Violence and Predation on the Sino-Vietnamese Maritime Frontier, 1450–1850

Author(s): ROBERT J. ANTONY

Source: Asia Major , 2014, THIRD SERIES, Vol. 27, No. 2, MARITIME FRONTIERS IN ASIA:
SINO-VIET RELATIOMS, ca. 900-1800 CE (2014), pp. 87-114
Published by: Academia Sinica

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 1

ROBERT J. ANTONY '*

Violence and Prédation on the

Sino- Vietnamese Maritime Frontier, 1450-1850

Violence the
themost
most and persistent
persistent prédation,features
and pervasive and pervasive mainly in features the form of of the piracy, Sino-Vietnamese were two of
of the Sino-Vietnamese
maritime frontier between the mid-fifteenth and mid-nineteenth cen-

turies.1 In the Gulf of Tonkin, which is the focus of this article, piracy
was, in fact, an intrinsic feature of this sea frontier and a dynamic and
significant force in the region's economic, social, and cultural devel-
opment. My approach, what scholars call history from the bottom up,
places pirates, not the state, at center stage, recognizing their impor-
tance and agency as historical actors. My research is based on various
types of written history, including Qing archives, the Veritable Records
of Vietnam and China, local Chinese gazetteers, and travel accounts; I
also bring in my own fieldwork in the gulf region conducted over the
past six years. The article is divided into three sections: first, I discuss
the geopolitical characteristics of this maritime frontier as a background
to our understanding of piracy in the region; second, I consider the
socio-cultural aspects of the gulf region, especially the underclass who
engaged in clandestine activities as a part of their daily lives; and third,
I analyze five specific episodes of piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin.
The Gulf of Tonkin (often referred to here simply as the gulf),
which is tucked away in the northwestern corner of the South China
Sea, borders on Vietnam in the west and China in the north and east.
(See the following map.) It has always been a dynamic and diversified
political, social, and economic contact zone. Besides a vibrant maritime
trade, the political economy of the region also included the important
areas of fishing, pearl collecting, and salt production. The innumerable

1 For convenience, I use the term Vietnam rather than Annam throughout this article, al-
though the name did not officially change to Vietnam (Yuenan until 1803.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

islands and hazy jurisdictions assured widespread and persistent piracy

and smuggling, and a clandestine trade that undoubtedly always sur-
passed the legitimate trade. In fact, Vu Duong Luan and Nola Cooke
have remarked about the gulf of more than a century ago that piracy
was "so deeply embedded in the lives of the Chinese and Vietnamese
communities there that most local people were involved in piracy or
smuggling to some extent."2 In short, the gulf was a highly integrated
region where national boundaries meant very little and where trade,
smuggling, and piracy were interconnected and indistinguishable.

2 Vu Duong Luan and Nola Cooke, "Chinese Merchants and Mariners in Nineteenth-Cen-
tury Tongking," in Nola Cooke, Li Tana, andjames Anderson, eds., The Tongking Gulf through
History (Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania P., 201 1), p. 152.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

A TURBULENT SEA FRONTIER

After Owen Lattimore published: his seminal study on

frontiers in 1940, there was, until recently, a long hiatu
lication of other studies on China's frontiers. The newer studies have

added significantly to our understandings about empire building and

ethnic relations on imperial China's frontiers, not only on the north-
ern steppes but also on the southern and southwestern borderlands.
In general terms, authors of these studies have conceptualized late-
imperial frontiers in terms of both place and process, and as quintes-
sential liminal spaces. Politically they were zones of transition where
borders were vague and the reach of the state was weak or nonexis-
tent; economically they were undeveloped areas that presented both
challenges and opportunities. Frontiers were fundamentally ambiguous
spaces noted for their freedom, lawlessness, and violence. Compared
to the hinterland, frontiers were sparsely populated and the people
living there were highly mobile and not bound to any particular state.
Known for their independence and recalcitrance, peoples of the fron-
tiers were frequently at odds with the authorities. Frontiers were also
zones of contact - "middle grounds" - characterized by "fluid cultural
and economic exchange" in which acculturation and hybridity were
"contingent on local conditions."3 In those zones peoples of different
social, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds freely intermingled. The en-
counters among natives, frontiersmen, and officials brought them to-
gether in mutual efforts to overcome the shared problems of living in
a harsh frontier environment, but they also brought them into conflict
with one another over use of land and resources. The result of inter-

actions was the creation of a society and culture that were not quite
the same as, and in fact often in opposition to, the ones that they left
behind. Although all of these previous studies focused on inland fron-
tiers, nevertheless, the maritime frontier discussed in this article also
shared these same basic characteristics.4

3 C. Patterson Giersch, Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Fron-
tier (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 2006), p. 4.
4 Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1940; Oxford U.P., 1988). More recent-
ly a number of important studies of Chinese land-based frontiers have appeared in English;
e.g., see Stevan Harreil, ed., Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: U. of
Washington P., 1995); Peter Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eur-
asia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 2005); Giersch, Asian Borderlands ; Leo K. Shin, The
Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands (Cambridge:
Cambridge U.P., 2006); Pamela Crossley, Helen Siu, and Donald S. Sutton, eds., Empire at the
Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China (Berkeley: U. of California P.,
2006); Diana Lary, ed., The Chinese State at the Borders (Vancouver: U. British Columbia P.,
2007); Dai Yingcong, The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet: Imperial Strategy in the Early Qing (Se-

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

More specifically, the maritime frontier examined here refers to

the narrow stretch of land along the long coast and the adjacent off-
shore islands and waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. Before the modern era,
the area separating Vietnam and China never had clear-cut boundar-
ies that demarcated one country from the other. This frontier zone
(like others) was an overlapping one, in the sense that several different
groups of people and polities shared the same space.5 During the Ming
(1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) periods local people referred to
the mountainous southwestern corner between China and Vietnam as
a no-man's-land; it was a bandit-ridden, malarial-infested barren area
that neither Vietnam, Guangdong, or Guangxi wanted ("the triply un-
wanted place"; sanbuyaodi HT^icitì) because it was too difficult to rule.
According to the author of a late-nineteenth-century edition of the local
gazetteer of Fangeheng the area was unfit to inhabit because the
"environment was extremely poisonous" ( shuitu zuidu 7jcift#).6 On
land, the rugged terrain hindered the specifying of exact boundaries.
Both Vietnam and China utilized zones, or belts, of natural obstacles,
such as mountains, deep forests, and rivers, as natural boundaries to
separate one another. In the past, one or both governments planted
rows of thick bamboo hedges in an attempt to mark the border, but
the topography and sandy, alkaline soil made all such efforts futile.7 In
this area (as in others) the borderland was simply marked by a series of
military posts, which moved forward or backward according to chang-
ing circumstances. Along the shore and in the gulf, borders were even
more imprecise. The sea, of course, was boundless and could not be
marked with borders. In 1750 one official put it simply: "at sea there is

attle: U. of Washington P., 2009); and Wang Xiuyu, China's Last Imperial Frontier: Late Qing
Expansion in Sichuan's Tibetan Borderlands (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 201 1). To date¿
however, there are no major studies on the history of China's maritime frontier, although Li
Tana and Nola Cooke, eds., Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong
Region, 1750-1880 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), and Cook, Li, and Ander-
son, Tonking Gulf broach the subject for Vietnam.
5 On overlapping frontiers in Southeast Asia, see Thongchai Winichkul, Siam Mapped: A
History of the Geo-Body of a Nation (Honolulu: U. of Hawai'i P., 1994), pp. 97-101.
6 For both phrases, see Fangeheng xian xiaozhi (Guangxu 7 fe&i edn.; Guang-
zhou: Lingnan meishu chubanshe, 2006), p. 209; Fangeheng xianzhi chugao
(Minguo KUJ edn.; Guangzhou: Lingnan meishu chubanshe, 2006), /14, pp. 86b-87a; and
Zhong Tue bianjie lishi ziliao xuanbian (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui
kexue chubanshe 1993), p. 43.
7 Yunnan sheng lishi yanjiu suo ed., Qingshflu Tuenan, Miandian, Taiguo,
Laowo shiliao zjhaichao (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chuban-
she, 1995; hereafter, QYMTL ), p. 61; also see Gongzjhongdang Qianlong chao zouzhe
PÉ#lllííI (Taibei: Gugong bowuyuan chubanshe, 1985), vol. 20, pp. 766-68; and Fange
xianzhi chugao, 7.14, pp. 88a, 89a.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

no way to fix boundaries."8 What is inore, the c

sandy shoals, and mangrove swamps were bureau
were impossible to administer. Not until 1887, a
War, were the borders on land firmly set and a s
put in place.9 Figure 1, which is a section of a la
Chinese coastal defense map, depicts the open,
the Sino-Vietnamese sea frontier. The map sh
coastal area belonged to Vietnam (shaded areas
eas belonged to China (unshaded); the exceptio
area around Dongxing on the coast, which be
map is important because it clearly shows the im
fore - contested space separating the two countr
discussed in this article.

