The proliferation of the Ming Dynasty's "Wokou" began with the implementation of the Ming Dynasty's policy of "no plates allowed to go to the sea". The closure of trade channels made "the official market not open, and the private market did not stop", which in turned into a smuggling frenzy of "merchants turning to thieves, stealing and then becoming merchants", which eventually led to the outbreak of "Wu Rebellion" during the Jiajing period.
(Ming) Part of Qiu Ying's "Wokou Tu Scroll"
How arrogant were the Wokou during the Jiajing period? What kind of harm have these Wokou caused to the coastal people of our country? I checked some information, and then I will talk to you briefly.
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In fact, at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the remnants of Zhang Shicheng, Fang Guozhen and others who were on the sea of exile colluded with some of the fallen ronin and samurai on the Japanese archipelago, harassing the coastal frontier from time to time. They looted property and plundered the population, which can be described as all kinds of evil, which seriously damaged the production and living order of the local people.
The Wokou who robbed the house in the "Wokou Scroll"
In this regard, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang sent envoys many times, with the posture of "heavenly kingdom", asking the Japanese government to prohibit the Wukou from violating the border.
In the second year of Hongwu (1369), Zhu Yuanzhang sent Yang Zai to Japan to demand that the "King of Japan" Prince Huailiang (son of Emperor Go-Daigo) ban the "Wokou" and "pay tribute" to the Ming Dynasty. Prince Huailiang not only sternly refused Mingfang's request, but also detained the emissaries Yang Zai and Wu Wenhua, "restoring Shandong, plundering the coastal people of Wen, Tai, and Mingzhou, and then Kou Fujian coastal counties."
In the third year of Hongwu (1370), the Ming Dynasty sent the Laizhou capital Tongzhi Zhao Zhi to Japan. Although Prince Huailiang sent monks to the Ming Dynasty and returned the plundered coastal population. However, Wenzhou, Haiyan, Pupu, Fujian, Laizhou, Dengzhou and Jiaozhou were harassed and invaded by the Wokou from time to time.
In the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381), zhu Yuanzhang, the intolerable Ming Taizu, sent an envoy to Japan, and in addition to rebuking "King Huailiang of Japan", he also threatened to go out to Japan. "King Huailiang of Japan" replied that if the Ming Dynasty conquered Japan, he would actively prepare for war, which made Zhu Yuanzhang greatly angry.
The defeat of the Yuan army twice made the Japanese more and more inflated
Unfortunately, although Zhu Yuanzhang had the intention of expeditioning to Japan, he "learned from the mistakes of Mongolia and did not increase the number of troops", and finally included Japan in one of the fifteen "countries without conquest". Frankly speaking, such "instructions" from the supreme leader have increased the psychology of the Japanese ruling class to look down on the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent.
In the twentieth year of Hongwu (1387), Ming Taizu learned that the Japanese emissary Ru Yao supported Hu Weiyong's rebellion, and secretly hid gunpowder, swords and other weapons, and after trying to assassinate himself, he was greatly ignited, and immediately severed his relations with Japan, "the tribute did not arrive, and the sea police gradually disappeared."
Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and prince Of Huailiang of Japan
Until Zhu Di succeeded to the throne, the tributary trade between the two sides was gradually restored, but the "Wo plague" once again recurded. The eighth year of Yongle (1410), "Wukou Panshi"; the fifteenth year of Yongle (1417), "Wukou Songmen, Jinxiang, Pingyang"; the seventeenth year of Yongle (1419), "The Ship of Wu entered Wangjiashan Island"; the twentieth year of Yongle (1422), "Wukou Elephant Mountain". In a word, during the Yongle years, "the sea is still endless".
