Elephants, Castilians and Japanese mercenaries: the unknown Spanish conquest of Cambodia

When the Hispanic Monarchy had not even finished controlling the Philippines, Quixotic plans arose at court to go further, ‘plus ultra’, as the imperial motto sang, in the Pacific. At various times during the reign of Philip II there were plans to invade China to gain commercial supremacy in the area, although no attempt went beyond the preparation phase. More real, but also cruder, were the plans to introduce the Catholic religion to Southeast Asia, control trade in Indochina, and conquer Cambodia. Blas Ruíz de Hernán González, born in a town in Ciudad Real, was commissioned together with the Portuguese Diego Belloso to lead an adventure that hurts and tires just to tell it. At the end of the 16th century, the conquering couple set out for the exotic kingdoms of Siam, Cambodia and Tonkin, going up the Mekong River and fighting all the local chieftains they came across. The situation in Indochina was one of constant change in the thrones, an opportunity that the Spaniards, who were traveling privately, were not going to miss. Fray Gabriel de San Antonio, of the order of Santo Domingo, recounted his adventures in ‘Brief and true account of the events of the Kingdom of Camboxa’ and told how the couple became friends with King Prauncar Lángara, who granted them several privileges and authorization to trade local products. Standard Related News If the US ended its disastrous participation in the Vietnam War in this way César Cervera Harassed inside and outside his country, Nixon found a desperate way out of his war in Indochina fifty years ago in Paris through agreements that confirmed the disaster In 1594, the King of the Khmer Empire asked the couple with whom he was on such good terms to mediate with the governor of the Philippines so that he would protect them from the aggressive incursions of the King of Siam in exchange for becoming a vassal of Spain. Before getting an answer, the bellicose neighboring Monarch invaded Cambodia with eight hundred thousand men and many elephants. He not only took Ruiz himself and then Belloso prisoner, but also the royal family. In a twist that sounds like something out of an adventure novel, Ruiz used a ruse to escape from the ship that was taking him prisoner to a city in Siam. According to the narration of Cesáreo Fernández Duro, the Castilian managed to lift the war junk manned by Chinese and Siamese to, along with only three Spaniards, take it to the port of Manila. There, in the Philippine capital, he met Belloso, who also managed to escape from captivity by deceiving the King of Siam to supposedly represent him as ambassador in Manila. Beginning and end of the Spanish presence Governor Gómez Perez das Mariñas refused to support the intrepid conquerors in their plan to invade Cambodia in support of Prauncar. He argued that at that time he was busy with a company in the Maluca Islands and it was impossible for him to do without a single man. The only thing he gave them was encouragement and a horse with emeralds. As Santiago Ruiz-Morales Fadrique explains in the entry that the Royal Academy of History dedicates to Ruíz de Hernán González, the Cambodian adventure had to wait until 1595, when the death of the governor in the Malucas deposited the power of the Philippines in his son, Luis de Mariñas, who was asked to “favor the dethroned King, portraying his restoration as very easy, that nothing less could be expected than a good port of call, whose possession would serve as a base of operations at the convenience of Spain in the future”. José Ferre Clauzel finalizes a painting on the feat of Blas Ruiz by Hernán González. ABC The interim governor, despite the opposition of “sensible people from Manila”, could not refuse. He agreed to assemble three ships under the command of Juan Suárez de Gallinato and forty men, which finally numbered 120, for this purpose. Two of the ships, with Ruíz and Belloso as captains, reached the Indochina coast, but Gallinato’s ended up in Singapore as a result of a storm. In the absence of Ruíz and Belloso, the King of Siam had placed Langara’s brother, called Bocatuerta the Traitor, on the throne of Cambodia, who was protected by a fleet of six Chinese vessels. Blas Ruíz and Diego Belloso, at the head of a small army of Christian Japanese and other Eastern mercenaries, managed to seize this flotilla, but as soon as they disembarked the boats on their way to the capital, the armed crowd surrounded them by surprise. This withdrawal coincided with the arrival of Gallinato, who was not a bit amused by the daring attitude of the adventurers. The group of 50 combatants gave a coup, slipping away from the agitated populace, and even managed to surround the royal palace and the warehouses spreading panic in the city. The Spaniards withdrew after their victory, harassed by their enemies who, in view of the fatigue of the foreigners, thought that they could defeat them in flight. It was not like that, the Spanish suffered a single casualty in the retreat. This retreat coincided with the arrival of Gallinato, who was not a bit amused by the daring attitude of the adventurers. Gallinato censured his subordinates and, after taking all the booty, gave the order to set sail for Manila without further ado. With only a handful of men, Ruíz and Belloso headed to Laos to liberate Prauncar, but when they arrived there this King had died with two of his sons, and his other son Prauncar was then the legitimate successor of he. The new King, under the tutelage of his grandmother, stepmother and aunts, gave his saviors the important title of chofas, which included provincial properties and commanders’ honors to lead their troops in Cambodia. MORE INFORMATION noticia No Tuttlingen, the unknown battle that refutes the myth of the decline of the Thirds of Flanders noticia Yes A correspondent in the trenches of History Little more was known about the adventurers. They were engulfed by one of the many local revolts that plagued Indochina. During an uprising against the King instigated by the women of the kingdom, all the foreigners were massacred without being able to present a joint defense, so that the Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese were cornered one by one by the crowd. Since 1934, there has been a monument on the border between Cambodia and Vietnam that remembers Ruíz and Belloso.