A large amount of historical data has clarified the following facts: 1. We always thought that these Japanese pirates were Japanese. Actually no, most of them are natives from China's coastal areas; but the problem is, although the knife is in your hand, Lao Zhu, the people along

A large number of historical materials have made it clear the following facts:

1. We always thought that these Japanese pirates were all Japanese. Actually no, most of them are natives of coastal China;

2. Among these Japanese pirates, the status of the Chinese is quite low. Actually no, on the contrary, the status of Japanese ronin is very low, and they can basically only serve as cannon fodder;

3. This anti-Japanese war is a foreign war to resist the invaders. Actually no, this is just a "civil war".

Why do you say that?

Why Ming DynastyCoastal people want to become Japanese pirates?

It is said that at the end of the Yuan Dynasty , the farmer Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the fishermen Chen Youliang , private salt dealer Zhang Shicheng , and after driving the Emperor of Dayuan back to the grassland to eat grass, the three mountains that blocked the emperor were gone. , became the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

In order to consolidate his rule, as soon as he came to power, he carried out several bloody massacres by the "Liang Gong Zang", and killed all the leadership groups who had followed the revolution. This was "governing" from the top.

But what if the people at the lower level imitate me, Lao Zhu, and start a revolution for my descendants?

It's easy to handle, just turn the entire empire into a labor camp and a prison.

As a result, many policies that locked people in place sprung up. For example, when leaving a village, you have to go to the government to get a pass ( refers to ). If you don’t have a pass and go to the next village to visit, you will be arrested immediately. Chopped.

They are not even allowed to go to the village next door, let alone cross the ocean to go abroad; they are not even allowed to see Lao Wang from the village next door, let alone meet foreigners.

Therefore, in the fourth year of his stay as emperor, Lao Zhu issued a sea ban: no piece of board was allowed to enter the sea!

Although the consequences of violating Lao Zhu's laws are very serious and very simple, it is just one word - kill! kill! Kill kill kill!

But the problem is that although the knife is in your hand, Lao Zhu, the people along the coast also have to eat. Before you, this place has always been open. The people here rely on the sea to eat. The sea - it is these people's Tianhedi, you don’t allow people to farm and hoe the land.

Did he starve to death or was he beaten by you, Mr. Zhu? Given the choice between the two, how do you let these coastal residents choose?

In fact, this problem is very simple. If you don't violate the ban, you will starve to death immediately. However, if you violate the ban and get clicked, it is uncertain. Even if you are found to be clicked later, you will still be a starved person. Which one is better and which one is worse is obvious.

Then, smuggling appeared!

From Zhu Yuanzhang's Hongwu to Zhu Houcong 's Jiajing later period, after nearly 150 years of development, the scale of smuggling has increased to an all-time high and is quite large.

OK, we have finished talking about why people along the coast of the Ming Dynasty smuggled, but careful friends must have noticed that I secretly changed the concept: The subject of the title of this section is Japanese pirates, how did they become smugglers?

is not shown here, but will be discussed later.

Let’s take a look at the real Japanese pirates first. Why did the Japanese travel across the ocean to rob the Ming Dynasty? Wouldn't it be nice for him to stay in Japan?

Why did the Japanese come to the coast of the Ming Dynasty to be cannon fodder?

was actually pretty good at first.

After Zhu Yuanzhang issued the sea ban, he opened a trade door for the surrounding small countries. After all, his country is small and the people are poor and cannot produce many things. Moreover, we are a country of etiquette. How can we watch you die? Woolen cloth?

So, there is a crack in the door - tribute trade (don't even think about your little country wanting to trade with me on an equal footing).

When you give us something, it’s called tribute; when we return gifts, it’s called gift.

But as the Celestial Kingdom, we will not bully you. We will definitely “give” more than you “tribute”.

Is there such a good thing?

As a result, the surrounding countries paid a lot of "tribute". Anyway, you, Lao Zhu, have to pay double tribute to me.

If this continues, the gold and silver mountains will have to be emptied by these grandsons, so this tribute trade has two rules:

1 and frequency. It is stipulated that the tribute should be paid once every few years;

2, what kind of tribute should be paid? You have to pull out the list every time you make an offering.

Every time you come to pay tribute, we will send officials to check the list one by one. This is called "collaboration."

Although this system is worse than direct trade, at least the surrounding small countries can still survive. After all, they can still exchange some necessities back home.

But compared to Ryukyu, Malaysia , Vietnam , the "frequency and amount of goods each time" paid tribute by Japan are much less.

They have themselves to blame.

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, they offended Zhu Yuanzhang and formed a feud with Landlord Zhu. The thing is like this. The founding of the Ming Dynasty sent an envoy to Japan and said that the master of our country has changed. In the future, you should no longer call the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty uncle. You must call me Zhu Yuanzhang uncle.

