Ming of the West, Koxinga Goes East

Lets say, for a scenario that the Ming in 1435 do discover the Americas but with nomajor incentive to explore the area they go along the Hegemonic Path of getting the loyalties of a few of the tribes along the western coast and contacts with the Aztecs before their defeat to Spain but as apart of a Zheng He style of setting up outposts, a Chinese 'Outpost' city mainly atuned for trade, getting tribute from the locals and harvesting of local resources is set up in the area of San Francisco Bay and over time grows slowly, mainly a area for exiling various peoples who displease the Ming and those forced off their land by debt or plague or etc and possibly see's immigration by Japanese. Spanish influence would be checkered south of California.

So come the time of the arrival of the Manchus and the Qing, Koxinga as his base in Fujian erodes travels westward and secures the most eastern of Bastions from the Qing, setting up a Ming Bastion in the Americas rather then Taiwan with its hostile natives and annoying Dutch. At the sametime this outpost will recieve population of refugees from the Qing and swell up in size, and for sometime likely remain out of the Qing's grasp while their naval skills are inadequate to invade across thousands of miles of ocean.
 
历史的大金门 or History of the Grand Golden Gate Dajinmen

The history of the Golden Gate Area stretches back thousands of years where various groups of native Meiguo peoples, where the Yelamu were the mostprominent of the Ohlone speaking people that made upmuch of the coastal area of central Meiguo. The Yelamu lived in several villages in the Golden Bay area, trading with related peoples far into the inland and up the coast, it is quite evident that even they may have known of the prominent geographical area they occupied, this would prove provident to all the people that would call the Golden Bay home. The famous and imfamous fog of the Golden Gate is known to have discouraged the finding of the Bay Area many times, with preserved native Meiguo peoples accounts as the fog having capabilities of totally causing the opeing to the Bay area to disappear, this would prove fruitful later on, especially the well known Ambush of Li Ping.

Perhaps if it had not been the guidance of the Heavens or simpleblind luck then the ships of Jin Ma may never have discovered the area! As accounts and myths go it was from seeing the reflected in the fog, golden hue of the surrounding hills, as they turn a color of the like during the dry summers or from other accounts following sea birds to their roosts or Yelamu fishermen. Whatever the case, in 1436 the modest fleet of Jin Ma discovered the entrance of the Golden Gate and in the spirit of Zheng He set down a small outpost, which would grow over the years to the largest city of the Western Hemisphere. Current to this period the power struggle between the Confucian scholars and the Merchants were ongoing, the expditions of Zheng He had by this point established profitable relations of trade and established the Ming Tributary System, while no longer funded by the government the outlawing of building of ships, the proposed Haijin or Sea Ban order as advertised by many of the hadcore Confucian officials did not take place. As such the grand displaying and extremely costly voyages of Zheng He were over with many of his lieuteniets heading much smaller and economicly based voyages.

Jin Ma while under Zheng He's command, simply captained a supply vessel for the Equine Ships of the Treasure Fleets, but he had a family who had wwealth and from his time in the navy gained insights to naval logstics. More then known as a 'eccentric' Jin Ma wished it is said to find the legendary Fusang, though his trips to the northeast were practical toward fur trading with the hunter-gathering Siberians of Eurasia's remote eastern coast. Whatever the point Jin Ma sailed and is internationally known as the Discoverer of Meiguo, or Americas to the Europeans. The dispute between who reached Meiguo first, bewteen Jin Ma and Columbus finally being settled recently.

Once the Ming expedition entered the Golden Gate, possibilities of the usefulness of the Bay Area became abundant due to the nature of the geographical stronghold of the position. Their are no documents of tension between Jin Ma and the Yelamu inhabitants who appeared to be in awe of what had arrived in their home, and lacking the traits of land ownership the Chinese set up a camp near the Yelamu village of Amuctac which soon would totally overrun the native village by the 'visiting' Chinese. Jin Ma explored the extent of the Bay Area for a month, then southward for a ways before returning to China and leaving his son, Jin Peng in charge of the small settlement. His return would not be alone as Jin Ma returned not only with a bigger fleet with hundreds of sailors and workers but also envoys of the Ming Court who would go about gaining the 'loyalties' of the tribes, and in a small note while in the Golden Gate the envoys would be dissatisfied with the peoples discovrered notes to the Emperor would remark favorably on the area (granted their disspointment would vanish with discovery of the Mexica).

