Jiajing wokou raids

Jiajing wokou raids
Map of early wokou raids (violet) and later Jiajing wokou raids (blue), with sea routes from Japan
Date 1540s to 1567 Location Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong Result Ming victory
Belligerents
Wokou	Ming dynasty
Commanders and leaders
Wang Zhi Xu Hai	Zhu Wan Zhang Jing Zhao Wenhua Hu Zongxian Qi Jiguang Yu Dayou

The Jiajing wokou raids caused extensive damage to the coast of China in the 16th century, during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521–67) in the Ming dynasty. The term "wokou" originally referred to Japanese pirates who crossed the sea and raided Korea and China; however, by the mid-Ming, the wokou consisted of multinational crewmen that included the Japanese and the Portuguese, but a great majority of them were Chinese instead. Mid-Ming wokou activity began to pose a serious problem in the 1540s, reached its peak in 1555, and subsided by 1567, with the extent of the destruction spreading across the coastal regions of Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong.