How the Maritime World Shaped Modern China

"In June 2005 the Asian Civilisation Museum in Singapore exhibited

some four hundred ceramics which had been recovered from the old-est
shipwreck found in Southeast Asia. The ceramics bore no resemblance
to the familiar blue and white Ming and Qing porcelain, nor did they look
like the rarer white Song and Yuan ware. Made in a kiln in Changsha in
the Tang dynasty (618-906), these were the long-vanished Changsha
ceramics. Named the 'Tang cargo' by excavators and archaeologists,
these fascinating ceramics were shipped from the city of Yangzhou, on
the banks of the Grand Canal in northeast interior China. In other words,
these wares had arrived in Yangzhou for export after having been
transported over long distances from south central China via the Xiang
and Yangzi Rivers. What is more, the Changsha ceramics - some intact
after nearly 1400 years buried under the sea - were contained in large
jars which had been made in Vietnam. They were painted with Arabic
characters and clearly destined for Arabia. The vessel itself bears the
hallmarks of Arabic shipping technology, while the wood used to build
the ship was from India.*
[* Simon Worrall, 'China Made: A 1,200-year-old Shipwreck Opens a
Window on the Ancient Global Trade (Photographs by Tony Law)',
National Geographic 215, 6 (June 2009): 112-22.]
The 'Tang cargo' raises a number of complex questions about the nature
of trade in this period. Why were they exported from Yangzhou rather
than from Guangzhou, which is much closer to Changsha and has
excellent access to the sea? How did a small and obscure kiln in an
inland south-central province come to produce wares for the most
powerful empire on earth in the eighth century? What kind of multi-
national commercial and financial networks were in place to facilitate
such cross-regional long distance trade? Was Arabic the lingua franca of
the transaction?
The story of the 'Tang cargo' lends force to the new perspective
developed in this book, which seeks to cast light on China's relationship
with the maritime world. Generations of Chinese scholars have made
China synonymous with the Great Wall and presented her civilization as
fundamentally land-bound. This volume demonstrates that China was not
a 'Walled Kingdom', certainly not during or ever since the Tang era.*
China reached out to the maritime world far more actively than historians
have allowed, while the seas shaped China in ways which have been
obscured by the assumption that her world-view was narrowly
continental. My aim is to integrate knowledge of the maritime history of
China, a subject which has hitherto languished on the periphery of
scholarly analysis, into the mainstream of current historical narrative.
[* Witold Rodzinski, The Walled Kingdom: A History of China from
2000BC to the Present (London: Fontana, 1985). For more on the
importance of the Tang as a turning point, see Hugh R. Clark,
Community, Trade, and Networks: Southern Fujian Province from the
Third to the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991), pp. 19-37.]
More specifically, this volume examines the maritime world to enhance
our understanding of Chinese history in the Qing era. Placing the seas at
the centre of the narrative and using the oceans to elucidate the
complexity of Chinese history, it highlights the importance of the maritime
world to the political outlook, economic policy, court life and consumer
culture of the Qing. In doing so, it exposes fundamental problems which
have characterised much of the previous scholarship on Chinese history,
as exemplified by John K. Fairbank's final book. According to Fairbank:
'The contrast between Maritime China and Continental China was
almost as great as that between China and Inner Asia. Few classically
educated chroniclers, concentrated as they were upon imperial
government, ever went to sea. Chinese seafarers did not write memoirs.
Because the sea, unlike the steppe, did not harbour rivals for power, it
had been given little importance in Chinese history. Yet Chinese life from
the start had had a maritime wing more or less equal and opposite to the
Inner Asia wing.'*
[* John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History
(Cambridge and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2001), p. 191.]
While Fairbank notes that the seas have 'been given little importance in
Chinese history', the explanations he advances for this neglect are
unsatisfactory. First, the suggestion that imperial governments were
uninterested in the seas and that Chinese seafarers did not leave
memoirs of their ocean-going experiences is simply unfounded. Imperial
dynasties from the time of the Qin and the Three Kingdoms to the time of
the Song and Ming dynasties commissioned sea voyages that were
recorded and are still considered epic today.
Amongst the rich store of seafaring memoirs which have been
bequeathed to us are the early writings of Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, two
envoys sent to Southeast Asia by Sun Quan, the King of Wu, during the
Three Kingdoms period (220-280). Some time later, Fa Xian (334-420), a
monk who sought the wisdom of Buddha, detailed his journey to and
from India by land and sea respectively. During the Song and Yuan
dynasties (960-1367), diplomats such as Zhou Daguan travelled to, and
were even stationed in, Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia,
and wrote extensively about the regions they encountered. Similarly, key
participants in the celebrated Zheng He voyages (1405-1433), Ma Huan,
Fei Xin and Gong Zhen, left remarkable accounts of their experiences in
foreign lands. Far from being obscure, these works have become the
most valuable - and sometimes the only - sources for the study of
Southeast Asia in this period.
Fairbank is also wrong to assume that China was unconcerned with the
seas because the oceans 'did not harbour rivals for power'. As will be
explained in Chapters One, Two and Three, both the Ming and Qing
were conscious of the dangers posed by enemies that could cross the
oceans, and both dynasties consequently placed bans on seafaring.
Fairbank's misconceived belief that the seas harboured no rivals to
China's power can also be found in the works of Matteo Ricci. Referring
to the 'enormous extent and renown' of the Chinese empire, Ricci
observed that:
'it is quite well protected on all sides, by defences supplied by both
nature and science. To the south and the east it is washed by the sea,
and the coast is dotted with so many small islands that it would be
difficult for a hostile fleet to approach the mainland.'*
[* China in the Sixteenth Century: the Journals of Matthew Ricci 1583-
1610 (New York: Random House, 1953), pp. 9-10.]
Contrary to such assertions, it must be pointed out that China's coast-
line has proved repeatedly vulnerable throughout history. The Ming
dynasty is a good example, as Japanese pirates and the Portuguese
found China's coast an easy target, while the Spainish even
contemplated a quick invasion from the seas.* In the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth century the naval weakness of China was mocked by
observers such as George Anson and Peter Auber, who remarked that
the Chinese had 'lost the war-like character which their primi-tive
ancestors might have possessed' and were lacking in 'the art of
navigating ships at a distance from land'.** Similarly, Commander John
Elliot Bingham, who sailed up the river from the port of Tianjin towards
the capital Beijing during the Opium War, reported that:
'The coast had a wretched appearance from the boats, being nearly a
dead flat interspersed with small sand-hills, but not having a symptom of
vegetation to relieve the eye. On each side of the entrance of the river
there was an old and dilapidated fort, fast falling to decay. On the top of
the western one were several tents pitched; one of which was blue and
yellow, with a red triangular flag flying over it.'***
[* G. F. Hudson, Europe and China: a Survey of Their Relations from the
Earliest Times to 1800 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), p. 249.]
[** China: An Outline of its Government, Laws, and Policy (London:
Parbury & Allen, 1834), p. 62.]
[*** Narrative of the Expedition to China, from the Commencement of the
War to its Termination in 1842 (2 vols. London: Henry Colburn, 1842),
vol. 1, p. 217.]
Analyses of China's engagement with the seas are noticeably absent in
the otherwise wide-ranging accounts of China's history, and the failure to
incorporate maritime China within the historiography has led to neglect,
as noted by another eminent Chinese historian, John E. Wills Jr.: '[f]or
European and North American studies of China, maritime China, at least
before the great crisis of the late 1800s, has been a marginal topic'.* This
neglect cannot be justified or explained by a lack of source material;
rather, it exposes a dominant mode of thought that has permeated the
study of China ever since the first account of the country was published
by Juan González de Mendoza in 1585.** From the Jesuits and Joseph
Needham to Donald F. Lach and John Hobson, generations of scholars
have emphasised the great influence which the science, philosophy and
products of China have exerted on the rest of the world. The problem
with this perspective is that it has given rise to a Sino-centrism that has
encouraged a tendency to ignore the fact that the outside world shaped
China as well.
[* 'The South China Sea Is Not a Mediterranean: Implications for the
History of Chinese Foreign Relations', in Zhongguo Haiyang Fazhan shi
Lun-wen Ji Di Shi Ji, ed. Tang Xiyong (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan
haiyangshi yanjiu zhongxin, 2008), pp. 1-24.]
[** The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China (2 vols.
London: Hakluyt Society, 1853-54).]
The extent of this outside influence can hardly be overestimated: the
imports which arrived in China via the sea from the time of Yongjia
Disturbance in 311 onwards have been both diverse and powerfully
influential. They range from the religious creeds of Buddhism, Islam
and Christianity to addictive substances such as tobacco and opium;
from staples such as maize and foreign yams to clocks and bicycles;
from the cultural products of oil painting to the ideology of communism.
