Isolation, Neglect, and Decay: A Study of the Ming Dynasty’s Coastal Consciousness

Abstract

Wokou pirate incursions battered the Ming’s extensive coastline for most of the dynasty’s 276 year-long lifespan. The social dislocation and suffering endured by coastal communities presented a serious crisis to the Ming court. Yet, it responded to the persistent harassment of its coastline with an apathetic attitude and inadequate measures that were defensive rather than offensive. As such, this paper attempts to demonstrate that the Ming predominantly lacked a coastal consciousness. It begins by investigating the Ming’s isolationist maritime policies as enforced by a series of Ming emperors and the precipitous decline of the Ming’s coastal fortifications. It then attempts to explain the Ming’s lack of an acute coastal consciousness by examining three underpinning factors. Specifically, it studies China’s land-based condition as derivative of its continental consciousness; its historical relationship with the ocean; and its anxiety toward the Northern Steppe. This paper concludes that the Ming was predisposed to neglecting its maritime problems in favor of its continental ones, and that its proclivities would have serious consequences for China’s maritime future.

Keywords

Ming Dynasty, Navy, Decline, Maritime Policy, Northern Border

---

1.1 Introduction

Lin Daoqian was well-known to the Jiajing Emperor’s court. During Jiajing’s reign, the Ming’s extensive coastline was frequently subjected to pirate attacks, many of which were led by Lin, a Chinese collaborator in the infamous Wokou incursions. In 1563, Lin once again launched a raid on the Chinese coast; the military general Yu Dayou, whom the Ming had dispatched to curb such attacks, was swift in pursuing the pirate leader. Yet, Yu only pursued Lin, who went into hiding in Taiwan, as far as the Penghu Island chain, where Yu established a temporary garrison. After Lin fled to Champa, Yu’s garrison quickly disbanded and withdrew back to the mainland.¹ Why Yu did not put an end to such a significant source of the Ming’s maritime troubles is indeed puzzling. A question that not only underpins this historical incident, but also the larger context in which it occurred, serves as the primary issue that this paper attempts to address: did the Ming possess a coastal consciousness? With 14,500 kilometers of exposed shoreline, it would be reasonable to expect that the Ming would have ventured beyond its coast to take proactive steps to ensure its security. Yet, as this essay argues, the Ming in fact lacked this awareness: instead it chose to deliberately ignore maritime affairs. This paper begins by examining the predominantly defensive maritime policies enforced by a series of Ming emperors, focusing on the Hongwu, Tianshun, and Jiajing Emperors. It then examines the rapid rate at which the Ming’s coastal fortifications fell into disrepair, with both naval technology and personnel suffering from neglect. In particular, the Zhengtong Emperor’s reign is identified as the juncture at which this process accelerated considerably. In order to explain the absence of a coastal consciousness, this paper then delves deeper by exploring the Ming’s continental consciousness, as derived from China Proper’s environmental characteristics, its historical relationship with the ocean, and its fear of the northern steppe. The paper concludes that as inherited from its dynastic predecessors, it appears that the land-based Ming was indeed predisposed to turning its attention away from the ocean and instead toward the continent. 

 