At that time, the Japanese monarchs were very special because the Yuan Dynasty had beaten them to the ground. They thought that this wave of Ming Dynasty envoys were from the Yuan Dynasty. Without asking, they killed five of the seven envoys.

later realized something was wrong and was so frightened that he put the remaining two back.

Liangzi was formed in this way, so Zhu Yuanzhang never gave them a chance. It was not until Zhu Di came to the throne that a little bit of trade was slowly restored, but they still had to take "special care" of this little Japan. Who told them to kill people without knowing what was good for them? of.

This is why Japan has less trade frequency and less goods than other countries.

Even if it is worse than other countries, at least it can still survive. Of course, later on, Ming Dynasty officials accepted bribes, and the Japanese trade volume also increased.

But when I got and during the Jiajing period, something happened!

Since the Japanese themselves falsified the survey, there were two groups of people who brought the real survey and the fake survey, and both brought a large amount of goods to China to pay tribute. As soon as the person with the fake survey came up, they paid bribes, and the goods were taken away first.

couldn't get out with the real goods, so he got into a fight with the fake ones, which eventually turned into a riot. They burned, killed, looted and committed all kinds of evil in Ningbo City.

For China, tribute trade is a loss-making business that "only cares about face, not arrogance". Every time it pays tribute, it loses money, which happened to be the disgusting incident in Ningbo City.

Master Jiajing got angry: Simply, no one should come to pay tribute in the future, out of sight, out of mind, our heavenly country has everything we need, and we won’t play with your surrounding small countries.

In the second year of Jiajing, the three trading points of Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Ningbo were all withdrawn, and the exploration and cooperation trade that lasted for more than 100 years officially ended.

Now, little Japan is done. If the Ming Dynasty does not trade with them, where will the daily necessities that cannot be produced come from?

Then there is only smuggling, and then rob his mother!

Finally, the Japanese smugglers and the Chinese smugglers who depended on the sea came together.

This is the reason why the Japanese come to the coast of China to become smugglers. There is really no other way. Who would want to lick blood when they can trade normally?

Well, it’s finally time to understand why domestic smugglers are regarded as Japanese pirates.

Japanese pirates, these bad things are all done by Japanese pirates!

In the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing (1547), Kanhe trade, that is, 24 years after the end of tribute trade, smuggling had developed to a considerable scale. After all, the port was closed, but it could not close the rigid needs of the Japanese.

And this year, a tragedy occurred in Yuyao County.

This family belongs to the old Xie Qian of Qianchaoge. The reason is that the descendants of the Xie family participated in large-scale smuggling. They wanted to get more when they divided the stolen goods, otherwise they would report it to the official and everyone would be finished.

Think about it, these smugglers, their wives, children, and children are also here. If you do this to the death, everyone may really die together. Then we can just wipe out your family. Our family may still have a chance of survival.

If the former Chaoge elder was exterminated, then it’s not a big deal, check it out! Thorough investigation!

But the Yuyao County Magistrate was in a dilemma at this time.

Why?

Because if this is the work of thieves and smugglers, then the burden of thoroughly investigating and catching the bad guys must be on his shoulders. If he can’t catch the bad guys, he will definitely be the one to ask. But over the past few decades, smuggling has formed a pattern A complete and huge upstream and downstream industrial chain, which may also involve officials bigger than him.

Therefore, it is definitely not acceptable to call yourself a thief or a smuggler, as this will put you in danger.

I am still a good scholar. After thinking about it, the county magistrate came up with a good way to clear himself up in one go. The idea is this:

Convert people's internal conflicts into conflicts between ourselves and the enemy, and describe the smuggling problem as It’s a piracy problem. Won’t this problem be solved? !

So, when the county magistrate wrote a PPT report, he said that this incident was done by Japanese pirates, and the Japanese pirates came from the sea, so it was not my responsibility.

The imperial court took a look and thought, this is not bad, you little Japanese are so arrogant, you dare to offend our country, China. Anyone who offends China will be punished no matter how far away you are!

Only then could the later anti-Japanese war and the great achievements of the later national hero Qi Jiguang be achieved.

Let’s summarize

Well, the whole anti-Japanese story is finished. Let’s review:

Before Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, the coastal people lived well by eating from the sea, but as soon as he came up, he instituted a ban on the sea. , ruined the jobs of these people, so these people can only engage in smuggling, but after all, Zhu Yuanzhang still has the prospecting trade, and the motivation and demand for smuggling in Japan are not that big.

But more than 150 years later, in the second year of Jiajing, two gangs of Japanese fought over the legality of tribute, causing dogs in Ningbo to bark and chickens to jump. Jiajing knew that the exploration and cooperation trade was a loss, so it simply closed all the ports. While being clean, capital outflows were prevented.

