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History, When Pirates Ruled Asia_ 1000 Vicious Years of Chinese and J

When Pirates Ruled Asia_ 1000 Vicious Years of Chinese and J

The lofty pagoda towered above Guangzhou harbour. As China's only open port, this was where

the world came when they wanted to trade within the great Qing Empire. And from the pagoda's

highest and most exclusive floors, the view was magnificent. Closer by, however, the waters

themselves were hardly visible, beneath the anchored ships and bustling wharves, scuttling

boats and swaying jetties. The sights, smells and tastes of a thousand different cultures

being bought and sold, traded and bartered, smuggled and stolen. It was the centre of

the world. And she was at the very heart of it.

Madame Zhang, Asia's greatest pirate, settled herself comfortably at an expansive table.

The breeze of the rarefied upper levels of the pagoda whistling in her ears, exquisitely

painted fingernails tapped slowly on the arm of the polished wooden chair. On the other

side of the negotiating table sat the Qing Empire's provincial viceroy, Portuguese naval

officers and merchant officials of the English East India Company. At stake was Madame Zhang's

vast pirate empire enforced by a strict set of laws, her colossal fortune gathered through

merciless raiding and legitimate business, and a possible enforced retirement from the

world of maritime violence. But her adversaries had far more to lose.

The Qing risked the continued destabilisation of their whole Chinese empire, pirates having

years before destroyed the last remnants of their southern navy. The Portuguese feared

the viability of their incredibly lucrative Macau colony, the last bastion of long-dwindled

imperial glory. And finally, the British stood to lose the opium trade which powered

their domination of India. The loss of the American colonies was still raw, the Asian

empire must be preserved at all costs. They threshed out a deal. Madame humbly agreed

to retire from piracy, stand down her 70,000 strong crew, cease seizing foreign vessels

and grant the Qing navy use of her fleet. She was offered an imperial pardon, full custody

of her ill-gotten gains, 120 ships and a high military rank for her husband. She had

wrapped representatives of three of the world's most powerful empires round her perfectly

manicured little finger. Not bad for a woman who had started out in a floating brothel.

The coastal areas of East Asia are peppered with tiny islands, secret coves and steep,

mountainous looking points, ideal for hiding, raiding, evading and fortifying. It shouldn't

come as a surprise that seaborne robbery, smuggling, kidnap, murder, extortion, rape,

slaving, sedition, treason, rebellion and revolution, piracy in all its forms, has always

thrived here. In fact, the coastal peoples of the East may justifiably claim to have

been masters of piracy's art. This is the millennia long story of those cutthroat villains,

philanthropic heroes, protectors of the oppressed, loyal to the death brotherhoods and merciless

scoundrels. Of small raids off the coast of Korea growing exponentially in scale to vast

pirate empires, acting as both king makers and scourges of the people living on the shore.

This is the incredible story of the Pirates of the East.

Not related to Zelda, unfortunately. Sorry.

And Magellan is a great choice to accompany our videos too. One recommendation I enjoyed

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worth a watch to help understand a hugely important topic. A great companion piece for

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On land, Gan Ning and his gang travelled by riding on horses, or in chariots in certain

formation. On water, they sailed on light vessels linked together. They also wore elaborate

and flamboyant garments to attract attention. The earliest Chinese records of piracy stretch

back to the 4th century BC. And over the coming centuries, seaborne traffic and coastal communities

in the vast ocean, which stretches between current-day Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the

Philippines, Korea and Japan, were always at danger of attack or extortion. Even the

Romans of Augustus' time warned of Asian piracy on their most distant sea charts. During

the 9th century, Korean pirates haunted the coasts of their neighbours, and every nook

and cranny of Asian shoreline had gangs of rough fisherfolk ready to try their hand at

seaborne banditry. But our story really starts in 1019, at the same time as Danes were raiding

England on the other side of the globe. Jiuquans, ancestors of the Manchu, and, like the Danes,

the dwellers of inhospitable icy lands, took to their sturdy vessels and headed south to

raid Japan. They rampaged through the remote islands of Tsushima and Iki, wiping out the

men, seizing women and children as captives. Drunk on their success, they then attacked

the much larger island of Kyushu, carrying off a thousand more prisoners. An army was

swiftly mobilised to drive them off, but the raiders swanned away with their plunder. A

grim omen for the future, but it wouldn't be long before these initial raids paled in

comparison to the carnage going in the opposite direction.

Prior to 1223, there had been peace on the southern maritime border of Korea, but as

the provinces were stripped of troops to counter Mongol raids in the north and plague, typhoons

and extreme drought struck the outlying western Japanese islands, the starving people of those

islands resorted to attacking their weakened neighbours to feed their families. The attacks

increased steadily, as did the speed of the Korean military response, but the marauders'

depredations only worsened. A formal communication was sent to the Japanese government.

The people of the island of Tsushima of your country have of old come presenting tribute

in native products. Annually, harmonious relations were cultivated. It came to pass that in the

sixth month of the year of the senior fire dog, taking advantage of the night while the

residents slept, they entered a hole in the town wall and plundered indiscriminately,

and disturbed innocent peasants without end. A number of ships are coming and going in

a disorderly fashion and committing mischief. What is the reason for this?

Japanese governmental authorities had been unaware of their wayward western subjects'

piratical activities and were no less incensed than the Koreans, swiftly executing ninety

Japanese perpetrators, this swift and brutal act of justice having the desired effect,

restoring calm to the seas. Fifth month, Junior Wood Ox Day, a document

arriving from Japan apologising for the crime of the bandit ships raiding our borders. Harmonious

relations and mutual trade were requested. But a word which would change Asian history

had been etched. The Koreans termed these pirates Weigu, or Wako in Japanese, the term

by which pirates in East Asia, whether Japanese or not, would generally be known for the next

four hundred years. So, in 1260, as Louis IX of France was considering

an eighth crusade, the priest Nichiren knelt on the hard earthen floor of his hut and gazed

through the open door down the green, pine-coloured valley.

More and more in recent times there have been extraordinary occurrences in the heaven and

on the earth, famine and epidemics everywhere spread across the land. More and more are

pressed by famine, beggars meet the eye everywhere, and the dead fill the eye. Corpses lie about

and in rows like a bridge. He paused, sighed, and set down the bamboo

brush. The rain's music intensified. This year a novice nun had even been found

eating human flesh. Was it any wonder then that piracy had flourished? The people had

nowhere else left to turn, nothing left to sell, nothing left to reap.

Nichiren was right. Piracy had again reared its head, both in Japan and in renewed raids

on Korea. These depredations continued for a few years, until a much bigger threat than

mere famine and disease occupied southern Korea. Mongols.

Kublai, Khan of the Mongols, Emperor of China, stroked his beard as he considered a problem

which so enraged him that he had been unable to sleep. The Khan had spent most of his life

on horseback, even on elephants and camels, but he had never ridden in a ship. The whole

idea of water, and far more so the sea, frightened Mongols. A desert of water was far, far more

frightening to a Mongol than any hospitable expanse of grass or sand. But five times the

impudent Japanese had refused his envoys. The rulers of an insignificant island realm

had unceremoniously rejected his generous offer to grant them vassal status. He came

to his decision. Now was the time to act. He beckoned a eunuch officer.

Call in the sea men.

After nearly thirty years of trying, the Mongols had finally imposed vassal status on the Korean

peninsula in 1259. Conversely, the next year had seen a reversal of Mongol fortunes on

the other side of Eurasia. Defeat in Palestine by Mamluk Egypt marked the maximum westward

reach of the empire. But there was still room to expand eastwards. Japan now lay just beyond

the horizon. Over the next decade, increasing numbers of Mongol troops were seen in the

southern reaches of Korea. Japanese pirates wisely refrained from raiding.

Meanwhile, Kublai had continued his invasion of China, and in 1273, seeing which way the

tide was turning, the Yansi pirates, Zhu Qing and Zhang Xian, had offered their 500

ships to his cause. These, now respectable pirates, had become stalwarts of the Mongol

navy, planning and commanding Mongol invasions and raids to Champa and Java. They also provided

their services in the two expeditions against Japan, in 1274 and 1281. And indeed, the Japanese

defenders who had the most experience with naval warfare were the very people who had

been raiding the Korean coast for the previous half century. Pirate fought pirate at sea.

Regular troops engaged on land.

Japanese warcraft, being small in size, were no match for these ships. Those which came

up to attack were all beaten off. The whole country was therefore trembling with fear.

In the markets there was no rice for sale. The Japanese ruler went in person to visit

the Hachiman shrine to make supplication. He also had a royal rescript read at the shrine

of the Sun Goddess, imploring that his country be saved in exchange for his own life.

The gods listened. Winds blew and waves raged. A divine wind, Kamikaze or Shinpu, delivered

the Mongols and their Korean levies to a watery grave. The shogunate's prayers had been answered.

Japan remained independent and although no one knew it, the Black Death, which would

wipe out hundreds of millions of people and spread as a result of the secure trade and

communication routes that the Mongol Empire guaranteed, would never reach Japan.

But the Mongol invasions led to a far greater long-term military deployment in the western

areas where pirates had traditionally ruled the roost. Aware that Japan had only narrowly

escaped incorporation into the Mongol Empire, the shogunate, strengthened by its military

success, was determined to keep as low a profile as possible. Piracy, for a time, died away

in the Sea of Japan.

Hu Weiyang had been one of the most powerful men in China until four days ago. Great Minister

of the Left, the Ming Emperor's Chancellor. Now, surrounded by armoured soldiers, their

guandao weapons grounded and gleaming in the soft morning sunlight, he and his entire family

knelt in Nanjing's execution grounds, awaiting death. Hu had been instrumental in bringing

about the rise of the new Ming Dynasty, by providing ships for the decisive 1363 Battle

of Lake Poyang, which secured the end of Mongol rule and ushered in a new dawn. The Great

Ming. Da-Min. Hu had served his lord and then emperor, Hongwu, faithfully and, as far as

he was concerned, justly, ushering in a better governed, more secure and more just nation,

rid of the stinking Mongol nomads. But Hu had become too powerful, perhaps occasionally

taking the law into his own hands, and Emperor Hongwu's increasing paranoia had turned him

against his chief minister. Hu could feel that his days were numbered and had decided

to strike first. He ordered a servant to Japan to engage a gang of samurai pirates to assassinate

the emperor. They were known to spare no one, kill swiftly, without remorse. The 400 pirates

disguised themselves as a tribute mission. With weapons concealed inside huge candles,

the samurai had made landfall and were proceeding towards completion of their mission, when

at the last minute, Emperor Hongwu had smelled a rat. And now, Hu was only grateful to be

spared death by a thousand cuts.

He knelt with his hands tied behind his back and his whole family was decapitated before

his eyes. Finally, the executioner came for him. As he died, he wondered what had become

of the pirates.

Hu's gamble on mercenary samurai had all come about due to another breakdown of central

government in Japan, which, around 1350, had allowed the Wako to quietly return to their

piratical ways. These raids, focused primarily on Korea, culminated in outright pirate invasions

involving up to 3,000 men. They plundered far inland, seizing everything of value and

carrying off the population as slaves. It was inevitable that China, amidst collapsing

Mongol rule, would also suffer. The newly enthroned Hongwu Emperor dispatched a letter

to Japan in 1369.

Japanese pirates repeatedly plunder areas along the coast, separating men forever from

their wives and children and destroying property and lives. If there are those who nonetheless

continue to engage in piracy, I will be compelled to order naval officers to set sail for Japan.

