Violence and Predation on the Sino-Vietnamese Maritime Frontier, 1450-1850

Robert J. Antony

University of Macau

[email protected]

This paper presents an overview of violence and predation in the form of on the Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier between the mid-fifteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, with a focus on the Gulf of .1 My research is based on written historical documents, including Qing archives, the Veritable Records of and , local

Chinese gazetteers, and travel accounts, as well as fieldwork in the conducted over the past five years. I argue that piracy was a persistent and intrinsic feature of this sea frontier and that it was a dynamic and significant force in the region‘s economic, social, and cultural development. The paper is divided into three sections: first, I discuss the geopolitical characteristics of this maritime frontier as a background to our understanding of piracy in the region; second, I consider the socio-cultural aspects of the gulf region, especially the underclass who engaged in clandestine activities as a part of their daily lives; and third, I analyze five specific episodes of piracy in the .

The Gulf of Tonkin, which is tucked away in the northwestern corner of the South

China Sea, borders on Vietnam in the west and China in the north and east. (See Map 1.) It has always been a dynamic and diversified political, social, and economic contact zone.

Besides a vibrant maritime trade, fishing, pearl collecting, and salt production also constituted important factors in the political-economy of the region. The innumerable islands and fuzzy jurisdictions assured widespread and persistent piracy and , and a clandestine trade that undoubtedly always surpassed the legitimate trade. In fact, as Vu

1 Simply for convenience throughout this paper I use the term Vietnam rather than Annam.

1 Duong Luan and Nola Cooke have remarked, piracy was ―so deeply embedded in the lives of the Chinese and Vietnamese communities there [i.e., in the gulf] that most local people were involved in piracy or smuggling to some extend.‖2 In short, the gulf was a highly integrated region where national boundaries meant very little and where trade, smuggling, and piracy were interconnected and indistinguishable.

● Thang Long

Van Don

● Nghe Anh

Map 1. Gulf of Tonkin

2 Vu Duong Luan and Nola Cooke 2011, 152.

2 Aspects of the Sino-Vietnamese Maritime Frontier

Frontiers were borderless zones of uncertainty and in the process of transformation.

They were fundamentally ambiguous spaces noted for their freedom, lawlessness, and violence. The maritime frontier discussed in this paper refers to the narrow stretch of land along the long coast (the littoral) and the adjacent offshore waters (in the gulf). Before the modern era, the area separating Vietnam and China never had clear-cut boundaries that demarcated one country from the other. In the Ming and early Qing periods local people referred to the mountainous southwestern corner between and Vietnam as a ―no- man‘s-land‖ (sanbuyaodi).3 On land the rugged terrain hindered specifying exact boundaries.

Both Vietnam and China utilized zones or belts of natural obstacles, such as mountains, deep forests, and rivers, as natural boundaries to separate one another. In the past one or both governments planted rows of thick bamboo hedges in an attempt to mark the border, but the topography and sandy, alkaline soil made all such efforts futile.4 In this area (as in others) the border was simply marked by a series of military posts, which moved forward or backward according to changing circumstances. Along the shore and at sea borders were even more imprecise. The sea, of course, was boundless and could not be marked with borders.5 The countless bays, islands, sandy shoals, and mangrove swamps were bureaucratic nightmares that were impossible to administer. Not until 1887, after the Sino-French War, were the borders firmly set and a series of stone markers put in place.6 Figure 1, which is a section of a late 18th century Chinese coastal defense map, depicts this rugged, open geography of the

Sino-Vietnamese sea frontier.

3 Zhong Yue bianjie lishi ziliao xuanbian 1993, 43. 4 Gaozong shilu 498: 26; also see GZDQL 20: 766-768. 5 Gaozong shilu 365: 34-35. 6 Fangcheng xianzhi 1993, 567-68.

3

4 The reach of both the Chinese and Vietnamese states was fragmented and fragile in this maritime frontier. Outside walled administrative cities, such as , Hepu, ,

Thang Long, and a few others, the rule of law was weak or nonexistent. Outlaw groups flourished under such conditions: bandits in the mountains and pirates and smugglers on the coast and offshore islands. In the Ming and Qing periods (as earlier), the gulf was the weakest link in China‘s coastal defense system. At the fringe of the imperial administration, the area was poorly staffed with civilian and military officials, and its land and water forces were always undermanned and inadequately equipped. Although the center of Vietnam‘s government was located in the north, in the area referred to as Tonkin in Western literature, after the 10th century northern rulers concentrated on developing overland trade with the neighboring Cham, Lao, and Yunnan . By the the commercial center of gravity shifted southward to Hoi An and large sections of the northern coast became increasingly under-governed. Not only were the Chinese and Vietnamese governments unable to control illegal activities, but often too regional authorities actually cooperated with pirates and smugglers. The frontier separating Vietnam and China became a buffer zone that neither side could effectively control.

As for the indigenous people living in the gulf area, borders simply did not exist.7

This was especially true of those peoples who lived and worked on the seas and who traveled by boat. For the fishermen, sailors, pirates, and smugglers, who lived most of their lives on the water, borders and boundaries simply made no sense. They were not tied to any particular territory or state. Borders, like laws and taxes, were unnatural to their ways of life. The littoral, taken as a whole, was sparsely populated and the population was highly transient.

7 In interviews in the summer 2011 along the Beilun River on the Sino-Vietnamese border in , local Chinese informants told me that even in the 1950s-1960s they had no idea that the people living on the other side of the river were in Vietnam. For them there was no distinction between what was China and what was Vietnam. It was all the same. There were no borders hindering the free flow of people and goods.

5 Everything seemed makeshift. Permeability was a defining characteristic of this sea frontier.

In fact, it was precisely the ambiguity and fluidity of this whole region, as Li Tana has explained, that ―made life uncertain and potentially violent.‖8 (Figure 2 depicts a dusty border town today on the upper reaches of the Beilun River that separates China and Vietnam.)

Fig. 2. Border Town of Dongzhong, Guangxi, on Bei Lun River

The Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier was also a contested zone. The area had a long history of invasions, conquests, and occupations by one side or the other. Vietnam did not gain a semblance of independence from China until the 10th century, yet even after that the region was plagued with numerous conflicts. The last major Chinese incursion, however, was between 1406 and 1427, when the Ming invaded and occupied northern Vietnam. In

1598, followers of the Mac insurgents in northern Vietnam raised an army of several thousand men and took to the sea to plunder Fangcheng, Yonglun, and several coastal villages in the gulf. There were Chinese reports of several Vietnamese raids along the borders of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong in 1607. In 1662, once again, Vietnamese raided the

8 Li Tana 2011, 8.

6 coastal border area, destroyed the fort at Fangcheng, forcing the Qing government to relocate the fort and market further to the northeast (today‘s location). In 1684 the Qing reoccupied and refortified some of the areas between Qinzhou and Dongxing, but other coastal areas around Jiangping and Bailongwei remained under Vietnamese jurisdiction for another two centuries.9 In 1760 Chinese officials in Dongxing reported several hundred Vietnamese bandits who looted and burned down shops and homes in the border market at Mong .10

Skirmishes and raids in the border zone, in fact, have continued until recent times.11 Conflicts and shifting borders have always characterized this frontier zone.

Not only feeble governments, a negligent military presence, and porous borders, but also the geography of the gulf proved conducive to piracy. The long jagged coast, lined with innumerable bays, sandy shoals, mangrove swamps, lagoons, and islands, provided countless hideaways and safe havens. In selecting their lairs pirates preferred isolated coves and islands, located along sailing routes yet also far removed from the centers of government. They also wanted bases with protected harbors where they could careen and repair their ships without notice. A good supply of firewood and fresh water was also important, as was close proximity to markets where they could sell their prizes and buy provisions. Lairs became outlaw communities where pirates gathered to refit their ships, relax, and do a bit of trading outside the gaze of the state. Pirates, in fact, purposely established bases near major and minor ports so as have access to markets where they could sell their booty and purchase supplies.

Weizhou Island, Longmen Island, and Jiangping served as three of the most important pirate havens throughout this period in the Gulf of Tonkin. All three base areas were situated

9 Fangcheng xianzhi 1993, 2-3, 433, 568. 10 Gaozong shilu 629: 21-22. 11 During the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, for instance, Mong Cai was destroyed in the fighting and remained virtually uninhabited until trade reopened in the late 1980s.

7 near the major and minor ports of Hepu, Qinzhou, and Dongxing. , with an area of about 36 square kilometers, is situated west of the and south of

Hepu (near present-day City). Fishing, pearl cultivation, and subsistence agriculture were the main economic activities of the islanders. South Bay (Nanwan), formed out of an extinct volcanic crater, was, and still is, the main harbor. Besides the fine harbor, there is a fresh water spring widely known by seafarers since the . According to the Yue daji, at the end of the 16th century, because the waters around Weizhou Island afforded a safe harbor to as many as fifty vessels during the southerly monsoons, it was the frequent resort of fishermen, smugglers, and pirates. Although the island had a regular seasonal transient population, in the early Qing period there were several villages that specialized in illegal pearl collecting.12 Because of its reputation as an outpost of illegal squatters, smugglers, and especially pirates, Chinese governments repeatedly tried to make the island off limits to settlers. For example, in the 1570s the Ming government ordered islanders to relocate back on the mainland; many islanders moved to Leizhou. Again in 1811 Governor-General Song Yun issued a proclamation, etched in a stone inscription depicted in Figure 3, forcing islanders to evacuate the island in perpetuity. About five kilometers south of Weizhou is the tiny island of

Xieyang, also a known pirate retreat. Despite prohibitions, nonetheless, both islands remained pirate and smuggler retreats well into the 20th century.13

12 Chen Xujing 1946, 111. 13 Fieldwork in Leizhou in January 2009, from stone inscription dated 1587 in the Xiajiang ; and fieldwork on Weizhou Island in January 2010; also see article on Weizhou by Chen Xianbo 2010.

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Fig. 3. Song Yun‘s 1811 Stele Prohibiting Residency on Weizhou Island

Longmen Island, located at the mouth of the Qinjiang and Yuhongjiang rivers, by the

17th century, because of silting of the two rivers, served as the main harbor for the walled city of Qinzhou. Longmen was on the main coasting route between Vietnam and .

Because Longmen and several neighboring islands were capable of accommodating hundreds of ships, they became the headquarters for various smuggling and pirate organizations.

According to the early Qing scholar Pan Dingqui, in his Travel Record of Annam (Annan jiyou), published in 1689, Longmen was the ―outer door‖ to Qinzhou, strategically located between Guangdong and Vietnam. The area, with its many islands and mangrove swamps, was a ―sea frontier‖ (haijiang) that for centuries had served as a ―refuge for pirates.‖ One mangrove swamp, called the ―Seventy-two Passages‖ (Qishier jing) because of its intricate waterways and dense vegetation, had a deserved reputation as a resort for pirates and smugglers since at least the . From Longmen ships could easily and clandestinely sail eastward towards Hepu and Leizhou or westward towards Tonkin, and in

9 either direction the journey took about one day. In the late 17th century Longmen also became an important center for anti-Qing resistance.14

Like Longmen, Jiangping (or Giang Binh in Vietnamese) was surrounded by numerous islands and sandy shoals, but was located just within Vietnam. As mentioned above, the area was only incorporated into China in 1887; today it is part of Guangxi

Province. Snuggled between two shallow rivers and backed by high mountains and dense forests, it was nearly impossible to reach except by boat. Jiangping was a typical border town and black market, famous for its ―China Bazaar‖ (Huajie), where almost anything imaginable could be bought or bartered. For Ming and Qing officials it was always a trouble spot, where people of varied ethnicities gathered and mixed, including Han Chinese, Kinh (Jing), Dan

(Tanka), and Dai (Tai) minorities. Vietnamese (Kinh) fishermen began settling on the sandy shoals and the three adjoining islands of Wanwei, Shanxin, and Wutou in the early 16th century. In the Ming and Qing periods well-known pirate retreats were located on several nearby islands, which had such names as Snake Island (Sheshan), Big Rat Island

(Dalaoshushan), Small Rat Island (Xiaolaoshushan), and Dog Head Island (Goutoushan).

