Jasa kaum Cina pertahan Melaka dari serangan Portugis

Kita biasa mendengar pantun berikut. Tapi sebenarnya pantun ini bukanlah pantun orang bercinta, ianya ialah pantun bagaimana bangsa Cina atau kaum Cina yang menetap di tanah Jawa datang membantu mempertahankan kerajaan Islam Melaka ketika Portugis menyerang Melaka ;

Kalau roboh kota Melaka
Papan di Jawa saya dirikan
Kalau sungguh bagai di kata
Badan dan nyawa saya berikan

Ya , bukan orang Melayu sahaja yang mempertahankan Melaka dari serangan Portugis , malah kaum Cina di Melaka pada ketika itu, serta dibantu oleh kaum Cina dari tanah Jawa juga dari tanah besar China.

Pemerintah China dari Dinasti Ming telah mengadakan hubungan dagang yang akrab dengan Melaka sebelum kedatangan Portugis. Pemerintah China Dinasti Ming amat marah apabila Portugis menyerang Melaka. Sebagai tindakbalas Maharaja China , apabila tentera Portugis tiba di China , mereka telah diserang, dibunuh dan dipenjara.

Pedagang China telah memboikot urusan dagang dengan Portugis di Melaka. Sementara itu orang Cina dari tanah Jawa telah datang membantu orang Melayu untuk menawan kembali Melaka dari Portugis.

Semasa kecil saya sering tertanya-tanya kenapa masjid-masjid lama di Rembau ini banyak bercirikan seni bina dari negara China. Kemudian ada pula nama tempat Lubuk China di Rembau. Kemudian saya tertanya lagi apa tujuan nenek moyang saya dari istana Pagaruyung di Sumatera datang ke Rembau, berkahwin dengan orang Asli. Kemudian tertanya lagi kenapa banyak batu nisan Acheh di Rembau ini.

Rupa-rupanya semua ini ada kaitan dengan sejarah mempertahankan kerajaan Islam Melaka pada ketika itu.

Kerajaan Uthmaniah di Turki telah menghantar perwakilan, tentera, meriam canggih, jurutera untuk membantu kerajaan Acheh di bawah Sultan Alauddin Riwayat Shah untuk menghalau Portugis dari Nusantara.

Dari Sumatera inilah orang Acheh, orang Minangkabau masuk melalui Sungai Linggi, seterusnya ke Sungai Rembau, Sungai Penajeh di satu arah dan Sungai Ujong di arah yang lain untuk bertapak, mengumpul kekuatan bersama orang Melayu, orang Asli, kaum Cina untuk menyusun strategi menawan kembali Melaka.

Lagi satu bab mengenai perang antara pahlawan Melayu dengan tentera penceroboh Portugis. Tolong buang dalam minda kita, minda anak-anak kita, bahawa pahlawan Melayu kita berperang menggunakan keris dan tombak melawan tentera penceroboh Portugis yang bersenjatakan senapang dan meriam.

Sebenarnya tentera Islam kerajaan Melaka menggunakan senapang dan meriam yang canggih untuk mempertahankan kota Melaka. Serangan awal Portugis , mereka kalah kerana dibedil teruk oleh meriam tentera Melaka.

Akhirnya Portugis terpaksa menukar strategi dan tipu helah untuk menawan Melaka.

Apabila Melaka ditawan, anak Afonso d'Alboquerque; menyebut dalam jurnalnya bahawa senapang dan meriam tentera Melaka jauh lebih hebat dari senjata yang dihasilkan oleh Portugis.

Agak-agaknya lah kan , ada tak pihak nak buat filem Pertempuran Kota Melaka sepertimana pertempuran Bukit Kepong yang saban hari disiarkan dalam tv?

Kalau tak mampu buat filem, buat siri animasi pun sudah cukup. Agar rakyat Malaysia tahu, bahawa semangat 1Malaysia telah lama wujud di Tanah Melayu apabila orang Melayu dan orang Cina bersama mempertahankan kerajaan Islam Melaka bersama orang Asli, orang Minangkabau, orang Acheh, orang Jawa.

Sumber :

Capture of Malacca (1511)

In 1509, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira was sent to Malacca by the king of Portugal with four ships in order to establish contact with the Sultanate of Malacca. Initially, Sequeira was well received by the Sultan Mahmud Syah (1488–1528). Soon however, the Muslim community convinced Mahmud Syah that the Portuguese should be eliminated. Several men were captured and killed, but the ships escaped.