But this has produced a "by-product", that is, domestic smuggling and Japan's needs have hit it off. Many people who cannot survive in Japan come to China's coast to find jobs - working as lackeys for Chinese smugglers, especially the lackeys of the smuggling king Wang Zhi.

From the second year to the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing, the scale of smuggling increased exponentially.

But something happened again in the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing. A former important official was arrested for smuggling and unevenly dividing the spoils. In order to clear up the relationship, the county magistrate transformed internal conflicts into external conflicts and classified all smugglers and Japanese ronin as Japanese. Japanese pirates.

Later, due to policy mistakes, Governor Hu Zongnan arrested the pirate and smuggler leader Wang Zhi and prepared to negotiate with him. Some honest officials saw that he was a pirate leader and a heinous evil man. It was not straightforward to arrest him. Kill to get rid of future troubles, and still negotiate?

Did you, Hu Zongnan, take the money? At least one million taels, right?

Although Hu Zongnan knew that if he killed this leader named Wang Zhi, pirates would become a big problem due to lack of rules, but at this time, he was like mud falling into his crotch, not just shit, but shit.

He directly killed the underworld leader Wang Zhi. When Wang Zhi died, he said:

"It doesn't matter if I die, I will suffer for the common people along the coast from now on!"

As expected, hundreds of thousands of smugglers and pirates heard about it After Wang Zhi died, everyone stood alone on the mountaintop, burning, killing and looting without rules, and the coast was in chaos.

A question you may have: Stop talking nonsense. Since most of the Japanese pirates are Chinese, why are they basically all Japanese pirates? Answer: There are two reasons for this: First, such fancy clothes have a deterrent effect. The troops who suppressed them will look at it and wonder, what are these things? Second, dressing up like this is better for family members, after all, their relatives are still there. Here, if you are caught and executed, your family will not be together.

If this continues, the gold and silver mountains will have to be emptied by these grandsons, so this tribute trade has two rules:

1 and frequency. It is stipulated that the tribute should be paid once every few years;

2, what kind of tribute should be paid? You have to pull out the list every time you make an offering.

Every time you come to pay tribute, we will send officials to check the list one by one. This is called "collaboration."

Although this system is worse than direct trade, at least the surrounding small countries can still survive. After all, they can still exchange some necessities back home.

But compared to Ryukyu, Malaysia , Vietnam , the "frequency and amount of goods each time" paid tribute by Japan are much less.

They have themselves to blame.

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, they offended Zhu Yuanzhang and formed a feud with Landlord Zhu. The thing is like this. The founding of the Ming Dynasty sent an envoy to Japan and said that the master of our country has changed. In the future, you should no longer call the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty uncle. You must call me Zhu Yuanzhang uncle.

At that time, the Japanese monarchs were very special because the Yuan Dynasty had beaten them to the ground. They thought that this wave of Ming Dynasty envoys were from the Yuan Dynasty. Without asking, they killed five of the seven envoys.

later realized something was wrong and was so frightened that he put the remaining two back.

Liangzi was formed in this way, so Zhu Yuanzhang never gave them a chance. It was not until Zhu Di came to the throne that a little bit of trade was slowly restored, but they still had to take "special care" of this little Japan. Who told them to kill people without knowing what was good for them? of.

This is why Japan has less trade frequency and less goods than other countries.

Even if it is worse than other countries, at least it can still survive. Of course, later on, Ming Dynasty officials accepted bribes, and the Japanese trade volume also increased.

But when I got and during the Jiajing period, something happened!

Since the Japanese themselves falsified the survey, there were two groups of people who brought the real survey and the fake survey, and both brought a large amount of goods to China to pay tribute. As soon as the person with the fake survey came up, they paid bribes, and the goods were taken away first.

couldn't get out with the real goods, so he got into a fight with the fake ones, which eventually turned into a riot. They burned, killed, looted and committed all kinds of evil in Ningbo City.

For China, tribute trade is a loss-making business that "only cares about face, not arrogance". Every time it pays tribute, it loses money, which happened to be the disgusting incident in Ningbo City.

Master Jiajing got angry: Simply, no one should come to pay tribute in the future, out of sight, out of mind, our heavenly country has everything we need, and we won’t play with your surrounding small countries.

In the second year of Jiajing, the three trading points of Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Ningbo were all withdrawn, and the exploration and cooperation trade that lasted for more than 100 years officially ended.

Now, little Japan is done. If the Ming Dynasty does not trade with them, where will the daily necessities that cannot be produced come from?

Then there is only smuggling, and then rob his mother!

