Mid–Ming Dynasty 1522–1574
From the start of the Ming Dynasty in 1368, the Hongwu emperor (r. 1368-1398), imposed a ban on all private overseas trade and placed a heavy restriction on maritime commerce within the tributary system. Capital punishment was enforced on anybody caught building large ocean-going junks, trading with foreigners, traveling abroad with authorization, or working with smugglers. Fishermen were also forbidden from putting out to sea to fish.3 As a result of these heavy restrictions, many once legitimate merchants and fishermen were encouraged to turn to illegal means in order to survive.
The term wokou means specifically "Japanese pirates," but was used during this period to refer generally to pirates. Deciphering the use of this term taps into complicated political issues involving a deeper understanding of the relationship between China and Japan during this period. Although the Hongwu emperor had previously encountered sporadic raids by wokou, problems were greatly exacerbated when the Japanese government did not reciprocate the emperor's efforts to establish amicable relations with Japan. In fact, most likely due to internal political strife and disunity, the Japanese government actually refused to reestablish its traditional relationship with China. Both Antony and So agree that wokou crews were in actuality composed of people from various origins. Antony cites that crews contained Japanese, Chinese, Malaccan, Siamese, Portuguese, Spanish, and African sailors. So references Imperial records that document pirate bands as being similarly disparate. Portuguese pirates were particularly active in the region as the Portuguese were at the time establishing themselves on Macao.
It was during the reign of the Jiajing emperor (r. 1522-1566) that piracy began to truly escalate. The emperor enacted reinforcements of an already strict maritime ban and that led to a steady growth in piracy along the entire coast. In 1525, the Ministry of War ordered all ships of more than one mast on the southeast coast to be destroyed. In addition to government instigated piracy, was the problem of the rising population. Because of the economic demands of feeding the growing sea-based populace, the decade-long set of famines that swept central and southeast China starting in 1538 and the granary quota reduction in 1527, severely limiting the state's ability to relieve famines, produced a large body of people who became desperate for ways to obtain food and other necessities. The government officially closed the coast against all foreign trade in 1548.
Parallel to these events was the growth of piracy along the southeastern coast. By the 1540s, small pirate gangs had evolved into larger, better-organized fleets. By the 1550s, pirate gangs were becoming a major factor in the gradual disintegration of state security. However, there is discrepancy as to whether it was the serious threat of Mongol armies to the north that distracted government attention from the rising pirate activities, or if the pirate activities themselves worked to distract attention from the Mongol threat and thereby lead to the eventual overthrow of the Ming dynasty by the Mongol invasion.
The death of the Jiajing emperor in 1567 resulted in the lifting of the strict maritime bans. Because of that the major merchant-pirate forces gradually diminished throughout the 1570s as merchants returned to their prior endeavors. Ironically, during the effort to discourage overseas trade there was a period of greater piracy and it was only with the removal of the bans that piracy decreased. Sources also point to the deaths and pacification of major pirate leaders, fortification of coastal towns, and the development of local militia as other causes for the decline.4