Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and Haifang 95
Korea in the north. Sandwiched in between two powers, Xu believed
Korea would naturally incline toward the stronger power:
Some day in the future, Japan might use Korea as a free passage to
ask for trade with China, or simply send an invading force across
the borders. This would seem to be inevitable sooner or later.From Dong Fan (Taiwan ) the Japanese “will threaten Penghu. By then
there will be Wo all over the sea in front of our courtyard.” He did not
favor the termination of trade with Japan. On the contrary, he believed
trade could be a means of manipulation. Trade beneβited both sides. The
government could impose customs duties on merchandise and ban illicit
items, and this was one way to achieve and maintain tranquility. It was
fortunate for China that Nobunaga and Hideyoshi died prematurely; given
more time for them to consolidate their positions, China would have been
in trouble. He concluded:
Only through trade can the Wo be paciβied. Only through trade can
we obtain full knowledge of the Wo. Only through trade can we
have designs on the Wo.He even suggested that, without alarming the Japanese, China could
import the superior weapons used by the latter, swords, armor and
cannon, by means of trade. Then China would be on par with them in the
technology of war. Xu came to this conclusion by observing the defeat of
China in Korea during the years 1592 to 1598, when the long swords,
spears and guns of the Japanese infantry proved too much for the Chinese
soldiers. He said there were occasions when China could have attacked
Japan from its rear. At the time of Hideyoshi’s campaign in Korea, a
Fujianese named Xu Yihou, who was an aide to the daimyo of Satsuma,
hinted to the Fujian governor, Jin Xuezeng, that the Ming government
might want to take advantage of the situation in Japan by sending an
expeditionary force there. Satsuma could raise some 40 thousand troops
and, if reinforced by 20 to 30 thousand soldiers and as many ships as
possible from China, they could have Hideyoshi’s head. As Xu said, “the
court debated whether it should send a βleet from the southern provinces
to attack Japan”. However, the high-ranking ofβicials at court were just too
nervous to consider such a scheme. Xu was aware that attacking Japan
from the south involved crossing the sea for a distance of thousands of li,
but with a base in Satsuma and with Satsuma actually bearing the burden
of the attack, there should be little danger or difβiculty.^141 Xu Guangqi’s
- For Xu Guangqi’s comments cited above, see Xu Guangqi, “Haifang yushuo”, in
TWWXCK, no. 289, pp. 211–23; also MJSWB, 491: 29b–47a.