As soon as I mention the history of the middle Ming Dynasty, I have to mention the Japanese pirates' rebellion. During the Jiajing period, the Japanese pirates ran rampant along the coast, which became one of the great border disasters at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The coastal governors and generals, from Zhu Wan at the beginning to Hu Zongxian, Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang later, all took pains and racked their brains to destroy the enemy. The Ming government didn't understand that it wasn't the handful of Japanese ronin who really caused the Japanese chaos, but the tens of thousands of coastal residents in Qian Qian who suffered from the sea ban policy. As long as the sea ban was lifted, the Japanese chaos would naturally disappear.

A large number of Japanese troops are assembled (those in red clothes seem to be carrying matchlock guns)

Japanese pirates who wear tie armour and carry flags

1. Who were the Japanese pirates in Jiajing period?

In previous historical propaganda, the Japanese rebellion in the middle of the Ming Dynasty was always publicized as a Japanese war of aggression against the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty was waging an anti-aggression struggle. Although this statement is exciting, it is actually completely wrong, because the initiator and main members of the Japanese rebellion in the middle of the Ming Dynasty were not Japanese at all.

As for the composition of the enemy, the ancients have recorded it clearly for a long time. For example, in the Biography of Japan in the Ming Dynasty, it was said, "Generally speaking, three-tenths of the true enemies are Japanese, and seven-tenths of the followers are Japanese". "A Record of Jiajing" also said: "Cover the Jiangnan Marine Police, and the Japanese will live in the thirteenth place, while China will rebel in the seventeenth place. In the Ming Dynasty anti-Japanese professional book "Compilation of Charts", 14 Japanese leaders are listed, all of whom are from the Ming Dynasty. Modern scholar Chen Maoheng's Textual Research on the Enemy in Ming Dynasty has collected dozens of historical materials and local chronicles, and made a comprehensive analysis of the composition of the enemy. In this book, the leader of the enemy is still mainly the Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that the main component of the enemy is the knowledge of scholars of all generations in the Ming Dynasty, and it is simply nonsense to say that the enemy in the middle of the Ming Dynasty was mainly Japanese.

The pirates come from the sea, landing and escaping all depend on the ships.

The loading capacity of the enemy ships is generally 2? There are 6 people

Since most of the Japanese pirates are from the Ming Dynasty, why are the generals of the Ming Dynasty used to call them Japanese pirates? Are the officials and generals of the Ming Dynasty blind, and they can't even tell the difference between people and Japan in the Ming Dynasty?

I think there are three main reasons for this confusion. First, there were a number of real Japanese pirates in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. These ronin from Japan were brave and skillful in fighting, and they used strange knives, which left a deep impression on the Ming army. Second, the pirates of the Ming Dynasty, such as Wang Zhi, the leader of the Japanese pirates, deliberately pretended to be Japanese, making it impossible for the officials to distinguish them, in order to cover up their smuggling activities with the fake. Although Wang Zhi and others have become outlaws, most of their families are still on the mainland. If they are recognized by loyalists and carefully investigated, their families are likely to be involved. Therefore, in order to cover their families and themselves, Wang Zhi and others have to condescend to shave their hair and change clothes and pretend to be Japanese. Third, the generals of the Ming Dynasty bluffed in order to report the meritorious military service. Because the reward from killing a real Japanese is far greater than that from killing a pirate in China, at that time, "officers and men were rewarded for killing Japanese, knowing China people well, and they were called Japanese foreigners."

Therefore, it is a pure confusion of historical facts under the specific historical conditions to call the pirate team, which was mainly Ming Dynasty, the enemy.

The picture of Japanese warships being landed

The picture of Japanese pirates robbing

Second, why were the Japanese pirates so fierce in Jiajing years

Although China also engaged in Japanese pirates in the late Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, its scale and breadth were far from being compared with the Japanese riots in Jiajing. The reason why the Japanese riots were so fierce in Jiajing years was that most of its participants were from China and were supported by some coastal residents.

why is the main reason not Japanese? It's very simple, because the pirates in the Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty were all genuine pirates, which were not as good as the Jiajing Japanese chaos, but these so-called genuine pirates almost did not cause any big confusion and were wiped out by the court. It can be seen that the Japanese pirates, who are completely composed of real Japanese, have very limited evil ability. Logically speaking, it is also easy to understand. Although most of the Japanese Japanese ronin are semi-professional and have higher military literacy than the pirates of the Ming Dynasty, they are completely unfamiliar with the terrain and armament of the Ming Dynasty. When they land, they are basically blind cats and mice. Plus, they are not proficient in Chinese, and the people do not support them. Basically, it is good not to get lost. How can they engage in any large-scale military activities? However, once a small number of powerful Japanese pirates are led by local pirates who are familiar with the Ming Dynasty, the destructive power will be completely different.