Finally, the Japanese smugglers and the Chinese smugglers who depended on the sea came together.

This is the reason why the Japanese come to the coast of China to become smugglers. There is really no other way. Who would want to lick blood when they can trade normally?

Well, it’s finally time to understand why domestic smugglers are regarded as Japanese pirates.

Japanese pirates, these bad things are all done by Japanese pirates!

In the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing (1547), Kanhe trade, that is, 24 years after the end of tribute trade, smuggling had developed to a considerable scale. After all, the port was closed, but it could not close the rigid needs of the Japanese.

And this year, a tragedy occurred in Yuyao County.

This family belongs to the old Xie Qian of Qianchaoge. The reason is that the descendants of the Xie family participated in large-scale smuggling. They wanted to get more when they divided the stolen goods, otherwise they would report it to the official and everyone would be finished.

Think about it, these smugglers, their wives, children, and children are also here. If you do this to the death, everyone may really die together. Then we can just wipe out your family. Our family may still have a chance of survival.

If the former Chaoge elder was exterminated, then it’s not a big deal, check it out! Thorough investigation!

But the Yuyao County Magistrate was in a dilemma at this time.

Why?

Because if this is the work of thieves and smugglers, then the burden of thoroughly investigating and catching the bad guys must be on his shoulders. If he can’t catch the bad guys, he will definitely be the one to ask. But over the past few decades, smuggling has formed a pattern A complete and huge upstream and downstream industrial chain, which may also involve officials bigger than him.

Therefore, it is definitely not acceptable to call yourself a thief or a smuggler, as this will put you in danger.

I am still a good scholar. After thinking about it, the county magistrate came up with a good way to clear himself up in one go. The idea is this:

Convert people's internal conflicts into conflicts between ourselves and the enemy, and describe the smuggling problem as It’s a piracy problem. Won’t this problem be solved? !

So, when the county magistrate wrote a PPT report, he said that this incident was done by Japanese pirates, and the Japanese pirates came from the sea, so it was not my responsibility.

The imperial court took a look and thought, this is not bad, you little Japanese are so arrogant, you dare to offend our country, China. Anyone who offends China will be punished no matter how far away you are!

Only then could the later anti-Japanese war and the great achievements of the later national hero Qi Jiguang be achieved.

Let’s summarize

Well, the whole anti-Japanese story is finished. Let’s review:

Before Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, the coastal people lived well by eating from the sea, but as soon as he came up, he instituted a ban on the sea. , ruined the jobs of these people, so these people can only engage in smuggling, but after all, Zhu Yuanzhang still has the prospecting trade, and the motivation and demand for smuggling in Japan are not that big.

But more than 150 years later, in the second year of Jiajing, two gangs of Japanese fought over the legality of tribute, causing dogs in Ningbo to bark and chickens to jump. Jiajing knew that the exploration and cooperation trade was a loss, so it simply closed all the ports. While being clean, capital outflows were prevented.

But this has produced a "by-product", that is, domestic smuggling and Japan's needs have hit it off. Many people who cannot survive in Japan come to China's coast to find jobs - working as lackeys for Chinese smugglers, especially the lackeys of the smuggling king Wang Zhi.

From the second year to the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing, the scale of smuggling increased exponentially.

But something happened again in the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing. A former important official was arrested for smuggling and unevenly dividing the spoils. In order to clear up the relationship, the county magistrate transformed internal conflicts into external conflicts and classified all smugglers and Japanese ronin as Japanese. Japanese pirates.

Later, due to policy mistakes, Governor Hu Zongnan arrested the pirate and smuggler leader Wang Zhi and prepared to negotiate with him. Some honest officials saw that he was a pirate leader and a heinous evil man. It was not straightforward to arrest him. Kill to get rid of future troubles, and still negotiate?

Did you, Hu Zongnan, take the money? At least one million taels, right?

Although Hu Zongnan knew that if he killed this leader named Wang Zhi, pirates would become a big problem due to lack of rules, but at this time, he was like mud falling into his crotch, not just shit, but shit.

He directly killed the underworld leader Wang Zhi. When Wang Zhi died, he said:

"It doesn't matter if I die, I will suffer for the common people along the coast from now on!"

As expected, hundreds of thousands of smugglers and pirates heard about it After Wang Zhi died, everyone stood alone on the mountaintop, burning, killing and looting without rules, and the coast was in chaos.

A question you may have: Stop talking nonsense. Since most of the Japanese pirates are Chinese, why are they basically all Japanese pirates? Answer: There are two reasons for this: First, such fancy clothes have a deterrent effect. The troops who suppressed them will look at it and wonder, what are these things? Second, dressing up like this is better for family members, after all, their relatives are still there. Here, if you are caught and executed, your family will not be together.