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‘A Terrible Scourge’: Chinese Piracy and Coastal Defence in Broad Historical Perspective

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The Maritime Defence of China

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Abstract

Between the mid-Ming and mid-Qing periods, over a long period stretching some 300 years between 1520 and 1810, there was a great increase in Chinese piracy in the China Seas. This was China’s golden age of piracy, which surged in three huge waves: First, there were the merchant-pirates and wokou from 1520–1574, during the time of the Ming sea bans; second, there was the anarchy of the Ming-Qing transition between 1620 and 1684, when bands of pirates and rebels rose to dominate China’s maritime scene; and the third was during the High Qing, when contradictions in society provided the background for the rise of large-scale confederations of pirates drawn mainly from the ranks of China’s labouring poor. Qi Jiguang lived during the first wave of piracy; he was most active in pirate suppression in the 1550s, right at the height of wokou incursions along the South China coast. This chapter aims to put Qi Jiguang, mid-Ming piracy, and state attempts at the suppression of piracy in a broader historiographical perspective, examining this important 300-year period as a coherent whole. Indeed, the golden age of Chinese piracy corresponded with China’s transition into the modern world.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Robert Antony (An Lebo), “Zhongguo haidao zhi huangjin shidai, 1560–1810” [The golden age of Chinese piracy, 1520–1810], Dongnan xueshu, 2002, pp. 34–41, and Like froth floating on the sea: The world of pirates and seafarers in late imperial South China (Berkley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2003), ch. 2.

  2. 2.

    Among the many studies on wokou piracy, for example, see Ishihara Michihiro, Wakō (Tokyo, 1964); So Kwan-wai, Japanese piracy in Ming China during the sixteenth century (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1975); and Fan Zhongyi and Tong Xigang, Mingdai wokou shilue [A history of Ming dynasty piracy] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004).

  3. 3.

    For example, see Chen Wenshi, Ming Hongwu Jiajing jian de haijin zhengce [Sea prohibition policies of the Hongwu and Jiajing emperors in the Ming dynasty] (Taipei: Taiwan daxue wenxueyuan, 1966); Ronald Higgens, “Pirates in gowns and caps: Gentry law-breaking in the mid-Ming”, Ming Studies, vol. 10 (1980), pp. 30–37; Li Jinming, Mingdai haiwai maoyi shi [A history of overseas trade in the Ming period] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1990); and Timothy Brook, The confusions of pleasure: Commerce and culture in Ming China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

  4. 4.

    To date there are no major studies in English on Qi Jiguang; in general, the best information on Qi in English is still the short biography in L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang eds., Dictionary of Ming biography, 1368–1644, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 220–24.

  5. 5.

    See, for example, Chen Maoheng, Mingdai wokou kaolue [A study of wokou in the Ming period] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1957); Tanaka Takeo, Wakō (Tokyo: Kyōikusha, 1986); Lin Renchuan, Mingmo Qingchu siren haishang maoyi [Private maritime trade in the late Ming and early Qing periods] (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1987); and Zhang Bincun, “Shiliu shiji Zhoushan qundao de zousi maoyi” [The smuggling trade in Zhoushan during the 16th century], Zhongguo haiyang fazhanshi lunwenji, vol. 1 (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan sanminzhuyi yanjiusuo, 1984).

  6. 6.

    So Kwan-wai, Japanese piracy in Ming China, ch. 6, and John Wills, “Maritime China from Wang Chih to Shih Lang: Themes in peripheral history”, in Jonathan Spence and John Wills eds., From Ming to Ch’ing: Conquest, region, and continuity in seventeenth-century China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 201–38.

  7. 7.

    See, for example, the discussion in Charles Hucker, “Hu Tsung-hsien’s campaign against Hsu Hai, 1556”, in Charles Hucker ed., Two studies on Ming history (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1971), pp. 1–40.

  8. 8.

    James Chin, “Merchants, smugglers, and pirates: Multinational clandestine trade on the South China coast, 1520–50”; Maria Grazia Petrucci, “Pirates, gunpowder, and Christianity in late sixteenth-century Japan”; and Igawa Kenji, “At the crossroads: Limahon and Wakō in sixteenth-century Philippines”, in Robert Antony ed., Elusive pirates, pervasive smugglers: Violence and clandestine trade in the Greater China seas (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010). Adam Clulow (“The pirate and the warlord”, Journal of early modern history, vol. 16, 2012, pp. 523–42) adds further to our understanding of piracy in the this period with this study of the Japanese entrepôt of Hirado, which served as a base for Japanese, Chinese, Dutch, and English pirates and traders, who were often indistinguishable.

  9. 9.

