Urdaneta’s galleon in this first transpacific roundtrip returned laden with Chinese silk, porcelain, and other luxury goods that the Chinese junk traders in the Philippines had provided in return for Mexican silver. This voyage constituted the first of a global trade system called the Manila Galleon Trade that would last over two and a half centuries. Not long after, the Spaniards opted for trade with China over the Spice Islands of the Moluccas, when Legazpi transferred the seat of Spanish colonial government in 1571 from Cebú to Manila on Luzón island, which was within easier reach of the coast of Minnan or southern Fujian, the source of most of the Chinese junk traders and later settlers already dubbed sangley by the Filipino natives. Within this historic context, two scientists and missionaries, the Augustinian Martín de Rada and the Dominican Juan Cabo, both fixed their eyes on China from their seat of operation in Spanish Manila.