First, the root cause of piracy in Japan: Japan's political and economic situation.
From 1970s to16th century, Japan was in a turbulent era of long-term melee. 1467- 1477, "Renyi Rebellion" occurred, 1485- 1487, and "Civilization Rebellion" occurred. The Muromachi shogunate (also known as Ashikaga shogunate), which nominally lasted until 1572, actually entered the Warring States Period (1467- 1573) and lost control of maritime trade. Due to the cruel exploitation and constant wars of feudal lords everywhere, bankrupt farmers, dereliction of duty officials, unemployed refugees, defeated warriors and unemployed ronin, with the support of feudal lords everywhere, rushed to seek a way out overseas. Under the guidance of some China people, they concentrated on plundering along the coast of China by boat. These people are huge, with hundreds of ships at every turn, and their destructive power is unimaginable. According to Zhao Wenhua's "Thief's Love", Ni Zhun, a native of Jiading County, was stopped and robbed by a Japanese thief in May of Jiajing thirty-three years, and followed him there. He has met countless people in Zhang Quan, and his clothes are very ordinary. He said that this place is under the control of Japan, and thieves have more than 700 boats in Kaiyang, each with 200 to 300 people and each with 30 to 40 people. On June 14, we set sail again. During the voyage, 2 1 ship returned early. It is said that Japanese court officials in the Ming Dynasty were fierce, and one third of them were killed. So everyone was terrified and bowed. There are more than 700 ships, each with 150 people, which is really shocking. If Japan had a strong unified central government at that time, it would have managed maritime trade and arrested the Japanese pirates. For example, during the reign of Hongwu Yongle, the Japanese king arrested the Japanese pirates many times and sent them to China to be dealt with by the Ming Dynasty. Japanese pirates have been expanding with the disputes in Warring States and the bankruptcy of farmers.
The above is the political situation in Japan at that time, so what is the economic situation in Japan at this time?
Although Japanese handicrafts had been separated from agriculture and developed independently at that time, they were still underdeveloped. Many Japanese necessities such as silk, cloth, jars, needles and medicinal materials are provided by China. According to historical records: "Generally, what Japan needs is produced in China, such as room cloth and Hangzhou Chang 'an weaving;" "Women want powder, painters want gold and silver foil, and it is well known in Wulin. He is like Rao's porcelain, silk from the lake, yarn from Zhangzhou and loose cotton cloth, especially in that country. " Because of this, when there is a shortage of goods in China, prices will rise sharply. For example, after Jiajing, "China Lingluo Chowder, whose soil is not silkworm, only learned from China silk that it can weave fine filaments, thinking that China is good. China Lake Silk is 100 Jin, worth 120, which is twice as expensive as Peter's ". Silk is worth five or six taels of silver per hundred catties, but the price in Japan is ten times that in China. It is precisely because of this phenomenon that the greed of Japanese feudal lords, nobles, warriors and businessmen was stimulated, and they all competed to trade with China. This businessman and pirate hung the Eight Banners of the Great Bodhisattva, broke through the common regulations of Muromachi shogunate and Ming Dynasty, and came to China to plunder.
As can be seen from the above discussion, Japan's urgent demand for China goods and long-term war, coupled with years of famine, stimulated the desire of Japanese social groups to plunder wealth from overseas China. Therefore, the inevitability of Japanese invasion has been formed.
To say the least, even if the Ming dynasty did not implement the policy of sea ban, it could not fully meet the needs of Japan-Ming trade development. Moreover, the activities with pirates in the trade between Japan and Ming Dynasty have always existed, and will always harass China. As Kiyoshi Inoue said: "Contact with China is not only a peaceful trade, but also an opportunity to become a pirate and plunder coastal residents. The other party called this an enemy, which was terrible. "
Second, the domestic cause of the flood of Japanese pirates: corruption in Jiajing Dynasty.
Piracy existed in the early Ming Dynasty. Why did it reach its peak during Jiajing period? This has to be analyzed from the social situation at that time.
(1) Political and economic aspects: political corruption and economic corruption.
