Rigel Kent

Introduction The Portuguese invasion of Melaka (1511) is an important point in world history. It marks the commencement of direct European control of the spice trade and the defusion of European ideas to the region. Nutmeg is native to Banda Islands Clove is native to Maluku Islands Sandalwood is native to Timor Islands The Malay merchants say that God made Timor for sandal-wood and Banda for mace and the Moluccas for cloves, and that this merchandise is not known anywhere else in the world except in these places; and I asked and enquired very diligently whether they had this merchandise anywhere else and everyone said not. from Suma Oriental by Tome Pires, written between 1512 and 1515 The King of Portugal was apparently very proud of this achievement. He bragged about it in a letter directed to the then newl...

The following paragraphs are reproduced from Chapter 5.2 in a book written by Chen Xiaoshan, published by Shandong Education Publisher in 2020. 陳曉珊 (2020) 長風破浪：鄭和下西洋航海技術研究、山東教育出版社. It contains important fragments detailing the installation of Mansur Shah and Mahmud Shah, the last two kings of Melaka. We have the following The dates given here are Julian dates instead of proleptic Gregorian. timeline when the records related to Melaka investitures and data from other sources are mashed together: 13 September 1459, Chen Jiayou and Peng Sheng were tasked to install Mansur Shah when the death of Muzaffar Shah was reported to the Ming court. 27 April 1461 , we have an entry in Ming Shilu which documented that Chen was saved after his ship was sunk by bad weather. We know from another MSL entry dated 28 October 1467 that Chen eventually used a new ship to complete the installation of Mansur Shah (probably in 1462 or later). Around the end of 14...