1.2 Maritime Policies and Fortifications

Maritime prohibitions came to largely characterize the Ming’s strategy for dealing with the piratical incursions. Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, spared no time in shutting down China’s maritime borders by issuing a series of edicts. In 1371 he declared, “It is forbidden that any person living along the coast venture out into the sea.”² In 1381, he expanded his ban to include the people’s economic livelihoods: “It is commanded of General Tanghe to monitor the Zhejiang and Fujian coastal regions; it is forbidden for the people in this region to fish in the sea. This is a measure to ward off pirates.”³ Only six years later, Hongwu then decreed that those living in Haitan Island off the coast of Fujian Province were to move inland in a further attempt to prevent attacks from Wokou pirates.⁴ Moreover, Hongwu’s explicitly defensive posture established a precedent that most of his successors followed. The Tianshun Emperor (r. 1457-1464) issued such an edict: “The servicemen and people of Zhejiang and Zhili are strictly prohibited from privately manufacturing ocean-going vessels. Weapons that may be used by the people to engage in maritime piracy are to be collected. Should anyone violate this order, they will be punished to the most extreme extent; in addition, their familial dependents will be sent to the border regions for punitive military service.”⁵ Finally, the Jiajing Emperor became the author of a formidable maritime ban that, in 1525, shut down the Ming’s entire coastline. It was only when Jiajing passed away in 1567 that so too did his isolationist policy.⁶ As can be seen here, Hongwu’s infamous proclamation in December of 1371 that “not a single plank is allowed out to sea”⁷ set the tone for the Ming’s maritime policies. Aside from the Yongle Emperor’s brief flirtation with maritime expeditions, the haijin 海禁 policy reflected the prevailing opinion in court that the Ming should extricate itself from maritime affairs.

These policies illustrate willful neglect toward establishing a meaningful form of coastal security. Given that the court prohibited its people from venturing into the ocean for leisure or business, engaging in travel and commerce with foreign countries, or even manufacturing ocean-going vessels, the Ming appears to have been disinterested in pursuing a proactive solution for its coastal troubles. The court believed that by preventing contact between its people and pirates, in addition to cutting off the pirates’ access to its coastline’s economic incentives, it would effectively stymie their activities. Yet, these policies, rather than exterminating the pirates, simply created more problems. First, the total maritime prohibition, particularly the one authored by the Jiajing Emperor, resulted in a sharp increase in piratical activity. In Jiajing’s reign alone, the coast suffered an estimated 267 Wokou incursions.⁸ Despite the prohibition’s inability to prevent piracy, the court stubbornly refused to revise its coastal policy. Second, it shut the coastal people away from the outside world, causing them to suffer greatly. Tan Lun, a military official during the Jiajing reign, petitioned the emperor concerning the maritime ban’s effect on coastal populations: “The Fujian people living along the coast largely depend on the ocean to make a living; without it, they are unable to survive… Locals need to trade their fish products; Guangdong merchants need to trade their rice; Zhangzhou merchants need to trade their sugar. As this is all prohibited, how is it that the people cannot but resort to piracy just to subsist?”⁹ Indeed, the haijin policy even pushed suffering coastal peoples to lives of piracy, exacerbating the original problem the Ming was trying to solve. In effect, maritime bans demonstrate that the Ming court was disinterested in pursuing an active resolution for its coastal troubles. Rather than opt for eradicating the enemy at their roots, the Ming distanced itself from them. At the dismay of officials like Tan Lun, it even did so at the expense of its own people’s livelihoods. In other words, had the Ming possessed a coastal consciousness, it would have pursued proactive and offensive policies rather than defensive ones.