1, the gradual decay of the ruling class. Zhu Yuanzhang was an outstanding feudal emperor in the history of China. He attaches great importance to bureaucracy and severely punishes corruption. Judy, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, also tried to govern the country. Therefore, the politics of the Ming Dynasty was relatively clear, and the people were able to live and work in peace and contentment, and they were able to concentrate on dealing with foreign invasion when there were few internal troubles and foreign invasion. Therefore, although there were Japanese harassment in the early Ming Dynasty, it was not very extensive and did not cause great harm to society. However, after Ming Yingzong's orthodoxy, the politics of Ming Dynasty became increasingly corrupt, and corruption and bribery prevailed. Emperor Jiajing indulged in fasting all his life, especially in the twenty-first year of Jiajing (1542). He "turned his back on the DPRK since the eighteenth year", which led to "building a large scale, hiding in the political affairs of the DPRK for more than a hundred years, and gradually leveling the industry". Yan Song, the courtier, held the handle, and Yan Song sold titles and titles, which made him a fatuous official. "Whether it is possible or not, the amount of money is limited." So, "civil and military officials defeated wealth and goods, committed crimes, curbed military aircraft, kept discipline, disintegrated everyone, recruited soldiers for half a day, and thieves became more and more fierce."
During the Jiajing period, the storage in Ming Dynasty was not enough to cover the border clearance fee for one year, while the dirty business in Yan Song could cover the border clearance fee for several years. When Yan Song fell, it won "32,000 gold, 3,200 silver and millions of treasures".
Yan Song also entrusted the task of doing nothing to the Great Japanese Empire, and his adopted son, Zhao Wenhua, killed Zhu Wan and a large number of anti-Japanese generals, resulting in "going to Zhejiang, visiting officials, complaining about public and private interests, and benefiting from no peace". As a result, "Sejong Wei ran his own business, surrendered with heavy code, and people who played politics used it to do their own thing, ..."
2. Land annexation is serious. With the political corruption in the Ming Dynasty, the plunder of wealth by the royal family, nobles and bureaucratic landlords became increasingly serious. In ancient China, due to the influence of small-scale peasant economy, a large amount of land was often regarded as a symbol of wealth and power, which was more obvious in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, compared with other dynasties, land annexation in Ming Dynasty was more serious. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, due to the change of the Yuan Dynasty and the adjustment of the land ownership relationship, and the active implementation of the reclamation policy, the small-scale peasant economy was greatly restored, and the yeoman farmers had great advantages. But half a century later, the ruling class used the powerful central government to annex land unscrupulously and set up "Huangzhuang", "Fanwangzhuang" and "Zhuangtian" for dignitaries everywhere. They begged in name, but actually caught it; In name, it is pursuit, but in fact it is grab. Not only that, they often use their privileges to merge dozens of companies. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, the main trend of land ownership changes was that a large amount of land was concentrated in the royal family, officials and powerful classes, especially in Jiajing period, when a large amount of land of farmers was annexed. The large concentration of wealth led to the disparity between the rich and the poor in the society at that time. The reason for this polarization is, of course, the internal factors of social and economic development, such as the adjustment of economic structure and mode of production, the development of productivity, etc., but it is mainly because the royal family, aristocratic families and official power classes arbitrarily seize the land of small farmers by virtue of their political rights and even violence. The result of accumulating wealth by super-economic means will inevitably lead to the rapid sharpening of social contradictions, forcing a large number of farmers who have lost their land to flee to other places, or become "refugees" in the mountains, or take advantage of the mountain risks with "thieves" or enter the sea with "enemies". That is, it is recorded in Historical Records that "Fu Yi Kou was the sick man of the coast, not the Japanese dared to commit crimes against China, while China was a self-sufficient Kou, and the government was uneducated, and the words were caressed on weekdays. Forced by hunger and cold, driving them away as thieves, but not trying to disperse them, recruiting them is more painful than raising boats and building villages, and Lu soldiers burning Han boats. "
There are many taxes. With the concentration of land in the homes of royalty, nobles and officials, yeomen went bankrupt one after another and had to become tenant farmers who rented land. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, because the concentration of land was mainly realized by the powerful families of officials, the tenant farmers had a strong personal attachment color from the beginning when renting the landlord's land, especially when facing the royal family, dignitaries and other dignitaries, their lives were even more miserable.