These foreign religions, smokes, foodstuff, scientific inventions, art
genres and systems of political thought were imported to China via the
seas in four distinct waves: the 'Age of Commerce' or the Ming wave, the
'Chinese Century' or the Qing wave, the Opium War wave and the Cold
War wave (which is not discussed in this volume).* Foreigners, and their
goods, science, art and ideas have significantly changed the course of
Chinese history, and have been of inestimable importance since the
Ming period.
[* Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988-1993) and Charting the Shape
of Early Modern Southeast Asia (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999),
pp. 241-43.]
The choice of the year 311 as the starting point for a study of China's
relationship with the seas might appear unusual, but 311 is a significant
year for a number of reasons. The Silk Road which emerged and thrived
during the Han dynasty (BC 206-AD 220) fell into a number of different
hands when the Han broke into the Three Kingdoms (220-280). The
bloody fight for China which continued into the following Western Jin
dynasty culminated in the Yongjia Disturbance in 311, when tens of
thousands of Chinese fled from north to south. The Disturbance initiated
the process which Harold Wiens refers to as 'China's March towards the
Tropics', and what C. F. FitzGerald labelled the 'southern expansion of
the Chinese people'. Although the Tang dynasty revived the Silk Road
when it took power in 618, the Battle of the River Talas in 751 saw the
route disintegrate again, as Tang troops lost their struggle against the
powerful Arab Abbasid Caliphate. This highway of commercial and
cultural exchange was to remain fragmented until the Mongols
temporarily consolidated the route in the course of their short-lived eight
decade rule in China.
 Mark E. Lewis's new book, China Between Empires: the Northern and
Southern Dynasties, lends force to my choice of the year 311. Lewis
points out that the Northern and Southern Dynasties period has been
'slighted' and relegated to a 'secondary status' in Chinese history. He
believes that 'the single most important development in the four centuries
between the Han and the Tang dynasties was the geographic redefinition
of China' and that 'the neglected four centuries between the Han and the
Tang left a profound, permanent impression on Chinese history.' Most
importantly, I would argue this impression forced China to rely on
overseas routes for trade, which gave rise to the 'Silk Road on the Sea'
and reinforced China's ties with the maritime world.
Following the Disturbance, the bulk of China's foreign trade with West
Asia, first in silk and later in porcelain, came by necessity to rely on a
new maritime route. The gradual and obscure process by which Chinese
trade switched from land to sea routes is unclear in its early stages in the
fourth century, but it becomes increasingly marked by the seventh
century. From the time of the Tang, foreign traders, tribute missions and
the creed of Islam began to arrive in China via the ocean as the Silk
Road on the Sea rose to prominence. The 'Tang cargo' is a defining
example of China's engagement with the maritime world which began in
the fourth century, intensified in the Song-Yuan period, and attained the
highest levels of significance during the Ming-Qing dynasties.
Twice as long as the Great Wall, China's 18,000km coastline was longer
than its land frontiers until the Qing (1644-1911) when the latter grew to
roughly 20,000km. The coast zigzags from the Liaodong-Shandong
peninsulas, through the East China Sea and Taiwan Strait, to the South
China Sea and the vicinity of the Gulf of Vietnam. The Great Wall did not
safeguard China, as it neither deterred nor prevented invasions; it only
made what was inside the Wall seemed more attractive. Likewise, the
seas that separated China from neighbours near and far only made what
lay beyond its shores more desirable. Frederick Mote has discussed the
way in which China can be, and was - at least during the early Ming -
considered a maritime power:
'An enduring misconception of Chinese history must be scuttled: China
has a very long and successful history as a maritime power. Many
Chinese do not understand that, nor do many in the West. To be sure,
China's was not much like the more familiar histories of other maritime
peoples, in that the Chinese state and its official policy relegated the
seafaring activities of China's coastal population to a third-rate place in
the nation's life. China did not think of those activities as offering a
seaborne extension of state power, unless Zheng He's great voyages in
the early fifteenth century provides a brief exception. Nor did any
Chinese government compete with neighbouring nations and commit its
energies to naval warfare over issues of dominance at sea. China
recognized seaborne international trade as a source of revenues, but it
rarely attempted to rationalise or maximize tariff income, and was quite
willing to forgo that source of state revenue entirely when attendant
issues intervened. All of those negative observations bear on the role of
the state in maritime warfare and commerce.'*
[* Imperial China 900-1800 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University
Press, 2003), pp. 717-19.]
China clearly had the capacity to become a great maritime power
throughout her history, but did not do so in the way Europeans did. As
Matteo Ricci explains, '[b]eyond the mountain range which hems in the
kingdom to the west, there exist only impoverished countries to which the
Chinese pay little or no attention, as they neither fear nor consider them
worth while annexing.' China's failure to develop as a maritime power
appears to me merely contingent; had the Koreans, the Filipinos or the
Indonesians challenged her as did the nomads from the north and the
west, China may well have fought back and dominated the seas, rather
than the landmass of Asia.
In asserting that the maritime history of China has been accorded 'little
importance' and has been unduly neglected, I do not mean to suggest
that scholars of China have not studied the subject at all. A number of
scholars have produced excellent work in this area, but their detailed and
industrious research into China's engagement with the seas has not
been integrated into mainstream narratives on Chi-nese history. Feng
Chengjun (1887-1946), Fang Hao (1910-1980), Cao Yonghe, Wang
Gungwu, and Takeshi Hamashita are amongst those who devoted their
careers to the study of maritime China. They have produced outstanding
works that shed light on the pattern and significance of Sino-foreign trade
and relations. The Zheng He voyages have been an abiding source of
fascination for many, while the infamous opium trade has inspired
scholars including H. B. Morse, Michael Greenberg, E. H. Pritchard and
many more. John K. Fairbank himself undertook research into Maritime
Customs and Inspector General Robert Hart towards the end of his life
and career. This work has been developed further by Hans van de Ven
and Robert Bickers in the Chinese Maritime Customs project.
Of those who work on China, John E. Wills, C. F. FitzGerald, Philip
Kuhn, Dian Murray and Sherman Cochran are amongst those who have
shown great interest in the dynamics between China and Southeast
Asia. Even the eminent Guo Tingyi, who is not known for his scholarship
on maritime China, highlighted the impact of the various sea voyages on
Chinese history, whereas Li Donghua has continued to help us better
understand China's maritime heritage. In the post-Mao era, maritime
China has generated new interest. In 1983 Academia Sinica launched a
maritime history project and has since published the proceedings of ten
conferences on the subject. On the mainland, Yang Guozhen has led the
effort to publish at least eight volumes on the history of maritime China.
This research has gone a long way towards illuminating various aspects
of China's maritime legacy. It has elucidated China's changing attitudes
towards the seas, her increasing understanding of the Indian Ocean, and
the impact of maritime disasters.
The lack of collective recognition of, and a coherent approach to,
China's maritime history continues to be reflected in erroneous
statements that distort understandings of the past as thousands of
students around the world undertake the study of China today:
'Trade relations between China and the West had increased
considerably from the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is
indisputable that the initiative in this development rested solely with the
latter. In view of the economic self-sufficiency of its immense empire, the
Ch'ing government had no particular interest in favouring a further growth
in foreign trade, which it regarded as of marginal importance...
Since 1757 the Ch'ing authorities restricted trade exclusively to Canton,
placing it in the hands of a small guild of merchants, the Cohong, which,
in effect, became a government-supervised monopoly.
The bulk of the China trade rested in British hands, with the East India
Company playing the principal role, until its demise in 1834...'*
[* Rodzinski, The Walled Kingdom, pp. 177-78.]
This volume attempts to redress these misconceptions about Chinese
history. It will demonstrate that Sino-foreign trade was not dominated or
primarily stimulated by Europeans. Trade certainly was not con-trolled by
the English East India Company, which languished in the shadow of the
Portuguese and Dutch for nearly two centuries. The European powers
fought against each other and the Asians in order to control Asian and
Chinese markets, a struggle for profit which continued over the centuries
and which economic historians recognise as the 'historical constant'.*
This volume will also reveal that the Qing were not resistant to contact
with Europeans, nor were they merely passive respondents to mounting
external pressures to trade. The Qing was eager to establish trading
networks as, far from being self-sufficient, foreign trade was vital to their
survival. It will be argued that the Qing's trade was not restricted
exclusively to Canton either before or after 1757, and while foreign trade
had been a government monopoly since the Han, this did not necessarily
hamper private trade. In fact, the reverse was true: government
monopoly emerged because of the challenge and competition from
private trade.
