Spain Without An Ounce of Silver

Or to be more specific. What would be the butterflies of the Hapsburgs if they did not have access to the Great Silver Mines of their Spanish Empire? Either by not discovering them or they being under their control. If they are not under Spanish control for a period or they gain them latter.

One of the more obvious butterflies would be in regard to the Chinese Trade. The Ming inflated and oversold themselves into financial corruption and collapse as a result of importing mass quantities of New Spanish Silver. They flooded Mexico with Silk that created a vast texilte industry and had European powers bickering each other for control over trade in the region. No Manila Galleons.

Other butterflies may include the Reformation or the Ottomans.

So is this:

1) Habsburgs do not control said such, but another dynasty does.

2) Spain does not control such, but another country or country does.

3) Spain (still ruled by the Habsburgs) has partial control along with another country or countries.

4) No Potosi discovery.


Because the Ming are still likely to be flooded with silver in the first three.

It depends on the supply chain itself. The Spanish managed the logistics due to that they had a rather uncontested hold on the Western coast of Mexico to Peru. As well as a base in Manila. I need to look it up again but, even still in OTL the Spanish had issues with transporting silver due to safety and fear of Chinese consumption.

And even if another country controls the region it depends if Potosi and other mining centers are found by whatever power, Native or otherwise.

Though let's say that even still if France managed to get the silver the Ming did not choke themselves on it.

id imagine Spain wouldnt suffer the economic disaster they did OTL because they were too stupid too change inflation rates

Besides Spain not getting silver, the English, Dutch and French that profited from the piracy of the galleons would lack silver as well. Piracy was of major importance to the English and Dutch and this greatly encouraged the growth of their naval power.

Spain and the Hapsburgs would be more reliant on the silver of German mines, probably orienting themselves more towards Germany. There definitely wouldn't be as much presence for Spain along the Med, (the conquest of Tunis was payed for with American gold from Atahualpa). This gold also funded campaigns along the Danube against the Ottomans.

That being said, if New World gold is missing from the South America, which I think is where the "Great Silver mines" are then maybe the Spanish might have more interest in expanding northwards into North America. Perhaps after Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's trek across the American South, Spanish forces that in OTL went to Peru and Chile are directed towards the North America.

Facts from "1493" by Charles Mann as cities from the book and the sources he cites.

Why China Stopped Sailing?
*One part cities several commentators who say that it was the cause of a lack of Curiosity or drive due to the Confucian Ideaology and political infighting of bureacratic factions in which a faction that opposed the ship building.
*Other scholars disagree on the above and any insinuation the Chinese lacked curiosity and drive. The fact was that the Ming were the superpower of the age and despite the fact that the Chinese could have easily sailed to Europe they found no power that could threaten their hegemony or rivaled their civilization so their was no need to continue expeditions FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
*After Fifty Years though the Sea Ban inplaced was abandoned by the Ming government as ineffective and idiotic.

The Sea Ban's Effects
*While the Sea ban focused on wringing out their own merchants, the ban certainly did not stop ships from entering Chinese harbors-at least those that were 'Tribute Payments', at least 38 nations sent delegations to pay homage to the Emperor.
*The Yuan Dynasty had tried simillar Sea Bans in 1303, 1311, and 1320 but they found it more profitable and less of a hassle to tax private trade rather then control it.
*Soon after the ban the Ming government nigh completely dissolved its coastal police forces. The result was of course smugglers and pirates grew exponentially.
*The majority of these 'Woku' were not Japanese but Chinese traders and smugglers who turned to smuggling after the ban outlawed their livelyhood. "Fired government clerks, starving farmers, disgraced monks, escaped convicts, and sailors."
*The main center of this piracy and the area most perfectly suited and worst hit by it was the Fujian province which has infamously poor and rocky land but, great natural harbors in equal abundance.
*Yuegang was the epicenter of the area's maritime history, starting in 1547 when "a Dutch Merchant/pirate/smuggler group set up a base on Wu Island". The Dutch group in question while flying the Dutch flag was made up of a crazy quilt of Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, and Malays who traded happily witht he surrounding Woku fleets. The Fujian Emperor would later attack the 'Dutch' on the island and fail, only forcing the 'Dutch' to flee (and pirate on Chinese and Japanese ships) after he beheaded about 90 of the local merchants who had traded with the group.
*For his further Anti-Piracy actions in Yuegang the city's wealthy, merchant elite complained to the Emperor who had the Governor demoted. Said Governor would commit suicide a few years later.
*The Twenty Four Generals, among other groups, were fleets of merchants from Yuegang who pooled their resources and worked with the Woku and carved up Yuegang into a series of factions. When Imperial soldiers tried to disband them and other groups the Imperials were defeated which caused a new surge of factions.
*Just prior to the ban on Sea Trade, the last major attempt by the government to reign in the region was made by Vice Commissioner of Coastal Survalience, Shao Pian...whose coastal forces were outnumbered and outgunned by the local Woku and was driven from the region "we lost one outpost, two smaller outposts, a prefecture, six counties, and no fewer then twenty-size fortified towns..." a Beijing gazetteer is said to have reported.

Why did the Ming really end the Sea Ban?
*They NEEDED Silver. Apparently, China did not have all the resources it could need. Its Silver and Copper mines had been long since tapped out and the Paper Bill inflation and collapse of the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties had taught the Ming Emperors that paper money was absolutely worthless. So they turned to Silver coinage by the 1570's.
*Fairly soon the vast majority of the Chinese economy was running on a supply of Silver splinters that given the size of the Chinese economy and the desire of the Ming government to spent was no where near enough.

The Result?
Manila in the Philippines by 1591, only twenty years after Chinese merchants had first entered the city for trade with the Spanish, was a small European 'Forbidden City' of a few hundred Europeans which was surrounded by a even larger city, Parain, of several thousand Chinese immigrants who were allowed to worship their 'idols' and traded free of Ming scrutiny. The "Ghetto" of Parain was so successful that even the Spanish colonists preferred shopping in there rather then Manila because the trades of the Chinese were so good and cheap.

If that silver disappeared completely, the results for Europe may be not good (double plus ungood?_

Have a look at-

Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy 1000-1700
By Carlo M. Cipolla


Google has a scan of the book

One thing I found is that Potosi and the rest of South america did produce alot of silver, but so did Zacatecas in Mexico. Which produced over 800 million dollars of silver and gold from 1548-1867. You would have to some how eliminate that as well.