{"id":474,"date":"2016-01-26T15:44:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T15:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/humanities.lib.rochester.edu\/china\/?page_id=474"},"modified":"2019-03-07T19:25:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T19:25:07","slug":"yang_zhi","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/once-upon-a-time\/yang_zhi\/","title":{"rendered":"Yang Zhi (1511-1561): A Pirate in Constant Defiance of the Ming Dynasty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Mention the word \u201cpirate,\u201d and immediately a conception of an illicit, cutthroat, and illegal soul comes to mind.\u00a0 One would be hard pressed to find a better Chinese example of defiance and willful flouting of established law than the sixteenth century Chinese pirate Yang Zhi.\u00a0 Though often overlooked for his more famous and similarly named contemporary pirate leader Wang Zhi, Yang Zhi most notably bears the legend of consistent rebellion against restrictive Ming foreign policy, in particular denouncing the haijin<\/em> \u201csea ban\u201d policy against non-imperial naval trade.\u00a0 He was the man who unwaveringly stood against and defied an entire empire. He was the pirate who captured the southern metropolis of Nanjing and held with it the grudging attention of the Ming Empire.<\/p>\n

Though he only confronted his Ming enemies head on a few times, much can be learned from his clandestine trade and smuggling under the nose of the Ming foreign trade haijin<\/em> policy.\u00a0 Such a perspective lends insight into the effects of the conservative Ming trade policy on China\u2019s economy and in turn may partially explain the subsequent \u201cGreat Divergence\u201d between Chinese and Western economies entering the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries onward.<\/p>\n

Those with a penchant for economics and politics may find this rebellion against the Ming foreign trade policy and the after effects the most edifying takeaway of the life of the pirate Yang Zhi.\u00a0 Still others may enjoy the individual legend of the pirate in his daring, ambitious endeavors as well as his talent for public speaking and rallying a band of men to his cause.\u00a0 Whatever the reader\u2019s interest may be in Yang Zhi, most central to understanding this character is to trace the origins of his lifetime nemeses: the Ming Dynasty and its restrictive haijin<\/em> foreign trade policy.<\/p>\n

By the early fifteenth century, Ming China was the preeminent naval power in the world.\u00a0 The treasure voyages of Admiral Zheng He brought back exotic animals and artifacts from Ming China\u2019s sphere of influence, which stretched as far as Africa (and possibly North America as well!).\u00a0 These voyages also served as a power move to demonstrate the superiority of Ming Chinese Culture and way of life, and by the 15th<\/sup> century, Ming China was the foremost naval power in the world, and intended on flaunting its cultural and military superiority.\u00a0 It was not out of the realm of possibility that the Ming Dynasty could have conquered and colonized foreign lands and extracted their economic value, much like the European powers Spain, France, and England did in the later sixteenth century.\u00a0 Ming China certainly had the strength; they were technologically ahead of European naval initiatives. \u00a0Valerie Hansen notes in The Open Empire: A History of China Through 1600<\/em> that \u201cChinese shipbuilders outpaced their European counterparts\u201d in rudder design, leak prevention and watertight compartments, and sheer numbers and size of ships built1<\/sup>.\u00a0 Christopher Columbus\u2019 famous voyage to North America comprised four seaworthy vessels, while Admiral Zheng He\u2019s fleet boasted of 317 ships.<\/p>\n

Then, all of a sudden, the Ming retreated from the ocean and the shores.\u00a0 The Yongle Emperor, who had long facilitated Zheng He\u2019s treasure voyages, fell ill and died.\u00a0 From then on, the Ming administration halted the voyages, due to the prohibitive cost of these extensive sea excursions as well as a desire to check the power of the eunuchs in charge of the navy2<\/sup>.\u00a0 The Ming left their grand fleet to rot or burned what was left into smoke and ash.\u00a0 Zheng He himself died in 1433.\u00a0 Ming naval superiority melted away like the sea foam on the Pacific it used to command.<\/p>\n