A first attack by the Portuguese failed on 25 July 1511. Albuquerque's captains spoke against another attempt, but he struck again, succeeding in capturing Malacca in August, despite strong resistance and the presence of artillery on the Malaccan side.

The son of Alboquerque, in his Commentaries, is still fuller on the subject of the captured artillery and the weapons of defence used by the Malays. “There were captured,” says he, “ 3000 pieces, of which 2000 were of brass, and the rest of iron. Among them there was one large piece sent by the King of Calicut to the King of Malacca. All the artillery with its appurtenances was of such workmanship that it could not be excelled, even in Portugal.

There were found also match-locks (espingardao), blowpipes for shooting poisoned arrows, bows and arrows, lances of Java, and divers other arms, all which created surprise in those that captured them.”

Commentarios do grande Afonso d'Alboquerque; Lisboa, 1576. The greater number most likely consisted of the small pieces called by the natives rantaka or hand-guns. Castanheda also mentions match-locks (espingardao), and while he reduces the captured cannon to 2000, he says that they threw balls, some of stone, and some of iron covered with lead. The cannon (bombardia) were some of them of brass and some of iron. By his account the bridge, the chief scene of combat in the storm of Malacca, was defended by seventy-two pieces of ordnance.

Several thousand artillery pieces, around 30000 out of 8000 of large size were captured by the Portuguese in Malacca. Firearms such as Matchlocks and artillery were both used by the Malays to defend Malacca before it fell.

Chinese retaliation against Portugal

The Malay Malacca Sultanate was a tributary state and ally to Ming Dynasty China. When Portugal conquered Malacca in 1511 and committed atrocities against the Malay Sultanate, the Chinese responded with violent force against Portugal.

The Chinese Imperial Government imprisoned and executed multiple Portuguese envoys after torturing them in Guangzhou. The Malaccans had informed the Chinese of the Portuguese seizure of Malacca, to which the Chinese responded with hostility toward the Portuguese. The Malaccans told the Chinese of the deception the Portuguese used, disguising plans for conquering territory as mere trading activities, and told of all the atrocities committed by the Portuguese.

Due to the Malaccan Sultan lodging a complaint against the Portuguese invasion to the Chinese Emperor, the Portuguese were greeted with hostility from the Chinese when they arrived in China. The Malaccan Sultan, based in Bintan after fleeing Malacca, sent a message to the Chinese, which combined with Portuguese banditry and violent activity in China, led the Chinese authorities to execute 23 Portuguese and torture the rest of them in jails. After the Portuguese set up posts for trading in China and committed piratical activities and raids in China, the Chinese responded with the complete extermination of the Portuguese in Ningbo and Quanzhou. Pires, a Portuguese trade envoy, was among those who died in the Chinese dungeons.

At the First Battle of Tamao (1521) and the Second Battle of Tamao (1522), Chinese forces attacked and defeated Portuguese fleets after they attempted to establish relations to China, partly because of the Portuguese conquest of Malacca.

Chinese traders boycotted Portuguese Malacca after it fell to the Portuguese in the Capture of Malacca (1511), some Chinese in Java assisted in Muslim attempts to reconquer the city from Portugal using ships. The Java Chinese participation in retaking Malacca was recorded in "The Malay Annals of Semarang and Cerbon". The Chinese did business with Malays and Javanese instead of the Portuguese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Malacca_(1511)

Empayar Uthmaniyyah 1299 – 1923

Kejayaan pengembangan kuasa Uthmaniyyah pada kurun ke-16 adalah kerana kemahiran bersenjata api dan taktik peperangan di samping kesempurnaan sistem ketenteraan. Tentera Uthmaniyyah juga amat mahir dalam melakukan serangan dan kepungan kerana serangan seperti ini mendatangkan kesan kemusnahan yang teruk terhadap musuh mereka.

Semasa zaman ini, Empayar Uthmaniyyah bersaing dengan kuasa-kuasa Eropah di Lautan Hindi.

Empayar Uthmaniyyah juga menghantar tentera lautnya bersama-sama dengan kelengkapan perang dan askar ke Kenya dan Aceh bagi membantu pemerintah-pemerintah Muslim di sana, di samping mempertahankan perdagangan rempah dan hamba.

