The Golden Age of Piracy in China, 1520–1810: A Short History with Documents
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The Golden Age of Piracy in China, 1520–1810 exposes readers to the little-known history of Chinese piracy in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries through a short narrative and selection of documentary evidence. In this three-hundred-year period, Chinese piracy was unsurpassed in size and scope anywhere else in the world. The book includes a carefully selected and wide range of Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, English, and Japanese sources—some translated for the first time—to illustrate the complexity and variety of piratical activities in Asian waters. These documents include archival criminal cases and depositions of pirates and victims, government reports and proclamations, memoirs of coastal residents and pirate captives, and written and oral folklore handed down for generations. The book also illuminates the important role that pirates played in the political, economic, social, and cultural transformations of early modern China and the world. An historical perspective provides an important vantage point to understand piracy as a recurring cyclical phenomenon inseparably connected with the past.
Resources: Extra Maps
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (1) Map of Routes of Wokou Raids / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (2) Early Qing Map of the Gulf of Tonkin / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (3) Coastal Defense Map of the Sino-Vietnam Frontier, c. 1800 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (4) Pirate Anchorages in the Pearl River Estuary, early 19th century / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (5) Pirate Bay on the Lufeng Coast of Guangdong, early 19th century / View here
Resources: Extra Documents
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 4. Imperial Edict Instructing Zhu Wan about his Duties as the Grand Coordinator of Coastal Defense, 1547 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 5. Zhu Wan’s Memorials on Local Collaborators and Smuggler-Pirates, 1548 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 8: Hu Zongxian’s Proposal /
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 9. The Great Pirate Wu Ping, 1565-1566 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 11. Chinese Views of the Portuguese in the 16th Century / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 15. The Pirate Cui Zhi / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 21. The Great Clearance Proclamation in Guangdong, 1662 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 23. The Dan Pirate-Rebels Zhou Yu and Li Rong / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 25a. Two Tales about the Pirate Chief Yang Yandi / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 25b. Two Tales about the Pirate Chief Yang Yandi / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 27. Deposition of a Kidnapped Boy Named Xian Yasheng, 1777 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 28. The Early Career of Mo Guanfu and His Gang / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 30. Anecdotal Sketch of Madam Cai Qian / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 31. The Guangdong Pirate Pact of 1805 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 37b. Official Reports on the Pirate Raid into the Pearl River Delta in 1809 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 39. Zhang Bao’s Petition to Surrender, 1810 / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / Doc. 40. A Brief Account of the Female Pirate Zheng Yi Sao / View here
Resources: Extra Webpage Illustrations
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (1) Common Ming Dynasty junks / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (2) Ming Dynasty Weapons / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (3) Zhu Wan / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (4) Zheng Zhilong / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (5) The Pirate Yang Yandi (Yang Er) as Hero / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (6) Qing Fishing Boat License / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (7) The Pirate Wushi Er as Hero / View here
The Golden Age of Piracy in China Online Feature / (8) Weizhou 潿洲 stele, 1810 / View here
Preface
PART I: NARRATIVE HISTORY
1 Piracy in China’s Maritime World
2 Piracy in the Mid-Ming Dynasty (1520–1580)
3 Piracy during the Ming-Qing Transition (1620–1684)
4 Piracy in the Mid-Qing Dynasty (1775–1810)
5 The Significance of Piracy in China’s History
PART II: DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
1 Piracy in the Mid-Ming Dynasty (1520–1580)
2 Piracy in the Ming-Qing Transition (1620–1684)
3 Piracy in the Mid-Qing Dynasty (1775–1810)
Chronology
Glossary
A Note on Chinese Documentary Evidence
References
Index
Everyone knows something about the famous pirates of the Caribbean, but their Chinese counterparts were just as fascinating and far more numerous and powerful. This book, by one of the world’s foremost experts on Chinese piracy, is the best book in print on the topic. It immerses you in the pirates’ bloody and dangerous world— an experience both gripping and informative.
The Golden Age of Piracy in China is the first comprehensive scholarly study of piracy in Chinese waters from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Highly readable and meticulously researched by one of the world’s leading scholars on Chinese maritime history, the book vividly brings to light the hitherto largely untold history of piracy in the East and South China Seas. It is a major contribution to the global and cross-cultural history of piracy, based on an impressive range of primary sources from Chinese, Japanese, and European archives and collections.
Robert J. Antony not only succinctly summarizes the history of Asian piracy but also, in forty translated and annotated documents ranging from the early sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century, examines pirate eating habits, marriage, sexual morays, death-by-slicing torture, and even their guaranteed health care plans, with the Guangdong Pirate Pact of 1805 even stating: “If any of our brothers is wounded in the action the entire group consents to their medical care.” Independent female pirates, like Zheng Yi Sao, were also common, although on one occasion a pirate leader cut up his own sister into eighteen pieces so that her 'ghost' could protect his eighteen buried hoards of treasure. Readers, whether they be a student, professor, or general pirate hobbyist, will find these brief yet fascinating primary documents particularly informative and thought-provoking.
Robert Antony’s The Golden Age of Piracy in China is a unique resource. It contains, in one volume, both a straightforward historical narrative of piracy in maritime China during its heyday, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and a reader of primary sources from that period... [It] is suitable for many undergraduate courses that touch upon the subject of crime and predation, as well as curious members of the general reading public.
- Title: The Golden Age of Piracy in China, 1520–1810: A Short History with Documents
- Author: Robert J. Antony
- Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781538161548, 9781538161524, 1538161524, 1538161540
- Resource ID: LLS:9781538161548
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-23T22:51:47Z
Before his retirement in 2019, Robert J. Antony was distinguished professor and senior researcher at Guangzhou University. He is the author of Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China (2003), Unruly People: Crime, Community, and State in Late Imperial South China (2016), and The Golden Age of Piracy in China, 1520-1810: A Short History with Documents (2022). He now lives with his wife near Princeton, New Jersey.