Today, as in the past, fishing and smuggling are major sectors of the local economy.

Jiangping and the island pirate bases were along the major trading route between Qinzhou and Dongxing.15

Besides these bases pirates also depended on networks of friendly ports where they could sell their goods, purchase provisions, recruit followers, and carouse. Wherever there were friendly ports there could be found shops, inns, brothels, and gambling dens that catered

14 See Qin zhouzhi 2009, Guo Fei 1998, and Pan Dingqui 1985, 4. Fieldwork, January 2010 and July 2011. Also see Li Qingxin 2010, 271-272, and Niu and Li 2011, 216-217. 15 Xuanzong shilu, 226: 25-30, 230: 6-8; 234: 12-14; Qin zhouzhi 2009; Pan Dingqui 1985, 3. Also see Antony 2010, and Suzuki Chusei 1975, 480-81; and fieldwork in July 2011.

10 to the needs and whims of spendthrift pirates.16 Without such local support piracy could not exist.

In the Ming and Qing periods intraregional trade was well integrated among the gulf‘s ports, as well as with ports throughout the . The gulf was dotted with numerous large and small ports, few of which were unfriendly towards and smuggling trade. In fact, there was little to distinguish licit from illicit commerce, or what has been called the shadow economy.17 Among the larger ports were Hoi An, Ha Tien, and

Saigon on the Vietnamese coast. For instance, Ha Tien, located on the Cambodian and

Vietnamese border, developed in the late 17th century as a ―refreshment port,‖ much like

Jamaica‘s , where all sorts of seafarers, traders, and adventurers gathered to barter, carouse, drink, and gamble. Among the larger, legitimate friendly ports on the Chinese side were Leizhou, Zhiliao, Canton, Macao, Zhanglin, Amoy, and many more. Macao, for one, had a reputation as a seedy, disreputable, and dangerous city, known by many travelers as the

―wickedest city in the .‖ Although outside the Gulf of Tonkin, all of these ports were within the gulf‘s trading network.

There were also countless smaller ports, mostly nameless and therefore unrecorded, that had cordial relations with pirates and smugglers. Some, however, were well-known. The

Great Events of Guangdong (Yue daji) mentioned several minor ports, which accommodated clandestine trade, such as Baili, Baisha, and Santiao. Among the known marts in the 17th century were those clustered around the mouth of the Beilun River, such as Dongxing,

16 Ming-Qing shiliao, wubian, 305, 492-493. 17 On piracy and the shadow economy in South China in the late 18th-early 19th century, see Antony 2011.

11 Zhushan, and Mong Cai (Mangjie).18 Countless fishing villages also actively participated in the shadow economy, including Tanji near Jiangping and Wushi on the Leizhou peninsula.19

The Underside of Frontier Society

In the past Chinese officials routinely characterized the Gulf of Tonkin as ―a turbulent sea frontier‖ where fishermen and traders indiscriminately colluded with refugees, smugglers, bandits, and pirates.20 Up until modern times the area also was viewed as a wild frontier inhabited by unruly ―raw‖ (sheng) savages on both land and sea. It was an open society populated by a large mix of peoples and ethnicities: Han Chinese, Dan boat people, Kinh

(Jing) fishers, and Dai, Yao, Zhuang, and Li mountain dwellers. In fact, ethnic identities were complex, fluid, and even temporary (just like the frontier itself); and therefore it is difficult to give exact ethnic labels to the various groups living in the area.21 After the 15th century

Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and Japanese also arrived in the region. Precisely because of the hybrid nature of the population the maritime frontier was difficult to govern and the people impossible to restrain. Anyone from any of these groups was a potential pirate.22

For both Vietnamese and Chinese officials one of the most perplexing problems was how to distinguish between criminals and honest folks, and more specifically, to distinguish between fishermen and pirates.23 In fact, they were often one and the same. Most pirates were amateurs who took to crime as an occasional occupation. While piracy was an important, sometimes essential, component of their livelihood, nonetheless they also engaged in legitimate occupations as fishermen, sailors, farmers, laborers, traders, and the like. Such men

18 Fangcheng xianzhi 1993, 434, 292; Niu and Li 2011, 216. 19 GZD (4602) JQ 4.5.29; and Fieldwork, 2010-2011. 20 Pan Dingqui 1985, 4. 21 Li Tana 2004, 7. 22 DNTL, 172; and Renzong shilu, 121: 2. 23 See, for example, Gaozong shilu, 173: 43.

12 joined pirate gangs during periods of lawful employment to supplement low but honest wages, or they went on temporary sprees of criminality during intervals between periods of legitimate work. Attuned to a time-honored life cycle, they ―assumed several roles, opportunistically shifting between fishing, smuggling, piracy, and trading as circumstances allowed.‖24

Official documents from both China and Vietnam often used the unflattering term

―drifters‖ (liumin in Chinese) to describe the underworld denizens of this sea frontier. They included homeless wanderers, runaways, displaced persons, vagabonds, fugitives, and refugees. According to Wang Gungwu, the term liumin ―suggests people whose anti-social behaviour and irresponsible acts had led to their homeless state and to their status as outcasts, vagrants, and even outlaws.‖ The term also referred to people who left China without permission.25 In fact, in Ming and Qing law codes border-crossing, without permission, was a crime.26 One such scalawag was a monk named Jue Ling, who hailed from Guangdong. In his youth, he was a hoodlum and assassin who first sought the safety of the monastery by becoming a monk and then later fled to Vietnam to avoid arrest. Another Chinese fugitive named He Xiwen had been a Triad boss, but because of involvement in sectarian disturbances in province, he fled to Vietnam in 1778, where he joined the fight against the Tay

Son rebels.27 These sorts of people were the most mobile and lawless segment of the sea frontier population.

