Wo-Kok 倭寇 Was Not Just Limited to Japanese Pirates. Many of the Wo-Kok Were Chinese Pirates. The Head of The Pirates Was Lee-Dan 李旦

The following story came from the book, The Forbidden Nation.

During 1500-1600 AD, pirates were rampant raiding the east coast of China. Taiwan was then a refuge of pirates. Here, the pirates rest, and recuperated with fresh water and bountiful resources from the island.

The Chinese government then blamed the Japanese and called these pirates the Japanese bandit, or the Wok-Kok, 倭寇, as I usually read from the Chinese-version textbook. True, many of them were Japanese pirates; but many of them were also Chinese pirates. Indeed, the godfather of the pirates was Lee Dan 李旦(?-1625) (known to European as Andrea Dittis). He owned a fleet of thousand battle-trade sailing boats (called junk at the time.) and ran the trade of both goods and human. The Europeans were not afraid of China, nor Japan; but they took a serious attitude toward the pirate godfather, Mr. Lee Dan 李旦.

Why Mr. Lee Dan is important in Taiwanese history? This is because one of Lee-Dan's 李旦 deputy was Mr. Jeng Ju-Long, 鄭芝龍, the father of Koxinga or 鄭成功. Even Koxingya 鄭成功 inherited part of the pirate fleet and was the superpower on the sea at the time when he expelled Dutch from Taiwan.

I will have more stories on Jeng Ju-Long 鄭芝龍, and Koxingya 鄭成功 later in this blog.