The Portuguese came with no such blessings or magnificence. All of Gama’s tiny ships, with some 150 men, could have fitted inside one of Zheng He’s junks. The gifts they offered to a Hindu king were so pitiful that he refused to inspect them, but they announced their intentions with red crosses painted on their sails and bronze cannons. Unlike the Chinese, they shot first and never went away; conquest was a rolling national project, year after year deepening their position until they became impossible to dislodge.