Along with lack of governmental support, foreign threats against Ming livelihood caused the administration to adopt a conservative foreign policy.\u00a0 Professor John Wills writes in Mountain of Fame<\/em> that \u201cthe attitudes of the early Ming tyrants toward the coast were dominated by fear of the growth of Japanese piracy and Chinese collusion with it.3<\/sup>\u201d Additionally, Mongol attacks from the north caused the Ming rulers to see the northern border as a \u201creal threat to the well-being of the empire,\u201d and in response to piracy, the Ming \u201cthought the dangers across the seas could be disposed of simply by forbidding Chinese contact with foreign nations4<\/sup>.\u201d\u00a0 It is in this context that the Ming haijin<\/em> \u201csea ban\u201d policy came to effect, which legally restricted naval trade to only imperial channels.\u00a0 However, there would be individuals attempting to subvert the system, and this brings us to the individual story of the pirate Yang Zhi.<\/p>\n

Yang Zhi was born in 1511 to merchant influences in coastal Fujian, and was raised as a merchant.\u00a0 From an early age, he was exposed to the sea and its (illegal) possibilities for trade, and joined up with a troupe of wokou<\/em>, then the term for Japanese pirates.\u00a0 He often would run the trade route from Japan to Ningbo, where the Ming Dynasty had banned Japanese traders, and continued to do so throughout his career as a pirate until his death. \u00a0Another trade route in which he would occasionally smuggle goods was from Ningbo to Manila.\u00a0 By this time in the 1540s, the Ming Dynasty continued to hold pirates in contempt, and Ming General Zhu Wan was intent on rooting out piracy, launching naval expeditions.\u00a0 Yang Zhi narrowly escaped the military might of the Ming navy when Zhu Wan commandeered a successful strike against a major smuggler\u2019s base on Shuangyu Island in 1547. \u00a0Yang Zhi lost close friends in the aftermath of the strike, and pledged to avenge the fallen pirates against the Ming.\u00a0 His dream was to capture and loot a major Chinese city like Nanjing or Zhejiang, striking fear into the hearts of the Ming administration.\u00a0 Such a victory would certainly redeem the loss of his pirate brothers.<\/p>\n

Yang Zhi would soon get his chance for reprisal against the Ming.\u00a0 In another successful attack on smugglers at Zoumaxi Island in 1550, General Zhu Wan overstepped his responsibilities and hastily executed his pirate captives without an imperial edict.\u00a0 Consequently, Zhu Wan was jailed, and committed suicide5<\/sup>.\u00a0 Zhu Wan\u2019s fleets were dispersed, and his firebrand extermination policy against wokou<\/em> piracy fell along with him6<\/sup>.\u00a0 Yang Zhi saw this as an opportunity to recoup some of the losses the pirates suffered against the Ming navy.\u00a0 In 1554, he set up a major smuggler\u2019s base at Nanjing, the apple of his eye.\u00a0 He directed other pirates to similarly set up bases along south Chinese shores at Suzhou and Hangzhou.\u00a0 These would serve as a springboard for future pirate attacks in 1555, the height of the wokou<\/em> raids7<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

It was in 1555 when Yang Zhi would get the opportunity to raid a major city.\u00a0 By then, the wokou<\/em> pirates were well established along the southeast Chinese coastline, within striking distance of mainland Chinese cities.\u00a0 Sensing this moment of strength, Yang Zhi gathered his men together and stirred in them a spirit of conquest\u2014this was their opportunity for a big payday, and men took well to Yang Zhi\u2019s rhetoric.\u00a0 Other pirate leaders like Ye Ma and Xu Hai were in contact with Yang Zhi and rallied their men to launch strikes against major Chinese cities.\u00a0 Ye Ma drew up 10,000 men and a campaign against Zhejiang, and Yang Zhi raised an army of 7,000 to attack Nanjing.\u00a0 The plans were set and the wokou<\/em> pirates were at the height of their powers.<\/p>\n

