preface:
In 1498 (the eleventh year of the reign of the Ming Dynasty), The Portuguese Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese from a seafaring family, led a Portuguese fleet around the Cape of Good Hope to India, opening up a new route from Europe to Asia. From then on, Portugal began to directly traffic in silk, spices and other commodities from Asia, and established trading stations and strongholds in Asia, thus gradually monopolizing trade with the East.
In the ninth year of Ming Zhengde (1511 AD), the navigator Jorge Alvares drove his fleet to Tuen Mun Island in Guangdong, and it is said that a special stone monument was erected for this purpose, which was the first face-to-face contact with China by the Portuguese. In the decades that followed, a large number of Portuguese came to China in order to transport various exquisite goods such as silk, spices, porcelain and precious stones from China back to China through trade. According to relevant historical statistics, during the Ming Dynasty, there were as many as 1200 Portuguese in Ningbo alone, and it is conceivable that the total number of Portuguese in the entire southeast coastal area during this period was as large. In the mid-16th century, a group of tooth-and-blood people who claimed to have come to pay tribute obtained temporary residency rights in the Macau area on the grounds that the tribute ship had been hit by the wind and demanded to be exposed to tribute on the coast of Macau. Later, in order to completely occupy and "incubate" Macau as a colony, the shrewd Portuguese built forts without authorization by bribing Ming officials to pay rent. Until the early years of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, the Portuguese took advantage of this rogue move to basically block the direct trade channels of the Netherlands, Britain and other colonial countries to China, and monopolized the huge trade market in China.
After history entered the Kangxi Dynasty, the "dream of making a fortune" of the Portuguese merchants in China eventually became a bubble.
In the last years of the Shunzhi Dynasty, in order to completely blockade the "Ming Zheng regime" forces entrenched in Taiwan economically, the Manchu Qing rulers implemented an extremely severe policy of "moving borders and prohibiting the sea": extending the southeast coastal area for 30 miles, prohibiting the people from living and farming; and forbidding them to go to sea without permission. The specific historical records are as follows:
Now the people of Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong coastal areas will be moved into the interior, and no borders will be set up for defense, and no plates will be allowed to be launched into the water, and grain goods will not be allowed to cross the frontier. - Charlene: The Chronicle of the Sea
It is worth noting that at that time, Macao belonged to Xiangshan County in Guangdong Province, so it was within the boundaries of the Qing court. Once the policy of "relocating the border and prohibiting the sea" is successfully implemented in the coastal areas, then a large number of Portuguese merchants in Macao will completely cut off the preconditions for the development of overseas trade, which will undoubtedly be a major "disaster" for Macao's local social and economic development and residents' livelihood security. In the eighteenth year of Shunzhi (1661 AD), the policy of moving the border and banning the sea was officially implemented. After that, in order to continue to maintain the development of the overseas trade of Portuguese merchants in China, the Portuguese authorities urgently launched a fierce "offensive" against the Qing government, and finally in December of the eighteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing court allowed the Portuguese from Macao to trade by land to Guangzhou. Interestingly, one of the lions, which was dedicated to the Kangxi Emperor by the Portuguese authorities, played an extremely important role (the Qing court opened the Portuguese trade routes the following year after the lion was presented). Next, in this article, the author will start from the "transnational journey" of a lion in the seventeenth century to explore the early "Qing-Portuguese relations".
Clay statues of The Portuguese of the Ming and Qing dynasties to Macau
Visit of the Manesardane mission to China
In the sixth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1667 AD), King Alfonso VI of Portugal sent his envoy Manesardani to Macau on August 6 with a letter signed by him. Due to Manesardane's insistence on presenting the letter to the Kangxi Emperor, which caused dissatisfaction among local officials in Guangdong, it was eventually delayed until January 1670 that he truly embarked on a journey to Beijing, and arrived in Beijing in June of that year. Upon arrival in the capital, Manesardane handed the letter to the Kangxi Emperor and presented a large number of fine items brought from Portugal, such as portraits of the king, ivory, frankincense, flower lotion, and diamond-embellished golden swords.
Obviously, the purpose of the Portuguese authorities' visit to China was simple, that is, to ask the Qing government to relax the policy of banning the sea in order to improve the severe situation in Macao. Regrettably, however, the envoy Mannesardani did not successfully complete the mission entrusted to him by the King of Portugal, and he himself died of illness on his way out of the capital.
As a Qing fang, although the Kangxi Emperor was deeply pleased that Manesar Dar nie had come from afar and gave him a considerable level of treatment, he did not have the slightest intention of "loosening his mouth" in the policy of "forbidding the sea and moving the boundary".
There is no doubt that Manesardani's visit to China was a failure.
But at the same time as the failure, the Manesardani mission also sent a signal to the Portuguese king that the great Kangxi Emperor wanted a lion.
The Portuguese authorities who received this news were a great treasure, because they were preparing to send a second mission to China, and in order to further ensure the success of this mission, the Portuguese began to carefully plan this "lion diplomacy".