[* C. G. F. Simkin, The Traditional Trade of Asia (London, New York and
Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 251-60.]
This volume draws on materials held within several newly-released
archives, bundled manuscripts or freshly-printed documents made
available by Di Yi Lishi Dang'an Guan, or The Number One History
Archive in Beijing. They include: Neiwu Fu Guangchu Si Liu Ku Yuezhe
Dang, or The Monthly Register of the Six Banks in the Imperial
Household Department, and Qing Gong Neiwu Fu Zaoban Chu Dang'an
Zonghui, or The Complete Archive of the Royal Manufactory in the
Imperial Household Department. These archives contain detailed
information on the foreign products that were imported by the Qing court
and those made in the Royal Manufactories under the supervision of
Jesuit missionaries. As such, the records cast light on the nature and
scale of the Qing's foreign trade, but more importantly on the court's
fascination with, and increasing addiction to, foreign goods.
This volume proudly presents the Chinese Collection and other China-
related materials, such as the Melville Papers, found hidden at the John
Rylands Library at the University of Manchester. The Chinese collection
contains books dating back to the 1550s and drawings and images of
eighteenth-century China, including the extremely rare Copper
Engravings of the European Palaces in Yuan Ming Yuan. No historians
of China have ever written on these materials. This book also makes
better and more intensive use of old archival materials, such as the
Kangxi Chao Manwen Zhupi Zouzhe Quan Yi or The Complete
Translation of Kangxi Commented Memorials in Manchu. This volume
might be familiar to historians, but the entries which are of the greatest
importance to the present study, those relating to maritime affairs, have
been completely overlooked. I have read many Jesuit memoirs, and
every single memoir (more than forty in total) collected in the series
Qingdai Shiliao Biji, the majority of those collected in Mingdai Shiliao Bjii
and more relevantly those in the series Zhong Wai Jiaotong Shiji Cong-
can.
This volume also draws on the perspectives and research of scholars
who work on Southeast Asia. That the task of researching and writing
about maritime China has been taken up by generations of Southeast
Asian - rather than Chinese - historians is demonstrative of the impact
and consequences that China's maritime activities had for the region.
Southeast Asian historians have produced outstanding works of
scholarship on aspects of maritime China, from economic life to Diaspora
patterns, about which many Chinese historians are not aware. Their
research has shown that Southeast Asia acted as a 'Promised Land', and
sometimes a refuge, for many coastal Chinese, whose entrepreneurship
shaped the modern economies of the region.*
[* Yumio Sakurai, 'Eighteenth-Century Chinese Pioneers on the Water
Frontier of Indochina', in Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in
the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880, eds. Nola Cooke and Li Tana
(Singapore & Lanham [MD] & Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp.
35-52.]
This volume contains eight chapters. Chapter One, 'Facing the Seas',
charts the shifting attitudes of the various regimes towards the seas and
examines the mechanisms they put in place in order to control maritime
affairs, from the age of the Qin-Han to that of the Ming. It attempts to
reveal how successive dynasties faced the challenges posed by the seas
and exposes both the continuities and variations in the nature of Chinese
encounters with the maritime world. In adopting a longue durée
approach, this chapter highlights the special significance of the seas to
China under the Qing dynasty, which will be the focus of the following
seven chapters. Valerie Hanson has asserted that China faced 'West'
from 200 to 1000 and 'North' from 1000 to 1600; this chapter will argue
that China faced the oceans to the East and South too, and that at
certain points in her history China was focused almost exclusively on the
seas.* The maritime world was central to the search for the three
celestial islands that began with the First Emperor, and it gave birth to at
least one deity - Mazu, a goddess still worshipped in overseas
communities from the Straits of Malacca to Cape Town and the
Caribbean islands. It was the seas that made the Tang 'golden', the
Song 'China's greatest age', and spread the gospel of Ming China.
[* The Open Empire: a History of China to 1600 (New York: Norton,
2000).]
Chapter Two, 'Inconsistency of the Seas', focuses in detail on the ways
in which the Qing dynasty confronted the challenges posed by the seas.
It demonstrates that while the Manchus' basic instinct was to control the
maritime world and affairs as all previous regimes had done before them,
they nevertheless showed a degree of flexibility in their approach. A
preoccupation with national security initially necessitated bans on
maritime trade, as the seas were understood to harbour potential
enemies in the form of anti-Qing resistance led by Zheng Chenggong
and during the so-called 'Rites Controversy'. Nevertheless, the same
concern for stability forced the later relaxation of such restrictions as
China's population exploded and rice riots threatened the regime. The
Manchus were quick to adapt to contemporary exigencies.
Chapter Three, 'Feeding China', examines the methods adopted by the
Qing regime to procure foreign rice in order to feed the increasing
population of China. Although economic historians have explored the
methods used by the Qing to amass grain and facilitate its flow in the
empire, they have not written about the import of foreign rice and the
regime's promotion of miscellaneous grains, such as maize. This chapter
complements their research by adding a new dimension, specifically how
the Qing solicited rice from Siam. It is argued that without rice from
Southeast Asia, and in the absence of New World foodstuffs like maize,
which also came via Southeast Asia, neither China nor Southeast Asia
would be what they are today. The seas dictated Qing political outlook
and economic policy and also - more importantly - defined Qing high
culture, as will be demonstrated in Chapters Four and Five.
Chapter Four, 'Cette Merveilleuse Machine', focuses on the introduction
and naturalisation of European-made clocks in China. For the Jesuits,
mechanical inventions such as clocks manufactured in Europe were of
singular importance in opening up Ming China to Christendom, while
their successors during the Qing helped to indigenise such curios. The
nature of the Kangxi emperor's fondness for clocks differed markedly
from that of Wanli and Shunzhi. For Kangxi, the clock was not a mere
plaything but a tool with which he would discipline himself and instil order
among his officials. The power of this implementation was soon
recognised not only by ministers but also by eunuchs and merchants.
The social life of clocks in China is significant because they led to the
standardisation of time and laid a solid foundation for the coming
modernisation of China. More importantly, they stimulated a fascination
with European mechanics that would intensify during the reigns of the
Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors.
Chapter Five, 'Les Palais Européens', examines the construction and
decoration of the European palaces in the Garden of Perfect Brightness.
Designed and built by the Jesuits, they were adorned with furniture and
artefacts imported directly from Europe. The Qianlong emperor's
fondness for expensive and exotic things from Europe helped to blow the
Xi Yang Feng - the Wind of West Ocean when translated literally, Wind
of Europe once Europeans appeared in Asia, and Wind of the West after
the Opium Wars - that is, the Chinese preference for goods made
outside China, particularly in Europe, or the West. This is significant, as
China's elite prized foreign products and gloried in their use, a fashion
would emerge and engulf the entire country in the nineteenth century.
What came from the seas not only defined high culture, but also
consumer culture, and foretold the fate of the Qing dynasty, the focus of
Chapters Six and Seven.
Chapter Six, 'Wind of the West', details the consumer fascination with
yang huo or foreign stuff/goods, an obsession to which I first drew
attention in The Social Life of Opium in China. The nature of China's
foreign trade, which had catered to the court and elite since the Qin-Han,
changed during the late Ming, when imports began to increasingly
consist of large quantities of mundane consumer items. China's
population increase in this period created a greater demand not only for
more foodstuffs but also for more textiles, utensils and furniture. This
demand first emerged during the late Ming and fully materialised during
the mid-Qing, when the population exploded and urbanisation
accelerated. For the first time in history, China's foreign trade began to
respond to the demands of the consumer market. This is the most
important turning point in the economic history of China, but one which
has been ignored by historians thus far, another testimony to the lack of
interest in maritime China and its significance in the creation of Chinese
culture and civilisation.
 Chapter Seven, 'Pattern and Variation', examines the indigenisation of
four categories of foreign goods in Qing China. It focuses on the
imported textiles which the Chinese wore, the imported food and drinks
which they consumed, the imported styles of architecture which shaped
the houses the Chinese increasingly came to inhabit, and the imported
modes of transport by which they travelled. China had become
dependent on what maritime trade could provide to feed, clothe, house
and move its ever-increasing and urbanising population. Research into
the pattern and variation in the indigenisation of key foreign imports has
enabled me to delve deeply into the complexity of the Qing economy,
culture and society, and the consequences wrought by increased contact
and exchange with the maritime world. While European influence on
China had begun to surface during the late Ming and became
increasingly evident in the mid-Qing, Chinese influence on Europe also
began to accelerate in the eighteenth century.
Chapter Eight, 'Race for Oriental Opulence', traces Europe's fascination
with China from the Roman era to the eighteenth century, when it
flourished into the so-called Chinoiserie, a phenomenon comparable to
the Wind of the West which was concurrently blowing through China.