Mobility and poverty epitomized the lives of the underclass in the maritime frontier.

They were restless individuals who lived on the fringes of respectable society and who made barely enough money to make ends meet. They were classic examples of ―marginal men‖ –

24 Vu Duong Luan and Nola Cooke 2011, 158. 25 Wang Gungwu 1996, 4. 26 For example, see Da Ming lü 1999, 49. 27 DNTL, 29-31.

13 impoverished, single men who moved about from place to place eking out a scanty living.

Take the case of Wang Yade, who was arrested for piracy in the gulf in 1772. He came from

Hepu county and was a 21 year-old (sui) roving sailor and occasional pirate at the time of his arrest. As a hired sailor he earned 150 copper (wen) per month, which was about the average wage for hired sailors at that time. Because a male Chinese normally ate one catty

(1.3 pounds) of rice each day and a catty of rice cost about five copper cash, therefore, wages provided a sailor just enough money to buy daily rations of rice and little else. In short, wages were barely enough for subsistence.28 Thus, the 2,000 cash Wang received as his share of the booty was an enormous sum of money, and apparently worth the risk of committing piracy.29

Most of the people living and moving about in this sea frontier were fishermen, and fishermen constituted the majority of individuals involved in piracy (both as perpetrators and victims). See Table 1 below for a breakdown of the occupational backgrounds of 207 convicted pirates who operated on the Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier between 1773 and

1802. In the historical records most fishermen, both Chinese and Vietnamese, were simply lumped together as Danjia (Tanka); another group of fishers that originally migrated from northern Vietnam to the islands off Giang Binh (Jiangping) in the Ming period are today labeled as the Jing (Kinh) ethnic group in China. Both groups were the quintessential aquatic people, living and working their entire lives (or nearly so) on water. In the gulf, besides fishing, pearl gathering was another major occupation of these ―water peoples‖

(shuishangren). Characteristic of most fisherfolk, they led highly mobile lifestyles that was punctuated with extreme hardships and poverty. It was not uncommon for them to alternate

28 On the cost of living and sailors‘ wages at this time see Antony 2003, 71-73, 76-81. 29 XKTB (QL 48.10.11); this document is translated in Antony 2007, 114-118.

14 between legitimate pursuits and criminal activities in order to survive in their harsh environment.30

For fishermen piracy and smuggling were alternate occupations, often necessary for survival, and not necessarily something that they considered as crimes. The case of a Chinese fisherman named Li Guanliu was typical. Li regularly fished in Vietnamese waters with other fishers who put up temporary sheds on remote shores and islands where they dried and salted their catch and did a bit of trading with passing fishermen, merchants, smugglers, and pirates.

When Li was arrested in 1796, he confessed that in the previous year in the fourth lunar month he and his ―companions of the net‖ (gupeng) (i.e., small fishing fleets of five to ten boats) plundered several ships in the Gulf of Tonkin and afterwards took the loot to Vietnam to sell. Otherwise he and his companions continued as before, as fisherfolk.31

As indicated in Table 1, other members of the sea frontier‘s underclass included hired sailors on fishing and cargo junks, day laborers, peddlers, porters, and petty or itinerant merchants. One interesting, and revealing, example of the latter occupational group was Luo

Yasan, who was a merchant, smuggler, and pirate. Luo, who was thirty-three years old at the time of his arrest, was a Chinese from Qinzhou; his family had migrated to Vietnam three generations earlier. In the summer of 1796, he received a license from a Tay Son official to transport rice to sell in Giang Binh and then buy medicine, ceramics, and cloth to bring back to the rebel camp. On his way home a month later, however, pirates robbed him. Undaunted, he returned to Giang Binh where he was able to procure a boat, weapons, and eighteen men from an acquaintance, a pirate named Liang Er; and so Luo set out once again – this time as a pirate – to recover his losses. Luo and his mixed Sino-Vietnamese gang plundered two junks

30 On the role of fishermen and other groups in piracy on the South China coast in the late 18th century, see Antony 2003, 82-104. 31 Gaozong shilu 1492: 8-9.

15 off the coast of Qinzhou before being wrecked in a storm off Island.32 Luo‘s case illustrates just how easy it was for someone to move back and forth between criminal and legitimate pursuits in the gulf‘s murky socio-cultural environment.

Table 1. Occupational Backgrounds of Convicted Pirates on the Sino-Vietnamese Maritime Frontier, 1773-1802

Occupations Numbers Fishermen 102 Hired Sailors 34 Hired Laborers 18 Peddlers 14 Merchants 12 Porters 10 Boatmen 8 Monks 2 Soldiers 1 Miscellaneous 6 Total 207 Sources: XKTB, GZD, and ZPZZ.

The denizens of this water world also shared a rough-and-tumble underworld culture of poor marginalized seafarers and pirates. It was a collective culture of their own making, quite different from that of people living in inland agricultural villages and walled cities.

