Chapter 277: Strategy for Macau

Amateurs watch the excitement; experts hear the way. When Alonso heard the other side threaten to close the Gate Barrier, he instantly felt as if someone had him by the throat, and all his arrogance vanished. Alonso knew: General Cao's fleet could not yet enter Guangdong in large numbers — that would violate an Imperial taboo. But if the other side manipulated several gate-closing operations through the Ming Empire's bureaucratic system, that should not be difficult. This was exactly what the Portuguese feared. Ever since the Portuguese occupied Macau, the food problem had never been resolved. Because Macau was a tiny speck of land, and the White-Skins had not come here to farm, all of Macau's grain and daily necessities were purchased from the Great Ming. In 1574, the court set up a Gate Barrier at Lotus Stem in Xiangshan County, with a Xiangshan Fort Assistant Regional Commander specially assigned to guard it, in order to remotely control Macau. At first, the gate opened once every five days. Portuguese who obtained a pass from Xiangshan County could cross the gate to buy grain and daily necessities from Ming merchants at the market. However, as the Portuguese grew increasingly numerous and conflicts between the Ming and Portuguese accumulated, the gate opening thereafter changed to once every twenty days — the Ming Dynasty Government began using food supply to control Macau. For the Portuguese, this tactic was still very effective. According to Melo Castro's records: "Cochinchina has foodstuffs, but it lies southwest of Macau, a distance of 100 leagues. The surrounding islands are inhabited and can also provide food, but only cattle, pigs, chickens, and ducks." "The market was first held every five days, then changed to once every two weeks, and as a result some of Macau's poor starved to death." At that time, Cambodia, which was relatively close to Macau, could also provide grain, but under the instigation of those two bad seeds, the British and the Dutch, the Cambodian king not only refused the Macau priests permission to stay, but also forbade the Macau Special Envoy who had come on the same ship from remaining. So, in this period, although the Portuguese had entrenched themselves in Macau for several decades, they still had a weak spot. And Guangzhou Officialdom fully exploited this weak spot of food when dealing with the Portuguese. Just three years earlier, in 1625, the Governor-General of Liangguang, He Shijin, ordered the Transmigrators' old friend, Comrade Cai Shanji, then serving as Lingxi Circuit Intendant, to go to Macau and convey the Governor-General's handwritten order: demolish the earthen walls, blockhouses, and forts. But Dom Francisco Mascarenhas, the Governor-General of royal noble birth, not only refused to obey but also prepared to resist by force. Then the Gate Barrier was sealed. Overnight, black-market grain prices rose three- or fourfold. Under the complaints of the Portuguese residents, Dom Francisco Mascarenhas ultimately had no choice but to send someone to knock at the gate and negotiate, expressing willingness to demolish the forts. Generally speaking, from the mid-Ming period all the way through to the Republic Era's great colonizer incursions, the government's response grew increasingly strained — whether that government was the Ming Court, the Qing Court, or the Republic. As the colonizers grew stronger day by day, Guangzhou Officialdom could no longer do as it pleased in Macau: to arrest some Portuguese criminals, to demolish forts, a provincial Governor-General had to repeatedly issue orders with great fanfare to cut off grain to a tiny speck of land. Strength was strength; it could not be held off long-term by mere tactics. The greatest action the Ming Court ultimately took was nothing more than banning the Portuguese from trading in Guangzhou City in 1640. By that time, the government was already powerless to expel the Portuguese, who possessed sturdy ships and powerful cannons. Cutting off grain and trade — this tactic that seemed clever but was in reality a passive and weak measure — was thereafter inherited wholesale by the Qing Court. Examples of the queue-wearing court treating powers like Britain and France this way were too numerous to count, until after the First and Second Opium Wars, when the weak had their gates thoroughly smashed open by the strong and concessions were established. By then, naturally, no one dared cut the foreign devils' provisions. And in the