In the Opium War in 1840, Western colonizers knocked on China's door with cannons and warships for the first time, and began a war of aggression against China, which was the beginning of China's modern humiliating history, and China began to degenerate into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
In fact, the military invasion of China by Western colonizers began as early as the 16th century!
Since the 15th century, Western Europe has entered the Age of Discovery, and Western colonizers have begun to travel around the world with seafaring fleets, exploring everywhere, bullying the weak everywhere, wantonly bullying and humiliating underdeveloped countries on other continents, and starting global colonization activities!
In the early days of the Age of Discovery, the two most powerful maritime kingdoms were Portugal and Spain, and of course, they were the first two countries to come to Asia to engage in colonial activities.
In 1498, Vasco da Gama's fleet arrived in Carikat, India, and the Portuguese began their colonization of Asia, mainly South and Southeast Asia.
In 1511, the Portuguese captured the military fortress of Malacca and began to control the spice trade in Southeast Asia.
After 1514, in the ninth year of Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty, Portuguese merchant ships came to Tuen Mun Island in Guangzhou for the first time, and the Portuguese planned to occupy the area around Tuen Mun Island as a stronghold to conduct commercial trade with the Ming Dynasty, but were rejected by local officials.
But the Ming Dynasty is not Africa, the New World is still in the primitive tribe of the kind of place, with dozens of guns, hundreds of people can occupy the colonial place at will, the highly feudal Ming Dynasty, so Portugal is a little jealous, so they do not dare to openly break out military conflict with the Ming Dynasty, they still seek diplomatic communication with the Ming Dynasty.
Soon, an interpreter named Yasan the Fire came into the sight of the Portuguese.
Yasan the Fire is a Chinese from Malaga, whose ancestral home is the coastal area of Guangdong, and he was castrated at an early age, and later came to Nanyang to make a living.
Since they spoke Portuguese and Chinese, the Portuguese hired Yasan the Fire as an interpreter and sent a delegation of envoys to Beijing to communicate.
Huoist Yasan is obviously very good at diplomacy, he got on the line with Zhengde through Jiang Bin, Emperor Zhengde's favorite minister, and actually gained Zhengde's trust, often accompanied Emperor Zhengde on trips, and taught Zhengde Portuguese.
Relying on the relationship of the third or Asian, the Portuguese merchant ships were able to stay on the coast of Guangdong.
But the Portuguese were obviously not good men, and at first, they bribed local officials with large sums of money and began to trade with local merchants, and everyone got along well.
But soon after, the true nature of the colonists began to be revealed, and they built fortifications along the Tuen Mun seashore, equipped with muskets and cannons, plundered passing merchant ships, and even looted children and sold them overseas as slaves.
The officials of the Ming Dynasty were very dissatisfied with this and kept asking for the expulsion of the Portuguese, but the Portuguese had the favored retainers of Emperor Zhengde as their backers, and they could not do anything about the Portuguese for a while.
However, after Zhengde's death, Yasan, who had always been very unpopular in the court, was beheaded by Jiajing, and the Portuguese envoy Billes was also escorted to Guangzhou.
The grape people, who had lost their backer Yasan, began to be disgusted by the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty was also preparing to drive these Portuguese robbers out of the Ming Dynasty!
In June 1521, Wang Hong, the chief judge of Guangdong and the deputy envoy of the sea route, was in charge of directing the expulsion of the Portuguese fleet.
Although Wang Hong, a native of Wuyuan County, the capital of Huizhou in the southern Zhili, was born as a civilian official, Wang Feng had been an official in Guangdong for many years and had rich combat experience in dealing with pirates.
Due to the perennial implementation of the sea ban, the strength of the Ming Dynasty navy and Zheng He's Western era can no longer be compared, Wang Feng can mobilize the troops of the Guangdong coastal guard, a total of less than 10,000 people, but the real Wang Feng can not be mobilized by the troops, of course, can not be all, about 4000-5000 people, and almost all of them are the army, seriously lack of experience in maritime operations.