Figure i. Late- 1 8 th c. Coastal Defense Map of Sino-Vietnamese Maritime Frontier

Detail of a large, rice-paper map, a section of which came into the author's personal
collection. The Dongxing area, in the center of this image, has been marked as a light
cartouche. The part shown here is a very small section of the total map, which was
originally perhaps about 20 inches by 20 feet. Remaining parts of the whole are prob-
ably in private collections.

8 QYMTL, p. 52.
9 Fangeheng xianzhi SŽ (Nanning: Guangxi minzu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 567-68.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

Neither Chinese nor Vietnamese states had firm control over this
maritime frontier. Outside of the walled administrative cities, such as
Leizhou It jll, Hepu oTB, Qinzhou iWtl, Thang Long řflt, and a few
others, the rule of law was feeble and ineffective. For Ming and Qing
officials the Gulf of Tonkin was simply a "turbulent sea frontier."10
Outlaw groups flourished: bandits in the mountains and pirates and
smugglers on the coast and offshore islands. During the Ming and Qing
periods (as earlier), the gulf was the weakest link in China's coastal
defense system. At the fringe of the imperial administration, the area
was poorly staffed with civilian and military officials, and its land and
water forces were always undermanned and inadequately equipped.11
Although the center of Vietnam's government was located in the north,
in the area referred to as Tonkin in Western literature, after the tenth
century northern rulers concentrated on developing overland trade
with the neighboring Cham, Lao, and Yunnan regions. By the sixteenth
century the commercial center of gravity shifted southward to Hoi An
and large sections of the northern coast became increasingly un-
der-governed. Not only were the Chinese and Vietnamese governments
unable to curb illegal activities, but often, too, regional authorities and
local strongmen actually cooperated with pirates and smugglers.12
The Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier was also a contested zone.

The area had a long history of invasions, conquests, and occupations by

one side or the other. Significantly, as Li Tana has recently explained,
most of the fighting occurred in coastal, not inland mountain, areas,
and conflicts were often fought for control of the littoral and maritime
trade.13 Even after Vietnam gained independence from China in the

See, e.g., Pan Dingqui fttjftlîÉ, Annan jiyou (1689; rpt. in Annan zhuan 'ji qita
erzhong] Sí) [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985]), p. 4.
11 See, e.g., Li Qingxin Binhai zhi di: Nanhai maoyi yu Zhongwai guangxi shi yanjiu
M. ISÍ (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010), pp. 268-69.
12 For an example of the collaboration of a local Vietnamese official with Chinese p
in 1666, see Qing shilu Guangdong shiliao (Guangzhou: Guangdong sheng
ditu chubanshe, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 96-97; and for the collaboration between the Tay Son re-
gime and Chinese pirates from 1780 to 1802, see Robert Antony, "Maritime Violence and
State Formation in Vietnam: Piracy and the Tay Son Rebellion, 1771-1802," in Stefan Eklöf
Amirell and Leos Müller, eds., Persistent Piracy: Maritime Violence and State Formation in
Global Historical Perspective (New York: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 113-30; for general discussion
of northern Vietnam during the mid- 15th to mid- 17th cc., see John Whitmore, "Van Don,
the 'Mac Gap,' and the End of thejiaozhi Ocean System: Trade and State in Dai Viet, Circa
1450-1 550," and Iioka Naoka, "The Trading Environment and the Failure of Tongking' s Mid-
Seventeenth-Century Commercial Resurgencé," both in Cooke, Li, and Anderson, Tongking
Gulf, pp. 101-16, 117-32.
13 Li Tana, "Introduction. The Tongking Gulf through History: A Geopolitical Overview,"
in Cooke, Li, and Anderson, Tongking Gulf pp. 12-13.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

tenth century, its northern regions Vemained as

ous bitter conflicts, even up to recent times. Betw
Ming armies invaded and then occupied norther
followers of the Mac H insurgents in northern Vie
of several thousand men and took to the sea to
and several coastal villages in the gulf. There wer
several Vietnamese raids along the borderlands
and Guangdong in 1607. In 1662, once again, Vi
coastal border area, destroyed the fort at Fangehe
Qing government to relocate the fort and market
day's location). In 1684 the Qing reoccupied and
the areas between Qinzhou and Dongxing IfCfl, bu
around Jiangping řCi? and Bailongwei Él IMI rema
ese jurisdiction for another two centuries.14 In 17
in Dongxing reported that several hundred Vietna
and burned down shops and homes in the border
Êríll.15 In 1788 Chinese armies again invaded n
help suppress the Tay Son Slij Rebellion, but the a
erably.16 Mixed bands of mountain peoples, wh
origine tribesmen and Chinese frontiersmen oper
the Great Shiwan Mountains +i^^I_Lļ (the no-m
above), attacked military posts and pillaged vill
the border in 1848. 17 Skirmishes and raids in the
have continued into our day.18 Conflicts and shif
ways characterized this frontier zone.
Throughout history, writers of all sorts viewed
time frontier as a perilous place infested with
tures, deadly diseases, and hostile natives. For the
Li Guangpo the sea was an unpredictable, unsafe, and un-
natural environment. It was best to be avoided.19 Landsmen typically
portrayed the southern sea peoples as a subhuman race. For instance,
Wang Qi žEí/f, in his well-known Collected Illustrations of Heaven, Earth,

14 Fangeheng xianzjhi , pp. 2-3, 433, 568.

15 QYMTL , p. 64.
16 On the Tay Son Rebellion and the Qing military campaigns, see George Dutton, The Tay
Son Uprising: Society and Rebellion in Eighteenth- Century Vietnam (Honolulu: U. of Hawai'i
P., 2006).
17 Fangeheng xianzhi chugao, 7.14, p. 102a.
18 During the Sino- Vietnamese War in 1979, for instance, Mong Cai was destroyed in the
fighting and remained virtually uninhabited until trade reopened in the late 1980s.
19 He Changling HJIÄtj, comp., Huangchao jingshi wenbian (1827 edn.; Tai-
bei: Guofeng chubanshe, 1963),/ 83, pp. ia-b.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

and People ( San cai tu hui published in 1609, depicted one

group of people who lived somewhere "southeast of the sea" as the
Feathered People (Yumin and another group, called the Di JŁ,
as having the bodies of fish and heads of humans.20 There was also a
persistent bias, continuing in many ways even today, against Dan $
(Tanka) boat people, who were seen as uncouth and dirty; some writ-
ers even claimed that Dan fishermen and pearl divers had webbed feet
and could breathe underwater like fish. It was taken for granted that
Dan men were pirates and their women whores. Respectable families
on land did not allow their sons or daughters to marry with boat peo-
ple. Even after the Dan were emancipated by the Yongzheng emperor
in 1729, they still were discouraged from residing on land, holding
government office, or wearing clothing made of silk. Such attitudes
and stereotypes perpetuated mutual mistrust and rifts between the two
worlds of land and sea.21