They are 'strange parallels', a term coined by another historian of
Southeast Asia, Victor Lieberman, in his effort to better analyse and
synthesise the trajectories of Asian and European histories.* For nearly
two thousand years, the exoticism and allure of China had stimulated the
imagination of Europeans. In the nineteenth century, however, as
Europeans increasingly encountered the realities of China,
disillusionment set in and admiration quickly transformed into criticism
and even outright hostility. The Qing dynasty was brought to its knees in
1842 and again in 1860 by a maritime power which it had kept at bay for
more than two centuries; it was ultimately overthrown in 1911 by forces
that came from the maritime world. Never before in the history of the
Middle Kingdom has a dynasty been overthrown by enemies from the
sea.
[* Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800-1830
(Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).]
It was in researching and writing The Social Life of Opium in China that I
first became aware of the vital importance of maritime China. The history
of China's engagement with the ocean is long and complex, and the
study of her maritime heritage represents a lifetime project. This volume
marks my small attempt to continue the pioneering work of Anthony
Reid, who showed the way during his leadership of the Asia Research
Institute (ARI), the 'Southeast Asia-China Interaction' cluster in particular,
at the National University of Singapore. I have placed maritime China at
the centre of my historical research and writing because I have no doubt
that this will help us better comprehend the land, as well as the seas,
that we call China."

"1 FACING THE SEAS

'Xu Fu from the country of Qi wrote to the First Emperor to say that there
were 'Three Celestial Islands' in the sea and they are Penglai,
Fangzhang and Yingzhou where the immortals live. The First Emperor
dispatched Xu and several thousand men and women, some children,
with provisions and weapons to the sea (BC 219) to look for the celestial
islands and the immortals.*
[* Sima Qian, Shi Ji: Shi Huang Ben Ji (130 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1979), vol. 6, p. 247.]
The First Emperor arrived at Langya (BC 210). This was a few years
after Xu had gone to the sea where he did not find the celestial islands.
Xu was afraid because the trip was costly. He told the First Emperor that
he was held up by a big shark in the sea and asked the Emperor to find
someone to kill it. The Emperor ordered a slayer who shot the shark
several times.
Then the First Emperor dispatched three thousand men and women with
five hundred kinds of professionals and sent Xu on his way again. Xu Fu
came upon a place called 'Big Plain Wide Field'. He stayed, declared
himself King and did not return.'
'Xu Fu enters the East (China) Sea' is a tale which has fascinated
scholars for over two thousand years.4 The story is also familiar to
ordinary Chinese and to their neighbours in East Asia, especially the
Japanese, many of whom believe that the land Xu discovered and
settled was the island of Kyushu in southern Japan, although it could
have been Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan or - as recent scholarship has
suggested - the Philippines. A statue of Xu Fu stands in the city of
Ichikikushikino in Japan today. The place where Xu is believed to have
set sail was Penglai, a city on the northern tip of the Shandong
peninsula. It faces the Liaodong and Korean peninsulas, and sits
between the Bohai and Yellow Sea. The Penglai Pavilion and Penglai
Celestial Site, built during the Song dynasty, have attracted pilgrims ever
since, as the region became a centre of trade and cultural exchange with
Northeast Asia.
The First Emperor became obsessed with immortality after he
conquered six other larger kingdoms to found the Qin dynasty, or the
Middle Kingdom, in BC 221. He sought the secret of longevity, and he
believed - or was led to believe - that it could be found over the sea; thus
he commissioned the two epic voyages. It is unclear as to how the First
Emperor came to learn about immortality, although it is possible that his
knowledge was gleaned from Buddhism, which had recently been
introduced to the Qin. Xu Fu, sent by the emperor to discover the secret
of immortality, knew that he would be dead should he return to China
without the recipe for longevity; what he did not know was that the First
Emperor died shortly after he set sail for the second time. Xu Fu's
voyages are significant because they set the precedent for further
voyages in the two millennia to come, and mark the beginning of the
imperial search for the three celestial islands which would continue into
the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
Xu's voyages highlight three recurring themes in the history of China's
engagement with the sea. First of all, the Qin court and elite, if not the
ordinary people, believed that the immortals resided in the seas and that
the oceans held hidden secrets and treasures. This was not a belief
limited to the Qin court; later dynasties commissioned voyages that
sought many such things, from the East China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Secondly, the unpredictability, danger and challenge posed by the seas
meant that long-distance seafaring was not an individual undertaking; Xu
Fu was accompanied by a large fleet with sufficient provision of food,
medicine and munitions to sustain him and his crew on the journey. In
other words, only the court could afford sea voyages, whose purpose
was naturally to serve the needs of the Son of Heaven. Long-distance
seafaring was to remain the preserve of the court from the time of the
Qin to the Ming. Thirdly, the land Xu discovered was not a land of
barbarians, but a kind of Promised Land which seemed to offer more
than his home country. It was a haven to the five hundred professionals
who landed there and a refuge for Xu, given that death surely awaited
him should he return. In the two thousand years after Xu, many would
leave China in search of their own promised land. These three themes
are repeated again and again over the following two millennia.
This chapter explores the attitude of the various dynasties and regimes
towards the maritime world and the mechanisms they put in place for its
control. It adopts a longue durée approach, beginning with the Han
dynasty and then tracing its successors' encounters with the seas until
the Ming. A brief examination of China's rapport with the maritime world
is crucial in order to establish how successive dynasties and regimes
perceived, engaged and learned to deal with challenges from the seas,
and formulated their policies to regulate trade and travel. The
effectiveness of these policies will require further research, involving the
study of the various maritime regions, which often came up with their
own strategies to circumvent the central authority in order to protect their
own interests. This chapter highlights the tradition of court-commissioned
voyages; it examines the installation of new posts and regulations, and it
considers the kind of goods that were exchanged between key partners.
This approach will allow the pattern as well as the variation to emerge;
and it will highlight the case of the Qing, the focus of the subsequent
seven chapters.
Deng Duanben believes that the history of China's maritime trade can
be divided into three periods: the pre-Sui-Tang period (pre-589), when
Chinese merchants first took to the seas, the Tang-Song-Yuan period
(589-1367), when seafaring and trade developed fully, and the Ming-
Qing period (1368-1911), when it stagnated. I have adopted this
timeframe, not in imitation of Deng, but because the global dynamics of
these three periods have particular significance. The Han-Jin dynastic
era (206 BC-AD 420) coincided with the rise of the Western Roman
Empire (27 BC-AD 476), the Tang-Song-Yuan epoch (618-1367) with the
ascent of Islamic Caliphate, and the Ming-Qing era (1368-1911) with the
expansion of Europe.
More importantly, these three eras were distinguished by trade in three
major Chinese commodities: silk, porcelain and tea. They were also
distinguished by the introduction of three religions to China through the
trade routes: Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. They are what Victor
Lieberman called 'strange parallels'. Trade with a country called 'Thina'
never stopped; it only changed hands, from Indians and Persians to
Muslims and Europeans.* These nations traded with each other because
they needed and appreciated the goods that only the other could
produce. This trade shaped not only the destinies of the Chinese people
but also the course of regional, and indeed global, history.
[* Pausanias, Guide to Greece Volume 2 Southern Greece
(Harmondsworth: Penguin books, 1971), pp. 365-66 and footnote 234.
See also The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (London: Hakluyt Society,
1980), p. 120 number 64 and 66 on Thina; Cosmas Indicopleustes, The
Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, an Egyptian Monk
(London: Hakluyt Society, 1987), pp. 48-49; and George F. Hourani,
Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 41.]"
"Xu Fu to Fa Xian: BC 221-AD 588
During the Spring-Autumn period (BC 770-BC 476) there were more
than one hundred small kingdoms and fiefdoms spread across the area
of modern-day north and central China. Many of these fiefdoms
protected their borders with Guan, Passes or Checkpoints, which in most
cases were fortified or at least guarded. The Guan acted not only as
border posts but also as marketplaces, where court officials and ordinary
people would convene to buy, sell and barter. The Guan could delay or
prevent the invasion of enemy forces; they could also guard against the
outflow of manpower and resources. This kind of necessary geopolitics
was underpinned by a theory of control that, in practice, succeeded in
restricting the free flow of people and goods. In particular, it effectively
barred the export of strategic commodities that were important to small
countries with limited resources.