So what was the strength of the Grape people? From distant Western Europe to East Asia, there was no Suez Canal at that time, and it was impossible for the Portuguese to mobilize heavy troops, so the Portuguese had about 700-800 troops in the Tuen Mun area and four warships.
In terms of numbers, the Ming Dynasty completely had an advantage, and it was fighting at home, with the right time and place, almost all of them, and this was a winning battle.
But don't underestimate the strong combat effectiveness of the colonists at that time, you must know that the Grape people took Malacca, and the number of troops was only more than 700, while the Spanish colonists of 169 people destroyed the Inca Empire of South America, which had a population of several million.
Therefore, in the face of a Portuguese fleet of more than 700 people, Wang Hong's military task was not easy.
At the beginning of the war, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty did not understand the power of Western muskets and artillery, and the attack on Tuen Mun in the first battle was declared a failure.
The fighting power of the Portuguese was stronger than that of other pirates along the coast of Guangdong in the past, which Wang Feng had never expected!
Wang Hong, who lost the first battle, was not discouraged, he knew that the losses in the frontal attack would be very heavy, so he decided to "master with long skills to control the enemy", since you are so powerful in the sea ships and firearms of the grape people, then I will steal the master to learn the arts, and imitate your weapons to deal with you!
Dongguan Baisha Inspector He Ru provided an important information to Wang Hong, there were several Chinese crew members on the Portuguese ship, who had been working for the Grape People for many years, and were very familiar with the Portuguese warships and weapons technology, Wang Hong immediately sent He Ru to quietly buy these Chinese crew members, and soon mastered the production process of Portuguese weapons.
Wang Feng was so clever and studious that he ordered the craftsman to start imitating the weapons of the Grape Man!
Of course, copying weapons alone cannot ensure victory, and Wang Feng knows that he cannot rush to deal with the Portuguese, and can only adopt the tactics of long-term siege!
Anyway, it's a home battle, and there is a numerical advantage, I will surround you Portuguese to death, and sooner or later starve you to death!
Wang Feng then besieged Tuen Mun, where the Portuguese were entrenched, and there was no communication between inside and outside!
After more than two months of siege, when Wang Hong found that the Portuguese were already trapped and exhausted at home and abroad, he launched a surprise attack late at night on September 2, sending people to burn the warship, diving into the water to dig the bottom of the ship, and attacking with a copycat version of the musket that had just been imitated.
But in the early hours of the morning, the Ming army found the escaped Portuguese warship and immediately launched a pursuit, but at this time a storm blew on the sea, and the Portuguese fled from Guangdong in a hurry by relying on the weather!
At this point, except for some of the Portuguese who were imprisoned in Guangzhou prison, the rest of the Portuguese had been expelled from the Ming Dynasty's sphere of influence, and the Ming Dynasty's strategic goals had been completed.
The Battle of Tuen Mun took nearly three months, for the Ming Dynasty, the cost was very high, the gain was small, the Portuguese only lost one warship, it seemed to be a loss-making deal, but for the Ming Dynasty army that had been forbidden to the sea for many years and lacked experience in naval warfare, it was quite hard-won!
The victory in the Battle of Tuen Mun was inseparable from the strategic planning and wise command of the commander Wang Hong! Later generations said that Wang Feng was the first person in China to expel Western colonizers, and he was also the first person in China to master the skills of Yi Yi to control the country
After the Battle of Tuen Mun, Wang Feng was very emotional and wrote a poem "Wu Ying and Zheng Zhirui Planned to Attack Tuen Mun Yu in the South of the Festival":
The chariots and horses went out of the east of the city, and the two elders were happy.
Thousands of miles of Mercedes-Benz are strong, and his life is pure and ghostly.
灶田拨卤当秋日，渔艇牵篷向晚风。
Looking back at the long song, the sky is high and the sea is wide and the moon is bright.