Coastal fortifications during the Ming likewise suffered from neglect. In particular, it was during the reign of the Zhengtong Emperor (r. 1435-1449) that the symptoms of decay spread across the Ming coastline with considerable speed and severity. Dengzhou Garrison in Shandong Province was one such case. In the early 15^th century, the coastguard reported having a fleet of 100 warships. By 1448, eighty-two warships had been scrapped; out of the remaining eighteen, four more were later scrapped and another four were diverted for the shipping of raw materials such as cloth to Manchuria. Finally, out of the remaining ten warships, seven were distributed to other regions, utterly crippling Dengzhou’s maritime defense capabilities. In 1524, the Jiajing Emperor issued an edict ordering Dengzhou to cease producing warships altogether.¹⁰ In addition, the Ming court went beyond passive neglect to pursuing proactive withdrawal. Shenjiamen was a naval base located just beyond the shore of Zhejiang Province, established by the Yongle Emperor in 1409. Despite being a strategic location from which to spot and defend against incoming pirate attacks, the garrison was withdrawn in its entirety in 1452 at the repeated requests of local officials.^11[1] Rationalizing the withdrawal from Shenjiamen, officials remarked that “the transfer of their garrisons to the mainland would bolster the defenses in order to resist enemy invaders more effectively after they had landed.” In spite of the officials’ confidence, the warships were instead anchored along the shore and rotted from neglect.¹² Making matters worse, pirates took advantage of the Ming’s inward retreat and began to occupy the abandoned bases, giving them an offensive advantage.¹³ Moreover, the decline of Dengzhou and Shenjiamen’s naval defenses were by no means isolated incidents during the Ming. As Supervising Imperial Censor Li Kui reported in 1440, “During the Hongwu reign, the coastal garrisons along Zhejiang Province were originally equipped with 730 warships. Many years have passed, and they have suffered from rot and neglect. There now only remain 132 warships. This is nowhere near enough to hold the pirates at bay.”¹⁴ Furthermore, the Ming’s apathetic attitude toward maintaining a strong coastal defense system resulted in the widespread desertion of naval garrisons. By 1550, coastal garrisons along Zhejiang Province had shrunk to 22% of their original strength, and the rate of desertion in Fujian Province was as high as 44%.¹⁵ Indeed, the Ming’s defensive and isolationist maritime prohibitions, the neglect of naval defensive systems, and apathy toward desertion all point toward the Ming lacking a coastal consciousness. While piracy was indeed a thorn in its side, the Ming made it clear that its maritime problems were of low priority.

 

2.1 The Continental Consciousness

Three main arguments may be made to explain the absence of the Ming’s coastal consciousness. First, the Ming’s maritime policies were informed by the continental consciousness of those who staffed its bureaucracy. Like its dynastic predecessors, the Ming conceptualized itself as a land-based empire bound by natural geographic features. The barren flatlands of the Northern Steppe and the Gobi Desert demarcated the boundary between China Proper and the north; the hostile conditions of the western frontier (in what is modern-day Xinjiang) and the Tibetan Plateau kept China in its traditional heartland; lastly, the ocean served to contain China within the continent.¹⁶ That political and economic power was historically concentrated in the North China Plain further turned successive Chinese empires’ attention inland. Under such circumstances, China thus came to view the ocean as an empty expanse of water, which had neither political, economic, or military significance. Moreover, the atlas of the Ming-era scholar Luo Hongxian, the Guang Yutu (“Expanded Terrestrial Atlas”) supported this perception. Luo served in the Jiajing Emperor’s court as a geographer, providing for the emperor an atlas containing forty-eight maps. In his chart, the “General Map of the Terrestrial Territories” (see below), Luo indeed depicts China as a continentally-bound empire. The ocean is depicted simply as an empty expanse of water bordering the Ming Great State, with no major oceanic territories having been charted aside from Hainan; the Gobi Desert is shown hanging above the Ming; and to the west lies the barren expanse of Central Asia. It is the East Asian landmass that clearly occupied Luo’s attention, and precisely what he designed his atlas to plot. Moreover, Luo’s continental design was consistent with his contemporaries’ designs, who sought to, according to Emma Teng, “naturalize the spatial image of a territorially bound China.”¹⁷ Therefore, China’s predisposition toward continental affairs and aversion to maritime ones may be partially explained by its environmental circumstances.

Fig. 1 General Map of the Terrestrial Territories¹⁸

 

2.2 China and the Sea

Additionally, the Ming’s lack of a coastal consciousness was informed by the Chinese empire’s history with the sea. Historically, as military threats had not arrived from the ocean, China had little reason to install heavy fortifications along the coast. The only oceanic polities with which it had long-standing historical interactions were the Ryukyu Kingdom, various polities in Southeast Asia, and Japan, the latter of which had been no cause for alarm until the surge of Wokou activity in the Ming.^19[2] Supervising Censor Qian Wei confirmed this situation. He reported to the Jiajing court the reason for China’s maritime weakness, stating that “Ever since the Tang and Song Dynasties, [the Japanese] had consistently sent tribute and had never harassed our coastal regions. Because China satisfied their needs, there was never any need to install fortifications along the coast.”²⁰ Compilation of State Affairs from the Great Ming.][/efn_note] In other words, the ocean had never produced a sufficiently significant reason for the Ming to be concerned about maritime security.

