0850-4. Retrieved 21 November 2011. Pires and his embassy were held hostage, apparently with the idea that this would not only prevent a repetition of Portuguese misconduct but would reinforce the chances of the Chinese protectee, the sultan of Malacca, to get his capital back... Pires was never delivered from his bondage.
  9. ↑ Kenneth Warren Chase (2003). Firearms: a global history to 1700 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 142. ISBN 0-521-82274-2. Retrieved 21 November 2011. The Portuguese spent several years trying to establish formal relations with China, but Melaka had been part of the Chinese tributary system, and the Chinese had found out about the Portuguese attack, making them suspicious. The embassy was formally rejected in 1521.
  10. ↑ Tomé Pires, Armando Cortesão, Francisco Rodrigues (1990). Armando Cortesão, ed. The Suma oriental of Tome Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to China, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515 ; and, The book of Francisco Rodrigues : Pilot-Major of the armada that discovered Banda and the Moluccas : rutter of a voyage in the red sea, nautical rules, almanack ... Volume 1 of The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Rutter of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, Written and Drawn in the East Before 1515 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. xl. ISBN 81-206-0535-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011. Finally Pires and his companions left Peking on 22 May and arrived in Canton on 22 Sept. 1521. Francisco de Budoia died during the journey. From Peking instructions were sent to Canton that the ambassador and his suite should be kept in custody, and that only after the Portuguese had evacuated Malacca and returned it to its king, a vassal of the Emperor of China, would the members of the embassy be liberated.
  11. ↑ Tomé Pires, Armando Cortesão, Francisco Rodrigues (1990). Armando Cortesão, ed. The Suma oriental of Tome Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to China, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515 ; and, The book of Francisco Rodrigues : Pilot-Major of the armada that discovered Banda and the Moluccas : rutter of a voyage in the red sea, nautical rules, almanack ... Volume 1 of The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Rutter of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, Written and Drawn in the East Before 1515 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. xli. ISBN 81-206-0535-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011. From Diogo Calvo's ship there remained, besides Vasco Calvo, seven other Portuguese and four servants, who escape the slaughter because they said that they belonged to Pires' embassy. But many others died in prison, some of hunger, many strangled, 'after carrying boards stating that they should die as sea-robbers', one struck on the head with a mallet, and others beaten to death. Pires and his companions arrived at Canton a fortnight after the three Portuguese ships had escaped from Tamão, and they found themselves in a most difficult position. They were immediately summoned to the presence of the Pochanci, and Pires was told to write to the Portuguese in Malacca telling them to return the country to its ex-king. Let Vieira describe for us what then happened: "Tomé Pires replied that he had not come for that purpose, nor was it meet for him to discuss such a matter; that it would be evident from the letter he had brought that he had no knowledge of anything else. . . . With these questions he kept us on our knees for four hours; and when he had tired himself out, he sent each one back to the prison in which he was kept. On 14 August 1522 the Pochanci put fetters on the hands of Tomé Pires,
  12. ↑ Tomé Pires, Armando Cortesão, Francisco Rodrigues (1990). Armando Cortesão, ed. The Suma oriental of Tome Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to China, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515 ; and, The book of Francisco Rodrigues : Pilot-Major of the armada that discovered Banda and the Moluccas : rutter of a voyage in the red sea, nautical rules, almanack ... Volume 1 of The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Rutter of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, Written and Drawn in the East Before 1515 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. xlii. ISBN 81-206-0535-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011. clerks who were present wrote down ten and stole three hundred . . . The goods that they took from us were twenty quintals of rhubarb, one thousand five hundred or six hundred rich pieces of silk, a matter of four thousand silk handkerchiefs which the Chinese call sheu-pa (xopas) of Nanking
  13. ↑ John E. Wills, Jr., John Cranmer-Byng, John W. Witek (2010). John E. Wills, Jr., ed. China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN 0-521-17945-9. Retrieved 21 November 2011. Their explanation that the Chinese merchants did the same thing when they arrived at Melaka and their avowal that in taking Melaka they had avenged the local ruler's tyrannies against the Chinese could only have added to Ming officials concerns, since Chinese overseas trade was illegal and the deposed king of Melaka a loyal Ming tributary.
