The Empresa de China ("China enterprise") was a long-time projected conquest of China by the Spanish Empire. Proposed repeatedly through the 16th century as a natural culmination of the conquest of the Philippines, it involved the invasion and assimilation of the Ming dynasty by a coalition that would include Spaniards, Portuguese, Filipinos and Japanese from the Toyotomi regency, as well as potential masses of Chinese allies.[1][2][3]
Military conquest of China appeared viable by the reports of Christian missionaries and ambassadors, who described the Ming population as demobilized, inefficiently administered and easy to sublevate against their own governors, offering a situation similar to those of the Aztec and Inca empires where control of the territory could be wrested away. Once conquered, the plan included mass evangelizing activities and the promotion of mestizaje between Iberians and Chinese, hoping to turn China into a source of strength to extend Hispanic control and Christianity across all of Asia. In a best case scenario, the Spanish Empire could aspire to form an oriental theater in the Ottoman–Habsburg wars.[4]
The enterprise was formulated by several figures of the Hispanic Monarchy, but its main driving force would be a sector of the Society of Jesus led by Alonzo Sánchez, who clashed against other churchmen over the Vitorian legitimacy of a new conquest. King Philip II allowed in 1588 the founding of an official council, the Junta de la Empresa de China, but the failure of the Spanish Armada the same year caused the project to be abandoned. The invasion of China briefly resurfaced later, with a new project to topple the Toyotomi regency and conquer Japan with the help of its own native uprising, potentially including Tokugawa Ieyasu, after which the Japanese armies would be used against China.
History
The idea of expanding the Spanish Empire to China was first formulated in 1526 by Hernán Cortés, conqueror of the Aztec Empire, who sent a letter to King Charles V suggesting to begin the conquest of the Moluccas and China from their new ports in the Pacific coast of New Spain.[5][3] However, due to the failure of the expeditions of García Jofre de Loaísa and Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón, the latter being sent by Cortés himself to rescue the survivors of the former, Charles abandoned his plans for the Pacific Ocean and forfeited his rights over Moluccas to the kingdom of Portugal in the Treaty of Zaragoza.[5]
First advances
Spanish expansion across the Pacific came finally with the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi and the discovery of the tornaviaje (return route from the Philippines to Mexico) by his navigator Andrés de Urdaneta, which allowed to link the newly conquered Philippines to New Spain. Although the main goal was gaining access to the Asian spice trade, many of the expeditioners were fresh from the conquest of America and saw the archipelago as the first step to initiate the conquest of the nearby China.[5] As small contingents of Spaniards had been enough to kickstart the fall of the Aztec and Inca empires with native help, they believed the same scheme could be applied to China by securing the help of local Chinese, Japanese and Filipino allies.[6] Legazpi himself choose Manila over Cebú as the Spanish base of operations due to its closeness to the Chinese trade routes.[5]
An early report was sent to Viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almanza by Martín de Rada, one of the first western ambassadors to mainland China, in 1569. After his visit to the country, Rada stated that, even if China was densely populated, its population was not warlike and depended heavily on their numbers and fortifications for defense, hence it would not be necessary to gather a large Spanish army to subdue them.[5][3] However, Rada advised for a campaign as peaceful as possible, based on persuasion and evangelization.[3]
In 1575, after the Battle of Manila against the Chinese pirate Limahong, the Spanish Empire and the Ming dynasty built diplomatic bridges. Martín de Rada was sent to Fujian as part of a delegation with the goal of negotiating a Spanish settlement in Chinese soil like the Portuguese Macau.[5] The project was fruitless, after which the governor of the Philippines, Francisco de Sande, opted to send letters to King Philip II proposing to attack China,[7][8] claiming that 4,000-6,000 soldiers would suffice and that the effort would be helped by the tyranny to which the Chinese were subjected.[5][6] However, Philip stated in 1577 that such plan was not convenient at the moment and ordered Sande to cultivate the Ming's friendship.[6] A similar suggestion reached Spain the following year by the hand of Diego García de Palacio, oídor of Guatemala, who proposed to begin a military route from Spain to the Philippines through Honduras, hoping to build a garrison strong enough to pacify the archipelago and make possible to take China as well. His plans were ignored.[5] Sande's successor Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa also revisited the enterprise.[9]
Influence of the Society of Jesus
The Empresa de China received a religious and political push from the Manila Synode, and in particular of the controversial Jesuit and diplomat Alonzo Sánchez,[10][6] who visited the country in 1582 to confirm the loyalty of Macau after the dynastic union of Spain and Portugal.[10] Sánchez suffered and witnessed arrests by the Chinese authorities, who were angry at not having been properly informed of the union, and after his return the following year, he was of the belief that only through military force Christianity would thrive in China.[5][10]
