appear most prominently in the “little ship” raids are from the established pirate families of Kyūshū, who were to be joined so enthusiastically by such grandees as Takezaki Suenaga.
The Pirates Return
When Zheng Sixiao, a Chinese scholar who was committed to the restoration of the Song Dynasty, heard of the defeat of the ruling Yuan emperor by the Japanese, he was ecstatic, and composed a poem to celebrate the victory. But he was also very wary of the Japanese, writing that they were “fierce and do not fear death,” and that ten Japanese soldiers would fight an enemy unit of one hundred men. He also made a particular reference to Japanese swords, writing that “their swords were extremely sharp.”25 Similar comments were recorded in a later description of the wakō made to the king of Korea. This account states that the pirates were a distinct subgroup of Japanese. They took their families on their boats with them when they went on raids. Their dark skin, sun-bleached clothing, accessories, and language all differed from those of other Japanese. They were skilled at using bows and swords, and adept at diving under water and boring holes in the bottom of enemy boats.26 Later descriptions are expressed in a very similar vein, as for example the Riben kao of Ye Xianggao:
It is their habit to be fond of looting. They disdain life and are bloodthirsty.... The blades of the Japanese swords are sharp. Chinese swords are inferior. The men go hatless and their hair is dishevelled. They have branded faces and tattooed bodies.27
Bu Datong added in his Bei Wo tuji that the Japanese “make their homes on islands and use boats instead of horses. They are adept with swords and spears, and use them on their raids.”28
Zheng Sixiao’s wish for the end of the Yuan Dynasty came true in 1368 when Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), who had overthrown the Mongols in the previous year, became China’s first emperor of the Ming dynasty. As was customary, the new emperor dispatched missions to neighboring countries, including Japan, to inform them of this momentous development. As was also customary, he encouraged the recipients to send tribute to the new Son of Heaven. By this time the Japanese had clearly returned to piracy, because the message he sent to Japan in 1369 included the words, “Japanese pirates repeatedly plunder areas along the coast, separating men forever from their wives and children and destroying property and lives.” He went on to demand that Japan should either send tribute and declare itself a vassal state of China, or ensure by military means that its least attractive exports stayed at home. In fact the wakō were now raiding further than ever, taking in the Chinese provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian.29
The Ming embassy was received at Hakata by Prince Kanenaga, who had been sent to Kyūshū by the “Southern Court.” This is the name given to one of the two warring imperial factions whose rivalries dominated Japanese politics and warfare during much of the fourteenth century. The wars between them are known as the Nambokuchō Wars (the wars between the Southern and Northern Courts). The continued unrest meant that Prince Kanenaga lacked both the authority and the means either to consent to vassal status or to suppress the pirates. The embassy was therefore a resounding failure, a disaster compounded by the imprisonment of the unfortunate ambassador and the execution of some of his colleagues.
In 1370 another envoy was sent to confront Prince Kanenaga over his failure to control his subjects. At first the threats seemed to be effective, and the necessary guarantees were given. It was only when the Chinese discovered that the prince was no more than a provincial military commander that they realized that his new promises of tribute and pirate curtailment were worthless. The Ming emperor was greatly displeased, and wrote that the Japanese were petty thieves with shorn hair and mottled clothes, who spoke a language that sounded like croaking frogs.30 Numerous other Ming documents add descriptions of the cruelties of the Japanese pirates on their raids: When they attacked a community, they burned government offices and private houses to the ground, desecrated graves, and stole valuables. Murder and rape were commonplace. In 1439 in Zhejiang, children were tortured with boiling water, and pregnant women cut open by the blades of the Japanese swords.31
Korea also suffered anew. During the ten years between 1376 and 1385, there were 174 recorded wakō raids on Korea. Some of these expeditions amounted to miniature Japanese invasions of Korea, with as many as three thousand wakō penetrating far from the coast, ravaging Kaesong, the Koryo dynasty’s capital, and even pillaging as far north as P’yongyang. Ships carrying tax rice (taxes paid in rice) were seized, and when the Koreans decided to transport the rice by land, the wakō followed them inland and sacked the granaries. In addition to looting property, the wakō became slave traders, taking the well-established Korean tradition of slave owning to its logical conclusion by shipping their captives back to Japan. In 1429, Pak So-saeng, sent on a diplomatic mission to Japan, was to report on how conditions had improved since the “bad old days”:
Images of the Japanese, from the Ming dynasty Xuefu quanbian. The picture on the lower right shows a wako with a drawn sword.
Previously, the Wa pirates would invade our country, seize people, and make slaves of them.... Wherever we went and whenever our ships put into port in Japan, slaves would struggle against each other in their efforts to flee to us, but they were unable to do so because of the chains that their masters had put on them.32
Matters improved for Korea under the guidance of Yi Song-gye, who was later to found the Yi, or Choson, dynasty. He believed in hitting back at the wakō. In 1380, over five hundred Japanese ships were set ablaze at the mouth of the Kum river after being blasted by Korean cannon; three years later, Admiral Chong Chi, in command of forty-seven ships, chased away more than one hundred Japanese ships with gunfire. In 1389, a successful raid was carried out against the pirates based on the Japanese island of Tsushima. Three hundred Japanese ships were burned and more than one hundred Korean prisoners were repatriated.
But the most important influence against the wakō was political, because in 1392, the same year in which the Choson dynasty was founded, Japan acquired a new shogun. His name was Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and in addition to the achievements for which he is best known—the reconciliation between the rival Southern and Northern Courts and the building of the Kinkakuji, or Golden Pavilion, in Kyoto—Yoshimitsu accepted from the Ming emperor the nominal title of “King of Japan.” Ashikaga Yoshimitsu thereby formally assumed the status of subject of the Ming, and restored a situation that the Chinese considered to have existed from the Han dynasty until it was grievously sundered by acts of piracy and war. The benefit to Yoshimitsu and to Japan was trade. Henceforth, trade would be carried on under the tally system, which legitimated voyages that—in the eyes of the Ming, at any rate—brought “tribute” to the court of the Son of Heaven.33
The newly licensed trade agreements with the Ming provided the stability that both governments needed to deal with piracy. That the Japanese did take measures to control the pirates is evident from 1405, when an envoy to China from the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu arrived with twenty captive pirates from Iki and Tsushima. The Ming emperor was delighted, and handed the pirates back to the envoy to be disposed of as he thought fit. Their fate was to be taken to Ningbo and boiled to death in a cauldron.34
Following this dramatic demonstration of goodwill, trade flourished legitimately, and Japanese daimyō (feudal lords) returned captives for profitable gifts. The Koreans conducted business through the Sō family of Tsushima, whom they held personally responsible for the good behavior of the Japanese. Raids declined greatly, but when there were new incursions in 1419, the Korean government quickly took drastic measures in retaliation. Seven hundred and thirty-seven lawful Japanese traders were executed as a reprisal, and another punitive expedition was launched against Tsushima at a time when it was known that a wakō fleet from Tsushima was out at sea. Under the orders of King T’aejong, two hundred ships and seventeen thousand Korean soldiers set out to destroy the pirates’ bases before they had time to return.35