  14. ↑ Francis A. Dutra, João Camilo dos Santos, University of California, Santa Barbara. Center for Portuguese Studies (1995). Francis A. Dutra, João Camilo dos Santos, ed. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on the Portuguese and the Pacific: University of California, Santa Barbara, October 1993, Volume 1993. Volume 10 of Publication series of the Jorge de Sena Center for Portuguese Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. Center for Portuguese Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. p. 426. ISBN 0-942208-29-3. Retrieved 21 November 2011. They also ordered the mandarins in Canton to expel the Portuguese in Tunmen.5 The second reason is that the Portuguese piracy in the coastal areas greatly infuriated both the Ming Court and the common people, which largely explains the initial Portuguese failure to set foot in China. In 1519, an expedition fleet headed by Simão de Andrade came
  15. ↑ Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. China Branch (1895). Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for the year ..., Volumes 27-28. The Branch. p. 44. Retrieved 2010-06-28. These untoward events took away all chance of success from a second official commercial expedition which about that time reached China. In 1521, in the fleet which left Lisbon for the newly-discovered Indies, among the other bold adventurous Portuguese there was Martim Affonso de Mello, who was entrusted by King D. Manuel with an important mission for China, He was to go to Tamao and make friend' ship with the king of China, and then establish, either there or in any other place found most suitable, a fortress where the Portuguese might carry on their tra.le in a settled wav. He was to be the captain of this fortress. He was also informed that the business was much facilitated on account of another mission having been already sent to the King of China by Fernuo Peres de Andrade. Martim Affonso de Mello started with six vessels from Malacca to carry out his instructions on the 10th July 1522 and he arrived at Tamao in August. A great deception awaited him: the ambassador Thome Pires, who was to have smoothed the way for his negotiations, was then in prison, and the rich presents he had brought for the Emperor of China had been stolen by the official underlings. Sinmo de Andrade with his Portuguese had been driven out of Tamao the year before. The Chinese, emboldened by this military success against the formidable strangers, and by the humiliation inflicted on the embassy, were prepared to attack the Portuguese with a large squadron and destroy them as pirates. Martim Affonso tried to parley, and sent boats to the admiral of the squadron, but as they did not return he saw that things were in a hopeless state of hostility and that it would be folly to risk himself in the harbour. As he was sailing away the Chinese attacked him in great force. The Portuguese, heavily outnumbered, defended themselves with the bravery which rendered them famous at that time throughout Asia, but unfortunately one vessel was destroyed by the explosion of the powder magazine, and another was taken by the Chinese, though after such a strenuous resistance that Martim Affonso was able to escape with the rest. He reached Malacca in October whence he sailed back to India with the monsoon.
