Abstract
This introduction serves to provide an underlying structure to the edited volume by giving a brief review of the literature in a few areas of studies covered in the book as well as a generic introduction of Qi Jiguang, a subject that will be further debated in the book. It also provides an organisational rationale for the line-up of chapters and a brief summary of each. Since this book does not have a concluding chapter or epilogue, some ideas in the chapters of the book may be taken up a little further in discussion so that certain overarching ideas and salient points of linkage can be highlighted and reconciled. Some issues discussed concern China’s potential to evolve a capitalist-coercion nexus (as discussed by William H. McNeill), the state of (geographical) information-gathering and the reality of scenario of state and non-state entities operating in East/Southeast Asia, the writings on and actual deployment of coastal and maritime defence at the tactical and strategic level as well as other intricacies and peculiarities relating to Qi Jiguang’s military ideas and career.
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Notes
- 1.
Hu Huaxing, “Yu Dayou yong bing de zhexue shixiang”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 5 (1997). Tian X, “Jiajing qianqi neige gaige sulun”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 6 (2004). Fan Xinghui, “Mingmo yongwei ying”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 7 (2007). Zhou Yuying, “Mingdai Fujian juntun ji qi baihuai”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 7 (2007). Zhang Jinkuei, “Mingdai junhu laiyuan kaolun”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 10 (2012). Chen Zhiping, “Cong xin faxian Zhengshi zhupu kan mingmo Zheng Zhilong jiazhu de haishang huodong ji qi yu Guangdong Aomen de guanxi”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 10 (2012). Fan Zhongyi, “Lun Ming Jiajing nianjian wokou de xingzhi”, Mingshi yanjiu, issue 8 (2010). Kang Hyeok Hweon, “Big heads and Buddhist demons: The Korean musketry revolution and the northern expeditions of 1654 and 1658”, Journal of Chinese Military History, vol. 2, issue 2 (2014), pp. 127−89. Ng Pak Shun, “Oral instructions from the podium”, Journal of Chinese Military History, vol. 3, issue 2 (2014), pp. 140−90. Thomas G. Nimick, “Chi Chi-kuang and I-wu county”, Ming studies, issue 1 (1995), pp. 17−29.
- 2.
Zhang Xiansheng, “Jindai Riben dui Mingdai bingshu yu shanshu de lijie jieshou wenti zhou yi”, Southeast Asian studies, issue 4 (2013), pp. 100−104. Ivy Maria Lim, Lineage society on the southeastern coast of China (XX), p. 11. A work which specifically dealt with the Imjin War in relation to Qi Jiguang’s military methods is Ishihara Hiroshi, “Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion to Chosen in 1590s and Qi Jiguang’s new methods”, Chozen Gakuho issue 1 (1966), pp. 143–71. Works by contemporary Japanese scholars: Takehiko Noguchi, Military thought of the Edo period (Tokyo, Zhongyang gonglunshe, 1991) and Tsutomu Maeda, Confucianist and military studies in modern Japan (Tokyo, Pelican Press, 1996).
- 3.
Pei Xiaowei, “Qi Jiguang shige lunlue”, in C.N. Yen, ed., Qi Jiguang yanjiu lunji (Zhishi chebanshe), pp. 352–67.
- 4.
D. Graff and R. Higham, A military history of China (Cambridge, Westview, 2002), p. 1.
- 5.
T. Kane, Chinese grand strategy and maritime power (London, Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 15–32.
- 6.
J.P. Lo, China as a sea power, 1127–1368 (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2012).
- 7.
Lo Jung-pang, China as a seapower, 1127–1368 (Singapore, NUS Press, 2013). Erickson et al. eds., China goes to sea: Maritime transformation in comparative historical perspective (Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2009).
- 8.
Ray Huang, “Qi Jiguang: Gudu de jiangling”, in C.N. Yen, ed., Qi Jiguang yanjiu lunji (Beijing: Zhishi chubanshe, 1990), p. 440.
- 9.
L. Goodrich ed., Dictionary of Ming biography (DMB) (New York: Columbia Press, 1976), p. 223.
- 10.
