14 15, Henry and his brothers raided Ceuta with their father Joao I, and the Moors knew nothing about it beforehand. As a result, Ceuta was captured in just one day and only eight Portuguese were killed. In this battle, Henry took the lead and rushed into the enemy line alone, only to be surrounded by moors, and a bodyguard died in the process of defending him to the death. Later generations regarded this as the beginning of the outward expansion of the Portuguese and Europeans.
14 17, the Moorish army surrounded Ceuta, and Henry led reinforcements to Ceuta, where he stayed for three months, which changed the history of the world. During these three months, Henry learned from the prisoners of war and the commercial population that there was an old and busy commercial road that could cross the Sahara desert. After 20 days, he can reach "green countries" with dense forests and fertile land, that is, modern Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, southern Mali and southern Niger, from which he can get African pepper, gold and ivory. The Portuguese have no experience of crossing the desert by land. Prince Henry has a bold idea to reach a "green country" from the sea. This idea was endorsed by King Joao I, who was made a knight, and Henry was later made Duke of Viseu and Lord Corvina.
His brothers Duarte and Pedro are enlightened princes trained in the Renaissance. They are both scholars with both civil and military skills. At the age of 20, Pedro made a grand trip to Europe and Asia as a knight, met with the Pope, Juan II of Castilla, Emperor sigismund of Shenluo, Murad II of Ottoman Sultan and Constantine Xi, and also participated in the war in which Shenluo troops suppressed Hus in Bohemia. His foresight made him greatly appreciate and fully support his third brother Henry's future career.
Henry is not interested in politics. He went to the southernmost province of Portugal, served as governor of Tequila, far away from Lisbon, and settled in Sagrish, a small village near Cape San Vicente, which became the source of his exploration of strange places in the next few decades.
1420 May-165438+1October, the Holy See issued a series of documents, appointing Prince Henry as the Grand Commander of the Order of Christ headquartered in Thomas, allowing him to manage the related property of the Order and use the income of the Order for navigation and exploration. The only restriction is not to move the very expensive real estate in the order.
Prince Henry's contribution to navigation is not to explore personally, but to promote exploration. He founded a navigation college there to train domestic sailors and improve navigation technology; Establish an observatory to attract geologists, cartographers, mathematicians and astronomers from all over the world to study and make plans and schemes; Collect extensively the documents on geography, meteorology, trade winds, ocean currents, shipbuilding, navigation, etc., and analyze them for your own use; Travel libraries have been established, including The Travels of Marco Polo, and many maps have been collected and new maps have been drawn. 1836, a stone tablet was unearthed in Sagris, which read: "The great Prince Henry built a palace, a famous cosmology school, an observatory and a naval arsenal here."
He funded mathematicians and craftsmen to improve and manufacture new navigation instruments, such as compass, quadrant (instrument for measuring altitude, especially altitude) and horizontal marker (simple astrolabe for measuring latitude) imported from China. In sailing, the ship is the most important. Because of the different navigation conditions between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, ships sailing in the Mediterranean are not suitable for sailing in the Atlantic. At that time, most of the ships were paddle boats, and the main power relied more on slaves to paddle big oars to drive the ships, with poor maneuverability; Most ship masts use unilateral sails or jib sails, the former is too dependent on the wind direction, and the latter is lack of power.
Therefore, Henry devoted his greatest energy to shipbuilding, so he took many preferential measures to encourage shipbuilding: all ships with a tonnage of 100 tons or more can get wood from the royal forest free of charge, and any other necessary materials can be imported duty-free. In the case of insufficient currency at that time, duty-free imports had to pay a considerable price. After hard work, we arrived at 1440, and finally built a boat suitable for sailing in the Atlantic Ocean-Caravel sailing boat. Caravel sailboat is a mixture of Arabian spinnaker and European square sail, with the aspect ratio of 1: 3.5. This kind of ship is shallow, light, flexible and fast, and can sail close to the coast without having to stay away from the coast in order to avoid reefs and sandbars, which is particularly important in the navigation for the purpose of exploring strange coasts.
