Battle of Xicaowan

Causes

Because King Manuel I of Portugal wished to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with China, in the final year of his reign, the new governor of Portuguese India Dom Duarte de Menezes was dispatched together with captain-major Martim Afonso de Melo, tasked to construct a feitoria (trade post) close to Guangzhou.

Martim Afonso de Mello arrived in Malacca in July 1522 where he came across skepticism towards his mission from the local Portuguese, who had been trading in China for several years and informed him of the tensions between the Chinese and Portuguese. Nevertheless, Mello departed at once with two more trade junks belonging to Duarte Coelho and Ambrósio do Rego joining the fleet.

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. Rumors spread that Simao and other Portuguese were cannibalizing Chinese children for food. 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.

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.

In 1521, 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. 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. The Chinese confiscated all Portuguese property and goods in the Pires embassy's possession.

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

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.

The battle

Mello's expedition faced a storm but arrived at the Pearl River delta before the end of July, being promptly confronted by the Chinese coast guard fleet. Because the Chinese guns and arrows posed little threat to the Portuguese, captain de Mello gave orders not to engage the Chinese. As the Chinese fleet closed in on the junk ship of António do Rego however, he opened fire, making the Chinese fall back with Rego abandoning formation to give chase. Immediately he was signaled from the flagship to return to formation and was later given a reprehension by Martim Afonso.

The Chinese could not prevent the Portuguese from dropping anchor by an island the Portuguese dubbed Veniaga ("trade"), and remained outside their effective range, occasionally firing their bombards on the Portuguese ships to no effect. That night, the Portuguese captured 5 fishermen, who were given a reward and told by de Mello to deliver a message to the captain of the Chinese fleet the following morning, stating that he intended to trade and offer compensation any past misdoings of his coutrymen. Mello got no reply. The following night, the Portuguese again sent two envoys to the Chinese fleet, but were responded with a brief bombardment.

On the third night, a craft from Duarte Coelho's junk ship, managed to run the blockade under cover from the darkness and reach the fleet, and stated that Duarte Coelho had his ship sheltered behind an island close by, but would not join the fleet because of the Chinese, unless they came to his aid. De Mello detached two armed craft to return to Duarte Coelho and escort him, but could not breach the Chinese blockade. Irritated, Mello finally decided to fight the Chinese, but was rebuffed by his captains who thought that they should remain passive instead. Several days passed by until Duarte Coelho eventually decided to depart back to Malacca. For the Portuguese, their greatest concern became their dwindling water reserves. Mello armed four craft with cannon and personally led them ashore to fill barrels with water. Such a move did not go unnoticed by the Chinese, who detached several oar ships to chase the Portuguese who were ashore. Upon sighting the Chinese closing in, de Mello ordered the barrels of water be abandoned and immediately re-embark. The Portuguese then faced the Chinese as they made way back to the ships, firing volleys of shrapnel and matchlock fire to keep them at bay until finally they were within the carracks' firing range and their heavy bombardment forced the Chinese back again.

Back onboard but lacking enough water, de Mello finally decided to return to Malacca. Fourteen days after arriving on the Pearl river delta, the Portuguese weighted anchor and prepared to run the Chinese blockade. The two heavy carracks on the front cleared a path through the Chinese fleet amidst heavy arrow and gun fire while replying with powerful cannon salvos, matchlock fire and hurling gunpowder bombs. On the rear, the two smaller carracks got separated and on Diogo de Mello's carrack a gunpowder keg exploded, the ship caught fire and sank. Pedro Homem, the captain of the other small nau immediately ordered the sails to be furled and a craft set out to rescue the castaways, but both were grappled by Chinese ships and boarded by successive waves of soldiers, until all the Portuguese were killed or captured. Pedro Homem, according to the Portuguese, was the last to fall, sporting European plate armour and keeping the Chinese at bay with a heavy montante until he was eventually taken down by a cannon shot.

With the carrack looted, the Chinese abandoned it, taking with them the cannon and even the ropes, anchors and pulleys, leaving behind one sole survivor - a sailor that had taken refuge on the crow's nest. In the meantime, the two heavy carracks and António do Rego's junk ship successfully repelled all boarding attempts, until the Chinese were forced to abandon pursuit with severe losses. Only by night fall did the wind allow the Portuguese to return the drifting carrack, and rescue its last survivor. Afterwards, Martim Afonso de Mello gathered a council with his captains, in which he expressed his intentions of renewing the battle the following day and destroy the Chinese fleet, but he was again rebuked. The Portuguese proceeded to Malacca and despite being off-season, encountered favourable winds that carried them to the Singapore strait, where they met up with the Duarte Coelho and his junk.

Aftermath

All sides suffered serious casualties. The Portuguese lost 42 men, who were taken into custody by the Chinese. In Guangzhou (Canton), Chinese officials condemned the prisoners to death, and the remaining Portuguese were put to death on September 23, 1523.

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. (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. The Chinese were also intrigued by the Portuguese galley and made their own version of it called the wugongchuan.

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.

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

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. In 1524 the Chinese sent the Malay ambassadors Tuan Mohammed and Cojacao to send the message to the Portuguese. They got lost at sea. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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. The Malay Sultanate of Johor also improved relations with the Portuguese and fought alongside them against the Aceh Sultanate.