The local Chinese planned a strike due to worsening relations, but it resulted in the execution of their mayor (cabecilla / Capitan chino / alcalde), and became a rebellion.

It ended in the massacre of more than 20,000 ethnic Chinese in Manila at the hands of the Spaniards, local Japanese (residing in Dilao), and indigenous Tagalog forces.

Chinese traders were noted in the first Spanish records of the area made by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and García Jofre de Loaísa in 1527.

The local Tagalog people had only recently developed a nominal Muslim rulership under Rajah Sulayman against the rival older Tondo state; they did not raise sustained opposition to Spanish occupation after the then small town of Maynila was destroyed and conquered.

[clarification needed] They were initially friendly to the arriving Spaniards, who rescued a disabled Chinese ship off Mindoro in 1571.

He withdrew to Pangasinan, from where he was ejected in March 1575 by a force of local Pangasinense soldiers led by the Spanish authorities.

Fearing an attack by the resident local Chinese in Manila, the Spanish forced them to relocate to the north side of the Pasig river around present-day Binondo.

So an assistant county magistrate, Wang Shihe, and a company commander, Yu Yicheng, were sent to confirm the story, along with Zhang in chains.

Archbishop of Manila Miguel de Benavides, O. P. suspected that they had been a probe sent in advance of a major Chinese invasion.

The Chinese mayor (Capitan chino), Juan Bautista de Vera, a wealthy Catholic, tried to dissuade them but found that his own adopted son was the leader.

[7] Alerted to the unrest among the local Chinese residents, the Spanish soldiers shut the city gates on the night of October 3.

When cautioned against attacking by his fellow officers, he derided them as cowards and retorted that "twenty five Spaniards were enough to conquer the whole of China".

[7] On October 6, local Chinese resident rebels crossed the Pasig river and attacked the city walls with ladders and siege towers.

Fujian officials blamed most of what had occurred on Zhang Yi, but replied that the Spanish should not have killed the local Chinese, and that widows and orphans should be sent back to China.

Although they were exempt from the labour and dues required of indigenous Filipinos (such as Tagalogs), the resident Chinese had to pay a license fee of eight pesos a year, and often suffering additional extortion and harassment from sellers.

[11] The Museo Bello in Puebla, Mexico has a wooden chest in its collection adorned with what is believed to be the oldest image of Manila.

"[12] This scene depicts three Chinese officials mounted on horseback, accompanied by three stewards, in a deserted marketplace, which otherwise would have been teeming.