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the deathbed prophecy of the pirate Wang Zhi

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came true three hundred years later on the Qing

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winter of 1559

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the execution ground in Hangzhou

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a prisoner in a cangue was forced to his knees

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the supervising officer asked if he had any last words

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he did not protest his innocence

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and he did not beg for mercy

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he only looked up at the grey sky

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and said something strange

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he said

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killing me alone does not matter

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I only fear it will doom the people of Zhejiang

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then he added half a sentence more

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this half has no exact source in the official histories

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later generations recorded it for him but it is chillingly accurate

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he seemed to be speaking to the crowd

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and also to history three hundred years on if the empire ignores the tide of the seas

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a century from now

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China will be humiliated by foreigners

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everyone there took it as the raving of a dying pirate chief

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the blade flashed

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and his head fell

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the great bandit had been executed

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everyone felt the matter was closed

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and the southeast coast would be at peace

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but pause for three seconds

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do not rush ahead

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answer one question in your head

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who exactly was this man

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and how did he dare curse a dynasty as he died

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and why did that curse three hundred years later

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word for word in a way a hundred times more brutal than he foretold

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come true on a different dynasty

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hello

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everyone

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I am Leo Wang

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today's story is not simple historical gossip

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it is a mirror

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showing why a civilization facing a paradigm shift

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always kills its own prophets with its own hands

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the most chilling part is this

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by the end you may realize

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we could be standing at a similar fork in history today

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this man was called Wang Zhi

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he was not born a pirate

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at least not at first

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he came from Shexian in Huizhou

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born around 1501

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as the saying goes no market thrives without Huizhou men

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if a Huizhou man did not study for the exams

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he left home to trade

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that tradition was carved into their bones

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Wang Zhi was a classic Huizhou merchant

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quick minded and bold

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not content to peddle salt and tea back home

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what was the biggest business back then

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maritime trade

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at this point

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many people find the logic smooth the Ming sea ban existed because wokou raided the coast

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so closing the sea was a reasonable defense

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the wokou were all Japanese

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burning killing and looting

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Wang Zhi worked with them against his own people

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so he deserved to die

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the chain of logic sounds seamless

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where is the flaw

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it is in the second step

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the premise that the wokou were all Japanese

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is wrong

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the truth is

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the so called wokou of the mid and late Ming

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were overwhelmingly Chinese

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the sea ban cut off the livelihood of millions on the coast

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people could not survive

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so they risked everything and went smuggling

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and step by step became armed groups half merchant half pirate

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real Japanese ronin were only a minority

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and mostly hired muscle for Chinese sea merchants

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this created an absurd closed loop

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the court banned the sea to stop the wokou

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but most wokou were Chinese driven out by that very ban

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the tighter the ban

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the higher the smuggling profits

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the higher the profits

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the more people took the risk

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the fiercer the clashes

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the more the court believed the sea must stay closed

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it is like having mice in the house

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you do not catch the mice

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instead you weld the kitchen door shut

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so the mice breed inside the sealed room

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more and more of them and fiercer and fiercer

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and then you conclude see

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I told you the kitchen is full of mice

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good thing I welded the door shut

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Wang Zhi clawed his way up inside this absurd game

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he soon found the world at sea far deeper than he imagined

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there were Chinese smugglers Japanese ronin

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and the newly arrived Portuguese

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all fighting over routes and harbors

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in daily life and death struggles

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Wang Zhi was not swallowed up

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he thrived like a fish in water

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he had a gift others lacked he knew how to build order

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he kept his word

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and shared his profits with his men

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he was quick as well

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while others still fought with blades

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he had already brought in Portuguese cannon and matchlock guns

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he based himself on Hirado island off Kyushu in Japan

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building harbors and warehouses

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like a local emperor of the sea

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and called himself Master of the Five Peaks

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one detail is worth mentioning

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in 1543

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a ship out of China was blown by a typhoon to Tanegashima in southern Japan

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besides the Chinese sailors on board

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there were three Portuguese

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the island lord saw their matchlock guns

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and was astounded

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he bought them at great price and had his smiths copy them

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the Japanese later called this weapon the teppo

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Oda Nobunaga swept all before him

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precisely because of the teppo

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the famous three rank volley is a legend that grew out of this

