Why did the Japanese become enemies in the Ming Dynasty?

Why did the Japanese become enemies in the Ming Dynasty?

On today's Internet, there has been a popular saying:16th century Jiajing Japanese rebellion was entirely caused by the maritime ban policy of the Ming Dynasty. Finally, these people had to take risks, so the enemy problem was an internal problem of China at that time, and Japan was only involved. In a word, everything is a problem of the Ming people, and the poor Taijun will be wronged for no reason because of the name "the enemy". So, Japan really has nothing to do with the Japanese?

So first of all, the first question, is the sea ban really the root cause of the prevalence of Japanese pirates?

The answer is no! There is no direct relationship between the two. In fact, it is often said today that the starting point of the Ming Dynasty's absolute Japanese trade was that after Ningbo's struggle for tribute, Japan's tribute trade to the Ming Dynasty did not stop completely. On the contrary, in the 19th year of Jiajing and 28th year of Jiajing, Daiwa Songpu Party provided ships and went to the Ming Dynasty twice.

More importantly, under the official trade, the smuggling trade in gray or even black areas is also extremely prosperous. And this has to be mentioned, at that time, a brand-new force appeared in the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty-the Portuguese.

16 Around the 1920s, the Portuguese occupied Liuheng Island in Zhoushan Islands by force, built a port here, and recruited smugglers and pirates from the Ming Dynasty to establish Shuangyu Port. Through the operation of both sides, Shuangyu Port became an important illegal trading post in East Asia at that time, and many maritime merchants from Ryukyu, Southeast Asia, Japan and even distant India came here for trade activities.

It was also during this period that the Feiqian Songpu Party under the control of the ouchi family began to contact the smuggling maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty. In the 19th year of Jiajing, namely A.D. 1540, Wudao Neizhai, a branch of Songpu Party, got in touch with Wang Zhi, a smuggler of Amin Dynasty, who was still in the start-up stage at that time. By providing him with shelter, funds and personnel support, Wang Zhi became a trade medium between Wudao and Shuangyu Port.

Two years later, in the twenty-first year of Jiajing, Matsuura Takanobu, the owner of the powerful Matsuura family in Hirado Island, invited Wang Zhi to move its trade base from Wudao to Hirado under its control, and finally formed a situation in which the Ouchi family used Matsuura Party, which had maritime power, to manage its trade with the Ming Dynasty, and Matsuura Party outsourced the trade of Wang Zhi, which had connections and contacts with the Ming Dynasty. This commercial system not only operated effectively before the Japanese rebellion broke out in Jiajing period, but also adopted this model in many Athena Chu ship trades in the early days of Tokugawa shogunate.

Later, in the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing, under the leadership of Zhejiang Governor Zhu Wan, the Ming army destroyed Shuangyu Port and expelled the Portuguese and a large number of smugglers, but this did not mean the end of smuggling trade. In fact, compared with the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty, the Japanese name needs to maintain the trade between tomorrow. For example, the owner of Wang Zhi mentioned earlier-the owner of the Ouchi family.

155 1 year, in the 30th year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty, the change of Daning Temple broke out in the ouchi family and was killed by Tao Qingxian, the owner of the ouchi family. In the second year, Tao Qingxian welcomed his younger brother, ōtomo Sōrin master Yi Chang, and became the new owner of the ouchi family. However, Tao Qingxian's condescending behavior immediately aroused the dissatisfaction of the ouchi family. In order to suppress the legacy of Ouchi's aristocratic family, Tao Qingxian bribed Yi Long's old staff to buy people's hearts, and at the same time expanded his armament to cope with the rebellion of his opponent's generals who might happen at any time. At the same time, in order to transfer internal contradictions, Tao Qingxian took the initiative to stir up trouble in Kitakyushu while enhancing his prestige.

Tao Qingxian's every move can be said to have cost a lot of money. However, Kufu of Ouchi became quite tight in the Yi Long era because of the extravagance of Ouchi Yi Long and the constant foreign wars. What's more, although the alliance between Ouchi and the Jewish family can be established by making Ouchi the head of each family, relatively speaking, Ouchi, who relies heavily on foreign trade to maintain his finances, has to share some commercial interests with the Jewish family. Therefore, at this time, ouchi urgently needs to establish a commercial port similar to Shuangyu Port, but controlled by itself, as a new stronghold to control maritime trade.

