The Ming Dynasty formulated an unprecedented policy of sea ban on overseas trade activities, which focused on the Fujian Sea trade group. In the actual situation of "living by the sea" in the Minhai region, the process of forming the power of the smuggling trade group is actually the process of the Ming Dynasty's overseas trade policy showing two major characteristics, one is to implement the tributary trade system, and the other is to formulate an unprecedented sea ban policy. The two correspond to the policy of strictly prohibiting all overseas trade in order to exclude other forms of trade other than official tributary trade. "Tribute trade" is a foreign "tribute" authorized by the Ming Dynasty government to pay tribute to the dynasty, they generally attach a certain number of goods, according to a certain tribute period, tribute road, tribute ship and number of people, trade in the port of the tribute road, the government special city shipping department in charge of its affairs.
Tributary trade was the only legal foreign trade approved in the early Ming Dynasty. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, three coastal ports in Ningbo, Zhejiang, Quanzhou, Fujian, and Guangzhou, Guangdong, were established as institutions in charge of foreign trade, ningbo through Japan, Quanzhou (later moved to Fuzhou) through Ryukyu, Guangzhou (later moved to Gaozhou Dianbai County, and finally moved to Macao) through Champa City, Juluo and later the Western countries. Although the municipal system followed the Tang, Song, and Yuan systems, its purpose was not to develop overseas trade, but only a political significance, in order to "communicate with distant feelings, suppress treacherous businessmen, and prohibit the use of the law to eliminate the gap." This symbolic trade was also declared a failure due to the theory that "woes originated in the city", and the Ming government in the Jiajing period abolished the three cities and imposed a sea ban. In the final Ming Dynasty, although the policy of sea prohibition was occasionally relaxed, it continued until the end of the Ming Dynasty, which had a greater impact on the entire social pattern of the Ming Dynasty.
<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > first, the sea ban on Fujian at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty</h3>
At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, it set the policy direction of banning the sea, mainly for political reasons, and Ming Taizu was worried that the collusion between the "traitors in the interior" and the hostile forces at sea would pose a threat to the regime. An important part of the hostile forces at sea was the remnants of Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen, who not only controlled the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, but also expanded the scope of the division to northern Anhui and the southern part of Shandong, although Zhang Shicheng and others were later defeated, many remnants of the forces still fled to the southeast coast. In order to put an end to the communication between maritime forces and foreign countries, Ming Taizu resolutely implemented the policy of sea ban. One of the key targets targeted by the implementation of the sea ban is the Fujian coastal trade group. "The Ministry of Zhaohu imposed strict prohibitions on traffic.
The coastal military and civilian lawsuits have ordered the traders to be punished with crimes. "After Ming Taizu, the fujian coast has always been a sensitive area of concern for the imperial court. For example, Emperor Ming Jingtai "ordered the Ministry of Punishment to forbid the coastal residents of Fujian, and did not have to accept and sell Chinese goods, buy military weapons, and drive the sea to traffic the Ryukyu kingdom to attract Kou." During the Jiajing period, the coastal residents of Fujian used the tributary trade to carry out smuggling activities, and repeatedly led the court to discuss. The Records of Emperor Ming Shizong records that the King of Yushi used the banner to discuss the residents of Fujian Coastals that every time the Yi people paid tribute, traffic lures, and the places were troubled, it was appropriate to be strict; In August, at the beginning of the year, Zhejiang Inspector Yushi Pan said: "Zhang, Quan and other provinces of The military and civilians privately built double-masted large ships and went to the sea, called merchants, and when they were robbed; Please cure everything.
"Under the matter--The soldiers discussed: "The inspector of Zhejiang and Fu'er provinces inspected the sea vessel, but the two-masted one was arrested; Although it is not a fan thing, it is a fan thing, and it is a border guard. Officials and military those who know and indulge, who are smokey. The Military Department recorded: "The two provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian border each other by sea, and in the previous years, the Zhangmin privately built large ships with two masts, and used weapons and firearms to violate the prohibition of Shangsaka, so they robbed; It has been repeatedly strictly prohibited by the will of the government. The first division plays with the company, and the day is long and the law is relaxed; Often unbridled, the Coast Guard smells it. All this proves that the overseas trade in Fujian in the Ming Dynasty has become normalized, and the private construction of large ships by Fujian coastal residents has become a scale, which is the key object of the implementation of the imperial court's policy of sea ban.
