Spices had long been a commodity sought after by Europeans, but up until the early 16th Century, they had been impossibly high in price. The African and Arabian merchants monopolised their trade, guarding like lions the secret source of the spices they sold, and selling them on for extortionate prices to the rich and powerful of Europe. In the 14th-16th Centuries, a pound of nutmeg was worth seven oxen, or more an it's weight in gold. It was with a yearning for wealth, and the belief that with wealth came power, that the Kings and Queens of the Renaissance Kingdoms eagerly sent out explorers searching for India, and, consequently, begun the Age of Discovery. However, it was not just spices that fueled trade with the East. From India there was sugar, linens, precious stones and cotton, and from China there was silk, drugs, perfume and porcelain.
Portugal's role in this was massive: by the mid-15th century, it was the richest nation in Europe, due to the many trade routes it held a tight grip on, its spirit of exploration, and its great navy. The Portuguese had outposts in Morocco, Brazil, Central Africa, Angola, Mozambique, all of these territories forming a safe and completely Portuguese-dominated passageway from Europe to Asia. By taking only the territories it saw necessary for expansion of the economy, it ensured that all foreign ships trying to get to India would have to land at one of its ports. Meanwhile, in Portuguese India, merchants and government officials were trying to petition Lisbon for increased privatisation of the Casa des Indias, the chartered company that run Portuguese operations in India. After the Battle of Talikota, the Viceroy agreed to ally itself with the Vijayanagar Empire, and so all possible territorial gains would be made, for the moment at least, in the north of the continent. The reason for the choice of the states over each other was this; Mughals were Muslims, and Lisbon wasn't going to ally with a Muslim nation any time soon, with the Catholic Church agreeing to let Portugal dominate Asian trade. The Council of Portuguese India agreed to further explore and hopefully set up a trading post on one of the Spice Islands within the near future, and an expedition was sent out. if the Portuguese controlled this tiny archipelago, with some islands the size of a town, then it would have all the world's nutmeg, mace and clove supplies, and therefore be the richest country in the world.
It was not just Portugal in the Indian Ocean, though; the Dutch, English and French were beginning to take interest in establishing colonies there. The Emperor in Vijayanagara, Venkaatapati Deva Raya agreed to the Dutch request of setting up a factory in Pulicat, and the English in Surat. These were, however, the only other European towns in India not Portuguese, and they were surrounded by a pro-Portuguese powerful Indian nation. It was very much the age of Portugal's mastery of the Indian Ocean. Worrying Lisbon much more than the Dutch and the English was Spain. Having reached the Pacific Ocean across the continent of America, they had started to sail westward through the Pacific. Landing on an island called Cebu, in what is now the Phillipines, the Spanish set up a factory, and found that they could raid the local islands, gain spices, and return, and Portugal wouldn't know, and wouldn't worry. Portugal did know, however, as the expedition it sent out had witnessed a raid, and chased the Spanish ship off. There were rumours in the capital that the Government would remind the Pope and the Spanish King that the Spanish colonisers were in violation of the Treaty of Torsidellas signed years before, but they did not want tensions to run high, so they left it for the moment.