It comes as little surprise then that the Ming responded to initial European contact in the same way. One of the earliest official points of correspondence occurred in 1517 when a Portuguese trade envoy arrived in Guangzhou. The embassies began to entrench themselves off the Guangdong coast on Tunmen Island by constructing fortifications and residences, a place in which the Portuguese hoped to freely engage in commerce.²¹ Despite its displeasure toward the Portuguese overtures, the Ming did not view the Portuguese as seriously threatening dynastic security. Rather, they were assumed to be seafaring peoples intent on using islands as bases for piracy; such an assumption was conditioned by the Ming’s experience with Wokou pirates.²² Confirming this, censor He Ao in a 1521 court memorial described their fortifications as a “stockade intended for long-term residence.”²³ It can be seen that the Portuguese were not treated as an imminent threat, but rather a new form of piratical pestilence. In response to the potential problems posed by the Portuguese presence off the Chinese coast, censor He Ao requested of the Ming court that:

The old regulations be examined and resorted, that all the foreign ships in the bays and all the foreigners who have secretly entered and reside there be expelled, that non-official interactions be prohibited.²⁴ In effect, He’s memorial requested that the same maritime ban that was being used to unsuccessfully curb Wokou piracy be extended to include the Portuguese. His recommendation was met with praise from the court, which readily adopted his isolationist approach. Moreover, in consideration of the Ming’s experience with the Japanese and Portuguese, it becomes clear that the dynasty could not conceive that genuine threats to its security could originate from the ocean. As such, there was no impetus to drive innovation in naval defense technology or to devote greater resources to coastal fortifications. Instead, the Ming simply sought superficial solutions to its maritime problems. Now this paper will shift its focus to the Ming’s long-standing and complex relationship with the Mongols, an issue that was key to shaping its apathy towards the ocean and its continental consciousness

 

2.3 The Northern Steppe

Luo Hongxian’s atlas reflects the Ming court’s anxiety toward the northern border. In the postface following the section entitled “Comprehensive Maps of the Nine Frontiers”, Luo elaborates, “I inquired with the thinkers about the current concerns of the realm. They informed me that the Mongols in the north were of grave concern – no other concern was greater.”²⁵ The Ming overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in 1368. Despite being fragmented, the Mongol state survived, with numerous confederations continuing to operate in the north. That the Mongols continued to be active along the northern border kept the Ming on high alert. Many Ming emperors launched northbound offensives in hopes of finally exterminating the Mongol threat, but more often than not failed to achieve their objective. In 1449, after personally leading the disastrous Tumu Campaign in which 500,000 Ming troops perished, the Zhengtong Emperor was held prisoner by the Mongols until his release in 1457, igniting a political crisis in Beijing.²⁶ Furthermore, by the middle of the 16^th century, several Mongol tribes had been unified under the leadership of Altan Khan, a descendant of Kublai Khan. He led several raids south of the Great Wall, and even ventured into the outskirts of the imperial capital in 1550, ransacking people’s homes and lighting them ablaze.²⁷ Indeed, that the Mongols could reemerge from the steppe to challenge the Celestial Empire’s authority was the court’s chief security concern. Wang Gong, the Deputy Minister of War, spoke to his anxiety toward the Ming’s northern border in 1544: “I deployed 30,000 soldiers to defend a border that stretches 800 li. The enemy (Mongols) attacked with ten times the number of soldiers on horseback to punch through an area of only ten li… they have five times as many foot soldiers and twenty times as many horsemen.”^28[3] With the looming possibility of another invasion from the steppe, the Ming had to weigh its priorities: either to spread itself thin by simultaneously fighting on both a continental and oceanic front, or to devote the bulk of its resources to the northern border. The fact that it chose the latter was not only informed by its lack of a coastal consciousness, but also by its continental one.^29[4]

