raiding, 14th–16th centuries. The early pirates were mostly based on outlying Japanese islands but targeted the Japanese as well as Korea and Ming China. The later ones were mostly Chinese dispossessed by Ming policy.
Background The 14th century was a time of chaos throughout
East Asia. The
second bubonic plague pandemic began in
Mongolia around 1330 and may have killed the majority of the population in
Hebei and
Shanxi and millions elsewhere. Another epidemic raged for three years from 1351 to 1354. Existing revolts over the government salt monopoly and severe floods along the
Yellow River provoked the
Red Turban Rebellion. The declaration of the
Ming in 1368 did not end its wars with
Mongol remnants under
Toghon Temür in
the north and under the
Prince of Liang in
the south.
King Gongmin of
Korea had begun freeing himself from the Mongols as well, retaking his country's northern provinces, when a
Red Turban invasion devastated the areas and laid waste to
Pyongyang. In Japan,
Emperor Daigo II's
Kenmu Restoration succeeded in overthrowing the
Kamakura shogunate but ultimately simply replaced them with the weaker
Ashikaga. The loose control over Japan's periphery led to
pirates setting up bases on the realm's outlying islands, particularly
Tsushima,
Iki, and the
Gotōs.
Initial implementation As a rebel leader, Zhu Yuanzhang promoted foreign trade as a source of revenue. As Emperor, however, he issued the first sea ban in 1371. All foreign trade was to be conducted by official
tribute missions, handled by representatives of the Ming Empire and its "vassal" states. Private foreign trade was made punishable by death, with the offender's
family and neighbors exiled from their homes. A few years later, in 1384, the Maritime Trade Intendancies (
Shibo Tiju Si) at
Ningbo,
Guangzhou, and
Quanzhou were shuttered. Ships, docks, and shipyards were destroyed and ports sabotaged with rocks and pine stakes. Although the policy is now associated with imperial China generally, it was then at odds with Chinese tradition, which had pursued foreign trade as a source of revenue and become particularly important under the
Tang,
Song, and
Yuan. The Yongle emperor succeeded in dramatically reducing piracy after 1403 by striking an agreement with Japan's
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, restoring full tribute trade privileges and sending Ming fleets to Japan to help defeat the pirates. The initial wave of Japanese pirates were independently dealt with by
Chŏng Mong-ju and
Imagawa Sadayo, who returned their booty and slaves to Korea;
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu delivered 20 more to China in 1405, which boiled them alive in a cauldron in
Ningbo. However,
Emperor Yingzong of Ming's capture at the
Battle of Tumu in 1449 greatly increased Mongol boldness in frontier attacks, while the still-growing private overseas trade caused price competition for the Ming government's import purchases, such as warhorses for the northern frontier. Hence, while Chinese trade within Asia continued after the treasure voyages, the Ming shifted their resources away from maritime affairs to deal with the Mongol threat. As the Ming became increasingly focused on their north, the court also neglected tributary trade missions arriving at the maritime frontier; after 1500, maritime tribute missions mostly stopped and those few that continued were treated as purely commercial transactions in the port cities, without visiting the capital. The court thus failed to notice the ensuing rapid changes in global trade. When the Portuguese arrived in Malacca and the Moluccas in the early 1500s, trade patterns shifted as armed European ships started to bypass Muslim merchant networks and engage with private Chinese and Japanese merchants. This rise in private merchants coupled with the court prioritizing the northern frontier led to the collapse of the tribute trade system and its replacement by widespread smuggling. Under the
Jiajing Emperor, after two Japanese factions
clashed over the right to conduct the tribute trade mission in 1523, the emperor restricted trade further, causing sea raiders to
overrun the entire southeastern coast. Nonetheless, because the sea ban was added by the Hongwu Emperor to his
Ancestral Injunctions,
Rationale Fortress in Fujian, built c. 1384 Although the policy has generally been ascribed to national defense against the pirates, it was so obviously counterproductive and yet carried on for so long that other explanations have been offered. The initial conception seems to have been to use the Japanese need for Chinese goods to force them to terms. It may have been the case that the Hongwu Emperor prioritized protecting his state against the
Northern Yuan remnants, giving little attention to the maritime frontier defences. In the absence of a comprehensive frontier policy, the emperor attempted to use trade restrictions to manipulate foreign states like Japan and the former followers of rival Chinese warlords such as Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen into submission. The Ming state hence had a vested interest in maintaining the sea ban to protect the government trade monopoly and its associated benefits in diplomacy. Entries like these reflect the strain that a centralized, tribute-based trade system may have placed on the Chinese public. It is also possible that the bans were counteractive to China's economic growth. Tribute missions were so demanding that the government often placed restrictions on how often foreign traders could come to court.