Uforunately by 1440 the natives as far as the Mexica were shuddering with the effects of disease, thus leading to the Famous 'Goodwill' Missions of Jin Peng....
 
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Would America still be called "Meiguo"? Meiguo is a phonetic translation of "America" after all, with the "guo" meaning 'country.'
 
Would America still be called "Meiguo"? Meiguo is a phonetic translation of "America" after all, with the "guo" meaning 'country.'

Well "Mei" also (amongst its many meanings in Chinese) means Beautiful, so America comes out as "Beautiful Country" which I imagine the abundant scenery could be a cause for calling it as such. I don't wish to call it Fusang, the mythical western nation which is either the Americas or Japan in Chinese legend, I could call it the "Dongguo" East-Country but then I would have to call San Francisco "Dongjing" which would also be taking the title from Japan.

Granted I could just use all of them depending on the source, Natives of "Meiguo" call it that, while Natives of China call it "Dongguo" while Japanese pick up "Fusang" possibly.
 
The Yellow Menace: The Chinese in America

....causing a great disparity amongst the native populations and the collapse of the Mexica which would cause a great quagmire for the Spanish Conquistadores, delaying Spanish influence in Mexico.
Meanwhile in theh Golden Gate, the first Chinese settlement in the Americas had grown greatly in the years since the settlement by Jin Ma.

The plagues were both a boon, a curse, and again a boon for the Chinese settlers due to the consequences behld onto the local native populations. The first boon was the in many cases the total extinction of native villages and groups, allowing for the advancement of Chinese influence over the entire Bay Area and into the Central Valley while at the sametime gaining the enimity of the local native groups along the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest and raids on Chinese ships and settlement, but this affront would lead to a increased naval prescence following the discovery of the wealth of the furs from local animals such as the large numberof beavers and sea otters and their high demand.

From 1440 to the early 16th century the "Fur Rush" caused a migration of settlers wishing to seek small fortunes in hunting of the local fauna, but at the sametime this opened the Bay Area to broader interests as hunters and trappers moved inland after the furry gold. The abundant ecological area drew in fishermen, harvesting salmon and halibut, the harvesting of douglas-fir and redwood, the spread of farming from local substience, and a port for traders sailing to the Mexica peoples gaining exotic goods.

Following the death of Jin Ma, his son Jin Peng as "Gatekeeper" of the Golden Gate, a title of a fanciful name but the status of a military-governer, where he would pursue the aggressive stance of expanding the area of Chinese influence throughout the area of the Bay, where he would explore use of a extreme polar stance-aggressively sinicizing friendly tribes and utterly destroying hostiles ones. Part of Jin Peng's policies would deal with in ways causing the Golden Gate to be independent from Ming rule as the Hongzhi Emperor cleaned house of corrupt officials and with little doubt sided with the Confucian Officals, ferrying many to exile in the Golden Gate where out of sight and out of mind they under Jin Peng contributed to the expansion of the Golden Gate. By this point the Golden Gate's population had swelled from a few hundred to a few thousand, with Chinese seeking fortune and independence spread out along the entire coastal area of the Bay and up the Yu (Sacremento) River.

When Jin Huo took over reigns of the Golden Gate, he pursued a course of military construction and diplomatic relations like never before as he built up a personal navy and several forts guarding the entrance to the Golden Gate and later on in the late 1530s when Spanish interests in Mexico finally managed to conquer the myriad of feuding civlizations relations with the Chinese were pursued. Upon arrival in Mexico in 1513, Hernan Cortes had to deal with a number of independent city-states throughout Mexico that had sprang up following the breakup of the Aztec Triple Alliance a decade earlier due to tensions of smallpox and plagues, leading to no major central authority to control the territory, Hernan Cortes set forth to conquer Mexico piece by piece, and upon warring with the Tarascans and the Mexica who provided a stubborn blockade to his interests in western and central Mexico the Spanish came into contact with Chinese traders.