The threat was not carried out. The issue of Hu Weiyong and his cabal proved far more

pressing. Over the next decade, 30,000 of Hu's associates were ruthlessly hunted down.

Fortunately, by the time the Emperor Hongwu had satisfied his bloodlust, Japan was once

again unified under a strong government, and a new and dynamic Korean dynasty, the Joseon,

who would rule until the 20th century, had smitten the worst of the pirates. The new

Ashikaga shogunate acted swiftly to repair diplomatic ties with China and Korea. Legitimate

trade delivered far greater riches for less risk. Time and time again over the next century,

visiting Ming Chinese ambassadors would return not only with Japanese merchandise, but also

with a sorry-looking retinue of Chinese bandits, awaiting death by boiling. Peace reigned in

the Sea of Japan.

And then, in 1517, a whole new gang of rogues hove into view off the Chinese coast.

It was a fine June day when a strange-looking ship arrived in the southern Chinese port

of Guangzhou. The crew were of many unusual races, some with very dark skin and curly

hair, others boasting turbans and extravagant beards. These types of men had been noted

in chronicles of previous ages. Their leaders, however, were unfamiliar. They had skins of

a violent pink, big noses, deep eyes with thin, weak-looking hair, and declared themselves

representatives of a land that the Chinese had barely heard of before. Portugal. This

kind of thing happened occasionally, and the unusual new people almost always came from

remote southern islands, so the Chinese, as usual, called these men Southern Barbarians.

The newcomers were polite at first, and eventually, after receiving permission from Beijing, were

allowed to conduct an embassy. While the diplomats were away, however, the barbarians showed

their true colours.

Foreigners from the west, called Falang-ki, who said they had tribute, abruptly entered

the bogey and, by their tremendously loud guns, shook the place far and near. This was

reported at court, and an order returned to drive them away immediately and stop the

trade. They fortified an island, raided local villages for children to eat, engaged in street

brawls, intimidated other foreign shipping, and, worst of all, carried out the death penalty

without adhering to the due process stipulated by the law of the land. It was clear that

they were, in reality, pirates. The barbarian pirates were ordered to leave. When the captain

refused, they were forcibly expelled. For the next few decades, wherever the Portuguese

landed or attempted trade, they were fought off and, if caught, executed.

Yasuke stood on deck, the fresh spring breeze playing on his smooth face. In front of him,

an island-spattered sea twisted gently between the deep green mountainous shores on either

side. Waves glimmered as the rising sun caught each crest. The giant African warrior was

bodyguard to a Jesuit missionary, traversing Japan's Seto Inland Sea en route to the capital,

Kyoto. Wherever explorers went, the word of God had been sure to follow. The only safe

way to get there was by ship, and by the late 1500s the only ships that plied the waters

were pirate ships. As a military man, Yasuke cast his sharp eyes around, taking in every

detail of their host's attire. The pirates went about their business in rough-looking

faded tunics tied at the waist with hempen rope. Some boasted hodgepodge items of light

armour. They all had swords thrust through their belts. The ships themselves were equipped

with surprising arsenals – small cannon, muskets, grenades, spears, grappling hooks

and chains, polearm sickles and bows. They were far better equipped than he had expected.

There were also strange-looking wooden rocket launchers. Yasuke had not seen these before

and supposed that they must be an innovation acquired on raids in China and Korea. Despite

his size, strength and prowess with myriad weaponry, Yasuke prayed that these business-like

killers would not turn on their Jesuit passengers.

The Japanese Seto Inland Sea had always been the haunt of pirates, but Yasuke was present

during their heyday. A far cry from the calm of the Ashikaga shogunate, everything had

changed. In 1467 the Japanese archipelago had once more descended into strife and the

shogunate had collapsed in a brutal civil war, leading to a period of almost 150 years

of constant conflict. The Warring States period had begun. The chaos and desperation in the

wake of conflict on the mainland had led to clans like the Murakami controlling the

waves and the huge seaborne traffic which passed upon them. They were the kings of the

maritime realm, just as other lords commanded fiefs on land. The pirates ruled from fortified

islands, guaranteeing safe passage past their lairs for a hefty fee. These same men and

women would also hire their own services to land-based lords, and famously even constructed

the world's first iron-clad ships. In civil war-driven Japan, the pirates were another

force vying to hold onto and expand spheres of influence at the expense of the land-based

lords, warrior monks, bandits or ninja. Their power and reputation for ruthlessness was

known throughout Asia.

Peaceful trade with China by states such as Japan or Korea had been traditionally carried

out with a license, called a kanhe, a tally. Only the bearer of the kanhe, the representative

of a recognised tributary government, was permitted to trade. This system had been functioning

since 1404. Kendo Sotetsu was enraged. He and his men, carrying valid Japanese trade

tallies, had landed first. A rival clan, the Hosokawa, had also sent a mission, but they

had arrived late to the port of Ningbo and carried outdated tallies. His mission should

have been unquestionably allowed to engage in trade. The usurpers sent packing. But the

Chinese trade official had taken Hosokawa bribes and declined Kendo's rightful claim.

The samurai jumped up. He would not stand for this. There was a sharp whoosh, and blood

spattered across his kimono.

Kendo's envoys slew the rival clansmen, burned their ship and chased their leader over a

thousand kilometres inland. Unable to apprehend their quarry, they raped and pillaged their

way back to Ningbo, laid waste to the Chinese garrison, stole a squadron of ships and sailed

off into the blue. Now it was the Chinese authority's turn to be enraged. Kendo Sotetsu's

extradition was demanded. It was not forthcoming.

The tally system had only worked smoothly as long as there was an uncontested central

authority in the barbarian realm in question, and Japan had no such authority. Legitimate

trade had continued sporadically, but by 1523, the spiralling chaos had all come to a head

with Kendo Sotetsu's exploits, which led to legitimate trade all but dying out, and in

1548, it was forbidden entirely.

With trade outlawed, piracy became the only way to fulfil the needs of the Japanese market.

This lucrative business fell to a band of multicultural corsairs, mostly comprising

Chinese renegades and Japanese mariners, but also including the new Southern Barbarians

– Portuguese, Africans and other Asians. They earned the reputation of being fearless

in battle, often fighting to the death against forces ten times their size rather than conceding.

The government established a great line of coastal fortresses, beacons and other defences,

but to little effect. Many coastal peoples took the path of least resistance, giving

the pirates safe haven.

Treacherous people from the interior gang up with foreigners like the Japanese, Falangi

and those from Pahang and Siam. The evil people of the interior trade with them and supply

them necessities.

In the forty years after Kendo Sotetsu's rampage, 601 pirate raids were recorded, more than at

any other time in history. And so, in 1581, Yasuke found himself aboard one of their vessels.

He turned away from musing on the sea to see one of the Japanese crew gaping at him, taking

in his enormous height, bulging muscles and ink-black skin. He was used to ogling eyes

by now – no one in Japan had ever seen a man like him – and they couldn't help but

stare. Yasuke flashed the man a wide grin, at the same time letting his right hand drop

to where an ornate Arab Jambiya dagger nestled. He would not do any harm to show he meant

business.

But the Japanese were not alone in their efforts to carve up the seas. The red-faced barbarians

had plans of their own.

It was a warm morning, lazily peaceful in the pirate settlement above the banks of the

Kigayan River, on the island of Luzon, in the modern-day Philippines. The calm did not

last long. A lookout's drum sounded a deep, sonorous boom. A young girl, Ko, ran down

the low hill from the palisade to see the prow of a huge ship bearing down upon the

riverside pirate kingdom. Hundreds of armed men appeared from nowhere, leaping and bounding

down to their boats to counter the attack before the enemy could land and threaten their

families. The great galleys' swivel guns spat lead at the pirates tumbling down the

riverbanks. In the surprise of the moment, few pirates had more than their swords or

spears to hand. Even fewer were dressed for battle. The majority wore only the loincloths

they had woken in.

The enemy approached. Ko had never seen such strange men. Their upper body was clad in

shiny steel. They wore straight swords at their sides and held long-bladed spears. But

the strangest thing was their faces. Above ridiculously bushy beards of red, orange,

black and yellow, stuck noses like beaks. Deep-set, ugly round eyes under bushy eyebrows

took everything in. They looked fearsome, wild, almost inhuman. They were the Southern

Barbarians.

Captain Juan Pablo de Carrión, Admiral of the South Seas and the Sea of China in the

Navy of the most illustrious Philip by the grace of God, King of the Spains and the Indies,

had planned the surprise attack well. He had only narrowly defeated the main pirate fleet

at sea as it returned from raiding China. Now the Spanish flotilla bore down on the

pirate's nest to exterminate the vermin.

The Spanish had established their first colony in the Philippines in 1565 and then in 1571

fortified a settlement called Manila and set about seizing that lucrative trade with China

and Japan. These actions did not endear the Spanish to the locally established Waco. The

Philippine islands had been the perfect base to escape the long arm of the Chinese Navy

and stability had allowed the pirates to establish silver mines and prosperous colonies, some

even approaching mainland China for civilized sophistication.

The Spanish, however, increasingly strident and dominating in their behaviour, were a

severe threat and would need to be dealt with and in 1574 a pirate called Lim Hong gathered

around 4,000 Chinese and Japanese pirates on 60 ships and pounced on Manila. Spain had

only just held on and, badly shaken, whenever a new pirate colony was discovered they sent

their increasingly powerful local forces to pacify the area and one such incident had

been in Cagayan, on the island of Luzon, in 1582.

Coe stood rooted to the spot as officers from both sides barked orders in several languages.

The pirates had declined the Spaniards' offer of free passage and demanded gold in compensation.

This in turn was refused. The Spanish, frantically dug in on shore, prepared their guns, oiled

their pikes to prevent them from being grasped and prepared to defend their new position.

600 pirates returned to the fort, armed themselves properly this time and charged. The bodies

of Coe's kinsmen piled high until there were few left.

Coe knew what her future held. She had seen it often enough with prisoners brought back

from pirate raids.

Following these horrors, most pirates reverted to honest trades, exchanging the goods they

plundered or smuggled in China for gold and silver mined by American slaves in Mexico

and Peru. The Chinese contraband made its way via Spanish vessels to the households

of the rich and powerful of Europe and the Americas. The slave-extracted gold and silver

oiled the Chinese economy. The Spanish managed to secure Manila until 1898 and, increasingly

confident, actually started hiring Japanese and Chinese mariners to man their ships. This

policy continued happily until 1593.

Gomez Perez, Governor and General of Manila, having all his forces ready in the province

of Pincados, remained at Manila with the Admiral Gali and having taken in 250 Indians of Chinese

China, good rowers, without chaining them, smoothing them with fair speech and allowing

them weapons, as pikes and swords of Japan, which they called katana. These good fellows,

when arrived near the Isle Caza, spying the Spaniards asleep, fell upon them and cut their

throats. The Governor awoke with the noise and the captain of these Indians, perceiving

it, entreated him to come out of his cabin, which he had no sooner done than they slew

him and so made away for Borneo, as is thought.

A lesson in why not to trust pirates, even handsomely rewarded ones. The Spanish never

did retrieve the Gali.

But red-faced, steel-encased strangers were far from the only threat to Wako, for in tune

with the wax and wane of Japanese central government, the tide turned once again for

Japan-based pirates of all ethnicities when the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi subdued Japan's

western domains and reunified the country under central rule in the 1580s. His government

was probably stronger than any before him and backed by half a million samurai. Hideyoshi

issued an edict stating that should any lord be found to harbour pirates, then his fief

would be forfeit. He also provided employment for former bandits, co-opting them to his

navy to invade Korea between 1592 and 1598. This disastrous campaign saw many of the former

pirates meet their ends at the hands of the fearful Korean turtle ships. Hideyoshi then

enacted a system of licenses called shuinsho, or Vermilion Seal Permits. Any seafarer of

any nationality who wished to trade in Japan had to apply for one, and if caught without,

was automatically assumed to be a pirate and dealt with.