As for the indigenous people living in the gulf area, borders sim-
ply did not exist.22 This was especially true of those peoples who lived
and worked on the seas and who traveled by boat. For the fishermen,
sailors, pirates, and smugglers, who lived most of their lives on the wa-
ter, borders and boundaries simply made no sense. They were not tied
to any particular territory or state, and borders, like laws and taxes,
were unnatural to their ways of life. In this sparsely populated region
one's very existence seemed fleeting and makeshift. Permeability was
a defining characteristic of this sea frontier. In fact, it was precisely the
ambiguity and fluidity of this whole region, as Li Tana has explained,
that "made life uncertain and potentially violent."23
Not only feeble governments, a negligent military pjresence, and
porous borders, but also the geography of the gulf regioni proved con-
ducive to piracy. The long jagged coast, lined with innunlerable bays,
sandy shoals, mangrove swamps, lagoons, and islands, provided count-
less hideaways and safe havens. In selecting their lairs
¡
pirątes preferred
I
20 Shin, Making of the Chinese State , p. 169; and for the ancient period, s¿e Nicola Di Cos-
mo, "Han Frontiers: Toward an Integrated View fJAOS, 129.2 (20 9), p. 2Ò9.
21 Se Robert Antony, Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in
Late Imperial South China (Berkeley: U. of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, China
Research Monograph 56, 20 3), p. 139.
2 In interviews in the summer 201 1 along the Beilun River on the Sino- Vietnamese bor-
der in Guangxi, local Chinese informants told me that even in the 1950s- 1960s they made no
distinction betwe n areas that were China and those that were Vietnam. For them there were
no borders hindering the fre flow of people and go ds.
23 Li Tana, "The Water Frontier: An Introduction," in Cooke and Li, eds., Water Fron-
tier , p. 8.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

isolated coves and islands, located aling sailing rou

from the centers of government. They also wanted
harbors where they could careen and repair their
A good supply of firewood and fresh water was a
close proximity to markets where they could sell
provisions. Lairs became outlaw communities wh
to refit their ships, relax, and do a bit of trading
the state. Pirates purposely established bases n
ports so as to have access to markets where they
and purchase supplies. In the gulf, trading and ra
complemented one another. In fact, raiding frequ
trade in that it involved an exchange of goods
acquiring wealth.
Weizhou MM Island, Longmen SIP^ Island, an
as three of the most important pirate havens thro
the Gulf of Tonkin. All three base areas were situ
and minor ports of Hepu, Qinzhou, Dongxing,
the modern map). Weizhou Island, the largest isla
Hainan, is situated west of the Leizhou peninsu
(roughly 35 nautical miles south of present-day B
Fishing, pearl cultivation, and subsistence agricul
economic activities of the islanders. South Bay (N
out of an extinct volcanic crater, was, and still is,
at least the Yuan dynasty, seafarers have frequent
ish their supplies of fresh water and food and to c
vessels. At the end of the sixteenth century,
that because the waters around Weizhou Island pr
to as many as fifty vessels during the southerly
frequent resort of fishermen, smugglers, and pir
regular seasonal transient population, as well as
specialized in illegal pearl collecting.24 The famou
century pirate Wushi Er made Weizhou one
(and in fact, his father was buried on the island).
south of Weizhou is the tiny island of Xieyang
retreat. Because of such reputations, successive Ch
repeatedly tried to make both islands off-limits to
in the 1 570s the Ming government ordered island
the mainland; many islanders left Weizhou for th

24 Chen Xujing Danmin de yanjiu (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan,

1946), p. hi.

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 ROBERT J. ANTONY

Again, in 1811, Governor-General Bailing Hifè issued a proclamation,

etched in a stone inscription depicted in figure 2, forcing islanders to
evacuate the two islands in

perpetuity. Despite prohi-

bitions, however, both is-
lands remained pirate and
smuggler bases into the
mid-twentieth century.25
Longmen Island is lo-
cated at the mouth of the

Qinjiang IfcíC and Yu-

hongjiang ÍÉžftjT rivers. By
the seventeenth century,
because of silting in the
two rivers, Longmen be-
came the main harbor for

the walled city of Qinzhou

(see map). The island was
on the main coasting route
between Vietnam and south

China. Because Longmen

and several neighboring is-
lands were capable of ac-
Figure 2. Proclamation of 181 1 Requiring
commodating hundreds
Residents of Weizhou to Vacate the Island of ships, they became the
headquarters
Photograph in the author's collection. This is a stone
for various
inscription encountered during author's fieldwork insmuggling and pirate or-
ganizations. According
January , 2010, on Weizhou Island. The stele is located
in front of the Sanpo Temple , which is dedicated to the early-Qing scholar
to a female deity closely associated with fishers and Pan Dinggui íffiffiĚl, in his
seafarers^ It is not clear where the stele was originally set
Travel Record ofAnnam ( An-
up , but it is very likely that it was at this temple , since
temples were important gathering places where informa-
nan jiyou first
tion was shared among a diverse group of people, published in 1689, Long-
thus
officials and locals often placed announcements there.men was the outer door
Villagers on the island stated that during the Cultural
to Qinzhou, strategically
Revolution this stele ended up in the nearby fish mar-
located between Guang-
ket and was used as a cutting board for chopping fish.
Only in recent years was it recovered and restored , and
placed outside in public in front of the temple .

25 Fieldwork notes from Leizhou, January 2009, from a stone inscription dated 1587
the Xiajiang Tianhou Temple M ÖKS®; and fieldwork notes from Weizhou Island, Jan

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

dong and Vietnam. He described th$ area, with its

islands and vast mangföve swamps, as a sea fronti
had served as a major refuge for pirates. One man
the Seventy-two Passages ( qishier jing -b-KH®) b
waterways and dense vegetation, had a deserved r
for pirates and smugglers since at least the thirte
Longmen, ships could easily and clandestinely s
Hepu and Leizhou or westward towards Tonkin, an
the journey took about one day. In the late-sevent
men became an important center for anti-Qing re
Like Longmen, Jiangping (or Giang Binh in Vie
rounded by numerous islands and sandy shoals,
within Vietnam (see map, above). As mentioned
only incorporated into China in 1887; today it
province. Snuggled between two shallow rivers an
mountains and dense forests, it was nearly impos
by boat. Jiangping was a typical border town and
for its China Bazaar (Huajie where almost an
could be bought or bartered. The market town, kno
century as Little Foshan /JMifëlJLl (after the major e
Canton) because of its bustling trade, was a gather
ers, sailors, fishermen, and traders from Guangd
and Sichuan, as well as from Vietnam and other areas of Southeast
Asia.27 For Ming and Qing officials it had always been a trouble spot,
where people of varied ethnicities gathered and mixed, including Han
Chinese, Kinh (Jing M), Dan, Zhuang ÍM, and Yao % minorities. Viet-
namese (Kinh) fishermen began settling on the sandy shoals and the
three adjoining islands of Wanwei vHJft, Shanxin llpO, and Wutou M
SÌ in the early-sixteenth century. In the Ming and Qing periods well-
known pirate lairs were located on several nearby islands, which had
such names as Green Plum Island (Qingmeishan WfSiJLi), Snake Island
(Sheshan Kill), Big Rat Island (Dalaoshushan ^íšSlLl), Small Rat Is-

ary 2010; also see Chen Xianbo "Ming-Qing huanan haidao de jingying yu kaifa: yi
Beibuwan Weizhou dao wei li" WW Mingdai
yanjiu 15 (2010), pp. 85-117.
26 See Qinzhou zhi svjfw© (Jiajing Mm edn.; Qinzhou: Qinzhoushi difangzhi bianzuan
weiyuanhui bangongshi chongyin, 2009), pp. 36-37, 62; Guo Fei fßfSI, Tue daji (1598
edn.; Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1998), Pan, Annan jiyou , pp. 3-4; and field-
work notes from coastal Guangxi, January 2010 and July 201 1. Also see Li, Binhai zhidi , pp.
271-72; and Niujunkai and Li Qingxin, "Chinese 'Political Pirates' in the Seventeenth-Cen-
tury Gulf of Tongking," in Cooke, Li, and Anderson, Tongking Gulf, pp. 216-17.
27 Fangeheng xianzhi chugao,j.' , pp. 2oa-b.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