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the whole military revolution of Japan's warring states era

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came from this seemingly accidental drift

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according to the Japanese record Teppoki

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on the ship that brought the Portuguese to Japan

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was a Chinese man calling himself the scholar Wufeng

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who negotiated supplies with the island lord in writing

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many researchers believe

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the scholar Wufeng was Wang Zhi himself

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because his own title was exactly Five Peaks

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clearly he was no ordinary merchant

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he combined international trade military technology transfer

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and diplomacy into one superpower player

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in Japan

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he was on brotherly terms with powerful daimyo

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at sea

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the moment his Five Peaks flag went up

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from Malacca to the Japanese islands

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ordinary pirates gave way

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he built an order setting routes making rules providing security

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if you wanted to trade in his waters

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fine

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pay the fee and fly the Five Peaks flag

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and you sailed safely all the way

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but note this

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this man with a maritime empire

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was not thinking about rebellion

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nor about independence

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what was he thinking about

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he wanted his business made legal

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that is what makes Wang Zhi both great and tragic

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in his bones he was always a Huizhou merchant

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he could do the math

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he knew smuggling could not last

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today the officials look the other way

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tomorrow they may send troops

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living in fear every day

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the business could never grow

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the best outcome was for the court to lift the sea ban

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allow legal private trade and let the court collect taxes

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merchants make money

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common people make a living

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pirates lose the soil they grow in

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and the raids fade away on their own

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a four way win the state wins merchants win the people win the frontier wins

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to sell the court on that four way future

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Wang Zhi did something bold he fought pirates for the Ming

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he used his own power at sea

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to hunt down the truly violent gangs

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he tied up rogue pirate chiefs one by one and handed them to the authorities

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the Zhejiang maritime deputy Li Wenjin even reached out to him

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and used his forces to destroy the great bandit Chen Sipan

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in those years

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officials looked the other way at his private trade

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his fleets moved freely around Zhoushan

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that was Wang Zhi's finest hour

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and the most prosperous the southeast coast had ever been

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Shuangyu port became the largest trading hub in east Asia

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hundreds of ships came and went every day

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merchants from Japan Ryukyu Siam and Portugal gathered there

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coastal families competed to send their sons into his fleets

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because the pay was ten times better than farming

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Wang Zhi thought his dream was getting closer

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if he kept showing the court what an open sea looked like

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one day they would understand

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but he was far too naive

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he made the fatal error that nearly every prophet makes

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assuming that a plan correct enough

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would surely be adopted

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he underestimated one thing the inertia of the old order itself

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now shift the view from the sea to the court in Beijing

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in the Jiajing court

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the sea ban faction was overwhelmingly dominant

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in their eyes

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anyone who went to sea was a traitor in waiting

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Wang Zhi catches pirates for you today

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tomorrow he is the biggest pirate himself

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they blamed the raids on men like him linking inside and outside

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destroy Wang Zhi

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and the sea would be calm again

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in 1548

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Zhejiang governor Zhu Wan sent his general Lu Tang to raid Shuangyu port

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he burned Asia's largest free port to the ground

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and filled the harbor in with wood and stone

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five years later in 1553

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the Zhejiang military commissioner Wang Yu

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sent Yu Dayou to raid Wang Zhi's new base at Ligang by night

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Wang Zhi was caught off guard

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his fleets were shattered

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and even his wife and children were seized

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he fled back to Japan with what was left

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that battle destroyed his illusions completely

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he could not understand it

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he truly could not

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he fought pirates for the court fed the people and kept order at sea

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what exactly had he done wrong

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rage and disappointment pushed him to the other extreme

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he stopped talking about amnesty and open markets

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and simply raised the banner of revolt

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calling himself the King of Hui

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he set up offices at his Japanese base and gave his men titles

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standing as an open rival to the Ming

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from 1554 on

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his fleets of revenge swept over the southeast coast of the Ming

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this force was unlike any wokou before it

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unified command clear strategy fine weapons

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and even Portuguese cannon

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the Ming garrisons had been hollowed out by fake payrolls

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and collapsed almost instantly before them

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a few dozen raiders fought all the way to the walls of Nanjing

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this is the famous great Jiajing raids

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only then did the court see it had blundered

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and blundered completely it crushed a Wang Zhi who wanted to be loyal

