Battle of Shuangyu and the Destruction of the Portuguese Base at Ningbo

Timeline

1. 1547–1548Zhejiang coast · ZhejiangAfter the contraction of maritime trade in the early Jiajing era, Fujianese Li Guangtou and She native Xu Dong occupied Shuangyu off Ningbo, trading privately with the Folangji (Portuguese) and Japanese. After Zhu Wan took office as commander-in-chief of Zhejiang-Fujian coastal defense and governor of Zhejiang, he abolished ferry boats, tightened baojia registration, and deployed Ke Qiao and Li Xiu to hold Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, and Funing, preparing to attack Shuangyu. Many powerful coastal families were connected to the smuggling trade, and the overhaul met resistance from the start.
2. 1548Shuangyu Harbor · ZhoushanLu Tang led the Fuqing naval forces from Haimen, first fighting at Jiushan Yang, then attacking into Shuangyu. Xu Dong was captured, Li Guangtou and other leaders were taken, and the island's barracks and foreign ships were largely burned; Xu Dong's remnant follower Wang Zhi escaped with the survivors. The Shuangyu smuggling port, occupied for over twenty years as a hub of East Asian private trade, was destroyed, and the Portuguese base off Ningbo was wiped out with it.
3. 1548Northern and southern channels of Shuangyu · ZhejiangLu Tang, judging Shuangyu too exposed on all sides to hold, instead blocked the northern and southern channels with timber and stone so that later foreign ships could not re-enter. Zhu Wan personally oversaw the work. Smuggling vessels thereafter anchored at Nanji and other islands. The battle heavily damaged the smuggling trade but also offended the powerful families of Fujian and Zhejiang, and impeachment followed; Zhu Wan was soon dismissed and took his own life, maritime ban enforcement actually loosened, laying the groundwork for the peak of the wakō troubles in the 1550s.