With the increasing corruption of politics, bureaucratic landlords colluded with the small officials in the book and extorted money by means of flying, sending and reforming, and all the heavy taxes were passed on to poor farmers. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the government stipulated to levy two to three cents per mu of silver, but in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the nobles privately collected land and rent, some of which received five cents per mu, and some were as high as eight cents, which was more than two or three times higher than the original regulations, making farmers have to bear serious land tax and corvee.
The exploitation of farmers by gentry landlords and ordinary folk landlords is also quite serious. Even in the so-called rich Jiangnan area, the people are bored. "There are fields for one, tenants for nineteen ... Only autumn crops mature at the age of one, and an acre of harvest can't reach three stones, but at least there are more than one stone. Those who rent privately have to fight with one stone and two or three fights, and at least eight or nine fights. Tenants work hard for a year, and the cost of an acre of land can be one, but on the day of harvest, the income is only a few buckets, until those who rent the loan tomorrow are rented today. " During the Jiajing period, people in the southeast coastal areas lived in extreme poverty. In order to make a living, they often sell their houses, fields, cattle and sheep, and some even sell their children. The farmer is bankrupt and dying. People in Susong area of Jia Hu were forced to leave their homes to make a living because of exorbitant taxes and exploitation by officials, local tyrants and evil gentry. The land of Zhejiang, Zhejiang and Wu has been dry for years, and Jiangnan, which has always been prosperous, has shown a depression scene under the oppression of the Ming government.
In addition to regular taxes, there are also official and private tax increases. For example, farmers in Jiangnan and Fujian contribute rice, chickens, ducks and vegetables to landlords, which is called "winter sacrifice"; Farmers in Qufu Confucius House should pay the government "annual the cloth flower" and "annual pig money"; In Huizhou, Huguang and Jiangxi, there are a large number of tenants and servants.
In the face of all these difficulties, the rulers of the Ming Dynasty not only did not give relief, but instead sent a piece of silver with workmanship and materials of about 200,000 yuan. Increased the burden on the people. Since the Yongle emperor, the rulers have been extravagant and wasteful, giving too many rewards to the vassals and the emperor's minions, resulting in double expenses. At the same time, due to poor management, economic chaos, soaring prices, tax evasion, corruption and bribery, abuse of materials, national income has dropped sharply.
Under the oppression of the feudal ruling class, the poor people lived in dire straits and were on the verge of death. The officers and men poisoned them, so that the hungry people who had no hope of survival had to leave their homes and go to sea as thieves. These people, forced by greed, suffering from slavery and suffering from hunger and cold, not only led pirates into the sea, but also were willing to follow them every time they heard the enemy coming. So at that time, many people thought that the rise and fall of the enemy was mainly due to the imperial court, not barbarians. "Barbarians are coastal patients. It is not the Japanese who dare to commit crimes against China, but the bandit China." This analysis hits the nail on the head and accords with reality.
The excessive taxes imposed by the Ming government were accompanied by natural and man-made disasters, especially the Yellow River burst in 1448, which led to the subsequent flooding, and1100 million people were forced to become homeless and become beggars or pirates.
(2) Military aspect: the coastal defense is lax and the health center is empty.
In the early Ming Dynasty, from the north to the south coast, the enemy was a great threat. In the early years of Hongwu, "Japanese slaves plundered the sea and invaded Shandong, Zhili and coastal counties and cities in Fujian". On the coast of Shandong, Japanese soldiers invaded the seashore several times, abandoned their wives and children and destroyed their lives. So Zhu Yuanzhang has always attached great importance to maritime defense. In the first year of Hongwu, deployment began. After breaking diplomatic relations with Japan, he paid more attention to coastal defense construction.
1. First, many health centers have been established in coastal areas and cities have been extensively restored.
Strengthen the coastal defense forces and divide them into seven coastal defense zones: Yalu River, Liaodong, Shandong, Zhili (now Jiangsu), Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong. From Laizhou Prefecture to Hongwu in the 26th year (1393), the general newsletter of "Three Guards, Eight Stations, Seven Patrol, Sixteen Villages and 147 Dunbao" was established.