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and created a King of Hui who wanted to rebel

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the southeast rotted through

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the court brought in a new man Hu Zongxian

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Hu Zongxian was also from Huizhou

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a hometown man like Wang Zhi

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that was the key variable

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he saw the problem at once force alone could not win

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Wang Zhi's base was in Japan

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scatter him and he comes right back

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on and on with no end

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the only way left was amnesty

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Hu Zongxian began laying careful plans

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he freed Wang Zhi's mother wife and children from prison

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and kept them well

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then sent envoys to Japan at the risk of their lives

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carrying a deeply sincere handwritten letter

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the letter said my countryman

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the court truly did wrong before

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but now I am here

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if you submit

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I guarantee no charges for the past

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and I will petition the emperor to open maritime trade

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so you can do business in the open

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the letter struck the softest place in his heart

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Wang Zhi had been misunderstood his whole life

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all he ever wanted

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was to go from pirate to merchant from traitor to loyal servant

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this letter from Hu Zongxian

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gave him the way out he had waited half a lifetime for

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he told his men I never wanted to rebel

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the governor is so sincere now

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he even freed my old mother

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00:10:25,899 --> 00:10:26,942
how can I not go back

272
00:10:27,858 --> 00:10:28,582
in 1557

273
00:10:28,858 --> 00:10:31,842
Wang Zhi led his fleet into Cengang at Zhoushan

274
00:10:31,978 --> 00:10:34,881
and sent his adopted son Mao Haifeng ahead to test the ground

275
00:10:35,019 --> 00:10:36,538
Hu Zongxian received him warmly

276
00:10:36,539 --> 00:10:39,482
and sent his own aides aboard Wang Zhi's ship as hostages

277
00:10:39,659 --> 00:10:41,521
Wang Zhi dropped his guard completely

278
00:10:41,618 --> 00:10:44,681
he left most of his fleet and men with Mao Haifeng

279
00:10:44,779 --> 00:10:47,722
and went to Hangzhou with only a few close men and the envoys

280
00:10:48,139 --> 00:10:50,242
he had prepared a detailed proposal

281
00:10:50,338 --> 00:10:51,818
not only a trade plan

282
00:10:51,819 --> 00:10:53,921
but an analysis of the Japanese daimyo

283
00:10:54,019 --> 00:10:56,541
he even offered to manage the trading ports himself

284
00:10:56,819 --> 00:10:58,681
and guarantee no more raiders out of Japan

285
00:10:59,419 --> 00:11:00,421
he went boating on West Lake

286
00:11:00,698 --> 00:11:02,121
in the best of moods

287
00:11:02,458 --> 00:11:04,801
more relaxed than he had been in years

288
00:11:05,019 --> 00:11:07,418
he believed the four way future he had fought for all his life

289
00:11:07,419 --> 00:11:08,842
was finally about to arrive

290
00:11:09,142 --> 00:11:10,284
but just at that moment

291
00:11:10,341 --> 00:11:12,565
a man named Wang Bengu stepped forward

292
00:11:12,822 --> 00:11:13,345
Wang Bengu

293
00:11:13,701 --> 00:11:15,245
the investigating censor of Zhejiang

294
00:11:15,302 --> 00:11:17,924
a total hardliner of the sea ban faction

295
00:11:18,022 --> 00:11:20,365
he could not stand the amnesty deal for Wang Zhi

296
00:11:20,381 --> 00:11:21,884
he called it feeding a tiger

297
00:11:21,942 --> 00:11:25,804
and could not bear a pirate chief strolling around Hangzhou

298
00:11:26,062 --> 00:11:29,985
so he did something that changed history he went around Hu Zongxian

299
00:11:30,262 --> 00:11:31,900
and used his censor's authority directly

300
00:11:31,902 --> 00:11:34,044
sending troops to arrest Wang Zhi in Hangzhou

301
00:11:34,703 --> 00:11:35,506
at the moment of arrest

302
00:11:35,823 --> 00:11:37,646
Wang Zhi was completely stunned

303
00:11:37,943 --> 00:11:39,785
he shouted what is my crime

304
00:11:40,223 --> 00:11:41,506
did I not come here to surrender

305
00:11:42,223 --> 00:11:43,246
no one answered

306
00:11:43,662 --> 00:11:45,226
Hu Zongxian pleaded in a memorial

307
00:11:45,583 --> 00:11:47,565
saying Wang Zhi had come to surrender

308
00:11:47,662 --> 00:11:51,102
killing him would break faith and enrage his men at sea