By the time of Emperor Ming Yingzong, "Woe Disease" was even more rampant. For example, in May of the fourth year of orthodoxy (1439), the Wokou even broke through the 2,000 households of Taozhu in Taizhou and Dasong in Ningbo, attacked Changguowei, and "killed and plundered on a large scale". For the sake of the "convenience" of the street, these cunning Wokou deliberately carried some "square objects" on the ship, and in the name of "tribute", robbed the surrounding people, "and then opened their weapons and plundered wantonly, and could not display their square objects and called tribute", "southeast coastal troubles".
Scene of the Ming army engaging the Wokou
However, in general, until the Jiajing Dynasty, the Wukou were mainly concentrated in the coastal area from Zhejiang to Shandong, and the scope was relatively limited; coupled with the relatively tight defensive measures of the coastal areas, it was difficult for the Wukou to take advantage. In short, at least before Jiajing, Wukou was not a major problem for the Ming Dynasty.
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Scholars generally believe that the "Battle of Ningbo" that occurred in the second year of Jiajing (1523) was the beginning of the "Wu Rebellion". Ostensibly, this was "a large-scale looting and burning incident in Ningbo caused by two tributary missions sent by the Japanese Ouchi clan and the Hosokawa clan to compete for dominance in trade with the Ming Dynasty." In fact, the problem is much more than that.
After the Ming Dynasty imposed a sea ban, in principle, only foreign countries and Ming officials were allowed to carry out "tributary trade" with time and place restrictions, that is, "surveying" trade. After purchasing tributes and "square objects" carried by foreign merchant ships, the Ming court "returned" the Chinese goods needed by foreign merchants in the form of "national gifts". It is worth noting that Gongbu must hold a "kanhe" (similar to a license visa) issued by the Ming Court in advance to be carried out.
The Ming emperor met with foreign envoys
Perhaps out of the need to publicize national prestige, the Japanese caravans could not only obtain 4-5 times the profits in each "survey" trade process, but also get the official reimbursement of the Ming Dynasty for their expenses in Ningbo and Beijing. With the passage of time, the size of the Japanese caravans grew larger and larger, forcing the Ming Dynasty to impose hard regulations on the size of the Japanese caravans. However, with a series of bribery operations, the Japanese can always get through the barriers.
At the same time, local non-governmental figures in Ningbo often conducted private transactions with Japanese caravans in private. There are even cases where some people have paid their sons to the Japanese mission as domestic slaves because they cannot deliver goods regularly, which undoubtedly reflects the reality that the economic development of the Wuyue region has been seriously suppressed.
In short, the low-frequency "survey and cooperation" trade has hindered the expansion of commodity exchanges between China and Japan and the development of domestic industry and commerce to a certain extent, stimulated non-governmental smuggling activities, and even become the fuse for the intensification of the "woe".
Japanese ships of the Muromachi period
With the decline of the Muromachi shogunate, Japan's surveying and trading teams were controlled by the daimyo of the divided side. However, the Ming Dynasty officials knew nothing about this.
In the second year of Jiajing (1523), one of the two strongest daimyōs in Japan, the Ouchi clan, formed the ninth trade group against the Ming Dynasty, led by The Qiandao Sect, and arrived in Ningbo on April 27 of that year. Another daimyō, the Hosokawa clan, quickly sent a trading mission of more than a hundred people led by Reisaku Miyaoka and Song Suqing (Chinese) arrived in Ningbo at the end of April, but slightly later than the Ouchi clan's fleet.
However, although the mission set up by the Qian Dao Sect arrived first, it did not examine the survey, and Song Suqing arrived, and the municipal shipping department responsible for trade with Japan began to verify it together. As a Chinese, Song Suqing was well aware that the municipal shipping department acted favoritism and fraud, so he secretly paid bribes to the eunuch Lai'en, and finally entered the port before the ship set up by The Qian Dao Sect to inspect the goods.
Subsequently, when the municipal shipping division hosted two trade groups in the guest hall, he placed the "latecomer" Miyaoka Reisaku as the chief, and the Qiandao Sect as the second seat. The two factions that were already hostile to each other at home, because of the issue of seats. A martial artisanal struggle broke out in Ningbo.
