Since Vasco de Gama landed at Calicut in India in 1497, the Portuguese had wasted no time in extending their empire eastwards. In 1511, Afonso de Albuquerque took Malacca by force, and found in the port a sizable community of Chinese traders. They provided information about the richness of China. Having consolidated his hold on what was a strategic location, Afonso sent Jorge Alvares on a ship full of pepper to China.[23] It was likely the ship had a Chinese pilot on board. They sailed to Nanting Shan (today’s Dawan Shan Island), then entered what the Chinese called the “inner ocean”(內洋) and anchored near an island that the locals called “Tamao”,[24] or “Tumon” in some accounts.[25] They later found that Tamao was not too far from the mouth of the main river. In the traditional fashion of the Portuguese explorations, Alvares erected a pillar to commemorate the event. Today, this pillar cannot be located, but historians believe Tamao is the Tuen Mun district of Hong Kong. As the term was loosely used, the name Tuen Mun then could have also included today’s Lantau Island.
Subsequent Portuguese expeditions did not prove popular with the locals. Simao de Anrade arrived in 1519. He employed more coercion than diplomacy and exhibited extreme discourtesy to local customs and law. In 1521, Martim Afonso de Mello arrived with the intention of building a fort for long-term occupation. By then, the Chinese authorities had had enough. A brief naval encounter ensued and the Chinese succeeded in burning and sinking some of the Portuguese ships. These early arrivals had no choice but to leave the eastern shoreline of the Pearl River. Having again failed to establish a trading post elsewhere, the Portuguese finally gained a foothold at the Pearl River estuary in 1557, but only on the shallower part of the west bank on the tiny peninsula of Macao, where they would conduct their business under the watchful eyes of the local authorities for the next several centuries.[26]
The shift of activity to the west bank of the Pearl River enabled Macao to gradually build itself up as a vital link in China’s foreign trade with countries across South-East Asia. The Portuguese also forged an important relationship with the Japanese in Nagasaki, acting as a middleman for trade between China and Japan.[27] Compared with Macao’s volumes of trade, the Hong Kong region paled in significance, even though the port of Hong Kong had a superior harbour and enjoyed better geographical advantages.
Notes:
- [23]金國平、吳志良：《早期澳門史論》（廣州：廣東人民出版社，2007），頁32-34。
- [24]C. R. Boxer, South China in the Sixteenth Century: Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P. and Fr. Martin de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550-1575) (Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2004), pp. XIX-XXI.
- [25]羅香林：《1842年以前之香港及其對外交通》，第二章，註二七（香港：中國學社，1959），頁43-44；金國平：《西力東漸：中葡早期接觸追昔》（澳門：澳門基金會，2000），頁19-29。
- [26]張廷玉：《明史》，佛朗機傳，卷325，列傳第二百二十五；嚴從簡：《殊域周咨錄》，卷9，佛朗機，頁320-325；舒懋官，王崇熙：《嘉慶新安縣志》，卷十二，海防略；《藝文志》，卷二十三，都憲公遺愛祠記。
- [27]C. R. Boxer, South China in the Sixteenth Century: Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P. and Fr. Martin de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550-1575) , pp. XIX-XXI.