In addition to Christians, Prince Henry risked controversy and absorbed Morisco, Jews and converted Christians as his staff committee. Because the Moors can travel freely between North Africa and West Africa, and have a lot of dual knowledge of Christianity and Islam, in order to know ourselves and ourselves, Henry appointed people on their merits, absorbed various nationalities including Catalonia, Guinea and Moors, and also funded Lisbon University to set up disciplines such as navigation, astronomy, geometry and geography, so as to train maritime reserve talents for Portugal. During the Renaissance, astrology was also very popular. The astrology believed by Prince Henry shows that Aries, where the prince is located, belongs to Mars House and Mars belongs to Sagittarius in Aquarius House, which means that the prince's mission is to lead his subordinates to expand their territory and achieve fruitful results in exploring the world.
Prince Henry is also a very devout Christian, who built churches in his places and fiefs. He personally set the date of mass, the types of daily lessons, the person who presided over the daily lessons and the method of managing the church. As an avid crusader, he often sits high on horseback and watches the bishop of Lagos execute Muslim prisoners of war and apostates in batches.
He also supported the development of handicraft industry, fishery, milling industry, coral industry, sugar industry and printing and dyeing industry. He rented Christian land to farmers and collected land rent, and also increased fishing and soap industry to make money. He also obtained the privilege of fishing tuna in Alviga through the royal reward, which provided additional supplies for the garrison in Ceuta. After the occupation of Ceuta, I heard that the Moors also had a lot of trade in sub-Saharan Africa, so they immediately crossed the Sahara and opened up new trade routes.
14 18, Henry sent his first expedition, and only one sailboat went to the south to look for Guinea. The ship was blown to the west by the wind and reached Santos Island in Madeira Islands. This is how the Madeira Islands were discovered, and Prince Henry later declared that the islands belonged to Portugal. 14 19, the Portuguese fleet arrived at the main island of Madeira, and established the Portuguese capital of Madeira on the island, where the land is fertile and the climate is hot and humid, suitable for planting wheat and sugar cane. In fact, I came here once to compete with the Venetians for Mediterranean trade centuries ago, but it was forgotten in the end. But at this time, Europeans rediscovered here and began to grow sugar cane, a crop that Europeans have been exposed to since the Crusade. Later, this crop was transplanted to other European colonies. Since then, the Madeira Islands have become the foothold and material supply station of the Portuguese expedition.
The prince's next target was the Canary Islands, but the Portuguese soldiers were defeated by the locals. Prince Henry made several efforts later and failed. Later, Portugal gave up the ownership of the Canary Islands and gave it to the Spanish. In the following years, Prince Henry sent several expeditions from two directions. One direction is to go south along the coast of Africa, and the other direction is to leave the coast and sail deep southwest to find more islands.
1427, the fleet exploring southwest discovered the Azores. Azores is located in the Atlantic Ocean1450km west of Portugal and consists of nine main islands. The climate is warm, the soil and water are abundant, and the ocean current near the island flows from west to east, which is beneficial for ships returning from Africa to return to the European continent. It can be used as a supply station for ocean navigation. 143 1 year, Gonzalo Viniu Cabral discovered the island of Formica to the east of Azores. Probably because of the bad weather and local resistance, the Portuguese had to give up after landing for the first time. In the next few years, the Portuguese discovered Saint Michael Island and Santa Maria Island. 1432, Prince Henry sent 16 ships, hundreds of people and a priest to colonize the Azores with dozens of livestock. The discovery and colonization of Azores have an important influence on Portugal's future exploration and colonization, because its distance from Portugal is almost equal to 1/3 of Portugal's distance across the Atlantic to America, and the wheat planted here can also supplement Portugal.
1433, King Joao I died and Henry's eldest brother Duarte I succeeded him. At this time, Henry focused on exploring south along the African coast. The first obstacle of this route is Cape Bohal, which is located on the African continent just south of the Canary Islands. As early as 134 1 year to 1346, navigators from Catalonia and Portugal sailed 900 kilometers south along the west coast of Africa to Bohado. The sailors are afraid to sail south again. They secretly returned to Europe on the pretext of meeting all kinds of terrible aborigines. The salt in the sea is too thick to cultivate. They also threatened that all Christians passing through Bohado would become black. At that time, the south of Cape Bohal was a completely unknown world to Europeans. There are many reefs, huge waves and mysterious rapids. Arabs call this sea area "dark green ocean" in fear. On the map of medieval Arabia, on the coast slightly south of Cape Bohal, there was a Satan's hand sticking out of the water.
