Haijin facts for kids

The Haijin (海禁), or sea ban, was a set of rules in China. These rules stopped private sea trading and people from living near the coast. They were in place for most of the Ming dynasty and the early Qing dynasty.

The first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, started this policy. It greatly slowed down China's own trade. Even though the government announced the ban, people still traded secretly. This secret trading, or smuggling, continued until the late Ming government opened the port of Yuegang for trade.

The sea ban was first meant to stop Japanese pirates called wokou. But it actually made the problem worse. By the 1500s, piracy and smuggling were very common. Most of the pirates were Chinese people who had lost their jobs because of the ban. China's foreign trade was limited to special, expensive trips called tribute missions. Also, pressure from the Mongols led to the end of Zheng He's famous sea voyages. Piracy only stopped when the sea ban ended in 1567.

The early Qing dynasty also had a strict rule called the "Great Clearance" (1661–1683). This rule forced people to move away from the coast. It caused a lot of damage to coastal towns. This lasted until the Qing took control of Taiwan. Then, they opened coastal ports for foreign trade. Later, from 1757 to 1842, the "Canton System" was put in place. This system heavily controlled where foreign trade could happen.

Other countries in East Asia had similar sea bans. Japan had its Sakoku policy during the Edo period. Joseon Korea also had isolationist rules. These countries were later forced to open up by military power.

The Ming Dynasty's Sea Ban (1368–1644)

A map of wokou pirate raids from the 1300s to 1500s. Early pirates were often from Japanese islands. Later, many were Chinese people affected by the sea ban.

Why the Sea Ban Started

The 1300s were a very difficult time in East Asia. A terrible sickness, the bubonic plague, started around 1330. It killed many people in China. Other sicknesses and floods also caused problems. People rebelled against the government, leading to the Red Turban Rebellion.

In 1368, the Ming dynasty began. But they still fought against the Mongols. In Japan, the government was weak. This allowed pirates to set up bases on islands like Tsushima and Iki. These "dwarf pirates" attacked Japan, Korea, and China.

When Zhu Yuanzhang was a rebel leader, he liked foreign trade. It brought in money. But after he became the Hongwu Emperor, he changed his mind. In 1371, he issued the first sea ban. All foreign trade had to be done through official tribute missions. These were handled by the Ming government and its "vassal" states.

Private foreign trade was made a crime punishable by death. The families and neighbors of offenders could also be exiled. Later, in 1384, special trade offices in Ningbo, Guangzhou, and Quanzhou were closed. Ships, docks, and shipyards were destroyed. Ports were blocked with rocks. This policy was new for China, as earlier dynasties like the Tang and Song had encouraged foreign trade.

The famous sea voyages of Zheng He were partly meant to give the government control over overseas trade. But these voyages stopped after the emperor was captured in the Battle of Tumu in 1449. This event made the Mongols stronger. Private trade continued to grow in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Reasons for the Sea Ban Policy

People have wondered why the sea ban lasted so long, even though it caused problems. One idea is that it was meant to force Japan to cooperate. The Hongwu Emperor also seemed to think the policy would stop foreign countries from working with his own people to challenge his rule. He used trade as a way to make foreign governments follow the tribute system.

Some historians think the ban was to support the emperor's new paper money. Others believe it was to promote Confucianism and reduce greed in foreign relations. It might also have been a way to weaken the southern parts of the empire, helping the central government. The Hongwu Emperor also focused on protecting China from the Mongols. He may have seen the sea ban as the best way to manage coastal areas.

How the Sea Ban Affected China

The sea ban offered very little reward for good behavior. Japan was only allowed two ships for tribute missions every ten years. This was not enough to make Japanese authorities stop smugglers. The Hongwu Emperor even threatened to invade Japan. But the Japanese shogun replied that his small state could defend itself.

The sea ban helped the Ming army focus on fighting the Mongols. But it also used up local resources. About 74 coastal military bases were set up. These bases needed many soldiers. The loss of money from trade caused money problems for the Ming government. This was especially true for the Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.

