Boundaries and Beyond

Front matter

China’s Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times

Ng Chin-keong

China’s Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times

Part Two: Between “Us” and “Them”

2. Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and Haifang (Coastal Defense) during the Late Ming and High Qing

4. Treaties, Politics and the Limits of Local Diplomacy in Fuzhou in the Early 1850s

5: “Shooting the Eagle”: Lin Changyi’s Agony in the Wake of the Opium War

6. Information and Knowledge: Qing China’s Perceptions of the Maritime World in the Eighteenth Century

Part Three: Pushing the Traditional Boundaries yA The Changing Landscape in Rural South Fujian in Late-Ming

Times: A Story ofthe “Little People” (1)

8. Gentry-Merchants and Peasant-Peddlers in Offshore Trading

Activities, 1522-66: A Story of the “Little People” (2)

9. Managing Maritime Affairs in Late-Ming Times vii vi Contents

10. Liturgical Services and Business Fortunes: Chinese Maritime Merchants in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

11. The Amoy Riots of 1852: Coolie Emigration and Sino-British Relations

Part Four: Transcending Borders

12. Expanding Possibilities: Revisiting the Min-Yue Junk-trade Enterprise on the China Coast and in the Nanyang during the Eighteenth to the Mid-nineteenth Centuries

13. The Case of Chen Yilao: Maritime Trade and Overseas Chinese in Qing Policies, 1717-54

14. “Are These Persons British or Chinese Subjects?” — Legal Principles and Ambiguities Regarding the Status of the Straits Chinese as Revealed in the Lee Shun Fah Affair in Amoy, 1847

Glossary of Chinese Characters Bibliography Index

469 474 496

List of Maps

The Asian Seas, Trading Regions and the Silk Road in Historical Perspective XV

China Coast and Trading Ports (Sixteenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries) xvi

Maritime East Asia and Trading Ports/Regions in Historical Perspective xvii vii

Preface

This collection includes 14 selected essays on maritime China in Late Imperial times. The three earliest pieces originate from a Master’s thesis that was written in 1970 and the most recent pieces are the English versions of two conference papers presented in 2010 and 2013 respectively at the National Cheng-kung University of Taiwan. The rest were published in the 1990s and 2000s. The main title of the volume “Boundaries and Beyond” provides some sort of frame of unity for the different topics.

My choice of the word “boundaries” as a concept has been inspired by John Hay’s ideas in his introduction to the edited volume Boundaries in China. Hay mentions all sorts of boundaries that have been “drawn for specific purposes, demarcating particular regimes of powers.... The demarcations are erected as barriers...” Ritual is a good example. While its principal purpose is for “the maintenance of stability in a system”, it can also be seen “as a dynamic system, rather than simply as a frozen body of pre/proscription”. The former situation “inherently sets it against the forces of change”. However, “its inception ... is a reaction to those forces, which are therefore always implicit in it. Ritual is not ‘non-change’, but rises to demarcate a fundamental boundary between stability and instability.”

The main heading of the book title, “Boundaries and Beyond”, highlights the two contesting forces of continuities and discontinuities that characterized China’s maritime southeast in late imperial times. Boundaries were in the process of shifting. They were there for the purpose of maintaining stability, status quo, or law and order. The state prescribed which occupations were perceived to be fundamental and which secondary. Besides this function, boundaries also worked to protect the powerful, the wealthy or the interest groups who often had the privilege of setting the boundaries to prevent others from inflicting harm and destruction upon them. There were also boundaries of activity set to demarcate the land and the sea and between “us” and “them”. In actuality, boundaries were not strict demarcations separating the space within them from that outside them. Boundaries were in a state of flux, driven by the emerging socioeconomic forces and hence embodied dualistic characters of “tradition” and “change”.

1. Boundaries in China, ed. John Hay (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 1994), pp. 8-9.

ix

X Preface

In accordance with the content of each topic, the 14 chapters are grouped into four parts. Part One provides a long view of the development of maritime East Asia. It places China’s southeastern coast in late imperial times in the broad perspective of maritime East Asia and the Asian Seas over a long period of some two thousand years. One salient feature of this maritime world was its flexibility and inclusiveness, allowing people from within or without to assume different roles as commodity producers, traders, shippers, cargo carriers or consumers in the long-distance shipping trade. Part Two depicts the orthodox perceptions of viewing and responding to the changes or challenges. Part Three reviews the undercurrent of social and economic forces that had the effect of modifying the existing boundaries. Part Four examines the transnational movements crossing the borders, altering the status quo and creating new types of boundaries.

