Entry
Long-qing: Year 2, Month 9, Day 29
19 Oct 1568
The Vice Minister Zhang Han, supreme commander of Guang-dong/ Guang-xi military affairs, together with the Censor-in-chief Xiang Fu, grand coordinator of Guang-dong, memorialized: "The Guang-dong mountain bandits have 72 dens and the sea bandits are of four types. Of these, Lin Dao-qian and Zeng Yi-ben bring the most calamity to Guang-dong/Guang-xi. We are afraid that if we do not inflict a defeat on them, the Ling-nan disorder will never be ended. The following proposals are respectfully put forward: Instructions should be made known to all government troops that those who achieve victory and capture prisoners or take heads in land battles shall be rewarded in accordance with normal stipulations. However, when achieving victory in sea battles, those who capture a bandit should be rewarded with four liang of silver, while those take a head shall receive two liang of silver. If, in such a clash, they do not take any heads but can capture a ship, they should be rewarded with 100 liang. Anyone who takes the head of a major bandit such as Zeng Yi-ben or Lin Dao-qian should be rewarded with 1,000 liang, or 3,000 liang if captured alive, and promoted one grade in substantive rank. Those soldiers who, on facing battle, draw back, should be beheaded as a warning...."
Mu-zong: juan 24.17b-18a
Zhong-yang Yan-jiu yuan Ming Shi-lu, volume 93, page 0676/77
Preferred form of citation for this entry:
Geoff Wade, translator, Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: an open access resource, Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/reign/long-qing/year-2-month-9-day-29, accessed January 22, 2019