Wu Yuan, Qi Jiguang (Zhengzhong bookstore, 1943), Chen Kuanzheng, Qi Jiguang (Zhonghua bookstore, 1943), Luo Shiyi, Qi Jiguang (Qingnian chubanshe, 1946), Wang Chongwu, Qi Jiguang (Shengli Chuban gongsi, 1946).
- 11.
Dictionary of Ming biography, pp. 220–24.
- 12.
Dictionary of Ming biography, pp. 220–24.
- 13.
Dictionary of Ming biography, p. 223.
- 14.
Ray Huang, “Lung-ching and Wan-li reigns, 1567–1620”, in Cambridge history of China, vol. 7 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 511–84.
- 15.
Fan Zhongyi, Qi Jiguang pingzhuan (Nanjing, Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2004), pp. 357–63.
- 16.
In 1563, for instance, Tan Lun was Fujian xunfu and overall in charge of defence against the wokou. In the battle of Pinhaiwei, Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou and Liu Xian each led a spearhead of troops, and the outcome was a resounding victory on the Ming side.
- 17.
Zhou Weiqiang, “Mingdai folangji tong yanjiu”, (Masters dissertation, Guoli Qinghua Daxue, 1999).
- 18.
Dictionary of Ming biography, pp. 220–24, 1243–46, 1616–18. Fan Zhongyi, Yu Dayou pinzhuan (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 2014), pp. 129–52; Hu Changchun, Tanlun pinzhuan (Nanchang: Jiangxi chubanshe, 2007), pp. 203–32.
- 19.
Peculiar in relation to the genre of Qi’s works (military manuals) and because the material was removed in the later edition.
- 20.
“Fanfang” referred to an interactional model in which foreign merchants were allowed to stay and conduct their business in a Chinese city.
- 21.
The difference in the involvement in the battle of Tongxiang was accounted in Hugong xingshi and Qi Shaobao nianpu compiled by the respective sons of the two protagonists. See Ivy M. Lim’s essay, “Qi Jiguang and Hu Zongxian’s anti-wokou campaign”, in this volume (Chap. 2).
- 22.
See P. Connolly and R. Antony, “A terrible scourge: Piracy, coastal defence and the historian”, p. 48. Connolly and Antony cites R. Croizier’s Koxinga and Chinese nationalism (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1977) and P. Kang’s “Koxinga and his maritime regime in the popular historical writings of post-Cold War Taiwan”, in Sea rovers, silver and samurai (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016).
- 23.
Connolly and Antony, “A terrible scourge: Piracy, coastal defence and the historian”, pp. 51–52. Cheng Weichung, War, trade and piracy in the China Seas (Leiden: Brill, 2013), Hang Xing, The Zheng family and the shaping of the modern world (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015), James Chin, “A Hokkien maritime empire in the East and South China Sea”, in Persistent piracy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and T. Andrade, “The company’s Chinese pirates: How the Dutch East India Company tried to lead a coalition of privateers to war against China”, Journal of World History, Vol. 5 (2014) are cited.
- 24.
Connolly and Antony, “A terrible scourge: Piracy, coastal defence and the historian”, pp. 51–52. Dian Murray, Pirates of the South China Sea (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) and R. Antony’s works such as The world of pirates and seafarers in late imperial south China (Berkeley, University of California, 2003).
- 25.
Connolly and Antony, “A terrible scourge: Piracy, coastal defence and the historian”, p. 44.
- 26.
Gang Deng, Maritime sector, institutions and sea power of premodern China (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 137–38.
- 27.
Deng Gang, Maritime sector, institutions and sea power of premodern China, pp. 137–38.
- 28.
At the grand tactical level, Qi sought for annihilative battle which had strategic effect on a theatre of war.
- 29.
The weisuo, literally translated as “guard post,” was a guard unit of over 5000 men conceived in the initial period of the Ming Dynasty and was designed to sustain itself in peacetime through its own agricultural production.
- 30.
Li Gongzhong, “Wokou jiyi yu Zhongguo haiquan guannian de yanjin”, in Jianghai xuekan, issue 3 (2007), p. 161.
- 31.
Refer Bruce Elleman, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy and the history of coastal defence”, p. 110. Alastair I. Johnston (Cultural realism: Strategic culture and grand strategy in Chinese history; Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995) is of the opinion that Qi’s work dwells at the tactical realm of ideas. See Ng Pak Shun, “Oral instructions from the podium”, p. 152.
