UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Sealords live in vain : Fujian and the making of a maritime frontier in seventeenth-century China Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3pk3t096 Author Ho, Dahpon David Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Sealords Live in Vain: Fujian and the Making of a Maritime Frontier in Seventeenth-Century China A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Dahpon David Ho Committee in charge: Professor Joseph W. Esherick, Co-Chair Professor Paul G. Pickowicz, Co-Chair Professor Barry J. Naughton Professor Daniel Vickers Professor Charles J. Wheeler 2011 © Dahpon David Ho, 2011 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Dahpon David Ho is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2011 iii DEDICATION FOR MY LOVING PARENTS Yuping Sandi Ho and Shyh-chin Mike Ho AND MY WIFE Elya Jun Zhang iv EPIGRAPH Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences, And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, And urging of seas, And of mountains that burn in the night, And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul. Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, And we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous. * --Kahlil Gibran * “Defeat,” from The Madman (1918) v TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………………iii Dedication.....…..................................................................................................................iv Epigraph.....…......................................................................................................................v Table of Contents.....….......................................................................................................vi List of Maps……………………………………………………………………….….….vii List of Figures………………………………………………………………………...…viii List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………..…ix Acknowledgements....................................................................................................……x Vita…………………………………………………………………………….……….…xi Stylistic Conventions……………………………………...……………….…….………xii Abstract………………………………………………………………………….………xiv Introduction – The Lives of a Frontier.................................................................................1 Chapter I – Rogue: Fujian and the Seaban.........................................................................21 Chapter II – Storm: The Pirate Wars…………………………………………………….73 Chapter III – War: The Empire’s Scorched Shore……………………………………...114 Chapter IV – Fire: The Coastal Depopulation………………………………………….200 Chapter V – Rapine: Satraps and Society………………………………………………241 Conclusion – Crossing: The End of a Frontier…………………………………………298 Appendix I...........….....….................................................................................….….....331 Appendix II………………………………….………………………………………….346 Bibliography........................….......….......…........….......….....................................…..371 Glossary....................................................................................................................…...391 vi LIST OF MAPS Map 0.1: China During the Ming-Qing Transition.……………………………………..xvi Map 1.1: Fujian…………………………………………………………………………..21 Map 2.1: Ming China and the Wako Pirate Raids……………………………………….92 Map 2.2: Scatter Distribution of Seaman Bases…………………………………………94 Map 3.1: Major Movements of Koxinga,1647-1661..………………………………….147 Map 3.2: Southeast Coast Macroregion………………………………………………...176 Map 4.1: Taiwan Strait Area……………………………………………………………216 Map 4.2: Putian Topo…………………………………………………………………..217 Map 4.3: The Coastal Depopulation Boundary in Fujian………………………………221 Map 4.4: Battle of Amoy Bay…………………………………………………………..237 Map 4.5: Zheng Jing’s Retreat………………………………………………………….239 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 0.1: Nurhaci..………………………………………………………………………1 Figure 0.2: Zheng Zhilong..……………………………………………………………….1 Figure 1.1: Skinner’s Nine Macroregions………………………………………………..32 Figure 1.2: The Modern “East Asian Corridor”………………………………………….37 Figure 1.3: Sea Spaces…………………………………………………………………...42 Figure 1.4: Various Network Routing Types..…………………………………………...48 Figure 1.5: Two Trade Systems………………………………………………………….61 Figure 1.6: Rough Temporal Correlation of Wako and Seaban Events…………………67 Figure 1.7: Comparison of Maritime Fujian and Guangdong..………………………….70 Figure 5.1: Command Structure………………………………………………………...244 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Chronological List of Seabans and Wako Incidents………………………….67 Table 1.2: Roderich Ptak’s Maritime Periodization……………………………………..69 Table 2.1: Operations of Wang Zhi and Xu Dong……………………………………….88 Table 2.2: Guide to Scatter Distribution of Seamen Bases………………………………95 Table 3.1: The Green Standard Army in Fujian…………………..