land (Xiaolaoshushan 'J Sl-Li), and Dog Head Island (Goutoushan

SBl-L|). Today, as in the past, fishing and smuggling are major sectors
of the local economy. Jiangping and the island pirate bases were along
the coasting route between Qinzhou and Dongxing.28
These bases pirates also depended on networks of friendly ports
where they could sell their goods, purchase provisions, recruit follow-
ers, and carouse. Wherever there were friendly ports there could be
found shops, inns, brothels, and gambling dens that catered to the needs
and whims of spendthrift pirates.29 As long as they proved profitable,
few places turned away pirates and smugglers. Rarely did merchants ask
questions about the origins of the merchandise they bought, and even
local officials paid little attention to illegal enterprises as long as they
remained discrete and orderly. The pirate trade was mutually beneficial,
and in fact without such local support piracy could not exist.
In the Ming and Qing periods, the Gulf of Tonkin ports were in-
tegrated among themselves, as well as with ports throughout the South
China Sea. The gulf was dotted with numerous large and small ports
that readily engaged in both legal and illegal trading. Indeed, there was
little to distinguish licit from illicit commerce, or what one might call
the shadow economy. Among the larger ports were Hoi An, Ha Tien
Mílii, and Sai Gon on the Vietnamese coast. For instance, Ha Tien,
located on the Cambodian and Vietnamese border, developed in the
late-seventeenth century as a "refreshment port," much like Jamaica's
Port Royal, where all sorts of seafarers, traders, and adventurers gath-
ered to barter, carouse, drink, and gamble. Among the larger friendly
ports on the Chinese side were Leizhou, Zhiliao ±ET, Canton, Macao,
Zhanglin Amoy, and many others. Macao, for one, had a reputa-
tion as a seedy, disreputable, and dangerous city, known by many trav-
elers as the "wickedest city in the Far East." Although outside the Gulf
of Tonkin, all of these ports were within the gulfs trading network.30

28 QYMTL , pp. 300-4; Pan, Annan jiyou , p. 3. Also see Robert Antony, "Giang Binh: Pi-
rate Haven and Black Market on the Sino- Vietnamese Frontier, 1780-1802," in John Kleinen
and Manon Osseweijer, eds., Pirates , Ports , and Coasts in Asia: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives (Singapore: ISEAS, 2010), pp. 31-50; and Suzuki Chūsei "Re Chõ koki
no Shin to no kankei" in Yamamoto Tatsurõ ed., Betonamu
Chūgoku kankeishi : Kyoku-shi no taitõ kara Shin-Futsu sen
Ofë (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 1975), pp. 480-81; and fìeldwork
notes from Jiangping, July 201 1.
29 Ming-Qing shiliao wubian, (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yan-
jiusuo, 1953), pp. 305, 492-93.
30 For a discussion of clandestine trade in the Gulf of Tonkin in the ^th-igth cc., see Rob-
ert Antony, "War, Trade, and Piracy in the Early Modern Tongking Gulf," in Angela Schotten-
hammer, ed., Tribute, Trade, and Smuggling: Commercial, Scientific and Human Interaction in
the Middle Period and Early Modern World (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, forthcoming).

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

There were also countless smallér ports and harbor

less, that had cordial relations with pirates and smug
Quang Yen 03: province, in the area on the coast
China, there were many unnamed islands where Vie
nese set up makeshift markets to trade with the pira
who frequented the area.31 Some places, however,
The Great Events of Guangdong ( Tue daji ment
nor ports that accommodated clandestine trade, s
Baisha āŽMŪ, and Santiao Among the known m
enteenth century were those clustered around the m
lun (or Gusen River, such as Dongxing, Zhus
Mong Cai.32 Countless fishing villages also actively p
shadow economy, including Tanji Í¥pÍ near Jiangp
on the Leizhou peninsula.33

THE UNDERSIDE OF FRONTIER SOCIETY

The Gulf of Tonkin was a precarious place where fish

traders indiscriminately mingled and colluded with refug
dissidents, smugglers, bandits, pirates, and indigenous
until modern times the area was viewed as a wild frontier
unruly "raw" ( sheng :=È) natives on both land and sea. It
society populated by a large mix of peoples and ethniciti
nese, Dan boat people, Kinh (Jing) fishers, and Yao, Z
S? mountain dwellers. In fact, ethnic identities were com
and even temporary (much like the frontier itself); and th
difficult to give exact ethnic labels to the various group
area.35 After the fifteenth century, Portuguese, Dutch, E
andjapanese also arrived in the region. Precisely because
nature of the population the maritime frontier was diffi
and the people impossible to restrain. Anyone from any o
was a potential pirate and a likely smuggler.36

3i Xu Wentang ŽTŽCĚ. and Xie Jiyi ił eds., Da Kan shilu Qing-Tue gu

bian (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2000), pp. 191-93.
32 Fangeheng xianzhi , pp. 434, 292; Niu and Li, "Chinese Political Pirates," p. 2
mation in Tue daji cited in Li, Binhai zjkidi , pp. 270-71.
33 Gongzhongdang (4602) MM 4^5^290; and fieldwork notes, Leizhou
Guangxi coast, 2010-201 1.
34 Pan, Annan jiyou , p. 4.
35 Li, "Water Frontier," p. 7.
36 Xu and Xie, Da Kan shilu , p. 172.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

For both Vietnamese and Chinese officials one of the most per-
plexing problems was how to distinguish between criminals and hon-
est folks, and more specifically, to distinguish between fishermen and
pirates.37 In fact, they were often one and the same. Most pirates were
amateurs who took to crime as an occasional occupation. While piracy
was an important, sometimes essential, component of their livelihood,
nonetheless they also engaged in legitimate occupations as fishermen,
sailors, farmers, laborers, traders, and the like. Such men joined pirate
gangs during times when they were also lawfully employed to supple-
ment low but honest wages, or they went on temporary sprees of crimi-
nality during intervals between periods of legitimate work. Attuned to
a time-honored life cycle, they "assumed several roles, opportunisti-
cally shifting between fishing, smuggling, piracy, and trading as cir-
cumstances allowed."38

Official documents from both China and Vietnam often used the
unflattering term drifters (in Chinese, liumin Ž/rtiā) to describe the un-
derworld denizens of this sea frontier. They included homeless wan-
derers, runaways, displaced persons, squatters, vagabonds, fugitives,
and refugees. According to Wang Gungwu, the term liumin "suggests
people whose anti-social behaviour and irresponsible acts had led to
their homeless state and to their status as outcasts, vagrants, and even
outlaws." The term also referred to people who left China without per-
mission.39 In fact, in Ming and Qing law codes border-crossing without
permission was a serious crime.40 One such rogue who crossed over into
Vietnam was a monk named Jue Ling MM, who hailed from Guangdong.
In his youth, he was a hoodlum and assassin who first sought the safety
of the monastery by becoming a monk and then later fled to Vietnam
to avoid arrest. Another Chinese fugitive named He Xiwen MUK had
been a Triad boss, but because of involvement in sectarian disturbances
in Sichuan province, he fled to Vietnam in 1778, where he joined the
fight against the Tay Son rebels.41 These sorts of people were the most
mobile and lawless segment of the gulf region's population.

37 See, e.g., QYMTL , pp. 34-35.

38 Vu and Cooke, "Chinese Merchants and Mariners," p. 158.
39 Wang Gungwu, "Sojourning: The Chinese Experience in Southeast Asia," in Anthony
Reid, ed., Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese (St. Leonards,
Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1996}, p. 4. ¿
40 E.g., see Da Ming lii (Beijing: Falli chubanshe, 1999), p. 49; and Fangeheng xian-
zhi chugaOy /14, p. 87a.
41 Xu and Xie, Da Kan shilu , pp. 29-31.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

