If China was engaged in a proto-world war with a European coalition in the 16th century?

This would take into account a much more colonial minded China than iotl but if in the 16th century the interests of China and European powers clashed how would such a war proceed?

China against a coalition of British, French and Spanish in the 16th century.
 
We need a POD to make them big enough to clash with the Europeans. How about a POD at the end of the Han dynasty? Anyways, you need to pick it and then we can speculate
 
The Europeans. They had naval superiority.

Obviously they aren't marching on Nanjing; this instead represents European attempts to break into the Chinese world system.
 
The Europeans. They had naval superiority.

Obviously they aren't marching on Nanjing; this instead represents European attempts to break into the Chinese world system.

They had naval superiority by the numbers but weren't the Chinese actually ahead in ship building tech at least in the early part of the 16th century? Didn't Zheng He command a fleet with ships that would have made Columbus caravel's look like rowboats?
 
Chinese sources were always impressed by European vessels, most notably their ability to sail close to the wind. Chinese ships didn't carry as much artillery either.

Now, this could easily have changed. But let's not assume it would.
 
Chinese sources were always impressed by European vessels, most notably their ability to sail close to the wind. Chinese ships didn't carry as much artillery either.

Now, this could easily have changed. But let's not assume it would.

Was this in the period I'm referring to though? I was under the impression the Chinese were building ships of sizes Europeans wouldn't reach for decades.

zheng_he-treasure_ship-and-santa_maria.jpg


I know these ships were destroyed on order of the Emperor but assuming they weren't.
 
They had naval superiority by the numbers but weren't the Chinese actually ahead in ship building tech at least in the early part of the 16th century? Didn't Zheng He command a fleet with ships that would have made Columbus caravel's look like rowboats?
The Confucian idiots destroyed the fleet and all blueprints to the ships.They also didn't let civilians build much sailing ships--the result was that by the 16th century,a lot of ship building techniques were forgotten.
 
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After spending massive resources into a pointless conflict the involved countries find themselves behind others who used the leeway and time to consolidate and grow.
 
British, French and Spanish in the 16th century
The British and French had no meaningful presence in the China Seas in the 16th century.

If, by some miracle, there was an Dutch-English-Iberian invasion of China in the 17th century, they might be able to grab a few ports in Fujian (but not, say, Guangzhou) and would eventually be kicked out once the Chinese interior can fully mobilize their resources.
 
You could get some conflict between Portugual and China in the Indian Ocean assuming the Ming fleet stuck around.
 

RousseauX

Donor
This would take into account a much more colonial minded China than iotl but if in the 16th century the interests of China and European powers clashed how would such a war proceed?

China against a coalition of British, French and Spanish in the 16th century.
You would probably need a Chinese incursion into the Indian ocean or something and they would end up fighting against the Portuguese or the Dutch and they would probably win because European blue water navy was probably better than chinese blue water navy of this period

english/french weren't interested in asia during 1500s,
 
I would say this is impossible. Neither side can reach the other in anything like the scale that would be required to call something a 'world war'.

Minor skirmishes? Take the Philippines (either side)? Sure. But there's no way either side can project force anywhere near the other side's homeland. Not in the 1500s.
 
I don't know why people think this will be a European victory. This isn't the 19th century, where the balance of power was heavily skewed towards the European powers.

The Chinese fought the greatest naval power of the age, the Dutch, in the 17th century and won. So they could probably win in OP's time frame of the 16th century too.

Also, there were no "British" in the 16th century. Britain didn't exist as a country until 1707.

Wiki link to the Sino-Dutch conflicts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Dutch_conflicts
 
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