The General Agreed To His Proposal, And Gained The
Fort By The Advice Of Mendez, With The Slaughter Of 2000 Chinese And
Moguls.
In pursuance of his promise, the general obtained the liberty of
the Portuguese from his sovereign, but prevailed on Mendez to continue
in his service by a pension of 6000 ducats.
The Tartar emperor was
constrained to raise the siege of Peking and retire to Tuymican his
residence in Tartary, after having closely invested the metropolis of
China for almost seven months, with the loss of 450,000 men, mostly cut
off by pestilence, besides 300,000 that deserted to the Chinese.
In 1545, Martin Alfonso de Sousa became exceedingly dissatisfied with
his situation as governor-general in India, being threatened on every
side by a combination of the native princes, and having no adequate
means of defence either in men or money. Only a few days before the
arrival of his successor, he declared to Diego Silveyra who was going to
sail for Portugal, that if the king did not immediately send out a
successor, he would open the patents of succession, and resign the
government to whoever he might find nominated for that purpose. He was
soon afterwards relieved by Don Juan de Castro, whose journal of the
expedition into the Red Sea we have laid before our readers in the
preceding chapter, and who arrived at Goa in August or September 1545,
to assume the government of India.
SECTION IV.
Government of India by Don Juan de Castro, from 1545 to 1548.
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