80 Boundaries and Beyond
supply the settlers with oxen. These measures did help to strengthen
the island‘s defenses against piracy and in one swoop made the military
installations self-reliant.^85 Thereafter the island developed into an
important maritime garrison composed of both soldiers and farmers. It
was claimed that piracy was therefore under control and both the Zhang
and Chao prefectures enjoyed peace.^86 Later, it was recommended that
Nan’ao be made the headquarters of a deputy-brigade-general who
would be put in charge of cross-border affairs.^87
Nan’ao’s strategic position continued to be highly valued in the Qing.
A military ofβicer of higher rank, a brigade-general, was assigned there to
command the Min-Yue (Fujian-Guangdong) brigade.^88 The cross-border
military administration provides a βine example of the preoccupation
with coastal defense and the imperial motivation for colonization and
territorial expansion.
Z h oushan. Because of its location, Zhoushan (Chusan) was perceived
to be the key to the security of eastern Zhejiang.^89 In the early Ming, a
garrison was established on the island, but in his paciβication campaign
along the coast Duke Tang He decided to shift the population inland. He
was concerned about the island’s isolated location that made surveillance
difβicult. Tang’s move was criticized by a late Ming scholar named
Zhou Hongzu for being shortsighted and ignoring Zhoushan’s strategic
importance in coastal defense.^90 However, in his work Haiguo tuzhi Wei
Yuan comes to Duke Tang’s defense. Wei argues that Zhoushan was only
one of the numerous islands off the Zhejiang coast. From the point of
view of coastal defense, its location was not strategic, nor was the land
particularly fertile; consequently Tang He had not included it within
the empire’s domain. Although in the early Shunzhi reign (r. 1644‒61)
advancing Manchu troops brieβly occupied it in 1651, the Qing force
decided that it was not worth retaining.^91 At that point in time the overall
strategy of the Qing was to evacuate the coastal lands to prevent the
Zheng resistance from obtaining supplies on the mainland.^92 It was not
until the early Kangxi reign that the court decided to restore Zhoushan
and move the Dinghai district seat from the mainland to the island. The
- TXJGLBS, 26: 132a–b.
- Ibid., 26: 29b.
- Ibid., 26: 132b.
- QCHJTS, 155: 60.
- Ibid., 155: 10.
- TXJGLBS, 26: 4b.
- HGTZ, l: 5a–6b.
- Ding Yuejian, Zhi tai bigao lu, in TWWXCK, no. 17, p. 71.
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