Lineage Society on the Southeastern Coast of China: The Impact o ...

traded illicitly with their Southeast Asian, Japanese, and Portuguese counterparts in the international trading network encompassing coastal China, Southeast Asia, and Japan aligns with the Ming image of the littoral communities as active collaborators of the wokou.

Changes in Social Organization

Despite the brewing piracy crisis of the 1550s and 1560s, the increasing monetization of the economy was to have a great effect on Ming society at large, especially with regard to traditional social and economic structures. The imposition of social order and rule by the Hongwu emperor in 1368 had allowed local warlords and prominent groups of the late Yuan period—as well as the communities under their control—to enter the Ming realm, giving their offspring the legal status and opportunities they needed to take part in the imperial examinations and win official honors for their households, thus perpetuating their local influence. For example, among the lineages resident in Haining during the Ming was a group by the surname of Jia. This family traced its descent from a Han dynasty official and claimed an illustrious history in the service of past emperors until the time of the Yuan dynasty, when Jia Pu became the wealthiest man in the town of Huanggang.⁴² Jia Pu’s son, Jia Ming, and his nephew, Jia Zhongli, made a name for themselves by gathering a militia and defending the town in the late Yuan period, when social unrest was rife.⁴³ With the establishment of the Huanggang Academy by Jia Xixian (Zhongli’s son) and the distinction of Xixian’s cousin Jia Jixian in military service to the Ming state during its early years, the group gained a reputation as wealthy, respectable, and powerful.⁴⁴ The status enjoyed by the Jia was such that almost two centuries later, during the Jiajing reign, another Jia group resident in Shangqiu, Henan, claimed to be descendants of Jia Jixian and sought to rejuvenate familial ties with the descendants of Jia Xixian in Haining through the joint compilation of their genealogies.⁴⁵

In 1381, the Hongwu emperor sought to create further social uniformity and to facilitate the organization of the service levy by instituting the lijia system of household registration. Ensuring that households (hu)