Chapter 3 Chapter Three: How the Japanese Pirates Are Made

When it comes to the Japanese "Japanese pirate rebellion" that once swept across the southeastern coast of China and the Korean Peninsula and killed countless civilians in China and North Korea, the first impression of today's people is that the Japanese pirates rose up in the southeast coast during the Jiajing period in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and Tan Lun, Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou and other soldiers and civilians of the Ming Dynasty fought against the Japanese.But in fact, the scourge of Japanese pirates to the Chinese coastal people was much earlier than this time.As early as the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the war against Japanese aggressors, which lasted more than 200 years, had already begun.

The earliest recorded incident of "Japanese pirate invasion" in Chinese history was from the Yuan Dynasty Emperor Wuzong to the first year of the Great Yuan (1308 A.D.), when hundreds of Japanese pirates convoyed boats and plundered Ningbo.People today say that Japanese pirates are pirate gangs spontaneously organized by Japanese samurai warriors and coastal "treacherous people", and they seem to have nothing to do with the Japanese government.However, according to relevant Japanese historical records, this first Japanese invasion with historical records was indeed a "government act" by Japan.At that time, Japan was under the rule of the penultimate ruler of the Kamakura Shogunate, Prince Hisaki (the son of Emperor Fukakusa), who established Japan's "Bushido spirit" and began to organize fleets to plunder the coasts of North Korea and China. In the region, the minister Goku Kenji once advised him not to anger China. He replied: "Tang (China) is no longer what it used to be, and there is nothing to fear." head-up.Even so, the main looting target of the "Japanese pirates" at that time was still North Korea, which was the closest to it.

During the chaos of the world from the end of Yuan Dynasty to Zhengzheng period, Japanese pirates' invasion of China's coastal areas once reached its peak.At this time, the Kamakura shogunate in Japan had already perished, and entered the "Northern and Southern Dynasties" period (1336-1392 A.D.) in which the two emperors of Kyoto and Nara stood side by side. Become a pirate, most of these pirates come from Japan's Changzhou, Satsuma, Kayashima and other places.The "Daimyo" under the Northern and Southern Dynasties of Japan also funded pirate groups to distribute the spoils after looting.The route of invasion is roughly from April to May every year, from Koryo to the Shandong Peninsula and the Liaodong Peninsula, and then to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions.Coincidentally at this time, the southeast coast was full of turmoil, and the leaders of the southeast "Rebel Army" Fang Guozhen and Zhang Shicheng also had many "pirates" under their command.What's especially abominable is that they often capture villagers along the coast, and after they are taken captive to Japan, they make them wear Japanese clothes with shaved Japanese hairstyles to learn Japanese, "Japaneseize" them, and then take them to China for plunder. These people are cannon fodder.Lin Bojing, a literati at the end of the Yuan Dynasty who served as an aide to the Yuan army's anti-Japanese war, recorded in his notes: The "captives" of the Japanese pirates captured by the Yuan soldiers looked exactly like the Japanese, but they all shouted their grievances in Chinese when they were in court. Only after careful interrogation did they know He is a local "good country man" who was taken away many years ago.The so-called Japanese pirates are, in all likelihood, these coerced "overseas Chinese".In order to prevent Japanese pirates, the Yuan Dynasty strictly ordered that "slabs are not allowed to enter the sea", and the so-called sea ban began from then on.In the first year of Hongwu (1368 A.D.), Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty and unified the world. The problem left over from history, the "Japanese plague", was also placed in front of the Ming Dynasty, which was waiting to be revived.