Legitimate merchants once again took over where pirates had left off, another swell

of East Asian piracy subdued. But for the states of South East Asia and seafarers passing

through those waters, it was sometimes hard to tell.

John Davies did not like this heat. He had always been more comfortable in the icebound

wastes of North America, where he had spent much of his explorer's life trying to find

a way to China and Japan through the North West Passage. It had eluded him, so now he

was on a voyage going the southern route, not through Magellan's Strait, but around

the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. The famous explorer was piloting his ship

Tiger under Captain Michelborne to China and Japan, aiming to be the first English ship

in those parts. And lo and behold, a few days ago on Christmas Eve 1605, just north

of Java and east of the Malay Peninsula, they had met a ship full of Japanese merchants,

in danger of capsizing. The English, seeing an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with

the first real Japanese people they had ever met, offered to help. Tiger took the vessel

in hand, and the two ships found refuge in the lee of a small island. The Japanese were

invited to join the English Christmas meal, and they responded likewise, by hosting the

English sailors aboard their vessel. It had been fascinating to dine with these swaggering

Asian seamen, laughing and joking together, despite the language differences, some jokes

easily transcended cultural barriers. He liked these ruffians, and looked forward to seeing

their country that he had been trying to reach for two decades or more.

One of the English sailors, who had had too much to drink, however, had started poking

around the rice bales. They certainly contained something more valuable than rice. These

men were clearly not only rice merchants. Others joined him, and eventually the Japanese

men ended up imprisoned on the English ship where they had been feasting. Davis liked

to think of himself as an honourable man, and despite the fact that these ruffians were

clearly up to no good, he liked them. Against his captain's orders, he allowed them to

keep their weapons.

Davis gazed out on the stunning sunset. The light was failing fast. There came a loud

crash from behind him. The door to the pirate's prison was bulging, about to rupture. Before

he could run, a warrior rushed out, grabbed him around the neck, and pulled Davis inside

the cabin. A huge sword to his neck. In the cabin, another pirate impaled him on a spear,

and charged out, using the first ever Englishman to die at Japanese hands as a human shield.

Davis passed out, and passed away. An ignoble end to a great life.

Japanese katana clashed against English broadsword as darkness fell over the floating battlefield.

All the Englishmen who had been on the Japanese ship were killed or thrown overboard, but

the Japanese sailors failed to take control of Tiger, and retreated back to the cabin,

where it had all begun. They held out for four hours. Captain Michelborne had had enough.

The ship's cannons were brought up on deck, and aimed point blank. The last holdouts were

literally blown away.

So was the whole rear of the ship. Tiger's crew, having survived the battle but in unknown

waters and too shaken to continue without Davis' expertise, seized two Chinese ships

to make good their losses, and set a course for home. The English so-called merchant explorers

were, in reality, no better than the pirates they had fought. When it suited them, they

simply raised their mask of legitimacy, and took whatever they fancied from those who

were weaker. It was a fine portent for the centuries to come.

The English had come seeking spices, at that time worth far more than their weight in gold.

They could go for tens of thousands of percent profit in the London market. But they had

nothing to pay for them with. England produced little besides wool and weaponry. The people

of the tropics had no need for wool, and were already amply supplied with weaponry. But

Japan was a cold country, and their warriors were said to be the fiercest in the world,

or so they said, surely the perfect market for wool and weapons. And Japan had silver,

mountains of it. Sadly for the English, this dream would never become a reality. Japan

preferred silk, and was entering 250 years of unsullied peace. But centuries later, England

would find the perfect substitute for both silver, wool and weapons. An irresistible

asset. Opium. And 200 years later, that would turn world history on its head.

What is the cult of Deus? What are the scriptures on which the cult's adherents rely, and the

terminology which they use? Who is the main deity they worship? Because the followers

of the Buddhas do not inquire into these matters, they are not able to vanquish this

cult's adherents and chase them from the lands. And therefore, the cursed doctrine has grown

day by day. Around the turn of the 17th century, several

events occurred to cause a large diaspora of Japanese to emigrate around Eastern Asia.

The 1603 Battle of Sekigahara secured the rule of the Tokugawa family in Japan until

1868. But the defeated samurai fled, some overseas, to places where the long arm of

the new shogunate could not reach. The new government acted to secure its control over

the country, rooting out its enemies. The ever-growing strength of the Catholics, potentially

loyal to Rome and not Edo, presented a potential threat, and they were encouraged to recant

their beliefs. Many Christians refused to apostatize and were exiled. Others found it

expedient to search out more tolerant enclaves where they could practice their outlawed faith.

Manila, Macau, Siam, Hoi An, Phnom Penh, and dozens of other Japanese merchant settlements

scattered throughout the maritime world of the South China Seas welcomed them. Over the

years, these new communities, some numbering thousands, became integral to their host nations,

trading extensively with Japan and also, due to their faith, acting as useful middlemen

for European merchants. But, as so often in this era, there was a fine line, sometimes

so fine that it was indistinguishable between legitimate merchants and pirates.

Many of the Japanese diaspora had spent their youth on the battlefields of Civil War Japan.

Violence was second nature. When it suited them, they could speedily transform from merchant

to pirate and vice versa. Local powers saw this and often employed their new subjects.

Japanese mercenary pirates ended up fighting and dying in a whole host of battles and brawls

all over Asia. In Korea, a samurai corps bravely fought off Manchu incursions on the northern

border for decades. In 1603, the Spanish, despite previous awkward episodes, used Japanese

pirates to massacre the rebellious Chinese population of Manila, many of them also pirates.

In 1623, the Dutch employed a shipload of Japanese pirates when attempting to capture

Macau from the Portuguese. The defenders emancipated their African slaves to join the fight and

the combined Dutch-Japanese force was driven back into the sea. And sometimes, hiring Japanese

soldiers of fortune backfired badly. In 1611, a force of 280 Japanese men took the Siamese

King prisoner until they were paid off. King Song Tham seems to have been impressed rather

than repulsed and he promptly employed other Japanese mercenaries to form his palace guard.

And key among these Japanese adventurers to win honour and high position in Siam was a

man called Yamada Nagamasa. Poison, poison, poison. It had to be poison. Yamada had felt

himself weakening for months and now on the eve of his wedding, he felt his life slipping

away. As the music and feasting sounded outside his tent, his bride, a beautiful Thai princess,

held him in her arms and he looked into her deep brown shiny young eyes. The old Japanese

pirate started to talk. He told his queen of how he had traversed the seas from Japan as

a common sailor, then pirate, risen to captain, headman and eventually decorated general in

the Thai King's army. His 600 samurai mercenaries, former pirates all, ruled the Siamese roost,

swaggered around Thai battlefields, sweeping all before them. None could resist. This had

won him a kingdom, subject to none but the Thai King himself. It had been his downfall.

He was too powerful. Somehow he had been poisoned, perhaps in his food, perhaps by that medicine

the king had recently gifted. But finally, the Japanese king of Ligur, the most successful

Japanese pirate in history, Yamada Nagamasa, lay back, fell silent, died. His final breath

played slowly on the young queen's silky black hair.

Yamada is believed to have reached Siam around 1610 and engaged in piracy in a minor way

before setting himself up legitimately in the Thai capital. Finally, Yamada had become

kingmaker. As King Song Tham was dying, the former pirate was tasked with ensuring the

enthronement of his young son. Nagamasa had become one of the most powerful men in the

country and was caught in the violence and strife of the succession. He had failed. The

young boy had perished. Yamada and his men had survived and he was appointed king of

the tributary kingdom of Ligur on the Malay peninsula. An incredible rise.

Records differ as to how Yamada was poisoned, but some say the fatal dose was administered

by the princess, his new queen. Yamada Nagamasa, pirate, merchant, general, law enforcer, diplomat,

kingmaker and king, died in 1630. He was only 40 years old.

With peace reigning supreme in the Japanese

islands, the shoguns were increasingly annoyed by reports from overseas that Japanese subjects

were exporting their violent tendencies. It had to stop. Ever increasing restrictions

were placed on leaving the Japanese islands until in 1635, no one was allowed to leave

upon pain of death. It was final and effective. The seaways between Japan and the rest of

Asia, once so full of brigands, was now empty. But nature abhors a vacuum.

The year was 1647. Tagao Amatsu was a pirate queen. Her husband, Zhang Jialong, controlled

vast swathes of the South China seas with a corsair fleet of thousands. His realm was

a state unto its own and had been, at least until recently, effectively an almost independent

entity within the great Ming empire. A true pirate kingdom. The colourful gold and red

Zhang pendants atop the towers and pagodas of the clan stronghold of Anhai fluttered

vigorously in the sea breeze as Tagao looked landwards to where black clouds of smoke from

the burning city collected over a Manchu army approaching swiftly on horseback, golden dragon

banners billowing proudly aloft. A few heavily armoured soldiers still guarded the walls,

yet her husband had abandoned them all, thrown in his lot with the enemy, and the still loyal

armies of Tagao's son were engaged on distant battlefields. Now the barbarian horsemen,

thousands of miles from their northern snowbound step home, approached this southern bastion.

There was no help coming. The battle would be brutal and swift. The defending pirates

were heavily outnumbered. Rather than endure the humiliation of being ravaged by unwashed

nomadic warriors, Tagao, dressed all in white silk, walked calmly to the edge of the great

fortifications, climbed daintily to the crest, took the Japanese Kaiken blade she had brought

with her from the land of her birth, and plunged it into her throat. Her body fell from the

battlements, the wide sleeves of her kimono ballooning in the wind. The pure white of

her death-robe swiftly turned to red on the hard cobbles as the shocked Manchus looked

on. They are said to have remarked, if the women of Japan are of such a sort, what must

the men be like?

It had all started in Lord Matsura's infamous pirate haven, Hirado, in western Japan. Snug

in the cozy refuge, hundreds of Japanese coastal craft, a host of Chinese junks, and more than

a dozen European ships were anchored. Lord Matsura's tiny backwater had become a hub

of world trade, frequented by Chinese, English, Dutch, Africans, Indians, Javans, and many

more. From here, the Japanese vessels would load the foreign goods and transport them

to the vast markets of Osaka, Kyoto, Edo, and a hundred lordly domains in between. Millions

awaited the goods that Matsura controlled. The Chinese in harbour, such as Li Dan, were

outright pirates, based here because the Ming authorities were seeking their heads. The

Dutch and English claimed to be representatives of respectable barbarian nations, but they

fought each other in drunken rages, like pirates, and even occasionally captured each other's

ships as prizes. The Portuguese had been worse, local blood had been spilled multiple times

before finally being banished in 1561. Pirates should keep their violent ways to unfriendly

ports, not safe havens.

Tagawa had been a young girl when a dashing young Chinese adventurer called Zheng Jialong

made the busy little harbour his home. They had a child together in 1624 and were married.

Jialong was a polyglot and entered the service of the Dutch who were building a colony in

Taiwan. As they had few men of their own, the Dutch allowed any pirate ship that gave

them 50% of the spoils to fly their flag and enjoy its protection. So Jialong transformed

from interpreter to pirate.