Transmigrators' plane, as the opening move in a series of intimidations and threats against the Portuguese, this ploy of closing the Gate Barrier to cut off grain still had some use. In fact, this ploy was impossible to carry out — the Transmigrators could not order the Governor-General of Liangguang to close Macau's gate; doing so would cost too much political capital and would not achieve any substantive effect: Guangdong Officialdom did not have the nerve to blockade the Portuguese long-term. However, the Portuguese did not know this, so Alonso now assumed by inertia that the Transmigrators had the capability to remotely cause trouble for Macau. Under these circumstances, whether it was the Transmigrators declaring they would seize Macau's tax-collection rights, or threatening to close the gate and cut off grain, Alonso realized that none of these were matters a mere envoy like him could decide. This was completely different from the intelligence he had received when he set out. This power entrenched in Dayuan seemed to harbor a peculiar ill will toward the Portuguese. And so, after gaining a preliminary understanding of the Transmigration Nation's terrifying industrial strength and sinister political intentions, Alonso decided to leave — let him hand everything over to Governor-General Dom Francisco Mascarenhas and the Macau City Council. A certain person now admitted his shoulders were too narrow and could not bear the burden. As for the Transmigrators' side, no one took Alonso's departure to heart. Like a bulldozer at a construction site, no matter how the Portuguese responded, the stronger side just needed to push on through. It was still the same principle: ally with distant states while attacking nearby ones. The Transmigration Nation had a detailed timetable for dealing with the Portuguese. First: regarding the issue of entering Guangdong in force, the Transmigrators were not worried, because history had already given a clear answer. In real history, due to a complete falling-out with the recruited and amnestied Zheng Zhilong, the Liu Xiang Group began rampaging along the Fujian coast on a large scale. Zheng Zhilong likewise mobilized all his forces and, with the help of the Ming Dynasty's Official Army, fought six battles against the Liu Xiang Group. Between those years, the two sides fought a series of campaigns across the Fujian sea surface: "First shattered them at Shiwei, again shattered them at Dinghai, a third time shattered them at Guanghe, a fourth time shattered them at Baige Men, a fifth time shattered them at Dadan, a sixth time shattered them at Qian'ao." After his defeat, Liu Xiang fled back to Guangzhou waters — at this point, take note, Zheng Zhilong's great army legitimately and lawfully pursued him all the way to the Guangzhou ocean. And because the Liu Xiang Group needed to quickly recover its Essence Refining, during this game of hide-and-seek, they began plundering Guangzhou merchants and civilians on a massive scale — this was what one might call the final madness. Then Liu Xiang met his tragedy: the Fujian Governor's Office and the furiously enraged Liangguang Provincial and Surveillance Offices swiftly reached an agreement for a joint punitive expedition. Then Zheng Zhilong had an official's hat dropped on his head: Nan'ao Deputy Commander. One must understand, Nan'ao Island was Guangdong's territory! In order to finish off Liu Xiang, Guangdong Officialdom did not hesitate to give Lao Zheng the hat of Deputy Regional Commander. With soaring morale, Zheng Zhilong assembled the elite of his entire force, and on April 8, 1635, launched the decisive battle against Liu Xiang at Tianwei Ocean. After sacrificing the fierce general Zheng Zhihu, he finally annihilated Liu Xiang completely. Thus, the Transmigrators could clearly deduce their next course of action from the above historical facts: they only needed to tightly lock down the Xiamen–One Line, preventing Liu Xiang from going north, and force Old Liu to plunder rampantly within Guangdong territory. Historically, Zheng Zhilong only eliminated Liu Xiang in the seventh year after his recruitment and amnesty, but the Transmigrators would not need nearly that long: no pirate of any scale could evade Xiamen's destroyers, radar, and drones. So Liu Xiang was now a wolf kept in a pen; the Transmigrators only needed to wait quietly for him to stir up trouble in Guangdong. When the time came, Guangdong Officialdom would naturally submit memorials "inviting the wolf into the house."