Wokou

16th century Japanese pirate raids.

Wokou (Chinese: 倭寇; Japanese pronounciation: wakō; Korean pronounciation: waegu) were pirates who raided the coastlines of China and Korea from the 13th century onwards. They were comprised largely of Japanese soldiers, ronin and merchants, and later also of Chinese bandits and smugglers.

The early phase of Wokou activity began in the 13th century and extended to the second half of the 14th century. Japanese pirates concentrated on the Korean peninsula and spread across the Yellow Sea to China. The second major phase of Wokou activity occurred in the early to mid-16th century. During this period the composition and leadership of the Wokou changed significantly. At their height in the 1550s, the Wokou operated throughout the seas of East Asia, even sailing up large river systems such as the Yangzi.

The term "Wokou" is a combination of "Wo", referring to the Japanese, and "kou", meaning "bandit" or "brigand". "Wo" was a derogatory term for the Japanese meaning dwarf, used by the Chinese since at least the beginning of the first millenium AD. The earliest textual reference to the term "Wokou" comes from a stele erected by King Gwanggaeto of Goguryeo in southern Manchuria in 414.

Kamakura period

The first raid by Wokou on record occurred in the summer of 1223, on the south coast of Goryeo. The Goryeosa states that "Japanese (pirates) attacked Gumju." Two more minor attacks are recorded for 1226, and continued intermittedly for the next four decades. Most of the Wokou originated from Tsushima (called the "island Wae" by the Koreans) and Hizen. Under diplomatic pressure from the Goryeo government, the Kamakura shogunate made an effort to keep seafaring military groups under control. In 1227 Mutō Sukeyori, the shogunate's commissioner in Kyushu, had ninety suspected brigands decapitated in front of a Goryeo envoy. In 1263, after Tsushima Wokou raided Ungjin, Japanese negotiators reconfirmed the policies of limiting trade and prohibiting piracy.

The period around the Mongol invasions of Japan were a low point for Wokou activity. This was partly due to the higher degree of military preparedness in Goryeo. They fortified Gumju in 1251 and in 1265, after entering into tribute relations with the Mongols, the powerful Sambyeolcho (三別抄) was deployed to the southern provinces. The Kamakura shogunate, for its part, increased its authority in Kyushu and was better able to mobilise and control former Wokou groups against the threat of Mongol invasion.

As the Kamakura shogunate and Goryeo state both declined following the Mongol invasions, the Wokou again became active. In 1323, for example, a large-scale raid took place in Jeolla province. Raids such as this developed into full-scale pirate attacks by the end of the 14th century.

Nanboku-cho period

The Wokou resumed their activities in earnest in 1350, driven by chaotic conditions and the lack of a strong authority in Japan. For the next half-century, sailing principally from Iki and Tsushima, they engulfed the southern half of Goryeo. The worst period was the decade between 1376 and 1385, when no fewer than 174 instances of pirate raids were recorded in Korea. Some involved bands of as many as three thousand penetrating deep into the Korean interior. The raiders repeatedly looted the Korean capital Gaeseong, and on occasion reached as far north as the mouth of the Taedong River and the general area of Pyongyang. They looted grain stores and took people away for slavery and ransom. The conditions caused by the Wokou greatly contributed to the downfall of the Goryeo Dynasty in 1392. General Yi Seonggye, founder of the Yi Dynasty, rose to prominence due to his successes against the Wokou.

The Koreans sought redress from the Muromachi shogunate and the cooperation of the shogunal deputy (tandai 探題) in Kyushu, Imagawa Ryōshun. Because Kyushu was under the sway of the Southern Court, however, neither the shogunate nor its deputy could suppress the pirates as requested. In 1389 and in 1419, the Koreans attacked the pirate bases on Tsushima themselves but were forced to withdraw without inflicting much damage.

The Wokou bands were also active in China, where the earliest record of Japanese pirates is from 1302. In 1358, and again in 1363, the raids continued along the entire eastern seaboard, but particularly on the coast of what is now Shandong. Toward the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Wokou threat began to intensify. The first Wokou raid in the Ming Dynasty occurred in 1369, in Zhejiang.

In response, the Hongwu Emperor sent his commanders to construct a number of forts along the coast and dispatched two envoys to Prince Kanenaga, the Southern Court's "General of the Western Pacification Command" in Kyushu. The first, in 1396, presented a threatening ultimatum from the Chinese emperor in which he warned that he would send forces to "capture and exterminate your bandits, head straight for your country, and put your king in bonds" unless the Wokou raids were stopped. Unimpressed, Prince Kaneyoshi had the first Ming envoy killed and refused the demands. However, when the second envoy arrived in 1370, he submitted to the Ming as a "subject". He sent an embassy the next year, and reutnring more than seventy men and women who had been captured at Mingzhou (Ningbo) and Taizhou.

Muromachi period

In 1392, the conflict between the Southern and Northern courts in japan was finally resolved under the auspices of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Though diplomatic initiatives brought by China and Korea were successful in gaining the cooperation of the Muromachi bakufu at its height, it did not put down the Wokou.