Effects Although the sea ban left the Ming army free to extirpate the remaining Yuan loyalists and secure China's borders, it tied up local resources. 74 coastal garrisons were established from Guangzhou in
Guangdong to
Shandong; The loss of income from taxes on trade In the 16th century
Jiajing wokou raids, the "Japanese", "
dwarf", and "
eastern barbarian" pirates were mostly non-Japanese. The sea ban was largely unenforceable from its earliest years, and no effective enforcement was ever implemented. Local authorities themselves were frequently involved in the illicit trade, and usually ignored edicts to restrict trade. Military officers brokered trade deals and the wealthy families in the coastal settlements depended on its income. Ordinary workers found employment in trade-related industries. Many of the official posts to enforce trade regulations were left vacant and the court generally ignored the issue of overseas trade. In the 1520s the emperor rejected all attempts to halt illegal trade as these came from officials who had opposed the
emperor's policy on rituals, and very little trade took place under governmental channels instead of illicit means. The Grand Secretary of the court in the 1530s was from coastal Zhejiang province, and he proceeded to block any attempt to enforce the sea ban. The most significant attempt to crush out the illicit trade was made by
Zhu Wan, an official appointed by the court in the 1540s, but just as he was making headway in wiping out the smugglers he was removed by the court on accusations of unauthorised killings. Bribery and disinterest occasionally permitted more leeway, as when the
Portuguese began trading at Guangzhou (1517),
Shuangyu ("Liampo"), and
Quanzhou ("Chincheu"), but crackdowns also occurred, as with the expulsion of the Portuguese in the 1520s, on the islands off Ningbo and
Zhangzhou in 1547, or at
Yuegang in 1549. The Portuguese were permitted to settle at
Macao in 1557, but only after several years of helping the Chinese suppress piracy. Hence, trade with Japan continued unobstructed despite the embargo, through Chinese smugglers, Southeast Asian ports, or Portuguese; China remained entirely integrated in the world trading system. According to Kaoru Sugihara, China's restrictions on trade were less stringent than feudal restrictions on merchants in Europe and Japan, and Chinese traders relentlessly sought out foreign markets for Chinese exports. China's merchants from the mid-1500s prospered as much as those of any other nation operating in Asian waters. On the other hand, coupled with the end of the expensive treasure voyages, the sea ban had the effect of suspending development of Chinese long-distance shipbuilding and navigation, replacing those with shorter Chinese smuggling routes in the East China Sea and South China Sea. but Europeans did not have any goods which China desired except silver. Silver hence became the primary export to China to make up for the trade deficit. Aware of China's shortage of silver for use as currency in China's surging economy, Japanese warlords in
Kyushu sought to increase silver production, needed to trade for Chinese luxury goods in high demand in Japan. From the 1540s, silver imports into China acted as the cog running the wheel of global trade. Spain discovered vast amounts of silver, such as in the
Potosí silver mines, to fuel their trade. Spanish America became the world's cheapest source of silver, producing 40,000 tons of silver in 200 years. The ultimate destination for the mass amounts of silver produced in the world was China. of the world's silver with 30% of it eventually ending up in China. In the late 16th and early 17th century, Japan also heavily exported silver into China. While large amounts of silver crossed the Pacific directly from the Americas, and Manila served as a primary outpost for exchange of goods between the Americas, Japan, India, Indonesia and China. Trade with Ming China via Manila served as a major source of revenue for the
Spanish Empire and for Spanish in the Philippines. The trade became so lucrative that
Seville merchants petitioned
their king to protect the monopoly of Seville's
Casa de Contratación. This led to a 1593 decree that set a limit of two ships sailing each year from either Acapulco and Manila, with one kept in reserve in each port, and further limits on cargo quantities. Smuggling became widespread as Chinese and Spanish merchants cooperated to circumvent these Spanish rules.
Lifting Pirate-smuggler groups continued to proliferate, and one such outlaw
Wang Zhi established a base at
Hirado and the
Gotō Islands in Japan and declared himself the King of Hui (徽, named after his home region of
Huizhou in
Anhui province). In 1552, Wang sent a petition to the Ming court to abolish the sea ban. Although Wang was executed by the Ming in 1559 while attempting to reconcile with the court, it was clear to many court officials that the cause of piracy was the sea ban, and lobbied for its abolition. Piracy dropped to negligible levels only after the general abolition of the policy in 1567 upon the ascension of the
Longqing Emperor and at the urging of the
governor of Fujian Tu Zemin. Chinese merchants for both maritime and overland trade could apply for permits to engage in all foreign trade except with Japan (although some still traded there anyway, and Japanese traders also set themselves up in Southeast Asia to trade with incoming Chinese) or involving weapons or other contraband goods; these included iron, sulfur, and copper. The number of foreign traders was capped by a license and quota system; no trading could take them away from China for longer than a year. The lifting of the sea ban coincided with the arrival of the first Spanish galleons from the Americas, creating a global trade link that would not be interrupted until the following century. Maritime trade intendancies were re-established at Guangzhou and Ningbo in 1599, and Chinese merchants turned Yuegang (modern
Haicheng, Fujian) into a thriving port. The end of the sea ban did not mark an imperial change of heart, however, so much as a recognition that the weakness of the later Ming state made it impossible to continue the prohibition. The state continued to attempt to regulate trade as heavily as it could, and foreigners were restricted to doing business through approved agents, with prohibitions against any direct business with ordinary Chinese. Accommodations could be made, but were slow in coming: the merchants of Yuegang were trading heavily with the Spanish within a year of
Maynila's 1570
conquest by
Martín de Goiti but it was not until 1589 that the throne approved the city's requests for more merchant licenses to expand the trade. A 1613 edict prohibited maritime trade between the lands north and south of the Yangtze River, attempting to put a stop to captains claiming to be heading to Jiangsu and then diverting to Japan. Fu Yuanchu's 1639 memorial to the throne made the case that trade between
Fujian and
Dutch Formosa had made bans entirely unworkable. ==Qing dynasty==