Mobility and poverty, in fact, epitomized the liv

in the maritime frontier. They were restless indi
the fringes of respectable society and who made b
to make ends meet. They were classic examples
impoverished, single men who moved about from
ing only a scant living. Take the case of Wang Yad
arrested for piracy in the gulf in 1772. He came f
twenty-year-old roving sailor and occasional pirat
arrest. As a hired sailor he earned 150 copper cash
which was about the average wage for hired sailor
cause a male Chinese normally ate one catty (1.3 p
day and a catty of rice cost about five copper cash
provided a sailor hardly enough money to buy
and little else. In short, wages provided only a bar
the fall of 1772 Wang Yade joined a gang of seven
a small passage-boat off the coast of Qinzhou,
frontier. The loot consisted of the following item
15 pecks of rice, 3,000 dried betel nuts, 2 catties
7 catties of tobacco, 2 boxes of gilded paper, 1 iro
hand towels, 3 paper fans, 20 writing brushes, 1
containing clothing, a purse, and an umbrella. Af
rates retreated to a secluded spot in Vietnam whe
loot. Wang's share was 2,000 cash. Soon afterwa
apprehended. Thus, the 2,000 cash Wang receive
booty was an enormous sum of money, and appar
of committing piracy.43
Most of the people living and moving about in
were fishermen, and fishermen constituted the m
involved in piracy (both as perpetrators and vic
provides a breakdown of the occupational back
victed pirates who operated on the Sino-Vietname
between 1773 and 1802. In the historical records m
Chinese and Vietnamese, were simply lumped
(Tanka). Another group of fisherfolk that origi
northern Vietnam to the islands off Giang Binh (J
period is today labeled as the Jing (Kinh) ethni

42 On the cost of living and sailors' wages at that time, see Anto
the Sea , pp. 71-73, 76-81.
*3 Xingke tiben (IŽPÉ 48 io£j ii0) Beijing, First Histor
document is translated in Robert Antony, Pirates in the Age of S
ton, 2007), pp. 114-18.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

the current government, while another group on the Vietnam side is

labeled as the Ngai; the latter group actually comprised several eth-
nic Chinese groups who arrived in northern Vietnam from southern
China in several waves beginning in the tenth century.44 The above
three groups were the quintessential aquatic people, living and working
their entire lives (or nearly so) on water. In the gulf, besides fishing,
pearl gathering was another of their major occupations. Characteristic
of most fisherfolk, they led highly mobile lifestyles that was punctuated
with extreme hardship and poverty. It was not uncommon for them to
alternate between legitimate pursuits and criminal activities in order
to survive in their harsh environment.45

For fishermen, piracy and smuggling were simply alternative jobs,

often necessary for survival, and not necessarily something that they
considered as crimes. The case of a Chinese fisherman named Li Guan-
liu ^H/' was typical. Li regularly fished in Vietnamese waters with
other fishers who put up temporary sheds on isolated shores and islands
where they dried and salted their catch and did a bit of trading with
passing fishermen, merchants, smugglers, and pirates. When Li was ar-
rested in 1796, he confessed that in the previous year in the fourth lu-
nar month he and his fishing mates (gupeng (that is, a small fishing
fleet of five to ten boats) plundered several ships in the Gulf of Tonkin
and afterwards took the loot to Vietnam to sell. Otherwise he and his
companions continued as before, as fisherfolk.46
As indicated in the table, below, other members of the sea fron-
tier's underclass included hired sailors on fishing and cargo junks, day
laborers, peddlers, porters, and petty or itinerant merchants. One in-
teresting, and revealing, example of the latter occupational group was
Luo Yasan HĪ5H, who was a merchant, smuggler, and pirate. Luo,
who was thirty-three years old at the time of his arrest, was a Chinese
from Qinzhou; his family had migrated to Vietnam three generations
earlier. In the summer of 1796, he received a license from a Tay Son
official to transport rice to sell in Giang Binh and then buy medicine,
ceramics, and cloth to bring back to the rebel camp. On his way home
a month later, however, pirates robbed him. Undaunted, he returned
to Giang Binh where he was able to procure a boat, weapons, and eigh-
44 On the Ngai, see Christopher Hutton, "Cross-Border Categories: Ethnic Chinese and
the Sino- Vietnamese Border at Mong Cai," in Grant Evans, Christopher Hutton, and Kuah
Khun Eng, eds., Where China Meets Southeast Asia: Social and Cultural Change in the Border
Region (Singapore: ISAS, 2000), p. 263. ¿
45 On the role of fishermen and other groups in piracy on the South China coast in the late-
18th c., see Antony, Like Froth Floating on the Sea , pp. 82-104.
^ QYMTL , p. 270.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

teen men from an acquaintance, a piráte name

Luo set out once again - this time as a pirate -
Luo and his mixed Sino-Vietnamese gang plundere
coast of Qinzhou before being wrecked in a storm
Luo's case illustrates just how easy it was for so
and forth between criminal and legitimate pursuit
socio-cultural environment.

Table. Occupational Backgrounds of Convicted Pirates on the

Sino-Vietnamese Maritime Frontier , iyyą-1802

OCCUPATIONS NUMBERS

Fishermen 102

Hired Sailors 34
Hired Laborers 1 8

Peddlers 1 4
Merchants 1 2

Porters 1 o

Boatmen 8

Monks 2

Soldiers 1

Miscellaneous 6

Total 207

The denizens of this sea fr

and-tumble underworld culture. It was a collective culture of their own

making, quite different from that of people living in inland agricultural

villages and walled cities in the hinterland. Forged out of hardship,
prejudice, and poverty, they created a culture of survival based on
violence, crime, and vice, and characterized by excessive profanity,
intoxication, gambling, brawling, and sexual promiscuity. It is likely
that they spoke a common language of the sea, a sort of creole or pid-
gin, which was a mixture of southern Chinese, Vietnamese, and local
dialects. Most of the pirates hailed from Guangdong and would have
spoken Cantonese, while many of their Vietnamese counterparts, es-
pecially those expatriate Minh huong (Ming loyalists), also would
have spoken Cantonese.48 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

47 Gongzhongdang (file 1643, 12^ 7 B) and (file 2010, WiWt 2^ 2^ 14

B), National Palace Museum, Taibei, Taiwan.
48 For an insightful discussion on creole languages and culture in Southeast Asia, see G.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

in defiance of dominant culture and the Qing imperium, and perhaps

as a political statement as well, many Chinese who lived or sojourned
in the gulf region cut off their queues and let their hair hang loose in
the fashion of outlaws and rebels.49 The Qing government was sensitive
to the issue of queues because of its policy of using hairstyle as a sign
of loyalty. Pirates were social and cultural transgressors, who stood in
marked defiance of orthodox values and standards of behavior.50
The Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier was also a male-domi-
nated, bachelor culture where the place of women was subordinate,
submissive, and demeaning. Pirates acted without restraint. The only
sexual conventions that they followed were their own. In general, pirates
treated women and boys just like any other type of booty that could be
bought and sold in markets like Giang Binh. Pirate chiefs frequently
kept several wives and boys, as many as their fancy dictated. Regular
gang members also took and discarded women and boys like empty
bottles of liquor. Frequently female captives were the objects of wonton
brutality, being battered and raped as their captors saw fit.51 For large
numbers of pirates, the acquisition of "wives" was done simply by force-
ful taking. In the language of official reports pirates indiscriminately
abducted Vietnamese and Chinese women whom they "forcefully raped
and slept with." Just as often, pirates sodomized young male captives
and forced them to serve them both on and off ship. In one case, Yang
Yazhang a bankrupted- merchant-turned-pirate, kidnapped and
raped several Vietnamese women and young boys.52 In another case,
Chen Zhangfa filisi, a fisherman from Xinhui county had gone
to Jiangping where he joined a gang of pirates in 1795. After plunder-
ing a fishing junk off the Dianbai U Él coast, Chen and several cohorts
gang raped four captured sailors, while another pirate forced a Dan

William Skinner, "Creolized Chinese Societies in Southeast Asia," in Reid, Sojourners and Set-
tlers , pp. 59-61; also see Antony, Like Froth Floating on the Sea , pp. 143 n. 10. On the Minh
huong, see Charles Wheeler, "Identity and Function in Sino-Vietnamese Piracy: Where Are
the Minh Huong?," Jou mal of Early Modern History 16.6 (2012), pp. 503-21.
49 Gongzhongdang (file 1047, MM 1^ 8^ 19 S).
50 On the culture of pirates and seafarers in southern China see Antony, Like Froth Float-
ing on the Sea , pp. 139-63.
51 Although in the early- 19th c., in China, a number of female pirates, such as Zheng Yi
Sao SP - in Guangdong and Cai Qian Ma in Fujian, commanded pirate fleets, there
is no evidence that women played any leading roles in piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin. Also lat-
er on, in the first decade of that century, although Chinese pirates under the female chieftain,
Zheng Yi Sao, issued a code of conduct that attempted to protect female captives from rape,
the evidence is mixed as to just how effective this rule was in actual practice.
52 Gongzhongdang (file 2845, MM 2^ 7^ 6S)-