In the second year of Hongwu (1369 A.D.), when Zhu Yuanzhang first ascended the throne, Japanese pirates gave Zhu Yuanzhang a "dismount".In April of the same year, the Japanese pirates colluded with the remnants of Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen in the south of the Yangtze River, "plundered the five prefectures, and plundered away."In May of the same year, Japanese pirates invaded Shandong again, destroying Penglai and Dengzhou guards, "looting the official treasury, killing and injuring more than a thousand soldiers."Extremely arrogant, Zhu Yuanzhang, considering the early establishment of the country, strived for a peaceful solution.In June of the same year, Zhu Yuanzhang sent Yang Zai and Zhao Zhi as envoys to the "Southern Dynasty" in Japan. He met Prince Huailiang who was in charge of the "Southern Dynasty" state affairs, and severely denounced his crimes in words.Unexpectedly, Prince Huailiang was so arrogant that he killed Zhao Zhi on the spot and detained Yang Zai.In the second year, the "Northern Dynasty" under the power of the Ashikaga family in Japan launched a military attack on the "Southern Dynasty". Apologize, and release all detained Chinese envoys including Yang Zai.In the third year, Huailiang sent envoys to Nanjing to return more than 70 captives.Zhu Yuanzhang was overjoyed, and since then established diplomatic relations with Japan's Southern Dynasty, allowing it to send envoys to China to "pay tribute".However, in May of the same year, the Japanese pirates plundered Wenzhou again. In the fourth year, the Japanese pirates plundered the three provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan. Within one month, "more than 10,000 coastal villagers died and thousands of houses were burned."Zhu Yuanzhang sent envoys to blame Huailiang angrily, and Huailiang called for grievances, claiming that these Japanese pirates came from the "Northern Dynasty" and were not his territory.Only then did Zhu Yuanzhang know that there was a stronger "Northern Dynasty" in Japan.After that, Zhu Yuanzhang sent envoys to establish relations with the "Northern Dynasty" many times, but Huailiang tried to stop them.It is worth mentioning that the envoys sent by Huailiang to China bribed Hu Weiyong, the "Prime Minister" of the Ming Dynasty many times, and colluded with him.In the eighth year of Hongwu (AD 1375), Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the ruler of the Muromachi shogunate in the Northern Dynasty of Japan, sent an envoy to pay homage to Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang saw that his tribute did not mention the matter of "proclaiming a minister", so he refused to accept his tribute, but allowed Japan "Emperor Guangming" Zhu Yuanzhang "treated him especially well" when his youngest son came to Nanjing to study, but Sino-Japanese relations are still in an "ice age".In the 14th, 17th, and 18th years of Hongwu, many Japanese pirates invaded the three provinces of Liaodong, Shandong, and Hainan.At this time, after more than 10 years of recuperation in the Ming Dynasty, the national power gradually became stronger. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Tang He and Zhou Dexing, the famous founders of the country, to build 59 "Beiwa cities" along the coasts of Zhejiang and Fujian, and stationed 80,000 troops. , and then in the 23rd year and 24th year of Hongwu, the Japanese pirates who invaded the southeast coast were defeated twice, and "a lot of people were captured". At the end of Hongwu, the Ming Dynasty built various buildings along the coastline from Liaodong in the north and Guangdong in the south. There are more than 200 class guards, nearly 300,000 "preparation Japanese troops" and more than 3,000 elite warships, building a Great Wall on the sea.Therefore, from the 20th year of Hongwu to Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Japanese troubles were temporarily rare.During this period, in the fourteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang found out that Hu Weiyong was "understanding the Japanese", and Huailiang from the "Southern Dynasty" of Japan sent another letter with arrogant words, which made Zhu Yuanzhang want to conquer Japan for a while, but was finally dissuaded by the governor Li Wenzhong and others.In order to prevent the failure of the former Yuan Dynasty's conquest of Japan, Zhu Yuanzhang designated Japan as a "country not to be conquered" in the "Emperor Ming Zu Xun" he left to his descendants, saying that Japan "although the court is deceitful, the treacherous minister Hu Weiyong plotted against the law, so Absolutely."Therefore, more than 200 years later, in the Ming Dynasty's "Anti-Japanese and Aid Korea" war, although Emperor Wanli mobilized elite naval forces to gather in Tianjin, intending to go straight to the Japanese mainland, Ding Yingtai and other ministers finally gave up because of the "ancestral system" to dissuade them.