By 1627 he had amassed a fleet of 400 Chinese ships, armed with superior European cannon

and a private army of tens of thousands. A man with flair, he restricted his attacks

to the rich and styled himself a protector of the poor. He took anyone into his service

and was particularly noted for having a personal African bodyguard of 300 men. Beijing's navy

was reduced to splinters and the authorities were at their wits end. There was one last

option. Co-opt Jialong. Offer him great wealth and power within the empire.

Zheng Jialong switched sides in 1628. He was now a Ming government man.

It was now Jialong's job to hunt down his former comrades and destroy their Dutch puppeteers.

He built up a new hybrid fleet of 30 large warships, the first of its kind, combining

the best of both European and Chinese technology. But before they were complete, the Dutch attacked

and annihilated the nearly completed armada. In secret, Jialong gathered a new fleet of

junks and in October 1633 issued a challenge. The Dutch of course had succeeded once and

full of contempt, they sailed against him with 9 European ships and 50 allied pirate

vessels. And as they lay at anchor, 150 small Zheng ships approached at speed. The Dutch

primed their cannon. They knew they could blow Chinese junks from the water with ease.

It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But these were not ordinary ships. Each vessel

was packed to the brim with explosives. Great destruction was wrought and Dutch power was

broken for good. Now the Europeans were in their place, it was Jialong's ocean. His ships

controlled traffic between China, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. A huge maritime empire,

vaster than any other. Around this time, Jialong sent for his Japanese

son. The boy, later to be known as Zheng Changgong or Cochinga by the Dutch, was brought up as

a Ming nobleman. It is thought that he was the first Japanese candidate in 800 years

to be successful in the Chinese imperial examinations and was on course to be one of the highest

ranking officials in the land. Times were good for the Zheng clan. Their wealth grew

so large, some said they were the richest family in China. Then came 1644.

Manchu tribesmen from north of the Great Wall, menacing the border for decades, finally took

Beijing. The emperor hanged himself, the Manchus proclaimed a new Qing dynasty and the Ming

forces retreated southwards. The Zheng took a fiercely loyalist line to their employers

and as city after city fell, they prepared to defend their home provinces. Cochinga was

forced to leave his scholar's life and take up arms. His mother, Tagawa Matsu, with whom

he had an extremely close bond, made the journey from Japan to take up residence in the family

citadel of Anhai.

Again Zhelong defected. The Qing offered him lordship over the southern provinces and he

accepted, but Cochinga fought on and the Qing withdrew their offer. Manchu troops came for

Zhelong and only his African bodyguard remained with him, massacred in a heroic last stand.

Zhelong was taken to Beijing as a hostage and beheaded like a common criminal.

After his father's betrayal and his mother's suicide, Cochinga continued the fight against

the Manchu for 15 years. The wheel of fortune had turned, the pirate father had become a

lord, the noble son was now declared a pirate. Cochinga knew he had to establish a safe base

from which to plan a long-term Ming reconquest and in 1661 decided upon the island his father

had done so much to cultivate, Taiwan, where the Dutch retained their prosperous colony.

This island was the dominion of my father and should descend to none other than myself.

Foreigners must go. The Dutch had never had to face a force like Cochinga's pirate army

before. The siege lasted nearly a year, brutal fighting, devastating bombardment, near starvation

and torture. Finally, a white flag fluttered above the broken fortress and the survivors

were allowed to leave. The Dutch era on Taiwan was at an end and Cochinga declared a new

realm, the Kingdom of Tungning. The Qing could not compete with the Jiang navy so they chose

to cut off all supplies, enforcing a great clearance of the whole coastal region. Millions

of people were forced to destroy their property and move inland. Anyone caught beyond the

boundary was executed. Thousands perished, millions starved.

The ban outlived Cochinga. The great pirate, imperial loyalist, scholar, freedom fighter

and tyrant died of malaria in 1662 at the age of 37. He had been about to invade the

Philippines to extend his anti-Qing base. Had the tiny mosquito not bitten him, he would

have almost certainly succeeded. Such small things are what history hinges on.

His son, Zheng Jing, succeeded him and died in 1681. His grandson, Zheng Keshuan, surrendered

to the Qing in 1683. The Qing ruled a unified China until 1911. The house of Zheng was a

finished as an independent entity, subsumed within the empire, but the memory and fear

of the Sea People remained. And less than 100 years later, the power of piracy was to

have one last hurrah.

Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is

prohibited by law. Increasingly over the next century, Europeans, people who the Qing regarded

as little better than pirates, had been arriving in China's ports requesting trade. Limited

access to the southern port of Guangzhou was tolerated and European trade steadily increased,

out of sight and out of mind of the North China-based government. Europeans had little

that the Qing Empire needed and were forced to pay for Chinese products in silver, something

which was often in short supply and very expensive to source. It was then the English East India

Company hit on the idea of smuggling the highly addictive, deadly, not to mention illegal

drug opium from India to China, selling it for Chinese silver and then using that silver

to buy the Chinese luxury produce such as tea, silk and porcelain, which sold so well

at home. Thus, the poppy seed of the Qing's eventual downfall arrived in ever-increasing

quantities in Guangzhou and the population fell ever deeper into the clutches of opium

addiction. The British, who ruthlessly suppressed piracy in their own territory, had transformed

themselves into the world's most prolific drug smugglers. And yet, just prior to this,

this illicit trade had almost come toppling down, and all thanks to one woman, Zheng Shi,

the most infamous and successful female pirate in history.

In the late 18th century, Vietnam was convulsed by revolution and civil war. The Taeson rebels

in the north and the Nguyen lords of the south both saw it as expedient to hire Chinese pirates

from Guangdong to further their cause. With time, the nascent Taeson state became yet

another East Asian piratical realm. The rebellion was finally quelled by the Nguyen in 1802,

and the last of the pirates fled back to China, leading a new dynasty which would rule until

1945. But these battle-hardened pirate refugees did not simply disband. A captain called Zheng

Yi rallied the refugee pirates around his flag and swiftly gathered a huge fleet. This

Zheng had, only the year before, fallen in love with a young girl from a floating Guangdong

brothel. The girl's true birth name is lost to history, but thanks to their partnership,

she became known as Zheng Shi. Madame Zheng.

Pirate wives do not normally grace the pages of history books. Indeed, most pirates did

not have wives, but Madame Zheng was no normal wife. From the beginning, she shared the business

of managing the maritime bandits, and the gang thrived under the pair's joint command.

By 1804, their fleet comprised 400 ships, and later, at its height, tripled that number,

employing 70,000 men under arms. Their business was both protection in the time-honoured pirate

manner, but also plunder, human trafficking, and after rendering the Qing government's

navy useless, the purveyors of a huge salt monopoly. The innocuous-sounding condiment

was in fact a hugely valuable commodity, without which China could not function, so control

of salt brought unimaginable economic power. The pirates had been able to impose a food

tax on the whole of southern China. Zheng Yi had abducted a young fisher boy called

Zhang Bao in 1798. The pirate couple formally adopted him as their son and heir. When the

father and husband, Yi, died in 1807, with the support of senior captains, Lady Zheng

took over, and quickly married her adoptive son to cement the command.

For years past, the documents from Canton have noticed the alarming state of the coasts

of China in possession of the pirates. Not a few strangling banditi hiding themselves

in creeks and unfrequented harbours of the islands, but a formidable, organised body,

commanded by daring officers and certainly in complete possession of the whole coast.

The Marine Department at Canton, employed for the destruction of these banditi, in the

beginning shared the plunder, till the pirates, feeling their own superiority, put an end

to this useless association and beat them from the field.

Under Lady Zheng's leadership, strict laws were enforced. Any independent action without

her command meant death. Any stealing from the communal pot or friendly villagers meant

a similar fate, as did mistreating or raping female captives, before this, the absolute

norm.

Her rule was absolute. The government was in despair. Their force was disabled by the

pirates' superior Vietnam-built vessels, and what was left was immobilised with fear.

The pirates' judicious use of bribes ensured that they were always one step ahead of the

law, even when on land. For years they controlled all shipping, even foreign, as the European

merchants, the East India Company Prime among them, found it easier to pay the pirate tax,

rather than have their opium seized.

But in 1809, Lady Zheng went too far. A Thai diplomatic mission from Siam was kidnapped

and held to ransom. American merchantmen were forced to seek protection in Macau, and

a Portuguese ship, which had refused to pay the pirate tax, was seized. The crew paid

with their heads. The government of Macau, a Portuguese outpost since the 16th century,

had had enough. They mobilised for war.

The first battle in September 1809 had been an unfortunate wake-up call for the pirates.

Only three Portuguese vessels had easily held off 200 of Madame Zheng's ships. The

pirates had never actually fought Western ships before. They had never needed to, their

vast numbers had deterred retaliation. The Portuguese weaponry, which included cutting-edge

exploding shells, had taken Zheng's men by surprise. At the coming of night, they scuttled

away.

The Qing government noted the Portuguese victory, and saw a way to rid themselves of Zheng Xi

and her minions. They proposed an alliance, but Zheng heard of the plan and sent her

ships to prevent the two fleets combining forces. It had worked, but the losses had

been brutal.

Madame Zheng lay back in her grand bed. She was dying, and she knew it. Around her were

gathered innumerous and adoring family. They had heard the stories a hundred times before,

but they would endure one final time for the dying dame.

Zheng told of her last battle in 1810, how the pirates had mobilised 300 ships, 1500

guns and 20,000 men to smite their Portuguese foe, how in the end their grandmother's

glorious flagship, a floating temple pagoda which dwarfed even the Portuguese warships,

had been blown to the land of the gods. Her pirates had fled for the last time. Then came

her cackle.

But we won. In 1810, atop a pagoda as close to the heavens as a living woman can get,

I dealt with three governments, and they gave me all I wanted. And my men kept their lives

and their riches. Their families welcomed them home with open arms.

Madame Zheng, prostitute, pirate, great dame of the South China Seas, lived out the final

decades of her life, raising her family and fleecing the locals in a Macau gambling house.

She breathed her last in 1844. There never had been, and never would be again, a pirate

like her.

Piracy has shaped all the coastal peoples of the Far East, Japan, China, the Koreas,

Vietnam and the Philippines, raised up great rulers, dashed whole dynasties. The pirates

were men and women marginalised from mainstream society and economic opportunities. They were

criminals, cutthroats and even regarded as something less than fully human by those who

clung to the land. They would have described themselves in polar opposite terms of course.

Freedom fighters, revolutionaries, pioneers.

Time and time again in East Asia, pirates became powerful enough to hold great nations

to ransom, and eventually, in lieu of victory, governments often embraced the sea brigands

and their skills to defend the very states they had brought to their knees. And throughout

it all, the common people both suffered as victims and thrived as perpetrators.

Piracy did not entirely cease with Madame Chung's surrender. Minor bandits of one sort

or another prowled Asia's waterways well into the 20th century, and the gumboat diplomacy

engaged in by the great powers of the 19th and early 20th centuries looks suspiciously

like piracy when we look back at it in the modern age.

The pirates never again had the power to determine international destinies, and we

are unlikely to ever again see a Kochinga or a Madame Chung. The seas where pirates

once ruled are now patrolled and controlled by six of the world's ten most powerful navies.

The USA, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

The story of the Pirates of the East is now truly at an end.