Ningbo became the seat of the Municipal Shipping Division, which was dedicated to receiving Japan
According to historical records, most of the merchants in the Ouchi clan were pirates. After the banquet, at the instigation and command of Emperor Qiandaozong, these people snatched out the weapons that had been confiscated and preserved, attacked the guest hall, and killed Reisaku Yungang and others who were not carrying weapons, and Song Suqing escaped by chance, and under the protection of the guards of the palace guards, took refuge in Qingtian Lake ten miles away.
Killing the red-eyed Qian Daozongshi and others, he not only set fire to the guest hall, but also pursued Song Suqing to the bank of the Yuyao River, and was once forced to approach the city of Shaoxing. When he returned to Ningbo, he burned and plundered along the way, and abducted Yuan Ban, the commander of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Si of the Hundred Households, and killed the Hundred Households Hu Yuan. After arriving in Ningbo, they plundered the city, seized ships and fled to the ocean, and liu jin and Qianhu Zhang Bo led the army to chase after them, but unfortunately they were killed in battle, and eventually turned into a serious diplomatic incident.
The Ming Dynasty, which had paid a heavy price, "painfully determined the pain" and abolished the Ningbo Municipal Shipping Division in the eighth year of Jiajing (1529). It was not until the fifteenth year of Jiajing (1536), under the auspices of Yoshitaka Ouchi, that trade between the two sides resumed.
However, although official trade was suspended, private trade became more and more prosperous. In the Shuangyu or Zhoushan Islands off the coast of Ningbo, a large number of merchants from the East and west from Wuyue, Fujian, Japan, Ryukyu and even Malacca were gathered to trade. At the same time, coastal tycoons, officials, and merchants colluded with each other, and gradually evolved into a large-scale smuggling syndicate.
In the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing (1547), Zhu Yi, the inspector of Zhejiang and the military governor of Fujian, mobilized his army to completely destroy the Shuangyu Island base on the grounds of "FlangJiguo's people robbing". Such a move undoubtedly harmed the interests of all strata along the coast, met with their strong opposition, and eventually triggered a large outbreak of "wu rebellion".
The Ming army raided the base of Shuangyu Island
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The "Jiajing Rebellion", which began in the thirty-first year of Jiajing (1552) and basically ended in the forty-third year of Jiajing (1564), caused devastating damage to the southeast coastal lands. Wokou "broke through the eastern Zhejiang, Hangzhou, Jia, Hu, Su, Song, Chang, Zhen, Huai, Yang to Nantong, the prefecture along the River Counties and counties no less than hundreds, killing and injuring more than a million people." The guards were arrested for mourning the land, and the chief division was punished with countless people for being out of law", and wherever they passed, "the village and the city were turned into Qiu Ruins", and the room was empty.
Scope of activity of the Wokou
In order to quell the Wokou, the Ming dynasty officials paid a heavy price. According to historical records, as many as 107 people died in the following military battles alone, "the death of the military and the people, the cost of military supplies, the invincibility", "the world is in turmoil, and the southeast is exhausted." The "chaos" has caused mass psychological panic among the military and the people, and it is even more worth pondering. Take the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, which are deeply troubled by the "Wokou Plague", for example:
In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), a force of only 60 or 70 people was composed of only 60 or 70 people, which crisscrossed Hangzhou, Chun'an, Huizhou, Jiaxing, Nanjing, and Suzhou, and lasted more than 80 days, "traveling thousands of miles and killing or injuring several 4,000 people." Everywhere Wokou went, "Jiangsu and Zhejiang were all ravaged" and "the officers and troops were cowardly and collapsed."