In light of the above, it can be seen that the Ming’s detachment from the coast through prohibition policies, which resulted in the decay of coastal fortifications, can be largely attributed to the military situation in the northern frontiers. In the words of Jung-pang Lo, “The strong pull of the continent and its multitudinous affairs turned the attention of China to the land and away from the sea.”³⁰

 

3.1 Conclusion

This paper has attempted to accomplish two tasks. First, it set out to demonstrate that the Ming Dynasty, and those who ruled it, lacked a coastal consciousness. Counterintuitive maritime prohibition policies and the consequential decay of the Ming’s coastal fortifications illustrate that the Ming paid little heed to the harassment suffered by its coast and the communities inhabiting it, and further that its attention was not directed toward the coast. Second, it set out to explain the reason for this absence using a three-pronged approach. Natural geographical constraints served to contain China within the East Asian landmass and 14,500 kilometers of continuous coastline acted as a boundary that separated the Ming and the empty expanse of the Pacific Ocean. This was conducive to producing in the Chinese psyche a continental consciousness that deprived it of a coastal counterpart. Furthermore, military threats to dynastic security had never originated from the sea, which additionally provided China with a reason to not be concerned about establishing a meaningful form of coastal security. Therefore, its preoccupation with defending the northern border, upon which the Mongols loomed with intent to restore the Yuan, continuously captured its attention. Indeed, while the Ming’s maritime weakness would not bring about its collapse in 1644, it certainly left a lasting legacy.

Owing to the efforts of military generals like Qi Jiguang during the Longqing and Wanli eras (r. 1567-1620), in addition to the reunification of Japan in 1603, the piracy crisis finally abated in the late Ming. While the emperors of the late Ming did indeed work to rectify their predecessors’ coastal neglect, their efforts were to be short-lived. When the Manchus in 1629 captured four Ming cities south of the Great Wall, the court’s attention was once again diverted northward until it succumbed to the Manchu invasion from the northern steppe.³¹ Arguably, after the Qing achieved ascendancy over the Dragon Throne in 1644, it quickly became preoccupied on the continent with not only pacifying the Chinese people, but also expanding its territories westward to incorporate Xinjiang and Tibet into the imperial domain. Indeed, the legacy of the Ming’s continental consciousness lived on. As a result, the Qing similarly found itself trapped in the continent, neglecting its coastal fortifications while pursuing isolationist policies in the face of increasing pressure from the West. While withdrawing from the ocean it went so far as to restrict its legitimate purview to the shallow waters of the “inner sea”.^32[5] Without a coastal consciousness, the Qing only came to understand the consequences of its inferior naval technology vis-à-vis the Western powers in the mid-19^th century. As Imperial Censor Niu Jian remarked in 1842 after the Qing’s defeat at the hands of the British at Wusong, “Our troops fired the cannons directly into the hull of the British warship, but the cannonballs simply rebounded upon impact, killing those manning the cannons. We could only stare in disbelief. This could not be…”³³ The Qing would soon come to learn that true power lay not on land, but on the sea.

 

 

---

Aaron Throness is a fourth-year BA Asian Area Studies student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Aaron’s research interests focus on Ming Dynasty cartography, international relations, and military history. Having studied Mandarin Chinese for 13 years, Aaron has also conducted and co-presented research on pedagogical techniques for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. With a passion for Chinese history and language, Aaron aspires to pursue graduate studies in the near future.

