And now, the exciting conclusion of the Adventures of Captain Coxinga and the Pirates of Dongdu.
***
Tungning/Dongdu/Formosa IV
Coseng the Conqueror
Panic and fear had been widespread in Manila, the capital of the Spanish Philippines, ever since the return of Friar Riccolo Ricci from the dreaded court of Zheng Chenggong, bringing news of war and an ultimatum demanding a surrender of the City to the hosts of the Pirate King, Coseng.[1] In the aftermath of the occupation of the Bataan Islands and the naval war of harassment undertaken against Spanish interests in the area, Governor Sabiniano Manrique de Lara took utmost actions in the preparations for the defense of Manila, to the point of dismantling the fort of Zamboanga in Mindanao in the spring of 1662, as well as the outposts of La Sabinilla and Iligan, also at Mindanao, Ternate at the Moluccas Islands and those at the Calamianes Islands, all with the purpose of concentrating all the available forces and resources at Cavite and Manila in Luzon. Along with the Spaniards and Filipinos, the natives of Ternate and other nearby islands were offered lands at Cavite, where they founded a town with the name of Ternate. [2] Manrique de Lara also took several steps to prevent the native Chinese population, be them the Sangley or Mestizos, from acting as a Trojan horse of sorts for the invading forces. The Sangley, perhaps the most numerous minority in Luzon, had in the past taken part in rebellions against the central authority and been the victims of horrendous massacres in 1603 and 1640, with at least tens of thousands of Sangley Chinese dying each time. [3]
Widespread panic and mistrust between the Sangley and the Spanish soon resulted in open violence in the streets of Manila and throughout southern Luzon, as militias were formed on both sides and engaged in irregular warfare throughout the tense months of 1662 and early 1663. The local Japanese, most of them Christian immigrants tied to the dioceses of Manila and Nagasaki, or merchants and mercenaries at the employ of the Red Seal Company, took an active role in the suppression of the Sangley, along with the Filipinos. In the medium to long term, the Chinese Sangley would be joined, although not precisely in the form of an alliance, by the several native peoples and tribes, Moors and Southern Sultans who came to see the invading hordes of Coseng as a blessing in disguise. Although the Spanish were superior in terms of numbers, armament and organization throughout 1662, by the time in which the 33,000 Sangley Chinese of Luzon rose in arms, Manrique de Lara could not crush the movement fast enough. [4]
The uprising began in January of 1663. In April, Coseng’s fleet appeared at Cavite.
The fortified Cavite, the “City of Solid Gold”, point of entry of the Manila Galleons, was besieged between April and July of 1663 by an army seven times larger than the defending force, armed with modern artillery, firearms and supplied by a fleet of 200 war junks. The Naval Battle of Cavite, such as it is, involves a Chinese Armada of 400 junks against 12 Galleons, exchanging fire for three days and their nights until the Spanish are forced to abandon Cavite for Manila. Three days later, the rival fleets meet again north of Cavite once more, while the armies of Coseng skirmish with the main Spanish forces south of Manila. By the end of April, Manila Bay has become a Tungning Lake and Coseng’s forces have successfully landed on both ends of the Bay, at the Bataan Peninsula and Cavite. By the early days of May, Manila is threatened by the abating but still ongoing Sangley Rebellion and by the main army of Coseng, numbering some 85,000 soldiers. Against this behemoth, the Spanish forces found themselves dispersed, with their armies fighting against the invaders at Cavite and Bataan, south of Manila and against the Sangley at Binondo and the hills of Antipolo, with the help of the local Zambales and Pampanga allies. Sabiniano de Lara, trapped between a rock and a hard place, chose to make a stand at Manila, encouraging the population to resist the invaders. The heroic Spanish and Filipino resistance through the spring and summer of 1663 mark a high note for the defenders in the first stage of the war, even if ultimately the force of sheer numbers meant than a successful defense was all but impossible. The desire to erase the mistakes of the past, especially those committed by his father at Nanjing, and to cement his glory and power pushed Coseng to cast aside all caution and move to overwhelm Manila, even as operations at Cavite and Bataan were still ongoing and far from resolved. But for those little details, Coseng cares not, and between May 3rd and May 5th his armies crushing the resistance of the Spaniards, along with their Japanese and Native allies. Ten thousand defenders are killed as the back of the Spanish army is broken. The retreat into the city, where urban militias try to slow down the Tungning steamroller, soon turns into a massacre as 80,000 Chinese soldiers break through the last lines of defense and pour into the city in a drunken, brutal victory parade that nearly results in the complete destruction of the city whose downfall had obsessed Coseng for years. [5]
On May 7th of 1663, Coseng achieves what the Pirate lord Li Ma Hong could not eighty-nine years before: to conquer Manila.