Parts Two to Four are arranged under three sub-themes that seem to indicate a chronological sequence of movement in three stages from tradition toward change. In fact, they illustrate a continuous process of interactions throughout late imperial times between the status quo and challenges as shown in all the chapters. In other words, status quo and change did not preclude each other, rather, both were responding to the current social and economic forces. Although tradition remained strong, change was also occurring all the time, either in the form of a deep undercurrent or as an increasingly visible phenomenon.

As regards the conventions, the volume uses Pinyin romanization and simplified Chinese characters in general for the Chinese terms or publication titles. However, the Wade-Giles or dialect-pronounced names are kept in accordance to the scholars’ own preference. An older form of romanization is applied to a few Chinese place names, such as Amoy, Soochow and Canton that were commonly used in the older western writings. There is also no conversion to Pinyin for such place names as Taipei that follow the local usage. For the Chinese characters in the article or book titles, the complex form of characters is kept for the pre- 1949 publications, the historical texts of Imperial times or the printed materials from outside mainland China. Place names in Southeast Asia are as complicated. In general, names that have long been used in the past in English literature have been chosen. Among them are the Moluccus, Celebes, Bantam and Malacca. When discussing shipping trade in the Malay world, however, either the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago or the Indonesian Archipelago are the terms used depending on the geographical extent of the activity. When it comes to the modern period, the more familiar term in western writings, the Indian Archipelago, is also used.

No attempt has been made to update the contents of the essays to accommodate later works by other scholars. Other than the editorial refinement, the essays are kept in their original form and style.

Acknowledgments

Chronological Table of Chapters

Date Title Source

1970 | Managing maritime affairs in | An outgrowth of a chapter late Ming times in my MA thesis written in

1970. The thesis chapter was reproduced in Nanyang University Journal, no. 5 (1971): 81-100.

1970 |The changing landscape in An outgrowth of a chapter rural south Fujian in late- in my MA thesis written in Ming times: A story of the 1970. The thesis chapter “little people”(1) was reproduced in Nanyang

University Journal, no. 6 (1972): 189-213.

1970 Gentry-merchants and An outgrowth of a chapter peasant-peddlers in offshore |in my MA thesis written in trading activities, 1522-66: A | 1970. The thesis chapter story of the “little people’(2) | was reproduced in Nanyang

University Journal, no. 7 (1973): 161-75. 1991 |The case of Chen Yilao: First published in

Maritime trade and overseas Chinese in Qing policies, 1717-54

Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, C. 1400- 1750, ed. Roderich Ptak

and Dietmar Rothermund.

Stuttgard: Franz Steiner Verlag for Sudasien-Institut, Universitat Heidelberg, xi xii Acknowledgments

1994 | Liturgical services and First published in Maritime business fortunes: Chinese Asia: Profit Maximisation, maritime merchants in Ethics and Trade Structure c. the eighteenth and early 1300-1800, ed. Karl Anton nineteenth centuries Sprengard and Roderich Ptak.

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 75-96.

1995 |The Amoy riots of 1852: First published in Mariners, Coolie emigration and Sino- | Merchants and Oceans: Studies British relations in Maritime History, ed. K.S.

Mathew. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors, pp. 419-46.

1995 | Trade, the sea prohibition and | First published in The

the “Folangji”, 1513-50 Portuguese and the Pacific, ed. Francis A. Dutra and Joao Camilo dos Santos.

Santa Barbara: Center for Portuguese Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, pp. 381-424.

1997 _| Maritime frontiers, territorial | First published in China and expansion and haifang Her Neighbours: Borders, (coastal defense) during the | Visions of the Others, late Ming and high Qing Foreign Policy (10th to 19th

Century), ed. Roderich Ptak.

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 211-57.

2001 “Are these persons British or |A rewritten version ofa Chinese subjects?”—Legal paper presented in 2001 at principles and ambiguities the Workshop on “China and regarding the status of the Southeast Asia: Historical Straits Chinese as revealed Interactions”, held at the in the Lee Shun Fah affairin | Centre of Asian Studies, Amoy, 1847 University of Hong Kong.

Acknowledgments xiii

2003 | Treaties, politics and the First published in Power limits of local diplomacy in and Identity in the Chinese Fuzhou in the early 1850s World Order, ed. Billy So, John

Fitzgerald, Huang Jianli, and James Chin Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 239-67.

