a long time with varying fortunes;
the most important one during the Ming epoch was that of Hami, until in
1473 it was occupied by the city-state of Turfan. At this time China
actively intervened in the policy of Turkestan in a number of combats
with the Mongols. As the situation changed from time to time, these
city-states united more or less closely with China or fell away from her
altogether. In this period, however, Turkestan was of no military or
economic importance to China.

In the time of the Ming there also began in the east and south the
plague of Japanese piracy. Japanese contacts with the coastal provinces
of China (Kiangsu, Chekiang and Fukien) had a very long history:
pilgrims from Japan often went to these places in order to study
Buddhism in the famous monasteries of Central China; businessmen sold at
high prices Japanese swords and other Japanese products here and bought
Chinese products; they also tried to get Chinese copper coins which had
a higher value in Japan. Chinese merchants co-operated with Japanese
merchants and also with pirates in the guise of merchants. Some Chinese
who were or felt persecuted by the government, became pirates
themselves. This trade-piracy had started already at the end of the Sung
dynasty, when Japanese navigation had become superior to Korean shipping
which had in earlier times dominated the eastern seaboard. These
conditions may even have been one of the reasons why the Mongols tried
to subdue Japan. As early as 1387 the Chinese had to begin the building
of fortifications along the eastern and southern coasts of the country;
The Japanese attacks now often took the character of organized raids: a
small, fast-sailing flotilla would land in a bay, as far as possible
without attracting notice; the soldiers would march against the nearest
town, generally overcoming it, looting, and withdrawing. The defensive
measures adopted from time to time during the Ming epoch were of little
avail, as it was impossible effectively to garrison the whole coast.
Some of the coastal settlements were transferred inland, to prevent the
Chinese from co-operating with the Japanese, and to give the Japanese so
long a march inland as to allow time for defensive measures. The
Japanese pirates prevented the creation of a Chinese navy in this period
by their continual threats to the coastal cities in which the shipyards
lay. Not until much later, at a time of unrest in Japan in 1467, was
there any pe