Gentry-Merchants and Peasant-Peddlers 245
Two years later, in 1517, a Portuguese squadron anchored in the Pearl
River off Guangzhou (Canton). There is reason to believe that the Chinese
in Malacca were mostly South Fujianese and hence the Portuguese
already had acquired information about Fujian. Furthermore, in Malacca
they had also established trade relations with the Ryukyu people,^9
whose crews in most cases were Zhangzhou men, as mentioned above.
Therefore, when the Portuguese mission in Guangzhou became entangled
in the complexities of diplomatic procedure, a detachment was sent to
visit not only South Fujian but also the Ryukyu Islands. They sojourned
in Zhangzhou and opened trade with the Chinese there.^10 For the next
30 years they continued to visit the maritime provinces of Fujian and
Zhejiang. It was only in South Fujian that the Portuguese felt at home and
ever established good relations with the local people.
Portuguese smugglers were not the only ones who frequented the
China coast at this time. Even more serious, in the eyes of the Ming
authorities, were the depredations of the Wokou (literally “dwarf
robbers”, a term that indicated Japanese pirates). At t h at time the
Japanese needed many Chinese products. Silk and mercury, for example,
were worth ten times more in Japan than in China. Silk wadding was also
expensive. Many other items were in demand, including cotton cloth,
brocade, red thread, needles, iron chains, cooking pots, porcelain, ancient
coins, celebrated paintings, famous calligraphy, rare books, medicine,
felt, face powder, food baskets, lacquer ware and vinegar.^11 The Japanese
paid for their goods in silver cash because they did not have many
products attractive to the Chinese.^12 The Sino-Japanese trade produced a
great deal of proβit for both parties.
During the reign of the founding Emperor of the Ming, Taizu, Japan
was theoretically excluded from the tribute-and-trade system by the
imposition of the maritime prohibition laws, a step taken because they
- Mentioned in the Commentaries of Afonso d’Alboquerque, cited in ibid., p. 45.
- T.T. Chang states that the place was Quanzhou (see ibid., p. 45). The Portuguese
and Spaniards often confused either Zhangzhou or Quanzhou, using with the
same pronunciation of “Chincheo”. I would suggest “Chincheo” was a corruption
of Zhangzhou rather than Quanzhou, since the former and its port Yuegang
(later the area was promoted to be a new District called Haicheng) became
very active in trade during the second half of Ming. Interested readers might
refer to the discussion on this question in the appendix of C.R. Boxer’s book,
pp. 313‒26. - Chouhai tubian 籌海圖編 [Sea strategy illustrated; a work on coastal defense],
comp. Hu Zongxian (1510‒65), Zheng Ruozeng (1503‒70), et al. 胡宗憲、鄭若
曾等編撰 (1624 ed.; 1st printing 1562)), 2: 32‒3. - Ibid., 4: 20a.