 

[1] It is worth noting that this ruling was not supported unanimously. As one official memorialized in August of 1443, “During the Yongle reign, there originally were three naval bases established in Shenjiamen and other locations. Troops and warships were stationed there to defend against Wokou pirates; during this time, the sea was tranquil. During the second year of the Zhengtong reign, however, these naval garrisons were ordered to be withdrawn. Since then, pirates have begun appearing in ever-increasing numbers… In Linshan and other (mainland) garrisons, where no warships are docked, the arrival of pirates is met with great alarm. It is difficult to hold them at bay. I implore that the old system be reinstated.”

This further evinces that, despite the obvious inefficacy of its withdrawal strategy, the Ming was unwilling to confront its maritime problems. Unfortunately, the voices of these more liberal officials fell on deaf ears.

郑梁生. 明代倭寇史料: 第一辑. 台北: 文史哲出版社, 1987. [Zheng Liangsheng. Documents on Ming-era Wokou Pirates: Volume 1. Taibei: The Liberal Arts Press, 1987.]

[2] During the Ming, the Japanese were only permitted to send tribute once every ten years. Upon each occasion, they were restricted to bringing precisely three ships with no more than 100 men; with such limited capacity, Japan was simply unable to satisfy its desire and need for trade with China. Indeed, such draconian regulations were responsible for pushing Japanese traders into raiding the Chinese coastline. The infamous Ningbo Incident of 1523 exemplifies Japanese frustration with the Ming’s unreasonable regulations. Moreover, increasing violence from the Japanese should also be attributed to the Sengoku Period, during which Japan underwent serious social, political, and economic upheaval.

[3] 800 li (里) is approximately equal to 400 kilometers; ten li is approximately equal to five kilometers.

[4] Raymond Huang’s study of the Ming’s 16^th century military expenditures serves to confirm this. The fiscal administrative systems designed by the Ming to support the northern frontier defense were far more complex and were directly supervised and funded by the Ministries of Revenue and War; in contrast, the financial burdens of the southern coastal defenses were left in the hands of provincial governors, county magistrates, and local prefects, with no direct central oversight. In other words, the contrast between centralized and decentralized fiscal systems underscores the Ming’s military priorities.

[5] As Po elaborates, “[Qing] provincial officials tended to discern the inner sea as the farthest extent of their maritime authority, a region legitimately subject to sustainable governance and state possession. They saw the outer sea space as an uncertain bluewater domain that increasingly lay beyond the purview of administrative governance and economic extraction.”

 

Bibliography

Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.

陈子龙 (明). 皇明经世文编. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=259380&remap=gb [accessed 2 February 2019.] [Chen Zilong (Ming). Compilation of State Affairs from the Great Ming.]

Fujitani, James. “The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment.” Journal of World History 27, no. 1 (2016): 87-102.

高扬文, 陶琦. 明代倭寇史略.北京: 中华书局, 2004. [Gao Yangwen, Tao Qi. A History of Ming Dynasty Wokou Pirates. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing House, 2004.]

胡宗宪 (明). 筹海图编: 卷十二. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=412066&remap=gb [accessed 12 February 2019]. [Hu Zongxian (Ming). Illustrated Compendium on Maritime Strategy: Volume 12.]

Huang, Ray. “Military Expenditures in Sixteenth Century Ming China.” Oriens Extremus 17, no. 1 (1970): 39-62.

Laird, Thomas. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama. New York: Grove Press, 2007.

刘成. “论明代的海禁政策.” 海交史研究: no. 2 (1987): 41-47. http://navi.cnki.net/KNavi/JournalDetail?pcode=CJFD&pykm=HJSY [accessed 8 February 2019]. [Liu Cheng. “Commentary on the Ming Maritime Prohibition Policy.” Journal of Maritime History Studies: no. 2 (1987): 41-47.]

Lo, Jung-pang. “The Decline of the Early Ming Navy.” Oriens Extremus 5, no. 2 (1958): 149-168.

明实录英宗实录. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=422511#p9 [accessed 28 January 2019]. [The Veritable Records of the Ming – The Veritable Records of the Yingzong Emperor.]

