In 1511, portugal occupied Malacca. King Mahmoud (reigned 1488-1511) fled after defeat and eventually died of illness.
The Zhengde Emperor had little substantive reaction to the annexation of Malacca
In a series of events, the king sent his uncle Nassim and his son to China twice, hoping that Daming would send troops to help restore Malacca. In the end, apart from a wave of righteous indignation, the Ming Dynasty did not give substantial help.
Why do I say that the ming dynasty began to lag behind the West in the middle and late period? Some people don't read the article at all, I am talking about the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the whole East began to lag behind the West, and China partially lagged behind. At that time, except for a few three or four eastern countries or regimes such as the Ottoman Empire and the Ming Dynasty, which could resist the new European powers such as Portugal and Spain, India and Southeast Asia, which were in a period of chaos, were not opponents.
Without the assistance of the Ming Dynasty, the descendants of King Mahmoud had to accept their orders and establish two small kingdoms, Johor and Perak, ruling the remote areas of Malacca.
The Zhengde Emperor did not take substantive measures against the capture of Malacca, a traditional vassal state, and called for help. Is this weird? The previous articles on the northern Song Dynasty thinking and its ming and qing succession have been made very clear. Even more excessive than the occupation of Malacca, the Wanli Emperor did not react substantively to the Manila Massacre more than ninety years later, the capture of the Ryukyu Kingdom by Japan, and other events, which fully shows that the value of "traditional vassal states" for China has not been valued.
But here's the thing: you want to live your life behind closed doors, you want to be beautiful. If you don't look for something, others will look for your business.
Portuguese envoys came to China
On January 23, 1520, the Portuguese envoy Pires and more than 20 other people traveled north from Guangzhou and arrived in Nanjing in May. The Zhengde Emperor was in Nanjing at the time. Because there was nothing to do, the rebellion of King Ning had been put to rest by Wang Shouren. All he can do is play.
As soon as he heard that the Portuguese (then known as the Flang Machine Man) had arrived, Zhengde felt very strange, so he asked the envoys to come to the palace to play, or chat, or play checkers, or invite guests to dinner, or watch things, or learn the Portuguese language. After that, Pires was ordered to go to Beijing to wait for the emperor to return to Beijing and continue playing.
What Pires did not expect was that the Zhengde Emperor was friendly to them, but Daming's courtiers were very unfriendly to them. In January 1521, Pires and others had just arrived in Beijing, and he was greeted by the anger of Manchu Wenwu.
Inspector Yushi Qiu Daolong on the "Please but Flang Machine Contribution" loudly opposed the establishment of relations with the Flang machine to carry out tribute trade.
The reason for the opposition of non-prominent officials is that the sect mainly has its own morality
He said: The great tomorrow's son can become the co-lord of the world because of "righteousness." Malacca is a small country, and it is precisely because of envying our etiquette, paying attention to the fame of teachers, and acting in etiquette that we have been able to pay tribute from Yongle three years later. However, the Flang Machine Kingdom, which did not know where it came from, annexed Malacca. The envoys of Malacca came to ask for help precisely because they hoped that "the Heavenly Dynasty would show justice and restore the homeland for them, and the sorrow and urgency would not be known"!
After Qiu Daolong finished talking about "morality", he began to talk about the obligations that the suzerainty should have.
He said: The duty of the co-lord of the world is to "reward the righteous and punish the unrighteous." How can the Lord not be the Master of the vassal kingdom? This is like a slave of others, once bullied, of course, will be justiced. We must take care of the calamity of Malacca, and the evil of Flang Ji must not be encouraged!
Why bother? In Qiu Daolong's view, the Portuguese Empire not only hurt Malacca but also hurt Daming's national security, causing disaster to Daming's people.
The second reason for the opposition of non-powerful officials is that it endangers stability
He said: Flang Machine has always been a tough country and likes to plunder. When the subject was doing the Zhi County of Shunde, Guangdong, he knew very well that the Flangji people were cunning, murderous, and manic, and people from countries like Siam were very frightened when they saw them. During their trade in Tuen Mun, they abducted women, collected outlaws, broke the law, and dared to do anything.
I also heard that they were going to ask for a piece of land in Guangdong for them to live in! How does this work, and what will happen to their growing number of people? It is bound to harass and endanger China. Their intrusion into China is all about starting small. At present, there are many problems in our country, and there are problems in the internal governance of the people's livelihood, so internal and external collusion will inevitably be a major problem.
For the above two paragraphs of what Qiu Daolong said, you should carefully read them, and some of what you say is indeed true, and it does point out the rationality and legitimacy of the existence of a regime.
The rationality and legitimacy of what I say is not the same as that of Confucianism, but the meaning of the existence of the regime. What Qiu Daolong said was also the reason why Qianlong did not allow contacts with Britain. It's essentially right. Qianlong's mistake was complacency, while the Ming Dynasty's mistake was that it did not fight back in time, learning from each other in the fierce competition with Portugal and later Spain.
As mentioned in previous articles, since the discovery of geography, the Western powers have often used trade as an excuse to pursue a policy of plunder. When they can't get benefits, they will use the guns of ships and ships to gain a competitive advantage.
All in all, whether it is the Qianlong dynasty of the Qing Dynasty or the Zhengde Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, the problem is to avoid competition and intend to live their own lives behind closed doors. But it didn't work out. Instead of finally being unable to hide, it is better to face the difficulties at the beginning. On the contrary, in the competition, the latter is constantly learning from the outside world and recognizing the deficiencies internally because of deficiencies, which is a hundred times stronger than the closed country.
The greatest mistake of both the Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty was not not to trade with them, but to fail to fulfill the obligations of the suzerainty and drive the invaders away. In the competition, learn from the outside, find deficiencies internally, and restore the Lost Spirit of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
The third reason why non-prominent and non-powerful officials oppose is that the West does not know how to respect
Qiu Daolong finally named his own claim, saying: "There is a disease of attacking the heart inside, and the invasion of cold and evil spilling out, and the body is inevitable!" It's a rhythm. Therefore, unless they change their ways, change their ways, and change their bandit behavior, they cannot associate with them. The first is to restore Malacca. If we can do this first, it is not too late for us to associate with them and do business, and it is only to pay attention to the morality of the clan (now called friends).
To associate with the enemy for the sake of money and fear of weapons is an immoral thing.
To sum up, Qiu Daolong's recital is very well written, and the various reasons why he cannot do business and have contacts with Portugal are very clear. And the Portuguese Empire at that time was indeed like this. From the various actions of the Portuguese Imperial Mission on the way to China, we can see that they just want to repeat the conventional route of colonizing Southeast Asia and India.
Although Qiu Daolong's popularity is not high, through this recital, we can see that the Ming Dynasty has capable ministers, who have a long-term vision and a torch-like vision, and see the enemy clearly. But unfortunately, the imperial history officials are not big, and basically belong to people who have no real power. However, the world is a world managed by people with real power, and although Qiu Daolong has a lot of vision, it cannot become a major policy of the Ming Dynasty in the end.
This is the case with many things, many ministers and even ordinary people who are not in the right place can see it clearly, and the highest ruling class is unaware of it. Why? Its essence is a high degree of confidence in its own handling of things, and even to say that it can be narcissistic. In their eyes, the people and the ministers who are not in the mainstream often lack the overall situation and do not know the way of being an official, so what they mention and say is the words of some reckless and drunkards.
Such tragedies have been staged more than once or twice in history.