Ming Wakou Piracy Surges

1540

Along the southeastern coast of Ming China, so-called wakou pirates, many of them actually Chinese with some Japanese, Portuguese, and renegade participants, began conducting devastating raids. The crisis would force Ming authorities to fortify the coast and strain their relations with Japan and the Portuguese at Macao. The crisis exposed contradictions of the maritime ban, which drove Chinese merchants into partnership with Japanese and Portuguese smugglers.