According to the "Sayings of the Four Friends and Zai Cong" written by the Ming Dynasty scholar He Liangjun: "In the year of the Second Dynasty, the thieves ... to Nanjing, only seventy-two ears, the Nanjing soldiers opposed them in two formations, killed two commanders, eight or nine hundred soldiers died, and these seventy-two people did not fold one person and left." The thirteen gates of Nanjing were closed, the people of the city were all pointed to the city, and the elders and subordinates of the church guarded each gate, although the thieves did not dare to lift the strictness. You must know that as the capital of the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing, which garrisoned as many as 120,000 troops, actually "did not dare to lift the strictness when the thieves retreated", which made people stunned.
The Ming Dynasty people who hid from the Wokou
Once the chief executives at all levels in the Jiangnan region heard of the invasion of the Wokou, they could not come up with any reliable resistance plan at all. They are either "frightened" or "county orders to run away", "the state and county look like the wind is ruined", let people spread their hands.
In August of the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), a force of Wokou invaded Moling Pass (秣陵關, in present-day Jiangning County, Jiangsu). According to historical records, Moling Pass was guarded by more than a thousand Ming troops at that time, and as a result, these more than a thousand Ming troops actually "looked at the wind and collapsed.". After this small group of Wokou passed through Moling Pass and came to Yanglin Bridge in Lishui County, Dianshi Lin Wenjing led his troops to face the battle of "Unable to Resist", and Zhao Zhuchen of Lishui County directly "abandoned the city and left" and fled in the wind. After this group of Wokou entered the county seat, they actually left "safely" after eating and living in the homes of the people in the city for 2 consecutive days.
In September of the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), Liu Tao, the deputy envoy of the Hangjiahu Army, led more than 5,000 troops to attack the Taozhai Wuchao in three ways, "more than 200 Wu took advantage of the enemy, and all the armies scattered when they saw it."
Wokou who has just landed
In fact, the coastal areas of Fujian, which are also deeply troubled by the "Wokou Epidemic," have not behaved in such a way as their officers and troops.
According to historical records, thousands of Wokou "crossed the white sand of Quanzhou for a long time, and the sound shook the city; the head of the Ningbo thieves wore a silk robe and went straight into the Dinghai Caojiang Pavilion, while the officers and soldiers closed the city to mourn and did not send a single arrow." When the "however, a thousand people" besieged the coastal cities of Fujian, "the people on the city were chestnut, and the tail of the soldiers on the river closed their eyes and wanted to leave." The parties concerned had no choice but to include the gold and the gold", leaving people speechless.
This kind of behavior of the officers and men of the Ming Dynasty that "damaged the national system" not only made "the islands and the people of all islands peep at us shallow and deep, and became more and more rampant," but also aggravated the "fearful" mentality of the officers and soldiers, and even caused great psychological panic to the ordinary people. For example, in June of the thirty-third year of Jiajing (1554), the people of Jiangyin "began to hear the letter of Wuxin", "tens of thousands of villagers flocked to the city", and "the cries shook the heavens".
Menacing Wokou
Even during the Wanli period, the people of Jiangnan still had a great psychological shadow over the Wokou.
For example, at noon on March 26, the 42nd year of the Wanli Calendar (1614), the city of Wuxi was rumored to be in vain, "The city is running wildly, and Zhejiang is the same." When wuxi was old and naïve, they fought to enter the city, and many people were devastated."
In May of the same year, Changzhou "Menghe Hezhuang local floating boats landed, one person made a remark, so that the people of Wujin, Jiangyin, Wuxi, Danyang and other counties were frightened, crowded for a while, lost their children, crushed countless old and young, the general training command tongzhi Lu Wanli, the official who was preparing for the imperial guard, could not understand the edict, tied his hands and closed the city, so that the villagers ran wildly and turned to ravage."
In short, the political, economic, or psychological damage caused by the rebellion was extremely rare in ancient Chinese history. In the final ming dynasty, "the small people in Lu Lane, to the point of scolding each other, even gag their children and daughters cloud."
It is said that in today's Ningbo area, there is also such a custom. Even for children who do not sleep obediently, adults will scare them into falling asleep with "waking up". Over time, a special lullaby such as "Woe comes, Cave comes, Allah baby sleeps come" is formed.