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

woman aboard his junk where he rap$d and kept

In terms of sexual mores the pirates broke all th
against both women and boys was a regular feat
in this sea frontier.54

EPISODES OF PIRACY IN THE GULF OF TONKIN

Piracy has appeared in many forms and shapes over

and it is perhaps best to think of it in terms of a conti
were the small-scale, ad-hoc gangs of pirates and on th
the large-scale, well-organized gangs and sometimes
pirates (huge groups in the thousands), with much vari
Most cases of piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin, as elsewhe
petty, spontaneous hit-and-run robberies perpetrated
five to ten individuals against small fishing and cargo
several local pirates also organized large-scale profe
much larger number originated from outside the gulf
Europeans and Japanese. Sometimes piracy was sanc
ernment or other political entity (what was called pri
West); at times piracy became deeply involved in po
and struggles. Based on my analysis of roughly 350 pi
the Gulf of Tonkin between 1450 and 1850, we can dis
or episodes: the pearl thieves between 1450 and 1650, t
ers in the 1 550s to 1580s, the political pirates of the
sition between 1640 and 1680, the sanctioned Chines
the Tay Son era from 1780 to 1802, and the pirates of
War period in the 1840s and 1850s. What follows ar
each of these episodes.

First Episode: The Cases of Su Guansheng MWffi and Zhou

In the Gulf of Tonkin, Chinese and Vietnamese
( zhuzei ®fcM) typified local pirates. Although they mo
small gangs, they were normally well organized, and s
cases of Su Guansheng and Zhou Caixiong demonstrate
into formidable forces that represented a significant
thorities. In the Ming period the government mono
industry and strictly regulated its collection and distri
the disadvantage of the pearl divers who found it incre

53 Gongzhongdang (file 1448, MM i^n£j 10 El).

54 On the sexual behavior of Chinese pirates see Antony, Like Froth F
pp. 147-50.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

to earn a living. There were therefore frequent reports throughout the

Ming of pearl thieves operating around Weizhou and Longmen islands.
These thieves were mostly poor Dan fisherfolk from China and Vietnam
who clandestinely gathered and sold pearls to merchants in Qinzhou,
Hepu, and Vietnam.55
In the fifteenth to early seventeenth century bands of what Ming
officials specifically labeled "pirates" clandestinely harvested, stole,
and traded gulf pearls. Many of these so-called pirates were Vietnam-
ese, such as Fan Yuan fᎠin 1458 and Li Mao in 1475; others
were Chinese, mostly poor Dan fishers; also many gangs were of mixed
Chinese and Vietnamese ethnicities (however, as mentioned earlier,
ethnic labels are confusingly abstruse and imprecise). In 1469, for ex-
ample, a band of Sino-Vietnamese pirates in ten black ships robbed the
pearl beds at Yangmei ífMSTtÈ. By the early-sixteenth century residents
of Weizhou Island and the three Dan villages of Wutu Hífe, Duolang
and Pang M on the Shicheng coast had notorious reputations
for pearl thievery and resisting officials.56 In 1589 one official reported
to the throne that soldiers had apprehended 1,121 pearl thieves who
had been operating in more than a hundred double-masted junks in the
Hepu pearl beds off the Lianzhou and Leizhou coasts. In 1630 officials
in Hepu reported pearl thieves privately gathering and selling pearls
to unscrupulous merchants in several gulf ports.57 The problems per-
sisted and in 1647 the new Qing government reinstated regulations to
prohibit and suppress pearl thieves in the Gulf of Tonkin.58
The largest and most significant episode involving pearl thieves
occurred in the late 1570s when the two pirates Su Guansheng and
Zhou Caixiong led the largest Dan "uprising" in western Guangdong
in the Ming dynasty. Both men came from coastal Shicheng, an area
notorious since the sixteenth century for Dan pearl thieves; typical of
this area, their forefathers had migrated from Vietnam. Su and Zhou,
55 Gu Yanwu JÜj£S£, Tianxia junguo libing shu (Xuxiu SKQS edn.), vol.
597» P- 445; Haikang xianzhi (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 2005), p. 21; Chen, Dan-
min de yanjiu , pp. 112, 115; also see Li Qingxin "16-17 Yuexi zhuzei, haidao
yu xizei" i6-i7tá^#¿iíÍfcjÉ Haiyang shi yanjiu 2 (201 1); and Wu
Xiaoling "Guangxi Beibuwan diqu Ming Qing shiqi de haishang wenhua yu yimin"
Conference on "Nanhai No. 1," Maritime Silk
Road Museum, Hailing Island, Yangjiang, April 24, 201 1.
56 Fangeheng xianzjhi chu gao, 7.14, p. 66a; Gaozhou fuzhi (Wanli MM edn.; Bei-
jing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1986), pp. 111-12; also see Li, "16-17 shiji Yuexi," pp.
122-31."
57 Guangdong shengzhi dashiji (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chuban-
she, 2005), p. 103; Lianzhou fuzhi (1755 edn.; Haikou: Hainan renmin chubanshe,
2001), p. 58.
58 Qing shilu Guangdong shiliao, vol. 1, p. 10.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

like a large number of other Dan sea people, had for

engaged in the lucrative, but illegal, pearl trade in t
Finding it increasingly difficult to make a living, in
nized a gang, composed of eighteen ships, to rob vil
zhou and northern Vietnamese coasts. Within a few
had gathered a force of more than a thousand Dan f
bases on Weizhou Island their forces sallied forth
against corrupt and malicious officials (in this case i
who oversaw the government-monopolized pearl tra
edly captured with more than 400 followers in 1581
remains unknown.59

Second Episode: lhe Case of Wu Ping

While wokou ®7ÌS pirates began to appear on the coasts of China
during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), they did not pose a serious
problem until the mid-Ming dynasty (sixteenth century). Although the
Chinese used the term wokou pejoratively for "Japanese dwarf bandits,"
in reality most gangs and leaders in the mid-sixteenth century were
Chinese. Actually many gangs were of mixed ethnicities and nation-
alities, including Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asians, and occasion-
ally Europeans and even some Africans. These raiders (at least their
leaders) are best described as merchant-pirates because they combined
both activities of raiding and trading (activities also characteristic of
frontier society). In fact, many of the leaders had been merchants be-
fore turning to piracy.
Although wokou g angs operated mainly along the Zhejiang, Fujian,
and eastern Guangdong coasts, beginning in the 1550s they also ap-
peared in the Gulf of Tonkin. These pirates were all outsiders, coming
mostly from Fujian and eastern Guangdong. One of the first was a no-
torious pirate named He Yaba ÍŘJ55A, originally a sea merchant from
Dongguan county near Canton. After being driven away from his
raiding areas in Fujian and eastern Guangdong, he fled to the waters
of western Guangdong and then to the Gulf of Tonkin in 1554. Around
this same time there were other reports of Japanese merchant-pirates
in the gulf and on the coast of northern Vietnam. In 1574 wokou gangs
attacked and occupied the fort at Shuangyu on the Leizhou peninsula,
and soon afterwards there were reports of foreign pirates in the same

59 Qujiusi II Wanli wugong lu ÏÛWÂïÙH (Xuxiu SKQS edn.), vol. 436, pp. 238-40;
and Haikang xianzhi (2005 edn.), p. 23.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

general area. In 1 580 wokou raiders from Fujian and Zhejiang plundered
coastal villages from Hainan to Lianzhou.60
Wu Ping was another infamous Chinese pirate associated with
the wokou. He hailed from Zhaoan iS3c county on the coast of Fujian
province. He was described as a short, pudgy, and cruel man, and was
married to the niece of another pirate chief named Lin Guoxian
SS. From his base on Nan'ao Island, on the Fujian-Guangdong bor-
der, Wu Ping launched raids on shipping, towns, and villages mostly
in nearby Fujian in the 1550s. Then in 1565, because the Ming mili-
tary intensified its suppression campaigns and also because of a severe
famine in Fujian, he and several other pirates felt compelled to leave
their usual bases on the Fujian-Guangdong border. Wu Ping and one
of his associates, Zeng Yiben fled to western Guangdong and
then to the Gulf of Tonkin, where they continued their nefarious ac-
tivities over the next year. For instance, in the winter of 1565 Wu Ping
plundered the area near Longmen and soon afterwards he fled to Viet-
nam.61 What happened to him after that is a mystery: some sources
said he was captured and executed, while others said he drowned at
sea. Still other sources claimed that he had not died in 1566, but had
continued his pirating activities off the southern Hainan coast, where
soldiers reportedly captured his wife and one of his chief lieutenants,
but not Wu Ping.62

Third Episode: The Case of Tang Tandi ÎêfBïË.