"Lion Diplomacy"
In the eleventh year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1672 AD), the Portuguese side began to contemplate how to exchange the favor of the Kangxi Emperor by offering lions, and thus asked the Qing court to relax the policy of banning the sea against the Portuguese in Macau.
On the orders of the king, the Portuguese Governor of India ordered the commander of the Mozambican castle to urgently capture two lions (one of which died after being transported to Goa, India) in preparation for the tribute to the Qing court.
In the fifteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, this authentic African lion followed the second delegation sent by Portugal across the sea and finally entered the Territory of China, Macao. It is no exaggeration to say that this is not an ordinary lion, this is an "emissary" that thousands of Portuguese people have placed high hopes on, and whether or not this mission can be completed, this lion from Africa may play a crucial role. Thus, in a sense, the lion was also an important member of the Portuguese mission, and its mission was even higher than any one in the mission.
However, just as the Portuguese side was transporting the lions to Macau after thousands of sails, the Central Plains was in the midst of the "San Francisco Rebellion", and a considerable part of the border between Guangdong and the capital was still occupied by the rebels. In the end, in desperation, the Portuguese delegation had to postpone the plan to "sacrifice lions" to the Qing court and stand by.
In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1678 AD), as Guangdong, Jiangxi and other places returned to the control of the Qing court, the situation in the south once again turned around, and the "San Fan Rebellion" had gradually come to an end. Therefore, the Portuguese mission carried this "emissary" from Africa to finally embark on the road to Beijing, and along the way they were full of expectations and cautious, for fear of snubbing this "African emissary". Regarding the situation of the Portuguese mission transporting lions in China at that time, there are only a few words in the historical data:
"The state of the pass, the daily supply of three pigs"
。
In August of the same year, the Portuguese lion team arrived in Beijing.
After the lion arrived in the capital, it quickly became the object of attention of the Qing rulers. According to relevant historical records, in order to make everyone feast their eyes, the Qing court also specially arranged several lion viewing banquets, and it is rumored that the Kangxi Emperor himself personally led the crown prince Yin Rong, the eldest son Yin Zhen and others to watch together. Throughout this process, the Kangxi Emperor established very friendly relations with the Portuguese delegation, not only giving three imperial banquets in a row, but also allowing the opening of trade routes for the Portuguese in Australia the following year.
Surprisingly, however, the Lion sacrificed by Portugal died two months after arriving in Beijing.
Fortunately, this did not affect the final result, because the portuguese side's purpose had been achieved to some extent, that is, to win the favor of the Kangxi Emperor. In the end, like a high-ranking official, the lion was approved by the Qing court to be buried with high-standard etiquette, and received the special honor of standing on the tree monument.
The Portuguese authorities were naturally overjoyed that the use of only one lion was exchanged for diplomatic success with the Qing court, after which the Portuguese side decided to maintain this "lion sacrifice" patent and quickly sent a letter to Macao requesting the news of the death of the lion to prevent other countries from also sharing the benefits in the form of "lion sacrifice".
Analyzing this "lion diplomacy" from the perspective of the situation
In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, portugal "lion offering" was successful, and in the eighteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing court allowed the opening of Macao's land trade. Is there really a necessary causal relationship between them? For this problem, let's analyze the situation in the Central Plains at that time:
First of all, there is no doubt that the Portuguese side's "lion offering" has indeed fulfilled the long-cherished wish of the Kangxi Emperor for many years to a considerable extent. It can also be indirectly confirmed from a series of details such as the specifications of the reception of the Portuguese delegation and the three imperial banquets given by the emperor himself, but this does not indicate that there must be a causal relationship between the two. In the author's opinion, the Qing government's agreement to open up trade with Macao at that time was mainly driven by the internal political situation in the Central Plains. Readers familiar with the history of the Qing Dynasty should know that after the eighteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the general trend of the "San Fan" headed by Wu Sangui had gone, and the Zheng Jing forces in a remote corner of the country had also lost their coastal strongholds, and the policy of "relocating the border and prohibiting the sea" had basically reached the final stage. Thus, in this situation, the opening up of Macau's trade routes was no longer a political issue sensitive to the Qing court, as one foreign scholar pointed out:
The Qing court still gave its political factors the highest priority, and although the lion left a deeper impression on the Qing court than any other tribute, if there were no favorable political conditions at that time, I am afraid that this African beast would not achieve much effect.
Then again, when people talk about this history, why not use this lion who has had a "transnational journey" as the link that runs through this real historical event?
bibliography:
Records of the Ancestors of the Qing Dynasty
Records of the Ancestors of the Qing Dynasty
Jiang Yinghe: "Macao and the Seventeenth Year of the Kangxi Dynasty Portuguese Tribute Lion"
He Xinhua: A Study of Portuguese Lion Sacrifice in the Seventeenth Year of Kangxi
Wei Qingyuan: "Some Issues Concerning the Prohibition of the Sea and the Relocation of Boundaries in the Early Qing Dynasty"
Francisco Pimentel: A Historical Examination of Sino-Portuguese Relations, etc