By making coastal Chinese and Japanese people poor, the ban actually made piracy worse. The "Japanese" pirates of the 1500s were mostly Chinese. They had been hurt by the sea ban.

Because the Hongwu Emperor included the sea ban in his Ancestral Injunctions, it stayed in place for most of the Ming dynasty. For 200 years, the rich farmlands of the south and the military areas of the north were mainly connected by the Jinghang Canal. Sometimes, officials accepted bribes, allowing more trade. For example, the Portuguese traded in Guangzhou in 1517. But there were also crackdowns, and the Portuguese were expelled in the 1520s. The Portuguese were finally allowed to settle in Macao in 1557. This happened after they helped the Chinese fight pirates.

The sea ban was hard to enforce from the start. Local officials often ignored the rules and were involved in illegal trade. Military officers helped arrange trade deals. Rich families on the coast depended on this income. Many ordinary workers also found jobs in trade-related businesses. The government often did not pay attention to overseas trade.

Piracy only became rare after the sea ban was mostly ended in 1567. This happened when the Longqing Emperor came to power. The governor of Fujian also pushed for the change. Chinese merchants were then allowed to trade with all foreign countries. But they could not trade with Japan or sell weapons. The number of foreign traders was limited by licenses. Merchants could not be away from China for more than a year.

New customs offices were set up in Guangzhou and Ningbo in 1599. Chinese merchants turned Yuegang into a busy port. The end of the sea ban did not mean the emperor had changed his mind. It was more a sign that the Ming government was too weak to continue the ban. The government still tried to control trade as much as possible. Foreigners had to do business through approved agents. They could not trade directly with ordinary Chinese people.

The end of the sea ban happened around the same time the first Spanish ships arrived from the Americas. This created a global trade link that lasted for many years.

China's Role in Global Trade

China was a central part of global trade. Trade with Japan continued, even with the ban. This happened through Chinese smugglers, ports in Southeast Asia, or the Portuguese. China was fully connected to the world trading system.

European countries really wanted Chinese goods like silk and porcelain. But Europeans did not have many goods that China wanted. So, they traded silver to pay for Chinese products. Spain found huge amounts of silver in the Americas, especially from the Potosí mines. This silver helped power their trade. From 1500 to 1800, Mexico and Peru produced about 80% of the world's silver. About 30% of it ended up in China. Japan also sent a lot of silver to China in the late 1500s and early 1600s.

Silver from the Americas mostly traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, then to Asia. Major trading spots for silver were in Southeast Asian countries, like the Philippines. The city of Manila was a key place for trade between the Americas, Japan, India, Indonesia, and China. A lot of silver also crossed the Pacific Ocean directly from the Americas.

Trade with Ming China through Manila brought a lot of money to the Spanish Empire. It was also a main source of income for Spanish people living in the Philippines. Chinese merchants from Fujian often traveled to Manila. They sold spices, porcelain, ivory, silk, and other valuable goods to the Spanish. Ships carried goods from all over Asia. These included jade from China, cotton from India, and spices from Indonesia.

The Qing Dynasty's Sea Ban (1644–1912)

Territory controlled (red) or influenced (pink) by Koxinga and his supporters.

Why the Qing Sea Ban Started

As the Qing dynasty expanded south, they fought against the Southern Ming supporters. These supporters were helped by the Zheng clan. Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing. But his son, Zheng Chenggong, also known as Koxinga, continued to fight. He resisted from Xiamen and later took control of Taiwan from the Dutch. His family then developed Taiwan as an independent state called Tungning. But the Qing drove them from their mainland bases in 1661.

Qing Sea Ban Policies

The Qing ruler, Prince Rui, brought back the sea ban in 1647. But it became much stricter in 1661 when the Kangxi Emperor took power. This was part of an event called the "Great Clearance" or "Frontier Shift." People living along the coast in several provinces had to destroy their homes and move inland. They had to move about 16 to 26 kilometers away from the coast. Qing soldiers set up markers and punished with death anyone who went beyond them. Ships were destroyed, and foreign trade was again limited to Macao.