When Pirates Ruled Asia_ 1000 Vicious Years of Chinese and J Cuando los piratas dominaban Asia_ 1000 años de vicios chinos y j Quand les pirates régnaient sur l'Asie_ 1000 années vicieuses de piraterie chinoise et japonaise. Quando i pirati dominavano l'Asia_ 1000 anni di guerra tra Cina e Giappone. 海賊がアジアを支配した時代_中国と日本の悪辣な1000年 Quando os piratas governavam a Ásia_ 1000 anos cruéis de guerra entre chineses e j Когда пираты правили Азией_ 1000 порочных лет китайской и J Korsanlar Asya'yı Yönetirken_ Çin ve Japonya'nın 1000 Kısır Yılı Коли Азією правили пірати_ 1000 жорстоких років китайської та японської 当海盗统治亚洲_中日罪恶1000年

The lofty pagoda towered above Guangzhou harbour. As China's only open port, this was where

the world came when they wanted to trade within the great Qing Empire. And from the pagoda's

highest and most exclusive floors, the view was magnificent. Closer by, however, the waters

themselves were hardly visible, beneath the anchored ships and bustling wharves, scuttling

boats and swaying jetties. The sights, smells and tastes of a thousand different cultures

being bought and sold, traded and bartered, smuggled and stolen. It was the centre of

the world. And she was at the very heart of it.

Madame Zhang, Asia's greatest pirate, settled herself comfortably at an expansive table.

The breeze of the rarefied upper levels of the pagoda whistling in her ears, exquisitely

painted fingernails tapped slowly on the arm of the polished wooden chair. On the other

side of the negotiating table sat the Qing Empire's provincial viceroy, Portuguese naval

officers and merchant officials of the English East India Company. At stake was Madame Zhang's

vast pirate empire enforced by a strict set of laws, her colossal fortune gathered through

merciless raiding and legitimate business, and a possible enforced retirement from the

world of maritime violence. But her adversaries had far more to lose.

The Qing risked the continued destabilisation of their whole Chinese empire, pirates having

years before destroyed the last remnants of their southern navy. The Portuguese feared

the viability of their incredibly lucrative Macau colony, the last bastion of long-dwindled

imperial glory. And finally, the British stood to lose the opium trade which powered

their domination of India. The loss of the American colonies was still raw, the Asian

empire must be preserved at all costs. They threshed out a deal. Madame humbly agreed

to retire from piracy, stand down her 70,000 strong crew, cease seizing foreign vessels

and grant the Qing navy use of her fleet. She was offered an imperial pardon, full custody

of her ill-gotten gains, 120 ships and a high military rank for her husband. She had

wrapped representatives of three of the world's most powerful empires round her perfectly

manicured little finger. Not bad for a woman who had started out in a floating brothel.

The coastal areas of East Asia are peppered with tiny islands, secret coves and steep,

mountainous looking points, ideal for hiding, raiding, evading and fortifying. It shouldn't

come as a surprise that seaborne robbery, smuggling, kidnap, murder, extortion, rape,

slaving, sedition, treason, rebellion and revolution, piracy in all its forms, has always

thrived here. In fact, the coastal peoples of the East may justifiably claim to have

been masters of piracy's art. This is the millennia long story of those cutthroat villains,

philanthropic heroes, protectors of the oppressed, loyal to the death brotherhoods and merciless

scoundrels. Of small raids off the coast of Korea growing exponentially in scale to vast

pirate empires, acting as both king makers and scourges of the people living on the shore.

This is the incredible story of the Pirates of the East.

Not related to Zelda, unfortunately. Sorry.

And Magellan is a great choice to accompany our videos too. One recommendation I enjoyed

recently was How China Got Rich. A fascinating study of the incredible economic boom. Definitely

worth a watch to help understand a hugely important topic. A great companion piece for

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On land, Gan Ning and his gang travelled by riding on horses, or in chariots in certain

formation. On water, they sailed on light vessels linked together. They also wore elaborate

and flamboyant garments to attract attention. The earliest Chinese records of piracy stretch

back to the 4th century BC. And over the coming centuries, seaborne traffic and coastal communities

in the vast ocean, which stretches between current-day Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the

Philippines, Korea and Japan, were always at danger of attack or extortion. Even the

Romans of Augustus' time warned of Asian piracy on their most distant sea charts. During

the 9th century, Korean pirates haunted the coasts of their neighbours, and every nook

and cranny of Asian shoreline had gangs of rough fisherfolk ready to try their hand at

seaborne banditry. But our story really starts in 1019, at the same time as Danes were raiding

England on the other side of the globe. Jiuquans, ancestors of the Manchu, and, like the Danes,

the dwellers of inhospitable icy lands, took to their sturdy vessels and headed south to

raid Japan. They rampaged through the remote islands of Tsushima and Iki, wiping out the

men, seizing women and children as captives. Drunk on their success, they then attacked

the much larger island of Kyushu, carrying off a thousand more prisoners. An army was

swiftly mobilised to drive them off, but the raiders swanned away with their plunder. A

grim omen for the future, but it wouldn't be long before these initial raids paled in

comparison to the carnage going in the opposite direction.

Prior to 1223, there had been peace on the southern maritime border of Korea, but as

the provinces were stripped of troops to counter Mongol raids in the north and plague, typhoons

and extreme drought struck the outlying western Japanese islands, the starving people of those

islands resorted to attacking their weakened neighbours to feed their families. The attacks

increased steadily, as did the speed of the Korean military response, but the marauders'

depredations only worsened. A formal communication was sent to the Japanese government.

The people of the island of Tsushima of your country have of old come presenting tribute

in native products. Annually, harmonious relations were cultivated. It came to pass that in the

sixth month of the year of the senior fire dog, taking advantage of the night while the

residents slept, they entered a hole in the town wall and plundered indiscriminately,

and disturbed innocent peasants without end. A number of ships are coming and going in

a disorderly fashion and committing mischief. What is the reason for this?

Japanese governmental authorities had been unaware of their wayward western subjects'

piratical activities and were no less incensed than the Koreans, swiftly executing ninety

Japanese perpetrators, this swift and brutal act of justice having the desired effect,

restoring calm to the seas. Fifth month, Junior Wood Ox Day, a document

arriving from Japan apologising for the crime of the bandit ships raiding our borders. Harmonious

relations and mutual trade were requested. But a word which would change Asian history

had been etched. The Koreans termed these pirates Weigu, or Wako in Japanese, the term

by which pirates in East Asia, whether Japanese or not, would generally be known for the next

four hundred years. So, in 1260, as Louis IX of France was considering

an eighth crusade, the priest Nichiren knelt on the hard earthen floor of his hut and gazed

through the open door down the green, pine-coloured valley.

More and more in recent times there have been extraordinary occurrences in the heaven and

on the earth, famine and epidemics everywhere spread across the land. More and more are

pressed by famine, beggars meet the eye everywhere, and the dead fill the eye. Corpses lie about

and in rows like a bridge. He paused, sighed, and set down the bamboo

brush. The rain's music intensified. This year a novice nun had even been found

eating human flesh. Was it any wonder then that piracy had flourished? The people had

nowhere else left to turn, nothing left to sell, nothing left to reap.

Nichiren was right. Piracy had again reared its head, both in Japan and in renewed raids

on Korea. These depredations continued for a few years, until a much bigger threat than

mere famine and disease occupied southern Korea. Mongols.

Kublai, Khan of the Mongols, Emperor of China, stroked his beard as he considered a problem

which so enraged him that he had been unable to sleep. The Khan had spent most of his life

on horseback, even on elephants and camels, but he had never ridden in a ship. The whole

idea of water, and far more so the sea, frightened Mongols. A desert of water was far, far more

frightening to a Mongol than any hospitable expanse of grass or sand. But five times the

impudent Japanese had refused his envoys. The rulers of an insignificant island realm

had unceremoniously rejected his generous offer to grant them vassal status. He came

to his decision. Now was the time to act. He beckoned a eunuch officer.

Call in the sea men.

After nearly thirty years of trying, the Mongols had finally imposed vassal status on the Korean

peninsula in 1259. Conversely, the next year had seen a reversal of Mongol fortunes on

the other side of Eurasia. Defeat in Palestine by Mamluk Egypt marked the maximum westward

reach of the empire. But there was still room to expand eastwards. Japan now lay just beyond

the horizon. Over the next decade, increasing numbers of Mongol troops were seen in the

southern reaches of Korea. Japanese pirates wisely refrained from raiding.

Meanwhile, Kublai had continued his invasion of China, and in 1273, seeing which way the

tide was turning, the Yansi pirates, Zhu Qing and Zhang Xian, had offered their 500

ships to his cause. These, now respectable pirates, had become stalwarts of the Mongol

navy, planning and commanding Mongol invasions and raids to Champa and Java. They also provided

their services in the two expeditions against Japan, in 1274 and 1281. And indeed, the Japanese

defenders who had the most experience with naval warfare were the very people who had

been raiding the Korean coast for the previous half century. Pirate fought pirate at sea.

Regular troops engaged on land.

Japanese warcraft, being small in size, were no match for these ships. Those which came

up to attack were all beaten off. The whole country was therefore trembling with fear.

In the markets there was no rice for sale. The Japanese ruler went in person to visit

the Hachiman shrine to make supplication. He also had a royal rescript read at the shrine

of the Sun Goddess, imploring that his country be saved in exchange for his own life.

The gods listened. Winds blew and waves raged. A divine wind, Kamikaze or Shinpu, delivered

the Mongols and their Korean levies to a watery grave. The shogunate's prayers had been answered.

Japan remained independent and although no one knew it, the Black Death, which would

wipe out hundreds of millions of people and spread as a result of the secure trade and

communication routes that the Mongol Empire guaranteed, would never reach Japan.

But the Mongol invasions led to a far greater long-term military deployment in the western

areas where pirates had traditionally ruled the roost. Aware that Japan had only narrowly

escaped incorporation into the Mongol Empire, the shogunate, strengthened by its military

success, was determined to keep as low a profile as possible. Piracy, for a time, died away

in the Sea of Japan.

Hu Weiyang had been one of the most powerful men in China until four days ago. Great Minister

of the Left, the Ming Emperor's Chancellor. Now, surrounded by armoured soldiers, their

guandao weapons grounded and gleaming in the soft morning sunlight, he and his entire family

knelt in Nanjing's execution grounds, awaiting death. Hu had been instrumental in bringing

about the rise of the new Ming Dynasty, by providing ships for the decisive 1363 Battle

of Lake Poyang, which secured the end of Mongol rule and ushered in a new dawn. The Great

Ming. Da-Min. Hu had served his lord and then emperor, Hongwu, faithfully and, as far as

he was concerned, justly, ushering in a better governed, more secure and more just nation,

rid of the stinking Mongol nomads. But Hu had become too powerful, perhaps occasionally

taking the law into his own hands, and Emperor Hongwu's increasing paranoia had turned him

against his chief minister. Hu could feel that his days were numbered and had decided

to strike first. He ordered a servant to Japan to engage a gang of samurai pirates to assassinate

the emperor. They were known to spare no one, kill swiftly, without remorse. The 400 pirates

disguised themselves as a tribute mission. With weapons concealed inside huge candles,

the samurai had made landfall and were proceeding towards completion of their mission, when

at the last minute, Emperor Hongwu had smelled a rat. And now, Hu was only grateful to be

spared death by a thousand cuts.

He knelt with his hands tied behind his back and his whole family was decapitated before

his eyes. Finally, the executioner came for him. As he died, he wondered what had become

of the pirates.

Hu's gamble on mercenary samurai had all come about due to another breakdown of central

government in Japan, which, around 1350, had allowed the Wako to quietly return to their

piratical ways. These raids, focused primarily on Korea, culminated in outright pirate invasions

involving up to 3,000 men. They plundered far inland, seizing everything of value and

carrying off the population as slaves. It was inevitable that China, amidst collapsing

Mongol rule, would also suffer. The newly enthroned Hongwu Emperor dispatched a letter

to Japan in 1369.

