>>17782450

in the 1660s and 1670s, Koxinga's son Zheng Jing issued multiple threats to the Spanish governor general in Manila demanding tribute payments, extradition and that he administer the Chinese community in the Philippines as his own subjects and the Spanish not convert them. The Spanish folded to almost all his demands and admitted they were weak and both the Dutch East India Company and English East India Company said that Zheng Jing could overrun the weak Spanish defences in Manila if he attacked. Zheng Jing continued to raid Dutch shipping capturing Dutch ships and the only reason his planned invasion of the Spanish Philippines was called off was because of the Three Feudatories war breaking out in China.

>As conditions for the opening of commerce, if we trust Jiang’s narrative, Zheng Jing required the Spanish to present a regular tribute of shipbuilding materials and refrain from harassing the vessels that sailed to Manila.184 We do not have sufficient information to determine whether the Spanish agreed to these specific terms, but they seemed quite willing to go out of their way to appease him. Indeed, Zheng Jing had threatened in his audience with the priest to “immediately dispatch his soldiers to punish” the Philippines should they fail to comply.185 In a letter to Mariana (r. 1665-1675), the Queen Regent of Austria, Governor Manuel de León (r. 1669-1677) warned that “these provinces [the Philippines] are in no state to be complaining to the neighboring kings, with the ease with which they move to any altercation.”186 As late as 1673, he wrote of sending an envoy to Zheng “who might admonish and persuade him to continue the peace,” one method possibly involving the presentation of tribute.187