Forged out of hardship, prejudice, and poverty, they created a culture of survival based on violence, crime, and vice, and characterized by excessive profanity, intoxication, gambling, brawling, and sexual promiscuity. They spoke a common language of the sea, a sort of creole, which was a mixture of southern Chinese, Vietnamese, and local dialects.33 In the 18th and

19th centuries, in defiance of dominant culture and the Qing imperium, and perhaps as a political statement as well, many Chinese who lived or sojourned in the gulf region cut off their queues and let their hair hang lose in the fashion of outlaws and rebels.34 The Qing

32 GZD (1643 addendum) JQ 1.12.7; and (2010) JQ 2.2.14. 33 See the discussion on creole languages in Southeast in Skinner 1996, 59-61. 34 GZD (1047) JQ 1.8.19.

16 government was sensitive to the issue of queues because of its policy of using hairstyle as a sign of loyalty. Pirates were social and cultural transgressors, who stood in marked defiance of orthodox values and standards of behavior.35

The Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier was also a male-dominated, bachelor culture where the place of women was subordinate, submissive, and demeaning. Pirates acted without restraint. The only sexual conventions that they followed were their own. In general, pirates treated women and boys just like any other type of booty that could be bought and sold in markets like Giang Binh. Pirate chiefs frequently kept several wives and boys, as many as their dictated. Regular gang members also took and discarded women and boys like empty bottles of liquor. Frequently female captives were the objects of wonton brutality, being battered and raped as their captors saw fit.36 For large numbers of pirates, the acquisition of ―wives‖ was done simply by forceful taking. In the language of official reports pirates indiscriminately abducted Vietnamese and Chinese women who they ―forcefully raped and slept with‖ (qiangbi jiansu). Just as often pirates sodomized young male captives and forced them to serve them both on and off ship. In one case, Yang Yazhang, a bankrupted merchant-turned pirate, kidnapped and raped several Vietnamese women and young boys.37

In another case, Chen Zhangfa, a fisherman from Xinhui county, had gone to Giang Binh where he joined a gang of pirates in 1795. After plundering a fishing off the Dianbai coast, Chen and several cohorts gang raped four captured sailors, while another pirate forced a Dan woman aboard his boat junk where he raped and kept her against her .38 In terms of

35 On the culture of pirates and seafarers in southern China see Antony 2003, 139-163. 36 Although in the early 19th century, in China, a number of female pirates, such as Yi Sao in Guangdong and Ma in , commanded pirate fleets, there is no evidence that women played any leading roles in the piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin. Also later on, in the first decade of the 19th century, although Chinese pirates under the female chieftain, Sao, issued a code of conduct that attempted to protect female captives from rape, the evidence is mixed as to just how effective this rule was in actual practice. 37 GZD (2845) JQ 2.7.6. 38 GZD (1448) JQ 1.11.10.

17 sexual mores the pirates broke all the rules. Sexual violence against both women and boys was a regular feature of the pirate‘s life in this sea frontier.39

Episodes of Piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin

Piracy has appeared in many forms and shapes over the centuries, and it is perhaps best to think of it in terms of a continuum: on one end were the small-scale, ad-hoc gangs of pirates and on the other end were the large-scale, well-organized gangs and sometimes even leagues of pirates, with much variation in between. Most cases of piracy in the Gulf of

Tonkin, as elsewhere in Asia, were petty, spontaneous hit-and-run robberies against small fishing and cargo boats perpetrated by local gangs of five to ten men. Although several local pirates also organized large-scale professional gangs, a much larger number originated from outside the gulf, including some who were Europeans and Japanese. Sometimes piracy was sanctioned by a government or other political entity (what was called privateering in the

West); at times piracy became deeply involved in political intrigues and struggles. Based on my analysis of roughly 350 ―pirate‖ incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin between 1450 and 1850, we can discern five waves or episodes: the pearl thieves between 1450 and 1650, the raiders in the 1550s to 1580s, the ―political pirates‖ of the Ming-Qing transition between

1640 and 1680, the ―sanctioned‖ Chinese pirates during the Tay Son era from 1780 to 1802, and the pirates of the post-Opium War period in the 1840s and 1850s. What follows are examples from each of these episodes.

First Episode: The Cases of Su Guansheng and Zhou Caixiong

In the Gulf of Tonkin Chinese and Vietnamese ―pearl thieves‖ (zhuzei) typified local pirates. Although they mostly operated in small gangs, they were normally well-organized, and sometimes, as the cases of Su Guansheng and Zhou Caixiong demonstrate, they expanded into formidable forces that represented a significant challenge to authorities. In the

39 On the sexual behavior of Chinese pirates see Antony 2003, 147-150.

18 Ming period the government monopolized the pearl industry and strictly regulated its collection and distribution, much to the disadvantage of the pearl divers who found it increasingly difficult to earn a living. There were therefore frequent reports throughout the

Ming of ―pearl thieves‖ operating around Weizhou and Longmen islands. These thieves were mostly poor Dan fisherfolk from China and Vietnam who clandestinely gathered and sold pearls to merchants in Qinzhou, Hepu, and Vietnam.40 (See Fig. 4.)

Hepu Pearl Beds

Lianzhou (Hepu)

Fig. 4. Map of the Eastern Gulf of Tonkin Showing the Hepu Pearl Beds in Late

In the 15th to early 17th century bands of what Ming officials labeled ―pirates‖ clandestinely harvested, stole, and traded gulf pearls. Many of these so-called pirates were

Vietnamese, such as Fan Yuan in 1459 and Li Hao in 1475; others were Chinese, mostly poor

Dan fishers; also many gangs were of mixed Chinese and Vietnamese ethnicities. In 1469, for example, a band of Sino-Vietnamese pirates in ten black ships (heichuan) robbed the pearl beds at Yangmei. By the early 16th century residents of Weizhou Island and the three Dan

40 Gu Yanwu 2002, 597: 445; Haikang xianzhi 2005, 21; Chen Xujing 1946, 112, 115; Li Qingxin 2011; and Xiaoling 2011.

19 villages of Wutu, Minglang, and Pang on the Shicheng coast had notorious reputations for pearl thievery and resisting officials.41 In 1589 one official reported to the throne that soldiers had apprehended 1,121 pearl thieves who had been operating in over a hundred double- masted junks in the Hepu pearl beds off the Lianzhou and Leizhou coasts. In 1630 officials in