  16. ↑ Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. North-China Branch (1894). Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volumes 26-27. The Branch. p. 41. Retrieved 2010-06-28. Up to this time the intercourse between the Portuguese and Chinese had been of the most friendly nature, and an extensive secure trade, besides many other advantages, would have been derived from it, at once, if the inconsiderate action of men of unruly passions had not destroyed all the good effects of the wise, benignant policy of Alfonso Dalboquerque and Fernão Peres de Andrade. In 1518 Simao do Andrade arrived at Tamao with a ship and three junks. His conduct was entirely opposite to that of his brother: he began to treat the Chinese with oppression, and disregarded all considerations of international law. Without permission he built a fort at Tamao, and exercised sovereign authority, ignoring the jurisdiction of the Chinese officials. He is also accused of committing acts of piracy, of enslaving the Chinese and kidnapping girls on the coast. Under such a commander it was natural that the men should commit the worst excesses. At last the abuses became so intolerable that the Portuguese were blockaded by a Chinese fleet which would have starved them into submission if a gale had not luckily enabled three of their vessels to successfully run the blockade in 1521. The bad conduct of Simao de Andrade not only stopped Portuguese trade at Tamao, but it led to even worse consequences, ruining negotiations which if carried on in the spirit of Dalboquerque might have obtained official sanction from the Emperor to trade between China and Portugal. When Fernão Peres de Andrade arrived in 1517 he brought with him Thomé Pires, an intelligent man of prepossessing appearance, who had been appointed by the Governor of Portuguese India to go as envoy to the Emperor of China and propose friendship and free trade between the two countries. De Andrade mentioned this fact to the high authorities in Canton when he went there, and before leaving he landed the envoy and his retinue. It was a long time however before Thomé Pires could even get permission to start for Peking. The ambassador who had been sent by the dethroned King of Malacca, though he had been unable to obtain armed assistance to reinstate his master, had been successful in rousing suspicions against the Portuguese at the Court of Peking, and the first answer the Portuguese mission received was that they must evacuate Malacca. At last, in 1520, on the 15th January, Thomé Pires was allowed to go to Peking to explain matters and defend his country against the slanders of its enemies. He started in three vessels gaily bedecked with flags and silk awning and bearing the arms of his country. He did not reach Peking till the 11th January of 1521. His departure increased the malevolence of the inveterate enemies the Mahometans of Canton, who there as everywhere feared that the advent of the Portuguese meant the collapse of their secular monopoly in trade. They spread the report that the Portuguese wanted to ruin all shipping, so that they might remain the sole carriers of the trade of the whole world. Unfortunately at that time the overbearing piratical conduct of Simão de Andrade bore out their statements, and the former mild behaviour of his brother and the friendly embassy of Thomé Pires, in the light of later events, seemed only the deceitful advances of treachery. The mandarins of Canton reported that the Portuguese, pretending to be merchants, really came to spy the country that they might afterwards conquer it. In consequence of all these representations the diplomatic character of Thomé Pires' mission was not recognised, and the new Emperor Chia-ching sent him and his retinue back to Canton to be kept in prison as spies.
  17. ↑ Kenneth Warren Chase (2003). Firearms: a global history to 1700 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 143. ISBN 0-521-82274-2. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
  18. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 59. Retrieved 21 November 2011. The Portuguese sources quoted above depict how Pedro Homen distinguished himself in the fighting and how he attempted to unsuccessfully to save the life of another Captain, Diogo de Mello, whose ship was destroyed by a Chinese cannon.
  19. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 60. Retrieved 21 November 2011. In this last reference we are further informed that Wang Hung succeeded in enlisting in his service two Chinese, Yang San ( i^k ^ ) and Tai Ming ( ^ BJj ), who had been with the Portuguese for many years and knew how to cast cannon and make gunpowder, and that Wang owed much of his victory to the cannon made by them.
  20. ↑ Jeremy Black (2002). Jeremy Black, ed. European warfare, 1494-1660 (illustrated ed.). Psychology Press. p. 173. ISBN 0-415-27531-8. Retrieved 21 November 2011. A Chinese fleet employing cannon defeated a Portuguese squadron off Tunmen (Tou-men) in 1522, but Tunmen is near Macao: the Portuguese were fortunate they did not reach the Indian Ocean when the Chinese deployed fleets there, as Chinese ships were sturdier than Indian ones, but by the sixteenth century, although the Chinese had an inshore naval capability, they no longer deployed distant fleets as they had done in the fifteenth century.
  21. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 59. Retrieved 21 November 2011. It was only after having parried this raid, that the Pei-wo, K'o Jung, and the Pai-hu or the Chief Officer of a hundred, Wang Ying-en, following up on their success, pursued the enemy to Shao-chow where fierce fighting took place. In the engagement the losses on both sides were heavy. The Chinese succeeded in capturing two ships of the enemy and forty-two persons. Some of the prisoners probably died of wounds, but those who still lived were executed on 23 September 1523, after the Court had confirmed the death sentence pronounced by the high mandarins of Canton. Among the prisoners was the Captain Pedro Homen, whom the Chinese took for the Commander-in-Chief of the Portuguese fleet, probably because of his prominence in the battle.