Di Aceh, Empayar Uthmaniyyah membina kubu dan mempertahankannya menggunakan meriam, selain itu Sultan Aceh,Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah Al Qahar telah memimpin sebuah armada perang dibantu oleh tentera turki Uthmaniyyah dengan meriam-meriam besar dari Istanbul menggempur Portugis di Melaka.

http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empayar_Uthmaniyyah

Ottoman expedition to Aceh

The Ottoman expedition to Aceh was started from around 1565 when the Ottoman Empire endeavoured to support the Aceh Sultanate in its fight against the Portuguese Empire in Malacca. The expedition followed an envoy sent by the Acehnese Sultan Alauddin Riayat Syah al-Kahhar (1539–71) to Suleiman the Magnificent in 1564, and possibly as early as 1562, requesting Ottoman support against the Portuguese.

An informal Ottoman-Aceh alliance had existed since at least the 1530s. Sultan Alauddin wished to develop these relations, both to attempt the expulsion of the Portuguese in Malacca, and to extend his own power in Sumatra.

The 1564 embassy to Constantinople was sent by Sultan Hussain Ali Riayat Syah. In his missive to the Ottoman Porte, the Sultan of Aceh referred to the Ottoman ruler as Khalifah (Caliph) of Islam.

After the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566, his son Selim II ordered that ships be sent to Aceh. A number of soldiers, gunsmiths and engineers were sent in an Ottoman fleet, together with ample supplies of weapons and ammunition. A first fleet was sent, consisting of 15 galleys equipped with artillery. It had to be diverted to fight an uprising in Yemen. Only two ships eventually arrived in 1566–67, but numerous other fleets and shipments would follow. The first expedition was led by Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis. The Acehnese paid for the shipments in pearls, diamonds and rubies.

In 1568, they (the Acehnese), besieged Malacca, although the Ottomans do not seem to have participated directly. It seems however that the Ottomans were able to supply cannonneers for the campaign, but were unable to provide more due to the ongoing invasion of Cyprus and an uprising in Aden.

The Ottomans taught the Acehnese how to forge their own cannon, some of which reached considerable size; the craft of making such weapons had spread throughout the Maritime Southeast Asia. Famous cannons were made in Makassar, Mataram, Java, Minangkabau, Melaka and Brunei.

Many of these rare artillery pieces were captured by the European colonialists, the bells of several Dutch churches in Aceh were made from melted Ottoman weapons. Some of these bells still carry the Ottoman crest which were originally on the barrels. By the beginning of the 17th century, Aceh boasted about 1200 medium-sized bronze cannons, and about 800 other weapons such as breech-loading swivel guns and arquebuses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_expedition_to_Aceh

According to the Portuguese traveller Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, who visited Sumatra in1539,there was war between Aceh and the tribes of Batak, and there were Turkish, Cambay and Malabar auxialary soldiers in the Acehnese army. He also mentions that the Acehnese Sultan Alaaddin signed an agreement with the Ottoman Governor of Eygpt on behalf of the Sultan Suleyman against the Portuguese.

During the years of 1540’s in Aceh’s battles with her enemies such as in 1540 with Aru and in 1547 with Malacca, Turkish soldiers were noted among the Acehnese forces. Most probably from the late years of 1530’s, Aceh began to employ or hire Turkish soldiers and military experts in her army.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25099528/Aceh-Ottoman-Relations

Sunday, 17 May 2009
The Ottoman Military Academy in Aceh

Turning now to the military academy, there was agreement amongst the sources that such an academy existed in Aceh, although there was little detail. The academy was called Askari Bayt Al-Mugaddas (Sacred Military Academy), although according to an Indonesian sourcethe name was changed to become Askar Baitul Maqdis, since that was closer to the Acehnese pronunciation. It was not clear what subjects were taught nor how long the teaching period was. At least one student was female, Kumala Hayati, who later went on to lead the Acehnese fleet against the Portuguese in Melaka (Malacca).

http://asianmil.typepad.com/stage3/2009/05/the-ottoman-military-academy-in-aceh.html

Roughly a century after firearms were invented by the Arabs, the Malays began making guns. Evidence of these activities were documented by W Linehan in his paper entitled Some Discoveries on the Tembeling. On the banks of the Tembeling river in peninsula Malaysia he found molds that were used to cast cannons in the 13th or 14th century.
According to the conqueror of Malacca,Alfonso d'Albuquerque, Malaccan gun foundries were as good as those in Germany; This could mean they were better than Portuguese ones but the most powerful guns in those days were made by the Ottoman Turks. When the Portuguese defeated Malacca, they found thousands of cannons including an extraordinarily large one which Alfonso sent to his Hindu ally the Zamorin of Calicut.

http://apaajanews.blogspot.com/2012/01/rentaka-melayu.html