| Wokou | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 An 18th-century Chinese painting depicting anaval battle betweenwokou pirates and the Chinese | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 倭寇 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 왜구 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 倭寇 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kanji | 倭寇 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hiragana | わこう | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wokou (Chinese:倭寇;pinyin:Wōkòu;Japanese:倭寇;Hepburn:Wakō;Korean: 왜구;Hanja: 倭寇;RR: Waegu; literal Chinese translation: "dwarf bandits"), which translates to "Japanese pirates", werepirates who raided the coastlines ofChina andKorea from the 13th century to the 17th century.[1][2] The wokou were made of various ethnicities ofEast Asian ancestry, which varied over time and raided the mainland from islands in theSea of Japan andEast China Sea.[3]
Wokou activity in Korea declined after theTreaty of Gyehae in 1443[1] but continued inMing China and peaked during theJiajing wokou raids in the mid-16th century. Chinese reprisals and strong clamp-downs on pirates by Japanese authorities saw the wokou disappear by the 17th century.
There are two distinct eras of wokou piracy. The early wokou mostly set up camp on the outlying islands of theJapanese archipelago in theSea of Japan, as opposed to the 16th-century wokou who were mostly non-Japanese. The early wokou raided the Japanese as well as the Chinese and Koreans.[4]
The first recorded use of the term wokou (倭寇) is on theGwanggaeto Stele, erected in modernJi'an, Jilin, China to celebrate the exploits ofGwanggaeto the Great ofGoguryeo (r. 391–413). The stele states that "wokou" ("Japanese robbers") crossed the sea and were defeated by him in 404.[5] The term wokou is a combination of the Chinese termsWō (倭), referring to eitherdwarfs or pejoratively to the Japanese, andkòu (寇) "bandit".[6][7]
The origin of the term wokou dates back to the 4th century, but among wokou's activities, which are divided into two academic periods, the pirates called "early wokou" were borne from theMongol invasions of Japan. As a result of the war, the coastal defense capabilities of China and Korea were significantly reduced, and the people living inTsushima,Iki, andGotō Islands in Kyushu sufferedextreme poverty. For these reasons, wokou gradually intensified their looting on the coasts of China and Korea.[8][9]Chŏng Mong-ju was dispatched to Japan to deal with the problem. During his visit, Kyushu governorImagawa Sadayo suppressed the wokou, returning their captured property and people to Korea.[10][11] In 1405,Ashikaga Yoshimitsu sent 20 captured pirates to China, where they were boiled in a cauldron inNingbo.[12]
According to Korean records, wokou were particularly rampant roughly from 1350. After almost annual invasions of the southern provinces ofJeolla andGyeongsang, they migrated northwards to theChungcheong andGyeonggi areas.[13] TheHistory of Goryeo has a record of sea battles in 1380 whereby one hundred warships were sent toJinpo to rout Japanese pirates there, releasing 334 captives. Wokou sorties decreased thereafter. The wokou were effectively expelled through the use ofgunpowder technology, which the wokou lacked, after Goryeo founded the Office of Gunpowder Weapons in 1377 (which was abolished twelve years later).[13]: pp. 82–86
In 1419, the Korean army landed inTsushima and started theŌei Invasion, the largest operation against the wokou. GeneralYi Chongmu's fleet of 227 ships and 17,285 soldiers set off fromGeoje Island toward Tsushima on 19 June 1419. According to "Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty" a Korean history book, on 20 June the Korean army captured 129 wokou ships, burned 1,939 houses, killed 114 people, captured 21 people, and rescued 131 Chinese who the wokou had captured.[14]
On 29 June, they burned 15 wokou ships and 68 houses, killed 9 people, and rescued 15 people, including Chinese and Koreans, who had been held captive, but more than 100 soldiers were killed by wokou.[15] On 3 July, the Korean army withdrew to Geoje Island[16] and withdrew completely after giving up the re-landing and occupation of Tsushima because of the loss of Korean army and worsening weather.[17] In the record of 10 July, the number of soldiers killed by wokou was rectified to 180.[18] On the other hand, according to historical documents recorded by the Sō clan, the death toll of the Korean army was 2,500.[19][20]
