In the history of Sino-Japanese warfare Shanghai had experience of heavy fighting, within its borders as long ago as 1543. Even before then piratical raids by Japanese freebooters, whose activities were as distasteful to their own people as they were to their Chinese victims, were known to Shanghai. In the carly 15th century Shanghai suffered a Japanese blockade, and again, 100 years later, in 1513, trade in this port was completely paralyzed, not by Japanese activities, but by the ascendancy of Chinese pirates who defied the army and navy. One of their chieftains, Lin Tsih, blockaded Woosung and contemplated a raid on Shanghai, but he was foiled by"a typhoon on the abatement of which the imperial fleet managed to induce the pirates to abandon their project.
'The Emperor Shih Tsung who came to the throne in 1522, was troubled by the invasions. of the Mongols in the north and the piratical expeditions of the Japanese on his coast. These piracies had behind them a definite' national purpose in that the Chinese had. refused to grant trading privileges which the: Japanese considered essential.
In 1543, then, the Japanese made a landing in considerable force at Paoshan, north of Shanghai, The Chinese troops at Woosung were defeated, with the loss of their: commander, in the attempt to eject the invaders, nor did troops from Shanghai have any great success. The Japanese forces ravaged the country north of the Woosung Creek and captured many well-stocked ships. They did not however, march on Shanghai from Paoshan, but withdrew, another landing to the sout The Chinese forces crossed the Whangpoo.to to meet the invaders, who were severely defeated. The invaders advanced to the right! bank of the Whangpoo and effected a tand-ing at Nantao. A combined force of troops and junks were collected to prevent their landing, but the news of the heavy defeat of the original expedition sent to meet the invaders took all the heart out of the defenders and the Japanese successfully entered the city, from which officials and troops had disappeared. The arrival of reinforcements, however, from Kiangyen compelled the invaders to depart, but they took with them a huge amount of booty.
A fortnight later the Japanese came again in full force, 300 ships sailing up the Whangpoo to Choupu, which to-day is about 10 miles from the river bank. The Chinese on this occasion made a desperate resistance and it was not until their two generals were killed and enormous losses had been sustained, that the Japanese managed to land, The strength of the reinforcements from Kiangyen had given the people of Shanghai 8 false sense of security, and this time, when the Japanese took the city, the resultant fight Involved a terrific amount of slaughter. Shanghai was gutted and burnt to the ground, and Montalto de Jesus, in his "Historic Shanghai", writes of an ode which depicted the place sss: a haunt of robbers, where stillness broken only by heart-rending moans, and, where foxes" roamed about gnawing' the bleached bones of the slaughtered multitude.
True {o the spirit which has always characterized Shanghailanders, the ruins were not allowed to remain long, and the next year the city walls were constructed so that] in future it should be well fortified against enemy attacks. 'The Japanese successes were ascribed to mercenaries in their service whom Chinese ballad writers called "black slaves and white devils'. The slaves were said to be fearless of death, fiendish, most jus in handling swords, spears, and Are-arms, and retained at high prices in gold.
Although Shanghai was spared further: Japanese attacks, the pirates, who were joined' by innumerable dissatisfied Chinese outlaws, continued their ravaging of the southern coast and for a long time the problem of! piracy greatly exercised the two governments: and was the subject of frequent interchanges of memorials between them. 'Thus, four years after the attack on' Shanghai, an attempt was made to establish more satisfactory relations, A Japanese writer, Mr. Yoshi Kuno, has described this diplomatic effort:
In 1547 the Ashikaga shogun sent his very: Jast memorial in the name of "King of Japan, a subject of the Ming Emperor." According to official records, these tribute bearing envoys sailed in four vessels, which left Japan in February, 1547, and reached Ningpo, China, in March 1548." The envoy and his party went by land to Peking, arriving there in April, 1549, They left the capital in August the same year, and arrived home in Japan in the spring of 1580, thus consuming nearly three years on their official mission to the court of the Ming and in returning to Japan, It was a tedious, hazardous, and expensive undertaking, even in the sixteenth century, because of ihe lack of both water- and land-transportation facilities. However, Japan sent {ribute-bearing envoys, at rather irregular intervals, for nearly one hundred and twenty-five years. She did this because the Ming court was a source of great revenue, and she broke off the relationship only when China's! growing weakness made it no longer profable.
Actually it was not until 1588, when Hideyoshi, founder of the fourth military government in Japan, took steps to promulgate vigorous laws for the suppression of piracy, that the evil was mitigated. Kuno says that this step was taken voluntarily by the great Japanese leader and not at the request of ithe Ming Government at Peking.
At the same time as the attack was made on Shanghai in 1543, Soochow and Hangchow also suffered from the ravages of Japanese pirates. The attacks by pirates on Shanghai in the 16th century were said also to have. been inspired by memories of Kublai Khan's. invasion of Japan, and tradition has it that} that expedition which started in Hangchow gave rise to Shanghai's first development as a commercial centre, The Bund was used Jas a tow-path for junks laden with tribute rice conveyed by the sea route when the
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