By the Warring States period (BC 475-BC 221), only seven larger
kingdoms remained. The continuous conflict between these states, and
the consequent necessity of holding on to every horse, every body and
every grain for survival, led to the check-point system becoming more
sophisticated. This process continued until BC 221, when the previously
small Kingdom of Qin, under the leadership of the First Emperor,
eliminated all the warring states to found a unified realm, the Middle
Kingdom. To maintain central control, the Qin standardised language,
systems of measures, currency and roads, and built the longest
defensive barrier in the world, the Great Wall. The tradition of building
guan continued, as successive regimes built many more passes at
strategic points along the Wall, most notably Jade Gate Pass, built by the
Han regime at the western end, and Mountain Sea Pass, built by the
Ming regime at the eastern end. In defending themselves from perceived
threats, the Qin began and left an authoritarian tradition which, like the
Great Wall itself, still stands today.
While the Qin regime buttressed the interior rather than the coast-line,
believing that the sea itself was a natural barrier, their totalitarian political
ideology and mechanisms for control would be adopted and
strengthened by later dynasties when they faced challenges from the
ocean. Not only would maritime control resemble the continental border
administrations fashioned in an earlier age, but maritime trade would
also bear the hallmarks of an exchange system that dealt primarily with
the Qin's neighbours to the north and west. The system might not have
survived beyond the short-lived Qin dynasty (BC 221-206) had the Han
dynasty not begun to enhance it. The Han's overland trading partners
were mostly nomads from the north and west who desired silk, domestic
luxuries, iron tools and weapons from Han China.
The Han regime established what was called Guan shi, or Checkpoint
fair, in border areas where the Chinese and their neighbours could meet
and trade with each other. These were also called Hu shi, the word Hu
referring to non-Chinese people from the north and west. In addition,
there were many He shi or Combined fair, and Jiao shi or Joint fair, and
later Hu shi or Exchange fair. Held monthly or even weekly, depending
on politics and weather, these fairs allowed the Chinese and their
neighbours to buy or sell as regimes and seasons changed. Mark E.
Lewis points this out in his new work: 'During the early Chinese empires,
merchants from the oasis towns of Central Asia obtained silk through
purchase in frontier markets.'
The original mechanisms or guan employed to restrict overland trade
became Hai Guan, meaning Sea Pass/Checkpoint, when applied to
maritime control. Trade with the nomads to the north and west allowed
the Han army to obtain the best horses and the Han court to acquire the
best gemstones and exotic fruit such as grapes. Han Shu or The Book of
Han reveals in some detail the goods that the Han procured via the sea;
it mentions a region called Yue, which stretched from modern
Guangdong and Guangxi provinces to central Vietnam. The region, the
book explains, is 'close to the sea and it has buffalos, elephants, and
tortoiseshell, pearl, silver, copper, fruits, cloth; many of those who went
there to trade became rich and Fanyu is one of its big cities'.* The name
Fanyu is itself extremely suggestive, as it can be translated as 'foreign
place'; today it is a township in the municipality of Guangzhou.
[* Ban Gu, Han Shu (100 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), vol. 28
(xia), p. 1670.]
This short excerpt informs us first that this region was a market-place for
commodities from afar, and second that trade in Guangzhou was so
profitable that many of those who engaged in it became rich. Maritime
trade was highly profitable and, as The Book of Han makes clear, the
Han court was adept at exploiting its potential:
'From the barriers of Rinan (central Vietnam), Xuwen (Guangdong),
Hepu (Guangxi), you can sail and reach the country of Duyuan in five
months, the country of Luyimo after another four months, the country of
Kangli after twenty or so days, and the country of Fugan-dulu after more
than ten days of walking. From here, you can sail for another two months
to reach the country of Huangzhi (Kanchipuram, southeast India).
The customs in this country bear resemblance to those in Zhuya
(Hainan Island). This is a big country with many people and many exotic
things. They have paid tribute since Wudi's time (BC 141-87).
There are translators, they belong to the imperial household, and
together with those who were recruited they went to the seas to trade
pearls, glass wares, precious stones and exotic things with gold and
silks...'
The big pearls can be as wide as two inches in circumference. At the
time of Pingdi when Wang Mang (AD 9-23) was running the court, he
asked the King of Huangzhi for live rhino as tribute. From here, you can
sail for eight months to reach the country of Pizong (Pulau Pisang), the
place of Rinan, Xianglinjie after another two months. To the south of
Huangzhi lies the country of Yichengbu (Sri Lanka) from where the Han's
translator envoy returned.*
[* Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical
Geography of the Malay Penninsula before AD 1500 (Kuala Lumpur:
University of Malaya Press. 1961), pp. 8-9 & 11.]
This is possibly the earliest official account of the Han's maritime trade,
and Yu Ying-shih believes that this passage '[is] maybe the earliest
reference in Chinese literature to Malaysia'.** Although scholars of
maritime China cannot identify with certainty the location of all the places
mentioned in this extract, they seem to agree that Yichengbu is today's
Sri Lanka, and that Pizong is Pulau Pisang off the coast of Singapore.
There is also consensus amongst the small number of scholars who
have studied this topic that Huangzhi is Kanchipuram, southeast India.
[* 'Han Foreign Relations', in The Cambridge History of China Vol-ume 1
The Ch'in and Han Empires 221 BC-AD 220, eds. Denis Twitchett and
Michael Loewe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp.
377-462.]
The passage quoted above is important, as it reveals that the Han court
not only had the authority to demand tribute and the ability to organise
foreign trade by recruiting merchants and translators, but that it also
stipulated what goods could be traded and where - if not when - the
convoys should return. Many scholars have used this excerpt to argue
simply that government control over maritime trade began during the
Han dynasty. But the Han did not merely initiate government control;
they established the exact pattern of regulation according to which
succeeding dynasties would conduct and manage foreign trade over the
next two thousand years. The only variation was that the lingua franca of
the translators changed over the years from Tamil, Persian and Arabic to
Malay, Portuguese and English.
To understand the importance of the Han's control mechanisms, it is
necessary to consider the type and value of goods which merchants
were sent to procure. In this respect the two passages quoted above
cast light on another significant theme. Both extracts show that the Han
desired exotic pearls, raw materials for making luxuries such as
tortoiseshells, and precious metals like gold and silver. Throughout the
Han era and into Ming-Qing times these goods were destined for
imperial courts and rich households. Han Law prohibited the export of
arms, ammunition, iron tools, copper money, horses and silk cocoons.
Han merchants were likewise forbidden to trade in these goods and
jewellery, including pearls. The horse in particular was an important
commodity, a vital strategic weapon that Han China did not possess, and
for this reason trade in horses would remain a government monopoly for
two millennia to come. Silk was also on the list of prohibited items,
suggesting that the Han court might have monopolised the export of silk.
In BC 138 the Han court sent General Zhang Qian and several hun-dred
soldiers and followers to the Western Territory, today's Central Asia; this
mission was followed in BC 119 by a second undertaking, which sought
to make peace with the Xiongnu, the powerful people who dominated
Central Asia. The eminent historian Fang Hao challenges official
histories by suggesting that Zhang Qian's missions to Central Asia were
not diplomatic but commercial, as the Han sought a market for the
excess silk they produced.19 Fang Hao has even suggested that silk - in
other words the pursuit of luxury con-sumption - was a contributing factor
to the downfall of the Roman Empire. While Fang's claims should, of
course, be subjected to vigorous research, the Han period did
experience a silk boom and witnessed the emergence of the Silk Road,
which raises the question of where the demand was coming from.
Just as the Han court and army badly needed the excellent breed of
horses that only their hostile neighbours to the north and west could
offer, their neighbours near and far needed the silk that only Han China
could produce. As Mortimer Wheeler argues, silk was one of the five
luxury commodities that constituted Rome's foreign trade.* The traffic of
silk was, as G. F. Hudson points out, 'the most far-reaching large-scale
commerce of antiquity', similar in magnitude to the later trade in porcelain
and tea. However, it would be difficult to measure the exact value of this
trade, and Oliver Impey rightly cautions: 'In the absence of statistics we
have no means of comparing the total value of import and export
between China and Rome.'**
[* Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers (London: Bell, 1954), pp. 176-81.
See also Simkin, The Traditional Trade of Asia, p. 38.]
[** Chinoiserie: the Impact of Oriental Styles on Western Art and
Decoration (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977), p. 98.]
How did the Han regime regulate private trade and travel given that
'those who went there to trade became rich?' Yao Meilin believes that the
Han authority used fu or badge and chuan or pass to maintain some kind
of control. Fashioned out of silk cloth or bamboo, these were permits
issued by checkpoint authorities when people left or entered Han
territory. Cut or broken in two, one half was kept by the travellers and the
other by the pass authorities, and travellers would only be permitted to
re-enter or leave Han territory when the respective halves matched. Fu
or chuan operated in a manner similar to today's passports and visas,
and as mechanisms for control they were inherited and enhanced by
later dynasties and regimes. To travel without fu or chuan was an act
called lan, meaning to either leave or enter the country without
permission; lan also applied to those who traded in prohibited goods.