Sánchez returned in time to participate in the third council of the synod, in 1583, where he shared the possibility of a conquest with Bishop Domingo de Salazar and missionary Antonio Sedeño, helped by a state of the local economy bad enough to encourage the possibility of expansion.[5][10] Salazar brought to the table Francisco de Vitoria's thesis about just war, arguing that China had dealt enough abuse to Christians to justify a conflict. He collected reports that Chinese authorities were obstructing preaching activity, and also brought attestations from eight Spanish and Portuguese navigators mistreated in their contact with Chinese.[5][11][2] Salazar gave also strategic suggestions, proposing to draw the help of Japan through their local network of Portuguese Jesuits, as well as confiscating the Chinese merchant ships in Manila to fund the initial war effort. However, by carefully following Vitoria's theories, he considered it was soon to decide whether the conquest was legitimated or not.[12] The conclusions were contained in a document sent to King Philip.[13]
Adding to those plans, the superior of the Jesuitic mission in China, Francisco Cabral, informed that the domination of China would bring untold benefit of both material and spiritual nature, for which the existent Chinese imperial administration would be invaluable once assimilated.[14] Based on his own experiences in Macau, he stated that the country was badly defended, and its population was prone to revolt against the mandarins that oppressed them, making it so that 10.000 Iberian soldiers would be enough for the invasion, joined by 2,000 Japanese soldiers he would recruit thanks to his order's contacts. He also offered himself as a spy to prepare the campaign, including also the services of Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri.[15] Cabral believed the conquest would finish itself as soon as they captured the Wanli Emperor in Beijing.[2] Juan Bautista Román also believed to be able to gather 7,000 Japanese Christian warriors.[16]
As the project advanced, the 1586 Memorial General of the Philippines included a document written by Sánchez, titled De la entrada de China en particular, where he collected an immensely detailed treatment of the conquest of China and the future government of the conquered lands.[5] The plan involved to gather an armada led by the governor of the Philippines, containing 10,000-12,000 Iberian soldiers, 6,000 Visayans and 5,000 Japanese recruited in Nagasaki, assisted by Jesuits due to their knowledge of the lands, and endowed with a purse of 200.000 pesos to strategically bribe mandarins and pay mercenaries. The assault would be two-pronged, with the Castilians invading China through Fujian and the Portuguese doing the same through Guangdong.[17][2] Ricci and Ruggieri would be previously recalled to serve as consultants and negotiators with the Chinese authorities,[18] and the submission of the latter would be surveyed under the Vitorian policies of preventing unnecessary violence and abuse of the civilian population.[19][2]
Once the country was subjected to Spanish control, they would proceed to its Christianization, founding encomiendas and nobiliary properties, and building Christian infrastructure like hospitals, universities and monasteries, helped by a plan of mestizaje that would promote interracial marriage between Iberian conquistadors and Chinese women.[19] Success would mean an enormous advance for the Hispanic universal monarchy, as a Spanish China would become an invaluable base to extend their control across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, lending forces to subdue and Christianize Cochinchina, Siam, Kampuchea, India, Borneo, Sumatra, Moluccas and other lands, to the point of making it possible to gather regional allies against the Ottoman Empire and opening an eastern front against it.[4]
1587 saw preparations for war in Manila, building fortifications under Sedeño's supervision and cramming weapons and supplies.[4][6] The same year, fortuitously, a Japanese delegation came from Hirado under the command of Konishi Yukinaga, a Japanese Christian and grand admiral of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, to offer 6,000 vassals and "all the people and soldiers [Spain] asked" to collaborate with any invasion against China, Borneo, Siam or Moluccas.[4][20]
Sánchez' and Salazar's project, however, found opposition in another Jesuitic current headed by Alessandro Valignano and Superior General Claudio Acquaviva, who saw the Empresa de China as an injustified violation of the Christian rule of evangelizing peacefully.[10] Portuguese Jesuits also saw it as a danger to their kingdom's economic interests.[2] When Sánchez sailed off to Spain in June 1586 in order to inform about the state of the Philippines, and secretly to address the realization of the Empresa, Acquaviva assigned him supervision under renowned theologian and historian José de Acosta, who was ordered to refute his philosophical bases. Acosta wrote an entire treaty utilizing Francisco de Vitoria's thesis to criticize the invasion of China.[21][5] The protests, added to Sánchez's own actions in New Spain, where he worked to stop a cadre of Dominican missionaries from reaching China in order not to have them obstructing the warring effort, ended up driving a wedge between Salazar and him.[5][22][23]
