The Chinese Annalists State That Never Was The Frontier
More Disturbed, And Even The Establishment Of Horse Fairs For The Benefit
Of The Mongols Failed To Keep Them Quiet.
In Cochin China the emperor
gained some gratifying if not very important successes, and asserted his
right as suzerain over several disobedient princes.
But a more serious and
less satisfactory question had to be settled on the side of Japan.
The Japanese had never forgiven the formidable and unprovoked invasion of
their country by Kublai Khan. The Japanese are by nature a military
nation, and the Chinese writers themselves describe them as "intrepid,
inured to fatigue, despising life, and knowing well how to face death;
although inferior in number a hundred of them would blush to flee before a
thousand foreigners, and if they did they would not dare to return to
their country. Sentiments such as these, which are instilled into them
from their earliest childhood, render them terrible in battle." Emboldened
by their success over the formidable Mongols the Japanese treated the
Chinese with contempt, and fitted out piratical expeditions from time to
time with the object of preying on the commerce and coasting towns of
China. To guard against the descents of these enterprising islanders the
Chinese had erected towers of defense along the coast, and had called out
a militia which was more or less inefficient. On the main they did not so
much as attempt to make a stand against their neighbors, whose war junks
exercised undisputed authority on the Eastern Sea. While this strife
continued a trade also sprang up between the two peoples, who share in an
equal degree the commercial instinct; but as the Chinese government only
admitted Japanese goods when brought by the embassador, who was sent every
ten years from Japan, this trade could only be carried on by smuggling. A
regular system was adopted to secure the greatest success and profit. The
Japanese landed their goods on some island off the coast, whence the
Chinese removed them at a safe and convenient moment to the mainland. The
average value of the cargo of one of the small junks which carried on this
trade is said to have been $20,000, so that it may be inferred that the
profits were considerable. But the national antipathies would not be
repressed by the profitable character of this trade, and the refusal of a
Chinese merchant to give a Japanese the goods for which he had paid lit
the embers of a war which went on for half a century, and which materially
weakened the Ming power. During the last years of Chitsong's long reign of
forty-five years this trouble showed signs of getting worse, although the
Japanese confined their efforts to irregular and unexpected attacks on
places on the coast, and did not attempt to wage a regular war. In the
midst of these troubles, and when it was hoped that the exhortation of his
ministers would produce some effect, Chitsong died, leaving behind him a
will or public proclamation to be issued after his death, and which reads
like a long confession of fault.
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Page 107 of 366
Words from 55130 to 55653
of 191255