In the twenty-sixth year of Ming Hongwu (AD 1395) before Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the ruler of Japan's "Muromachi Shogunate" in the Northern Dynasty, had wiped out the Southern Dynasty and completed national unification.During this period, he repeatedly sent envoys to China to meet him, but Zhu Yuanzhang refused them all.In the first year of Jianwen (AD 1400) after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu sent envoys to see him again. In his letter of credence, he claimed to be "the king of Japan, Minamoto Mori", and formally proclaimed himself a minister to Ming Dynasty.Emperor Jianwen readily accepted and warmly entertained the envoy, but as soon as the Japanese envoy left, the Japanese pirates took advantage of the opportunity of the Ming Dynasty "preparing Japanese army" in Jiangnan and Zhejiang to go north to participate in the "Battle of Jingnan". , Wenzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing and other places were plundered consecutively for three years, which made the precarious Jianwen Dynasty "add insult to injury".

One year after Zhu Di seized the throne, in September of the first year of Yongle (AD 1403), Ashikaga Yoshimitsu sent an envoy to China again. Zhu Di was very happy and gave Japan "Yongle Kanhe", and the two countries formally established a "tributary trade". .But in April of the following year, Japanese pirates invaded successively in Shandong, Liaodong and other places, which made Zhu Di very annoyed. Just when Japanese envoys came to congratulate Zhu Di on the canonization of the crown prince, Zhu Di severely reprimanded him and asked Japan to crack down on pirates.After hearing the news, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu vigorously "strike hard" in the country, and sent heavy troops to wipe out the "base camp" of Japanese pirates on Tsushima Island.In the third year of Yongle (1405 A.D.), 20 Japanese pirate leaders were sent to Daming for punishment.Zhu Di ordered the Japanese envoys to "judgment themselves".The Japanese envoys set up an iron pot by the seaside of Ningbo, set fire to "steam and kill" these Japanese pirates, and were rewarded by Zhu Di.From this time until the eighth year of Yongle (AD 1410), the coast of China was temporarily calm.The official "tributary trade" between the two countries also developed rapidly, which can be called the "honeymoon period" of Sino-Japanese relations in the Ming Dynasty.

The turning point began with the death of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. In the sixth year of Yongle (1408 AD), Ashikaga Yoshimitsu died of illness. The successor Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the ruler of the Muromachi shogunate, was conferred the title of "King of Japan" by Zhu Di. After that, Japan's restrictions on Japanese pirates gradually loosened. The Japanese plague has resurfaced in the region.In February of the eighth year of Yongle, Japanese pirates plundered Qingnan County, Zhejiang.A year later, the envoy king of the Ming Dynasty went in and out of Japan and had a dispute with officials of the Muromachi shogunate. The Japanese pirates invaded Liaodong in five years, and the Japanese pirates invaded Zhejiang in the 16th year of Yongle. Because of the strict defense of the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty, no major disasters were caused.Zhu Di's attitude is also very tolerant. He often releases the captured Japanese pirates and insists on "embracing them with virtue". "Repent and renew".In June of the same year, Japan sent a mission to China to apologize, claiming that the Japanese pirates were "rascals and stealers, not known to ministers."Zhu Di once again allowed Japan to "pay tribute", but with strict restrictions.In the fourth year of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty (1429 A.D.), the newly appointed head of the Muromachi Shogunate Ashikaga Yoshinaka was conferred the title of "King of Japan" by Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty.Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty relaxed the restrictions on Japan's tribute. From then until the Jiajing Dynasty, the official trade between the two countries continued. Very strict, so peace will always be the mainstream.