The news that the Spanish HAD reached somewhere close possibly to Cathy sparked a firestorm in Europe, but relations with the Chinese at the Golden Gate was halted following the death of Cortes leading to a delay in continued relations untill the late 1530s when a expedition under Portugese explorer Francisco de Ulloa traveled back to the Golden Gate on a trader ship.

Coincidentally it was at this time that one small outpost on the Yu River, a waterwwheel irrigation system built as apart ofJin Peng's friendly gestures to the natives was to have discovered a golden allure in the water thus sparking a new age for the Golden Gate, one of wealth and of warfare.
 
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历史上的大金门 or History of the Grand Golden Gate Dajinmen

A linguistic note: you've got it turned around. It should be 大金门的历史; further, the 上 is unnecessary in this context.

This is a very interesting concept, but in the end I agree with this:

I dunno. I like Koxinga, really I do, but this seems a bit too much.

America is to the east, and there's a reason why in OTL all of the treasure fleets went in the exact opposite direction. They weren't voyages of exploration; on the contrary, they were more to show the flag, impress/scare foreigners, and find cool shit for the emperor's zoo. Sending a fleet into the middle of nowhere - in completely uncharted waters, where as far as everyone knew there was no one to scare/trade with - would have made absolutely no sense.
 
America is to the east, and there's a reason why in OTL all of the treasure fleets went in the exact opposite direction. They weren't voyages of exploration; on the contrary, they were more to show the flag, impress/scare foreigners, and find cool shit for the emperor's zoo. Sending a fleet into the middle of nowhere - in completely uncharted waters, where as far as everyone knew there was no one to scare/trade with - would have made absolutely no sense.

You completely missed the points where I said that These were not the Big Expensive "Bow Down And See How Awesome We Are" Voyages of Zheng He, compared to the fleet of hundreds of ships of Zheng He's voyages, the fleet of Jin Ma was like 5 ships without the vast array of wealth and soldier and horses and what not that Zheng He carried with him to impress local rulers, and the reason for 'discovering' the Americas was that Jin Ma was something of a idealist wanting to 'discover' Fusang and/or stake out trading rights with the insignificant Siberianoid peoples past Manchuria for his family. The Big Trade Voyage schemes of Zheng He had splintered to smaller and cheaper ones.

Even so far The Golden Gate is a insignificant aand not governmentally invested place thanks to the Confucians, think of things as a catalyst for a proto-capitalist evolution for the Chinese Merchant class.
 
How about Koxinga calling America Kingdom of Dongning? It's what he called his kingdom in Taiwan. Dongning means Peaceful East, and America is even further east, making the name still suitable.

Still this is going rather far just to get away from the Manchus. Why couldn't he settle somewhere closer like Philippines, East Indies, Australia or something?
 
You completely missed the points where I said that These were not the Big Expensive "Bow Down And See How Awesome We Are" Voyages of Zheng He . . .

My apologies. I was reading quickly, kept on seeing Zheng He's name, and jumped to conclusions, rather than slowing down and checking out what you actually wrote. Mea culpa. I'm still skeptical, but this is more due to a generalized prejudice against any China-discovers-America scenario (which I just don't think is especially plausible) than anything else. And what you've written so far is certainly interesting and well-done. You still might want to fix this, though:

A linguistic note: you've got it turned around. It should be 大金门的历史; further, the 上 is unnecessary in this context.
 
Mountains of Gold

Since the discovery of gold east of Anqing (Sacremento), the eastern land of the Golden Gate had truly earned the title of gold so known to it as the country soon became known as Jinguo or Golden Country to not only the Chinese but also to the Europeans who would soon make their prescence known to the hundred year old outpost of the Ming Empire. Indeed for many would travel across land and sea to make their fortunes in the land of prosperity.