Japanese pirates repeatedly plunder areas along the coast, separating men forever from

their wives and children and destroying property and lives. If there are those who nonetheless

continue to engage in piracy, I will be compelled to order naval officers to set sail for Japan.

The threat was not carried out. The issue of Hu Weiyong and his cabal proved far more

pressing. Over the next decade, 30,000 of Hu's associates were ruthlessly hunted down.

Fortunately, by the time the Emperor Hongwu had satisfied his bloodlust, Japan was once

again unified under a strong government, and a new and dynamic Korean dynasty, the Joseon,

who would rule until the 20th century, had smitten the worst of the pirates. The new

Ashikaga shogunate acted swiftly to repair diplomatic ties with China and Korea. Legitimate

trade delivered far greater riches for less risk. Time and time again over the next century,

visiting Ming Chinese ambassadors would return not only with Japanese merchandise, but also

with a sorry-looking retinue of Chinese bandits, awaiting death by boiling. Peace reigned in

the Sea of Japan.

And then, in 1517, a whole new gang of rogues hove into view off the Chinese coast.

It was a fine June day when a strange-looking ship arrived in the southern Chinese port

of Guangzhou. The crew were of many unusual races, some with very dark skin and curly

hair, others boasting turbans and extravagant beards. These types of men had been noted

in chronicles of previous ages. Their leaders, however, were unfamiliar. They had skins of

a violent pink, big noses, deep eyes with thin, weak-looking hair, and declared themselves

representatives of a land that the Chinese had barely heard of before. Portugal. This

kind of thing happened occasionally, and the unusual new people almost always came from

remote southern islands, so the Chinese, as usual, called these men Southern Barbarians.

The newcomers were polite at first, and eventually, after receiving permission from Beijing, were

allowed to conduct an embassy. While the diplomats were away, however, the barbarians showed

their true colours.

Foreigners from the west, called Falang-ki, who said they had tribute, abruptly entered

the bogey and, by their tremendously loud guns, shook the place far and near. This was

reported at court, and an order returned to drive them away immediately and stop the

trade. They fortified an island, raided local villages for children to eat, engaged in street

brawls, intimidated other foreign shipping, and, worst of all, carried out the death penalty

without adhering to the due process stipulated by the law of the land. It was clear that

they were, in reality, pirates. The barbarian pirates were ordered to leave. When the captain

refused, they were forcibly expelled. For the next few decades, wherever the Portuguese

landed or attempted trade, they were fought off and, if caught, executed.

Yasuke stood on deck, the fresh spring breeze playing on his smooth face. In front of him,

an island-spattered sea twisted gently between the deep green mountainous shores on either

side. Waves glimmered as the rising sun caught each crest. The giant African warrior was

bodyguard to a Jesuit missionary, traversing Japan's Seto Inland Sea en route to the capital,

Kyoto. Wherever explorers went, the word of God had been sure to follow. The only safe

way to get there was by ship, and by the late 1500s the only ships that plied the waters

were pirate ships. As a military man, Yasuke cast his sharp eyes around, taking in every

detail of their host's attire. The pirates went about their business in rough-looking

faded tunics tied at the waist with hempen rope. Some boasted hodgepodge items of light

armour. They all had swords thrust through their belts. The ships themselves were equipped

with surprising arsenals – small cannon, muskets, grenades, spears, grappling hooks

and chains, polearm sickles and bows. They were far better equipped than he had expected.

There were also strange-looking wooden rocket launchers. Yasuke had not seen these before

and supposed that they must be an innovation acquired on raids in China and Korea. Despite

his size, strength and prowess with myriad weaponry, Yasuke prayed that these business-like

killers would not turn on their Jesuit passengers.

The Japanese Seto Inland Sea had always been the haunt of pirates, but Yasuke was present

during their heyday. A far cry from the calm of the Ashikaga shogunate, everything had

changed. In 1467 the Japanese archipelago had once more descended into strife and the

shogunate had collapsed in a brutal civil war, leading to a period of almost 150 years

of constant conflict. The Warring States period had begun. The chaos and desperation in the

wake of conflict on the mainland had led to clans like the Murakami controlling the

waves and the huge seaborne traffic which passed upon them. They were the kings of the

maritime realm, just as other lords commanded fiefs on land. The pirates ruled from fortified

islands, guaranteeing safe passage past their lairs for a hefty fee. These same men and

women would also hire their own services to land-based lords, and famously even constructed

the world's first iron-clad ships. In civil war-driven Japan, the pirates were another

force vying to hold onto and expand spheres of influence at the expense of the land-based

lords, warrior monks, bandits or ninja. Their power and reputation for ruthlessness was

known throughout Asia.

Peaceful trade with China by states such as Japan or Korea had been traditionally carried

out with a license, called a kanhe, a tally. Only the bearer of the kanhe, the representative

of a recognised tributary government, was permitted to trade. This system had been functioning

since 1404. Kendo Sotetsu was enraged. He and his men, carrying valid Japanese trade

tallies, had landed first. A rival clan, the Hosokawa, had also sent a mission, but they

had arrived late to the port of Ningbo and carried outdated tallies. His mission should

have been unquestionably allowed to engage in trade. The usurpers sent packing. But the

Chinese trade official had taken Hosokawa bribes and declined Kendo's rightful claim.

The samurai jumped up. He would not stand for this. There was a sharp whoosh, and blood

spattered across his kimono.

Kendo's envoys slew the rival clansmen, burned their ship and chased their leader over a

thousand kilometres inland. Unable to apprehend their quarry, they raped and pillaged their

way back to Ningbo, laid waste to the Chinese garrison, stole a squadron of ships and sailed

off into the blue. Now it was the Chinese authority's turn to be enraged. Kendo Sotetsu's

extradition was demanded. It was not forthcoming.

The tally system had only worked smoothly as long as there was an uncontested central

authority in the barbarian realm in question, and Japan had no such authority. Legitimate

trade had continued sporadically, but by 1523, the spiralling chaos had all come to a head

with Kendo Sotetsu's exploits, which led to legitimate trade all but dying out, and in

1548, it was forbidden entirely.

With trade outlawed, piracy became the only way to fulfil the needs of the Japanese market.

This lucrative business fell to a band of multicultural corsairs, mostly comprising

Chinese renegades and Japanese mariners, but also including the new Southern Barbarians

– Portuguese, Africans and other Asians. They earned the reputation of being fearless

in battle, often fighting to the death against forces ten times their size rather than conceding.

The government established a great line of coastal fortresses, beacons and other defences,

but to little effect. Many coastal peoples took the path of least resistance, giving

the pirates safe haven.

Treacherous people from the interior gang up with foreigners like the Japanese, Falangi

and those from Pahang and Siam. The evil people of the interior trade with them and supply

them necessities.

In the forty years after Kendo Sotetsu's rampage, 601 pirate raids were recorded, more than at

any other time in history. And so, in 1581, Yasuke found himself aboard one of their vessels.

He turned away from musing on the sea to see one of the Japanese crew gaping at him, taking

in his enormous height, bulging muscles and ink-black skin. He was used to ogling eyes

by now – no one in Japan had ever seen a man like him – and they couldn't help but

stare. Yasuke flashed the man a wide grin, at the same time letting his right hand drop

to where an ornate Arab Jambiya dagger nestled. He would not do any harm to show he meant

business.

But the Japanese were not alone in their efforts to carve up the seas. The red-faced barbarians

had plans of their own.

It was a warm morning, lazily peaceful in the pirate settlement above the banks of the

Kigayan River, on the island of Luzon, in the modern-day Philippines. The calm did not

last long. A lookout's drum sounded a deep, sonorous boom. A young girl, Ko, ran down

the low hill from the palisade to see the prow of a huge ship bearing down upon the

riverside pirate kingdom. Hundreds of armed men appeared from nowhere, leaping and bounding

down to their boats to counter the attack before the enemy could land and threaten their

families. The great galleys' swivel guns spat lead at the pirates tumbling down the

riverbanks. In the surprise of the moment, few pirates had more than their swords or

spears to hand. Even fewer were dressed for battle. The majority wore only the loincloths

they had woken in.

The enemy approached. Ko had never seen such strange men. Their upper body was clad in

shiny steel. They wore straight swords at their sides and held long-bladed spears. But

the strangest thing was their faces. Above ridiculously bushy beards of red, orange,

black and yellow, stuck noses like beaks. Deep-set, ugly round eyes under bushy eyebrows

took everything in. They looked fearsome, wild, almost inhuman. They were the Southern

Barbarians.

Captain Juan Pablo de Carrión, Admiral of the South Seas and the Sea of China in the

Navy of the most illustrious Philip by the grace of God, King of the Spains and the Indies,

had planned the surprise attack well. He had only narrowly defeated the main pirate fleet

at sea as it returned from raiding China. Now the Spanish flotilla bore down on the

pirate's nest to exterminate the vermin.

The Spanish had established their first colony in the Philippines in 1565 and then in 1571

fortified a settlement called Manila and set about seizing that lucrative trade with China

and Japan. These actions did not endear the Spanish to the locally established Waco. The

Philippine islands had been the perfect base to escape the long arm of the Chinese Navy

and stability had allowed the pirates to establish silver mines and prosperous colonies, some

even approaching mainland China for civilized sophistication.

The Spanish, however, increasingly strident and dominating in their behaviour, were a

severe threat and would need to be dealt with and in 1574 a pirate called Lim Hong gathered

around 4,000 Chinese and Japanese pirates on 60 ships and pounced on Manila. Spain had

only just held on and, badly shaken, whenever a new pirate colony was discovered they sent

their increasingly powerful local forces to pacify the area and one such incident had

been in Cagayan, on the island of Luzon, in 1582.

Coe stood rooted to the spot as officers from both sides barked orders in several languages.

The pirates had declined the Spaniards' offer of free passage and demanded gold in compensation.

This in turn was refused. The Spanish, frantically dug in on shore, prepared their guns, oiled

their pikes to prevent them from being grasped and prepared to defend their new position.

600 pirates returned to the fort, armed themselves properly this time and charged. The bodies

of Coe's kinsmen piled high until there were few left.

Coe knew what her future held. She had seen it often enough with prisoners brought back

from pirate raids.

Following these horrors, most pirates reverted to honest trades, exchanging the goods they

plundered or smuggled in China for gold and silver mined by American slaves in Mexico

and Peru. The Chinese contraband made its way via Spanish vessels to the households

of the rich and powerful of Europe and the Americas. The slave-extracted gold and silver

oiled the Chinese economy. The Spanish managed to secure Manila until 1898 and, increasingly

confident, actually started hiring Japanese and Chinese mariners to man their ships. This

policy continued happily until 1593.

Gomez Perez, Governor and General of Manila, having all his forces ready in the province

of Pincados, remained at Manila with the Admiral Gali and having taken in 250 Indians of Chinese

China, good rowers, without chaining them, smoothing them with fair speech and allowing

them weapons, as pikes and swords of Japan, which they called katana. These good fellows,

when arrived near the Isle Caza, spying the Spaniards asleep, fell upon them and cut their

throats. The Governor awoke with the noise and the captain of these Indians, perceiving

it, entreated him to come out of his cabin, which he had no sooner done than they slew

him and so made away for Borneo, as is thought.

A lesson in why not to trust pirates, even handsomely rewarded ones. The Spanish never

did retrieve the Gali.