When it comes to the Japanese invasion in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, and even in the last Ming Dynasty, there is a key word that has to be mentioned-tributary trade. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the reason why Japan’s Muromachi shogunate took the initiative to hunt down and kill Japanese pirates several times under the pressure of the Ming Dynasty, and even sent the leader of the Japanese pirates to the Ming Dynasty for punishment, was not only because of the fear of the mighty power of the Ming Dynasty, but also because of the “tributary trade” The covet of huge profits.Every time he paid tribute, Daming not only received rich rewards and rebates, but also resold the silk, tea, porcelain and other items he bought in China to Southeast Asia, and the profit was 10 times in a blink of an eye.During Zhu Di's period, the Ming Dynasty repeatedly threatened to cancel the "tributary trade". In addition, the Ming Dynasty was powerful at that time, the control of tribute was strict, and the coast was hoarding heavy troops. Therefore, whenever the Ming Dynasty "gets angry", the Japanese side immediately "apologizes" "Catch Japanese".Using this method to "peacefully solve" the Japanese problem has been tried and tested for decades.But after Zhu Di's death, things changed.

Beginning with Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming government gradually loosened restrictions on Japanese tribute missions.During Zhu Di’s period, Japan had strict restrictions on the number, size, and cargo of each tribute, but from the Xuande period onwards, the control gradually relaxed, and Japanese envoys often brought private goods to China for sale, including the contraband “Samurai” issued by the Ming Dynasty. Knife".Sometimes, the envoys privately carried 10 times more items than the official trade goods.Japanese envoys are also very domineering every time they come. In the seventh year of Yongle (1409 A.D.), Japanese envoys beat civilians to death in Nanjing. At that time, the Ministry of Criminal Justice demanded severe punishment. Zhu Di finally "lenient" and only asked Japan to compensate the dead. The family members have a thousand taels of silver.Since then, the Japanese envoys have become more domineering. In the fifth year of Xuande (1430 AD) and the seventh year of Xuande (1432 AD), Japanese envoys beat Chinese businessmen to death twice. Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty only issued a "reproach".In the fourth year of Jingtai (AD 1453), Tan Min, the local commander in Linqing, was almost beaten to death by the Japanese envoys because he persuaded the Japanese envoys not to rob business trips. Dare to manage.The incident was reported to Emperor Jingtai of the Ming Dynasty, but Emperor Jingtai issued a lenient decree, and finally let it go.In the fourth year of Chenghua (1468 A.D.), Japanese envoys flogged the officials of the post station in Xuzhou because they were dissatisfied with the food.In the first year of Ming Hongzhi (AD 1488), Japanese envoys made trouble in Jining and killed 3 businessmen on the spot.For many "diplomatic disputes", the Ming government mostly reduced major issues to minor ones.

Since the fourth year of Xuande (AD 1429), the Japanese missions began to violate the limit of "no more than three ships and no more than 300 people" for each tribute stipulated in Zhu Di's era. Their missions often carried weapons and soldiers, and encountered Chinese troops. , then show "Kanhe" to trade with them, and if they meet civilians, they will loot, burn and kill them, and then walk away.When trading with Chinese private businessmen, they buy and sell by force, and sometimes even rob.During the official trade, they even asked China to buy it at a high price. Once Chinese officials hesitated, they immediately threatened, "If the transaction fails, a large number of Japanese pirates will kill and plunder the coast of your country. Can you take responsibility?"Therefore, most of the time, the Ming Dynasty chose to swallow their anger and spend money to buy peace.Even so, Japanese pirates harassed the coast from time to time. The most serious one occurred in the fourth year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (1439 AD). The three guards of Dinghai have poisoned countless civilians along the way. What is particularly heinous is that they caught pregnant women and used samurai swords to cut open the pregnant woman's belly, and took out the baby and carried it on the bayonet for fun.During the more than 100 years of "tributary trade" between China and Japan from the Xuande Dynasty to the Jiajing Dynasty, about 80% of the Japanese pirates who invaded China's coastal areas were such Japanese "economic and trade delegations."