The wokou <\/em>pirates attacked almost simultaneously and with painful effect.\u00a0 Yang Zhi\u2019s forces attacked the city of Nanjing, and managed to hold siege to the city, while Ye Ma\u2019s regiment landed an assault at Hangzhou.\u00a0 Of all of Yang Zhi\u2019s military accomplishments, his conquest at Nanjing stands above the rest.\u00a0 Here was a major, walled city in South China that was well supplied, and was one of the world\u2019s most populous cities. \u00a0Yang Zhi attacked the city with a bevy of siege engines, battering rams, and guns.\u00a0 Early on, the pirate commander meant to lay siege to the city and sought to taunt the Grand Coordinator of Nanjing by throwing parcels of food and water into the city walls.\u00a0 However, such a large city as Nanjing could sustain itself throughout a siege until Ming military help was on the way, and Yang Zhi\u2019s advisers warned him to strike quickly and forcefully, lest he be forced away from Nanjing himself. \u00a0Yang Zhi\u2019s forces eventually exploited an unguarded portion of the wall to force his way into the city.\u00a0 He managed to take hostage several prominent officials within the city of Nanjing in a daring attack on a lightly guarded military barrack.\u00a0 Without his aides, the Grand Coordinator of Nanjing sued for peace, and Yang Zhi commenced the plunder of Nanjing.\u00a0 Aside from usual plundering of fungible items which would be useful in the trade with Japan such as sugars and spice, Yang Zhi looted trophies from the Nanjing court to commemorate his conquest, most notably, the personal sword of the Grand Coordinator of Nanjing.\u00a0 This sword was known to be of particular significance to Yang Zhi, as this sword was found buried with him.\u00a0 Inscribed on the hilt is\u201c\u5357\u4eac\u90fd\u53f8,\u201dwhich indicated the Grand Coordinator\u2019s military powers in Nanjing.\u00a0 This sword was a personal decoration for a Nanjing regent, and in snatching this possession, Yang Zhi must have envisioned himself on the same level as regents of other Chinese cities. News of Ye Ma\u2019s similar success in attacking Zhejiang reached Yang Zhi at Nanjing, and it was hard to discount the wokou<\/em> pirates as a real threat to the Ming Empire.\u00a0 But it was at that moment that Yang Zhi, drunk on success and the afterglow of victory, spent more time exulting in his conquest, just as Ming troops were readying their spears and arrows as they marched on Nanjing and Zhejiang.<\/p>\n

The Ming troops marched southward from the north, and confronted Yang Zhi\u2019s forces at Nanjing, and Ye Ma\u2019s pirates further south at Zhejiang.\u00a0 While Yang Zhi was barely able to fend off the Ming offensives, Ye Ma\u2019s men fell into a trap.\u00a0 Ming troops deliberately left a major shipment of wine\u2014poisoned wine\u2014for Ye Ma\u2019s men to intercept.\u00a0 As Ye Ma\u2019s pirates drank and enjoyed the tainted spoils, almost a tenth of their fighting force was killed off due to the poison, severely weakening them.\u00a0 Ye Ma\u2019s men were forced to retreat towards the sea, and this left Yang Zhi stuck in a precarious situation8<\/sup>. \u00a0Yang Zhi\u2019s forces were already heavily harassed from the North, but the Ming forces south of his position at Zhejiang could either pursue Ye Ma, or worse, head north to Nanjing where they could finish off Yang Zhi.\u00a0 Supremely proud of his accomplishment in subduing Nanjing, but too practical to allow himself to die for that cause, Yang Zhi and his men lifted their control over Nanjing and fled along with Ye Ma into the sea, making sure to steal away with his favorite treasure from his conquest\u2014the inscribed sword of the Grand Coordinator of Nanjing.\u00a0 With that, Yang Zhi took a personal memento from a conquered city that he would never again lay eyes on, let alone reconquer.<\/p>\n