Rules were adjusted in 1662. Some people had to move again the next year. After many officials asked for changes, the forced move was stopped in 1669. In 1684, after Koxinga's state was defeated, other bans were lifted. The next year, customs offices were opened in Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Songjiang to handle foreign trade.

However, many Chinese traders left China because of strict Qing rules, like the requirement for men to wear a queue (a specific hairstyle). The Kangxi Emperor worried about the military impact of so many Chinese living abroad. There were rumors that a Ming heir was living in Luzon. So, in 1717, a ban on trade in the "Southern Sea" was put in place. This included stricter port checks and travel limits. Chinese people living abroad were told to return to China within three years or face death.

Legal trade in the South China Sea started again in 1727. But the British East India Company found that prices and taxes were much lower in Ningbo than in Guangzhou. So, they started moving their trade north from 1755 to 1757. The Qianlong Emperor tried to stop this with higher fees, but it did not work. In 1757, he declared that Guangzhou (also called "Canton") would be the only Chinese port open to foreign traders. This started the Canton System, with its Cohong merchants and Thirteen Factories. However, Chinese merchants trading with foreigners were not affected by these rules.

Impact of the Qing Sea Ban

The first Qing sea ban helped reduce Koxinga's power on the Chinese mainland. It ended with his state's defeat, bringing Taiwan into the Qing Empire.

However, the ban was very harmful to the Chinese people. Officials wrote to the emperor about these problems. Even before the Kangxi Emperor's rules, an official argued in 1659 that the ban on foreign trade was limiting China's silver supply. This hurt the money system. Lost trade opportunities cost Chinese merchants millions of silver coins each year. The policies also caused new rebellions and piracy along the coast. They also led to a boom in black markets.

The Great Clearance greatly disrupted China's southern coasts. For example, out of about 16,000 people in Xin'an County (modern Shenzhen and Hong Kong) who were forced to move in 1661, only 1,648 were recorded returning in 1669. Strong storms in 1669 and 1671 further damaged communities. When trade rules were relaxed, many people moved out of Fujian and Guangdong. Conflicts between old residents and new arrivals, like the Hakka, led to long-lasting feuds. These feuds turned into full-scale wars in the 1850s and 1860s. They also fueled piracy in Guangdong into the 1900s.

European countries traded so much with China that they had to risk losing silver to pay for goods. As silver supplies in Europe went down, Europeans had less money to buy Chinese goods. Merchants could no longer make enough profit selling Chinese goods in the West. They had to take silver out of Europe to buy goods in China.

The rules set by the Qianlong Emperor, which created the Canton System, made a lot of money for Guangzhou's Cohong merchants. One merchant, Howqua, became one of the richest people in the world. This system also helped Guangzhou's tax income and the flow of foreign silver. Under the Canton System, the Qianlong Emperor limited trade to only licensed Chinese merchants. The British government also gave a monopoly for trade only to the British East India Company.

This arrangement was not challenged until the 1800s. At that time, the idea of free trade became popular in the West. The Canton System did not completely stop Chinese trade with the rest of the world. Chinese merchants, using their large ships, were very involved in global trade. They sailed to places like Siam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. They were major helpers of the global trading system. Some historians even called this era a "Chinese century" of global commerce. Chinese merchants could also trade freely and legally with Westerners in Xiamen and Macao. They could also trade with any country through ports outside China, like Manila.

However, by limiting imports mostly to silver, the system put pressure on the British. Tea had become their national drink. They needed to find a way to balance trade. This led to the trade of opium. Opium was grown on farms in India. It became so profitable that the Chinese official Lin Zexu strongly enforced laws against opium smuggling. This led to the First Opium War and the start of the unequal treaties. These treaties limited China's power in the 1800s. The 1842 Treaty of Nanking opened more ports like Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. But legal trade continued to be limited to specific ports until the end of the Qing dynasty.

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