{"id":29170,"date":"2023-10-03T08:50:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T06:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=241151"},"modified":"2023-10-03T10:11:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T08:11:39","slug":"when-pirates-ruled-asias-waves","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/when-pirates-ruled-asias-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"When pirates ruled Asia\u2019s waves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pirates didn\u2019t only spread chaos in Caribbean and Atlantic waters. Adam Clulow reveals how east Asian raiders, including a female commander ignored by historians, terrorised China\u2019s shores from the 16th century <\/p>

By Professor Adam Clulow\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 03 October 2023 at 06:50 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Spring 1553 brought terror to large swathes of the coast. Settlements along the shore were hit with successive assaults from the sea as, in \u201cthe third month\u2026 [pirates launched] a large campaign to attack [the coast]. The combined fleet consisted of several hundred warships that covered the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

This account, which goes on to list the towns and cities that fell to the marauders\u2019 depredations, gives a sense of the scale of these raids, describing a vast armada of pirate vessels carrying thousands of men.<\/p>\n

These large-scale series of raids weren\u2019t launched on the Spanish Main by Caribbean buccaneers or by Barbary corsairs<\/a> in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

In fact, the description comes from the Mingshi, a history of the Ming dynasty in China. It recounts an attack by so-called wak\u014d, or Japanese pirates, under the command of their leader Wang Zhi, who assembled huge fleets for raids on the coast.<\/p>\n

Piracy has always been a global phenomenon. For millennia, pirates have preyed on rich shipping lanes and vulnerable coastal settlements. Although European pirates dominate the popular imagination, east Asia \u2013 particularly China and Japan \u2013 was one of the great centres of historical piracy.<\/p>\n

East Asian piracy was vast in scale and reach. It was also stunningly persistent with successive waves of large-scale piracy. And it was strikingly cosmopolitan, with multi-ethnic crews straddling national boundaries.<\/p>\n

In the 16th century, huge pirate fleets consisting of hundreds of vessels ransacked the Chinese coast. Although dressed as ferocious Japanese warriors, most of these pirates were in fact Chinese, and they were led by Chinese entrepreneurs based in Japan.<\/p>\n

Then, in the 17th century, a new pirate king created a maritime organisation that would come to challenge the Dutch East India Company<\/a>, eventually invading Taiwan and ejecting the Dutch from their prized east Asian colony.<\/p>\n

And in the 19th century, a Chinese female leader emerged from the Cantonese sex trade to command tens of thousands of pirates.<\/p>\n

Cycle of crime<\/h3>\n
\"Blackbeard\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
An illustration of the infamous Blackbeard. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

For most people today, the default image of a historical pirate is based on notorious European outlaws such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such figures, who were active primarily in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, became so well-known because writers like Captain Charles Johnson<\/a>, author of the bestselling 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates<\/em>, created a larger-than-life image that penetrated deep into the popular imagination.<\/p>\n

But these mariners who operated during what\u2019s now called the Golden Age of Piracy<\/a> \u2013 spanning the later 17th and early 18th centuries \u2013 were generally not very successful. Their careers were short and violent, marked by the occasional seizure of rich vessels but usually ending in capture or execution.<\/p>\n

By contrast, east Asian pirates developed organisations that, at their zenith, looked a lot like actual states with huge resources and reach. Historians who work on pirates talk about a piracy cycle \u2013 applicable globally, but key to understanding east Asian pirates.<\/p>\n

According to this model, pirates transitioned through four stages as they became more successful.<\/p>\n

In the first stage, small, fragmented groups emerged, usually drawing support from impoverished coastal populations. They engaged in low-level piracy using one or two vessels, attacking vulnerable ships or settlements but with little organisation or staying power. In this phase, pirates were little more than small-scale parasites, preying on commerce but with limited capacity to inflict serious damage.<\/p>\n