309
00:11:51,103 --> 00:11:52,766
and the raids would surely return

310
00:11:53,142 --> 00:11:55,965
but the sea ban faction seized the chance

311
00:11:56,063 --> 00:11:59,406
accusing Hu Zongxian of collusion and Wang Zhi of wolfish ambition

312
00:11:59,703 --> 00:12:02,845
the Jiajing emperor cared nothing for sea affairs anyway

313
00:12:02,902 --> 00:12:04,565
and was tired of his ministers shouting

314
00:12:04,622 --> 00:12:06,126
so he ruled kill him

315
00:12:06,447 --> 00:12:06,850
in prison

316
00:12:07,167 --> 00:12:08,730
Wang Zhi wrote his memorial of self vindication

317
00:12:09,287 --> 00:12:11,429
the last letter he left to history

318
00:12:11,687 --> 00:12:13,049
he was still defending himself

319
00:12:13,287 --> 00:12:14,590
and still calling for opening the sea

320
00:12:14,726 --> 00:12:16,525
he said his trade at sea

321
00:12:16,526 --> 00:12:18,470
had put food on the tables of Zhejiang

322
00:12:18,526 --> 00:12:20,789
and had caught so many real pirates for the court

323
00:12:20,967 --> 00:12:22,350
his merits went unseen above

324
00:12:22,366 --> 00:12:23,850
and his family was ruined instead

325
00:12:24,167 --> 00:12:25,189
he could not accept it

326
00:12:25,646 --> 00:12:26,169
to the very end

327
00:12:26,447 --> 00:12:28,159
the one thing he could not let go of

328
00:12:28,169 --> 00:12:31,970
was asking for a customs office in Zhejiang like the one in Guangdong

329
00:12:32,287 --> 00:12:34,429
allowing trade and normal taxation

330
00:12:34,687 --> 00:12:36,189
so the state could earn money

331
00:12:36,246 --> 00:12:38,269
and Japan could send tribute on schedule

332
00:12:38,287 --> 00:12:40,750
this memorial got no reply at all

333
00:12:41,490 --> 00:12:42,614
winter of 1559

334
00:12:43,010 --> 00:12:44,354
he was taken to the execution ground

335
00:12:44,531 --> 00:12:48,409
and said those two lines killing me alone does not matter

336
00:12:48,411 --> 00:12:50,433
I only fear it will doom the people of Zhejiang

337
00:12:50,730 --> 00:12:52,813
if the empire ignores the tide of the seas

338
00:12:53,090 --> 00:12:54,169
a century from now

339
00:12:54,171 --> 00:12:56,013
China will be humiliated by foreigners

340
00:12:57,111 --> 00:12:58,773
the first line came true very quickly

341
00:12:59,310 --> 00:13:00,733
when the news reached the sea

342
00:13:00,791 --> 00:13:04,253
Mao Haifeng killed Hu Zongxian's hostages on the spot

343
00:13:04,350 --> 00:13:05,814
and raised the banner of revenge

344
00:13:06,070 --> 00:13:09,613
the sea powers Wang Zhi had unified broke loose in an instant

345
00:13:09,671 --> 00:13:11,853
leaderless and each fighting alone

346
00:13:12,111 --> 00:13:13,233
they had no illusions left

347
00:13:13,511 --> 00:13:14,733
and no limits left either

348
00:13:14,871 --> 00:13:18,054
their only thought was revenge burning and killing

349
00:13:18,631 --> 00:13:21,373
the raids grew ten times worse than when Wang Zhi was alive

350
00:13:21,710 --> 00:13:24,414
the whole southeast coast became a living hell

351
00:13:24,631 --> 00:13:26,253
Hu Zongxian was overwhelmed

352
00:13:26,430 --> 00:13:30,133
Qi Jiguang Yu Dayou and other great generals fought for over a decade

353
00:13:30,190 --> 00:13:31,794
countless soldiers and civilians died

354
00:13:32,111 --> 00:13:33,973
before the situation barely steadied

355
00:13:34,329 --> 00:13:36,291
and what about Wang Bengu who ruined everything

