Heart-minds and harquebuses: the Bozhou rebellion in China (1587-1600)

Abstract

Many of the south-western non-Chinese minorities rebelled during the course of the dynasty's existence, including the Miao, who at the end of the sixteenth century launched an uprising under the leadership of Yang Yinglong (1551-1600). The resulting insurgency was eventually supressed under the leadership of civil officials. During the early dynasty forceful suppression by the military had been the norm. In contrast, civil officials, like Neo-Confucian thinker Wang Yangming (1472-1529), conceptualized mixed policies emphasizing moral exhortations and social engineering, in combination with military force using advanced technologies, as integrated solutions to ethnic insurgencies in the course of the sixteenth century. This paper will look at the extent to which these mixed policies were advocated and applied, including the use of advanced firearms, and their relative measures of success. Heart-Minds and Harquebuses: The Bozhou Rebellion in China (1587-1600)The two most well-known theatres of military action during the Chinese Ming dynasty are usually the long northern frontier facing the arid zone and roaming (semi-)nomads, and the south-eastern seaboard suffering frequent raids from Sino-Japanese pirate coalitions.A third significant theatre, however, was constituted by the south-western areas of the empire, containing the abodes of many ethnic minorities. Many of these non-Chinese minorities rebelled during the course of the dynasty's existence, including the Miao, who at the end of the sixteenth century launched an uprising under the leadership of Yang Yinglong (1551-1600).The uprising and the resulting insurgency were eventually supressed under the leadership of two civil officials, Guo Zizhang (1543-1618) and Li Hualong (1554-1611). Whereas during the early dynasty forceful suppression by the military had been the norm, by the late sixteenth century civil bureaucrats had assumed the overarching leadership of such operations. This phenomenon was exemplified by civil official and Neo-Confucian thinker Wang Yangming (1472-1529), who conceptualized mixed policies emphasizing moral exhortations and social engineering, in combination with military force, as integrated solutions to ethnic insurgencies in the course of the sixteenth century. This paper will look at the extent to which these mixed policies were advocated and applied, and their relative measures of success. Furthermore, the Bozhou Rebellion saw the use of Japanese harquebusiers and advanced firearms by the Ming empire, and a tentative assessment will be made of their impact on the course of insurgency warfare.