Thanas wrote:Well, I only go by what is quoted in the paper I linked to, I am no expert on Chinese or Vietnam populations. But still, even if it still just a "few tens of thousands" or so, that is still enough to far outweigh the slaughter the Portugese caused in their conquest of Malacca the chinese were reacting to.
I am sorry, but that does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. The actual 1419 Ming census indicated Vietnam had 3 129 500 inhabitants plus 2 087 500 million 'barbarians' (mountain tribesmen who were considered 'outside civilization' as they were unsinicized). The
Mingshilu records were wrong - sometimes unintentionally, as the scribes making errors when rewriting, sometimes intentionally so. The total invading Ming force of 200 000 men was already superpower-big by the standards of the time, as it should have been since the Ming were in their age and place at least as powerful as the Romans... as were the battles and losses - in larger battles the Vietnamese casualties numbered in tens of thousands (e.g. 30 000), in smaller ones around 1-3 thousand.
Besides, the Ming wars in 1400s have nothing to do with the century-later Portuguese conquests in India, Americas and South-East Asia. One is not a reaction to the other.
The actual Chinese response to the Portugal attack on Malacca and its conquests in Asia led to even less deaths than Albuquerque's notorious Johor sackings. The Portuguese envoys and sailors who died in naval battles are all the casualties.
Thanas wrote:if one battle has 50k troops it is more like to be over a 100k number deaths in civilians
No, it does not work that way. Unlike modern warfare, the civilian death toll in pre-industrial warfare could be much smaller than that of the actual combat troops. The reason is simple, lack of arms. The Dai Viet forces were easily routed by the Ming during the invasion, and serious rebellions only became a problem after the Ming started reinstalling Chinese customs in Vietnam with the policy of banning nearly everything that independent Vietnamese culture had brought in the five centuries after Vietnam split from China. But even despite the bad blood Vietnam became a haven for Ming loyalists who later fled the country after the dynasty changed (in fact, there had been peace for three centuries between the China and Dai Viet after the Ming retreated).
What is even more interesting is that given the fairly large populations and military strength of major powers in South East Asia, most such wars were 'genocidal' given your strange logic. The Vietnamese conquest of Champa resulted in many dozens of deaths, at least sixty thousand slain during the sack of the capital, and a massive flight of refugees. Unlike Dai Viet with its millions, Champa is generally considered to have had a very small population base (less than one million). Would you consider Dai Viet being genocidal since it exterminated a large share of the Chams during the conquest? (I tend to hold the view that pre-industrial wars were rarely genocidal, although colonization that followed often was)
Thanas wrote:then that still makes your claim that the Ming were this benevolent withdrawn power a huge lie
I did not say the Ming were a totally withdrawn power. They were a regional power. Perhaps even a superpower of the age. But at no point they became a global maritime power, or a global land power
like the Mongols. They did have the technology for that (the compass, for example, and firearms). What you fail to grasp is that the Ming were really reserved in intervention, like for example the Zheng He expeditions that you bring up. Comparing that to Columbus, who ushered an age of conquista and genocidal colonization of the Americas is preposterous, as the Chinese fleet was not used for such things and being discovered by China's naval emissaries did not mean later men with guns were going to come and murder or enslave your kin.
Thanas wrote:In fact, how about you establish a number for the people killed by the Portugese in their conquest of Malacca first before you make claims like how the Chinese were obviously more benevolent?
Portuguese were known for their religious fanaticism and intolerance; in Goa, which was conquered during the same period, they set up an inquisition, and in general considered killing heathens okay - their occupation force was fairly small and a reign of terror was the only thing that could really support their power in a land with zero cultural links. Just to remind you what kind of a person Albuquerque was.
Albuquerque, Morse Stephens wrote:As soon as the Portuguese were in entire possession of Goa, Albuquerque directed that the Muhammadan population, men, women and children, should be put to the sword. This cruel butchery is far more to Albuquerque's discredit than the hanging of Ruy Dias, for which the poet Camoens so strongly condemns him.
Albuquerque, Morse Stephens wrote:Albuquerque withdrew his men to their ships, after setting fire to the arsenal and beheading 150 of the principal Muhammadan prisoners whom he had in his possession.