356
00:13:36,809 --> 00:13:37,612
he was impeached

357
00:13:38,008 --> 00:13:39,632
but never really punished

358
00:13:39,969 --> 00:13:43,791
one stubborn foolish decision cost countless lives

359
00:13:43,929 --> 00:13:47,232
and the man who made it went off to his next meal

360
00:13:47,569 --> 00:13:49,951
history is that cruel sometimes

361
00:13:50,408 --> 00:13:51,671
but the story is not over

362
00:13:52,128 --> 00:13:54,112
the greatest irony is still ahead

363
00:13:54,928 --> 00:13:56,172
eight years after Wang Zhi died

364
00:13:56,448 --> 00:13:57,592
the Jiajing emperor died

365
00:13:57,609 --> 00:13:58,531
and Longqing took the throne

366
00:13:58,889 --> 00:14:00,832
the political winds at court changed

367
00:14:01,088 --> 00:14:02,207
in 1567

368
00:14:02,208 --> 00:14:05,751
the Ming government formally opened Yuegang in Fujian

369
00:14:05,848 --> 00:14:08,952
letting private ships sail the eastern and western seas

370
00:14:09,249 --> 00:14:11,292
this is the famous Longqing opening of the sea

371
00:14:11,889 --> 00:14:13,727
the dream Wang Zhi paid for with his life

372
00:14:13,728 --> 00:14:16,552
came true eight years after his death

373
00:14:16,789 --> 00:14:18,413
the effect was immediate

374
00:14:18,669 --> 00:14:23,212
countless ships left Yuegang for Manila and for southeast Asia

375
00:14:23,510 --> 00:14:26,893
at that time the Spanish were mining silver furiously in the Americas

376
00:14:26,949 --> 00:14:30,108
and that American silver through the Manila galleon trade

377
00:14:30,110 --> 00:14:32,012
poured into China like a tide

378
00:14:32,230 --> 00:14:34,012
modern historians estimate

379
00:14:34,110 --> 00:14:36,533
from the late sixteenth to the mid seventeenth century

380
00:14:36,549 --> 00:14:40,893
one third to one half of the world's silver flowed into the Ming

381
00:14:41,110 --> 00:14:44,352
this vast wealth gave Zhang Juzheng's single whip reform

382
00:14:44,669 --> 00:14:48,053
and the military victories of the Wanli campaigns a solid economic base

383
00:14:48,701 --> 00:14:52,533
history proved Wang Zhi right in the cruelest and clearest way

384
00:14:52,543 --> 00:14:54,764
openness brings prosperity

385
00:14:54,782 --> 00:14:56,524
closure brings rot

386
00:14:56,701 --> 00:14:57,545
only all of this

387
00:14:57,902 --> 00:14:59,205
he never got to see

388
00:14:59,742 --> 00:15:00,705
at this point in the story

389
00:15:00,941 --> 00:15:02,604
it looks like we could put a full stop here

390
00:15:02,662 --> 00:15:05,724
a prophet failed by his age is finally vindicated

391
00:15:05,782 --> 00:15:07,364
and his idea bears fruit

392
00:15:07,502 --> 00:15:10,404
but do not forget the other half of his prophecy

393
00:15:10,581 --> 00:15:12,620
what he said was a century from now

394
00:15:12,622 --> 00:15:14,305
China will be humiliated by foreigners

395
00:15:15,281 --> 00:15:19,344
the Longqing opening voided the first half of that prophecy

396
00:15:19,602 --> 00:15:20,964
through the whole later half of the Ming

397
00:15:21,242 --> 00:15:22,840
China was not humiliated at all

398
00:15:22,842 --> 00:15:25,265
it became the center of the global trading system

399
00:15:25,362 --> 00:15:26,984
and grew immensely rich

400
00:15:27,442 --> 00:15:30,545
but what history does best is dark humor

401
00:15:30,962 --> 00:15:31,804
the Ming fell

402
00:15:32,161 --> 00:15:33,304
and the Qing came

403
00:15:33,602 --> 00:15:34,944
after the Qing armies entered the passes

404
00:15:35,002 --> 00:15:38,184
to crush the Southern Ming and Zheng Chenggong

405
00:15:38,202 --> 00:15:41,704
they made a decision a hundred times harsher than the Ming sea ban