When theTreaty of Gyehae was concluded between theJoseon andSō Sadamori of Tsushima in 1443 and the Sō clan was given trade privileges, wokou's activities along the Korean Peninsula calmed down.[1] Some of the coastal forts built for defense against wokou can still be found inZhejiang andFujian. Among them are the well-restored Pucheng Fortress (inCangnan County, Zhejiang) and Chongwu Fortress (inChongwu,Huai'an County,Fujian), as well as the ruins of the Liu'ao Fortress inLiu'ao, Fujian.[21]
.jpg)
After the 1523Ningbo incident, when order in offshore islands of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces likeShuangyu collapsed, the Jiajing wokou raids that terrorized the coast of China in the 1550s emerged.[22]
In attempts to centralize political control, the Ming dynasty enacted trade bans with the consensus being that "unrestricted trade would lead to chaos".[23] With maritime trade outlawed, China's navy was reduced, and as a result, they could not combat increased smuggling, which led to wokou control over the southeastern coast. Although wokou means "Japanese pirates", major wokou groups in the 16th century were led by Chinese traders whose livelihoods were halted by the Ming trade bans.[23] Because of the extent of corruption in the Ming court, many Chinese officials had relations with the pirates and benefited from the piracy, making it difficult for central authorities to control.[24]
According to historianSanjay Subrahmanyam, the existence of the wokou pirates stimulated clandestine private trade along the Fujian and Zhejiang coasts between local traders and the Portuguese. This allowed some travellers and Jesuits missionaries such asFrancis Xavier who recorded much information about China in 1540s and early 1550s. Example of such networks include the Portuguese who found their way to Japan in 1543, aided by a wokou merchant-mediator namedWang Zhi (d. 1559) who helped the Portuguese communicate with the local lord after landing atTanegashima in the south of Japan.[25]
Two well-known Chinese military figures involved in combating the wokou wereQi Jiguang andYu Dayou. Yu Dayou was a Ming dynasty general assigned to defend the coast against the wokou. In 1553, a young man named Qi Jiguang became the Assistant Regional Military Commissioner of the Ming dynasty. He was assigned to "punish the bandits and guard the people", which meant taking on the wokou attacking the Ming east coast. At that time, he was 26 years old. On the eve of the following year, he was promoted to the full commissioner inZhejiang because of his successes.[26]
The Wokou pirates were recorded as having been involved in human trafficking andslavery in Japan around the 1550s. Zheng Shungong’s 1556 report noted 200–300 Chinese slaves in Satsuma treated “like cattle” for labor, a fate shared by many Japanese.[27][28]
The wokou even entered thePhilippines before their extermination in the 17th century.Aparri in northernLuzon was established as a pirate city-state under the patronage of the wokou. The area around Aparri was the site of the1582 Cagayan battles between wokou and Spanish soldiers.[29][30][31][32] The wokou were not limited to Aparri. The pirate-warlordLimahong attempted and failed to invadeManila and afterwards set up a temporary pirate state inCaboloan (Pangasinan) before the Spanish expelled him.[33]
| Reign period | Region | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liaodong | Shandong | Jiangnan | Zhejiang | Fujian | Guangdong | ||
| Hongwu (1358–1398) | 1 | 7 | 5 | 21 | 3 | 9 | 46 |
| Jianwen (1399–1402) | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Yongle (1403–1424) | 2 | 8 | 4 | 25 | 1 | 3 | 43 |
| Hongxi (1425) | 0 | ||||||
| Xuande (1426–1435) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||
| Zhengtong (1436–1449) | 1 | 10 | 11 | ||||
| Jingtai (1450–1456) | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Tianshun (1457–1464) | 0 | ||||||
| Chenghua (1465–1487) | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Hongzhi (1488–1505) | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Zhengde (1506–1521) | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Jiajing (1522–1566) | 5 | 207 | 192 | 158 | 39 | 601 | |
| Longqing (1567–1572) | 19 | 19 | |||||
| Wanli (1573–1619) | 1 | 5 | 9 | 15 | |||
| Total | 746 | ||||||
The identity of the wokou is subject to some debate, with various theories about the ethnic makeup and national origin of the pirates.