- 32.
Yi Zeyang, Mingchao zhongqi haifang shixiang yanjiu (Beijing, Jiefangjun chubanshe, 2008), p. 154.
- 33.
See Ivy M. Lim, Lineage society on the southeastern coast of China (Amherst, Cambria Press, 2010).
- 34.
Huang Shunli, “Mingdai Fujian haishang liliang de jueqi ji qidue haiyang de yingxiang”, Journal of Xiamen University, no. 140 (1999), pp. 116–23.
- 35.
See Huang Shunli, “The rise of private maritime trading powers in Fujian and their inputs on the view of the sea during the Ming dynasty”, pp. 219 and 228.
- 36.
See Huang Shunli’s essay “The rise of private maritime trading powers in Fujian and their inputs on the view of the sea during the Ming dynasty”, p. 222.
- 37.
This appeared to be similar to the Portuguese “factories” set up at various strategic points along the trade routes they frequented.
- 38.
See Huang Zhongqing, Mingdai haifang de shuizhai yu you bing (Yilan: Xueshu Jiangzhu jijin, 2001), p. 154 (map 5.3).
- 39.
The Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism was influential in the pre-Zhengde period and the Wang Yangming school influential in the period after Zhengde till Longqing (Cheng-Zhu did not go immediately out of favour), after that a consolidative and diversifying phase from Wanli. The Wang-Lu school represented an idealist subjective version of Neo-Confucianism that embraced empiricism and rejected duality. The Cheng-Zhu school represented an approach of reasoning based on physical explanation of an “organic” (as opposed to mechanistic) universe.
- 40.
Zhou thinks that Zheng Ruozeng’s specific works on for instance Japan could not match up to those of Zheng Shungong.
- 41.
P. Chonlaworn, “Chinese merchant-pirates in Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century”, p. 192.
- 42.
See So Kuanwai, Japanese piracy in Ming China (Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 1975); John Wills, “Maritime China from Wang Chih to Shih Lang”, in J. Spence and J. Wills eds., Conquest, region and continuity in 17th-century China (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1979), pp. See also P. Shapinsky, “Predators, protectors, and purveyors: Pirates and commerce in late medieval Japan”, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 64, issue 2 (2009), pp. 273–313.
- 43.
Wang Rigen, Mingqing haijiang zhengche yu zhongguo shehui fazhan (Fuzhou, Fujin Renmin chubanshe, 2006). See also Ivy M. Lim, Lineage society on the southeastern coast of China. Chao Zhongchen (Mingdai haijin yu haiwai maoyi, Beijing, Renmin chubanshe, 2005) saw this as a factional struggle of the Ming court each side sponsored by and embracing the local power groups.
- 44.
Chao, Mingdai haijin yu haiwai maoyi, pp. 182–200.
- 45.
K. Swope’s essay on “Amphibious warfare in 16th-century East Asia” is republished. The essay is originally published in Maochun Yu ed., “New interpretations in naval history: Selected papers from the 15th naval history symposium” (Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2009), pp. 81–107.
- 46.
See Swope’s essay on “Amphibious warfare in 16th-century East Asia”, pp. 222. Qi “strongly advocated [the use of firearms] on boats and in defensive positions on walls, and in conjunction with war carts on the steppe against the Mongols”.
- 47.
See K. Swope, “Naval Technology, State Power and the Influence of Qi Jiguang in the Late Ming”, p. 167.
- 48.
See K. Swope, “Naval technology, state power, and influence of Qi Jiguang in the Late Ming”, p. 205.
- 49.
Refer T. Andrade’s essay “The arquebus volley technique in China, c. 1560: Evidence from the writings of Qi Jiguang”, p. 85.
- 50.
See K. Swope, “Amphibious Warfare in 16th-century East Asia”, p. 170.
- 51.
Ng Pak Shun, “Oral instructions from the podium”, p. 154.
- 52.
Although Li Hongzhang continued to serve the Qing dynasty “loyally” till its end, the Huai army and Beiyang fleet played an important role in the defence of the empire which was more accountable to Li than the Qing central government.