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Why did the Ming army perform so badly? Makes the people have such a big "fearful" mentality? In fact, this is the result of the interaction of multiple factors, with a more complex background.
1) Ming Dynasty officials' misappraised of Japan's strength
Whether it was the defeat of the Yuan Dynasty in two conquests of Japan, or the defeat of Japan by Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang's three dispatches, it seriously hit the confidence of the Ming Dynasty in defeating Japan, so that it was included in the sequence of 15 "countries without conquest". Such an official measure undoubtedly made the highest ruling class of the Ming Dynasty form a "fearful" mood from the very beginning.
In contrast, Japan's defeat at the Yuan army has fueled its psychology of underestimating China. In particular, the Japanese general Prince Huailiang of the Expedition to the West not only did not take the Ming Dynasty seriously, but even killed the envoys sent by Zhu Yuanzhang, and connived with the Wukou to harass Zhu Minghaijiang, which encouraged the arrogance of the Wukou to invade the Minghai Frontier.
The misestimation between China and Japan has led to a situation in which the process and outcome of the rebellion have also been fought over and over against each other.
Japan's samurai group
2) The brutal killing of the Wukou created a psychological panic among the officials and people of the Ming Dynasty
These criminals wantonly slaughtered and plundered the people, and often "empty their rooms" wherever they went. In the thirteenth year of Chenghua (1477), Wukou "robbed Cangyu, burned rooms, killed thieves and steamed them, and the remains were bleeding like a valley." Tie the baby to the pillar, and the boiling soup of the woe, and think that its cry is a laugh. If a pregnant woman is caught, the pregnant man or woman is considered to be dismissed as gambling alcohol. It is absurd and wicked, and there are unspeakable. The young and strong of our people and their millet swept back to the nest, the city was depressed, and the passers-by fell."
They created panic through frenzied killings in an attempt to spiritually crush the will of the Ming Dynasty soldiers and civilians to resist the Ming Dynasty, and to achieve the goal of "everyone fearing its cool cracks" and "those who encounter generals often collapse without a fight.". In such a context, even the regular army has developed a fear of war.
In the summer of the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), a small detachment of only 36 People arrived at the Cherry Orchard south of Nanjing. Hundreds of Ming soldiers who were on the verge of defending the enemy were driven into the big hurdle of "deep and wide, several feet wide" by more than 30 Wukou who "shouted forward with their blades, and they swirled like the wind." "The Wu could not reach the blade, and they poured the gunpowder stored on it and burned it, and all the whiskers were eroded to death, and they were slowly led away."
The Ming Dynasty army in the early Jiajing period was really worried about its combat effectiveness
3) The sophisticated weapons and equipment and strong combat strength of the Wokou made the Ming army lose many battles
Unlike the Ming army's situation of "the armor is dull, when the enemy encounters it, it runs (flees)" and "the peace is long, and the weapons are exhausted", the Wokou are well-equipped and the tactics are flexible and changeable. "The weapons of the enemy are sharp, and the soldiers of China are not enemies", "The sword of the other is extremely refined, so that when it comes to the shore, who can resist it".
At that time, the weapons used by the Wokou were mainly long knives, sharp arrows and bird hammers. For the forging technology of these weapons, the Ming Dynasty officials "do not know what techniques to use to control them." According to legend, Qi Jiguang "came out of the genus of wuyi armor, guns, knives, and armor, and all the generals looked at it and said: 'It has always been said that the uighurs are easy to kill, so from this point of view, xiao should be above the enemy now, and now it is only a powerful ear, if you talk about military weapons, it is not one of the ten'."
For example, the quality of the knife, which is known for its sharpness, far exceeds that of the Ming Army's waist knife. "A skilled user wields a sword in his hand, so that 'the upper and lower sides are white, and the other person is not seen', can kill and injure the other party within a square circle of eight feet", "when the situation is very tense, the generals will often collapse without a fight."
