The Manchu had already reached South China in the 1660s so that's going to necessitate something different.Occuring about the same time as the Manchu invasions or concurrently a massive Spanish host sets sail and by 1660 reaches the Phililpines.
The Ming empire is declining and in chaos-with rival warlords, Manchu and Mongol raiders, and the Japanese having invaded earlier and still holding Korea and the northeastern Chinese coast.
The Spanish make landfall by 1664 and and crush the local coastal garrisons.
By 1670 they have secured the coast around Beijing and pushed deeper into the heartland.
Plausible?
The Ming weren't in decline in the 1660s, they were wiped off of the map before 1664. The Yongli Emperor had to flee to Burma and still got executed in 1662. So you'd have to bump the date up another decade for it to still be the Ming.
Again, the Ming weren't falling to warlords, but the whole matter is just be repeating myself so I'll refrain.
The Japanese invasions would have to go a very different route for them to hold Korea, let alone NE China (they occupied and lost the entire peninsula very quickly and that's not just because of Admiral Yi. Other naval commanders who contributed to the campaign would accomplish a similar, though maybe lesser, effect. Plus the militant Buddhist monks, the Righteous Armies, and the Joseon army itself stabilizing from the shock of the invasion would have to be dealt with). That much wouldn't be one or two PODs but rather a whole series of them, with the Joseon king being captured/dying, the Ming not helping, then the Japanese getting hold of some decent naval commanders, not angering the countryside, and keeping stable through Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death.
What is often overlooked is the fact that Japan is still technically in the Sengoku Jidai during the Imjin War, which arguably laid the foundation for the Tokugawa victory less than a decade later (because the war soured daimyos like Kato Kiyomasa, Fukushima Masanori, and Hideaki Kobayakawa to the Toyotomi cause due to Ishida Mitsuhara and his (perceived) poor treatment of them during the war, like not giving them credit for their successes and getting them recalled). They have until Toyotomi Hideyoshi dies to win (he was already old and died in 1597, not many butterflies are going to keep him alive for much longer), otherwise there really is no great support for continuing to bleed out in Korea. After that, there's also the matter of succession and if the Council of Five Elders can actually keep Tokugawa Ieyasu (who didn't send any troops to Korea so his armies are unscathed) from seizing power. If anything, Korea might erupt into warlords, since the daimyos on the mainland would probably be Toyotomi loyalists (they'd get land from Hideyoshi or Ishida) who'd try to support the Toyotomi but not be able to send aid to the home islands due to geting bogged down in governing Korea, where Joseon loyalists are going to be lurking about for a while. So it'd be the Toyotomi hiding out in Korea while daimyos fighting amongst themselves and the locals and the Joseon are in exile either in northern Korea or the Liaodong peninsula.
In any case, I'd mark Japan actually getting ahold of any parts of China VERY unlikely, just due to the power dynamics and instability of the Toyotomi regime, not to mention the costs of holding the peninsula against guerilla warfare. Just because they win the war doesn't mean that baby Hideyori, age <6, is going to be able to retain power with Tokugawa Ieyasu and co. in power and the islands divided.
They'd have to have the troops get on land occasionally though. If they're going to amass troops, the Philippines is the closest place they can have tens of thousands of troops at and that's quite tropical.Also for malaria, it's only a problem in more tropical countries. Isn't Beijing or Nanjing too far north for that?
For the travel, they'd be on the sea most of the time so no mosquitoes
Also, there's the issue of timing. The Portuguese fleets had to get the timing right for their India runs so that they'd get favourable winds and not end up at the bottom of the sea. The Spanish have to do the same with a much longer distance (thousands of kilos more) with much larger fleets with more hazardous weather (imagine landing in typhoon season). Imagine the Spanish Armada but going to China instead.
That's also considering that the Spanish economy can afford war for decades across two or three continents (since they'll be fighting the Dutch, French, Ottomans, presumably Barbary pirates as well since those are actually very much in Spain's interest to subdue in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). Spain managed to go bankrupt 9 times under King Philip even with their treasure fleets so there's that to consider.
Also, there were the massive plague outbreaks in Spain in the 17th century (1596–1602, 1646–1652, 1676–1685), which tanked Spain's population growth.
From A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases; with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated:
"THE year 1600 was remarkable for pestilence in almost every part of Europe. Spain, where the disease was fatal the year before, was this year almost depopulated. There raged throughout Europe, a pestilential, mortal cholic which destroyed the lives of all whom it seized, within four days. The patient, as soon as he was seized, became senseless—the hair fell from his head—a livid pustule arose on the nose, which consumed it— the extremities became cold and mortified."
"The year 1648 appears to have been less sickly, in London; but in the south of Europe, malignant diseases were the harbingers of the plague, which in 1649 carried off 200,000 people in the southern provinces of Spain. "
Around 1.25 million people died of plague in Spain during the outbreaks, which is about 20% of the population. Half of that was just from the 1599 outbreak but it's still a massive loss right there.
Made worse of course by constant troop movement as a result of the 30 Years' War but disease, not limited to malaria, would be a massive thing to consider in an invasion across the world with tens of thousands of troops in cramped spaces in a time when plague ravaged the home country. China would also suffer from plague in the fall of the Ming, it appears, so that would be another consideration.
@ar-pharazon, I've made my stance on the whole matter pretty clear, I think, so any further nit-picking is probably excessive. The most constructive thing I can say is that the timings of your wank need to be adjusted, seeing as some are physically impossible (the Ming were gone by the 1660s so you can't invade them in the 1670s) and others have some larger issues (plague, Japanese stability, manpower). It'd need a much earlier POD, I think, at which point you could probably make up anything. But 1570s is a bit too late, I'd say.
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