The first to discover the substance was a laborer by the name of Xuan Yu, working up on the Yu river as apart of a system of irrigation systems which were being built as a geasture of good will to the Meiguo natives who by this time had been pushed out of the Bay and across the northern Central Valley to the foothills of the Dongshan mountains (Sierra Mountains), where Jin Peng had been exploring into building a system of irrigation and agriculture for the natives as a precursor for possible economic expansion at a future date. Xuan Yu pointed out to one of the foreman at the notice of golden specks in the trailrace of the waterwheel, who brought to the attention of the manager for affairs with the natives which then spread back the Yu river to the Golden Gate, but by then the area broke out in violence as the low paid workers sent to a area of attacks by hostile natives to work long hours were fighting one another and the local guards to get at what they could get.

Fate could be blamed that by the arrival of Francisco de Ulloa at the Golden Gate no one could go five minutes without discussing the discovery of gold, which perhaps it should have been best that the merchant captain bringing the Spanish envoys to the Golden Gate had not taught the Spaindard the word for Gold but when 'Gold' is literally in the name of the city this is hard to pass over by. Therefore fate could be blamed that after several weeks of learning more of the local language and dealing with the likes of Jin Huo (of course acting on behalf of the Ming Emperor) and the city the Spanish returned to Mexico with word that to the north their was plenty of gold to be had! It was not long before Spanish ships arrived at the Golden Gate and Spanish merchants and miners sought the rumored "Mountain of Gold", which many thought was in connection to the rumored Seven Cities of Gold. Their arrival would soon lead to a avalanche of ethnic tension as the 'Foreigners' began to move into competition with the majority Chinese residents over stakes for gold.1

By this point, Jin Huo had moved in on the area and using a consortium of allied-merchants set up the groundwork for allowing those who had the will to go after the gold, the first to arrive were entire families of the lower classes and unemployed in the Golden Gate first coming independently but with the complexities of many just up and leaving their jobs and homes to mine for gold as chaos reigned a more organized system grew as would-be miners banded together into 'companies' for forming allied efforts in sharing the work and lifestyle of the relativly untamed wilderness area. Soon also merchant sponsered 'companies' would appear as the population of the area swelled and small towns appeared over the course of a few weeks.

The mining population did swell indeed as the word spread far across the sea to the Middle Kingdom, where in the past two decades had seen the reign of the Emperor Zhengde and current Emperor Jiajing. Zhengde's reign was less then competant as his father-though brought up to be a excellent Emperor, Zhengde was quite the opposite as he was childish and many of his actions foolish, and worked on many expensive escapades to cater to his style of all play and no running the Dynasty. His successor and nephew the Jiajing Emperor was somehow by fate even worse then Zhengde as he was well known for his paranoia, lack of responsibility to state affairs, and his bloodthirsty nature.

The lack of competance of these two would give rise to the Eunuch Court, utter corruption of the government, and perfect conditions for a major immigration wave for the Golden Gate. The costly affairs of the Emperors demanded funds so demands for a slice of the 'Mountain of Gold' was demanded and so in the homeland it was encouraged for workers to work for their Emperor. The general decline of economic prosperity of the Ming was also a strong factor as the costly affairs and corruption would lead to looking to the Golden Gate with fondness as fables and stories that "The walls are built with gold" created a image of prosperity that naturally draws in people with hope for riches and wealth. A third factor would also be the Emperor Jiajing's hatred for anyone not of the Daoist persuasion as he lead persecutions against the Buddhists of China leading to the Golden Gate as a destination of religious freedom as Jin Huo made no qualms with religious affiliation.

With immigrants from Japan the Warring State's Period was more then enough reason for people in the periods of internal war for the Nipponese to seek fortunes overseas, particularly as at this time even the Imperial Coffers were in a poor state leading to the Imperial Court to ask for contributions. Needless to say that the small Japanese population of the Golden Gate gained for the turmoil of the home islands and prosperity to be had in the land of gold.

