Trade, the Sea Prohibition and the “Folangji” 133
executions without the proper authority of the Court. Many innocent
people died as a result. Zhu, Lu, Ke and several other ofβicials were
found guilty of mishandling the case, but with differing degrees of
complicity. Among the captives, four foreigners (two Portuguese and
two of their slaves, according to Cruz) were found guilty of killing while
resisting arrest. It was proposed they be given the death penalty, and that
the rest of the party, numbering 51 (a βigure given in both accounts), be
banished to Guangxi province. Having examined the pronouncement,
the Board of War and the three judicial ofβices recommended the Court
accept the βindings and sentences. Both Lu and Ke were condemned
to death but later pardoned, and an imperial edict for the detention of
Zhu Wan, who was to be brought to Beijing to stand trial, was issued on
September 1, 1550. Apprehensive about the impending inquisition, Zhu
committed suicide.^158
Understandably, the Portuguese survivors hailed the fair and
meticulous judicial processes of China and “stated outright that accused
persons in a similar position could never have had such a fair trial in
Europe”.^159
Ming Policies Revisited
A closer look at Ming maritime policy is indispensable if the implications
of the Zhoumaxi Incident are to be appreciated better. Only then can
the theory of Court intrigues and the claims that Zhu’s disgrace was a
triumph for the coastal interests and a failure for the advocates of strong
defense policies be examined in proper perspective.
Ming foreign policy, as John E. Wills, Jr. has succinctly explained,
banned all trade in Chinese ports by foreigners not connected with tribute
embassies and forbade all Chinese voyages abroad, “so that China’s
only legal maritime trade was that carried on within the framework of
the tribute system”.^160 This sea prohibition law and the institution of
Supervisorates of Maritime Trade and Shipping governed Ming China’s
relations with the maritime “tribute states”.
- MSL: SZ, 363: 5b‒6b. Under the same entry, the compilers of the above sources,
while lamenting Zhu Wan‘s death, admitted Zhu‘s “excessiveness” in his
handling of the matter. - Boxer, South China, p. xxix.
- John E. Wills, Jr., Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-
hsi, 1666‒ 1687 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 15.