Spain's plot to invade China

this is insane, which is to be expected of the sons of the conquistadors.

the Philippines is basically the last hurrah of the conquistador generation, and this plan is the mad fever dream as they died.

Philip II von Habsburg is many things, but a mad crusader is not one of them. (he was a pragmatic crusader. China was nothing to him compared to the Turk and the Protestant.)

I assumed they'd get a royal ass kicking, I'm more interested in the butterflies. Sooner decline of the Spanish empire? Loss of the Philippines to a counter attack? China skips isolationism and maritime bans due to the new threat?

perhaps this thing pushes Ming China into an early collapse as well, leading to a Ming exile kingdom established even farther south?

:D:D:D:D:D
 
http://www.samuelhawley.com/imjinarticle3.html

So...the Spanish had detailed plans to go Conquistador on Ming China. The article discusses the plans and the possible outcomes.

Any thoughts?

What an odd article:

That the planned conquest of China was not merely a Spanish flight of fancy is borne out by the fact that it was eventually attempted—by the Japanese. Since as early as 1586 Japanese dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi spoke of conquering China once he had completed the reunification of Japan. In 1592, with all of Japan his and more than a century of civil war at an end, Hideyoshi dispatched a 158,800-man army from his invasion headquarters on the island of Kyushu across the Tsushima Strait to the Korean port of Pusan. It marched up the peninsula to within 200 kilometers of the Chinese border before finally bogging down for want of reinforcements and supplies. Significantly, it took Beijing more than half a year to send an army of any size to Korea to counter this threat and eventually push it back. If Hideyoshi’s army had bypassed Korea and proceeded directly to the Chinese coast by sea as the Spanish planned to do, the outcome might have been very different indeed.

Umm. Sure, if Japan had dispatched a 158,000 man army, which in OTL failed, then the Spanish could have as well?
 
What an odd article:



Umm. Sure, if Japan had dispatched a 158,000 man army, which in OTL failed, then the Spanish could have as well?

Hideyoshi did have the drive to want to set up a new Chinese Dynasty, but he is somehow going to have to solidify his succession, make sure that the daimyo remain loyal to him, not to mention overrun the Koreans, which is no small task, before he or any of his successors can think of staking their particular claim.

In the extremely unlikely possibility that the Japanese do manage to set themselves up as a new dynasty, the only real way I imagine that they would stay for the long term is for whoever leads the conquest to accept the mandate of Heaven and become Chinese.

As for Spain, I could see them get a coastal city and a most successful scenario could see them try to play off whatever factions are there by selling weapons and supplies to make money while making a few Christian coverts, but to actually move inland with an army is a disaster waiting to happen.

The l2nd half of the 17th and for all of the 18th century this is an impossibility for anybody to do so, as the Qing would be at the apex of their dynasty and they were an Empire at that time was fairly current in terms of military technology (they beat the Russians on several occasions in clashes in Manchuria during that time).
 
Isnt within the OP's timeline the Spain already profited a lot from China. So any disruption of status quo would be counter to Spanish interest. The Spanish did consider attacking China but it would be counter productive for them to do so when their biggest customer is China.
 
As for Spain, I could see them get a coastal city and a most successful scenario could see them try to play off whatever factions are there by selling weapons and supplies to make money while making a few Christian coverts, but to actually move inland with an army is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'll point out that a warlord/pirate fleeing the Qing Dynasty was able to seize Taiwan from the Dutch, who had a greater technological lead than the Spanish. This does not fill me with confidence.
 
Spain's invasion could have caused a lot of trouble with the Ming, but you'd have to have a significant amount of luck (vastly more than the Manchus had OTL) before they could actually conquer anything beyond a few islands.

Some things that could have helped Spain's effort:

1. Civilian control of the Ming army - the Confucian ideal of bureaucrats being in charge of all aspects of the state (including the army) was a pretty deeply-ingrained one, and the Ming state took pains to place generals under bureaucratic/eunuch oversight. Unfortunately for the Ming, that could sometimes lead to amateurish and ineffectual leadership that would have definitely been outclassed by the Spanish conquistadors.