  22. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 60. Retrieved 21 November 2011. The Portuguese cannons and other firearms captured in the battle were named Feringis, and sent to the Court as trophies. Several years later imitations were made and used for defence purposes
  23. ↑ Kenneth Warren Chase (2003). Firearms: a global history to 1700 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 143. ISBN 0-521-82274-2. Retrieved 21 November 2011. the Chinese would also learned from the weapons capturered in the fighting. Wang Hong presented twenty cannon to the court after the battle in 1522, and He Ru was promoted to a post near Nanjing and given responsibility for producing these weapons there. It seems that he was promoted in 1523 and that the first cannon were completed in 1524. These cannon were the breech-loading swivel gun known to the Chinese as the folangji.
  24. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 60. Retrieved 21 November 2011. So the three vessels, remainder of the Portuguese fleet, sailed southward, and reached Malacca in the middle of October, 1522. Wang Hung, the Hai-tao or Commander of the Chinese fleet owed his promotion to this victory.
  25. ↑ Teotonio R. De Souza (1985). Teotonio R. De Souza, ed. Indo-Portuguese history: old issues, new questions. date=. Concept Publishing Company. p. 36. Retrieved 21 November 2011. In 1522 and 1523, naval conflict broke out between the opposing forces on the Kwangtung coast. The Chinese claimed their fire- ships, a favoured weapon, achieved total defeat of the Portuguese at Tun-men in the former year ; a second victory was. reported from Hsi-ts'ao wan in the latter. Thereafter, a prohibition on private
  26. ↑ Qingxin Li (2006). Maritime silk road. 五洲传播出版社. p. 117. ISBN 7-5085-0932-3. Retrieved 21 November 2011. In 1518, Simao de Andrade, the brother of Fernao Peres Andrade, led another fleet of ships to Tunmen. Not long after, Simao conspired to seize Tunmen by force, and the act outraged the Chinese local government. The government declared it illegal for Chinese citizens to come into contact with Portuguese merchants and ships. Chinese warships were permitted to open fire and destroy any vessels displaying the Portuguese banner in the coastal areas. In 1521 and 1522, the Chinese navy and Portuguese fleets engaged in two battles at Tunmen Harbor and Xicao Bay (north of present day Hengqin Island and Sanzao island of Zhuhai City). The war resulted in the Portuguese being all driven away from Guangdong.
  27. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 60. Retrieved 21 November 2011. The Malay Ambassador was asked to take them to Malacca, but he was unwilling, saying that the Portuguese would not spare his life if he did. At last, at his suggestion, a small junk was dispatched to ascertain whether the exiled ruler of Malacca was still living and his whereabouts. It left Canton on the 31st of May, 1523, and went to Patani whence it brought back an urgent appeal for help from the exiled King. the Portuguese forces under Dom Sancho Henriques were attacking Bintang and also appeared in Patani.
  28. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 61. Retrieved 21 November 2011. The Chinese authorities now urged Tuan Mohammed and Cojacao, 2 the Malayan Ambassadors, to go back to Bintang, taking with them the letters which could be given to the Portuguese there
  29. ↑ Tomé Pires, Armando Cortesão, Francisco Rodrigues (1990). Armando Cortesão, ed. The Suma oriental of Tome Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to China, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515 ; and, The book of Francisco Rodrigues : Pilot-Major of the armada that discovered Banda and the Moluccas : rutter of a voyage in the red sea, nautical rules, almanack ... Volume 1 of The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Rutter of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, Written and Drawn in the East Before 1515 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. xliii. ISBN 81-206-0535-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011. According to Vieira the mandarins again ordered that Pires should write a letter to the King of Portugal, which the ambassador of the ex-king of Malacca should take to Malacca, in order that his country and people might be returned to their former master; if a satisfactory reply did not come, the Portuguese ambassador would not return. A draft letter in Chinese was sent to the imprisoned Portuguese, from which they wrote three letters, for King Manuel, the Governor of India and the Captain of Malacca. These letters were delivered to the Cantonese authorities on 1 Oct. 1522. The Malay ambassador was not anxious to be the courier, nor was it easy to find another. At last a junk with fifteen Malays and fifteen Chinese sailed from Canton on 31 May 1523 and reached Pattani.