Sánchez could meet Philip II in December 1587 and, despite Acosta's presence, found the chance to send the king a copy of his document. His aspirations were successful and, as soon as the preparations of the Spanish Armada allowed it, Philip authorized the creation of an official Junta para la Empresa de China in March 1588.[24][25] The council was composed by the Consejo de Indias chairman Hernando de Vega y Fonseca, General Alonso de Vargas, Admiral Joan de Cardona i Requesens, royal secretaries Juan de Idiáquez y Olazábal and Cristóbal de Moura, inquisitor Pedro Moya and four members of the Castilian Council of War.[2] Its development, however, was interrupted by the news of the Armada's failure in August, in midst of new protests by Dominicans and Franciscans that believed the project endangered their own workings. Ultimately, royal interest for the Empresa waned for good.[26][25][3]
The new governor of the Philippines, Gómez Pérez das Mariñas, was chosen by Sánchez's suggestion, but he received explicit orders to avoid military conflict with China.[2] On the opposite, he became entangled in diplomatic tension against Toyotomi, who seemed to demand vassalage from the Spanish Philippines for his invasion of Korea, and whom local spies attributed the idea to invade the Philippines in case of a negative answer.[27] Although this twist never happened, during Juan Cobo's embassy Das Mariñas was advised to seek an alliance with China against Japan and not vice versa.[28] When Das Mariñas was succeeded by his son Luis, the conquest of China was briefly revived in an indirect way. The priest Martín de la Ascensión proposed an equally complex plan to invade Japan, where native allies could be easily found too, and whose armies, once pledged to the Hispanic Monarchy, could be used in campaigns against China and other nearby lands. A considered local ally, aside from the usual Japanese Christians, was the lord later known as Tokugawa Ieyasu.[29] The San Felipe incident and its consequences, however, buried the project.[30]
In popular culture
The 2015 historical fiction novel La caja china by Jesús Maeso de la Torre is set in the political environment of the Empresa de China.
Related Research Articles
The history of the Philippines dates from the earliest hominin activity in the archipelago at least 709,000 years ago. Homo luzonensis, a species of archaic humans, was present on the island of Luzon at least 67,000 years ago.
The 16th century began with the Julian year 1501 and ended with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600 (MDC), depending on the reckoning used.
Habsburg Spain refers to the Spanish Empire, also known as the Catholic Monarchy, ruled between the 16th and the 18th centuries (1516–1700) by kings from the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg. It had territories around the world, including modern-day Spain, a piece of south-eastern France, eventually Portugal and many other lands outside the Iberian Peninsula, like in the Americas. Habsburg Spain was a composite monarchy and a personal union. The Habsburg Spanish monarchs reached the zenith of their influence and power ruling the Spanish Empire. Spain, or "the Spains", referring to Spanish territories across different continents in this period, initially covered the entire Iberian peninsula, including the crowns of Castile, Aragon and from 1580 Portugal. It then expanded to include territories over the five continents, consisting of much of Latin America and the West Indies in the Americas, the Low Countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italian territories and France in Europe, Portuguese possessions such as small enclaves like Ceuta and Oran in North Africa, and the Philippines and other possessions in Southeast Asia. The period of Spanish history has also been referred to as the "Age of Expansion".
Domingo de Salazar was a Catholic prelate who served as the first Bishop of Manila (1579–94) which was then newly-annexed to the Spanish Empire.
The Spanish East Indies were the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1899, governed for the Spanish Crown from Mexico City and Madrid through the captaincy general which ruled Manila.
Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa, sometimes spelled as Gonçalo Ronquillo Peñaloza, was the fourth Spanish governor and captain-general of the Philippines from April 1580 until his death in 1583. He was succeeded by his nephew, Diego Ronquillo. Before arriving in the Philippines he served as Royal Court Marshal in Mexico.
Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas was a Spanish politician, diplomat, military officer and imperial official. He was the seventh governor-general of the Philippines from May or June 1, 1590 to October 25, 1593. Dasmariñas was a member of the Order of Santiago.
The Captaincy General of the Philippines was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire in Southeast Asia governed by a governor-general as a dependency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City until Mexican independence when it was transferred directly to Madrid.
Luis Pérez Dasmariñas y Páez de Sotomayor was a Spanish soldier and governor of the Philippines from December 3, 1593 to July 14, 1596. In 1596, he sent unsuccessful expeditions to conquer Cambodia and Mindanao.
