A Comparative Study Of Sea Merchants And Pirates In Xiamen Bay In The Late Ming Dynasty

Based on the defect of confounding sea merchants and pirates in the late Ming Dynasty,the dissertation would make a comparative study of sea merchants and pirates in Xiamen Bay in the late Ming Dynasty.During the period of maritime disorder,although some sea merchants became pirates,most of the sea merchants still kept working on maritime trade.Sea merchants did not stop their business because of the maritime prohibition,thus the Ming court have no choice but to carry out the policy of opening the sea limitedly.With the opening of Yuegang seaport,the practice of sea merchants and pirates with double identities as trader and piratethe gradually became infrequent.As the rise of sea merchants in Xiamen Bay,they focused on their business without looting;while,great maritime robbers like Lin Feng who took Penghu Islands as lair were still active in southeast coast,only robbered the merchants rather than doing business.VOC set up trading posts in Taiwan,as a result,trade with Taiwan became an important link within the maritime trade network of East Asia.For trading with China successfully,the Dutch had to rely on Chinese sea merchants and the sea merchants in Xiamen Bay played an irreplaceable role as the medium in this process.At the same time,maritime robbery in Xiamen Bay was conspicuous,the Dutch sometimes assistd the Chinese government to eliminate the pirates and sometimes stood with the pirates to resist the Chinese government according to their trade demands.During the period,Not only the phenomenon of double identities as trader and pirate but also that of double identities as trader and officer as well as pirates become officers existed.To conclude,there are lots of discussion like merchants transform into pirates and pirates transform into merchants in the Ming official documents,which makes the double identities as trader and pirate as the prominent feature of sea merchants'relationship with pirates in the Ming Dynasty become the common view accepted by scholars.By comparison between the sea merchants and the pirates ofXiamen Bay in the late Ming Dynasty,it can be found that not all the sea merchants would transform into pirates and also not all the latter would transform into the former,thereby we can add a new point:double identities as trader and pirate is just one aspect,the phenomenon of double identities as trader and officer and that of pirates become officers exists as well.