2004 ‘| “Shooting the eagle”: Lin First published in Maritime Changyi’s agony in the wake China and Overseas Chinese of the Opium War in Transition, 1750-1850,

ed. Wang Gungwu and Ng Chin-keong. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 373-86.

2007 |Information and knowledge: | First published in The East Qing China’s perceptions of |Asian Maritime World, 1400- the maritime world in the 1800: Its Fabrics of Power eighteenth century and Dynamics of Exchanges,

ed. Angela Schottenhammer.

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 87-98.

2012 Expanding possibilities: The essay originates from a

Revisiting the Min-Yue junk-trade enterprise on the China coast and in the Nanyang during the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries

Chinese version published in Haigang, Hainan, haidao: Haiyang shi lunwen ji WY- HEMET YS: ETERRA

£2 (Ports, shipwrecks and Piracy: Collected essays on ocean cultures), ed. Cheng Wing Sheung %57k i. Tainan: The Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, pp. 25-70.

xiv Acknowledgements

2015 Commodity and market: The essay originates from a Structure of the Long- Chinese version published distance trade in the East in Dongya haiyu wangluo yu Asian Seas and beyond gangshi shehui lunwenji R 2 prior to the early nineteenth | jak ANAS BLE TH tk @ aM CHE century (Collected essays on networks and port communities of Maritime East Asia), ed.

Cheng Wing Sheung. Tainan: The Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, NCKU.

As indicated above, I would like to record my thanks to Harrassowitz Verlag, Franz Steiner Verlag, Hong Kong University Press, Professor Jodo Camilo dos Santos at the Center for Portuguese Studies, UCSB, Professor Dr K.S. Mathew, and Professor Tai Hua at the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Cheng Kung University for granting me their kind permission to include in the present volume my essays that first appeared in the volumes published/edited by them.

I would like to thank many colleagues and friends who have helped me in one way or another in the publication of the present volume. They have been unsparing of their time either in responding to my queries about a number of references that I use in footnotes, or helping verify their authors, the exact Chinese/Japanese titles or other publication information. They include Akira Matsuura, Ei Murakami, K.C. Yap, Kai-Yiu Chan, Su Hsia Yang, Koh Keng We, Clement Liew, Wee Tong Bao, Shenqi Shu, and Apicha Chutipongpisit. | am grateful to Christine Chan who was a great help in drawing the three maps for the book. Thanks to Roderich Ptak, Dietmar Rothermund, Karl Anton Sprengard, Angela Schottenhammer, Francis A. Dutra, Jodo Camilo dos Santos, K.S. Mathew, Cheng Wing Sheung, Billy So, John Fitzgerald, Huang Jianli, and James Chin Kong for the original publication of my papers in their edited volumes. I am indebted to Kwan Siu-hing who kindly read and commented on Chapter 13. Matthew Piscioneri and Rosemary Robson greatly contributed to the refinement of the text. The Chinese characters WEHE (genghai, or “ploughing the sea”) depict how the Chinese seafarers from China’s southeast had for centuries perceived their maritime life. It is a great honor that Mr Shen Yunzhi, a South Fujianese calligrapher from Zhao’an, agrees to grace the page with his elegant brush writing. I must thank Shen Huifen for introducing Mr Shen to me. Last but not least, | want to express my appreciation to NUS Press for publishing this collection of my selected works. My thanks go to Peter Schoppert, Paul Kratoska and Qua Lena at the Press. While Peter keenly supported the project, Paul offered his useful suggestions and Lena ably guided the production process.

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Map 3: Maritime East Asia and Trading Ports/Regions in Historical

Perspective

PART ONE Maritime East Asia in Historical Perspective

Chapter 1 provides a panoramic view to put the chapters in Parts Two to Four in a broader context. It surveys the development and sustainability of long-distance shipping trade in the East Asian Seas and the western part of the Asian Seas. The geographical unity of maritime East Asia is illustrated by the popular participation of its people and also viewed from the port-to-port as well as port-to-hinterland linkages. With the arrival of the western Europeans in Asian waters in the closing years of the fifteenth century, maritime trade in the Asian Seas entered into a global age.