But red-faced, steel-encased strangers were far from the only threat to Wako, for in tune

with the wax and wane of Japanese central government, the tide turned once again for

Japan-based pirates of all ethnicities when the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi subdued Japan's

western domains and reunified the country under central rule in the 1580s. His government

was probably stronger than any before him and backed by half a million samurai. Hideyoshi

issued an edict stating that should any lord be found to harbour pirates, then his fief

would be forfeit. He also provided employment for former bandits, co-opting them to his

navy to invade Korea between 1592 and 1598. This disastrous campaign saw many of the former

pirates meet their ends at the hands of the fearful Korean turtle ships. Hideyoshi then

enacted a system of licenses called shuinsho, or Vermilion Seal Permits. Any seafarer of

any nationality who wished to trade in Japan had to apply for one, and if caught without,

was automatically assumed to be a pirate and dealt with.

Legitimate merchants once again took over where pirates had left off, another swell

of East Asian piracy subdued. But for the states of South East Asia and seafarers passing

through those waters, it was sometimes hard to tell.

John Davies did not like this heat. He had always been more comfortable in the icebound

wastes of North America, where he had spent much of his explorer's life trying to find

a way to China and Japan through the North West Passage. It had eluded him, so now he

was on a voyage going the southern route, not through Magellan's Strait, but around

the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. The famous explorer was piloting his ship

Tiger under Captain Michelborne to China and Japan, aiming to be the first English ship

in those parts. And lo and behold, a few days ago on Christmas Eve 1605, just north

of Java and east of the Malay Peninsula, they had met a ship full of Japanese merchants,

in danger of capsizing. The English, seeing an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with

the first real Japanese people they had ever met, offered to help. Tiger took the vessel

in hand, and the two ships found refuge in the lee of a small island. The Japanese were

invited to join the English Christmas meal, and they responded likewise, by hosting the

English sailors aboard their vessel. It had been fascinating to dine with these swaggering

Asian seamen, laughing and joking together, despite the language differences, some jokes

easily transcended cultural barriers. He liked these ruffians, and looked forward to seeing

their country that he had been trying to reach for two decades or more.

One of the English sailors, who had had too much to drink, however, had started poking

around the rice bales. They certainly contained something more valuable than rice. These

men were clearly not only rice merchants. Others joined him, and eventually the Japanese

men ended up imprisoned on the English ship where they had been feasting. Davis liked

to think of himself as an honourable man, and despite the fact that these ruffians were

clearly up to no good, he liked them. Against his captain's orders, he allowed them to

keep their weapons.

Davis gazed out on the stunning sunset. The light was failing fast. There came a loud

crash from behind him. The door to the pirate's prison was bulging, about to rupture. Before

he could run, a warrior rushed out, grabbed him around the neck, and pulled Davis inside

the cabin. A huge sword to his neck. In the cabin, another pirate impaled him on a spear,

and charged out, using the first ever Englishman to die at Japanese hands as a human shield.

Davis passed out, and passed away. An ignoble end to a great life.

Japanese katana clashed against English broadsword as darkness fell over the floating battlefield.

All the Englishmen who had been on the Japanese ship were killed or thrown overboard, but

the Japanese sailors failed to take control of Tiger, and retreated back to the cabin,

where it had all begun. They held out for four hours. Captain Michelborne had had enough.

The ship's cannons were brought up on deck, and aimed point blank. The last holdouts were

literally blown away.

So was the whole rear of the ship. Tiger's crew, having survived the battle but in unknown

waters and too shaken to continue without Davis' expertise, seized two Chinese ships

to make good their losses, and set a course for home. The English so-called merchant explorers

were, in reality, no better than the pirates they had fought. When it suited them, they

simply raised their mask of legitimacy, and took whatever they fancied from those who

were weaker. It was a fine portent for the centuries to come.

The English had come seeking spices, at that time worth far more than their weight in gold.

They could go for tens of thousands of percent profit in the London market. But they had

nothing to pay for them with. England produced little besides wool and weaponry. The people

of the tropics had no need for wool, and were already amply supplied with weaponry. But

Japan was a cold country, and their warriors were said to be the fiercest in the world,

or so they said, surely the perfect market for wool and weapons. And Japan had silver,

mountains of it. Sadly for the English, this dream would never become a reality. Japan

preferred silk, and was entering 250 years of unsullied peace. But centuries later, England

would find the perfect substitute for both silver, wool and weapons. An irresistible

asset. Opium. And 200 years later, that would turn world history on its head.

What is the cult of Deus? What are the scriptures on which the cult's adherents rely, and the

terminology which they use? Who is the main deity they worship? Because the followers

of the Buddhas do not inquire into these matters, they are not able to vanquish this

cult's adherents and chase them from the lands. And therefore, the cursed doctrine has grown

day by day. Around the turn of the 17th century, several

events occurred to cause a large diaspora of Japanese to emigrate around Eastern Asia.

The 1603 Battle of Sekigahara secured the rule of the Tokugawa family in Japan until

1868. But the defeated samurai fled, some overseas, to places where the long arm of

the new shogunate could not reach. The new government acted to secure its control over

the country, rooting out its enemies. The ever-growing strength of the Catholics, potentially

loyal to Rome and not Edo, presented a potential threat, and they were encouraged to recant

their beliefs. Many Christians refused to apostatize and were exiled. Others found it

expedient to search out more tolerant enclaves where they could practice their outlawed faith.

Manila, Macau, Siam, Hoi An, Phnom Penh, and dozens of other Japanese merchant settlements

scattered throughout the maritime world of the South China Seas welcomed them. Over the

years, these new communities, some numbering thousands, became integral to their host nations,

trading extensively with Japan and also, due to their faith, acting as useful middlemen

for European merchants. But, as so often in this era, there was a fine line, sometimes

so fine that it was indistinguishable between legitimate merchants and pirates.

Many of the Japanese diaspora had spent their youth on the battlefields of Civil War Japan.

Violence was second nature. When it suited them, they could speedily transform from merchant

to pirate and vice versa. Local powers saw this and often employed their new subjects.

Japanese mercenary pirates ended up fighting and dying in a whole host of battles and brawls

all over Asia. In Korea, a samurai corps bravely fought off Manchu incursions on the northern

border for decades. In 1603, the Spanish, despite previous awkward episodes, used Japanese

pirates to massacre the rebellious Chinese population of Manila, many of them also pirates.

In 1623, the Dutch employed a shipload of Japanese pirates when attempting to capture

Macau from the Portuguese. The defenders emancipated their African slaves to join the fight and

the combined Dutch-Japanese force was driven back into the sea. And sometimes, hiring Japanese

soldiers of fortune backfired badly. In 1611, a force of 280 Japanese men took the Siamese

King prisoner until they were paid off. King Song Tham seems to have been impressed rather

than repulsed and he promptly employed other Japanese mercenaries to form his palace guard.

And key among these Japanese adventurers to win honour and high position in Siam was a

man called Yamada Nagamasa. Poison, poison, poison. It had to be poison. Yamada had felt

himself weakening for months and now on the eve of his wedding, he felt his life slipping

away. As the music and feasting sounded outside his tent, his bride, a beautiful Thai princess,

held him in her arms and he looked into her deep brown shiny young eyes. The old Japanese

pirate started to talk. He told his queen of how he had traversed the seas from Japan as

a common sailor, then pirate, risen to captain, headman and eventually decorated general in

the Thai King's army. His 600 samurai mercenaries, former pirates all, ruled the Siamese roost,

swaggered around Thai battlefields, sweeping all before them. None could resist. This had

won him a kingdom, subject to none but the Thai King himself. It had been his downfall.

He was too powerful. Somehow he had been poisoned, perhaps in his food, perhaps by that medicine

the king had recently gifted. But finally, the Japanese king of Ligur, the most successful

Japanese pirate in history, Yamada Nagamasa, lay back, fell silent, died. His final breath

played slowly on the young queen's silky black hair.

Yamada is believed to have reached Siam around 1610 and engaged in piracy in a minor way

before setting himself up legitimately in the Thai capital. Finally, Yamada had become

kingmaker. As King Song Tham was dying, the former pirate was tasked with ensuring the

enthronement of his young son. Nagamasa had become one of the most powerful men in the

country and was caught in the violence and strife of the succession. He had failed. The

young boy had perished. Yamada and his men had survived and he was appointed king of

the tributary kingdom of Ligur on the Malay peninsula. An incredible rise.

Records differ as to how Yamada was poisoned, but some say the fatal dose was administered

by the princess, his new queen. Yamada Nagamasa, pirate, merchant, general, law enforcer, diplomat,

kingmaker and king, died in 1630. He was only 40 years old.

With peace reigning supreme in the Japanese

islands, the shoguns were increasingly annoyed by reports from overseas that Japanese subjects

were exporting their violent tendencies. It had to stop. Ever increasing restrictions

were placed on leaving the Japanese islands until in 1635, no one was allowed to leave

upon pain of death. It was final and effective. The seaways between Japan and the rest of

Asia, once so full of brigands, was now empty. But nature abhors a vacuum.

The year was 1647. Tagao Amatsu was a pirate queen. Her husband, Zhang Jialong, controlled

vast swathes of the South China seas with a corsair fleet of thousands. His realm was

a state unto its own and had been, at least until recently, effectively an almost independent

entity within the great Ming empire. A true pirate kingdom. The colourful gold and red

Zhang pendants atop the towers and pagodas of the clan stronghold of Anhai fluttered

vigorously in the sea breeze as Tagao looked landwards to where black clouds of smoke from

the burning city collected over a Manchu army approaching swiftly on horseback, golden dragon

banners billowing proudly aloft. A few heavily armoured soldiers still guarded the walls,

yet her husband had abandoned them all, thrown in his lot with the enemy, and the still loyal

armies of Tagao's son were engaged on distant battlefields. Now the barbarian horsemen,

thousands of miles from their northern snowbound step home, approached this southern bastion.

There was no help coming. The battle would be brutal and swift. The defending pirates

were heavily outnumbered. Rather than endure the humiliation of being ravaged by unwashed

nomadic warriors, Tagao, dressed all in white silk, walked calmly to the edge of the great

fortifications, climbed daintily to the crest, took the Japanese Kaiken blade she had brought

with her from the land of her birth, and plunged it into her throat. Her body fell from the

battlements, the wide sleeves of her kimono ballooning in the wind. The pure white of

her death-robe swiftly turned to red on the hard cobbles as the shocked Manchus looked

on. They are said to have remarked, if the women of Japan are of such a sort, what must

the men be like?

It had all started in Lord Matsura's infamous pirate haven, Hirado, in western Japan. Snug

in the cozy refuge, hundreds of Japanese coastal craft, a host of Chinese junks, and more than

a dozen European ships were anchored. Lord Matsura's tiny backwater had become a hub

of world trade, frequented by Chinese, English, Dutch, Africans, Indians, Javans, and many

more. From here, the Japanese vessels would load the foreign goods and transport them

to the vast markets of Osaka, Kyoto, Edo, and a hundred lordly domains in between. Millions

awaited the goods that Matsura controlled. The Chinese in harbour, such as Li Dan, were

outright pirates, based here because the Ming authorities were seeking their heads. The

Dutch and English claimed to be representatives of respectable barbarian nations, but they

fought each other in drunken rages, like pirates, and even occasionally captured each other's

ships as prizes. The Portuguese had been worse, local blood had been spilled multiple times

before finally being banished in 1561. Pirates should keep their violent ways to unfriendly

ports, not safe havens.

Tagawa had been a young girl when a dashing young Chinese adventurer called Zheng Jialong

made the busy little harbour his home. They had a child together in 1624 and were married.