In the seventeenth year of Hongwu (1384), he was ordered to patrol the sea, and built walled towns and permanent fortifications in coastal defense sites such as Shandong, Jiangnan, northern Zhejiang, eastern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang. In the twentieth year of Hongwu (1387), in February, two Zhejiang defense stations were set up. In the summer of April, Jiang, Xiahou and Zhou Dexing were ordered to inspect important places in Fujian, Xing, Zhang and Quan counties and build sixteen cities on the sea to prevent the Japanese pirates.
In order to defend the coastal areas, there are spring tours and summer tours every year. "The guard has both officers and soldiers and hundreds of big ships. If the wind is fierce, the clippers are high, the whistle ships are high, and the ten-paddle spacecraft is fifth-class. Called the great flood; The whistle in July, August and September is called a small flood. The arrival of the pirate ship depends on the wind direction. After Qingming, the wind comes from the south, and after Chongyang, the wind comes from the north, which is not conducive to travel. " The time and place of Japanese uprising are influenced by the change of wind direction, and the defense tasks in different seasons are also different. The Ming navy can formulate corresponding measures according to these characteristics, so it has achieved good results. The battle of Yongle Wanghai was the first great victory against Japan in the early Ming Dynasty. Since then, the Japanese dare not invade on a large scale.
2, Zhang Shicheng, Fang Guozhen old headquarters and coastal people as soldiers, increase the coastal forces.
In the fourth year of Hongwu (137 1 year), Wu Hou Town in Jinghai distributed more than11700 people who had no land and no food in Lanxiu Mountain to various guards. In the twenty years of Hongwu (1387), when Zhou De built a city fortress, he adopted the method of "three households and one household" and assembled more than 5000 people on the coast as garrison troops, thus realizing the operational strategy of combining unified command with maritime garrison, mobile patrol with coastal annihilation.
3. Build warships and strengthen naval construction.
With the efforts of Zhu Yuanzhang and Emperor Yongle, the Ming Dynasty established an efficient navy. It has thousands of ships, half of which are warships and the other half are patrol boats, cruising in the coastal waters of China to ensure coastal safety.
The Seven Guards Water Army, established in the third year of Hongwu (1370), prepared 50 ships for each guard and dispatched 350 non-commissioned officers for maintenance. In the case of war, it is beneficial for soldiers to exercise them.
4. Establish a reward and punishment system to encourage soldiers to bravely kill the enemy.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the morale of naval personnel was high. For example, in 14 17, a ship commanded by eunuch Zhang Lian successfully broke through the encirclement of the Japanese fleet, which was exciting.
As can be seen from the above, coastal defense was vigorously strengthened in the early Ming Dynasty. Due to effective measures, the Ming dynasty established a powerful defense system on the thousands of miles of Caspian sea defense line, so it did not cause great disaster. However, in Jiajing period, great changes have taken place.
During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, due to increasingly corrupt political and policy mistakes, coastal defense facilities lost their due functions. In name only, it is vulnerable. As stated in Ming History: "After a long period of peace, the ship is empty; In case of police, it is to keep fishing boats on sentry duty; Soldiers don't practice, ships are unprofessional, and when they see Master Cobo, they can't wait to see him escape. On the other hand, there is no command for it, so it is all broken as pointed out by the thief sail. "
During the Jiajing period, because soldiers were afraid to cross the sea, the water village set up on the island to guard the enemy moved from the island to the coast, but the original water village was used as a nest by pirates. Health centers along the coast of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou are seriously short of food rations, ships are damaged and soldiers are scarce. According to the "Ming History", "Zhejiang and Fujian have been guarding the sea for a long time, and warships have been guarding the ship for ten miles." For example, there are 20 original warships in Tongshanzhai, only 1 ship left; There are 20 in Xuanzhong Ao, and only 4 survive. There are 40 ships in Wuyuzhai, only 13 ships. Because these ships are either confined to the port or rarely used, the decay is intensified and they have not been replaced.
