Wokou

14th and 16th-century pirate raids

Wokou (Chinese: 倭寇; pinyin: Wōkòu; Japanese: Wakō; Korean: 왜구 Waegu), which literally translates to "Japanese pirates" or "dwarf pirates",^[1][2] were pirates who raided the coastlines of China, Japan and Korea.^[3] Wokou came from a mixture of ethnicities.^[4]

The term wokou is a combination of Wō (倭), referring to either dwarfs or the Japanese, and kòu (寇) "bandit".

History

There are two distinct eras of wokou piracy. The early wokou mostly set up camp on Japanese outlying islands, as opposed to the 16th century wokou who were mostly non-Japanese. The early wokou raided the Japanese themselves as well as China and Korea.^[5]

Early wokou

One of the gates of the Chongwu Fortress on the Fujian coast (originally built ca. 1384)

Records report that the main camps of the early wokou were the island of Tsushima, Iki Island, and the Gotō Islands. Jeong Mong-ju was dispatched to Japan to deal with the problem, and during his visit Kyushu governor Imagawa Sadayo suppressed the early wokou, later returning their captured property and people to Korea.^[6][7] In 1405 Ashikaga Yoshimitsu sent twenty captured pirates to China, where they were boiled in a cauldron in Ningbo.^[8]

According to Korean records, wako pirates were particularly rampant roughly from 1350. After almost annual invasions of the southern provinces of Jeolla and Gyeongsang, they migrated northwards to the Chungcheong and Gyeonggi areas.^[9] The History of Goryeo has a record of sea battles in 1380 whereby one hundred warships were sent to Jinpo to rout Japanese pirates there, releasing 334 captives, Japanese sorties decreasing then after. The wako pirates were effectively expelled through the use of gunpowder technology, which the wako then lacked, after Goryeo founded the Office of Gunpowder Weapons in 1377 (but abolished twelve years later).^{[9]:pp. 82–86} Korea launched attacks on pirate bases on Tsushima in 1419 with the Gihae Eastern Expedition. General Yi Jongmu's fleet of 227 ships and 17,285 soldiers set off from Geoje Island toward Tsushima on June 19, 1419. The routes of the Korean attack were guided by captured Japanese pirates. After landing, General Yi Jongmu first sent captured Japanese pirates as emissaries to ask for surrender. When he received no reply, he sent out his forces and the soldiers proceeded to raid the pirates and destroy their settlements. The Korean army destroyed 129 boats, 1939 houses and killed or enslaved 135 coastal residents as well as rescuing 131 Chinese and Korean captives of the pirates and 21 slaves on the island.^[10][11] The number of Wokou raids dropped dramatically after the Korean expedition.

Some of the coastal forts built for defense against Wokou can still be found in Zhejiang and Fujian. Among them are the well-restored Pucheng Fortress (in Cangnan County, Zhejiang) and Chongwu Fortress (in Chongwu, Huai'an County, Fujian), as well as the ruins of the Liu'ao Fortress in Liu'ao, Zhangpu County (Fujian).^[12]

Later wokou

According to the History of Ming, thirty percent of the 16th century wokou were Japanese, seventy percent were ethnic Chinese.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Because of the extent of corruption in the Ming court, many Chinese officials actually had relations with the pirates and benefited from the piracy, making it difficult for central authorities to control.^[17]

Two well known Chinese military figures involved in the combating of Wokou are Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou. Yu Dayou was a general of the Ming dynasty who was assigned to defend the coast against the Japanese pirates. In 1553, a young man named Qi Jiguang became Assistant Regional Military Commissioner of the Ming dynasty and was assigned to "punish the bandits and guard the people" which meant taking on the Japanese pirates attacking the Ming east coast. At the time he was only twenty-six years old. On the eve of the next year he was promoted to full Commissioner in Zhejiang because of his successes.^[18]

Controversy over identity

Attacks by the Wokou. Fourteenth-century painting

The identity of the wokou is subject to some debate, with various theories about the ethnic makeup and national origin of the pirates.

Professor Takeo Tanaka of University of Tokyo proposed in 1966 that the early wokou were Koreans living on these outlying islands. In the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, the compiled section for King Sejong relates that a vassal named Yi Sun-mong (Hangul: 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 the Hopae (personal identification system)".^[20][21] 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.^[22] Yi's assertion is therefore not highly valued as a source for wokou by other researchers.^[23] The chronicle Goryeosa records 529 wokou raids during the 1223–1392 period, but mentions the "fake Japanese" only 3 times.^[22]

The current prevailing theory^[24] is that of Shōsuke Murai, who demonstrated in 1988 that the early wokou came from multiple ethnic groups rather than one singular nation.^[23] Murai wrote that the wokou were "marginal men" living in politically unstable areas without national allegiances, akin to the Zomia thesis.^[23] 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";^[25] his name is apparently Korean and Mongolian in origin.^[26]

See also

• Piracy in Asia
• Gihae Eastern Expedition
• Piracy in the Strait of Malacca

Notes

References

Primary sources:

• Hŭi-gyŏng Song, Shōsuke Murai. Rōshōdō Nihon kōroku : Chōsen shisetsu no mita chūsei Nihon (老松堂日本行錄 : 朝鮮使節の見た中世日本) Iwanami Shoten, Tōkyō, 1987. ISBN 978-4-00-334541-2
• Zheng Ruohui, Zhouhai Tubian (籌海図編)

Secondary sources:

• Boxer, C.R. “Piracy in the South China Sea”, History Today, XXX, 12 (December), p. 40-44.
• Boxer, Charles Ralph; Pereira, Galeote; Cruz, Gaspar da; Rada, Martín de (1953), South China in the sixteenth century: being the narratives of Galeote Pereira, Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P. [and] Fr. Martín de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550-1575), Issue 106 of Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Printed for the Hakluyt Society  (Includes an English translation of Galeote Pereira's report and Gaspar da Cruz' book, with C.R. Boxer's comments)

• Elisonas, Jurgis (1991). "6 - The inseparable trinity: Japan's relations with China and Korea". In Hall, John Whitney; McClain, James L. The Cambridge History of Japan 4. Cambridge Eng. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 235–300. ISBN 9780521223553. 
• Higgins, Roland L. (1981). Piracy and coastal defense in the Ming period, government response to coastal disturbances, 1523-1549 (Ph.D.). University of Minnesota. 
• So, Kwan-wai. Japanese Piracy in Ming China During the sixteenth Century. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, 1975. ISBN 0-87013-179-6
• Turnbull, Stephen "Samurai: The World of the Warrior" Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2003, p. 155-157. ISBN 1-84176-740-9

External links

• "Tribute and Trade", KoreanHistoryProject.org