明实录武宗毅皇帝实录.https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=967312&remap=gb [accessed 15 March 2019]. [The Veritable Records of the Ming – The Veritable Records of the Wuzong Emperor.]

Nolan, Cathal. The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000-1650: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization (Volume 1). Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006.

Po, Ronald. The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Rowe, William. China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.

台湾文献丛刊资料库. “台湾关系文献大集零.” http://tcss.ith.sinica.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/gsweb.cgi/ccd=bR_Ck6/record?r1=2&h1=0 [accessed 30 January 2019]. [Database of Records and Documents on Taiwan. “Collection of Documents in Taiwan Relations”.]

谭伦 (明). 谭襄敏奏仪. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=400501 [accessed 28 January 2019]. [Tan Lun (Ming). Memorials for Court Debate by Tan Lun.]

Teng, Emma. Taiwan’s Imagined Geography. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.

王宏斌. 清代前期海防: 思想与制度. 北京: 社会科学文献出版社, 2002. [Wang, Hongbin. Early Qing Coastal Defense: Ideology and Systems. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002.]

Wong, Young-tsu. China’s Conquest of Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century. Singapore: Springer Nature, 2017.

徐景熹 (清). 福州府志乾隆本. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=513224&remap=gb [accessed 27 January 2019]. [Xu Jingxi (Qing). Fuzhou Prefectural Gazetteer of the Qianlong Period.]

郑梁生. 明代倭寇史料: 第一辑. 台北: 文史哲出版社, 1987. [Zheng Liangsheng. Documents on Ming-era Wokou Pirates: Volume 1. Taibei: The Liberal Arts Press, 1987.]

朱思本. 广舆图: 2卷. [China]: 韩君恩, 杜思, 明嘉靖45 [1566]. [Zhu Siben. Guangyu Tu: Volume 2. (China): Han Jun’en, Du Si, 45^th Year of the Jiajing Emperor’s Reign (1566).] Harvard College Library Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4742830 [accessed 31 January 2019].