1434, after more than a dozen attempts, Prince Henry's expedition finally survived under the leadership of Captain Jill Evans. (Later, the captain boasted that sailing in the dark green ocean was as easy as sailing in domestic waters. Surara, a contemporary Portuguese historian, called it a feat. ) In the following year, Ines and Baltar went out to sea again and reached Garnett Bay, south of Cape Bohal 100 nautical mile. They found footprints of people and camels on the beach there, which proved that there was life in this area. 1436, they arrived at a place called Rio de Oro, where they found placer gold, thinking that this is the golden river that Europeans have been looking for. In fact, it is not even a river, but a small bay with little value.
During the reign of Du Jiaerte, the king used the tax of Madeira Islands15 as the navigation fund.
1437, the prince proposed to his brother Duarte I to attack Tangier.
Since the establishment of Ceuta fortress, the Moors have taken the initiative to bypass Ceuta fortress and isolate the area from the trade network. At that time, the Portuguese had different views on whether to forge ahead in North Africa or explore the coast of West Africa. Nobles advocate all-out war against North Africa, occupying a large area of land, businessmen advocate peaceful trade with Moors, and government officials prefer to explore and establish strip colonies along the coast of North Africa. But the princes pushed around in the crowd, which led the parliament to finally agree to pull out a certain amount of military expenditure, but had reservations about the expedition itself.
During this expedition, the expeditionary force lost contact with the troops at the seaside because it was too far from the coastline, and was finally besieged by a large number of Moroccan troops. After a 37-day siege, Prince Enrique gave his brother Prince Fernando as a hostage to the Moors in order to keep the Portuguese army, and promised to exchange Ceuta for Prince Fernando. The geographical location of Ceuta is very important. This fortress guards the exit of the Mediterranean Sea. Returning it to the Arabs means giving them a chance to enter the Atlantic Ocean, and it also means ruining their sailing career. Everyone knows that Enrique is a cruel man, but no one would have thought that he could even ignore his brother's life. Prince Fernando wrote to him many times, and the king hoped to gather more troops to save Prince Fernando. Prince Enrique used various means to prevent Ceuta from exchanging Prince Fernando, and finally Prince Fernando was imprisoned and died.
Then, with Ceuta preserved by Prince Enrique as a springboard, during the years of 1458, 1463, 147 1, Portugal made three expeditions to Tangier and captured almost all Moroccan coasts near the Atlantic Ocean.
1438, Alfonso V ascended the throne, and Prince Henry resumed his sailing career interrupted by the failure of the Battle of Tangier.
144 1 year, after dealing with the fiasco of attacking Tangier and the political struggle caused by it, Henry returned to Sagrish and resumed his exploration on the African coast. This year, the expedition set a new record for sailing south: Cape Brown (now Cape Nouadhibou, Mauritania). In the same year, another expedition returned ten Muslim prisoners. This marks the beginning of the slave trade in Europe.
1442, the expedition reached the Oro estuary, 1443, and the Portuguese first arrived in Senegambia. The Portuguese had early contact with the Black Kingdom here. The number of local black tribes is huge and their strength is increasing, so it is difficult to surrender by force. Therefore, the Portuguese gave up their attempt to crusade by force, but made mischief in front of the tribe. These black tribes have never lacked sufficient motivation to frame their compatriots. Prisoners of war, witchcraft sacrifices and losers are excellent candidates for slaves. The Portuguese call this land black land, which is the origin of Guinea.
1443, the then Regent Pedro granted Prince Henry the privileges of navigation, war and trade in the sea and land south of Cape Bohado, which was used for navigation and exempted from all taxes on navigation. Later, Prince Henry also established a small town on the cape in front of Sagris, which is the famous Cape Saint Vicente. He will build a church, a beacon tower and the first slave market in Europe. This model will affect the later European business model and attitude towards black Africa.
The above support ensures Henry's sailing funds and is the driving force for the rapid advancement of navigation exploration. But exploration is not for the sake of exploration, and prolonged exploration has not brought much benefit, so Henry has been criticized more and more, thinking that it is meaningless and unprofitable to pursue the unknown.
