Wokou engaging in rape and pillage, from 'Tai Ping Kang Wo Tu (《太平抗倭圖》)'.

Refugees trying to escape Wokou, from 'Kang Wo Tu Juan (《抗倭圖卷》)'.

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Wokou (right) engaging in pike fencing with Ming troops (left) atop boats, from 'Wakō-zukan (《倭寇図巻》)'.

Japanese arquebusiers during the Battle of Nagashino, from 'Nagashino kassenzu byōbu (《長篠合戦図屏風》)'.

Minamoto no Tametomo (源為朝), a legendary Japanese archer, said to be able to pull a gonin-bari. From ' Honcho buyu kagami (《本朝武優鏡》)' by famous ukiyo-e (浮世絵) painter Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳).

Ukiyo-e painting depicting a tōshiya contest. The contester (lower right) at the southern end of the veranda shoots at a curtain erected at the northern end of the veranda. Note that he must shoot from sitting position and cannot shoot in arc, otherwise the arrow will hit the ceiling before it reaches its target. From 'Uki-e Wakoku Keiseki Kyōto Sanjūsangen-dō no Zu (《浮繪和國景跡京都三拾三軒堂之図》)' by Toyoharu Utagawa (哥川豊春).

A 50 kg (or 110 lbs, note that Japanese people prefer to use metric system to measure draw weight) pull Japanese bow made by none other than master bowmaker Shibata Kanjuro (柴田勘十郎). (Source: 御弓師 柴田勘十郎のブログ)

Three men trying to string a Japanese bow, from 'Obusuma Saburō Emaki (《男衾三郎絵巻》)'.

Demonstration of four-person method of stringing a Japanese bow. (Source: ドイツに暮らす)

What an actual Lang Xian ought to be: a long bamboo with bush so thick that it completely blocks the vision of anyone standing at the wrong end of the weapon. (Source: 黃帝设局)

