48 Chapter Two
sibility of accumulating large private capital from the profits of seafar
ing became correspondingly slim, inasmuch as any official had ample
reason to confiscate a merchant’s illegally gotten gains whenever they
came to his attention.
For about two centuries, from 1371 to 1567, when the Ming gov
ernment again authorized Chinese ships to sail to foreign lands under
suitable regulation and with official permission, Chinese seamen and
merchants had therefore to go outside the law to continue their way of
life. Enough of them did so to constitute a nuisance to the Ming
government. The officials called them “Japanese” pirates, thereby ex
cusing themselves for not being able or willing to suppress them ef
fectively. A few Japanese did join the pirates’ ranks, but most of the
seamen operating illegally off the Chinese coast in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries were ethnic Chinese. Like Wang Ko the iron
master and his work force, these Chinese pirate-traders lacked enough
popular support ever to challenge the organized might of the Ming
government seriously. After 1567, when a more or less satisfactory
modus vivendi between officialdom and overseas entrepreneurs was
achieved, piracy subsided and the crisis passed. But two centuries of
illegal operation obviously hindered the development of Chinese
overseas trade prior to that date and made it much easier for European
merchants to gain a foothold in the Far East.^53
Both in iron smelting and shipping, therefore, Chinese achieve
ments which anticipated later European technical triumphs were ab
sorbed into the ongoing reality of Chinese life without making much
difference in the long run. Chinese merchants and manufacturers
themselves subscribed to the value system that limited their roles in
society to comparatively modest proportions. They proved this by
investing in land and in education for their sons, who thus joined the
dominant landowning class and could compete for a place in the ranks
of officialdom.^54
As a result, the traditional ordering of Chinese society was never
really challenged. The governmental command structure, balanced
(sometimes perhaps precariously) atop a pullulating market economy,
never lost ultimate control. Ironmasters and shipbuilders, along with
- On the “Japanese” pirates see Kwan-wai So, Japanese Piracy in Ming China during
the 16th Century (Lansing, Mich., 1975); Louis Dermigny, La Chine et l’occident: la
commerce à Canton au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1964), 1:95–99–
- For examples, admittedly from a later age, see Ping-ti Ho, “Salt Merchants of
Yang-chou,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 17 (1954): 130–68.