- 53.
Fan Zhongyi, Qi Jiguang pingzhuan, pp. 392–94. See Swope, “Naval Technology, State Power and the Influence of Qi Jiguang in the Late Ming”, p. 267.
- 54.
See Swope’s essay on “Amphibious warfare in 16th-century East Asia”. In the essay “Naval technology, state power, and influence of Qi Jiguang in the Late Ming” by Swope (p. 182), the Ming relied increasingly “upon a series of coastal fortifications and island bases in the Bohai Gulf to prosecute the war against the Latter Jin”, likened to an “overseas Great Wall” by modern scholar Teng Shaozhen.
- 55.
See P. Lorge, “The martial arts and Qi Jiguang’s military methods”, p. 65. See also Andrade, “The arquebus volley technique in China”, p. 88.
- 56.
Refer Andrade, “The arquebus volley technique in China”, p. 91. Refer also Swope, “Naval Technology, State Power and the Influence of Qi Jiguang in the Late Ming”, pp. 209 and 215–16.
- 57.
The period of Qi’s posting in the north did not witness much fighting because a peace settlement had been achieved by the Chinese and the Mongols.
- 58.
Nicola di Cosmo, “European technology and Manchu power: Reflections on military revolution in 17th-century China”, in S. Sogner ed., Making sense of global history (Oslo: Oslo University Press, 2001), pp. 119–39.
- 59.
See Lee Chi-lin, “An analysis on the development of Ming-Qing maritime defence and navy”, p. 243. The studies listed are: Jodi Weinstein’s Empire and Identity in Guizhou: Local Resistance to Qing Expansion; Xiuyu Wang’s China’s Last Imperial Frontier: Late Qing Expansion into Sichuan’s Tibetan Borderlands; Yingcong Dai’s Sichuan Frontier and Tibet: Imperial Strategy in the Early Qing; and Peter Perdue’s China Marches West: Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.
- 60.
See B. Elleman, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy and the history of coastal defence”, p. 110. Andrade, Lost colony: The untold story of China’s first great victory over the West (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2011).
- 61.
See Elleman, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy and the history of coastal defence”, pp. 116–25. See further in Qi Qizhang, Beiyang jiandui (Jinan, Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1981), pp. 56–71.
- 62.
See Swope, “Naval technology, state power, and influence of Qi Jiguang in the Late Ming”, p. 215.
- 63.
See Elleman, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy and the history of coastal defence”, p. 127.
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Appendix
Appendix
Brief comparison of ideas and careers of Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou and Tan Lun
Qi Jiguang | Yu Dayou | Tan Lun | |
|---|---|---|---|
Some appointments conferred | Area commander (Zhejiang, Fujian) | Vice commissioner in chief, regional commander | Governor general (Liangguang), senior positions, Ministry of War |
Cooperated with Qi in Fujian | Recommended Qi to appointment in Fujian | ||
Major engagements and battles (against wokou) | Victories in Jiangxi, Fujian and Zhejiang | Victories in Zhejiang | Role in Zhejiang battles |
Overall role in Fujian | |||
General principles in war | Well-prepared battles, annihilation battles | Well-prepared battles, annihilation battles | Annihilation battles |
Recruitment and training | Paid attention to integrity when recruiting leaders and soldiers who were simple-minded. Stressed training. Recognised the need to use non-local soldiers but was equally concerned about their fallout | Paid attention to leaders who were in tune with the world and soldiers who were alert. Stressed training. Led Yongshun soldiers to victory in Jiangsu, lending support to the advocacy (Zhang Jing) of using non-local soldiers | Better soldiers needed to be recruited in view of the state of soldiery of weisuo. Stressed training. Thought it was necessary to use non-local soldiers but emphasised the need to train them |
Tactics | Combined offensive and defensive | Integrated riverine-land operations to deter enemy | Offensive as means to defence |
Naval warfare | Naval forces designated a defensive role | Coastal and sea defence | Coastal defence |
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Sim, Y.H.T. (2017). Brief Introduction to Qi Jiguang and Discussion of Issues Relating to China’s Maritime Defence and Qi’s Doctrines. In: Sim, Y. (eds) The Maritime Defence of China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4163-1_1
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