Francisco de Tello de Guzmán was Spanish governor of the Philippines from July 14, 1596 to May 1602. He was a knight of the Order of Santiago.
Pedro Bravo de Acuña was a Spanish military officer and colonial official in the New World and the Philippines. From 1602 to 1606 he was the eleventh governor of the Philippines.
Juan de Silva was a Spanish military commander and governor of the Philippines, from April 1609 until his death on April 19, 1616.
Juan Cerezo de Salamanca was interim Spanish governor of the Philippines from August 2, 1633 to June 25, 1635.
Indian auxiliaries were those indigenous peoples of the Americas who allied with Spain and fought alongside the conquistadors during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. These auxiliaries acted as guides, translators and porters, and in these roles were also referred to as yanakuna, particularly during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. The term was also used for formations composed of indigenous warriors which were used by the Spanish for reconnaissance and combat duties. Indian auxiliaries continued to be used by the Spanish to maintain control over their colonies in the Americas; frequently stationed on the frontier, they were often used to suppress anti-colonial revolts such as Arauco War.
The history of the Philippines from 1565 to 1898 is known as Spanish colonial period, during which the Philippine Islands were ruled as the Captaincy General of the Philippines within the Spanish East Indies, initially under the Viceroyalty of New Spain, based in Mexico City, until the independence of the Mexican Empire from Spain in 1821. This resulted in direct Spanish control during a period of governmental instability there. The Philippines was under direct royal governance from 1821 to 1898.
Juan Cobo OP was Spanish Dominican missionary, diplomat, astronomer and sinologist.
The 1582 Cagayan battles were a series of clashes between the forces of the Spanish Philippines led by Captain Juan Pablo de Carrión and wokou headed by Tay Fusa. These battles, which took place in the vicinity of the Cagayan River, finally resulted in a Spanish victory.
On October 19, 1596, the Spanish ship San Felipe was shipwrecked in Urado on the Japanese island of Shikoku en route from Manila to Acapulco in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade. The local daimyō Chōsokabe Motochika seized the cargo of the richly laden Manila galleon, and the incident escalated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, ruling taikō of Japan. The pilot of the ship, Matías de Landecho, suggested to Japanese authorities that it was Spanish modus operandi to have missionaries infiltrate a country before an eventual military conquest, as had been done in the Americas and the Philippines. This led to the crucifixion of 26 Christians in Nagasaki, the first lethal persecution of Christians by the state in Japan. The executed were later known as the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan.
El Piñal was a port in the Pearl River Delta area that was temporarily granted to the Spanish from 1598 to 1600 by Cantonese officials of the Ming dynasty. Seen as a threat to the Portuguese monopoly on the 16th century China trade, the Spanish presence in El Piñal provoked a violent reaction from Portuguese Macau nearby. El Piñal was soon abandoned, and its exact location remains a matter of scholarly debate.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 José Antonio Cervera Jiménez, Los planes españoles para conquistar China a través de Nueva España y Centroamérica en el siglo XVI. Cuadernos Inter.c.a.mbio, Año 10, Vol. 10, No. 12 (2013), 207-234
Comellas García-Lera, José Luis (2009). Páginas de la historia. Rialp. ISBN9788432137969.
Hortigüela, Juan Hernández (2018). De Filipinas a Vietnam: Españoles con la cruz y la espada. Punto Rojo. ISBN9788417768119.
De Laurentis, Ernesto (2009). Evangelización y prestigio. Primeros encuentros entre España y Corea. Verbum. ISBN9788479625337.
Mayer Celis, Leticia (2021). Rutas de incertidumbre: Ideas alternativas sobre la génesis de la probabilidad, siglos XVI y XVII. Fondo de Cultura Económica. ISBN9786071643957.
Ollé, Manel (2000). La invención de China: percepciones y estrategias filipinas respecto a China durante el siglo XVI. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN9783447043366.
Ollé, Manel (2002). La empresa de china: de la Armada Invencible al Galeón de Manila. Acantilado. ISBN9788495359858.
Sola, Diego (2018). El Cronista de China: Juan González de Mendoza, entre la misión, el imperio y la historia. Edicions Universitat Barcelona. ISBN9788491680376.
Sola, Emilio (1999). Historia de un desencuentro. España y Japón, 1580-1619. Archivo de la Frontera. ISBN9788469058596.
Thomas, Hugh (2015). World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire. Random House. ISBN9780812998122.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
