Abstract
The middle of the 16th century is considered the golden age of Chinese piracy. The upsurge of Chinese piracy in the East and South China Sea at that time urged Ming authority to suppress them. Among Chinese pirates were Wang Zhi, leader of a big band of pirates who conducted illegal trade between the eastern coast of China, southern Japan and Siam during the 1540s and 1550s, and Lin Daoqian, who was active along the South China Sea in the 1560s and 1570s. Both of them were labelled by Ming authority as notorious ‘pirates’ and were suppressed by General Qi Jiguang. While Wang Zhi was executed in China in 1559, Lin Daoqian managed to flee to Southeast Asia and settled down in Patani, now a southern province of Thailand, in the 1570s. There are many historical accounts about them, especially Daoqian, both written and oral, which variously demonstrate how Chinese merchant-pirates were viewed by communities outside China over time. This chapter raises the two historical figures as case studies to address the complex identity of Chinese merchant-pirates and examines how they contributed to the local society in Southeast Asia. It argues that Chinese piracy in Southeast Asia plays a part in constructing collective memory and identity among the overseas Chinese in the region.
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Notes
- 1.
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- 2.
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- 5.
Or Pattani in Thai spelling. Patani was an autonomous state from its foundation until the early 20th century when it was integrated as one of the provinces of Thailand.
- 6.
Zheng Ruozeng, Chouhai Tubian, vol. 9, “Qinhuo Wang Zhi” (Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 2007), p. 619.
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Matsuura Akira, Chugoku no Kaizoku, p. 9.
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- 9.
The one arrived in 1542 originally left Siam and bounded for China but drifted probably to Kagoshima, not Tanegashima. Kagoshima situates in the southernmost part of Kyushu, a bit north of Tanegashima. On the other hand, the ship that arrived Tanegashima in 1543, according to “Teppoki”, was the ship of Wang Zhi who took two Portuguese, left China (Liuheng Island near Ningbo) and arrived Tanegashima not accidentally but on purpose, to sell matchlock muskets to the ruler there (Miyake Toru, “Wako and Wang Zhi”, pp. 186–87).
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Miyake Toru, ‘Wako and Wang Zhi’, pp. 187–88.
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Ota Kouki, Wako-Shougyo-Gunji teki Kenkyu, pp. 301−302.
- 17.
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- 19.
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- 20.
Miyake Toru, ‘Wako and Wang Zhi’, p. 192.
- 21.
Teeuw, A. and David K. Wyatt, Hikayat Patani: The Story of Patani (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 1–2.
- 22.
Geoffrey Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang: The Eastern Seaboard of the Peninsula as recorded in Classical Chinese Texts,” in Perret, Daniel et al. eds. Études sur l’histoire du sultanant de Patani (Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2004), p. 56.
- 23.
Piyada Chonlaworn, Prawatsat Pattani nai Krisatawat thi 16–18: Chak banthuk khong Chin, Ryukyu lae Yipun [History of Pattani in the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: From Chinese, Ryukyuan and Japanese Records] (Chiangmai: Silkworm Books, 2011), ch. 2.
- 24.
Francis Bradley, “Piracy, Smuggling, and Trade in the Rise of Patani, 1490−1600,” Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 96 (2008), pp. 27−39.
- 25.
Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang”, p. 56.
- 26.
Ming Shi-lu [Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty], Wanli third year (1575), 14th day in the 5th month; Wanli sixth year (1578), 14th day of 9th month, cited in Chiu Ling-Yeong, Chan Hok-lam, Chan Cheung, Lo Wen, eds., Southeast Asia in Chinese Reign Chronicles, 1368−1644, vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Hsueh-tsin Press, 1968), pp. 530−34.
- 27.
Ming Shen-zong Shi-lu (1630); Hou-jian-lu (second half of the 17th century), cited in Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang”, pp. 57−59.
- 28.
Xu Yunxiao, Pei-ta-nien-shih [History of Patani] (Singapore: np, 1946), p. 111; Bradley, “Piracy, Smuggling, and Trade”, p. 40.
- 29.
Zhang Tingyu et al., Ming-Shi [History of Ming], vol. 323 (Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1947); Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang”, pp. 59–60. However, there is no port bearing this name anymore in Patani nowadays.
- 30.
Chaozhou County Gazetteer, vol. 38, cited in Xu Yunxiao, Pei-ta-nien-shih. p. 112.
- 31.
Xu also commented that some accounts in the gazetteer are ‘not accountable’. See Xu Yunxiao, Pei-ta-nien-shih. p. 112.
- 32.
Xu Yunxiao, Pei-ta-nien-shih, pp. 118; Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang”, p. 75; Bradley, “Piracy, Smuggling, and Trade”, pp. 39−42. Xu Yunxiao, however, notes that the story about Lin Daoqian went to Siam and married a princess there does not have much authenticity. See Xu Yunxiao, Pei-ta-nien-shih. p. 118.
- 33.
Hai-shang ji-lue, cited in Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang”, p. 60.
- 34.
Ibrahim Syukri (C. Bailey and J. Miksic trans.), Sejarah Kerajaan Melayu Patani: History of the Malay Kingdom of Patani (Chiangmai: Silkworm Books, 2005), p. 40.
- 35.
Bradley, “Piracy, Smuggling and Trade”, pp. 40−41; Teeuw and Wyatt, Hikayat Patani, pp. 246−47.
- 36.
Phraya Wichiankiri, Tamnan Muang Patani [The History of Patani], in The Royal Chronicle, Kanchanapisek Version (Bangkok: Department of Fine Arts, Ministry of Culture, 2002, first published in 1914), pp. 432−33; Wade, “From Chaiya to Pahang”, pp. 76−77. Xu Yunxiao pointed out that it was after 1578 that Lim Toh Khiam went to settle in Patani, and that the construction of the cannon might have proceeded around 1620−30. See Xu Yunxiao. Pei-ta-nien-shih, pp. 118−19.
- 37.
Phraya Wichiankiri, Tamnan Muang Patani, pp. 432−33.
- 38.
Patani maintained its semi-autonomous status with its successive sultan until it was integrated to Siam in 1902 when Siamese administrative reform took place nationwide. See Patrick Jory ed., Thai South and Malay North; Ethnic Interactions on a Plural Peninsula (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2008); Tamara Loos, “Competitive Colonialisms: Siam and the Malay Muslim South,” in Rachel Harrison and Peter Jackson eds., Ambiguous Allure of the West: Trace of Colonial in Thailand (Hong Kong: Hongkong University Press, 2010).
- 39.
Teeuw and Wyatt, Hikayat Patani, pp. 152−54, 226. Wyatt suggests that the story of cannon casting in the Malay text is somehow a mythologisation of one or more historical events, and casting cannons is a matter of prestige rather than of military needs as Thai text suggests (p. 225).
- 40.
Teeuw and Wyatt, Hikayat Patani, pp. 225−26.
- 41.
Francis Bradley, “Piracy, Smuggling and Trade”, p. 41.
- 42.
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- 44.
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- 45.
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Haneda Masashi, et al., eds. Umi kara Mita Rekishi [History as seen from the Sea]. (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 2014), p. 175.
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Appendices
Appendices
Statue of Wang Zhi in Hirado, Japan (Photograph by Piyada Chonlaworn)
Leng Chu Kiang temple in Patani, where the Lin Guniang shrine is located (Photograph by Piyada Chonlaworn)
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Chonlaworn, P. (2017). Rebel with a Cause: Chinese Merchant-Pirates in Southeast Asia in the 16th Century. In: Sim, Y. (eds) The Maritime Defence of China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4163-1_11
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