Ye Ziqi (fl. 1327-1390) was a polymath who lived in reclusion during the Yuan-Ming transition and then held a low-level government position in Hunan in 1375-1378. He was wrongfully imprisoned in 1378 and began writing the notebook Caomuzi in jail, then finished it after his release. The book’s contents range widely in subject matter, reflecting the breadth of his interests and knowledge.

The passage below comments on the popularity of Korean women as concubines and slaves in Yuan China, which is well-attested from other sources.¹ But the use of black slaves or servants is not mentioned in any other Yuan or Ming text, and it remains unclear whether they were from Southeast Asia, Melanesia, or Africa.

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The northerners (Mongols) always used virgins from Goryeo as maids, and black boys as servants. If anyone failed to do so, others would say that he did not look like a member of the official class.

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1. See, e.g., David M. Robinson, Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009),52-56. ↩︎