The Image Of Wokou In The Middle And Late Ming Dynast

As we all know,the relationship between China and Japan has gone through a quite long history.The two countries have close contacts and frequent interaction no matter in ancient time or modern time.However,the understanding about Japan of Chinese has been varying with the continuous change of historical dynasties.Before the Yuan Dynasty,the impression of the Japanese on the Chinese people was friendly and kind-hearted.After entering the Yuan Dynasty,the people’s understanding of Japan began to turn bad because of the outbreak of the "War between Yuan Dynasty and Japan" and the rise of "Wokou",thus the image of "Wokou" appeared.During the Tai Zu period of the early Ming Dynasty,although the tributary relationship was not formally established between China and Japan,the Wokou did not form a big trouble because the Ming Court carried out the coastal defense affairs actively,so the relationship is generally stable between Ming Dynasty and Japan at this time.During the period of Yongle,the relationship between the two countries was established,the Japanese view at this time was a good concept of foreign countries.With the incident of "Ningbo contending for tribute" and the occurrence of "Jiajing great Wokou",the understanding of the Japanese began to change,and there was a tendency to equate the Japanese with the cruel Wokou.The people in the area swept away by Wokou had intuitive feelings about the brutality of the Wokou,and this behavior was abhorrent to these people.The Ming people who were in the non Japanese invasion area were aware of the cruelty of the Wokou through the dissemination of popular novels and images at the end of the Ming Dynasty.During the middle period and late time of Ming,benefited from the flourishing development of the publishing and printing industries,the number of novels,pictures and other works with paper as the carrier in the late Ming Dynasty grew rapidly,which had a broad market.So,the contents of these works were widely circulated during the people of Ming.Therefore,the image of Wokou depicted in the novels and volumes of the Ming Dynasty was rooted in the hearts of the Ming people,thus influencing the Japanese view of the Ming people in this period.In addition,the images of Wokou depicted in novels and images involving Wokou were quite similar,which were the unity of the external image of disheveled hair and barefooted and the inner character of cruelty,treacherous and greedy.Through demonstration,we can see that the description of Japanese pirates by these works is the re creation of historical materials such as Chouhaitubian.