Problemas de aplicaci´ on

risk occasional skirmishes with coastal patrols and, more commonly, local pirates to make contact with Chinese merchants. The profits to be made from trading directly in foreign ports, rather than with the

foreign middle-men who came close to the China coast, were even

greater.11 By the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, Chinese merchants were trading abroad with fleets of ocean-going ships . 1 2

By the early 1500s the power of the central government to enforce its coastal policies in the south-east had long been deteriorating. In the first fifty years of the dynasty the fleets of the coastal defence forces had been capable of intercepting and destroying pirate ships at sea, and of patrolling the sea-lanes. But from the end of the Yung-lo period, with the shift of the capital to the north, the forward defence stance of the coastal forces were dismantled. By the mid-fifteenth century the off-shore patrols had ceased and the early warning stations had been removed to the mainland. The common malaise of military institutions subjected to a prolonged period of peace began to eat away at the coastal defence forces: the rate of recruitment fell below the rate of wastage through death, desertion and relocation; training and equipment deteriorated. The coastal garrisons became so depleted that

few were able to mount regular patrols of the immediate coastline.

At a time when the government shipyards were neglected and no longer produced sea-going ships,14 the overseas traders were building

11 For example, "Memorandum of the merchandise which the Great Ships of the Portuguese usually take from China to Japan" (c.1600), in C.R. Boxer, The Great Ship from Amaoon: annals of Maoao and the old

Japan trade3 1555-1640, Lisbon, 1963, p.179. The memorandum

indicates the profits made by the Portuguese on goods bought in Macao and sold in Japan and India. Although it applies to a slightly later period, the memorandum indicates the extent of the incentive to Chinese merchants to carry out their own overseas trading.

12

1 3

Che-ohiang t3ung-ohih:60, "Biography of Wang Chih" by T ’ien Ju­

ch* eng cited in Katayama Seijirö, "Kasei kaikö hanran no ichi (A study of the rebellion of the Chia-ching pirates) in

ronshit 4:404 (1955).

kosat^u"

Togo\gaku

Jung-pang Lo, "The decline of the early Ming navy", Oriens Extremus 5:157-8 (1958).

the biggest and best Chinese ships afloat. While the coastal garrisons had vessels suitable only for coastal waters and inland transport and were unable to sail much beyond the sight of land, overseas traders were making regular trips to Japan, the Ryukyus and South East Asia.

The problems which developed under the unenforced bans were

precisely those which the bans had been intended to prevent. Since the overseas traders were operating almost without restriction under the unenforced bans, there was little to stop them engaging in activities unpalatable to the Ming government: unregulated intercourse with

foreigners, trade in prohibited items, and the acquisition of formidable weaponry. Operating outside the regulatory controls of the bureaucracy, the overseas trading sector was not only illegal but armed and often highly organized. Its existence constituted a latent challenge to the authority of the central government.

The main threat posed by this new unregulated sector was its

intimate connection with the economic and political life of the advanced regions of the empire. The overseas component was tied to the regular structure of internal trade through shore-based agents and the coastal inter-provincial trade. Through these channels wealthy merchants of the delta region invested or otherwise participated in the overseas trade.

Through their close relations with scholar gentry of the south-east coast, the overseas traders had access to the vertical structure of political power which connected localities to the court. Gentry families lent capital and used their influence to persuade local and provincial officials to collude in the trade. The coastal prefectures of southern Fukien and the Ningpo-Shaohsing region of Chekiang, which were the centres of overseas trade, also produced large numbers of entrants to the bureaucracy.15 Through their many connections at court they could attempt to prevent resurgence of interest by the central government in regulating coastal activities.

But the interdict had not been abolished, it had merely lapsed, and

15 James Parsons, "The Ming dynasty bureaucracy", in C.O. Hucker, ed.,

Chinese Government in Ming Times: Seven Studies, Columbia U.P., New York and London, 1969, p.189, Table IX; p.195, Map IV.

lay in the Ming code with the prestige of the first reign of the dynasty upon it, the natural tool of anyone attempting to regulate coastal

affairs in the south-east. In the late Cheng-te period there were pressures and provocations from the Japanese and Portuguese wanting official trade;16 and in the early 1520s signs of disorder appeared in the south-east coastal towns, side products of the attenuated official trade and the vigorous illegal trade.17 From the beginning of the Chia- ching period the interdict was revived in various ways, and the overseas trade was no longer able to function so freely.

Enforcement of the interdict after a lapse of half a century

exacerbated instability within the now rapidly expanding overseas trade: divergence of interests developed within the structure of overseas trade which had serious long-term implications. By the middle of the century

the evolution of illegal traders into pirates, and of pirates into invaders, was nearing its final stages.

Because so many maritime activities were illegal under the interdict, officials tended not to distinguish between them. In the first half of the sixteenth century, all people involved in private sea­ going activity were classed by the authorities into one of two

categories: either pirates (hai-tsei or hai-k*ou) or dishonest traders (chien-shang) . Although illegal traders were breaking the military law, and therefore were strictly traitors (mou-p3an), they were still seen functionally as traders. Pirates on the other hand were regarded as criminals and outcasts.

Officials seldom applied the distinction consistently, and after the early 1520s when conditions on the coast grew more confused, the terms were often used interchangeably.19 The terms were bound to

16 Wiethoff, Seeverbotspolitik, pp.66 ff.; Wang I-t’ung, Official

Relations, pp.76-7, 109; Kwan-wai So, Japanese Piracy in Ming China

during the Sixteenth Century, Michigan State University Press, 1975,

pp.44 ff.

17 See for instance the excerpts from the Ming Veritable Records: STSL 3/4/8 (10 May 1524); 4/8/17 (4 September 1525), translated in Kwan- wai So, Piracy, pp.44-5.

18 For examples of these measures, see Kwan-wai So, Piracy, pp.44-5; Wiethoff, Seeverbotspolitik, pp.71-2.

administrative concepts rather than to the social realities of the overseas trade. The failure of the language of administrators to describe accurately contemporary social and economic phenomena was a sign of either inadequate understanding or deliberate obfuscation.21

The evolution of traders into pirates grew out of a contradiction between, on the one hand, coastal gentry and substantial merchants of the internal markets, and, on the other, those of the overseas traders who were independent of them. The independent traders began as men of moderate means who pooled their resources to enter the overseas trade,

thus avoiding dependence upon the financial backing of gentry and established merchants. Although the leaders of the independent group became enormously wealthy, they retained their independence from the traditional alliances of China's economically dominant groups. Their position in the overseas trade led them eventually to views on the interdict and towards the Ming government which differed markedly from those of shore-based gentry and merchants. Their acquisition of

economic power and military strength lent force to the independence of their position.22

19 For instance, STSL 13/8/19 (26 September 1534): the reports of