The last major wave of immigration for the Golden Gate came not from the west, to Asia, but from the south from Spanish Mexico where the news of both oriental exotic goods and gold was sending a fresh plague of gold fever. The Spanish administration over Mexico was still new, with Spanish immigration to Mexico still not very large so the first inital movement of Spaindards to the Golden Gate were of the Conquistador stock who like anyone having traveled thousands of miles to conquer a exotic land in a fierce decades long struggle in the name of God, made very few friends upon their arrival. Their leader, Francisco Pizarro especially made none. 2


1-I hope the Irony can be appreciated by the readers
2-Generally the Expeditions of many Conquistadors are delayed or didn't happen because the conquest of Mexico took longer thanks to the balkanized Aztec Empire earlier on, therego efforts of incoming Conquistadors would be consumed in Mexico.
 
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Well "Mei" also (amongst its many meanings in Chinese) means Beautiful, so America comes out as "Beautiful Country" which I imagine the abundant scenery could be a cause for calling it as such. I don't wish to call it Fusang, the mythical western nation which is either the Americas or Japan in Chinese legend, I could call it the "Dongguo" East-Country but then I would have to call San Francisco "Dongjing" which would also be taking the title from Japan.

Granted I could just use all of them depending on the source, Natives of "Meiguo" call it that, while Natives of China call it "Dongguo" while Japanese pick up "Fusang" possibly.
Possible, but slightly cheesy. Chinese naming conventions, even if it's phonetic, will tend to pick a word that sounds similar but has a nice meaning to it.

What did the native tribes call their territory? Or it could also be "Donghaiguo," (Eastern Sea Country), or Yuandong (Far East) or something of that sort. Maybe the Chinese realized that the world was round and figured if Japan was the origin of the sun (in a figurative sense), then the west coast of North America could be where the sun sets (figuratively), and have a name like Ri-Mo (Sun's End). I don't know enough about Chinese astronomy, though, for this to work.
 

Keenir

Banned
very enjoyable. I'm looking forwards to seeing what happens in this.


Would America still be called "Meiguo"? Meiguo is a phonetic translation of "America" after all, with the "guo" meaning 'country.'

well, could one of the other translations of mei apply? (and then get suffixed with -guo)
 
To Name A Land

The name of the eastern continent has vexed many a atlas maker throughout its history as it seems that many have wanted to call the untamed lands for what they saw or what they wanted from the land. In this short piece we will go over the different names used for the land and why its present monkier is used.

Mei-Guo: 美国 Beautiful Country
The usage of this term for the Eastern Continent was first expressed by none other then Jin Ma, the discoverer of the vast landscape even before any other names came into place. Mei being the word for beauty in Chinese, 美 such the name is a simple expression by Jin Ma of the beauty he witnessed of the natural landscape, devoid of civilization (for the most part). This name is also expressed for the European term of, America for the continent based on the name of Amerigo Vespucci, a Italian explorer.

Jin Guo 金国 Gold Country
This usage came into major use in various periods and is one of the most common terms for the country as expressed by many of the early Golden Gate or Dajinmen's governors and rulers and every goldseeker following the discovery of gold. This is the main nickname for the area surrounding the Golden Gate to the Dongshan Mountains as it is expressed as a usage of the golden hills of the Golden Gate, the Gold of the Dongshan Mountains, and the family name of the Jin family the founders of Sino Civlization in the New World. A fourth reason for this expression could also be the wealth of the country for its commerical enterprises.

Ye Guo 野国 Open Country
This term of usage is the offical name of the eastern continent and the Republic of Yeguo, of the Open Country or of America as expressed by European cartographers. The name derives in part from the Yelamu people who inhabited the Bay Area previous to Chinese colonization. This is the most common expression for the Oriental name of the eastern continent and of the Republic centered around Dajinmen or the Golden Gate city that is the first Sino city on the continent and the capital of the Repulic of Yeguo, and greatest city on the western coast of the continent. Yeshangguo 野生国 and Yemenguo 野蛮国 is also a common name for the land, as a term of negative expression by those from China usually expressing the independent and anti-confucian mindset of the Yeguo people as brutal and uncivilized. As such the nicknames were used by the Yeguo people as a source of pride following the independence of Yeguo after the fall of the Ming in China and the Shanghai Conflict, where Yeguo representatives declined to join the Republic of China.
 
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I aim to do ideas never done before!

I need to do as much as I can for Blue Sky and Ming of the West beforeI go to China just encase I can't get on.
 
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