Chapter 1

Commodity and Market: Structure of the Long-distance Trade in the East Asian Seas and Beyond Prior to the Early Nineteenth Century

Introduction: Studies on Maritime History

Maritime East Asia as a geographical concept has been gaining acceptance among scholars in recent years.' It covers the two maritime spaces of Northeast and Southeast Asia. Examining Fernand Braudel’s depiction of the Mediterranean Sea, one finds the same situation that enables the concept to be borrowed: the area of the East Asian Seas encircled by their surrounding lands “is not even a single sea, it is a complex of seas; and these seas are broken up by islands, interrupted by peninsulas, ringed by intricate coastlines”.’ For centuries, shipping trade had facilitated connections between the northern and southern parts of the East Asian Seas. Unquestionably the littoral populations around the connected seas

1. See, for example, Ch’en Kuo-tung Bi BI PR, Dongya haiyu yigian nian W mik — TÆ [One thousand years of the East Asian Seas] (Taipei: Yuanliu chubanshe, 2005). The author treats the East Asian Seas as a unit; Takeshi Hamashita YAR I, “Haiyu yazhou yu gangkou wangluo de lishi bianqian: 15-19 shiji” WR TE UNGA 1 A AK (YY RE SE SIE: 15-191 AC [The historical change in maritime Asia and networks of port cities], in Haiyang shi congshu 1 W$ RES 1 [Maritime history series 1]: Gangkou chengshi yu maoyi wangluo % OJ} T HR AAS 28 [Port cities and trading networks] (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2012). In the paper, Hamashita surveys the political, trading and cultural interactions in the East Asian Seas; and Francois Gipouloux, The Asian Mediterranean: Port Cities and Trading Networks in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, 13th-21st Centuries (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011), that sees the East Asian Seas as the Asian Mediterranean.

2. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Sian Reynolds (London: Harper & Row, 1972), Vol. 1, p. 17.

were the direct beneficiaries of the common economic activity. In fact, in one way or another the producers of trade goods, traders and consumers in the hinterlands and seafarers were all interrelated in the trade. In this sense, the boundary of maritime East Asia consists of both the seas and lands of the two regions that form a coherent geographical entity.

Studies on maritime regions often refer to the ideas of both Fernand Braudel (1902-85) and K.N. Chaudhuri, who published their respective works in 1949 and 1985. “The idea that the study of a civilization might be named after a sea originated with Fernand Braudel”, as his admirer K.N. Chaudhuri remarks in the very first sentence of his own book.” Writing in the preface to his English edition in 1972, Braudel highlights one salient feature of the sea that embraces both plurality and unity when he says that, “[t]he Mediterranean speaks with many voices; it is a sum of individual histories”.* Despite the different cultures and religions, the Mediterranean regions embodied their unity and coherence because “the Turkish Mediterranean lived and breathed with the same rhythms as the Christian, [so] that the whole sea shared a common destiny”.® He believes that, “history cannot be really understood unless it is extended to cover the entire human past”. One must take the journey “through the long expanse of history”. In other words, such a history “could only be written in the longue durée and from a long perspective”. The long view allows one to discover that, “all change is slow, a history of constant repetition, ever-recurring cycles”.° The Mediterranean must be viewed in its broadest geographical context because “Mediterranean history is an aspect of world history”."° Among other points, Braudel emphasizes the importance of exchange, especially long-distance exchange: “It is imbalance that creates exchange and therefore leads to progress.”

The second of these two influential works on maritime civilization is the book by K.N. Chaudhuri. The author was fascinated by Braudel’s

3. K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 1. 4. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, p. 13. 5. Ibid., p. 14. 6. Fernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. xxv. 7. Ibid. 8. See Oswyn Murray, “Introduction” to Fernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean, p. xvii. 9. Braudel, Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, p. 20. 10. See Murray, “Introduction”, p. xix. 11. Ibid., pp. xix-xx.

triple analytical foundations, namely: time, space and structure.” He proposes to explore “the unity and diversity of Indian Ocean civilizations through the study of long-distance trade”.* Studying the topic has enabled him to discover that, “the sea which washed the desolate beaches of Suez or the marshes around Basra provided an unbroken means of travel all the way to China”, and that the myriads of traders, commodities and markets along the way are the best manifestation of diversity and unity.”