Among the people who took refuge, there was a monk

who took refuge, including a Japanese ronin

who was a stranger in a strange place. Most of the pirates of the Ming Dynasty grew up in the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and they knew a lot about the coastal topography. With their guidance and cooperation, the Japanese won't get lost, but they can rob them accurately and quickly. On the other hand, because of their Ming identity, Ming pirates can completely mingle with local residents and collect information and trends of loyalists from the local area. In this way, the Japanese allied forces can know the actions of loyalists like the back of their hands and always take the lead and defeat the enemy. On the premise that the pirates of the Ming Dynasty firmly grasped the strategy and intelligence, the Japanese pirates were able to give full play to their excellent fighting quality in a series of specific battles and dealt heavy blows to the government troops.

The Japanese pirates' rebellion in Jiajing period was so great that it was all the result of the collusion between Japanese ronin and Ming pirates, and the core of it was the Ming pirates. As long as the leaders and participants in the Ming dynasty were controlled, the real pirates who were strangers would become blind tigers, and they could only wander aimlessly along the coast, and then they were defeated by the government forces one by one. Therefore, the core of solving the Japanese chaos never lies in how to solve the Japanese, but in how to manage the participants in the Ming Dynasty so that they will no longer take risks to participate in illegal looting. To accomplish this, we have to shake the ancestral system of the Ming dynasty-the sea ban.

The Ming army went out to fight against the Japanese, followed by civil and military officials

The Ming army went out to fight against the Japanese, including the scorpion flag bearer, the hook flag soldier and the gossip flag

Third, the Qin Long switch and the radical cure of the Japanese chaos

In fact, the coastal residents were happy to become traitors and collude with the Japanese at that time, not because they were cunning by nature, but because the maritime ban policy of the Ming Dynasty cut them off. Take Zhejiang, where the Japanese war is the most serious, as an example. As the saying goes, "seven mountains, one water and two fields", Zhejiang's topography doomed it not to become a traditional agricultural province, but to take a development model based on maritime trade.

In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang not only imposed heavy taxes on Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, but also enforced the policy of "no entry into the sea" because of his resentment against coastal residents' support for Zhang Shicheng and his idea of governing the country in favor of agriculture. This made the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, who had always lived by foreign trade and commerce, immediately fall into poverty. In Jiajing period, due to the development of commodity economy in the Ming Dynasty, the demand for this foreign trade was further expanded. Therefore, the residents along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang began to take risks and go to sea to smuggle. Among them, the bold ones, like Wang Zhi, became the big pirates who dominated the party.

the Ming army went out to fight against the Japanese invaders. The front sword, shield and spearman of the Ming army

The Ming army went out to fight against the Japanese invaders. The soldiers of the Ming army were equipped with headscarves+purple cloth armour

Coastal residents abandoned grass to make a living, and if they want to make a living, they must open the sea ban. This point was clearly recognized by many people of insight at that time.

For example, Tang Shu, a scholar who had a good knowledge of Japanese pirates at that time, wrote a letter to Hu Zongxian: "Businessmen lost their physiology because of the impassability of business, so they turned to thieves."

Xie Jie, another scholar, put it more clearly and thoroughly: "The fool who despises foreigners is a slave from the past, which is suffered by China, and it is also the master of Chaozhou, Zhangzhou and Ningshao; Xie Jie clearly pointed out that most of the so-called pirates are businessmen along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. If the maritime ban is loose, they will be businessmen. If the maritime ban is too strict, they will be turned into pirates. The initiator of all this is the outdated maritime ban policy of the Ming Dynasty.

I have to say, this is a plan that kills two birds with one stone. However, due to the obstruction of conservative forces and the inertia of observing the ancestral system, the court still ordered Hu Zongxian to behead it. Wang Zhi's death not only failed to quell the Japanese invasion, but also made the Japanese chaos more rampant. What's worse, because of the treachery of the court, no pirates would trust the court again, which undoubtedly made the court's action of destroying the Japanese pirates even more difficult.

Ming army goes out to fight against Japanese pirates

Ming army goes out to fight against Japanese pirates

Finally, after eight years of tug-of-war, the Ming Dynasty finally decided to open Yuegang in Fujian as a pilot area for trade. Thanks to the legal trade channels, the Japanese chaos soon subsided, and those who did not have the support of the Ming Dynasty were quickly wiped out by Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang and others. The core reason for the quelling of the Japanese chaos is not the heroic fighting of General Qi Jiguang, but the court's on-off policy in keeping with the times. Since you can legally make money to make a living, who will do anything illegal and end up with eternal infamy? It is always a wise saying to govern the country and keep the country safe.

The head of the delegation said that the ninth issue of the history column is updated every Thursday.

The work of the history hall team is Irwin.