Hepu reported pearl thieves privately gathering and selling pearls to unscrupulous merchants in several gulf ports.42 The problems persisted and in 1647 the new Qing government reinstated regulations to prohibit and suppress pearl thieves in the Gulf of Tonkin.43

The largest and most significant episode involving pearl thieves occurred in the late

1570s when two notorious ―pirates‖ (), Su Guansheng and Zhou Caixiong, led the largest Dan ―uprising‖ in western Guangdong in the Ming dynasty. Both men came from coastal Shicheng, an area notorious since 16th century for Dan pearl thieves; typical of this area, their forefathers had migrated from Vietnam. Su and Zhou, like a large number of other

Dan sea people, had for many years been engaged in the lucrative, but illegal, pearl trade in the Gulf of Tonkin. Finding it increasingly difficult to make a living, in1570 they organized a gang, composed of 18 ships, to rob villages on the Lianzhou and northern Vietnamese coasts.

Within a few short years they had gathered a force of over a thousand Dan fishers, and from bases on Weizhou Island their forces sallied forth in violent protest against corrupt and malicious officials (in this case imperial eunuchs) who oversaw the government monopolized pearl trade. Su was reportedly captured with over 400 followers in 1581, but Zhou‘s plight remains unknown.44

Second Episode: The Case of Wu Ping

41 Li Qingxin 2011. 42 Guangdong shengzhi dashiji 2005, 103; Lianzhou fuzhi 2001, 58. 43 QSLGD, 1: 10. 44 Qu Jiusi 2002, 436: 238-240; and Haikang xianzhi 2005, 23.

20 While wokou pirates began to appear on the coasts of China in the Yuan dynasty, they did not pose a serious problem until the mid-Ming dynasty. Although the Chinese used the term wokou pejoratively for ―Japanese dwarf bandits,‖ in reality most gangs and leaders in the mid-16th century were Chinese. Actually many gangs were of mixed ethnicities and nationalities, including Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asians, and occasionally Europeans and even some Africans. These raiders (at least their leaders) are best described as merchant- pirates because they combined both activities of raiding and trading. In fact, many of the leaders had been merchants before turning to piracy.

Although wokou gangs operated mainly along the , Fujian, and eastern

Guangdong coasts, beginning in the 1550s they appeared in the Gulf of Tonkin. These pirates were all outsiders, coming mostly from Fujian and eastern Guangdong. One of the first was a notorious pirate named He Yaba, originally a sea merchant from county near

Canton. After being driven away from his raiding areas in Fujian and eastern Guangdong he fled to the waters of western Guangdong and then to the Gulf of Tonkin in 1554. Around this same time there were other reports of Japanese merchant-pirates in the gulf and on the coast of northern Vietnam. In 1574 wokou gangs attacked and occupied the fort (suocheng) at

Shuangyu on the Leizhou peninsula, and soon afterwards there were reports of ―foreign‖ pirates in the same general area. In 1580 wokou raiders from Fujian and Zhejiang plundered coastal villages from Hainan to Lianzhou.45

Wu Ping was another infamous Chinese pirate associated with the wokou. He hailed from Zhaoan county on the coast of Fujian province. He was described as a short, pudgy, and cruel man, and was married to the niece of another pirate chief named Lin Guoxian. From his base on Nan‘ao Island, on the Fujian-Guangdong border, Wu Ping launched raids on shipping, towns, and villages mostly in nearby Fujian in the 1550s. Then in 1565, because the Ming

45 Haikang xianzhi 1938, 539-40; Guo Fei 1998, 32: 89; Guangdong shengzhi dashiji 2005, 97; also see Hoang Anh Tuan 2010, 21; and Li Qingxin 2011, 132-134.

21 military intensified its suppression campaigns and also because of a severe famine in Fujian, he and several other pirates felt compelled to leave their usual bases on the Fujian-

Guangdong border. Wu Ping and one of his associates, Zeng Yiben, fled to western

Guangdong and then to the Gulf of Tonkin, where they continued their nefarious activities over the next year. For instance, in the winter of 1566 Wu Ping plundered Longmen, and soon afterwards he fled to Vietnam.46 What happened to him after that is a mystery: some sources said he was captured and executed, while others said he drowned at sea. Still other sources claimed that he had not died in 1566, but had continued his pirating activities off the southern Hainan coast, where soldiers reportedly captured his wife and one of his chief lieutenant‘s, Chen Erlao. But apparently not Wu Ping.47

Third Episode: The Case of Yang Yandi

The next major upsurge in large-scale, organized piracy in the Gulf of Tonkin occurred during the turbulent Ming-Qing transition between the 1640s and 1680s. In this period of warfare and anarchy it became impossible to distinguish pirates, insurgents, and merchants. Like their wokou predecessors a century earlier, they combined commerce raiding with trade, but with the addition of political entanglements. In fact, many so-called ―political pirates‖ raised the banner of Ming loyalism in opposition to the nascent .48

Many of these pirates were sanctioned by one or another court or by some other political regime. Although Zheng Chenggong (), in Fujian and , was the most famous, nonetheless, there were many others who operated in the Gulf of Tonkin, forming a sort of second maritime front of resistance against the Manchus: Huang Hairu,

Wang Ji, Deng Yao, Yang Yandi, Chen Shangchuan, Zhou Zhaoliang, and others. With the

46 Lianzhou fuzhi 2001, 55. 47 Yai zhouzhi 1983, 231; also see Chen Chunsheng 2010, 143-150. 48 Niu and Li 2011, who use the term ―political pirates,‖ argue that the pirates were politically motivated anti-Qing, pro-Ming insurgents; I simply use the term to indicate that they were involved in the political struggles of the time, without speculating about their motivations.