A large number of the studies on the various aspects of the subject have been produced on maritime trade in East Asian waters. To build on this large body of scholarship, the present survey attempts to track the long historical development of maritime trade in the East Asian Seas up to the early decades of the nineteenth century when the European powers began to attain dominance. Attempts will also be made to clarify a few contending interpretations in the different writings. The discussion revolves around the structure of long-distance trade as seen in the movement of commodities from their areas of production to their end-markets. Without doubt, commodity and market are two propelling engines of long-distance trade. However, the movement of commodities from the area in which they are produced to their end-market does not necessarily imply a process of direct shipment. Often, the commodities were sent through transfer stations and transshipment centers. When describing the trade movement from the Red Sea to South China in early times, Paul Wheatley observes, “Possibly this would be better described as a series of trade-routes, for during this period no one group of merchants operated throughout its length and no one category of merchandise travelled from end to end.” His depiction of long-distance maritime trade holds good for the developments over many centuries thereafter. In other words, the merchandise was brought to the transfer station to be transshipped to the designated market. This was a salient feature of the structure of long-distance trade. This structure is considered to mean the different composite segments within which the trade is operated. In other words, long-distance trade contains several layers in its structure, namely: (1) the local layer of activity of gathering merchandise from its production-area, often by small traders

12. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean, p. 2.

13. Ibid.

15. Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese:Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Geography before AD 1500 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1961), p. 282.

or peddlers; (2) the regional layer of transferring the merchandise to the transshipment center or entrepôt; and (3) the linkages between the transshipment center and the end-market that were operated by other groups of maritime merchants and inland traders. In short, the whole process involved a multitude of trading groups and complex operations.'®

The Asian Waters by the Fifteenth Century: The Nanhai Factor

For many centuries, the maritime trade of East Asia thrived, teeming with activity carried out on a sustainable level. The southern segment of maritime East Asia, known as the Nanhai (the South Seas, or Maritime Southeast Asia) in the ancient Chinese texts, played an indispensable role in the long-distance trade in Asian waters throughout the period in question. For some 1,500 years, this trade was a considerable factor in contributing to the successive emergence in the Nanhai of various maritime and regional powers, characterized by their ability to exert dominance over large areas within their sphere of influence and control their strategic maritime trade routes.

Catalyst of Long-distance Trade: Commodities and Markets

As Anthony Reid observes, “Southeast Asia’s products found their way into world markets very early.” Among its major exports were cloves, nutmeg, pepper, aromatic woods, gums, resins, products of forestdwelling fauna and the harvest of the sea.'® From China came handicraft products, including silks, ceramics and metal-ware. In K.N. Chaudhuri’s words, the medieval trade of Asia was really founded by the demand for

16. Not only the long-distance trade along the sea routes experienced the multilayered structure and a multitude of participants; one sees a similar structure in inland long-distance trade. One example is the case of eighteenth-century China. William T. Rowe mentions the four-level structure of the commodity circulation. See his “Domestic Interregional Trade in Eighteenth-century China”, in On the Eighteenth Century as a Category of Asian History: Van Leur in Retrospect, ed. Leonard Blusse and Femme Gaastra (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Co., 1998), pp. 186-7.

17. Anthony Reid, “Humans and Forests in Pre-colonial Southeast Asia”, in Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Richard H. Grove, et al. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 112.

the four great products of East Asia, namely, sandalwood, black pepper, silk and porcelain.’

The most important regional market for Nanhai products was the populous country of China that had augmented its demand in the fifth and sixth centuries, a period which saw the growth of Buddhism. This growth resulted in a shift in market demand from supplying the needs of the imperial courtand high officials to meeting the demand of worshippers in other urban centers outside the imperial capital. Consequently, there was a surge in the import of such “holy accoutrements” as incense (gaharu wood), ivory and sandalwood stupas and statues, and glass vessels used in temple rituals, as described by Wang Gungwu.” By the Tang (AD 618-907) and Song (AD 960-1279) dynasties, the Chinese were kept busy acquiring a great variety of the Nanhai products to meet the demand from a population of diverse social levels. As Paul Wheatley observes, “An inventory compiled in 1141 listed no less than 339 items of import, of which the most important both by value and volume were aromatics and drugs.’ Many traders from South and West Asia also came to procure these products.