As for the patrol inspection department, because the imperial court did not attach importance to coastal defense, the salary of naval officers was reduced again and again, which led to the serious phenomenon of soldiers fleeing. Of the 4,068 soldiers stationed at the bonfire base, 3,000 escaped; Of the more than 4,700 soldiers stationed in Cheng Xiao, 2,557 escaped. 70% of the soldiers in Haiphong Station were sent to farm, and some even went inland 50 kilometers away. The remaining 30% people who should have carried out combat missions were also asked to build and repair ships. The water army almost exists in name only, and most of the forbidden villages are hereditary. They don't learn martial arts, don't know the art of war, and can't lead troops to fight, so their fighting capacity is very poor.
Of course, the coastal defense is so lax that it is far from defending against the Japanese army. Tan Lun said, "Law and order will be lax, and there will be chaos. Most of the officers and men in the guard stations are unruly and shameless. I drove to the Dijon Line and suddenly got lost. Being responsible for the city will turn a deaf ear. " The officials of Ning and Suo in Zhejiang Province, however, sat idly by and watched the Japanese invaders in the city, killing and robbing for ten days, like nobody's business, without any resistance.
Third, the fuse of the flood of Japanese pirates: the strict sea ban policy of the Ming government.
After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, agriculture and handicrafts in the southeast coastal areas were rapidly restored and developed by virtue of their superior geographical position and original foundation. On this basis, the commodity economy is increasingly prosperous. During Zheng De's period, private overseas trade began to develop. By Jiajing period, private overseas trade had formed a large scale and reached a very prosperous level. At that time, China's economy was more developed than Japan's, and many Japanese means of production and living depended on China's market. For example, although the silk weaving industry in Japanese industry has developed by leaps and bounds during this period, the raw materials of raw silk in Japan are very insufficient, and almost all the raw silk is supplied by China. If the berth is blocked, there will be no silk to weave, which will lead to an increase in the price of raw silk in Japan, which is 562 yuan per kilo 100 in China, but in Japan, the price is ten times that of China. Japanese can buy goods they need urgently in China, such as porcelain, medicinal materials and so on, especially silk. The price is cheap. In Chinese mainland, the highest price is 1 15 two taels of silver a load, while in Japan it needs 500 taels a load. It is this huge profit gap that led to the formation of many private maritime trade groups in the southeast coastal areas during Jiajing period. Most of them have more than 50 to 100 merchant ships, which are divided into groups and compete with each other, and are very active in various maritime trade. "Private ship, the more sold to Japan. When it goes, it will double and multiply; When it comes, the interest is doubled by a hundredfold. "Illegal adultery is becoming increasingly rampant." The prosperous overseas trade has attracted a large number of China people to take this as their business. Even many "powerful families", "big names" and "giants" compete to invest in maritime trade and engage in maritime trafficking in order to maximize their interests. Compared with the official overseas trade in the15th century, these maritime merchants have obvious characteristics. They mainly engaged in all kinds of handicraft raw materials and handicraft products to meet the needs of the lower class and promote the development of commodity production, and actively explore sales for products, while the official overseas trade in the15th century was more for the feudal landlord class. It can be said that vigorously developing overseas trade is an inevitable requirement of historical development and an important condition for China to develop social economy and capitalist production relations at that time.
However, in the face of overseas private trade, the Ming government held the opposite attitude. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated the policy of "no entry into the sea" to prohibit private overseas trade. However, with the consolidation of the Ming regime and the strengthening of the coastal military defense forces, the number of Japanese pirates in exile at sea is relatively small, and they dare not openly become bandits. Most of them make a living by maritime trade. Therefore, in a sense, the ban on coastal defense and Japanese pirates is actually a ban on Japanese people going to sea for business and normal maritime trade between China and China. Especially after the early years of Jiajing (152 1), the Ming Dynasty even banned the construction of illegal ships under the pretext of Ningbo's "tribute dispute", and all the banned ships were destroyed, stipulating that "soldiers and civilians from the coastal areas, private thieves' markets, and those who don't raise their neighbors sit together." Trying to cut off all maritime links and trade. However, to the surprise of the Ming government, after 20 years of Jiajing (1540), instead, "the stricter the ban, the more prosperous the kou, the ships are not allowed to go into the sea, and the huge ships are allowed to cross the river; Inch goods are not allowed to be imported, and children's jade is always full. " On the contrary, the scale of non-governmental overseas trade is larger, and "Japanese pirates" are rapidly flooding in the southeast coast.