<h3 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, Fujian's maritime trade has become unstoppable</h3>
Fujian's maritime trade had already shown a prosperous scene as early as the Yuan Dynasty, but the implementation of the Ming Dynasty's sea ban policy made the Fujian Sea region face a new historical situation. Behind all kinds of appearances hides the bitterness of "living by the sea" in the coastal areas of Fujian. The "Eight Min Tongzhi", "Quanzhou Fuzhi", "Zhangzhou Fuzhi" and so on pointed out that Fujian is backed by mountains and the sea, and there is less arable land, so the local people are very dependent on seafarers for fishing and foreign trade. Xu Xueju, Xu Fuyuan, Jin Xuezeng, Chen Zizhen, Nan Juyi, and others who were in charge of the Fujian Governor also repeatedly went to the imperial court to recount the actual situation of the coastal residents of southern Fujian who depended on the sea for their livelihood, believing that the sea ban was the root cause of the wokou disaster.
Dai Chongxiao further pointed out that in the border seas of Fujian, the poor people rely on the sea for their livelihood and take fishing and selling salt as their livelihood, but their profits are very small, and only the foolish and weak will engage in the business of fishing. Now it is not allowed to go through the same thing, and to restore the physiology of fish salt and despair, this generation is willing to sit and wait! Therefore, the more forbidden the more chaotic." Dai Chongxiao also exposed the objective reason why Fujian merchants did not take the land route to do business but were willing to trade by sea, "The matter in Central Fujian is different from that of Zhejiang Zhizhi, but it is only appropriate to care for it."
When the Zhang and Quan people transported goods to the provincial capital, the price of silver per hundred catties of foot for seawalkers would not exceed three points at most, and the price of land travelers increased by twenty times, and it was very difficult to find profits. The fish salt produced in its land is cheaper than that of Zhejiang. Cover shoulders picky ridge, no way to sell so also. Therefore, the cunning people of Zhang, Quan Qiangliang, and the goods are full of money, and the more they are suppressed, the more they are blazing, and they are invincible, and they cannot be killed." In the eyes of the Ming Dynasty literati, it was the "cunning people" who engaged in maritime trade, but they were all soberly aware of the irreconcilable contradiction between the policy of sea prohibition and the irrepressible trade economy of Fujian. In fact, the Wokou of the Jiajing period were closely related to the policy of sea prohibition. Mr. Fan Shuzhi and other scholars have examined that "most of the so-called Wokou are Chinese", "there are few real Wukou and many false Wukou", and pointed out that the Majority of Min people, "Haikou is about 200 people, its chieftains and retinues, and Fujian and Wuwen, Tai, Ningbo people, there are also Hui people, and The Min people are even 67."
Tang Shunzhi held that "the plague began in Fujian, and the roots of the chaos in Fujian are also too strict," "The sea is too strict, and those who see the ship in the sea and have weapons and firearms are hunted and cured regardless of whether they are goods, and everything such as rice grain, fish, salt, and so on is strictly prohibited. Knowing this, the people's feelings are stretched, and the source of chaos can be blocked."
It can be seen that the pirates are not really pirates, some are coastal fishermen with weapons for self-defense, and some are "drama thieves" who have been engaged in trade along the coasts of Fujian and Zhejiang for many years, and the Majority of Fujian people. Tang Shu believed that the proliferation of pirates in the Jiajing period was closely related to the strict control of the sea ban policy, that is, after six years of Jiajing, officials were strictly prohibited by the public, the trade routes were not open, and the merchants could not make a living, so they turned to Kou; Twenty years after Jiajing, the sea ban was stricter and there were more thieves. Because of the wokou war, the Ming Dynasty repeatedly discussed the matter of opening up the sea ban.
During the period when Hu Zongxian was recruiting Wang Zhi, Hu Zongxian discussed with Tang Shu whether to agree with Wang Zhi's request to "open a port and mutual market", although Tang Shu was inclined to open a mutual market in Hong Kong, but at that time, most of the courtiers opposed the solicitation and opening of the port, and under the pressure of public opinion, the imperial court finally ordered Wang Zhi's execution. Wang Zhi was lured to prison by Hu Zongxian in November 36, jiajing, and was beheaded on December 25, 38. Wang Zhi's death caused the Wukou on the sea to have no refuge, and they became more and more resentful, so they turned south to fight, and launched more tragic disasters in Fujian and other places. There is a clear record of this in the history books, and there are also painful records in the literati collections at that time: in the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing and the following year, thousands of homes outside Quanzhou were burned, and the official palace and the house were all ashes; In the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing, the gentry of Quanzhou spontaneously donated money and asked the prefect Xiong Ruda to build a city wall to resist the Wokou, Xiong Ruda personally commanded, and Lu Zhongtuo of Zhi County, Jinjiang, supervised the construction of the city.