22 collapse of pro-Ming resistance in the 1670s-1680s, several thousands of pirates and refugees fled to Vietnam where they formed the basis of the Minh Huong (Ming Loyalist) communities that evolved into important merchant-bureaucratic elites.

Undoubtedly the most famous and colorful political pirate in the Gulf of Tonkin in the late 17th century was Yang Yandi, also known as Yang Er (Duong Ngan in Vietnamese). His origins are obscure but it is very likely that he was born either in northern Leizhou or somewhere around Qinzhou, as both areas claim him as their native son. Today he is a renowned anti-Qing folk hero in the region. In the Fangcheng-Qinzhou area he is known as

―Righteous Yang‖ (Yang Yi), and there are legends about how he constructed, near Longmen, a walled fortress, a ―palace,‖ and canals linking his base to the sea (providing a fast, easy escape).49

Yang Yandi and his younger brother, Yang San, began their piratical careers in the

1640s or 1650s as ―local pirates‖ (tufei) in association with another pirate boss named Huang

Zhansan and a Tonkin pirate named Huang Mingpiao. The Yang brothers were first mentioned in official records in 1655 when they pillaged the Lingshui coast on Hainan Island.

For the next thirty years they remained active in the Gulf of Tonkin and elsewhere; they also joined the Ming resistance and, for a time, the Zheng camp in Taiwan.50

Probably sometime in the 1650s, Yang Yandi and Yang San joined forces with the

Wang brothers, Wang Zhihan and Wang Zhijian, who had also started out as local pirates in their home area of Leizhou. Later they joined the Ming resistance against the Manchus in western Guangdong with another pirate-rebel leader named Deng Yao. Between 1652 and

1656 their forces occupied coastal areas around Leizhou and in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 1656 the Qing defeated and captured Wang Zhihan with over 5,400 followers, both men and

49 Li Qingxin 2010, 274-275. Fieldwork in Qinzhou in January 2010, and in Fangcheng and Qinzhou in July 2011. 50 QSLGD 1: 89.

23 women. Wang Zhijian, however, continued his activities as a pirate and Ming loyalist for several more years. Deng Yao was defeated at Longmen in 1661.51

In the meantime the Yang brothers continued to operate as pirates and rebels in the

Gulf of Tonkin. By the , official sources now referred to them as ―sea bandits‖ (haizei) and ―sea rebels‖ (haini), no longer simply as local bandits. The Yang brothers and several other pirates briefly reoccupied Longmen and other nearby islands as their bases, but after repeated attacks by Qing forces in 1663-1666, Yang Yandi fled to Vietnam where he received protection and support from a local strongman. Around this same time, he also associated with a turncoat and rebel named Zu Zeqing and a local outlaw named Xie Chang.

When the Qing government requested that the Tonkin authorities arrest Yang, he fled to

Taiwan and joined the Zheng camp, reportedly receiving an official position as a military commander. In 1677 he and another pirate-rebel named Xian Biao left Taiwan in eighty ships with several thousand followers to return to the Gulf of Tonkin and to reoccupy Longmen, which once again became a pirate base. Raiding and fighting continued intermittently until

1682, when Yang and other pirate-rebels were driven out of Longmen. Yang retreated with several thousand followers to Vietnam, finally settling in the south around Mytho (near

Saigon) in the Mekong delta and helping the Nguyen lords secure this area for .52

According to Japanese historian, Yumio Sakurai, Yang Yandi was assassinated by one of his followers in 1688.53 As for his brother, the Qing Veritable Records mentioned that the notorious pirate Yang San was apprehended and summarily executed in 1700.54

Fourth Episode: The Case of Wushi Er

51 Haikang xianzhi 1938, 542; Haikang xianzhi 2005, 26; and Li Qingxin 2010, 273-274. 52 DNTL, 3; QSLGD, 1: 89, 96-97, 149, 162, 165, 178; Haikang xianzhi 1938, 543-44; and Haikang xianzhi 2005, 27-29; Fangcheng xianzhi 1993, 2-3; and Li Qingxin 2010, 274-276. 53 Yumio Sakurai 2004, 40. 54 QSLGD, 1: 217.

24 After a hiatus of about a hundred years, a new cycle of piracy emerged in the Gulf of

Tonkin during the Tay Son Rebellion in Vietnam between 1780 and 1802. As a means of obtaining revenue and fighters, the Vietnamese rebels actively recruited Chinese pirates, guaranteeing them safe harbors, ships, weapons, and supplies. Giang Binh (Jiangping) became one of several important pirate bases during these years. Analogous to , though the Vietnamese never used the term, Tay Son rulers utilized Chinese pirates, and commissioned many as officers with seals and certificates (similar in function to the letters of marque issued in the West) authorizing commerce raiding in Chinese waters. Among the most notable Chinese pirate leaders were Chen Tianbao, Mo Guanfu, , and Wushi

Er. They proved crucial to both the development of large-scale professional piracy and the formation of the Tay Son state. Even after the Tay Son state was crushed in 1802, Chinese pirates continued their excursions into Vietnamese waters until their huge confederations were defeated in 1810.

Like Yang Yandi, today Wushi Er is a local folk hero in the Leizhou peninsula, where he is regarded something like a freedom fighter who battled against Qing oppression. Wushi

Er was the archetypical professional pirate, one of the earliest to join the Tay Son Rebellion in the 1790s and the last major pirate to be defeated by the Qing in 1810. Born Mai Youjin in the small fishing village of Wushi on the west coast of the Leizhou peninsular around 1765, he began his criminal career as a petty thief and blackmailer in several ports around the gulf.