In order to control this situation, the Ming government sent Zhu Wan, the toughest minister in the imperial court at that time, to suppress it. Zhu Wan took a series of measures to strengthen the maritime ban, such as "changing the ferry and strictly protecting the armor", but because it harmed the interests of coastal bureaucratic landlords and farmers, it attracted strong opposition from them. In the thirty-second year of Jiajing (1552), Wang Zhi "invaded on a large scale, joined more than 100 ships and came under the cover of the sea", making it "a thousand miles along the coast and on guard at the same time". Since then, Japanese pirates have become more rampant.
The sea ban policy of the Ming Dynasty not only hindered the normal trade between China and Japan, but also harmed the interests of farmers living in coastal areas for generations.
Coastal people have always been engaged in maritime trade as an important means to make a living, but the natural conditions in coastal areas are very unfavorable, with narrow land and dense people, barren land and lack of grain. According to the "Zhangzhou Prefecture Records Foreign Tax Examination", "Fujian is arrogant, land is not food, sea is a livelihood, and foreign ships are home." Therefore, it is his life to go abroad for trade.
However, the Ming government implemented a strict sea ban policy, forbidding coastal people to salvage fishing and trade in the sea, which forced coastal residents to give up the life of islanders who were good at fishing and collecting firewood, adapt to the farming life in inland mountainous areas, and did not adapt to the environment and production lifestyle there. As a result, some people ignored the ban of the Ming government and tried their best to sneak back to their hometown. Because what they do is illegal, they are in danger of being beheaded at any time. Forced to do so, in the face of profitable maritime trade, although there is an express prohibition, but the benefits are among them. "Therefore, people fear not death" joined the armed smuggling team. It was precisely because of the strict maritime ban policy that social contradictions were intensified, which made Japanese pirates more rampant.
Tan Lun, who participated in the Japanese invasion, said: "Fujian people are coastal and residents don't know much about it. Generally speaking, they can't eat unless they live in the sea. A country at sea, thousands of miles away, can't be a country without China silk. The stricter the ban, the thicker its value and the more people will abide by it. If adultery is not allowed, it will follow. People used to say that the source of disadvantages is like a rat hole, so we must leave one. If we want to plug all the benefits, then we will grind them off, which is exactly what we mean. Today, not only foreigners, but also the benefits of fish and shrimp here, rice merchants in Guangdong and white grain in Zhangzhou have been banned. What's the point? Where is the food and clothing? If so, why not seduce with a thief? " It profoundly reveals the trajectory of coastal people's development from maritime smuggling trade to Japanese pirates under the background of increasingly severe maritime ban.
Here, I might as well extract a passage from Professor Zhang Weihua: "To study the problem of' Japanese pirates running rampant' in the Ming Dynasty, we have to contact the dynamics of overseas trade in the Ming Dynasty and the' sea ban' policy implemented in the Ming Dynasty. However, we can only say that these facts have had some objective effects on the "Japanese invaders" and can never be said to be the root cause of the "Japanese invaders". "Japanese pirates" are basically robbers who plundered China from Japan. Even though the trade relations between China and China are not restricted, and's maritime ban is not so strict, these bandits still want to plunder China, but the degree may be somewhat different. As for the bankrupt farmers and refugees in China who participated in the' pirates', they plundered and slaughtered the people of the motherland and became scum who betrayed the motherland. " From this passage by Professor Zhang Weihua, we can clearly see the reasons of Japanese invasion during Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty.
To sum up, it can be seen that the reasons of Japanese invasion during Jiajing period were mainly caused by political, economic and military factors of Japan and Ming Dynasty. Because Japan was in the Warring States period, the long-term war and famine made many bankrupt farmers "forced by hunger and embarrassment to correct the plunder of the masses", which constituted the inevitability of Japanese invasion. This inevitability broke out through accidental opportunities such as Sejong's fatuity, political corruption, the decadence of coastal defense and the severity of the maritime ban, while the invasion of western colonists only intensified.