2. Corruption - Hongwu limited Ming officials' salary to basically a pittance, which was intended to reduce corruption but in fact encouraged it quite drastically, which had direct implications on the dynasty's military effectiveness. By the late Ming, bureaucrats regularly overstated supply requests by a factor of 2 in order to account for corruption, creating padded rosters and 'fake regiments' in the process. Corruption also reduced the appeal of the Ming Dynasty in the eyes of locals.

3. "Fence-sitting' behavior - while this phenomenon was a fair degrees weaker thanks to Neo-Confucianism and its emphasis on loyalty to the state, local Chinese elites have traditionally been more concerned about the preservation of their own power than the well-being of the state. So you could have situations where one short, sharp victory leads to mass defections from local leaders, bandit lords, pirate kings and so on.

Lastly, logistics works against Ming as well as Spain, though of course to a lesser degree compared with the latter. Assuming Spain starts their conquest on the southeast littoral, a Ming army will have to be collected from all parts of the country and will have to be provisioned with grain/gunpowder across hundreds of miles of bad land roads (assuming the Spanish maintain some form of naval dominance on the coast). The major North-South conduit of the Grand Canal is also quite vulnerable to naval power, and if the Spanish navy manages to cut that it would have a significant impact on the Ming Dynasty's operations in the southeast, as well as providing the Spanish court with more bullion from tax barges to justify further reinforcements.

As I said, it would take a great deal of luck for Spain to achieve a major triumph over the Ming, and total conquest is highly unlikely.

I think a possible scenario would be for Spain to attack just as Ming is being highly pressured on multiple fronts and also suffering from various droughts and famines. Spain's fleet establishes naval dominance over Chinese seas and cuts the Grand Canal at the Yangtze, while its conquistadors team up with local pirates and bandits to wreak havoc across the countryside, defeating poorly-armed local and regional forces as they come along.

The bullion they ship back to Spain convinces the Spanish/Portuguese that further 'investment' in China is warranted (this would also require a less volatile Europe), and larger forces are sent to China and expected to live off the land. At some point Ming authority in affected areas will become so weak that local magnates will start siding with Spain.
 
As I mentioned earlier,I think the odds of the Spanish succeeding is completely ASB,but I will outline how such a conquest could be attempted. Such a conquest should preferably be done after Nurachi attacked Ming.The expedition will need at least 50,000 Spanish regular soldiers with cavalry(private expeditions with your few adventurers won't work). The Spanish would have to be extremely pragmatic in their treatment of locals(the invasion will not work if they try to enforce Catholicism or try to enforce their cultural practices upon the Chinese).The idea is to win a few battles and then persuade the Chinese soldiers to defect en mass(one of the weaknesses about the Chinese is that they don't surrender to their enemies when they think that their side is losing,they defect and fight for their previous enemies against their own people!The Spanish will also have to somehow ensure that they can supply and pay for all these extra troops.Then they have a chance.In all likeliness,this is assuming all kinds of luck are on the Spanish side,as well as the fact they can somehow get 50,000 soldiers over to China without the troops getting decimated by diseases or getting invaded by France or the Netherlands(pure ASB);the Spanish not being religious fanatics(most likely,the expedition will be led by religious fanatics,so this is improbable);being able to supply such a large expedition across such a large distance(highly unlikely) and win enough battles to convince the Chinese that they are going to win.
 
I think it would basically end like Aguirre: The Wrath of God, with the last survivor on a raft in the Yellow River talking to himself about founding the purest dynasty in the world after they get Zerg Rushed to death by the Ming.

But I think it would, if not get the Ming actively sending out fleets, at least more likely to not sit on their asses waiting to be attacked in the name of isolationism, and make future European imperialism and missionary efforts harder and more challenged.

I think it would change Fillipino history and in the long run change European and Asian interactions alot. I think Spain getting run out of the Philippines is a real possibility.
 
As many people have mentioned, this is basically might as well be Heinrich von Staden's plan to have the HRE invade Russia.
 