1. 台湾文献丛刊资料库. “台湾关系文献大集零.” http://tcss.ith.sinica.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/gsweb.cgi/ccd=bR_Ck6/record?r1=2&h1=0 [accessed 30 January 2019]. [Database of Records and Documents on Taiwan. “Collection of Documents in Taiwan Relations”.]
2. 高扬文, 陶琦. 明代倭寇史略.北京: 中华书局, 2004. [Gao Yangwen, Tao Qi. A History of Ming Dynasty Wokou Pirates. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing House, 2004.]
3. 高扬文, 陶琦. 明代倭寇史略.北京: 中华书局, 2004. [Gao Yangwen, Tao Qi. A History of Ming Dynasty Wokou Pirates. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing House, 2004.]
4. 徐景熹 (清). 福州府志乾隆本. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=513224&remap=gb [accessed 27 January 2019]. [Xu Jingxi (Qing). Fuzhou Prefectural Gazetteer of the Qianlong Period.]
5. 明实录英宗实录. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=422511#p9 [accessed 28 January 2019]. [The Veritable Records of the Ming – The Veritable Records of the Yingzong Emperor.]
6. Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.
7. 刘成. “论明代的海禁政策.” 海交史研究: no. 2 (1987): 41-47. http://navi.cnki.net/KNavi/JournalDetail?pcode=CJFD&pykm=HJSY [accessed 8 February 2019]. [Liu Cheng. “Commentary on the Ming Maritime Prohibition Policy.” Journal of Maritime History Studies: no. 2 (1987): 41-47.]
8. 高扬文, 陶琦. 明代倭寇史略.北京: 中华书局, 2004. [Gao Yangwen, Tao Qi. A History of Ming Dynasty Wokou Pirates. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing House, 2004.]
9. 谭伦 (明). 谭襄敏奏仪. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=400501 [accessed 28 January 2019]. [Tan Lun (Ming). Memorials for Court Debate by Tan Lun.]
10. Lo, Jung-pang. “The Decline of the Early Ming Navy.” Oriens Extremus 5, no. 2 (1958): 149-168.
11. 郑梁生. 明代倭寇史料: 第一辑. 台北: 文史哲出版社, 1987. [Zheng Liangsheng. Documents on Ming-era Wokou Pirates: Volume 1. Taibei: The Liberal Arts Press, 1987.]
12. Lo, Jung-pang. “The Decline of the Early Ming Navy.” Oriens Extremus 5, no. 2 (1958): 149-168.
13. 高扬文, 陶琦. 明代倭寇史略.北京: 中华书局, 2004. [Gao Yangwen, Tao Qi. A History of Ming Dynasty Wokou Pirates. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing House, 2004.]
14. 郑梁生. 明代倭寇史料: 第一辑. 台北: 文史哲出版社, 1987. [Zheng Liangsheng. Documents on Ming-era Wokou Pirates: Volume 1. Taibei: The Liberal Arts Press, 1987.]
15. Wong, Young-tsu. China’s Conquest of Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century. Singapore: Springer Nature, 2017.
16. Teng, Emma. Taiwan’s Imagined Geography. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.
17. Teng, Emma. Taiwan’s Imagined Geography. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.
18. 朱思本. 广舆图: 2卷. [China]: 韩君恩, 杜思, 明嘉靖45 [1566]. [Zhu Siben. Guangyu Tu: Volume 2. (China): Han Jun’en, Du Si, 45^th Year of the Jiajing Emperor’s Reign (1566).] Harvard College Library Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4742830 [accessed 31 January 2019].
19. 胡宗宪 (明). 筹海图编: 卷十二. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=412066&remap=gb [accessed 12 February 2019]. [Hu Zongxian (Ming). Illustrated Compendium on Maritime Strategy: Volume 12.]
20. 陈子龙 (明). 皇明经世文编. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=259380&remap=gb [accessed 2 February 2019.] [Chen Zilong (Ming).
21. Fujitani, James. “The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment.” Journal of World History 27, no. 1 (2016): 87-102.
22. Fujitani, James. “The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment.” Journal of World History 27, no. 1 (2016): 87-102.
23. 明实录武宗毅皇帝实录.https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=967312&remap=gb [accessed 15 March 2019].[The Veritable Records of the Ming – The Veritable Records of the Wuzong Emperor.]
24. Fujitani, James. “The Ming Rejection of the Portuguese Embassy of 1517: A Reassessment.” Journal of World History 27, no. 1 (2016): 87-102.
25. 朱思本. 广舆图: 2卷. [China]: 韩君恩, 杜思, 明嘉靖45 [1566]. [Zhu Siben. Guangyu Tu: Volume 2. (China): Han Jun’en, Du Si, 45^th Year of the Jiajing Emperor’s Reign (1566).] Harvard College Library Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:4742830 [accessed 31 January 2019].
26. Nolan, Cathal. The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000-1650: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization (Volume 1). Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006.
27. Laird, Thomas. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama. New York: Grove Press, 2007.
28. 明实录英宗实录. https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=422511#p9 [accessed 28 January 2019]. [The Veritable Records of the Ming – The Veritable Records of the Yingzong Emperor.]
29. Huang, Ray. “Military Expenditures in Sixteenth Century Ming China.” Oriens Extremus 17, no. 1 (1970): 39-62.
30. Lo, Jung-pang. “The Decline of the Early Ming Navy.” Oriens Extremus 5, no. 2 (1958): 149-168.
31. Rowe, William. China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
32. Po, Ronald. The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
33. 王宏斌. 清代前期海防: 思想与制度. 北京: 社会科学文献出版社, 2002. [Wang, Hongbin. Early Qing Coastal Defense: Ideology and Systems. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002.]