Wokou image
Wokou is not only well-equipped, but also has a strong ability to fight individually. Take the knife method of the wokou, for example, "from childhood, when the knife was hanging, it was learned, and the method was very familiar." This knife technique, which had been trained since childhood, made the personal combat effectiveness of the Wokou far exceed that of the Ming soldiers who had been in the battle for a long time.
4) Wokou had a will to fight far superior to that of the Ming army
This group of outlaws who are "brave and stubborn, not very different from life and death; in every battle, they are naked, they raise the three-foot sword dance, and the incompetent ones" often receive the effect of "attacking the masses with widowhood" under their strict discipline. According to historical records, once the Wokou landed, "they would burn their boats and vow not to return to them, so their party would die."
In the face of the tactics of the Wokou "poor and desperate force war", the Ming army often "took care of recruiting greedy people" and "combined with the generals who have no power, and the reinforcements are in a mess, and the crowd is invincible." As a result, the Ming army developed timidity before it fought against the Wokou. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the spectacle of "three or four slaves, hundreds of officers and soldiers, and invincible" in the early days of the Wu Rebellion, and the Ming army "stubbornly coming out and fighting with a hoarse voice."
Of course, with the passage of time, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army has also improved to a certain extent
5) The Ming army has insufficient combat experience
Another major reason why the Ming army was "afraid of the Ming Army" was that there had been no war in the Territory of the Ming Dynasty for a long time, the soldiers had insufficient combat experience, the garrison was lax, the tactics were backward, and it was difficult to withstand the psychological pressure of facing death. In the more than a hundred years before the Jiajing Rebellion, there were very few wars on the southeast coast, and the officers and men of the Ming Army were rarely baptized by war. The lasting peace consumed the fighting spirit of the Ming army, and it was reasonable that the combat effectiveness was sharply reduced.
On the other hand, wokou are experienced in actual combat and use tactics appropriately. For example, in the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing (1556), in July, the inspector of Zhejiang Yushi Wang Ji said when talking about the Wu situation: When encountering the elite of the Ming army, the Wukou often "show weakness first, lead the Jedi, then ambush and attack", "attack the city and the enemy, will take the plundered people as the precursor to cover themselves, and Xu out of his sharp troops, take advantage of my lack.". The tactical idea of "setting up ambushes well and being able to attack the masses with fewer people" can often win more with less and defeat the Ming army in a row.
Set out to resist the Ming Dynasty's large troops
It is worth mentioning that the intelligence collection work of the Wokou is very well in place. In contrast, the officers and men of the Ming Army and the common people knew very little about the "Wokou" except fear. The differences in information sources between the Wukou and the Ming military and civilians often led to the spread of rumors, leading to a more widespread Panic of the Wokou.
Along with the gradual defeat of the officers and troops, everyone talked about the change of color, "so that one person saw the killing, a thousand people collapsed, and the disciples grew a thief." In the face of the crazy killing and plundering of the Wokou, the ordinary people without the power of the chicken were frightened that "one by one they could not move around, and if they wanted to kill and tie up, they had to rely on him", "the cries between the villages" were heard", and the psychological panic during the period of the Wu rebellion also reached its peak.
However, although the Wokou is strong, it will eventually collapse one day. However, the weakness of the regular army in the south undoubtedly tore apart the chaos of the dismantling of weapons in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. Sadly, the accumulated shortcomings caused by the past hundred years were not solved until the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Extended reading: The remnants of the sun are like blood, why did the elite of daming with the strength of the whole country collapse at Salhun?
Battle of Salhu
Frankly speaking, how can such an army cope with the earth-shaking changes at the end of the Ming Dynasty? With the wolf-like Eight Banners army stepping into Jiangnan, the Nanming Hongguang regime established in Nanjing quickly collapsed. In the storm, the Ming Dynasty finally paid a painful price for its military shortcomings.