While the memories of dazzling victory were still fresh, the wounds from being kicked out of the Chinese mainland still stung acutely for many pirates, Yang Zhi among them.\u00a0 At this point, he was convinced that if the wokou<\/em> pirates could concentrate their forces (instead of in sectional gangs, as there were), reentering the Chinese mainland was a real and profitable possibility.\u00a0 This however, was easier said than done, as Wills notes that \u201cthe [sixteenth century] maritime world was full of uncertainty and violence at sea,\u201d certainly so in the different factions and pirate gangs that plagued the Chinese sea9<\/sup>.\u00a0 Some groups as those under Yang Zhi were eager to raid Ming strongholds, but this thirst for re-conquest was not universally shared among all pirates.\u00a0 Famous wokou<\/em> pirate leader Wang Zhi had never personally led a military conflict into China, and had been in discussion with Ming General Zhu Wan\u2019s successor, Hu Zongxian, about amnesty for pirates and relaxation of the haijin<\/em> policy in return for wokou<\/em> surrender.\u00a0 Yang Zhi personally saw Wang Zhi\u2019s inclinations toward surrender as traitorous to their lifestyle, and from there on began to distrust Wang Zhi.<\/p>\n

Though the rest of Yang Zhi\u2019s military accomplishments from then on pale in relation to his success at Nanjing, one notices a more politically savvy leader in the pirate commander.\u00a0 Yang Zhi, eternally distrustful of the Ming administration as well as Hu Zongxian\u2019s calls for wokou<\/em> appeasement and ease on the haijin<\/em> \u201csea ban\u201d policy, warned many pirates that to fall in with surrender and the appeasement policy was tantamount to walking into a trap.\u00a0 \u201cWe may joust for control over the seas,\u201d he offered, \u201cbut when you bow your head to the Ming Emperor on his land, he may do with you what he pleases.\u201d\u00a0 And even if granted amnesty, Wang Zhi would have pledged to turn his forces against his former wokou<\/em> comrades; very much in the way that Zheng Zilong was \u201cmade a naval commander\u2026[to be used] against other \u2018pirates\u2019 along the coast10<\/sup>.\u201d\u00a0 Wang Zhi was nothing more than a turncoat to Yang Zhi and his followers.<\/p>\n

Yang Zhi\u2019s worst fears were confirmed when Zhao Wenhua, a prominent politician in the Ming court and a proponent of appeasement toward pirates, was found guilty of embezzlement.\u00a0 Zhao was thrown in jailed and summarily executed.\u00a0 When this man was disgraced, his advice was given short shrift as well.\u00a0 Given this current political situation, it was impossible for Hu Zongxian to follow up on his preferred policy of appeasement towards pirates11<\/sup>.\u00a0 Yet in 1557, Wang Zhi already handed himself over to Ming authorities on Zhoushan Island, expecting amnesty from the Ming Emperor as he awaited the imperial edict in a nobleman\u2019s prison.\u00a0 Wang Zhi expected a pardon, and imperial commission as a privateer12<\/sup>.\u00a0 Instead, Wang Zhi was executed, and when news of the famous pirate leader\u2019s death reached Yang Zhi and the rest of the wokou<\/em> pirates, the different pirate factions would not coalesce together, but instead bickered and fought over which group was the rightful successor to Wang Zhi\u2019s unofficial mantle as the main leader of the wokou<\/em> pirates.<\/p>\n

Wang Zhi\u2019s son, Mao Haifeng, was a natural choice, but Yang Zhi saw differently.\u00a0 He, after all, had correctly predicted that the Ming authorities would betray Wang Zhi, and that the appeasement policy would not be observed.\u00a0 Mao Haifeng was much younger than him, and became a leader strongly based upon his blood ties, rather than out of any noticeable accomplishment to date.\u00a0 This, Yang Zhi insisted, as he brandished his trophy sword from his conquest of Nanjing, disqualified Mao Haifeng from the unofficial responsibility of overseeing the wokou <\/em>pirates\u2019 fortunes.\u00a0 Therefore, he reasoned, Yang Zhi alone possessed the foresight and experience necessary to guide the loose organization of wokou<\/em> pirates through the slew of recent defeats.<\/p>\n

