Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Majapahit beheaded China's ambassador
The Sumatran snub
The Sumatran king, Adityawarman, had been put in power by Majapahit. He commissioned statues of himself larger than any of other kings in the region, and he had a stone tablet inscribed with a list of kings that placed his own name above King Hayam Wuruk's. Then he sent his own envoys to the emperor of China, bypassing his king entirely.
China's reaction
Hayam Wuruk summoned the Chinese ambassador to Sumatra and, after lambasting him, apparently had him beheaded and his head sent back to China in a bag. China did not answer in kind. It apologized and eventually sent fine fabrics and a batch of paper money to the Javanese court to make amends.
The siege of Singapura
Hayam Wuruk gathered as many as 300 warships and, by the chronicles, 200,000 soldiers. Adityawarman appears in no written record or inscription again. The fleet then turned on Singapura, where Parameswara ruled a walled settlement. After a month-long siege, Majapahit forces broke through the walls and slaughtered the inhabitants. Legend holds that the iron-rich reddish clay of Singapore was stained that color by the blood spilled there, and Parameswara fled north to the Strait of Malacca.
Why did Sumatra's rulers court China directly?
Recognition from the Chinese emperor brought trading rights and prestige that a local ruler could not get from a regional overlord. Envoys who arrived with tribute left with silks, titles, and official seals. The Hongwu Emperor began sending envoys across Southeast Asia in 1368, the year the Ming dynasty took power. Many rulers answered by sending their own missions to the Ming court.
Why was Singapura a strategic port?
The island sits at the southern end of the Strait of Malacca, the narrow passage that ships between India and China must use. A port there could tax or protect nearly all of the maritime trade between the two. Parameswara, the ruler who fled north, later founded Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. Malacca grew into the richest port in the region.
Why is Singapore's soil red?
The color comes from laterite, a tropical soil rich in iron oxides that forms when heavy rain washes other minerals away over long periods. Iron oxide gives the soil a reddish or orange tint, much as it does rust. Laterite covers large parts of the tropics. Bukit Merah, meaning Red Hill in Malay, is a district in Singapore named for this red earth.
More from Fall of Civilizations