The next major upsurge in large-scale, organized piracy in the
Gulf of Tonkin occurred during the turbulent Ming-Qing transition
between the 1640s and 1680s. In this period of warfare and anarchy it
became impossible to distinguish pirates, insurgents, and merchants.
Like their wokou predecessors a century earlier, they combined raiding
with trade, but with the addition of political entanglements. In fact,
many so-called political pirates raised the banner of Ming loyalism in

60 Haikang xianzhi (1938 edn.; Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, n.d.), pp. 539-40;
Guo, Tue daji , j. 32, p. 89; Guangdong shengzhi dashiji , p. 97; also see Hoang Anh Tuan,
"Tonkin Rear for China Front: The Dutch East India Company's Strategy for the North-East-
ern Vietnamese Ports in the 1660s," in Kleinen and Osseweijer, Pirates, Ports, and Coasts , p.
21; and Li, "16-17 shiji Yuexi," pp. 132-34.
61 Lianzhou fuzhi , p. 55.
62 Fangeheng xianzhi chugao, j.14, p. 72a; jfai zhouzhi ÎËjlfô (Guangxu edn.; Guangzhou:
Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1983), p. 231; also see Chen Chunsheng "16 shiji
Min Yue jiaojie diyu haishang huodong renqun de tezhi, yi Wu Ping de yanjiu wei zhongxin"
Haiyangshi yanjiu 1 (2010),
pp. 143-50.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

opposition to the nascent Qing dynasty.63 Many o

sanctioned by one or another Southern Ming cour
political regime. Although Zheng Chenggong
the West as Koxinga), in Fujian and Taiwan, was th
theless, there were many others who operated in
forming a sort of second maritime front of resist
chus: Huang Hairu HtíSÍP, Wangji īp, Deng Yao
Chen Shangchuan HLtjil, Zhou Zhaoliang JHüÄ, an
collapse of pro-Ming resistance in the 1670S-1680S
of pirates and refugees fled to Vietnam where the
the Ming loyalist communities that evolved into i
bureaucratic elites.

Undoubtedly the most famous and colorful political pirate in the

Gulf of Tonkin in the late seventeenth century was Yang Yandi (Duong
Ngan Dich in Vietnamese), also known as Yang Er ISm . His origins are
obscure but it is likely that he was born either in northern Leizhou, in
Wuchuan ^ji[, or somewhere near Qinzhou, as all three areas claim
him as a native son. Today he is a renowned anti-Qing folk hero in
the region. In the Fangcheng-Qinzhou area he is known as "Righteous
Yang" (Yang Yi ÍSÜ), and there are legends about how he constructed,
near Longmen, a walled fortress, a palace, and canals linking his base
to the sea (providing a fast, easy escape when in danger).64
Yang Yandi and his younger brother, Yang San ܧH, began their
piratical careers in the 1640s or 1650s as local pirates ( tufei ÜB) in
association with another pirate boss named Huang Zhansan ÄdSH and
a Tonkin pirate named Huang Mingpiao The Yang brothers
were first mentioned in official records in 1655 when they pillaged the
Lingshui HI7K coast on Hainan Island. For the next thirty years they
remained active in the Gulf of Tonkin and elsewhere; they also joined
the Ming resistance and, for a time, the Zheng camp in Taiwan.65
Probably sometime in the 1650s, Yang Yandi and Yang San joined
forces with the Wang brothers, Wang Zhihan ĪĪŽ.M and Wang Zhijian
3E5LIĚ, who had also started out as local pirates in their home area of

63 Niu and Li, in "Chinese Political Pirates," use the term "political pirates" to argue that
the pirates were politically motivated anti-Qing, pro-Ming insurgents; I simply use the term
to indicate that they were involved in the political struggles of the time, without speculating
about their motivations.

64 Li, Binhai zhidi , pp. 274-75; an£i fieldwork notes from Qinzhou, January 2010, and from
Fangeheng and Qinzhou, July 201 1. Also see Robert Antony, "'Righteous Yang': Pirate, Rebel,
and Hero on the Sino- Vietnamese Water Frontier, 1644-1684," Cross- Currents (e-journal) 11
(June 2014), at http://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/ ejournal/issue-1 1, pp. 4-30.
65 Qing shilu Guangdong shiliao , vol. 1, p. 89.

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

Leizhou. Later they joined the Ming resistance against the Manchus in
western Guangdong with another pirate-rebel leader named Deng Yao
ffßJS. Between 1652 and 1656 their forces occupied several coastal areas
around Leizhou and in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 1656 the Qing defeated
and captured Wang Zhihan with more than 5,400 followers, both men
and women. Wang Zhijian, however, continued his activities as a pi-
rate and Ming loyalist for several more years. Deng Yao was defeated
at Longmen in 1 661. 66
In the meantime the Yang brothers continued to operate as pirates
and rebels in the Gulf of Tonkin. By the 1660s, official sources now
referred to them as sea bandits ( haizei $SK) and sea rebels ( haini M
M), no longer simply as local bandits. The Yang brothers and several
other pirates briefly reoccupied Longmen and other nearby islands as
their bases, but after repeated attacks by Qing forces in 1663-1666,
Yang Yandi fled to Vietnam where he received protection and sup-
port from a local strongman. Around this same time, he also associ-
ated with a turncoat and rebel named Zu Zeqing and a local
outlaw named Xie Chang Wil. When the Qing government requested
that the Tonkin authorities arrest Yang, he fled to Taiwan and joined
the Zheng camp, reportedly receiving an official position as a military
commander. In 1677 he and another pirate named Xian Biao fäfM left
Taiwan in eighty ships with several thousand followers to return to the
Gulf of Tonkin and to reoccupy Longmen, which once again became a
pirate base. Raiding and fighting continued intermittently until 1682,
when Yang and other pirate-rebels were driven out of Longmen. Yang
retreated with several thousand followers to Vietnam, finally settling
in the south around My Tho (near Sai Gon) in the Mekong delta and
helping the Nguyen lords secure this area for Cochinchina.67 According
to the historian Yumio Sakurai I3ÍÍÉ, a subordinate assassinated
Yang Yandi in 1688.68 As for his brother, the Qing Veritable Records
mentioned that a notorious pirate named Yang San was apprehended
and summarily executed in 1700.69

66 Haikang xianzhi (1938 edn.), p. 542; Haikang xianzhi (2005 edn.), p. 26; and Li, Bin-
hai zhidiy pp. 273-74.
67 Xu and Xie, Da Nan shiluy p. 3; Qing shilu Guangdong shiliaoy vol. 1, pp. 89, 96-97, 149,
162, 165, 178; Haikang xianzhi (1938 edn.), pp. 543-44; and Haikang xianzhi (2005 edn.), pp.
27-29; Fangeheng xianzhi chugao,7'.i4, pp. 8ja-b; and Li, Binhai zhidi , pp. 274-76.
68 Yumio Sakurai, "Eighteenth-Century Chinese Pioneers on the Water Frontier of Indo-
china," in Cooke and Li, eds., Water Frontier p. 40.
69 Qing shilu Guangdong shiliao , vol. 1, p. 217.

no

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

Fourth Episode: The Case of Wushi Er )