  30. ↑ Tomé Pires, Armando Cortesão, Francisco Rodrigues (1990). Armando Cortesão, ed. The Suma oriental of Tome Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to China, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515 ; and, The book of Francisco Rodrigues : Pilot-Major of the armada that discovered Banda and the Moluccas : rutter of a voyage in the red sea, nautical rules, almanack ... Volume 1 of The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Rutter of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, Written and Drawn in the East Before 1515 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. xliv. ISBN 81-206-0535-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011. On the day of St. Nicholas [6 Dec.] in the year 1522 they put boards on them [the Portuguese prisoners] with the sentence that they should die and be exposed in pillories as robbers. The sentences said: "Petty sea robbers sent by the great tobber falsely; they come to spy out our country; let them die in pillories as robbers." a report was sent to the king according to the information of the mandarins, and the king confirmed the sentence. On 23 Sept. 1523 these twenty-three persons were each one cut in pieces, to wit, heads, legs, arms, and their private members placed in their mouths, the trunk of the body being divided into two pices around the belly. ,
  31. ↑ Tomé Pires, Armando Cortesão, Francisco Rodrigues (1990). Armando Cortesão, ed. The Suma oriental of Tome Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to China, written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515 ; and, The book of Francisco Rodrigues : Pilot-Major of the armada that discovered Banda and the Moluccas : rutter of a voyage in the red sea, nautical rules, almanack ... Volume 1 of The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Rutter of a Voyage in the Red Sea, Nautical Rules, Almanack and Maps, Written and Drawn in the East Before 1515 (illustrated, reprint ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. xlv. ISBN 81-206-0535-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011. outside the walls, in the suburbs, though the principal streets they were put to death, at distances of one crossbow shot from one another, that all might see them, both those of Canton and those of the environs, in order to give them to understand that they thought nothing of the Portuguese, so that the people might not talk about Portuguese. Thus our ships were captured through two captains not agreeing, and so all in the ships were taken, they were all killed, and their heads and private members were carried on the backs of the Portuguese in front of the Mandarin of Canton with the playing of musical instruments and rejoicing, were exhibited suspended in the streets, and were then thrown into the dunghills.
  32. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 61. Retrieved 21 November 2011. After the complete severance of Sino-Portuguese trade relations, each side apprehended an attack from the other. On 1 January 1524, Jorge de Albuquerque wrote to the King of Portugal that an avenging Chinese fleet might come to attack Malacca, and that if the Chinese came they would do great harm unless the Captain-major of Malacca should arrive in time.
  33. ↑ TIEN-TSE CHANG. 中葡通商硏究 Sino-portuguese Trade From 1514 To 1644. date=. Brill Archive. p. 61. Retrieved 21 November 2011. In 1524 the Chinese equipped another fleet, but the Portuguese did not return. As time went on these precautionary measures were gradually slackened, and the war junks decreased in number. Some of them were destroyed while others were captured by pirates. After 1528 no more fleets were prepared.
  34. ↑ Wills, John E., Jr. (1998). "Relations with Maritime Europe, 1514–1662," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2, 333–375. Edited by Denis Twitchett, John King Fairbank, and Albert Feuerwerker. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-24333-5, 343-344.

Coordinates: 22°22′12″N 113°58′33″E / 22.3699°N 113.9759°E / 22.3699; 113.9759

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