    Ivy Maria Lim, Lineage society on the southeastern coast of China: The impact of Japanese piracy in the 16th Century (Amherst NY: Cambria Press, 2010); also see her chapter in this book.

  10. 10.

    Yan Chongnian, Qi Jiguang yanjiu lunji [Studies on Qi Jiguang] (Beijing: Zhishi chubanshe, 1990); Tong Laishi, Qi Jiquang zhuan [Biography of Qi Jiguang] (Beijing: Junshi chubanshe, 1991); and Fan Zhongyi, Qi Jiguang pingzhuan [Critical biography of Qi Jiguang] (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2004).

  11. 11.

    Ralph Croizier, Koxinga and Chinese nationalism: History, myth, and the hero (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 1; a new and important study on the recent changing perceptions of Zheng Chenggong in Taiwan is Peter Kang, “Koxinga and his maritime regime in the popular historical writings of post-Cold War Taiwan”, in Tonio Andrade and Xing Hang eds., Sea rovers, silver, and samurai: Maritime East Asia in global history, 1550–1700 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016).

  12. 12.

    Tonio Andrade, Lost colony: The untold story of China’s first great victory over the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).

  13. 13.

    Cheng Wei-chung, War, trade and piracy in the China seas, 1622–1683 (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Robert Antony (“Trade, piracy, and resistance in the Gulf of Tonkin in the 17th Century”, in Tonio Andrade and Hang Xing eds., Sea rovers, silk, and silver) also discusses piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin in terms of war and trade during this same period.

  14. 14.

    James Chin, “A Hokkien maritime empire in the East and South China seas, 1620–83”, in Stefan Eklöf Amirell and Leos Müller eds., Persistent piracy: Maritime violence and state-formation in global historical perspective (London: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 93–112.

  15. 15.

    Xing Hang, Conflict and commerce in maritime East Asia: The Zheng family and the shaping of the modern world, 1620–1720 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

  16. 16.

    Tonio Andrade, “The Company’s Chinese pirates: How the Dutch East India Company tried to lead a coalition of privateers to war against China”, Journal of World History, vol. 15 (2004), pp. 415–44. Quote from p. 416.

  17. 17.

    Daphon Ho, “The empire’s scorched shore: Coastal China, 1633–1683”, Journal of Early Modern History, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 53–74; also see older studies by Hsieh Kuo-ching, “The removal of the coastal population in early Tsing Period”, Chinese Social and Political Science Review, vol. 13 (1932), pp. 559–96, and Ura Ren’ichi, “Shinsho no senkairei no kenkyu” [A study of the coastal evacuation in the early Qing], Hiroshima daigaku bungakubu jiyo, vol. 5 (1954), pp. 124–58.

  18. 18.

    See, for example, Robert Marks, Rural revolution in South China: Peasants and the making of history in Haifeng County, 1570–1930 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 28–30, and Zheng Guangnan, Zhongguo haidao shi [A history of Chinese piracy] (Shanghai: Huadong ligong daxue chubanshe, 1998), pp. 289–96.

  19. 19.

    Daphon Ho, “The empire’s scorched shore: Coastal China, 1633-1683”, Journal of Early Modern History, vol. 17 (2013), p. 68.

  20. 20.

    Also see earlier studies by Katsuta Hiroko, “Shindai kaiko no kan” [Pirate disturbances in the Qing period], Shinron, vol. 19 (1967), pp. 27–49, and Xiao Guojian, “Xianggang zaoqi haidao shilue” [A brief history of piracy in Hong Kong’s early period], Guangdong wenxian jikan, vol. 8 (1978), pp. 17–20.

  21. 21.

    Paola Calanca, “Piracy and coastal security in southeastern China, 1600–1780”, in Robert Antony ed., Elusive pirates, Pervasive smugglers: Violence and clandestine trade in the Greater China Seas (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp. 85–98.

  22. 22.

    Paola Calanca, “South Fujian the disputed coast, power and counter-power”, in John Kleinen and Manon Ossewijer eds., Pirates, ports, and coasts in Asia: Historical and contemporary perspectives (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2010), pp. 76–98; also see her extended discussion in Piraterie et contrebande au Fujian du XVème au début du XIXème siècle (Paris: Éditions des Indes Savantes, 2008).

  23. 23.

    Thomas Chang, “Ts’ai Ch’ien, the pirate king who dominates the seas: A study of coastal piracy in China, 1795–1810” (PhD dissertation, University of Arizona, 1983), and Dian Murray, Pirates of the South China Sea, 1780–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). For a more recent study on the role of Tay Son rebels in the rise of mid-Qing piracy, see Robert Antony, “Maritime violence and state formation in Vietnam: Piracy and the Tay Son Rebellion, 1771–1802”, in Stefan Amirell and Leos Muller eds., Persistent piracy: Maritime violence and state formation in global historical perspective (London: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 113–30.

