Limahong
| Lim Hong | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 林鳳 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 林凤 | ||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Lín Fèng |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | Lîm-Hong |
Lim Hong (Chinese: 林鳳), well known as Ah Hong (Chinese: 阿鳳) or Lim-A-Hong (Chinese: 林阿鳳), was a Chinese pirate and warlord who invaded the northern Philippine Islands in 1574. He built up a reputation for his constant raids to ports in Guangdong, Fujian and southern China. He is noted to have twice attempted, and failed, to overthrow the Spanish city of Manila in 1574.
Born to a poor family in the city Raoping of Chaozhou, Limahong had an early start in criminal activity and progressed to piracy, becoming leader of around 2000 pirates. His activities and attacks on ports and ships throughout southern China increased and a warrant was issued by the authorities to capture him alive and send him to the city of Tay Bin. He was married to Nataracy.
He shifted his activities to piracy on the high seas and out of reach of China's power. He was able to accumulate up to 40 ships, whereupon he once again raided cities and ports in southern China. Limahong attacked a city occupied by Vintoquián (Lin Daoqian), another Chinese pirate, but Vintoquián was able to escape along with 5 of Limahong's ships. However, Limahong was able to capture 55 of Vintoquián's fleet and thus increased his own to 95 ships. He was now a veritable king of the high seas of southern China.
In late 1573, he gathered an army of 3,000 Chinese warriors, renegades and vagabonds and fled to the island of Luzon. There, he and his band of outlaws sought refuge, established their own kingdom and waged war with the Spaniards.
...
Wikipedia