Tolu Manatu Incident

The Tolu Manatu Incident was a short armed conflict between the Queendom of Tolu Manatu and an expedition of Daxian adventurers led by Captain Huang Mao that took place in 1661. The increasingly frequent encounters between Daxian and Sarpedonian vessels in the Polynesian Sea in the aftermath of Gabo de Pogiano's voyage set off a race between the various powers to secure an advantage against the others by seizing the local islands and atolls. After the seizure of Zhijun in 1593 the Daxian court was focused on; through its South Seas Trading Company proxy, expanding and securing its hold over modern day Stenza. A company captain by the name of Huang Mao had received credible reports from fishermen of sighting of a number of islands not far north of Zhijun, in a then unexplored stretch of sea.

Huang Mao attempted to convince his superiors at the company to fund the outfitting of an exploration party to corroborate the reports, but his request was denied on grounds of cost and lack of available manpower. He was also warned not to attempt to circumvent the company and go directly to court with his proposal, he would be forfeiting his employment and captain's license. Huang Mao was not deterred by this and decided then to carry out an unsanctioned expedition with his own ship, equipped at his own expense. In addition to his present crew, he recruited sixty men from his hometown and male members of his extended family. His group had forty muskets available to them, half of which were taken from a government armory after he bribed the quartermaster. Huang Mao's plan was simple: to sail north guided by the fishermen and claim the islands for Daxia and the governorship for himself (as was the custom of the time); should the islands be inhabited the locals would be enjoined to submit to his authority, or be destroyed if they refused. While Huang Mao lured a sizable complement of men with promises of riches, he did not disclose that in the case of returning empty handed, his insubordinate actions would likely see them all clapped in irons at best or facing a hangman's noose at worst.

On April 8th the expedition set sail on Huang's vessel, the Haiwang, a Daxian style carrack with a deck length of about 18 meters and some 100 tons of displacement. Apart from minor incidents between crew related to gambling, the trip was uneventful and on the morning of April 15th flocks or birds were spotted by the lookout and not short after were the islands sighted. The expedition made landing the next day in a beach south of the modern day town of Uafalima, on the island of Anamua, which Huang called Qiji the daxian word for miracle. This landing action went unimpeded as no locals, if they even existed, made no appearance. The Daxians spent the rest of the 16th and 17th unloading supplies from the ship and building a fortified camp surrounded by sharpened palm tree logs. On the afternoon of the 19th some of the Daxians on the beach saw a man paddling a hollowed wood canoe near the shore and attempted to communicate with him, waving their arms and yelling at him. The man seemed startled but did not respond back and soon turned his canoe around and paddled away. One of the Daxians fired his musquet at him but missed by a wide margin. It was decided that next day a party of forty men would go south along the shore in the direction the canoe man had gone. The next day as planned, the assigned party set out, fully armed.

After a few hours travel they did indeed come upon a populated fishing village with a primitive look about it. Huang Mao reports in his diary that as he and his group approached, a call sounded in the village and there was frantic movement before a large mob coalesced and surged from the small wooden huts carrying spears. He ordered his men to place in front of them the baskets full of dates they had brought as gifts; a standoff ensued as the suspicious locals refused to get closer until at last after what seemed like hours and many soft spoken words from Huang Mao some of them tried the dates. The suspicion began to break down and the natives seemed pleased with the sweetness of the dates. Huang Mao wrote that such simple minded people would surely be ruled by Daxia as a parent over his children. Through hand signs and pointing Huang's group was invited to the village where they spent the night. On the morning as the Daxians prepared to leave the village a dispute arose over the apparent rape of a local woman, a thing of no great consecuence for sailors at sea. The Daxians refused to hand over the culprit and a fight ensued, all previous good will forgotten. The musquets and scale armor of the newcomers were used to great effect, leaving dozens of natives dead or dying. Unbeknownst to Huang Mao a few of the survivors had fled into the jungle to call for aid. Huang Mao had his men hang a Qian banner from the tallest hut in the fishing village, claiming it for Daxia and then had his men put the survivors in manacles.