……………………142 Table 3.2: Main Maritime Bases of Koxinga….……………………………………….145 Table 5.1: Loss of Qing Land Tax (Monetary + Grain) Caused by the Coastal Depopulation in Fujian, 1661-1683…………………………………………………….254 Table 5.2: Estimate of Coastal Towns Destroyed/Abandoned in Fujian Province and in Two Prefectures in Guangdong, 1661-1683……………………………………………278 Table 5.3: Registered Households in Counties of Chaozhou Prefecture, Guangdong....283 Table 5.4: Wenzhou Prefecture, Zhejiang, between 1582 and 1681…………………...284 Table 5.5: Population Registers of Jianning Prefecture of Fujian……………………...286 Table 5.6: Destinations of the Wang Clan of Wenling, Jinjiang County, Fujian…..…..287 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Being a historian means having one’s patience tested all the time, and also sorely testing the patience of others. My thanks go out to those who have tolerated my eccentricities and helped me learn to live, laugh, and love this peculiar profession. The sealord Koxinga, as various sources tell us, died of overwork, depression, rage, madness, or fever—not necessarily (but quite possibly) in that order. Were it not for the kind people who have helped me in so many ways, I might have shared his fate. To my mentors, Professors Joseph Esherick and Paul Pickowicz, I owe a debt that I can never repay. I also want to thank all of my teachers, friends, and classmates at UC San Diego and Xiamen University. There are so many individuals to whom I would like to express my gratitude, such that if I tried to name them all, I might never get done here. Let me thank you each in person instead! Research for this project was funded by a Fulbright Scholarship, as well as a Regents writing fellowship from UC San Diego. The generosity of these programs continues to make this world a richer and a better place. Finally, I wish to express my love and gratitude to my wife, Elya Jun Zhang, who has stood fast by me through these topsy-turvy years. It has not been easy, I know. But every day is a chance to start again. Let us begin new life journeys together. x VITA 2002 Bachelor of Arts, Rice University 2009-2010 Instructor of History, American University 2010- Assistant Professor of History, University of Rochester 2011 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “Night Thoughts of a Hungry Ghostwriter: Chen Bulei and the Life of Service in Republican China.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 1-59. “The Men Who Would Not Be Amban and the One Who Would: Four Frontline Officials and Qing Tibet Policy, 1905-1911.” Modern China, Vol. 34, No. 2 (April 1, 2008), pp. 210-246. “To Protect and Preserve: Resisting the ‘Destroy the Four Olds’ Campaign, 1966-1967.” In Joseph Esherick, Paul Pickowicz, and Andrew Walder, eds., The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History (Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 64-95. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Modern Chinese History Professors Joseph W. Esherick and Paul G. Pickowicz Minor Field: Premodern Chinese History Professors Marta E. Hanson, Suzanne Cahill, and Weijing Lu Minor Field: Modern Japanese History Professors Takashi Fujitani and Stefan Tanaka Minor Field: Social Theory and Modernity Professors Richard Madsen, Charles Briggs, James Holston, and Nayan Shah xi STYLISTIC CONVENTIONS Translations are mine unless indicated. It has been my goal to render everything smoothly into colloquial English. Anyone who has spent time with unpunctuated classical Chinese sources knows well that they were not written for the convenience of historians working in another language. Documents were written in the elite script of the Chinese scholarly and bureaucratic elites, for their own consumption and for their acculturated posterity. Thus, there are always classical Chinese terms and phrases that elude smooth translation and teach the translator humility. Terms that remain in Chinese I have indicated with italicized Roman form. For official titles, I have relied on the reference works of Charles O. Hucker and Brunnert & Hagelstrom. In the Bibliography and citations, Chinese names and titles are written in simplified Chinese characters for mainland works, traditional Chinese characters for works from Hong Kong and Taiwan. When citing scholars, I use Hanyu Pinyin as the rule except in cases where the author clearly prefers or has previously published in another romanization system,