Punishment for such transgressions varied, but certainly included death.
Han China disappeared in the third century (AD 220), and with its
demise the Silk Road disintegrated; it would never again regain the
importance it had under the Han. If the decline of the Silk Road had any
significant impact on China, it would be that it drove the Chinese and
their trading partners to the seas in search of an alternative highway of
exchange. The subsequent Three Kingdoms dynastic era (220-280) saw
the Qin-invented and Han-strengthened Middle Kingdom split into three
parts. The Kingdom of Wu, one of these, was confined to southern and
coastal China. Encircled and protected by the Yangzi River, the East
China Sea and the South China Sea, the Kingdom was surrounded by a
water world. Sun Quan, the King of Wu, continued the search for the
'Three Celestial Islands', and in the spring of 230 he dispatched:
'General Wei Wen, Zhuge Zhi and ten thousand soldiers to the seas to
look for Yizhou and Yingzhou. The latter is where the elders still
remember that the First Emperor had sent geomancer Xu Fu and several
thousand men and women, some of them children, to look for the
Penglai celestial mountains and medicines of immortality, and from
where they never returned.
It is said that they multiplied there to the tens of thousands today. They
sometimes come to trade and buy silk/cloth in Huiji (Zhejiang); there are
also Huiji people who were sometimes blown there in big storms. But it is
so far away and really hard to reach. The generals brought back several
thousand men/women from Yizhou.'*
[* Chen Shou, San Guo Zhi: Wu Shu (65 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1959), vol. 47, p. 1136.]
The two generals and their fleet spent a year at sea but failed to find the
celestial islands. They returned home with 'several thousand' men and
women from Yizhou, generally believed to be today's Taiwan. The
Yizhou people were presumably aboriginals, as Chinese migration to the
island had not yet begun. Unlike Xu Fu, Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi were
beheaded for not finding the celestial islands. They should have stayed
where they landed, as their predecessor had done. The voyage
despatched in search of the celestial islands and the abduction of the
native people of Yizhou marked only the beginning of the King of Wu's
expansionist activities. He subsequently turned his attention to Hainan
Island and Southeast Asia, sending Generals Kang Tai and Zhu Ying to
Funan (today's Cambodia and the Mekong delta) and the Hindu kingdom
of Champa (today's central and southern Vietnam), in the year 245.
There are a number of explanations as to why Sun Quan might have
been interested in these small and obscure tropical realms. R. C.
Majumdar carefully studied the expansion of Indian civilisation to
Indochina and concluded that Chinese aggression towards these nations
was reactionary rather than pre-emptive. Majumdar believed that '[t]he
dismemberment of the Chinese empire into three parts (220-265)
emboldened them (the Champa) to cross the frontier and carry their raids
far into the Chinese territory'.* If Champa had violated the border and
made incursions into areas in modern-day northern Vietnam, which the
Wu considered its own territory, then the Kingdom of Wu's military
activity in the region would certainly have been warranted.
[* Ramesh Majumdar, Champa: History and Culture of an Indian Colonial
Kingdom in the Far East 2nd-16th Century AD (New Delhi: Gyan
publishing house, 1985), p. 22.]]
Alternatively, it has been suggested that Funan had requested
assistance from the King of Wu in checking the ambitions of Champa,
who was pushing not just northwards but also southwards. Irrespective
of motivation, we do know that Chinese regimes became politically
entangled with Southeast Asia from this time onward, if not earlier.
Indeed, C. F. FitzGerald believes that the Kingdom of Wu had clear
imperialist ambitions towards Champa and that, had subsequent
Chinese regimes remained fully committed to the politics of Southeast
Asia and not been distracted by events in the north, they would have
conquered the region. This kind of persistent meddling in the country that
ultimately became Vietnam is manifest in the four phases of 'Chinese
domination' in the history of that country.* Throughout the centuries,
various Chinese regimes cultivated close ties with the various smaller
kingdoms in Southeast Asia; this constituted part of a 'divide and rule'
strategy that continued into the Cold War era.
[* 207 BC to 39 AD marked the First Chinese Domination, 43 to 544 the
Second, 602 to 905 the Third, and 1407 to 1427 the Fourth.]
The Wu regime adopted an open attitude towards the seas because of
their potential to generate not only power and prestige but also profit.
According to San Guo Zhi or History of the Three Kingdoms, the Wu
traded with countries such as Japan, Korea, and many small
principalities in and around the Malay Peninsula. The Kingdom of Wu
benefited from seafaring as trade flourished, and Guangzhou developed
into a bustling metropolis of commerce, an important point which Mark E.
Lewis has recently highlighted. Historians have credited Sun Quan with
laying the foundations for this maritime prosperity, which would become
even more pronounced in the subsequent Jin dynastic era (265-420).
The seas took on a new significance under the Jin, following the
outbreak of war and chaos in north China in the year 311, a conflict
which historians have dubbed the Yongjia Disturbance. As a
consequence of this conflict the Qin-Han-created Middle Kingdom
fragmented still further, as the Jin court escaped to southern China
followed by tens of thousands of people - more than 900,000 according
to Wang Di - who were permanently displaced.
The Yongjia Disturbance marked the beginning of what FitzGerald refers
to as the 'southern expansion of the Chinese people', a pattern of
movement which continued into the twentieth century as war and famine
in the north drove millions to the south. Continued migration permanently
re-oriented China's foreign trade to the seas and helped populate
southern China, a region which subsequently became and continues to
be the driving force behind the country's economic growth. Yet the
significance of the Yongjia Disturbance in Chinese history, especially in
maritime history, has been completely neglected by scholars. Mark E.
Lewis has recently highlighted this problem and emphasises that the
single most important change was the north-south geographic division,
which in his opinion left a 'profound, permanent impression on Chinese
history'.
A most significant 'impression' was that the seas began to play a pivotal
role in shaping the economic and socio-cultural development of China
after 311. Buddhism, for example, had first been introduced to China via
the Silk Road in the Qin-Han era, if not earlier, but it was not until the Jin
dynasty that it began to grow in China.* Fa Xian (c. 337-c. 422) was the
first Chinese monk to travel to India to seek the teachings and wisdom of
Buddha. He went to Central and South Asia by land, but returned to
China by sea after fifteen years of study. The memoir of Fa Xian is one
of the first non-official accounts of China's interaction with South and
Southeast Asia. Herbert A. Giles thought the work so important to the
study of China and Buddhism that he translated it into English in the
early 1920s. Fa Xian described in great detail the countries he travelled
to and the people he met in regions such as Khotan, Gandhara, Gaya
and Ceylon, where he stayed for two years.
[* Erik E. Zurrcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China: the Spread and
Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China (Leiden: Brill, 1959).]
After he had obtained a copy of the Buddhist Disciplines, the long
Agamas and a collection of extracts from the Canon, 'all of which China
was without', Fa Xian 'took passage on board a large merchant-vessel,
on which there were over two hundred souls'. They reached Java after
ninety days, after which he 'again shipped on board another large
merchant-vessel which also carried over two hundred persons. They took
with them provisions for fifty days and set sail'. Fa Xian described the
final leg of the journey as follows:
'A north-east course was set in order to reach Canton; over a month had
elapsed when one night in the second watch (9-11pm) they encountered
a violent gale with tempestuous rain, at which the travelling merchants
and traders who were going to their homes were much frightened.
Meanwhile, the sky was constantly darkened and the captain lost his
reckoning. So they went on for seventy days until the provisions and
water were nearly exhausted, and they had to use seawater for cooking,
dividing the fresh water so that each man got about two pints. When all
was nearly consumed, the merchants consulted together and said, 'The
ordinary time for the voyage to Canton is exactly fifty days. We have now
exceeded that limit by many days; must we not have gone out of our
course?'
Thereupon they proceeded in a north-westerly direction, seeking for
land; and after twelve days and nights arrived south of the Lao mountain
(on the Shantung promontory) at the boundary of the Prefecture of
Ch'ang-kuang (the modern Kiao-chou), where they obtained fresh water
and vegetables.'
Herbert A. Giles charted Fa Xian's journey on a map.
This excerpt and the map offer a number of important insights into the
nature of seafaring in the period c. 300-414. First, it tells us that ships
with the capacity to carry two hundred or so merchants, and presumably
their merchandise, braved the perils of the seas and voyaged between
Ceylon, Java, and Canton. Secondly, it is possible to surmise from this
passage that such voyages were undertaken frequently, as the
passengers knew the exact duration of a return voyage from Java to
Canton, 50 days. Finally, the long distance covered suggests familiarity
with tools of navigation, as the journey would have been impossible
without the use of a primitive compass.
