Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 166

1850.

Notice of Japan in the Ilui-kwoh Tú Chí.

143

to quite 200, they had managed to find their way a considerable dis- tance into three prefectures, ravaging the country for fifty days conse- cutively before they were put down.

At an earlier period, a band of them had spread through Shántung from Jib-cháu to the garrison town of Tung-ngán, after plundering which they had gone on to Hwái ngán, Kien-yi, Muh-yáng, and Tau-yuen, until they were stopped at Tsingho by the rains. All that the troops of Su-chau, and Pei-chau destroyed did not after all amount to more than a few score of men, while the region which had suffered from their outrages was upwards of a thousand li in extent, and such was their ferocity they had massacred above a thousand people. Chau Wan-hwa was aware that ever since his defeat at the Brick bridge, the power of the Japanese had gone on increasing; that those at Cheh-lin, who had moved over to Chau-pí, and joined the others who lay off their old haunt at Chuen-shá, and the High bridge of Kiá-ting, were perfectly independent; and that not a day passed without fresh incursions being made, and outrages committed by them; notwith- standing he reported that piracy was put down, and solicited his recall.

In the 2d moon of the following year (1555), Yang-í was succeed- ed by Tsung Hien, and Yusu Ngo was made siunfú of Chehkiáng. Tsung Hien prayed the Emperor to send an envoy with written in- structions to the king of Japan to prohibit, and put an end to the piracy of the islanders, and he endeavored to induce the traitorous merchants who had been guilty of foreign intercourse to return to China, by promises of reward and exemption from punishment. Ilis proposal being-approved by his Majesty, upon the receipt of a reply to that effect, he sent off Tsiáng Chau, and Chin Ko-yuen, graduates of Ningpo, on the above errand. In process of time the latter came back, and represented that at the Wútau (Five Islands), he had fallen in with Wán Chih and Máu Hái-fung, who told him that there had been a revolution in Japan, that its king and his ministers were all dead; that its islands were no longer under one head of govern- ment; and that, to put a stop to piracy, the emperor's manifesto must have general circulation throughout the Archipelago. He farther said that the people at Sa-mo-chau, although they had gone to sea as if for that purpose, had no desire to commit piracy, and were now beg- ging to be allowed to bring tribute and to :rade, in which case they were ready to show their zeal by destroying the pirates: Tsi ng Chau had been left to proumlge the Imperial commands throughout the differ- ent islands, and he, Chin Ko-yuen, had been sent back. Upon Tsung Hien's memorial being referred to them, the Board of War rejoin-