Many of the enemies of Ming Dynasty are equally as misunderstood as the Chinese themselves. Wokou (倭寇) , or Japanese pirates, were a particularly misunderstood bunch. 『倡海市以息亂者，全無後慮，且不知致亂之原蓋在於法弛，而非有嚴法以致之。吾恐市一開，而全浙危矣。』— Wan Biao (萬表), protesting the ridiculous notion of opening trade to pacify Wokou, in his book Hai Kou Yi (《海寇議》).Hai Jin was a REACTION to the exacerbating Wokou problem, not the cause of it. Quite the contrary, the lax enforcement of Hai Jin turned China's coasts into a breeding ground for smugglers and pirates. When Zhu Wan (朱紈) stepped in and set things straight, he actually succeeded in curbing the piracy. Unfortunately, Zhu Wan was imprisoned for his effort, and later committed suicide in prison. The abolishment of Hai Jin after his death caused the Wokou problem to drastically turn for the worse.In short, lawlessness breeds crime and more lawlessness, while strict law (as well as effective enforcement of the law) deters it.Even during the period when Hai Jin policy was rigorously enforced, Ming court did not attempt to prevent fishermen from going out to the seanot until Wokou disguised as fishermen started to show up anyway, nor did they ban coastal trade. As such, the livelihoods of poorer coastal inhabitants were little affected by the policy. While many Chinese coastal inhabitants did end up joining the Wokou, they did not actively trying to do so. Instead they were either captured and forced to join at sword point, or deprived of all choices as their livelihoods were caught up in the conflict and destroyed.In other words, what forced the poorer coastal inhabitans into piracy was not Hai Jin, but the turmoils caused by Wokou and Chinese pirates alike.On the other hand, Chinese people that collaborated with Wokou were powerful sea traders that accumulated their wealth and influence through illegal means such as smuggling, piracy and slavery (it should be pointed out that they already conspired with Wokou well before Zhu Wan showed up with the Hai Jin). Consequently, they were the most affected by Hai Jin and thus actively sought to undermine it. These outlaws were so powerful and influential that even after their profit plummeted following the Hai Jin, they were still able to conspire with corrupt officials within Ming court to imprison Zhu Wan and forcibly lift the prohibition.『官兵所用皆長牌短刀，而倭寇則以長槍重矢。』— Qi Ji Guang (戚繼光), in his military treatise Lian Bing Shi Ji (《練兵實紀》).While many Wokou were undoubtedly terrifying swordsmen, they, like their regular army counterpart in Japan, relied on spears and bows as their primary weapons. As mass production of matchlock gun just began to take off in Japan, Wokou only had limited access to this advanced firearm.This estimate, courtesy of late Noel Perrin'sis way overblown and disregards just how expensive, labour intensive and time consuming to manufacture even a single gun barrel. Even during the famousin 1575, THIRTY-TWO YEARS after the introduction of matchlock firearm to Japan, the combined force of Oda Nobunaga (織田信長) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康), both fervent adopters of matchlock firearm, could amass no more than three thousand arquebusiers. At best, Japan had more matchlock guns than a single European nation, not entire Europe.(As a side note, Oda Nobunaga did not actually invent the three step volley fire tactic, nor did he use it in Battle of Nagashino. The myth stem from Edo period historical fictions and romances, and should not be taken as fact.)Gunmaking was actually the least of Japan's concern. Japan did not produce saltpetre (a major ingredient of black powder) domestically, and had to rely on Portuguese traders, China (through illicit trade), Siam, India, and Philippines for imports. As high demand drove the price up, they even resorted to slave trading (selling women captured from rival daimyō to the Europeans) in order to cover the expense. Besides, Japan could not produce enough lead to meet the demand of their firearms, so they also had to import lead from Portuguese traders to cast bullets. The enormous cost of both gunpowder and ammunition imposed a severe constraint on Japan's ability to field arquebusier in large numbers, total number of guns produced, as well as the calibre of their guns. It was also one of the factors that prevented them from adopting heavy artillery on a large scale.In fact, Japan actually produced much less matchlock guns than Ming China, which had a, much larger manufacturing base, procured most raw materials domestically, and produced the same gun many times cheaper.『弓長七八尺，矢長四五尺，鏃之鐵者如飛尾，鏃之竹者如長槍；城外隔河而射，中城內屋，釘瓦入椽，而沒鏃矢。』— Cai Jiu De (採九德), in his book Wo Bian Shi Lue (《倭變事略》).『大端倭、虜矢皆重，弓皆勁，發皆不遠，不輕發，發必中人，中者必斃，故人畏之。』— Qi Ji Guang (戚繼光), in second edition Ji Xiao Xin Shu (《紀效新書》).A warbow can be made as strong as it needs to be, limited only by the strength and training of its wielder. Given similar draw weight, a Japanese bow will outperform a yew bow handily due to its laminated construction, recurve design and significantly longer draw length (which can be as long as!).It is evidently clear that Japanese bow, with its large size and heavy limbs, is optimised towards launching heavy, armour piercing arrows with devastating power, but with slower arrow speed and relatively short range. True to this regard, Japanese arrows are some of the longest and heaviest in the world. These heavy arrows in turn require bows of very high draw weight in order to achieve optimum performance.Nevertheless, one should be reminded that Japanese bow is only considered short ranged in relative to range-optimised bows of neighbouring cultures such as Korean bow. It can still propel an arrow to a range of, as was done in historicalarchery contest (modern version of the contest halves the range). With proper flight arrow, Japanese bow had been demonstrated to be able to shoot as far as(which is impressive for such a large bow, but still no match for the likes of Turkish bow). Such extreme range was never considered practical on the battlefield, however.Contrary to popular misconception, Japanese warbow was primarily used as foot bow like its European counterpart. Japanese were never good horsemen to begin with, and while early samurai were horse archers, they only comprised a relatively tiny portion of their army. After the, even samurai abandoned horse archery in favour of foot archery and close combat.Thus, compared to English longbowmen that consisted of mostly yeomen and some noble's household retainers, samurai foot archers had access to equipment of higher quality, livelong rigorous training in archery, frequent recreational bowhunting to hone their skill, and most probably better nutrition and standard of living. Since samurai had to prepare their own equipment, it stands to no reason that samurai archers were unable to, or intentionally chose to not, use the best warbows with the highest practical draw weight within their capability.Ming period Chinese records frequently mention the terrifying power of Japanese bows and arrows, having experienced its effectiveness first-hand through the Wokou. Japanese sources in turn mention exceptionally powerful warbows such as(三人張り),(四人張り) and(五人張り), bows that require three, four and five person just to string it, respectively (note that due to the massive size and asymmetrical shape of Japanese bow, its stringing method is different from most other bows). Modern estimates put the draw weight of sannin-bari in the range between 80 pounds and 140 pounds.As a side note, proper name for Japanese bow is(わきゅう or 和弓, Japanese bow).(ゆみ or 弓) just means bow in general.『夫狼筅旁枝一十有三層，可以禦矢、可以禦馬、可以禦滾刀、可以禦長槍，器之至善者也；但笨重不能殺人，是其所短。』— Wu Shu (吴殳), in his martial arts treatise Shou Bi Lu (《手臂錄》).The successful employment of Lang Xian in Qi Ji Guang's famoushas led many to believe that Qi Ji Guang invented/improvised the weapon for poorly-trained militiamen in order to counter the deadly Japanese sword (also see Myth 3 above). This cannot be further from the truth, as Lang Xian was already in use for almost a century before Wokou became a serious threat. Moreover, despite its unassuming appearance, Lang Xian is not an improvised weapon, but a purpose-made one.While Lang Xian is certainly an effective counter to Japanese sword, it wasn't specifically designed for this role. In fact, it is effective against pretty much every cold weapon by virtue of being a defensive weapon.