Battle of Tunmen

Date	1521
Location	Tuen Mun
Result	Ming Chinese victory.

Belligerents

Ming Dynasty China

Kingdom of Portugal

Commanders and leaders

Simão de Andrade

Strength

Squadron of Junks

Caravel ships

Casualties and losses

Unknown

Battle of Tunmen

Traditional Chinese

Transcriptions

Transcriptions

The Battle of Tunmen or Tãmão was a naval battle in which the Ming imperial navy defeated a Portuguese fleet led by Simão de Andrade in 1521.

Simão de Andrade had been kidnapping Chinese children to sell in Malacca. and ignored Chinese sovereign authority at Tãmão, building a fort. The Chinese believed that the Portuguese roasted and ate the Chinese children they had kidnapped. The Chinese responded by blockading the Portuguese. The Portuguese would have starved if they had not run the blockade.

The Portuguese called their settlement Tamão, which is understood as a corruption of "Tunmen" (屯門, Túnmén), the name for the western Hong Kong and Shenzhen area that has existed since the Tang dynasty. Chinese sources state that the Portuguese settled around the Tunmen Inlet (屯門澳, Túnmén Ào), but the current whereabouts of the Tunmen Inlet is unknown, so the precise location of the Portuguese settlement and the battlefield remains under debate among historians.

In the present day, "Tunmen" refers to Tuen Mun, the Cantonese reading of the same Chinese characters. This leads some researchers to link the Tunmen of Ming times to Tuen Mun in the New Territories of Hong Kong. "Tunmen Inlet" would then refer to one of two bays around Tuen Mun: Castle Peak Bay, next to the current Tuen Mun New Town; or Deep Bay between the New Territories and Nantou in present-day Shenzhen, where a Ming coastal defense force was stationed.

Adding to the confusion is the description in Portuguese sources that Tãmão was an island. As Tuen Mun is not an island, researchers have proposed that Tãmão actually refers to one of the nearby islands. Lintin Island, west of Tuen Mun, is commonly accepted in Western academia as one of the more likely possibilities, while the much larger Lantau Island has also been suggested.

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