倭寇 refers to the pirates originating from Japan (formerly known as the Japanese country) and haunting the southeast coast of China. At the end of the 13th century, Japan implemented a maritime prohibition policy. However, there are still many Japanese businessmen who do business in China. After all, Japan is short of resources and has a small peasant economy. The economy is underdeveloped. Many commodities, especially many necessities of life, are supplied by China.
This gave Japanese businessmen an opportunity and stimulated Japan's feudal lords, nobles and samurai. Especially as Japan entered the period of the division of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the feudal princes separatized their regimes, fighting against each other and fighting for power.
They went to the coastal areas of China to carry out armed smuggling, looting, and piracy, hoping to obtain more economic benefits. In this case, there are many Japanese infestations.
In 1308 AD (Yuan Wuzong to the first year of the Great Reign), Japanese pirates were in the "Guo Guo, copying the residents" of Qingyuan. This is the earliest record of Japanese pirates bullying China in Chinese history.
also started from this time, all parts of China's coastal areas were poisoned by Japanese pirates. The Yuan Dynasty also imposed a maritime ban, but the time was short, the policy was not continued, the management was not strict, and foreign trade was flourishing.
But we also know that since Kublai Khan, the Yuan Dynasty has been less than a year. Since the middle period, the succession to the throne has been disordered, civil disturbances are frequent, coupled with political corruption, and conflicts have intensified. Suffer.
The most serious period of the Japanese attack should belong to the Ming Dynasty. It can be said that the Japanese attack runs through the entire Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang encountered this thorny problem just after he established the Ming Dynasty. It also included some remnant forces retreating to the sea and colluding with these Japanese pirates. The imperial court made representations to Japan on the Japanese pirate issue and also cooperated with Japan. Fight against Japanese pirates, but the effect is not obvious.
Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to avoid collusion between coastal residents and pirates, Japanese pirates, etc., formulated a "sea ban" policy, banning private trade, and even not allowing fishing at sea.
In the time of Emperor Yongle, the Japanese pirates in various coastal areas continued to gain success, especially the Battle of Wanghaicible, which made the Japanese pirates stop for a lot of time. However, from the middle and late Ming dynasties, Japanese pirates ran rampant along the coast, and even the Jiajing Japanese riots broke out, which became a huge border trouble in the Ming dynasty.
However, objectively speaking, many Chinese participated in this issue of the Japanese unrest. Famous pirates such as Wang Zhi, Xu Hai, Chen Dong, and Ye Ming appeared. These pirates were basically in collusion with traditional "Japanese pirates", and Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang and others all worked hard and racked their brains to eliminate the pirates.
However, the Japanese troubles that caused the Yuan and Ming dynasties to be quite a headache, but disappeared in the Qing Dynasty. Why?
From the perspective of Japan, before the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, Japan started the era of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Under the rule of the Shogunate, Japan completed the centralization of power and moved towards stability.
In the reign of the third-generation general Tokugawa Iemitsu, that is, from 1635, Japan began to implement the so-called "country lockdown order", which is to close the country. However, the reason why Japan is doing this is mainly to ban Catholic missionary activities.
However, the measures taken by Japan are actually similar to China's closed state, but Japan has strict restrictions on trade activities, and even prohibits Japanese from overseas.
In this way, the Japanese dare not risk their lives to come to China to grab things. It's hard to say whether it can be grabbed, but if you return to Japan, you must be put to death. This is for sure. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty's sea disasters decreased and the Japanese pirates did not dare to go abroad.
This is completely different from the situation in the chaos of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, he was busy stabilizing the rule of the South. Zheng Chenggong led his father’s old army to fight against the Qing Dynasty on the southeast coast of China. At the same time, the Zheng Jiajun also fought against foreign invaders, drove away the Dutch who invaded Taiwan, and wiped out the pirate forces on the southeast coast.
After the Qing Dynasty unified Taiwan, it also began to implement a maritime ban, but the trade between China and Japan was not completely cut off, but many restrictions were added.
Therefore, combining several reasons, the Japanese troubles that began in the Yuan Dynasty disappeared in the Qing Dynasty.