Although there were Japanese infestation in the middle and early Ming Dynasty, it did not lead to protracted wars like the Jiajing Dynasty later.In terms of reasons, Japan was still a unified "sovereign country" at that time, and its government could still control its own pirates. For the economic benefits of Sino-Japanese trade, it also cooperated with China to eradicate Japanese pirates many times.But the most important reason is the long-term bloody battles of the navy and civilians along the southeast coast of China. Compared with famous anti-Japanese generals such as Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou in the mid-Ming Dynasty, the reputation of the anti-Japanese generals in the early Ming Dynasty was much lower, mainly because the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty was not at the seaside.In the second year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1369), Wang Zhan, the deputy commander of Suzhou, led an army to "kill 200 Japanese pirates", which was the first victory in the Ming Dynasty's war against Japanese pirates.In the 21st year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1388 A.D.), Li Ding, a thousand households under Tanghe, led "thirty light boats" to defeat Japanese pirates in Dinghai, Zhejiang. Defeated Japanese pirates at sea for the first time.In the 30 years of the Hongwu Dynasty, there were 7 large-scale invasions by Japanese pirates, of which 5 were defeated by the Ming army.In the following 100 years of the 15th century, there were 14 large-scale invasions by Japanese pirates in historical records, and 10 times were defeated by the Ming Dynasty.The most famous victory during this period was the Wanghaiwo victory in June of the seventeenth year of Ming Yongle (AD 1419). Wanghai Vortex, located at the southern end of Jinzhou, Dalian, Liaoning today, has been an outpost for defending Japanese invaders since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.In the tenth year of Yongle (AD 1412), Zhu Di appointed Liu Jiang, his confidant who had followed him in the Southern and Northern Wars in the early years, as the left governor of Liaodong to guard Guangning, Liaodong. Liu Jiang, a native of Suqian, Jiangsu Province, was a soldier who followed Zhu Di in the "Battle of Jingnan" in his early years. When Zhu Di marched to the north of Alutai, he personally led cavalry to attack the rear of Arutai, "killing more than ten enemies with his hands", forcing Arutai collapsed, can be described as a brave general.After Liu Jiang took office, after investigation, he determined that Wanghai Vortex, 70 miles away from Jinzhou, was a "throat place", so he stationed troops there and waited for it.He also "mobilized the masses" and recruited local "good people who are proficient in water", and deployed small boats in the surrounding waters for surveillance and investigation to strictly prevent Japanese pirates from invading.In June of the seventeenth year of Yongle (AD 1419), a fire was detected in the southeast sea area, and it was confirmed that the Japanese pirates were about to attack. They immediately dispatched elite soldiers to set up an ambush in the local area. The next day, more than 2,000 Japanese pirates landed and attacked. Liu Jiang was unmoved and sent his subordinates Xu Gang lay in ambush at the foot of Wanghaiwo Mountain, and sent another hundred households Jiang Long to lead his carefully selected "sharp warriors" to detour behind the enemy's rear, and agreed to "raise the flag and fall, and fight hard when you hear the gunfire."Soon the Japanese pirates entered the ambush circle, Liu Jiang ordered to fire the cannon, and then took the lead to charge and kill the Ming army. No attack was allowed, and a gap was deliberately exposed to lure the Japanese pirates to escape, and then ordered the soldiers to intercept the Japanese pirates when they fled, and finally wiped out most of the Japanese pirates. More than 1,900 levels, hundreds of people were captured alive, and none of the 2,600 Japanese pirates slipped through the net.This is the first real "annihilation of the whole army" in the history of Japanese pirates' invasion of China's coastal areas.When the good news came, Zhu Di was very happy, and named Liu Jiang "Uncle Guangning" and named him Liu Rong.The local villagers also spontaneously built a "Zhenwu Temple" for Liu Jiang as a memorial.In April of the following year, Liu Jiang died of illness, and Zhu Di was very sad. He gave him the posthumous title of "Zhongwu" and was buried in Siping Mountain by the Yongding River in Beijing.Today, Guangning Bo Street, south of the Beijing Official Garden, is the site of his previous residence. The Great Victory of Wang Hai Vortex was of great significance in the anti-Japanese war in the early Ming Dynasty. In the 100 years after the war, except for the trade disputes of the Japanese "economic and trade delegation", the large-scale Japanese invasion basically disappeared.The Japanese pirates invaded again with a scale of more than a thousand people, which should have happened in the middle and late Jiajing Dynasty a hundred years later.