Fa Xian was the first of many Chinese monks who would journey to
South Asia in the following four centuries. The Jin dynastic era was the
turning point in the indigenisation of Buddhism, as Chinese monks and
scholars embraced and re-articulated a foreign religion which would
flourish in the subsequent Northern and Southern dynastic era (420-588)
and reach its zenith during the Tang dynasty (618-960). From the Qin-
Han to the Tang, Buddhism came, spread and peaked in China, a
process which would later be repeated, albeit on a smaller scale, with the
introduction and indigenization of Islam. Christianity, on the other hand,
failed to follow this pattern of assimilation and provoked an abiding
controversy in China. This deviation in itself raises interesting and
important questions for historians.
The Northern and Southern dynasties (420-588) saw sixteen small
kingdoms vying with each other. As in the time of the earlier Wu dynasty,
the southern regimes, the Song, Qi, Liang and Chen courts, encouraged
maritime trade, fanning out from Guangzhou to the Philippines, the
Straits of Malacca, Sri Lanka, India and West Asia, not excluding Japan
and Korea.46 Competition and survival forced these smaller kingdoms to
adopt policies that promoted seafaring and gen-erated badly-needed
revenue. Foreign trade consequently grew, as evidenced by the massive
increase in the import of fragrances. The acceleration of demand for
fragrances may have been linked to the growth of Buddhism, in which
joss sticks are integral to worship practices. The rapidity with which trade
grew is also reflected in the increase in the number of foreigners who
arrived in this divided era. Fang Hao believes that during this period
Luoyang alone was home to at least 50,000 aliens, many of them
merchants. The reason why Central Asians were attracted to China,
even though silk was no longer a Chinese monopoly, emerged with
clarity in the following Sui-Tang dynasties.
The pattern of consistency and variation in early imperial China's
engagement with the seas is complex. The Qin-Han dynasties developed
a guiding philosophy and put in place mechanisms that emphasised
control. These regimes experimented with a primitive legal code that
covered everything from regulations on travel to restrictions on the goods
that could be traded. While the tendency towards restriction and control
persisted, even though its effectiveness was debatable, the divided era -
'China Between Empires' as Mark Lewis labels it - which followed was
marked by the development of an approach to maritime trade that proved
more flexible. The people of Wu and the Southern dynasties survived on
the water world that surrounded them. These two contradictory traditions
of authoritarianism and liberalism would continue to subsist in tension as
attitudes towards the maritime world oscillated throughout the coming
centuries.
Beginning with the Qin-Han dynastic era, the regimes that ruled China
and the Chinese people reached out to the maritime world seeking
exotica, political power, trade and Buddhist wisdom. When the country
was unified and resources abundant, the bureaucracy governing trade
was centralised, cumbersome and corrupt; it strengthened central rule
and inadvertently encouraged 'illegal' activities. When the country was
divided and resources limited, the system was responsive, innovative
and beneficial to peoples and regimes alike. Beginning with the Yongjia
Disturbance in 311, the bulk of China's trade with the outside world
moved from overland to overseas. The extent to which the seas shaped
China from the Western Jin onwards is therefore a large and complex
question that demands intensive research; nevertheless, some light
might be cast on this issue by focusing on the Tang-Song dynasties,
which used - even depended on - the seas to trade and communicate
with the outside world."
"'The Open Empire': 589-1367
The 'Open Empire' was a term coined by Valerie Hansen to describe
China before 1600. According to Hansen, China was 'facing West' from
200 to 1000 and 'facing North' from 1000 to 1600, an interpretation that
reinforces the assumption that China's interaction with the land world
dictated her history and destiny. The problem with this kind of analysis is
that China faced the seas to the East and South as well as the land to
the North and West. China's seas were certainly open for the seven
hundred years that spanned the Sui-Tang and Song-Yuan periods, and it
is possible to argue that the seas had a much greater influence on
Chinese history during this period than did the continental world. While it
is true that the Sui-Tang dynasties strengthened China's ties with Central
Asia, their maritime legacy challenges the long-held convention that
China was solely a land-bound civilisation. The peoples, goods, ideas
and cultures that came from over the seas would irreversibly transform
China's economy, culture and society.
Like the short-lived Qin dynasty, which expired after 15 years and laid
the foundation for the glorious Han, the Sui dynasty came to an end after
37 years, paving the way for the golden age of the Tang. The Sui
dynasty unified China in 589, following more than 360 years of division,
an impressive achievement which the Sui court was eager to
communicate to the rest of the world. As recorded by Sui Shu or History
of the Sui:
'On his accession to the throne, Yang-ti called for men capable of
opening up communications with far distant lands. In the third year of the
Ta-yeh period (AD 607) Chang-Chun, the Custodian of Military Property
and Wang Chun-cheng, a Controller of Natural Resources, were among
those who requested to be sent on an embassy to Ch'ih-t'u. The Emperor
was extremely gratified and granted to each one hundred rolls of silk,
together with a suit of clothes appropriate for the season, while he sent
5,000 different sorts of gifts to the king of the Red Mud Country. In the
tenth moon (November or early December) of that year Chang-chun took
ship from the Nan-hai commandery (Canton).'*
[* Historians have disagreed about the location of the Red Mud Country.
Some believe it is the north side of the Malay Peninsula, some today's
Singapore and others either Sumatra or Java.]
Viewed against the background of the voyages commissioned by the
First Emperor and the King of Wu, the expeditions described in the
above passage appear to be the natural exploits of a new regime which
sought recognition as well as exotica in the form of tribute from old and
new vassal states, some of whom increasingly looked to China for
support as they wrestled with their neighbours. Although historians have
continued to argue about the exact location of the Red Mud Country,
they agree that it refers to a place somewhere on the Malay Peninsula.
Between 611 and 614 the Sui regime campaigned three times to
conquer Korea, and the Penglai area became headquarters for maritime
conquest and expansion. Where the Sui failed, the subsequent Tang
succeeded, as 'General Su Ting-fang sailed across the Yellow Sea from
Shantung peninsula with a force said to have numbered 100,000' in 660,
after which Penglai continued to flourish as the centre of trade and
cultural exchange with Northeast Asia, as for example Buddhism spread
to Japan.*
[* Denis Twitchett and Howard Wechsler, 'Kao-tsung (reign 649-83) and
the Empress Wu: the Inheritor and Usurper', in The Cambridge History of
China Volume 3 Sui and T'ang China 589-906 Part 1, ed. Denis Twitchett
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 242-89.]
Guangzhou grew to be an international metropolis during several
hundred years of division. Trade, overland and overseas, was a hallmark
of the Tang regime, which welcomed foreigners to come and do
business in China. Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756) introduced a
sophisticated institution called Maritime Trade Bureau, and the rank of
Maritime Trade Ambassador, in 714. The innovatory nature of maritime
bureau lies in the creation of the post of 'Ambassador' which, given that
only the emperor could appoint ambassadors to represent his interests,
indicates direct court control over the evidently lucrative foreign trade.
Remaining outside the domain of local authorities in Guangzhou, the
'Ambassador' system would lead to bureaucratic tension and corruption,
and ultimately to a rebellion in the interior which sent the Tang into
decline. Like the Han, the Tang prohibited the export of silk, precious
metals and arms, and depended on Central Asia for horses, gemstones,
exotic raw materials and a multitude of fragrances.

Guangzhou, seat of the 'Maritime Trade Ambassador', was the largest

and most important port, followed by Jiaozhou (modern-day Hanoi in
Vietnam) and Yangzhou, in addition to Chuzhou (Jiangsu), Mingzhou
(Ningpo), Quanzhou (Fujian), and Chaozhou (Shantou in Guangdong).
When Tang troops lost the Battle of Talas River to the Arab Abbasid
Caliphate in 751 in what is now Kyrgyzstan, the Silk Road fragmented,
as control fell into different hands. The Tang period is significant, as it
coincided with the rise of Islam when the Silk Road on the Sea rose to
eminence in long distance trade. Art historians and archaeologists have
long been fascinated by the trade between the Tang and West Asia, and
have used discoveries of porcelain as a chronological indicator of Sino-
Arabic exchange. Oliver Impey, for example, observed that:
'By the year 800, huge quantities of Tang pottery, mostly bowls with
painted decoration in brown or green, and green or black glazed jars
were being imported into the Persian Gulf for distribution throughout the
Near East, attesting to the large volume of the sea-borne traffic, and in
the tenth century some Sung dynasty white porcelain appeared.'
