down with relative ease. In 1554, the provincial authorities entered into an historic agreement with the Portuguese — who came back to Guangdong after their misfortunes at Zhejiang and Fujian — where the Portuguese would be allowed to settle in Macau and trade in Guangzhou for an annual fee. The Portuguese would thence help the Ming destroy pirate fleets in the area, for which they were eventually rewarded with the imperial acknowledgement of their occupation of Macau by the Wanli Emperor (r. 1563-1620). This occupation lasted all the way until 1999, when Macau was handed over to the People's Republic of China. A few months after the death of the Jiajing Emperor in 1567, the maritime prohibition was officially lifted and Fujian became open to all foreign trade (except the Japanese). The old smuggling port of Yuegang ("Moon Harbour") was renamed to Haicheng (海澄, "clear seas") and was designated the port where this trade was to be conducted in Fujian. Trade with the Japanese, which was expressly forbidden due to their perceived role in the wokou raids, was eventually conducted in third party entities like the Ryukyu Kingdom and Portuguese Macau, which greatly prospered from being the intermediary between Chinese and Japanese merchants. Thus China was finally officially inducted into the global trading network that was being formed in the Age of Discovery. Historiography The study of the wokou, especially about their identity, had been controversial over the ages both domestically and internationally. Even whilst the crisis was ongoing in the 16th century, a number of officials had pointed out the inappropriateness of the term "wokou", which means Japanese pirates, to refer to a mostly Chinese phenomenon. Despite some commentators who made a point not to use the term, many had no issue calling all pirates "Wo" (Japanese). For soldiers, cutting off a Japanese head gave a better monetary reward from the government; and for local officials, pretending the pirates were Japanese made them an external problem beyond their responsibilities. Meanwhile, the actual pirates could likewise hide behind the "wokou" label and shift the blame to the Japanese. The Veritable Records of the Ming, from which the official History of Ming derived, treated the smugglers as pirates and identified the pro-trade ministers such as Yan Song and Zhao Wenhua as "Wo collaborators", leading to the History of Ming placing their biographies under the section "Treacherous Ministers" (奸臣傳). The compiler of