406
00:15:42,122 --> 00:15:46,704
the great clearance forced coastal people thirty to fifty li inland

407
00:15:46,962 --> 00:15:50,025
houses beyond the line were burned and fields left waste

408
00:15:50,122 --> 00:15:52,064
anyone crossing the line was killed on sight

409
00:15:52,401 --> 00:15:56,984
a dead zone tens of li wide was carved along the southeast coast

410
00:15:57,322 --> 00:15:58,444
this was no longer banning the sea

411
00:15:58,761 --> 00:15:59,864
it was destroying the sea

412
00:16:01,173 --> 00:16:02,917
the clearance order was later repealed

413
00:16:03,014 --> 00:16:07,317
but Qing rulers stayed deeply afraid of the ocean and of the world outside

414
00:16:07,533 --> 00:16:08,657
they ran the single port system

415
00:16:08,933 --> 00:16:10,653
keeping only Guangzhou open

416
00:16:10,654 --> 00:16:12,197
with layer upon layer of restrictions

417
00:16:12,413 --> 00:16:15,037
the gates were shut tighter than in any period of the Ming

418
00:16:15,213 --> 00:16:17,677
they thought this would bring peace for ten thousand generations

419
00:16:17,774 --> 00:16:18,297
and the result

420
00:16:18,813 --> 00:16:19,537
three hundred years later

421
00:16:19,774 --> 00:16:21,037
in 1840

422
00:16:21,173 --> 00:16:24,876
British warships and guns blew that shut gate open

423
00:16:25,213 --> 00:16:27,376
the westerners who had only just appeared on the coast in Wang Zhi's day

424
00:16:27,654 --> 00:16:30,797
the ones the Chinese loosely called barbarians

425
00:16:30,854 --> 00:16:33,413
their descendants with far more advanced weapons

426
00:16:33,413 --> 00:16:36,197
shattered the celestial empire

427
00:16:37,014 --> 00:16:41,612
the treaties of Nanjing Beijing and Shimonoseki one humiliation after another

428
00:16:41,614 --> 00:16:43,236
ceding land and paying indemnities again and again

429
00:16:43,413 --> 00:16:45,653
Wang Zhi's old line a century from now

430
00:16:45,654 --> 00:16:47,917
China will be humiliated by foreigners

431
00:16:47,933 --> 00:16:51,773
came true three hundred years on in a way even he could not have imagined

432
00:16:51,774 --> 00:16:53,596
word for word line for line

433
00:16:53,889 --> 00:16:56,013
I wonder when Lin Zexu burned the opium at Humen

434
00:16:56,369 --> 00:16:59,993
and when Li Hongzhang lamented the greatest upheaval in three thousand years

435
00:17:00,129 --> 00:17:02,952
whether either of them ever opened the old records late at night

436
00:17:03,050 --> 00:17:06,192
and read the story of that Huizhou merchant named Wang Zhi

437
00:17:06,529 --> 00:17:08,692
the man who three centuries earlier pleaded again and again

438
00:17:09,009 --> 00:17:13,673
and paid with his life to push open the gate and embrace the sea

439
00:17:13,969 --> 00:17:16,928
if the Jiajing emperor had listened to Hu Zongxian

440
00:17:16,929 --> 00:17:18,413
and let Wang Zhi open the sea

441
00:17:18,850 --> 00:17:23,569
if the Ming had joined global maritime trade a century earlier

442
00:17:23,570 --> 00:17:24,973
where would history have gone

443
00:17:25,530 --> 00:17:26,513
we do not know

444
00:17:26,649 --> 00:17:29,112
we only know that Wang Zhi died in Hangzhou

445
00:17:29,250 --> 00:17:30,569
and for a very long time

446
00:17:30,570 --> 00:17:33,352
his name was a byword for pirate chief

447
00:17:33,882 --> 00:17:36,146
today in Hirado city in Nagasaki Japan

448
00:17:36,162 --> 00:17:38,745
the site of his old residence is still preserved

449
00:17:39,203 --> 00:17:42,226
and his bronze statue stands at the Matsura historical museum