(Fortification) has not yet been accomplished. The erosion of the living people, the ashes of the huts, are beyond sight; Jiajing year (Jiajing thirty-seven years), Wu Da Kou Wu Min, trapped Fuqing, long drive to Hui'an City, Xing, Spring vibration. ...... In the summer of the next year (the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing), the thief jie giant ship attacked Chongwu by night from the sea route, and the thieves did not take precautions, and the thieves entered their houses, and thousands of households were saved, and a hundred households died. It was not until the forty-fifth year of Jiajing that the Wukou forces were eliminated, and Mindi was able to gradually relieve the suffering of the Wu rebellion. After experiencing the Jiajing Rebellion, the imperial court had to seriously study the issue of sea prohibition and opening up, which led to the "Longqing Kaihai" policy specially implemented in Haicheng County, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province. The imperial court was awakened to the inexorability of maritime trade, but due to the ancestral system in the early Ming Dynasty, it only opened its mouth in a small county town in Fujian, and this policy of symbolism over practicality brought new opportunities and challenges to the development path of maritime trade in the later Ming Dynasty.
<h3 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, the Minhai smuggling trade group under the sea ban</h3>
Under the policy of sea prohibition, except for tributary trade, any "mutual market" behavior is prohibited, that is, under the premise of tribute, public-to-public mutual markets are allowed, and any private trade is strictly prohibited. The proposal of "Longqing Kaihai" has partially abolished the sea ban policy that has lasted for two hundred years since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, but only with Haicheng as a demonstration, the official position of strict sea ban has never fundamentally changed, and the contradiction between the sea ban policy and the fujian coastal merchants still exists. In order to resist the restrictions of the official sea ban, the Fujian maritime merchant group found two powerful paths, some of which relied on force to incarnate pirates, and even deceived into the Wokou, becoming one of the scourges of the Wokou war; The other part relied on or bypassed the official government, colluded with the gentry and local tycoons, tribute envoys, foreign businessmen, and even official magnates to carry out secret smuggling activities, and gradually formed a smuggling trade group. Smuggling existed in the early Ming Dynasty, and even though the prohibition of the sea was imposed, it was not impossible to extinguish it. Before Chenghua, the imperial court created a relatively relaxed trade environment due to its activities in the South China Sea, and the trade group was mainly ordinary merchants, but during the Jiajing period, the sea ban became stricter, and the trade dominance gradually shifted to the hands of the rich. At that time, the number of merchants and people in southern Fujian who formed parties and went to the sea was increasing, the phenomenon of collusion between officials and businessmen and internal and external deception was rampant, and the huge houses in southern Fujian were also involved, and the smuggling trend reached its extreme in the middle of Jiajing.
Zhang Xie's "Examination of the East and West Oceans" records the path of the rich families in southern Fujian to make a fortune under the condition of stricter sea prohibitions. The magnates colluded with the smugglers at sea, from the small profits at the time of Chenghua and Hongzhi to the more and more disadvantages in the Jiajing period. Under the inducement of huge profits, Quanzhou Anhai, Zhangzhou Yuegang and other large towns in southern Fujian, the local small people colluded with fan disciples, secretly hid foreign goods, in order not to expose the matter, often rely on the eunuch family of the big surname to get shelter. With the participation of the rich and the rich, the rich and the poor take what they need, the stubborn and the weak help each other, and the poor do not hesitate to commit themselves to the rich family to seek cover, and eventually form a smuggling group.
The process of forming the power of the smuggling trade group is actually the process of the confrontation between the Merchants of Fujian and the policy of sea ban, and it is precisely because of the implementation of the policy of sea ban that the emergence of the smuggling group has been promoted. In the Ming Dynasty, Fujian was the hometown of many sages, and there were many important officials in the Fujian imperial court, and the officials serving in Fujian had to rely on local village sages to carry out their work, so there were also many acts of accommodation for local townspeople or magnates. Under the protection of powerful forces, such as coastal defense officers, eunuchs of the admiralty, etc., even colluded with the smuggling syndicate to share benefits, and if they did not participate, most of them did not dare to ask questions. After Emperor Ming Yingzong, the imperial court's edicts were useless, and the officers and soldiers in the coastal areas paid no attention to private trade at sea.
bibliography:
Continued Literature General Examination.
History of Ming
Ming Taizu Records
Wu Bizhi