Seeing that the slave trade was an opportunity to quell criticism, Henry organized a voyage to plunder slaves in 1444, bringing back 235 slaves at a time and selling them outside Lagos, which was the beginning of the slave trade in evil Europe for 400 years. Since 1455, 800 black slaves have been sold into slavery in Portugal every year.
Since then, the voyage organized by Henry has paid equal attention to exploration, colonization and slave trade. At this time, the Portuguese royal family issued licenses to private explorers, allowing them to get everything they found, which means that for private people, as long as they pay a small amount of money and take risks, they can make a fortune; For the royal family, you can get benefits without paying the price. This set off a wave of private exploration in China. Soon, 25 ships will sail to the African coast every year. Of course, private exploration is not a real exploration because of its profit-seeking and unorganized nature, but only to obtain wealth in the discovered area.
1446, as Prince Alfonso gradually came of age, the Regent and Henry's brother Pedro were forced to hand over the regime, which almost triggered a rebellion, although the rebellion was finally suppressed and Pedro died. The death of the most discerning maritime aristocrat made the whole of Europe feel sorry for it, but Prince Henry clearly realized that his generation was gradually withdrawing from the political arena, so instead of continuing to fight for power and profit with a new generation of young aristocrats, it was better to fade out of the political arena that did not belong to him and concentrate on his own maritime career, leaving more scientific and technological property and intangible resources advantages for future generations.
1448, Prince Henry sent people to build a permanent fortress on Algin Island in Cape Brown, and built a port, city hall and monastery as a trade transit point for Portuguese exploration. The later Portuguese maritime empire was composed of these trading posts scattered in various strategic locations and the sea areas between them.
Prince Henry exchanged brass, iron, wheat and horses for gold, ivory and slaves in the interior of Africa. His ideal is to draw the trade routes from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, Egypt and Arabia to the Gulf of Guinea through Africa, taking the Portuguese trade post in the Gulf of Guinea as the gateway, and then build the connection between Portugal and the East. This can not only bypass Venice and other maritime countries, but also reduce the trade volume of Mamluk Egypt, thus weakening its strength and ultimately reducing the resistance of the Crusaders to recover Egypt. The idea of monopolizing maritime trade routes by force, thus weakening the opponent's economy, began with Prince Henry. The idea of monopolizing Indian Ocean trade led Diaz, da Gama, Cabral and others to fight bloody battles in the Indian Ocean.
With the continuous expansion of African trade, Altun Island has become an important center for providing gold. The exploration finally paid off, and those criticisms went away, and even involuntarily turned past complaints into word of mouth.
After a lot of development and consumption, the gold sands in Prince Henry's vault can still be used for 18 years after his death, which shows its large quantity.
From 65438 to 0457, the rapid development of economy and gold reserves strengthened Portugal's right to speak in Europe-Africa trade and European trade, and began to think about actively casting high-value currencies for international trade and strategic reserves to reduce the value loss in the process of foreign currency exchange. Therefore, the Portuguese began to create a high-purity gold coin, named Cruzado, which means Crusade. Because of exquisite workmanship and good purity, it didn't depreciate until 1536.
Due to the exemplary role of Prince Henry, domestic nobles and businessmen are eager to trade and plunder in Africa, and the royal family granted them a unified trade license. This practice was initiated by the Portuguese and then followed by other colonial countries.
1444, Tristan arrived near the Senegalese estuary in Cape Brown, where the coast became full of green. After more than ten years of sailing, Portugal finally reached a green country. After 1449, the sailors organized by Prince Henry did not take geographical discovery as their task, but tried their best to explore some discovered rivers, especially gambia river, in order to find Christian King John and gold. However, instead of finding John and gold, the sailors found some prosperous black kingdoms and heard that there was a bigger kingdom in the distance.
In his later years, Henry devoted himself to coordinating the relationship between Portugal and the Vatican, expanding the rights of the Order of Christ in Portugal and trying to express his crusade ideals to the Vatican. /kloc-In 0/458, Prince Henry, who had rich military experience, navigation experience and financial reserves, revived his crusade ideal, took 220 ships and 25,000 soldiers to Kassel-seguer, a fortress near Tangier. After allowing Arabs to evacuate with their families and floating wealth, the Portuguese successfully entered the city.
1460 The death of Prince Henry marked the end of a great era of Portuguese maritime exploration.