Prior to the sixteenth century, pepper was one of the most valued commodities imported into China. In fact, the country had become the largest market for pepper in the world not later than the Yuan period (AD 1271-1368). Observations made by Marco Polo are most revealing: “[F]or one shipload of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there come a hundred such, aye and more too, to this haven of Zayton (that is, Quanzhou in Fujian on the southeast coast of China), for it is one of the two greatest havens in the world of commerce.” On account of the large quantity imported, pepper had entered into the daily life of the general populace. Writing in the period AD 1512-15, Tomé Pires (AD 1468-1540) observed that the chief merchandise being exported to China from Malacca (Melaka) was pepper. “[T]hey will buy ten junk-loads a year.”” Similarly, T’ien Ju-k’ang

19. K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean, p. 39.

20. Wang Gungwu, “The Nanhai Trade: A Study of the Early History of Chinese Trade in the South China Sea”, Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society 30, 2 (1958): 53.

21. Paul Wheatley, “Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade”, Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society 32, 2 (1959): 31.

22. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, trans. and ed. Henry Yule (3rd ed.; London: John Murray, 1929), Vol. 2, p. 235.

23. The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: An Account of the East, From the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, trans. Armando Cortesao says, “In the 15th and 16th centuries, the average annual total amount of pepper purchased by the Chinese has been estimated at 50,000 bags, or two million catties; that is, almost equivalent to the total amount of pepper imported into Europe from the East in the first half of the 16th century.‘ Not surprisingly, the bulk of the pepper produced in Sumatra and West Java flowed into the huge market of Ming China (AD 1368-1644).

Among other Nanhai merchandise exported in large quantities to China from Malacca were cloves, incense, elephant tusks, tin, Borneo camphor, red beads, white sandalwood and the black wood that grows in Singapore, as reported by Tomé Pires.”°

A whole array of trade goods was shipped from China including such items as raw white silk, satins, damask, gauze, seed-pearls, musk, alum, saltpeter, sulfur, copper, iron, copper vases, cast-iron kettles, bowls, basins, boxes, fans, needles, brocades, ceramics, sugar and salt. Tomé Pires considered salt to be one of the great items of merchandise produced by China. Some 1,500 local junks would come to buy the item after it had arrived in the port and, in turn, they would distribute it in the surrounding region.”° Pires’ description of the junks arriving from China tallies well with the general pattern of their cargoes in the following centuries, goods that both catered to the high-end market and supplied the general populace with their daily necessities.

Ships, Navigators and Trade

The earliest record of long-distance seaborne trade between China and India via Southeast Asia comes from a Chinese dynastic history some 2,000 years ago. The passage is cited in full below:

From the barriers of Rinan, Xuwen and Hepu, it is about five months’ voyage to the country of Duyuan. It is about a further four months’ voyage to the country of Yilumo, and yet another twenty odd days’ voyage to the country of Shenli. It is rather

(London: The Hakluyt Society, 1944), Vol. 1, p. 123. Tomé Pires arrived in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1517 as the first Portuguese envoy to China.

24. T’ien Ju-kang, “Cheng Ho’s Voyages and the Distribution of Pepper in China’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, no. 2 (1981): 187. Pepper was the most valuable export to Europe from the mid-sixteenth century until the 1820s. See Southeast Asian Exports since the 14th Century: Cloves, Pepper, Coffee, and Sugar, comp. David Bulbeck, et al. (KITLV Press, Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1998), p.5.

25. The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, p.123.

more than ten days’ journey on foot to the country of Fukandulu, whence it is something over two months’ voyage to the country of Huangzhi. The customs of the people are rather similar to those of Zhuyai (Hainan). These countries are extensive, their populations numerous and their many products unfamiliar (rare and precious objects). Ever since the time of Emperor Wu [141-87 BC], they have offered tribute. There are chief-interpreters attached to the Yellow Gate who, together with volunteers, put out to sea to buy lustrous pearls, glass, rare stones and strange products in exchange for gold and various silks. All the countries they visit provide them with goods and companionship. The trading ships of the barbarians transfer [the Chinese] to their destination. It is a profitable business [for the barbarians], who also loot and kill. Moreover, there are the hazards of wind and wave to be encountered and [the possibility of] death by drowning. If these are avoided the outward and return voyages take several years. The large pearls are at the most two Chinese inches in circumference. During the Yuanshi period of Emperor Ping (AD 1-5), Wang Mang, [in his capacity] as counsellor, and desirous of manifesting the brilliance of his majestic virtue, sent rich gifts to the King of Huangzhi, at the same time commanding him to dispatch an embassy to present a live rhinoceros [as tribute]. From Huangzhi it is about eight months’ voyage to Pizong. It is about a further eight months’ voyage to the borders of Rinan and Xianglin. In the south of Huangzhi is the country of Sibucheng. From there the envoy and interpreters embarked on their return journey.””