The end of this, the first phase of the Tunging-Spanish War, ultimately cost some 40,000 lives. The death of Sabiniano de Lara and twenty thousand defenders in the spring of 1663 is shortly followed by the fall of Cavite and a rather lackluster campaign in the surroundings of Manila and Bataan, where resistance against the invaders peters out rapidly as news of the downfall of the Spanish spreads like wildfire. The war in central Luzon nevertheless continues, as a local official by the name of Lorenzo Ruiz takes the surviving Spanish forces and officers to link up with the Kampampanga, Sambal and Cagayan allies in the central and northern provinces in the Larga Marcha, or Marcha de Ruiz.[6] In this juncture, the local Sangley returned to Manila to rebuild and repopulate the city, while the Spanish officials and authorities were arrested and executed throughout the summer of 1663. The Sangley, many of whom were descendant from immigrants of the Southern Provinces of China and thus shared a cultural heritage with Coseng, soon formed the backbone of the new regime at Manila, now named “Yanping”, enthusiastically taking up positions in the local government or joining the Tungning Army and even giving Zheng the moniker of “Coseng the Great”. [7]
North of Manila Bay, on the other hand, the war was far from over. Two pincers, one from Bataan numbering some 18,000 men and another from Manila, just north of the 65,000 troops, were sent northwards to the provinces of Zambales and Pampanga with the purpose of finding and crushing the Ruiz Column, now engrossed thanks to the native allies. The late summer and early autumn of 1663 are thus spent in a fruitless campaign to pacify the Northern provinces while Ruiz’s Long March continues to harass the Chinese forces while eluding their main armies. The highlands of Zambales become the scenery for a bloody campaign of harassment, hit-and-run campaigns and skirmishes against Coseng’s forces. The early days of 1664 see the main frontlines move from Zambales to the northern highlands, where support from the locals also contributes to boosting the numbers of Ruiz’s Column. By the time in which April of 1664 arrives, a year has passed and Coseng remained at “Yanping”, still forced to direct operations in the organization of his newly acquired domain, while sending expeditions against Lorenzo Ruiz in the north and the Spanish and native remnants of the southern provinces. The Island of Mindoro is occupied in late 1663, along with the city of Lucena in the province of Quezon, but elsewhere in the region, in the provinces of Laguna and Camarines, resistance against the new authorities does not die out until well into 1665.
The death of Lorenzo Ruiz in August of 1665, the occupation of Marinduque Island east of Mindoro and the fall of Bulan and Sorgoson in the southernmost areas of Luzon mark the end of the Tungning Conquest of Luzon, but the pacification campaign would not end until the very late 1660s, with local centers of resistance springing up from time to time for the duration of Chinese rule in the Island. The Tungning-Spanish War, on the other hand, would not end until December of 1672, when a truce recognized Coseng’s possession of Luzon, Mindoro, the Bataan Islands, Maranduque and the Calamian Islands, whereas the Spanish suzerainty was recognized over the Islands of Panay, Negros, Cebu, Leyte and the rest in the Visayas Group.