According to theHistory of Ming, in a 1555 wokou raiding party, 30% of the wokou were Japanese, and 70% were ethnic Chinese.[35] According to Censor Du Zhonglu, in a memorial dated 1553, the pirates were 10% barbarian people, 20%Ryukyuan people, and the rest from Fujian andNingbo areas of China.[36] According toRay Huang, a Chinese-American historian, the Japanese pirates frequently collaborated with Chinese groups. Japan served as a base for the pirates, and the Japanese provided much of the military expertise and equipment to the pirates.[37]
Professor Takeo Tanaka ofUniversity of Tokyo proposed in 1966 that the early wokou were Koreans living on these outlying islands. In theAnnals of the Joseon Dynasty, the compiled section for KingSejong relates that a vassal named Yi Sun-mong (Korean: 이순몽;Hanja: 李順蒙, 1386–1449) told his monarch "I hear that in the late Goryeo kingdom period, wokou roaming (our country) and the peasants could not withstand them. However only 1 or 2 (out of 10) were caused by (real) Japanese. Some of our peasants imitatively wore Japanese clothing, formed a group and caused trouble... in order to stop all evils, there is nothing more urgent than theHopae (personal identification system)".[38][39]
However, Yi did not live during the Goryeo dynasty and was likely relating rumor or legend as opposed to solid documented evidence. Moreover, the thrust of Yi's speech concentrates on how national security was deteriorating and how it required special attention; it is possible he made use of unreliable information to support his point.[40] Yi's assertion is therefore not highly valued as a source for wokou by other researchers.[41]Goryeosa records 529 wokou raids during the 1223–1392 period but mentions the "fake Japanese" only three times.[40]
The current prevailing theory[42] is that of Shōsuke Murai, who demonstrated in 1988 that the early wokou came from multiple ethnic groups rather than one singular nation.[41] Murai writes that the wokou were "marginal men" living in politically unstable areas without national allegiances, akin to theZomia thesis.[41] Supporters of this theory point out that one of the early wokou leaders, Ajibaldo, was variously claimed by period sources to be Mongolian, Japanese, Korean, and an "islander";[43] his name is apparently Korean and Mongolian in origin.[44]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)"wokou also engaged in human trafficking...In 1556, the Zhejiang coastal commander Yang Yi sent his envoy Zheng Shungong.... Zheng arrived, he found in Satsuma some two to three hundred Chinese working as slaves.... from southern Fujian prefectures, they were kept by Japanese families who had bought them from the wokou..; doi: 10.1017/S0010417523000270
臣聞前朝之季, 倭寇興行, 民不聊生, 然其間倭人不過一二, 而本國之民, 假著倭服, 成黨作亂.. 救弊之要, 莫切於號牌。
그러나 우리 측 사료인 '고려사'에는 단 3건의 가왜(假倭)기록이 있을 뿐이다. 1223년부터 1392년까지 169년간 총 529회의 침입에 겨우 3번의 '가왜' 기록이 있을 뿐인데, 이를 보고 왜구의 주체를 고려인으로 봄은 어불성설이고 침소봉대를 해도 너무 지나치다고 볼 수 있다. '조선왕조실록'에도 왜구침구 기사가 무려 312건이 나오는데 이 기사 어디에도 조선인이 왜구라는 말은 없다.
東郷隆, 上田信 『【絵解き】雑兵足軽たちの戦い』
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Primary sources:
Secondary sources:
Mann, C. C. (2011). 1493: Uncovering the new world Columbus created. Vintage.161-163
Authority control databases: National |
|---|
