The origin of historical pirates has experienced a golden period of development and gradually declined

2019-09-04 00:23·Xuankun Literature and History

Recently, it is time to watch movies again. I have read some old movies from the past again. Recently, I am looking back at the Pirates of the Caribbean series. The sea is always fascinating, not just because it contains countless treasures, or the sea is full of magical stories. The sea always gives people the feeling as mysterious as a passionate woman, making us unable to help but want to explore the depths of the sea.

The sea is always fascinating

Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies, the profession of pirates is too beautified. In essence, there is not much difference between pirates and bandits who rob families. In the past few years, because pirate activities were rampant in the Gulf of Aden, countries formed fleets to escort the Gulf of Aden. Today we will talk about pirates. Let’s call pirates a profession. So when did pirates appear in history?

Today, many people believe that pirates emerged from the day the ship was born in human history. The earliest records of pirates appeared in the 14th century BC, when a group of Lucans drove very primitive ships to attack and rob the ports in Cyprus. According to the current definition, this behavior is called piracy.

After the appearance of the ship, the profession of pirate was born

So what is piracy? Today, the definition of piracy is not only happening at sea, but also airplanes in the sky. Flying a ship, the members of the plane, commit illegal violent acts and plunders to another ship or plane in public waters. Such behaviors are collectively called pirates. In Miyazaki's movie "Red Pig", air pirates also belong to pirates according to this definition.

Piracy is closely related to the birth of the profession of pirates. Ancient Greek scholar Brudak had a simpler explanation of piracy, that is, it was illegal to attack and plunder other ships traveling freely at sea, or to attack some coastal port cities.

Pirates will plunder other free-sailing ships and coastal cities

The earliest pirates appeared near the Mediterranean coast, why did they appear in this area? Because this area is also one of the earliest areas in the world where ships began to develop, it created conditions for the birth of pirates. For a long time after this, there was no more unified name for these plunderers from the sea. For example, in the 9th century, pirates mainly came from Norway, and this group of pirates were called Vikings. The vocabulary similar to pirates appeared, and in the 14th century, the British called these plunderers pirates. After that, the meaning of pirates gradually extended to pirates.

The earliest pirates carried out plundering to seek personal gain, and they did not deliberately distinguish which country the merchant ship belonged to, so the countries agreed to the extermination of pirates. However, in the Age of Discovery, the development of pirates also changed. Britain, Spain and other countries allowed pirates to plunder ships from other countries on behalf of the government. Some countries even issued pirates, acquiescing to piracy, so in the Age of Discovery, pirate activities became very rampant.

The acquiesce of various countries for piracy has made piracy more rampant

When it comes to pirates, it has to be mentioned that during the Ming Dynasty in China, the Japanese Japanese pirates who were active in the southeast coastal areas were a group of bandit groups formed by Japanese ronin. The main targets of these people are merchant ships traveling around the southeast coast of China. Of course, they occasionally participate in maritime smuggling trade because this can bring them extremely high commercial profits.

Pirates reached their peak, after the 16th century. One reason is that private licenses legalize piracy, and another reason is that during this period, maritime trade was very prosperous. Explorers successively developed trade channels from Europe to Africa and Asia, which naturally breeded the greedy desire of pirates. During this period, many famous pirates were born, such as the Babary Pirates, which once made merchant ships heading to North Africa frightened. They were not affiliated with any country, nor were bound by moral norms, but only operated for personal gain.

The pirate ship that was rampant during the Great Destiny

In terms of the scope of pirate activities, it was also affected by industrial development. In the initial stage, the pirates were composed of private armed ships, and their range of activities was only along the mainland. In the golden period of pirate development, pirates began to equip larger ships and stronger weapons, just like pirates in the Ming Dynasty in China, which already had ships that could ride more than 300 people, and could explore the deep sea like exploring. Although it was the indulgence of some countries that led to the rampant piracy, this also reflected a problem that the ocean space at that time was far from saturated.

So now the pirates have almost disappeared, and the ocean space has been saturated? Obviously, there is no, but the scope of human activities has been occupied by fleets of various countries. The previous Western countries' indulgence on pirates also made them begin to suffer the consequences. Although in some periods, it seems that pirates and countries are also engaged in close cooperation, with the development of industry, countries gradually have the ability to control the coastal, near-shore and far-sea routes themselves, the strength of the navy has continued to become stronger. The living space of pirates is further compressed. For this reason, the development of pirates began to decline after the 19th century.

Navals of various countries gradually became stronger, and pirates also went to decline

In the late Qing Dynasty of China, several foreign invasions were invaded, and the invaders' attack routes were all invaded from the sea. Although the Qing government was corrupt and weak, it was impossible to match these rules with the power of a country.It is also conceivable that pirates armed on private ships will be unable to resist these fleets, and pirates who appear for the purpose of seeking personal gain will naturally be difficult to survive. However, at the end of the last century, due to constant wars in the Middle East, many advanced weapons were smuggled through the black market and equipped on merchant ships. The pirates who had disappeared for a long time seemed to be making a comeback in a new form.

In recent years, pirates seem to have made a comeback

I am Xuan Kun, a scholar who loves and constantly learns history and culture. I share it every day. I look forward to my friends' attention and comments. I can communicate and learn more with you. Thank you for reading!