The truce of 1672 meant anything but peace for Tungning and its great King, Coseng, nevertheless. To cement his empire, the Lord of the Waves continued to campaign against the local rebels, the Moorish Pirates, the Southern Sultanates, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Japanese Red Seal Company throughout the 1660s and 1670s, although without the vigor and rage of the early naval wars. As Coseng aged, his thirst for blood and glory became satiated and was even drowned by the rivers of blood that his war in Luzon had brought upon him and his armies.
***
The nations of Asia and Europe saw the nascent Empire of Tungning with growing alarm and unease, as their possessions fell to the hands of the ambitious Zheng Chenggong, known to his enemies as the Pirate-King of Formosa and as Cosen the Conqueror. At Lisbon, Amsterdam and Madrid, the losses of their domains in East Asia, including Formosa, Macao, Canton, Manila and several other outposts meant an effective end to the influence and power of the western powers, the Dutch East India Company and the Spanish Empire, in the region. Along with the European powers, the Japanese Red Seal Company was also mortally wound by the disruption of commerce in the China Seas in the 1650s, as the dwindling European presence and the rise of the Shun and Tungning as local hegemons crippled the forces of the Red Seal Company of Osaka. This ever-growing list of disgruntled realms and offended commercial powers is completed with the Satsuma Domain of the Shimazu Clan, which has suffered the loss of their vassal kingdom of Ryūkyū as a very public humiliation. Even more painful than the loss of the Islands is the reaction at the halls of Tsutsuijigasaki, where the court of the Takeda Shogun receive the news of the invasion of what can technically be considered a vassal of the Empire with a surprising amount of indifference. What is more, it was even commented that the Shogun Nobutoyo cheered at the humiliation and disgrace of the Shimazu, along with several daimyo and advisors who saw the economic and political power of Satsuma as a threat to the Shogunate.
Thus ended the decade of the 1660s, with a rising power that was the Kingdom of Tungning spreading its wings and breaking the stranglehold of the old empires, dispersing their scattered, shattered remnants and casting them from the domains of the Empire of the Waves.
Notes:
1. Riccolo Ricci served as similar role IOTL; I’m keeping him, in spite of 90 years of “butterflies” for literary purposes; Coseng is how Zheng’s title of Guóxìngyé (Lord with the Imperial Name) was rendered in Spanish;
2. Sabiniano Manrique de Lara took the same measures IOTL;
3. Sangley is the Spanish Colonial name for the Chinese Filipinos with no mixed blood, whereas the Mestizos are known as Mestizos de Sangley; IOTL, they rebelled in the 1570s, in 1603 and 1639, as well as in 1662, and each time a horrible massacre ensued; ITTL, Koxinga doesn’t die and what IOTL was a five-month rebellion is a successful fifth column;
4. IOTL, the measures taken by Sabiniano Manrique de Lara severely weakened the Spanish at Mindanao and throughout the Philippines, reducing Manila’s commercial importance along the way and allowing the natives to overrun several places where the Spaniards were making progress in their colonization efforts; Since the invasion is real ITTL, these local enemies of Spain have more success in the short to medium term;
5. Given the numbers, I would think this is a likely result; I might even be too optimistic about the Spaniards’ chances here; not so sure about the naval battles, since I have no idea about how a Galleon would do against a Chinese War Junk, but being surrounded 30 to 1 should compensate any technological gap, real or not; The Sangley campaign is much as IOTL, except that ITTL they receive reinforcements from Taiwan; Since IOTL Koxinga was able to send as many as 250,000 troops against Nanjing in 1659, sending 150,000 troops to Luzon even after the losses sustained at Nanjing in 1649 shouldn’t be much of a stretch;
6. Lorenzo Ruiz was a low level clerk who became a missionary in the 1620s due to a local scandal, being one of the famous Catholic Martyrs killed at Japan in 1637; ITTL, he remains at Manila rather than becoming a missionary; the other martyrs wouldn’t be killed regardless, cine Japan does not persecute the Christian minorities ITTL;
7. Yanping means “to prolong the peace”, IIRC, and was one of the titles of Koxinga IOTL, as well as a town in his home province of Fujian;