some larger kingdoms attempted to increase trade by dispatching
missions more frequently. Srivijaya, for example, sent six missions in
the space of seven years, while Siam and Cambodia also markedly
increased the number of tribute missions. Some private merchants
attempted to disguise trade in the form of bogus official missions, but
Ming officials applied strict criteria for verifying the authenticity of
embassies and issued warnings against such ventures.
Southeast Asian rulers were not averse to the official trade
regime imposed by the Ming, for it reduced competition from private
traders. Private Chinese merchants, by contrast, especially those from
coastal Fujian who had been engaged in free trade with the Nanyang
over the previous two centuries, were most unhappy, and immediately
set about circumventing the new restrictions. Many resorted to smug-
gling, which increased dramatically, encouraging piracy in its wake.
Others sought to cooperate closely with official tributary missions,
even going so far, as in Ayutthaya, as effectively to manage tributary
trade to the joint benefit of both court and merchants. In a few cases
ethnic Chinese actually led official missions (from Java in the 1430s
and 1440s, and from Siam in 1478 and 1481).^6
Despite the increase in smuggling and in the frequency of tribute
missions, the total volume of trade between Southeast Asia and China
declined in the last decades of the fourteenth century. This had a
serious impact, especially on smaller Malay trading settlements, and
indirectly provoked political disturbances. Thus attempts by south
Sumatran ports, such as Malayu, to gain Chinese recognition as in-
dependent polities, indirectly provoked their conquest by Javanese
Majapahit. Another effect was to increase the resident Chinese popu-
lation in Southeast Asia, as merchants feared reprisals if they returned
to China. Some merchant families in China fled abroad for fear of
prosecution or persecution. In order to maintain their commercial
buying networks, Chinese merchant communities in Southeast Asia
redirected trade towards the muslim West, while waiting for the situ-
ation in China to ameliorate.
Sea power, tribute and trade