450
00:17:42,562 --> 00:17:43,802
the Japanese remember him

451
00:17:43,803 --> 00:17:46,106
because he brought them wealth and technology

452
00:17:46,322 --> 00:17:47,045
but in China

453
00:17:47,243 --> 00:17:49,505
the trace he left is almost nothing

454
00:17:49,850 --> 00:17:50,730
at this point

455
00:17:50,731 --> 00:17:52,953
I want to raise the real question of this video

456
00:17:53,411 --> 00:17:56,493
why does a civilization always choose to kill its own prophets

457
00:17:57,090 --> 00:17:58,513
this is not a Ming problem

458
00:17:58,691 --> 00:18:00,114
and not a Chinese problem

459
00:18:00,290 --> 00:18:02,793
it is the shared fate of every old order

460
00:18:03,130 --> 00:18:05,129
Socrates was poisoned by the Athenians

461
00:18:05,130 --> 00:18:07,313
Bruno was burned by the church in Rome

462
00:18:07,530 --> 00:18:10,354
a prophet's tragedy is never that he was wrong

463
00:18:10,370 --> 00:18:11,773
it is precisely that he was right

464
00:18:12,130 --> 00:18:15,194
right about things the old order was not ready to hear

465
00:18:16,222 --> 00:18:18,741
the old order kills prophets not out of hatred

466
00:18:18,742 --> 00:18:19,766
but out of fear

467
00:18:20,103 --> 00:18:23,925
the new world they describe means the death of the old order itself

468
00:18:24,502 --> 00:18:28,341
those who profit from it would rather sink the whole civilization

469
00:18:28,343 --> 00:18:30,685
than let go of the rotten plank in their hands

470
00:18:31,103 --> 00:18:33,861
what died with Wang Zhi was not just one man

471
00:18:33,863 --> 00:18:36,606
but a whole rising maritime civilization

472
00:18:36,782 --> 00:18:39,222
had the Ming embraced that civilization then

473
00:18:39,222 --> 00:18:42,645
China had every chance to lead globalization first

474
00:18:42,742 --> 00:18:45,061
there would be no opium war three centuries later

475
00:18:45,062 --> 00:18:46,806
and no century of humiliation

476
00:18:47,183 --> 00:18:49,366
but the old order chose to shut the door

477
00:18:49,742 --> 00:18:51,261
it was not ignorant of the consequences

478
00:18:51,262 --> 00:18:53,766
it knew exactly what they were and shut the door anyway

479
00:18:54,542 --> 00:18:55,866
because for the old order

480
00:18:56,103 --> 00:18:57,942
control matters more than prosperity

481
00:18:57,943 --> 00:18:59,725
stability matters more than evolution

482
00:18:59,782 --> 00:19:02,485
staying in power matters more than what becomes of the country

483
00:19:02,822 --> 00:19:04,485
that is the real tragedy

484
00:19:05,259 --> 00:19:05,942
at this point

485
00:19:06,098 --> 00:19:07,090
I want to ask you to do one thing

486
00:19:07,100 --> 00:19:11,601
take this logic from the Ming four centuries ago and move it to today

487
00:19:11,858 --> 00:19:15,281
in a great age shifting from industrial civilization to intelligent civilization

488
00:19:15,418 --> 00:19:17,142
who is the Wang Zhi of our own time

489
00:19:17,578 --> 00:19:19,382
what is the sea ban of our own time

490
00:19:19,819 --> 00:19:23,097
which voice is being crushed right now as the raving of a madman

491
00:19:23,098 --> 00:19:26,021
yet may be proven right by history a century from now

492
00:19:26,459 --> 00:19:27,182
I will not give an answer

493
00:19:27,418 --> 00:19:28,962
I only leave the question here

494
00:19:29,856 --> 00:19:31,979
what are your thoughts on this episode

495
00:19:32,417 --> 00:19:35,100
was Wang Zhi a hero or a pirate

496
00:19:35,616 --> 00:19:37,519
and in this era of ours today

497
00:19:37,576 --> 00:19:39,340
is there a Wang Zhi being killed right now

498
00:19:39,937 --> 00:19:41,640
tell me in the comments

499
00:19:41,816 --> 00:19:42,539
I am Leo Wang

500
00:19:42,856 --> 00:19:43,715
see you next time