Jialong was a polyglot and entered the service of the Dutch who were building a colony in

Taiwan. As they had few men of their own, the Dutch allowed any pirate ship that gave

them 50% of the spoils to fly their flag and enjoy its protection. So Jialong transformed

from interpreter to pirate.

By 1627 he had amassed a fleet of 400 Chinese ships, armed with superior European cannon

and a private army of tens of thousands. A man with flair, he restricted his attacks

to the rich and styled himself a protector of the poor. He took anyone into his service

and was particularly noted for having a personal African bodyguard of 300 men. Beijing's navy

was reduced to splinters and the authorities were at their wits end. There was one last

option. Co-opt Jialong. Offer him great wealth and power within the empire.

Zheng Jialong switched sides in 1628. He was now a Ming government man.

It was now Jialong's job to hunt down his former comrades and destroy their Dutch puppeteers.

He built up a new hybrid fleet of 30 large warships, the first of its kind, combining

the best of both European and Chinese technology. But before they were complete, the Dutch attacked

and annihilated the nearly completed armada. In secret, Jialong gathered a new fleet of

junks and in October 1633 issued a challenge. The Dutch of course had succeeded once and

full of contempt, they sailed against him with 9 European ships and 50 allied pirate

vessels. And as they lay at anchor, 150 small Zheng ships approached at speed. The Dutch

primed their cannon. They knew they could blow Chinese junks from the water with ease.

It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But these were not ordinary ships. Each vessel

was packed to the brim with explosives. Great destruction was wrought and Dutch power was

broken for good. Now the Europeans were in their place, it was Jialong's ocean. His ships

controlled traffic between China, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. A huge maritime empire,

vaster than any other. Around this time, Jialong sent for his Japanese

son. The boy, later to be known as Zheng Changgong or Cochinga by the Dutch, was brought up as

a Ming nobleman. It is thought that he was the first Japanese candidate in 800 years

to be successful in the Chinese imperial examinations and was on course to be one of the highest

ranking officials in the land. Times were good for the Zheng clan. Their wealth grew

so large, some said they were the richest family in China. Then came 1644.

Manchu tribesmen from north of the Great Wall, menacing the border for decades, finally took

Beijing. The emperor hanged himself, the Manchus proclaimed a new Qing dynasty and the Ming

forces retreated southwards. The Zheng took a fiercely loyalist line to their employers

and as city after city fell, they prepared to defend their home provinces. Cochinga was

forced to leave his scholar's life and take up arms. His mother, Tagawa Matsu, with whom

he had an extremely close bond, made the journey from Japan to take up residence in the family

citadel of Anhai.

Again Zhelong defected. The Qing offered him lordship over the southern provinces and he

accepted, but Cochinga fought on and the Qing withdrew their offer. Manchu troops came for

Zhelong and only his African bodyguard remained with him, massacred in a heroic last stand.

Zhelong was taken to Beijing as a hostage and beheaded like a common criminal.

After his father's betrayal and his mother's suicide, Cochinga continued the fight against

the Manchu for 15 years. The wheel of fortune had turned, the pirate father had become a

lord, the noble son was now declared a pirate. Cochinga knew he had to establish a safe base

from which to plan a long-term Ming reconquest and in 1661 decided upon the island his father

had done so much to cultivate, Taiwan, where the Dutch retained their prosperous colony.

This island was the dominion of my father and should descend to none other than myself.

Foreigners must go. The Dutch had never had to face a force like Cochinga's pirate army

before. The siege lasted nearly a year, brutal fighting, devastating bombardment, near starvation

and torture. Finally, a white flag fluttered above the broken fortress and the survivors

were allowed to leave. The Dutch era on Taiwan was at an end and Cochinga declared a new

realm, the Kingdom of Tungning. The Qing could not compete with the Jiang navy so they chose

to cut off all supplies, enforcing a great clearance of the whole coastal region. Millions

of people were forced to destroy their property and move inland. Anyone caught beyond the

boundary was executed. Thousands perished, millions starved.

The ban outlived Cochinga. The great pirate, imperial loyalist, scholar, freedom fighter

and tyrant died of malaria in 1662 at the age of 37. He had been about to invade the

Philippines to extend his anti-Qing base. Had the tiny mosquito not bitten him, he would

have almost certainly succeeded. Such small things are what history hinges on.

His son, Zheng Jing, succeeded him and died in 1681. His grandson, Zheng Keshuan, surrendered

to the Qing in 1683. The Qing ruled a unified China until 1911. The house of Zheng was a

finished as an independent entity, subsumed within the empire, but the memory and fear

of the Sea People remained. And less than 100 years later, the power of piracy was to

have one last hurrah.

Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is

prohibited by law. Increasingly over the next century, Europeans, people who the Qing regarded

as little better than pirates, had been arriving in China's ports requesting trade. Limited

access to the southern port of Guangzhou was tolerated and European trade steadily increased,

out of sight and out of mind of the North China-based government. Europeans had little

that the Qing Empire needed and were forced to pay for Chinese products in silver, something

which was often in short supply and very expensive to source. It was then the English East India

Company hit on the idea of smuggling the highly addictive, deadly, not to mention illegal

drug opium from India to China, selling it for Chinese silver and then using that silver

to buy the Chinese luxury produce such as tea, silk and porcelain, which sold so well

at home. Thus, the poppy seed of the Qing's eventual downfall arrived in ever-increasing

quantities in Guangzhou and the population fell ever deeper into the clutches of opium

addiction. The British, who ruthlessly suppressed piracy in their own territory, had transformed

themselves into the world's most prolific drug smugglers. And yet, just prior to this,

this illicit trade had almost come toppling down, and all thanks to one woman, Zheng Shi,

the most infamous and successful female pirate in history.

In the late 18th century, Vietnam was convulsed by revolution and civil war. The Taeson rebels

in the north and the Nguyen lords of the south both saw it as expedient to hire Chinese pirates

from Guangdong to further their cause. With time, the nascent Taeson state became yet

another East Asian piratical realm. The rebellion was finally quelled by the Nguyen in 1802,

and the last of the pirates fled back to China, leading a new dynasty which would rule until

1945. But these battle-hardened pirate refugees did not simply disband. A captain called Zheng

Yi rallied the refugee pirates around his flag and swiftly gathered a huge fleet. This

Zheng had, only the year before, fallen in love with a young girl from a floating Guangdong

brothel. The girl's true birth name is lost to history, but thanks to their partnership,

she became known as Zheng Shi. Madame Zheng.

Pirate wives do not normally grace the pages of history books. Indeed, most pirates did

not have wives, but Madame Zheng was no normal wife. From the beginning, she shared the business

of managing the maritime bandits, and the gang thrived under the pair's joint command.

By 1804, their fleet comprised 400 ships, and later, at its height, tripled that number,

employing 70,000 men under arms. Their business was both protection in the time-honoured pirate

manner, but also plunder, human trafficking, and after rendering the Qing government's

navy useless, the purveyors of a huge salt monopoly. The innocuous-sounding condiment

was in fact a hugely valuable commodity, without which China could not function, so control

of salt brought unimaginable economic power. The pirates had been able to impose a food

tax on the whole of southern China. Zheng Yi had abducted a young fisher boy called

Zhang Bao in 1798. The pirate couple formally adopted him as their son and heir. When the

father and husband, Yi, died in 1807, with the support of senior captains, Lady Zheng

took over, and quickly married her adoptive son to cement the command.

For years past, the documents from Canton have noticed the alarming state of the coasts

of China in possession of the pirates. Not a few strangling banditi hiding themselves

in creeks and unfrequented harbours of the islands, but a formidable, organised body,

commanded by daring officers and certainly in complete possession of the whole coast.

The Marine Department at Canton, employed for the destruction of these banditi, in the

beginning shared the plunder, till the pirates, feeling their own superiority, put an end

to this useless association and beat them from the field.

Under Lady Zheng's leadership, strict laws were enforced. Any independent action without

her command meant death. Any stealing from the communal pot or friendly villagers meant

a similar fate, as did mistreating or raping female captives, before this, the absolute

norm.

Her rule was absolute. The government was in despair. Their force was disabled by the

pirates' superior Vietnam-built vessels, and what was left was immobilised with fear.

The pirates' judicious use of bribes ensured that they were always one step ahead of the

law, even when on land. For years they controlled all shipping, even foreign, as the European

merchants, the East India Company Prime among them, found it easier to pay the pirate tax,

rather than have their opium seized.

But in 1809, Lady Zheng went too far. A Thai diplomatic mission from Siam was kidnapped

and held to ransom. American merchantmen were forced to seek protection in Macau, and

a Portuguese ship, which had refused to pay the pirate tax, was seized. The crew paid

with their heads. The government of Macau, a Portuguese outpost since the 16th century,

had had enough. They mobilised for war.

The first battle in September 1809 had been an unfortunate wake-up call for the pirates.

Only three Portuguese vessels had easily held off 200 of Madame Zheng's ships. The

pirates had never actually fought Western ships before. They had never needed to, their

vast numbers had deterred retaliation. The Portuguese weaponry, which included cutting-edge

exploding shells, had taken Zheng's men by surprise. At the coming of night, they scuttled

away.

The Qing government noted the Portuguese victory, and saw a way to rid themselves of Zheng Xi

and her minions. They proposed an alliance, but Zheng heard of the plan and sent her

ships to prevent the two fleets combining forces. It had worked, but the losses had

been brutal.

Madame Zheng lay back in her grand bed. She was dying, and she knew it. Around her were

gathered innumerous and adoring family. They had heard the stories a hundred times before,

but they would endure one final time for the dying dame.

Zheng told of her last battle in 1810, how the pirates had mobilised 300 ships, 1500

guns and 20,000 men to smite their Portuguese foe, how in the end their grandmother's

glorious flagship, a floating temple pagoda which dwarfed even the Portuguese warships,

had been blown to the land of the gods. Her pirates had fled for the last time. Then came

her cackle.

But we won. In 1810, atop a pagoda as close to the heavens as a living woman can get,

I dealt with three governments, and they gave me all I wanted. And my men kept their lives

and their riches. Their families welcomed them home with open arms.

Madame Zheng, prostitute, pirate, great dame of the South China Seas, lived out the final

decades of her life, raising her family and fleecing the locals in a Macau gambling house.

She breathed her last in 1844. There never had been, and never would be again, a pirate

like her.

Piracy has shaped all the coastal peoples of the Far East, Japan, China, the Koreas,

Vietnam and the Philippines, raised up great rulers, dashed whole dynasties. The pirates

were men and women marginalised from mainstream society and economic opportunities. They were

criminals, cutthroats and even regarded as something less than fully human by those who

clung to the land. They would have described themselves in polar opposite terms of course.

Freedom fighters, revolutionaries, pioneers.

Time and time again in East Asia, pirates became powerful enough to hold great nations

to ransom, and eventually, in lieu of victory, governments often embraced the sea brigands

and their skills to defend the very states they had brought to their knees. And throughout

it all, the common people both suffered as victims and thrived as perpetrators.

Piracy did not entirely cease with Madame Chung's surrender. Minor bandits of one sort

or another prowled Asia's waterways well into the 20th century, and the gumboat diplomacy

engaged in by the great powers of the 19th and early 20th centuries looks suspiciously

like piracy when we look back at it in the modern age.

The pirates never again had the power to determine international destinies, and we

are unlikely to ever again see a Kochinga or a Madame Chung. The seas where pirates

once ruled are now patrolled and controlled by six of the world's ten most powerful navies.

The USA, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

The story of the Pirates of the East is now truly at an end.