It was driven by this interest demand that in the thirty-first year of Jiajing, with the help of the Songpu Party, Wang Zhi gathered leaderless smugglers destroyed by Shuangyu Port, imitated the Portuguese, occupied Jintang Island in Zhoushan today, and established its own trading stronghold-Liegang.

However, just as the Portuguese's establishment of Shuangyu Port itself was accompanied by trampling on the sovereignty of the Ming Dynasty and military threats to the coastal areas, Wang Zhi's establishment of a fierce port was also to kill the Ming army and civilians by force on Jintang Island, and the Japanese pirates from the Matsuura Party also took this as a stronghold and began a militarized large-scale invasion of the coastal areas of China, which was different from the previous small-scale looting.

In other words, the reason why the enemy broke out was not because of the maritime ban of the Ming Dynasty. On the contrary, it was precisely because of the arrival of the Portuguese that the Ming Dynasty lost its ability to control the maritime situation and produced a series of chain reactions. Moreover, considering the various forces of Japan's famous mouths, they all have their own interests. During the Jiajing period, even if the maritime trade was opened in the Ming Dynasty, it actually only provided a legal identity for those smugglers who actually existed.

However, Japanese celebrities need not only trade itself, but how to expand their commercial interests. This fundamental contradiction can be said to have determined from the beginning that the lifting of the maritime ban alone in the Ming Dynasty was not enough to stop the Japanese pirates.

Regarding celebrities' emphasis on business interests, we can refer to the conflict between Hirado Matsuura Party and Portuguese. After the opening of Nagasaki, considering the better port conditions of Nagasaki itself, the Portuguese chose to switch to Nagasaki for trade. The disgruntled Hirado Matsuura Party directly tore its face and attacked the Portuguese merchant ship bound for Nagasaki by force, which led to the "Futian Bay naval battle" between Portugal and Matsuura Party. Moreover, judging from the habits of some Japanese pirates who occupied the coastal islands of China during the Jiajing Japanese Rebellion, the activities of the Japanese pirates also had some foreign colonial purposes. Therefore, it can only be said that it is too taken for granted to simply interpret the activities of the Japanese pirates as the result of the maritime ban in the Ming Dynasty.

The last question, which may be puzzled by more people, is that there were frequent wars in Japan during the Warring States period. Where did the name and local power of the Japanese organization Japanese pirates come from? In fact, it is precisely because of the war in the Warring States period that a large number of Japanese have overflowed.

During the Japanese Warring States Period, there were frequent wars between Kyushu Island and western China, which seriously damaged the agricultural base of Kyushu Island and China. To make matters worse, since the Southern and Northern Dynasties in Japan, celebrities all over Japan have been increasing taxes without restraint in order to accumulate wealth. During the Warring States Period, in order to raise enough funds to maintain the war, Japanese famous soldiers paid tribute and money from all over Japan every year, even to the extent of "six people and four people" and "seven people and four people", and then counted all kinds of exorbitant taxes, frequent famines and plagues ... It can be said that the glamorous Japanese Warring States period in film and television dramas was compared with the warlords in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China.

Just like the war in China, Japanese social unrest and heavy taxes have also led to a large number of people and middle and lower class soldiers becoming refugees and even slaves. According to the statistics of the Far East Catholic Church in16th century, only Portuguese Catholics in Portuguese colonies owned tens of thousands of Japanese slaves. Moreover, this figure is still under the condition that the Portuguese church and Goa authorities have strict restrictions on the sale and use of Japanese slaves. At the same time, in fact, these Japanese who were sold to Portuguese or China maritime merchants as slaves were just a lucky "minority". Most Japanese slaves will eventually be sent to mines and brothels and tortured to death. So much so that the Catholic church, which strongly opposes the Portuguese selling Japanese slaves, thinks that the Portuguese buying Japanese slaves is a kind of good deed that should be understood.

Under the pressure of this bad social situation, it is no miracle that Japanese lower-class warriors and civilians choose to go to sea to "make a living". In the east, Manila, a Spanish colony in the Philippines, and in the west, communities composed of Japanese immigrants and mercenaries abound. If someone insists that the Japanese would rather go to Southeast Asia to help people kill and set fires than accept being sent to Japan by other famous soldiers to plunder in the Ming Dynasty ... it can only be said that this understanding of our neighbors is different.