Wang Zhi
?–1559
The pirate-merchant king who piloted the Portuguese to Japan
Also written: Wang Zhi · 王直
Chinese smuggler-lord of the wakō trade world, based in the Gotō islands and Hirado, whose junk carried the first Portuguese to Tanegashima in 1543. For a decade he was the indispensable middleman of the China–Japan trade the Ming had outlawed — until he was lured back to China under promise of pardon and executed in 1559.
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