After a hiatus of about a hundred years, a new
piracy emerged in the Gulf of Tonkin during the
Vietnam between 1780 and 1802. As a means of ob
fighters, the Vietnamese rebels actively recruited
anteeing safe harbors, ships, weapons, and supplie
one of several important pirate bases during thes
privateers, though the Vietnamese never used the
ers utilized Chinese pirates, and commissioned ma
seals and certificates (similar in function to the let
in the West) authorizing commerce raiding in Chi
the most notable Chinese pirate leaders were C
Mo Guanfu Hllíí£, Zheng Qi Hß-tr, and Wushi Er.
to both the development of large-scale professiona
mation of the Tay Son state. Even after the Tay S
in 1802, Chinese pirates continued their excurs
waters until their huge confederation was defeate
Like Yang Yandi, today Wushi Er is a local fo
zhou peninsula, where he is regarded as someth
fighter battling against Qing oppression. Wushi E
cal professional pirate, one of the earliest to join
lion in the 1 790s and the last major pirate to be
in 1 8 10. Born Mai Youjin in the small fishin
on the west coast of the Leizhou peninsula around
criminal career as a petty thief and blackmailer in
the gulf. After being abducted by a gang of local p
claimed to have been coerced to enlist with them in their raids in the
waters of western Guangdong and Vietnam. Sometime in the 1790s
he joined the Tay Son cause and was quickly appointed as a brigade
general (zongbing ÜUÍ-). By 1797 he commanded a band of roughly a
hundred men and three vessels and received a new title from the Tay
Son ruler - General Who Pacifies the Sea ( ninghai fujiangjun W$Slí!J}t'ř
Ił). After the Tay Son collapsed in 1802, he returned to Chinese wa-
ters, with bases on Weizhou Island and on the Leizhou coast. By 1805
Qing officials reported that he had become the most powerful pirate
in the Gulf of Tonkin with a fleet of eighty to ninety war junks. By the
time of his capture and execution in 18 10, his fleet had grown to more
than a hundred ships and several thousands of pirates.70

70 Gongzhongdang (file 3728, 3^ 2 H 19S); (fìle 10138I, 13^ 3^ 2 El); and

fìeldwork notes from Wushi and the Guangxi coast, 2009-201 1.

III

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

In the several years before his capture Wushi Er oversaw a vast

criminal network that centered on the waters between Hainan Island
and the northern Vietnam coast, but also had branches in eastern
Guangdong and southern Fujian. Each year his fleets took in profits of
several thousands of taels silver from plunder, ransoms, and extortion,
making it necessary for him to employ a small bureaucracy of scribes
to write blackmail letters and to keep accounts of the loot, as well as
of weapons and provisions. Over the years he had slowly built up his
organization by cultivating kinship and native-place relationships with
subordinates and followers on land and on sea. His formidable Blue
Banner Fleet, as it was labeled, was divided into eight squadrons, or
ganized around a central core of family members, including his elder
brother and several cousins.71

Fifth Episode: The Cases of Shap-ng-tsai and Chui-A-Poo

Between the 1830s and 1850s piracy was once again on the up-
swing in the Gulf of Tonkin, as several gangs of well-organized pirates
from outside the region - many from the Hong Kong area - fled the
suppression campaigns of the British Royal Navy to seek refuge in the
gulf. Between 1835 and 1850, for instance, the Dai Nam thuc lue
ļfžS ( Veritable Records of Vietnam) recorded hundreds of incidents of
(mostly) Chinese pirates plundering ships and villages on the Vietnam-
ese coast.72 Despite the British navy's suppression campaigns, these
pirates retained close contacts with unscrupulous merchants in Hong
Kong, Macao, and Singapore who bought their booty and supplied
them with armaments and other necessities. Several notorious pirates
in the gulf at this time were Ruan Yaguan PxĚÍlí, Yang Yasi
Yangjiufu ÍSSfcll, Chenjiahai Li Yazhi Liang Aqiao
PŘPfir, Shap-ng-tsai, and Chui-A-Poo.
Among those pirates just mentioned, Shap-ng-tsai (Shiwuzai ~hE
f?) and Chui-A-Poo (Xu Yabao were the two most formidable
Chinese pirate leaders in the 1840s. Figure 3 is a contemporary sketch
of Chui-A-Poo. Both men were professional pirates who regularly col-
laborated with one another, the former commanding a gang of 3,000
men and more than sixty junks and the latter commanding a gang of
1,800 men and about twenty junks. Shap-ng-tsai had previously com-
manded a Portuguese lorcha, and had resided on and off in Macao and
71 Gongzhongdang (file 10138, MM 13ÍF3H2B); Zhupizouzhe íčfcfttllííl (file 1058, M
lio^ii^ 22 B, and file 1121, MM 15^7^123), Beijing, First Historical Archives;
Shangyudang fangben (MM 14^9^ 12 B and MM 16^3^ 15 B), Taibei, Na-
tional Palace Museum.

72 This information is culled from Xu and Xie, Da Nan shilu , pp. 163-268.

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 VIOLENCE AND PREDATION

Hong Kong. His colleague, Chui-A-Pqo, had b

occasional paid informant for the Hong Kong
had first-hand knowledge of modern weapons
Shap-ng-tsai from his many years as an exper
Chui-A-Poo from having been licensed by the
to manufacture gunpowder. The former's mai
in western Guangdong on several islands off t
among the Van Don islands, while the latter h
Bay to the east of Hong Kong.73
In the years following the First Opium W
Chui-A-Poo repeatedly pillaged ships and vil
Vietnam. They forced fish-
ing and trading vessels to
pay regular protection fees
so as not to be attacked.

After defeating the Qing

navy in a battle off Hainan
Island in 1848, the two pi-
rates raided the important
salt mart at Dianbai, cap-
tured forty junks, and levied
US$120 for protection fees
on every salt junk. In Feb-
ruary 1849 they gained no-
toriety after Chui-A-Poo's
gang killed two British of-
ficers, and that summer
when Shap-ng-tsai's gang
robbed a junk registered to
a British subject. Later that
same year in two separate Figure 3. Contemporary Sketch of Chui-A-poo
campaigns the Royal NavyA sketch-engraving, originally published in the
nearly destroyed the two Illustrated London News, June 14, 1851. The de-
pirate fleets, and, althoughpiction is interesting because it shows a typical, youn
Chinese male who appears to be a normal citizen:
Shap-ng-tsai escaped, his
comrade Chui-A-Poo was nothing in particular reveals him as a pirate.

captured but afterwards

committed suicide in a Tasmanian jail, where he had been de

73 John C. Dalrymple Hay, The Suppression of Piracy in the China Sea, 184g (Lon
ward Stanford, 1889), pp. 27-28; and China Mail , November 1, 1849.

US

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ROBERT J. ANTONY

Despite the apparent naval successes, in which nearly 5,000 pirates

were reported killed in battles with the Royal Navy, piracy continued
to flourish in the Gulf of Tonkin, and new pirate fleets soon afterwards
replaced those that had been destroyed.74 Piracy in fact remained a
problem in the gulf until the late-twentieth century.

CONCLUSION

For centuries, piracy was a persistent and inherent f

Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier. While most piracie
be perpetrated by small, ad hoc gangs, upsurges in la
organized piracy occurred during times of political turm
(such as during the Ming-Qing dynastic wars and the T
lion). Fishermen, sailors, traders, smugglers, and pirate
ties were all too often indistinguishable from one anothe
the social, cultural, and economic fabric of the Gulf of T
they helped to create a highly integrated political ec
pended as much on trade as it did on piracy and smugg
of the gulfs maritime frontier shared in a collective cu
own making, a distinct culture of survival and resistan
marked contrast to the land-based culture of the hinterla
frontier was one of shared social, economic, and cultur
of patterns not easily defined and delimited by ethnic
differences or by national boundaries. The long and jag
with countless offshore islands and mangrove swamps,
coming refuges for anyone seeking to avoid the notice
a frontier zone the gulf remained until recent years an
lawless no-man's-land where violence and prédation wer

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

QTMTL Qingshilu Tuenan , Miandian , Taiguo, Laowo shiliao zhaichao iff If

74 Beresford Scott, An Account of the DestrJttion of the Fleets of the Celebrated Pirate Chief-
tains Chui-Apoo and Shap-ng Tsai , on the Coast of China , in September and October , 1849 (Lon-
don: Savill and Edwards, 1851), pp. 139-41, 173; Qiongshan xianzhi (1857 edn.),/
ii, p. 13b; and Gaozhou fuzhi Â'/NJÊLê (1889 edn .),/ 20, p. 19a; 50, p. 6b.

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