I suppose it's possible for the Spanish to raid and sack a few towns in Southern China. Best case scenario, they return with about more in loot than they spent on the expedition. Most likely, after looting two or three towns and losing a good deal of their forces due to attrition, a Chinese army catches up to them (they'll be weighted down by loot) and destroys their army. The Chinese may or may not then invade the Phillipines, which has a much better chance of success.
 
Isnt within the OP's timeline the Spain already profited a lot from China. So any disruption of status quo would be counter to Spanish interest. The Spanish did consider attacking China but it would be counter productive for them to do so when their biggest customer is China.

pretty much.

wasn't the whole reason we remained a Spanish colony precisely that trade with China?
 
If you mean the Philippines, yes. That was the reason. During the golden ages Mania was apparently paved with Chinese marble.

I believe spain and China benefited from one another silk and silver. That is why it is hard to believe at the time of OP, China and Spain would go at each other's throat even though they can plan an attack or war at each other.

It is the same as the Rainbow plans of the USA. Plans but in fruition unless act upon. The act would in question due to being beneficial.

The only reason for Spain to attack China is for Spain not to benefit the current status quo. It is the same rationality I had in these threads with the possibility of China, the whole China attacking Spain and its colonies, you need to butterfly any semblance of importance for both countries trade.
 
Well, the Spanish had just conquered all of South America, which was in many ways vastly superior, so they would be mad not to at less check out if they could do this one over again in China.

Oops, my bad. When I wrote 'vastly superior', I meant superior to Spain. Many Aztec cities were bigger then Madrid. The South Americans were far more numerous and way better with regard to agriculture.

That aside, there is one important aspect in which the Americas and China are similar. None of them have the capacity to sail back and invade Spain to punish the Spaniards for trying to invade them. So even if you loose all of your troops, as long as you keep enough men in the homeland to dissuade the French from creeping over the Pyrenees, the homeland is safe.
 
Oops, my bad. When I wrote 'vastly superior', I meant superior to Spain. Many Aztec cities were bigger then Madrid. The South Americans were far more numerous and way better with regard to agriculture.

That aside, there is one important aspect in which the Americas and China are similar. None of them have the capacity to sail back and invade Spain to punish the Spaniards for trying to invade them. So even if you loose all of your troops, as long as you keep enough men in the homeland to dissuade the French from creeping over the Pyrenees, the homeland is safe.

the Aztecs and Incas fell because they were vulnerable to disease. and tho' they were half a world away, my country and China were two worlds away.

the Spanish need only worry about the Atlantic, in the case of the New World. in the case of this republic, they had to travel the Pacific as well, which is twice the size as the Atlantic.

and really, the Spanish had more than enough of conquest in the New World. why would they attempt to conquer the place which they only wanted to trade with? conversion, i can understand, but that's what the Jesuit missionaries were for.
 
They wanted to conquer it on some level, though it was completely unfeasible. The Conquistador social class of lower nobility/warriors needed something to do to keep power. When they ran out of Moors, they found Aztecs and Inca. Now they'd run out of Aztec and Inca and had taken over your home and they needed something else. Power hunger and greed I think factored into Spanish conquest as much as religion. Not that religion was a hollow excuse to them, it obviously matted a great deal in Spain's culture, but the underlying motive was conquest for power and wealth.
 
They wanted to conquer it on some level, though it was completely unfeasible. The Conquistador social class of lower nobility/warriors needed something to do to keep power. When they ran out of Moors, they found Aztecs and Inca. Now they'd run out of Aztec and Inca and had taken over your home and they needed something else. Power hunger and greed I think factored into Spanish conquest as much as religion. Not that religion was a hollow excuse to them, it obviously matted a great deal in Spain's culture, but the underlying motive was conquest for power and wealth.

very true. that was the dream of the conquistadors, but after the conquest and consolidation of the great empires of the New World, their generation was old and dying. their dream was that of a New Spain, which they had indeed built.

the last of them came here to the ends of the earth to build this republic, one last adventure before they and theirs fell away from the circles of the earth. anything more was a mad fever dream.

basically, Spain thankfully ran out of conquistadors before they could even seriously think about this.
 
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