  24. 24.

    Robert Antony, Like froth floating on the sea: The world of pirates and seafarers in late imperial South China (Berkeley: University of California, Institute for East Asian Studies, China Monograph Series, 2003). Also see, by the same author, Nan Zhongguohai haidao fengyun [Pirates of the South China Seas] (Hong Kong: Joint Publishers, 2014).

  25. 25.

    On Southeast Asian piracy, for example, see James Warren, The Sulu Zone (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 1981).

  26. 26.

    Robert Antony, “Piracy and the shadow economy in the South China Sea, 1780–1810”, in Robert Antony ed., Elusive pirates, pervasive smugglers: Violence and clandestine trade in the Greater China seas (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp. 99–114; also see two other studies by the same author, “Giang Binh: Pirate haven and black market on the Sino-Vietnamese frontier, 1780–1802”, in John Kleinen and Manon Osseweijer, eds., Ports, pirates and hinterlands in East and Southeast Asia: Historical and contemporary perspectives (Leiden: International Institute for Asian Studies, 2010), pp. 31–50, and “War, trade, and piracy in the early modern Tongking Gulf”, in Angela Schottenhammer ed., Tribute, trade, and smuggling: Commercial, scientific and human interaction in the middle period and early modern world (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014), pp. 77–94.

  27. 27.

    Wang Wensheng, White Lotus rebels and South China pirates: Crisis and reform in the Qing empire (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).

  28. 28.

    Thomas Chang, “Ts’ai Ch’ien, the pirate king who dominates the seas”. Also see Peh Ti Wei, “Internal security and coastal control: Juan Yuan and pirate suppression in Chekiang, 1799–1809”, Ch’ing-shih wen-t’i, vol. 4, issue 2 (1979), pp. 83–112.

  29. 29.

    Dian Murray, Pirates of the South China coast, 1790–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987); also see Xiao Guojian, “Xianggang zaoqi haidao shilue” [Brief history of pirates in early Hong Kong] (1978). On Ming pacification policies, see Charles Hucker, “Hu Tsung-hsien’s campaign against Hsu Hai, 1556”, in Frank Kierman, Jr. ed., Chinese Ways of Warfare (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 273–307, and Ivy Maria Lim, Lineage society on the southeastern coast of China, pp. 77–108.

  30. 30.

    Robert Antony, “Pacification of the seas: Qing anti-piracy policies in Guangdong, 1794–1810”, Journal of Oriental Studies, vol. 32, issue 1 (1994), pp. 16–35, and “State, community, and pirate suppression in Guangdong province, 1809–1810”, Late Imperial China, vol. 27, issue 1 (2006), pp. 1–30.

  31. 31.

    Robert Antony, “Piracy on the South China coast through modern times”, in Bruce Elleman, Andrew Forbes, and David Rosenburg eds., Piracy and maritime crime: Historical and modern case studies (Newport: Naval War College, 2010), pp. 35–50.

  32. 32.

    Grace Fox, British admirals and Chinese pirates, 1832–1869 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1940).

  33. 33.

    Bruce Elleman, “The Taiping Rebellion, piracy, and the Arrow War”, in Bruce Elleman, Andrew Forbes, and David Rosenburg eds., Piracy and maritime crime: Historical and modern case studies (Newport: Naval War College Press, 2010), pp. 51–64 (quote on p. 51); also see Laai Yi-Faai, “The part played by the pirates of Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces in the Taiping Insurrection” (Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1950).

  34. 34.

    Elleman, “The Taiping Rebellion, piracy, and the Arrow War”, p. 62.

  35. 35.

    For recent studies on this period, see Patrick Connolly, “Hong Kong and Macao approaches to the suppression of piracy in the Pearl River Delta, 1860–1941” (Ph.D dissertation, University of Macau, 2015); Hong-kay Lung, “Britain and the suppression of piracy on the coast of China with special reference to the vicinity of Hong Kong, 1842–1870” (MA thesis dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2001); and Edward R. Lucas, “Junks, sampans and stinkpots: The British experience with maritime piracy in 19th-century China” (paper presented at the ISSS/ISAC Annual Conference, Austin TX, 15 Nov. 2014).

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  1. Independent scholar based in Virginia, Virginia, USA

    Patrick Connolly

  2. Canton’s Thirteen Hongs Research Center, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China

    Robert J. Antony

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  1. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Y.H. Teddy Sim

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Connolly, P., Antony, R.J. (2017). ‘A Terrible Scourge’: Chinese Piracy and Coastal Defence in Broad Historical Perspective. In: Sim, Y. (eds) The Maritime Defence of China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4163-1_3

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