After being abducted by a gang of local pirates under a chief named Huang Qiluqi, Wushi Er later claimed to have been coerced to enlist with them in their raids in the waters of western

Guangdong and Vietnam. Sometime in the 1790s he joined the Tay Son cause and was quickly appointed as a brigade general (zongbing). By 1797 he commanded a band of roughly a hundred men and three vessels and received the new title from the Tay Son ruler of the

General Who Pacifies the Sea (ninghai fujiangjun). After the Tay Son collapsed in 1802, he

25 returned to Chinese waters, with bases on Weizhou Island and on the Leizhou coast. By 1805

Qing officials reported that he had become the most powerful pirate in the Gulf of Tonkin with a fleet of eighty to ninety war junks. By the time of his capture and execution in 1810, his fleet had grown to over a hundred ships and several thousands of pirates.55

In the several years before his capture Wushi Er oversaw a vast criminal network that centered on the waters between Hainan Island and the northern Vietnam coast, but also had branches in eastern Guangdong and southern Fujian. Each year his fleets took in profits of several thousands of from plunder, ransoms, and extortion, making it necessary for him to employ a small of scribes to write blackmail letters and to keep accounts of the loot, as well as of weapons and provisions. Over the years he had slowly built up his organization by cultivating kinship and native-place relationships with subordinates and followers on land and on sea. His formidable Blue Banner Fleet, as it was labeled, was divided into eight squadrons, organized around a central core of family members, including his elder brother and several cousins.56

Fifth Episode: The Cases of Shap-ng-tsai and Chu-apoo

In the 1830s and 1850s piracy was once again on the upswing in the Gulf of Tonkin, as several gangs of well-organized pirates from outside the region – many from the Hong

Kong area – fled the suppression campaigns of the British to seek refuge in the gulf. Between 1840 and 1850, for instance, the Dai Nam Thuc Luc (Veritable Records of

Vietnam) recorded hundreds of incidents of (mostly) Chinese pirates plundering ships and villages on the Vietnamese coast. Despite the British navy‘s suppression campaigns, these pirates retained close contacts with unscrupulous merchants in and who bought their booty and supplied them with armaments and other necessities. Several

55 GZD (3728) JQ 3.2.19; (10138) JQ 13.3.2; and fieldwork in Wushi and the Guangxi coast, 2009- 2011. 56 GZD (10138) JQ 13.3.2; ZPZZ (1058) JQ 10.11.22; (1121) JQ 15.7.12; SYD, JQ 14.9.12; and JQ 16.3.15.

26 notorious pirates in the gulf at this time were Yang Yasi, Yang Jiufu, Chen Jiahai, Li Yade,

Shap-ng-tsai, Chu-apoo, and Ching Ah‘ling.

Among those pirates, Shap-ng-tsai (Shiwuzai) and Chu-apoo (Xu Yabao) were the two most formidable Chinese pirate leaders in the 1840s. Figure 5 is a contemporary sketch of Chu-apoo. Both men were professional pirates who regularly collaborated with one another, the former commanding a gang of 3,000 men and over sixty junks and the latter commanding a gang of 1,800 men and about twenty junks. Shap-ng-tsai had previously commanded a Portuguese lorcha, and had resided on and off in Macau and Hong Kong. His colleague, Chu-apoo, had been a barber and was an occasional paid informant for the Hong

Kong government. Both men had first-hand knowledge of modern weapons and fighting methods, Shap-ng-tsai from his many years as an experienced lorcha captain and Chu-apoo who was licensed by the Hong Kong government to manufacture gunpowder. Shap-ng-tsai‘s main base of operation was in western Guangdong on several islands off the Leizhou

Peninsula and among the Van Don islands, while Chu-apoo had his stronghold in Bias Bay to the east of Hong Kong.57

Fig. 6. Contemporary Sketch of Chu-apoo

57 Hay 1889, 27-28; and China Mail, 1 November 1849.

27 In the years following the , Shap-ng-tsai and Chu-apoo repeatedly pillaged ships and villages between Fujian and Vietnam. They forced fishing and trading vessels to pay regular protection fees so as not to be attacked. After defeating the Qing navy in a battle off Hainan Island in 1848, the pirates raided the important salt mart at Dianbai, captured forty junks, and levied $120 ―protection fees‖ on every salt junk. In February 1849 they gained notoriety after Chu-apoo‘s gang killed two British officers, and that summer when Shap-ng-tsai‘s gang robbed a junk registered to a British subject. Later that same year in two separate campaigns the Royal Navy nearly destroyed the two pirate fleets, and, although Shap-ng-tsai escaped, his comrade Chu-apoo was captured but committed suicide in jail. Despite the apparent naval successes, in which nearly 5,000 pirates were reported killed in battles with the Royal Navy, piracy continued to flourish in the Gulf of Tonkin, and new pirate fleets quickly replaced those that had been destroyed.58

Conclusion

Piracy has always been a persistent and inherent feature of the Sino-Vietnamese maritime frontier. While most continued to be perpetrated by small, ad hoc gangs, upsurges in large-scale, well-organized piracy occurred during times of political turmoil and wars (such as during the Ming-Qing dynastic wars and the Tay Son Rebellion). Fishermen, sailors, traders, smugglers, and pirates, whose activities were all too often indistinguishable from one another, knit together the social and economic fabric of the Gulf of Tonkin.

Together they helped to create a highly integrated political economy that depended as much on trade as it did on smuggling and piracy. This sea frontier was one of shared social, economic, and cultural activities, and of patterns not easily defined and delimited by ethnic and linguistic differences or by national boundaries. The long and jagged coast, lined with countless offshore islands and mangrove swamps, served as welcoming refuges for anyone

58 Scott 1851, 139-141, 173; Qiongshan xianzhi, 11: 13b; and fuzhi, 20: 19, 50: 6b.

28 seeking to avoid the notice of the state. As a frontier the gulf remained a lawless no-man‘s- land where violence and predation were the norm.

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