A Study Of Piracy On Hainan Island In Qing Dynasty

With the prosperity of coastal trade and the sharpness of social contradictions,the piracy problem became increasingly prominent in the Ming and Qing dynasties,and once became an important hidden danger threatening the security of the southeastern coastal defense.As one of the specific and subtle representatives of the entire southeastern coastal society,pirates in Hainan Island have itself different characteristics.In the Qing Dynasty,the problem of pirates in Hainan Island became more and more complicated.The local pirates were less powerful than those in the Ming Dynasty.The surrounding pirates represented by Yang Er,Xie Chang and Wu Shier and The Vietnamese pirates such as Chen Jiahai were in full swing.The change of political situation made the pirates' partners change constantly,from the early Li leader to Vietnamese “traitors” to the latter gangsters.The cooperation objects were no longer limited to the islanders,and the scope of activities expanded to the whole South China Sea.After the downfall of Vietnam's Xishan regime,the major pirate gangs drew up a maritime convention and fled to the island and the surrounding ocean.Although its smuggling activities added new contents,the trade with foreign countries shrunk and the looting characteristics became more prominent.The social nature of “stolen and commerce” exacerbated social unrest.In addition to the destruction of productivity on the island,the frequent activities of pirates had an important impact on local social and marine trade in Hainan and the construction of coastal defense in the Qing Dynasty.During this period,the weakening of the grassroots control of the Qing government,the southward movement of large numbers of overseas Chinese from Hainan,the active local party,the survival in the cracks of private trade,and the forced reconstruction of the island's Shanghai defense were all the results of the active pirates.In order to cope with the complicated situation,the Qing government purchased ships and drew support from foreign forces to suppress pirates on the basis of strengthening its own land and sea defense forces.The local society strengthened the monitoring of the lower levels,implemented reward and punishment mechanisms,developed military training and recruited brave soldiers to actively defend the enemy.However,the piracy problem was not completely eradicated in the late Qing Dynasty.Although the Qinggovernment's coastal defense strategy failed,some countermeasures still have reference significance for China's modern coastal defense construction and the solution of the world piracy problem.This article tries to outline the development of piracy activities in Hainan Island in the whole Qing Dynasty by combing the contents of Hainan Local Chronicles series involving pirates on Hainan Island,and compares the similarities and differences of piracy distribution in Hainan Island in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and in different sea areas of Hainan Island in the Qing Dynasty from the perspectives of pirate sources,activity characteristics,pirate nature and coastal defense construction,so as to form a relatively systematic understanding of piracy in Hainan Island in the Qing Dynasty.