Ming Anti-Wokou Campaigns in the 1460s

Timeline

1. 1461–1466Coast of Taizhou and Ningbo · ZhejiangIn the early 1460s, Japanese and Korean refugees colluded with coastal strongmen and smuggling merchants, landing and raiding in Taizhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, and other places. Local guard garrisons were exhausted and short of provisions, coastal beacon towers were dilapidated, and the wokou threat was on the rise.
2. 1467–1468Zhejiang · ZhejiangIn 1467, the Ming court ordered commander-in-chief Zhu Yong and others to lead forces to Zhejiang to suppress the wokou, and ordered the provincial governor and commander-in-chief to coordinate operations. Government troops searched and suppressed along the coast, burned wokou ships, and captured and executed ringleaders, while also supervising the repair of beacon towers and naval camps and strengthening patrols of patrol stations.
3. 1468–1470Coast of Fujian and Zhejiang · Southeast coastAfter the wokou suppression, the court ordered Fujian and Zhejiang provinces to increase troops and set up patrol stations, strictly forbade private contact with the wokou, and ordered the navy to conduct regular overseas patrols. Although the wokou threat temporarily subsided, the trend of smuggling and wokou merging was not fundamentally eliminated, and coastal defense pressure continued into the Zhengde and Jiajing periods.