[8] The capture of Malacca was the result of a plan by King Manuel I of Portugal, who since 1505 had intended to beat the Castilians to the Far-East, and Albuquerque's own project of establishing firm foundations for Portuguese India, alongside Hormuz, Goa and Aden, to ultimately control trade and thwart Muslim shipping in the Indian Ocean.

[10] The first Portuguese references to Malacca appear after Vasco da Gama's return from his expedition to Calicut which opened a direct route to India around the Cape of Good Hope.

It was described as a city that was 40 days' journey from India, where clove, nutmeg, porcelains, and silks were sold, and was supposedly ruled by a sovereign who could gather 10,000 men for war and was Christian.

[12] In 1505 Dom Francisco de Almeida was dispatched by King Manuel I of Portugal as the first Viceroy of Portuguese India, tasked to, among other things, discover its precise location.

[citation needed] Almeida, however, was unable to dedicate resources to the enterprise and sent only two undercover Portuguese envoys in August 1506, Francisco Pereira and Estevão de Vilhena, aboard a Muslim merchant's ship.

As a result of its ideal position, the city harboured many communities of merchants which included Arabians, Persians, Turks, Armenians, Birmanese, Bengali, Siamese, Peguans, and Luzonians, the four most influential being the Muslim Gujaratis and Javanese, Hindus from the Coromandel Coast, and Chinese.

[19] The city however was built on swampy grounds and surrounded by inhospitable tropical forest, and needed to import everything for its sustenance, such as vital rice, supplied by the Javanese.

[32] Sequeira in the meantime was so convinced of the Sultan's amiability that he disregarded the information that Duarte Fernandes, a New Christian who spoke Parsi, obtained from a Persian innkeeper about the ongoing preparations to destroy the fleet, confirmed even by the Chinese merchants.

Before departing he sent a message to the Sultan and the Bendahara in the form of two captives each with an arrow through their skull as a testimony to what would happen to them should any harm come to the 20 Portuguese left behind, who surrendered.

Vasconcelos arrived at Angediva Island in August 1510 where he found Albuquerque, resting his troops after failing to capture Goa some months prior, and revealed his intentions of sailing to Malacca immediately.

At Sumatra, the fleet rescued nine Portuguese prisoners who had managed to escape to the Kingdom of Pedir; they informed Albuquerque that the city was internally divided and that the Bendahara had recently been assassinated.

[citation needed] Passing by the Samudera Pasai Sultanate the Portuguese came across two junks, one was from Coromandel, which was captured immediately, and the other from Java which weighed about 600 tons.

Though after two days of continuous bombardment, the junk had its masts felled, its deck burned, 40 of its 300 crew killed, and both of its rudders destroyed, which compelled it to surrender.

"[Note 3][48]Lendas da India by Gaspar Correia and Asia Portuguesa by Manuel de Faria y Sousa confirmed the Malay Annals' account.

[59]: 2 Malacca was a typical Malay riverine city: It had no permanent fortifications nor a wall, they, however, had wooden or bamboo stockades which were erected for temporary defense for placing small and large cannons.

In this simple style were built the principal fortresses and royal palaces... Usually, however, the natives use fortifications and enclosures and palisades made of big timber, of which there is a large quantity along the River Panagim on the same coast...

So in olden times their fortresses, besides being made merely of earth, were built in a simple form, without the proper military points.As the Malaccans had only been introduced to firearms after 1509, they had not adopted the practice of European and Indian cities of fortifying their port.

Albuquerque would later write to King Manuel that the sultan had somehow managed to correctly estimate the total number of soldiers aboard his fleet with a margin of error of "less than three men".

Presumably Albuquerque had anticipated the sultan's response as he then gathered his Captains and revealed that an assault would take place the following morning, 25 July, Day of Santiago.

He also invited them over to a galley to watch the fighting safely from afar, and authorized any who wished to leave to set sail from Malacca, which left the Chinese with a very good impression of the Portuguese.

[citation needed] Protected by steel helmets and breastplates, and with the fidalgos clad in full plate armour in the lead, the Portuguese charged the Malaccan defensive positions, shattering any resistance almost immediately.

With the stockades overcome, Albuquerque's squadron pushed the defenders back to the main street and proceeded towards the bridge, where they faced stiff resistance and an attack from the rear.

At the rivermouth, it ran aground and came under heavy fire; its captain, António de Abreu, was shot in the face but remained at his post, declaring he would command the ship from his sickbed if necessary.

[72] On 8 August, Albuquerque held a meeting with his captains in which he stressed the need to secure the city to sever the flow of spices towards Cairo and Mecca through Calicut and to prevent Islam from taking hold.

As the junk was dislodged by the rising morning tide, drawing the defenders' fire as it sailed towards the bridge, the landing began, while the armada bombarded the city.

[73] With the bridge fortified and secured with enough provisions, Albuquerque ordered a few squadrons and several fidalgos to run through the streets and neutralize Malaccan guns on rooftops, cutting down any who resisted them, with the loss of many civilians.

[citation needed] After the battle the sultan retreated a few kilometers south of Malacca, to the mouth of the Muar River where he met up with the armada and set up camp, waiting for the Portuguese to abandon the city once they were done sacking it.

[88][89] As hostilities ceased, Albuquerque realized that the maintenance of such a distant city would rely on the support they could gather from the local population and neighbouring polities.

[citation needed] Diplomatic missions were dispatched to Pegu and Ayutthaya to secure allies and new suppliers of vital foodstuffs such as rice, to replace the Javanese, who were hostile to the Portuguese.

I send this piece to Your Highness, which Francisco Rodrigues traced from the other, in which Your Highness can truly see where the Chinese and Gores come from, and the course your ships must take to the Clove Islands, and where the gold mines lie, and the islands of Java and Banda, of nutmeg and mace, and the land of the King of Siam, and also the end of the land of the navigation of the Chinese, the direction it takes, and how they do not navigate farther.Some of the information suggests adaptations had already been made based on Portuguese maps plundered from the feitoria in 1509.