The Spanish plan to conquer China

The Spaniards started early: already in 1526 the conqueror of the Aztec Empire Hernán Cortés (pic)  wrote a petition the Spanish government to allow him to explore the South Seas, that is, the Pacific Ocean. Cortes plan was to start conquering some island like Malacca and then jump to the continent, just as he did starting from Cuba in his way to Mexico. 

The plan was accepted but only in 1564, Miguel López de Legazpi was given five ships and 500 soldiers to take some seven thousand islands, which he named the Philippines. Established in Manila, the Spaniards sent missionaries all over Asia. One of them, Father Martín de Rada, wrote a memorandum comparing the poverty of the islands and the wealth of China, describing its inhabitants and its (nonexistent) military capability. His idea was to abandon those miserable islands and focus on rich China. 

Next, the Spanish governor of the Philippines Francisco de Sande proposed a detailed plan. He asked for five thousand soldiers from Mexico or Peru, and smiths, carpenters, master sailors and other tradesmen to build ships in the Philippines. He even offered to pay for the expedition, which he calculated would be profitable. He described the Chinese as "bad people, drunks, cowards, submissive. Their mandarins treat the people very tyrannically". The King did not approve the plan because Spain was broke and the difficulties of communication (it took four years to send a letter and receive the answer).

Successive plans took detailed and concrete form. The number and specialties (arcabucero, piquetero, etc.) of soldiers from the Spanish dependencies was estimated, and their equipment, salaries, etc. Spain would supply bronze for the cannons and technical personnel for shipbuilding and weapons manufacture. Most of the materials were to be procured in China itself (a cannonball cost two reals in China against nine in Spain). There was a need for silver to bribe the mandarins, corrupt then as now. The expedition would include 5000 Japanese Christian soldiers who hated the Chinese, and auxiliaries from the islands. They would land in Fujian while the Portuguese forces, led by Matias de Panela, would advance from Macao. They would meet in Peking. The Ming administration was to be conserved. 

The Spanish had no doubt about the feasibility of the enterprise. Ming had two million soldiers but no discipline, no training, no loyalty, and they could be mobilized only very slowly. After 800 years of war, the Spaniard had just finished the Reconquista of the peninsula, vanquished the Turks in Lepanto, conquered the kingdoms of America, they felt unbeatable.

The Spanish analysis of the weakness of China was proved true in the next century, when Manchu nomads broke through the Great Wall and China could only present a 50,000 strong army to beat them back. The victory of Nelson at Trafalgar put an end to Spanish plans and the incoming power - England - wanted only to exploit but no to rule China.

Addenda:  Can China be conquered today? I don't think so. It has a national Han government, it has a loyal well equipped army, many bases. There was a window of opportunity under Nixon, when Brezhnev (pic) proposed a concerted nuclear attack on China. Nixon took the English road and opened China for trade. The future is unknowable.  

Correction: Communists Ruling America

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In the fight against Kavanaugh, classist arguments are appearing. Kavanaugh is considered unfit for the position not only because of normal sexuality but because of his "black" family background. I mean "black" in the Communist sense, a system where having a middle class grandfather disqualified one for schools and jobs. Now "The New Yorker" offers a Marxist analysis of the candidate and finds that he has no proletarian ancestors but grew up in "White privilege", a damning genetic disability.

Kavanaugh’s mother was a district-court judge in Montgomery County, Maryland. His father is a retired lawyer, who worked for the United States Chamber of Commerce and served as the president of a trade group, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association. Gorsuch’s mother was the first female administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. (Ronald Reagan appointed her to the job, in 1981.) Powell’s father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather was the dean of the law school at Catholic University of America.

I hope this trend will die off. I remember my parents worrying that my father was going to be sacked for his job, because of his "bourgeois" (middle class) class-enemy parents. I was a child but remember it well, it was in communist Hungary in the nineteen fifties. The fact that he was a party member and a volunteer in the new Communist Army did not wash off this hereditary undeletable blot. Pic.: The first day of the revolution. People burned the AVO (the State Security Bureau) headquarters and destroyed thousands of damning secret files. 

Puritans Still Ruling America

It is difficult for a stranger like me to interpret the attack on Judge Brett Kavanaugh just before his appointment to the Supreme Court. Out of nowhere appears a woman who says that when she was 15 years old, she had a beer with 17 years old Brett, who later came to her room and tried to take her pants off against her resistance. Brett apparently did not know the rule that after you take out your gun, you have to shoot, if not, the consequences will be terrible. To hyper-excite a girl by starting sex  with a little violence and NOT finishing the action, leaves her utterly titillated and deeply disappointed - that is, a lifelong, resentful  enemy.

Any normal society would ignore this story of a honorable man, or interpret it so that the Judge has healthy sexual inclinations  and he is not a secret pervert as many are in public service. And his heart softens under the attack of a girl's lying tears. But in America 2018, a honest life and career is suddenly ruined by ... nothing.  

Hunger: Ceviche Classico

Left: A la Peruana: Raw fish marinated in "Tiger milk" (lemon juice), red onion, boiled batata, fresh lettuce, toasted maize grains.
Up A la Ecuatoriana: Shrimps and seafood.


It is 4.30 PM of the fast day. I declare it a day and I shall fast more, later. 

Cape Town Water Crisis (Update)

A few months ago the dams feeding CapeTown water supply system were almost empty. The available reserves were to last till May, and after that, nothing. Well, the rain arrived punctually as every year, and today all the dams are full 97% - fuller then ever. It appears that the "end of the world" scenario was a media event, to cause excitement without risking lawsuits. The same with Hurricane Florence, that occupied the media for a week. It came with wind and rain, the next day no one remembers it. 

Drought in Chile

The pic shows the Laguna de Aculeo this winter (south hemisphere). Normally, Chile has a regular climate and the rains arrive in time. Not this year. 

American blues

Postcard from the 1950s. Today, a  Californian remembers: 

"When I was a kid in California, a blue-collar worker could buy a BRAND NEW 4-BEDROOM HOUSE, 2-CAR GARAGE, 5 MILES FROM THE BEACH, for 4 times his annual salary. My California housing track was full of 4 or 5-child families, and the mom’s didn’t have to work."