This however, was not to be: in 1561, Yang Zhi\u2019s pirates strayed into a trade route controlled by Mao Haifeng\u2019s group, only adding gasoline to the fiery conflict between the two pirate commanders.\u00a0 It was there that words and insults escalated into drawn swords and gunfire.\u00a0 A short, but nasty skirmish between Mao\u2019s men and Yang\u2019s men resulted in the latter being killed by stray friendly gunshot, and so ended the life of one of the most ambitious and calculating wokou<\/em> commanders.<\/p>\n

If one is to consider the impact of Yang Zhi\u2019s life, it is that the wokou<\/em> pirates posed a legitimate threat to Ming livelihood and induced a change in Ming trade policies.\u00a0 Consequently, the Ming administration eased up on the restrictive haijin<\/em> policy, and honored their appeasement policy, the opposite of what Yang Zhi predicted.\u00a0 It was under such a policy that future naval heroes like Zheng Zilong and his famous son, Zheng Chenggong, hunted down pirates in the name of the Ming Emperor.\u00a0 Trade became more permissible; individual merchants had fewer restrictions on their trade and there was real enterprise to be found in now legal sea trade.\u00a0 But perhaps the change in policy came too late for major and sustained economic growth as seen in the Great Divergence.\u00a0 The effects of the haijin<\/em> policy still made their impact; restricting sea trade to only imperial channels cut off major avenues for economic growth among coastal Chinese cities.\u00a0 The sea was the way to trade, economic opportunity, and eventually colonization, as one would observe with the European powers in the seventeenth century.\u00a0 But under the haijin<\/em> policy and pressure from foreign attackers like the Mongols and the Japanese, such a China was not to be under the Ming Dynasty, which would leave future generations of Chinese policymakers under the gun of superior Western naval and world powers.<\/p>\n

Endnotes<\/h3>\n

1<\/sup> Hansen, Valerie. The Open Empire: A History of China Through 1600<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Page 381.
\n2 <\/sup>Hansen<\/a>, 383.
\n3 <\/sup>Wills, John. Mountain of Fame: Portraits of Chinese History<\/a><\/em>. Princeton University Press, 2012. Page 218.
\n4 <\/sup>Hansen<\/a>, 386.
\n5<\/sup> Goodrich, L. Carrington; Fang, Chaoying, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368\u20131644<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia University Press, 1976.\u00a0\u00a0 Page 375.
\n6 <\/sup>Higgins, Roland L. Piracy and coastal defense in the Ming period, government response to coastal disturbances, 1523-1549<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1981), University of Minnesota. Page 199.
\n7<\/sup> Geiss, James. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368\u20131644, Part 1<\/a><\/em>. Cambridge University Press, 1988.\u00a0 Page 496.
\n8<\/sup> Lim, Ivy Maria. Lineage Society on the Southeastern Coast of China<\/a><\/em>. Cambria Press, 2010.\u00a0 Page 119.
\n9 <\/sup>Wills<\/a>, 220.
\n10<\/sup> Wills<\/a>, 221.
\n11<\/sup> Geiss<\/a>, 501-2.
\n12 <\/sup>Lim<\/a>, 132.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Thumbnail:FELIX YANG is\u00a0a pre-med strategist who runs a story like a game of chess. \u00a0More by Felix<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mention the word \u201cpirate,\u201d and immediately a conception of an illicit, cutthroat, and illegal soul comes to mind.\u00a0 One would be hard pressed to find a better Chinese example of defiance and willful flouting of established law than the sixteenth century Chinese pirate Yang Zhi.\u00a0 Though often overlooked for his more famous and similarly named … Continue reading Yang Zhi (1511-1561): A Pirate in Constant Defiance of the Ming Dynasty<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":357,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":922,"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions\/922"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zhang.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/china\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}