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of organizations based solely on patron-client relationships, for there are definite limits as to how many levels a given hierarchy can extend to before the ties binding leader and follower dissolve completely. The pirates were also limited by their inability to extend their confederation laterally, for they were never able to link up meaningfully with the pirates Ts'ai Ch'ien and Chu Fen who operated along the adjoining coast in Fukien province. Finally, squabbles over spoils and women at the height of victory also seem to have turned the pirates inward against themselves.
Conclusion
In returning to my earlier abandoned point about religion and ideology, this episode of piracy calls into question the widely-held notion that the primary motivation for large-scale collective action is necessarily ideological and that its goal is always rebellion.
There are indeed a few scattered remarks concerning the pirates' aspirations to "overthrow the Ch'ing and restore the Ming", but in all cases the authors or chroniclers of these remarks were foreigners, not Chinese. Moreover, the pirates' own document or "articles of confederation", drawn up in 1805, makes no mention of ideology or politics at all. Survival at sea, not overthrowing the dynasty, seems to have been their primary motivation.
Also, the dismantling of the confederation at the height of its power is incomprehensible if the anti-state rhetoric is taken at face value. In actual practice the pirates seem to have collaborated with states as much as fought against them, and we must keep in mind that it was as privateers or collaborators with the Tay-son state in Vietnam that the pirates got their first organisational help. Thereafter they were perfectly content to escort, for a fee, the government's salt fleets in Kwangtung and to work hand-in-glove with government officials who were in their pay.
Finally, the pirates never gained a sufficient foothold on land to serve as a viable base for rebellion. At most they were capable of onshore raids in which they could hold onto a given city or town for a couple of days, but there was no attempt to establish more permanent garrisons. As a result they remained too isolated from society to be regarded as either serious rebels or social bandits. They were predators anxious to
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of organizations based solely on patron-client relationships, for there are definite limits as to how many levels a given hierarchy can extend to before the ties binding leader and follower dissolve completely. The pirates were also limited by their inability to extend their confederation laterally, for they were never able to link up meaningfully with the pirates Ts'ai Ch'ien and Chu Fen who operated along the adjoining coast in Fukien province. Finally, squabbles over spoils and women at the height of victory also seem to have turned the pirates inward against themselves.
Conclusion
In returning to my earlier abandoned point about religion and ideology. this episode of piracy calls into question the widely-held notion that the primary motivation for large-scale collective action is necessarily ideological and that its goal is always rebellion.
There are indeed a few scattered remarks concerning the pirates' aspirations to "overthrow the Ch'ing and restore the Ming", but in all cases the authors or chroniclers of these remarks were foreigners, not Chinese. Moreover, the pirates' own document or "articles of confederation", drawn up in 1805, makes no mention of ideology or politics at all. Survival at sea, not overthrowing the dynasty, scems to have been their primary motivation.
Also, the dismantling of the confederation at the height of its power is incomprehensible if the anti-state rhetoric is taken at face value, In actual practice the pirates seem to have collaborated with states as much as fought against them, and we must keep in mind that it was as privateers or collaborators with the Tayson state in Vietnam that the pirates got their first organisational help. Thereafter they were perfectly content to escort, for a fee, the government's salt fleets in Kwangtung and to work hand-in-glove with government officials who were in their pay.
Finally, the pirates never gained a sufficient foothold on land to serve as a viable base for rebellion. At most they were capable of onshore raids in which they could hold onto a given city or town for a couple of days, but there was no attempt to establish more permanent garrisons. As a result they remained too isolated from society to be regarded as either serious rebels or social bandits. They were predators anxious to
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