They went on raiding China in force until at least 1419. In that year, a large pirate fleet of more than thirty saill assembled in Tsushima and headed north along Korea's Yellow Sea coast. Kept under observation, it was finally ambushed and smashed off Wanghaiguo in Liaodong by a provincial military commander, who was said to have taken between 700 and 1500 heads. After that, the Wokou steered clear of Liaodong, though they hit other areas of China sporadically.

In Korea, the Wokou were stemmed by action from regional notables of western Japan, whom the Koreans influenced with concessions.

Later Wokou raids

An inequitable taxation and property system, combined with endemic corruption, forced many Chinese farmers in Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang to seek livelihoods in the sea. The Ming ban on ocean-going, selectively enforced by local authorities, made these people dissidents. Sometime pirates and sometime merchants, they used their local knowledge to make successful raiding expeditions. In 1533 the Ming government Ministry of War complained that armed fleets were pillaging at will along the coast. They often also engaged in illegal smuggling operations and raided rival merchant marine. During the 1540s the disparate groups of Chinese pirates and traders became more organised. They gathered on islands off the eastern coastline and colluded with the Japanese.

In this way, the acts of piracy and overseas trade were interconnected. In 1523, for example, the Hosokawa trading party in Ningbo attacked its rival mission from the Ōuchi family and then proceeded to loot the city. It seized a number of ships, and set sail. The Ming commander sent in pursuit was killed in a sea battle.

Proposals to appoint a governor with jurisdiction over coastal defense first appeared in 1524 after the Ningbo affray. Supporters argued that the Japanese were as much a threat as the Mongols and that administrative arrangements in effect on the northern borders should therefore be applied to the coast as well. In 1529, after a garrison on the coast had rioted and fled to join pirate bands, a censor was sent to inspect coastal defenses, to coordinate the suppression of piracy, and to punish the leaders of the riot. In 1531 this official was transferred and not replaced.

Zhu Wan

From 1539, the tribute trade system broke down altogether. The size of Japanese fleets sailing from Japan to trade with private Chinese merchants grew each year and so did the violence associated with it. The typical wokou attack at this time was for the sea-based raiders to make swift attacks from their island strongholds and then retreat to their ships. In many cases violent altercations were the result of conflict over payment of debts by wealthy families to their trading creditors. One of the Xie family's estates in Shaoxing was looted and burned in the summer of 1547 for this reason.

In November 1547 Zhu Wan, was put in charge of Zhejiang and Fujian coastal defense, to eradicate the cause of piracy - overseas trade. In February 1548 a large body of pirates raided the coastal counties of Ningbo and Taizhou, killing, burning, and looting without encountering any effective resistance. Zhu arrived in Ningbo in April and shortly thereafter, he led an attack on wokou harbour at Shuangyu Island. In March 1549 he attacked a large merchant fleet anchored of the coast of southern Fujian. Despite Zhu's successes, he was dismissed from office and during impeachment proceedings, he committed suicide in January 1550. His coastal defense fleet was dispersed.

Wang Zhi

By the 1550s the Chinese merchant Wang Zhi had organised a large trading consortium and commanded a well-armed fleet with sailors and soldiers to protect it. Between 1539 and 1552 he cooperated with local military intendants on several occasions, expecting relaxation of the ban on overseas trade. When the ban was instead tightened in 1551, Wang began organising large attacks on official establishments, granaries, county and district treasuries, and incidentally on the surrounding countryside, which was thoroughly pillaged. Brigandage along the coast of Zhejiang became so widespread and common that towns and villages had to erect palisades for security.

In the spring of 1552 raiding parties of several hundred people attacked all along the coast of Zhejiang. In the summer of 1553 Wang Zhi assembled a large fleet of hundreds of ships to raid the coast of Zhejiang from Taizhou north. Several garrisons were briefly taken, and several district seats were besieged. Early in 1554 fortified bases were established along the coast of Zhejiang from which larger raiding parties set out on long inland campaigns. By 1555 they were approaching the great cities of the Yangzi Delta, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing. Wokou raiders had established fortified bases in various towns and forts on the coast of Zhejiang and garrisoned them with a combined force of 20,000 men.

The two Chinese commanders most famous in resisting the Wokou were Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou. Both men were from coastal provinces and had good knowledge of naval warfare. Qi organised a force of some 4000, known as the "Qi Family Army", made up mostly of farmers and miners. He won a succession of victories in 1555 in defending Taizhou. Yu Dayou's first significant victory was in 1553, when his marines stormed the island of Putuoshan and expelled the Wokou camp there. Two years later, he killed some two thousand Wokou north of Jiaxing, winning the greatest victory in the Wokou wars.

During the Seven-Year War (1592–1598) the term was used by both Chinese and Korean troops for the expeditionary force of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

A good example of this is the career of Zheng Zhilong, father of the famed "patriot" Zheng Chenggong.

References

Primary sources:

• Zheng Ruohui, 籌海図編
• 老松堂日本行録