History of India, edited by A. V. Williams Jackson wrote:In carrying out the doctrine of lawful war against all unbelievers, with whom no express compact existed to the contrary, the Portuguese were led into cruelties, in part common to that time, but in part arising from their peculiar position in Asia. Their force was so small that they thought it needful to punish without mercy any resistance or revolt. This necessity for terrorizing the superior numbers of their enemies may explain, though it can never excuse, the atrocities which stained their history in the East. Such severities became a fixed principle of their policy from the second voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1502. The Bishop Osorio blames Almeida (1505–1509) for torturing and executing the prisoners after the battle of Diu, and reprobates the conduct of a captain who in 1507 threw the crew of an Arab ship sewed up in sails into the sea, although they had not defended themselves and held a Portuguese passport. Almeida “blew his prisoners from guns before Cannanore, saluting the town with their fragments.” On the capture of Brava, the Portuguese soldiers “barbarously cut off the hands and ears of women, to take off their bracelets and earrings, to save time in taking them off.”
These were not exceptional barbarities. The permanent attitude of the Portuguese to all Asiatics who resisted was void of compunction.
To quote a few examples from contemporary manuscripts: a letter from João de Lima to the King of Portugal in 1518 speaks of the people of Daibul as “dogs” who “do not want but the sword in hand.” In 1535, at the capture of the petty island of Mete near Diu, “all were killed, without allowing a single one to live, and for this reason it was henceforward called the Island of the Dead.” In 1540 the Zamorin was compelled to agree to cast out of his dominions all who would not accept the terms imposed, “and if they should not wish to go, he will order them to be killed.” In 1546, says the official report of the siege of Diu, “we spared no life whether of women or children.”
I cut short the list of horrors. The Portuguese cruelties were deliberate rather than vindictive. Even a high-minded soldier and devout cavalier of the Cross like Albuquerque believed a reign of terror to be a necessity of his position, and that, in giving no quarter, he best rendered service to Christ and acted with the truest humanity in the long run to the heathen.
All cities captured by the Portuguese were subject to sacking and plunder; in Goa alone they killed 6 000 people, including women and children, because they were of Muslim faith. As you may know after the sacking of Goa, Malacca and Johor cities the Portuguese ruthlessly murdered many civilians, whole families, but they usually spared the widows. Albuquerque gave them as war trophies to their men; they were made slaves.
If you think that I am somehow saying the Portuguese were terrible just because Albuquerque killed a few thousand people, consider that in the same time, early 1500s, the Portuguese started their colonial expeditions under Cabral in the Americas. Their policy resulted in the rapid destruction of the Indians. Today's Brazil is basically a child of extermination.
Thankfully enough the Jesus fanatics failed miserably in South East Asia and India. A Portuguese India might have been an even worse sight to behold than the British one.
Thanas wrote:No, don't try to weasel out of this. You used the genocidal connotation to rail against colonialism, as if colonialism was one size fits all. Now please provide proof the Portugese killed more people than the Chinese in their dealings with Asia in the late 16th century.
The Portuguese did kill in the thousands when sacking cities, enslaved a massive piece of a continent and installed inquisition wherever they could. They also forged a maritime world-spanning empire by these killings and religicide. If they didn't fail hard versus the others, what we had in the form of the British Empire would be Portuguese. Considering they were Christian lunatics who burned people alive (though granted, most Europeans were) I do not see how this is in any way good or somehow better than the Ming war with Dai Viet, that used to be previously a part of China itself for hundreds of years. I wonder if you realize that Portugal was taking over places that
never ever were part of Portugal, and shared no border neither common heritage. Unlike even the wars between France and Germany over lands belonging to one or the other, the British, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese maritime conquests centered on places that were never theirs to begin with.
Thanas wrote:And Portugese capabilities were widely beyond Chinese maritime capabilities too, so again, what is your point?
At the time (1400s) the capabilities were almost equal, I would say. During the Portuguese conquests, however, the Ming abandoned the sea exploration for a whole century and obviously could not keep up.
Thanas wrote:It is not as if the Portugese ever settled there in the manner of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Northern America either, or as if the Portugese colonialism is comparable in scale and impact to that one either.
It is quite comparable, you are right. Out of Brazil's native population a bare fraction survived. At the time of discovery Brazil had a larger native population than Portugal. I am not sure how the fuck that's even remotely comparable to taking over Vietnam. Well... if China killed all Vietnamese leaving 10% by the time Ming troops left Vietnam in 1420s, that might have been comparable. No wait. Brazil did not even leave. In fact the colonists forever changed the whole place...
Thanas wrote:Meanwhile, I love how you just gloss over the claims of economic coercion and exploitation on part of the Chinese. Guess it is not a bad thing when they do it.
It is a bad thing. What is also bad, and much worse, is burning people alive because God said so and killing people just because they are Muslims, and making natives all over Asia and South America into fucking
slaves.
Thanas wrote:No no, please stay and defend your assertion how the Portugese were obviously far worse than the Ming in their dealings with other people.
I just did.
