In 1511,
Raphael Perestralo Sailed From Malacca To China, And In 1517 The
Portuguese Officer, Don Fernand Perez D'Andrade, Arrived In The Canton
River With A Squadron, And Was Favorably Received By The Mandarins.
D'Andrade Visited Pekin, Where He Resided For Some Time As Embassador.
The
commencement of intercourse between Europeans and China was thus effected
most auspiciously; and it might have continued so but that a second
Portuguese fleet appeared in Chinese waters, and committed there numerous
outrages and acts of piracy.
Upon this D'Andrade was arrested by order of
Woutsong, and after undergoing imprisonment, was executed by his successor
in 1523. It was a bad beginning for a connection which, after nearly four
hundred years, is neither as stable nor as general as the strivers after
perfection could desire.
The death of Woutsong without children, or any recognized heir, threatened
to involve the realm in serious dangers; but the occasion was so critical
that the members of the Ming family braced themselves to it, and under the
auspices of the Empress Changchi, the widow of the late ruler, a secret
council was held, when the grandson of the Emperor Hientsong, a youth of
fourteen, was placed on the throne under the name of Chitsong. It is said
that his mother gave him good advice on being raised from a private
station to the lofty eminence of emperor, and that she told him that he
was about to accept a heavy burden; but experience showed that he was
unequal to it.
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