The discovery of the 'Tang cargo' should aid our effort to further probe
the spread of Islam and Sino-Arab trade. The four hundred or so pieces
of ceramics recovered from the oldest shipwreck yet found in Southeast
Asia puzzled many. The beige coloured bowls decorated with dark red
and green Arabic motifs did not correspond to the common conception of
what Chinese porcelain looked like, and the fact that they were stored in
jars made in Vietnam confused those who were unaware that Chinese
domination had extended to central Vietnam during the Tang. Changsha
ceramics lived a short life, as they began to emerge during the early
Tang (618-684) and flourished only into the mid-late Tang (756-907).
After being lost under the sea for nearly 1,400 years, the Changsha
ceramics (Illustration 1.2 photo courtesy of Baron Nicolai von Uexkull-
Guldenband) still look extremely marketable today.
The 'Tang boat', another name given to the old shipwreck, represents at
least one consistent theme in the history of long distance trade between
Tang China and the Islamic Caliphate via Southeast Asia. That a small
and obscure kiln in the interior was producing goods for a powerful
empire oceans away in a pre-industrial era testifies to the existence of
some form of multi-national and cross-regional commercial and financial
network. In this network, Yangzhou - called by Edward Schafer the 'jewel
of China in the eighth century' - was the go-between, with possibly both
Arabic and Chinese being employed as the lingua franca of the
transaction.* While no historian has mentioned the presence of Arab
traders in Changsha, the region clearly produced for a world beyond
Tang China. This raises questions about the complexity of medieval
trade, which was already global in nature, as George Hourani concluded:
'By the middle of the ninth century it is certain that there was regular
sailing to China (by Arabs).'
[* The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: a Study of T'ang Exotics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), pp. 17-19.]
We cannot fully understand the magnitude of the Tang's foreign trade
without considering the Arab-Islamic presence in Tang China at the time,
which is attested to by extant Arab memoirs.* Fang Hao claimed that
Mohammed sent four disciples to China: one to Guangzhou, one to
Yangzhou, and two to Quanzhou in Fujian, whereas Li Xinhua has
studied Islam's routes of entry into the country. The situation in
Guangzhou is described by one of the Maritime Trade Ambassadors:
[* Sulayman al-Tajir, Anciennes Relations des Indes et de la Chine (A
Paris: Chez Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1718).]
'First the locals and foreigners live together, then they marry each other.
Sometimes the officials tried to stop them. Somehow they seem to attract
each other. When Jun (Lu Jun, the ambassador) came to the job, he
established rules that Chinese and foreigners should live separately, and
they shouldn't marry. Foreigners shouldn't buy land and build houses.'*
[* Liu Xun, Jiu Tang Shu, vol. 177, pp. 4591-92.]
 It seems that Lu Jun was unsuccessful in his role, as many believe that
the foreign population of Guangzhou grew to more than ten thousand by
the late Tang. While Tang Law did not prohibit marriage between
Chinese and foreigners, it was very clear about how crimes involving
foreigners should be handled:
'Foreigners, that is those from neighbouring or foreign countries, should
choose their own leaders. They all have their customs and they should
be handled differently. If they commit crimes against each other, they
should be tried and sentenced using their own laws.'
The Law stated that same-race crime would be punished by its own law,
and cross-race crime by Chinese law, since they were on Chinese soil.
The Tang regime welcomed foreign traders to come and work in China
and found ways to deal with the problems that came with migration, an
attitude that was also followed by the Song-Yuan dynasties.
Muslim merchants brought their religion with them and Islam infiltrated
Chinese society in a way that paralleled the introduction of Buddhism.
They left a tangible presence in China, manifested in the mosques that
were built wherever traders converged and in the tomb-stones that still
stand today as testimony to the fact that many lived, and also died, in the
country.* The interaction and dynamics between Tang China and the
Islamic Empire is an important and largely unexplored topic, which will
undoubtedly also shed light on development in early modern Europe.**
The history of each of these three regions is closely integrated through
trade: Chinese inventions such as clocks, for example, arrived in Europe
via Arab traders; after their re-invention in Europe, clocks would return to
China masquerading as European products during the late Ming, as I
shall discuss in Chapter Four.***
[* Donald D. Leslie, et al., Islam in Traditional China: a Bibliographical
Guide (Sankt Augustin: Momumenta Serica Institute, 2006); Zhou
Chuanbin and Ma Xuefeng, Development and Decline of Beijing's Hui
Muslim Community (Chiang Mai: Asian Muslim Action Network &
Silkworm Books, 2009).]
[** Ralph Kauz, ed. Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road: from the Persian
Gulf to the East China Sea (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010).]
[*** Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China Volume One
Introductory Orientations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1961), pp. 203-204 & 240-243.]
 The Tang regime, in establishing institutions of regulation with on-site
court supervision, and in laying down the first rules of procedure and
management, established the foundations on which maritime trade would
continue to be based for centuries to come. It derived more than profit
from the growing trade. When Persians and Arabs discovered porcelain,
the Chinese were still in need of a range of goods that could not be
produced domestically. Edward H. Schafer has written expertly on the
consumption of exotics, from Central Asia or the land of Hu, during the
Tang. As a matter of fact, it was fashionable to wear Hu clothes, eat Hu
food, sleep on Hu beds, listen to Hu music and have relationships with
Hu ji, or Central Asian women. Hu Feng or the Wind of Hu, blew in the
Tang dynasty. No wonder Mark E. Lewis called the Tang 'the most open,
cosmopolitan period of Chinese history.' While the Tang adopted an
open attitude towards the seas and welcomed foreigners to come and
trade - and even settle - in China, it did not encourage the Chinese to go
and settle overseas. Neither the pull nor the push factor was strong
enough to keep Chinese away from their homeland, unless a death
sentence awaited them upon their return. This would change from the
Song onwards.
Foreign trade generated profit for the Tang; it would generate even more
riches for the Song Dynasty (Northern 960-Southern 1127-1279) that
followed. The Song gradually lost northern China to its stronger
neighbours - the Liao, the Jin and ultimately the Mongols. Like the
southward flight after the Yongjia Disturbance, the Song tidal wave of
southward migration further opened up southern China and strengthened
China's bond with the maritime world. John E. Herman has written
expertly on the Chinese colonisation of Guizhou province since the
Song.* Like the Kingdoms of Wu and the Southern Dynasties, the
Southern Song's territory was confined to southern and coastal China
below the Yangzi River. Having lost northern China and the agricultural
revenue associated with it, and surrounded by water on three sides, the
survival of the Song now naturally depended on what they could make
from the rivers and oceans. Like the Wu, the Song reached out to the
maritime world and began to cultivate good relationships with dominant
maritime powers in Southeast Asia, such as the kingdom of Shrivijaya in
present-day Indonesia. Such was Song China's demand for trade that
both official and private sources, including Zhu Fan Zhi or History of the
Various Foreign Countries, claim that the Song established trade
relations with more than 50 countries.
[* Amid the Clouds and Mist: China's Colonisation of Guizhou 1200-1700
(Cambridge & London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007).]
Following the example of the Tang, the Northern Song dynasty installed
its own Maritime Trade Bureau in Guangzhou in 971. This was followed
by Bureaus in Hangzhou, Mingzhou (Ningpo), Quanzhou (Fujian),
Xiuzhou (Shanghai), and Mizhou (Shandong). Mizhou was later lost to
the Jin dynasty, so two more, Wenzhou and Jiangying, were added
during the Southern Song when the capital was moved to Hangzhou.
Billy So has expertly written about this important institution, its functions
and significance.* Frederick Mote has mentioned maritime trade and the
process by which 'sea routes supplemented the canal system in the tenth
century.' In 987, Emperor Taizong:
[* Prosperity, Region and Institutions in Maritime China: the South Fukien
Pattern 946-1368 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000),
pp. 42-49 & 51-86.]
'dispatched eight courtiers with gold plated letters to countries in the
South Sea region to invite them to send such tributes as fragrances,
medicinal herbs, ivory, pearls and dipterocarpaceae, etc. Every one was
given three empty decrees so that they could bestow them accordingly.'
Like the earlier Han, Wu and Sui dynasties, the Song court not only
commissioned voyages that sought both recognition and exotica, but
also solicited foreign trade and even rewarded foreign traders when they
came to China. To facilitate and manage increasing foreign trade, the
Song published Guangzhou Maritime Trade Regulation, which clearly
established the rules pertaining to foreign trade and outlined the
procedures for customs control and punishment. Published in 1080, this
was the first piece of legislation directed exclusively towards maritime
trade. Where the Tang emphasised court and institutional control, the
Song regulations targeted the management of private trade and traders.
That such regulation was deemed necessary testifies to the expansion of
private trade and the strength of the competition, which was perceived to
threaten the court's monopoly.
The Song regime significantly enhanced the management of maritime
affairs as foreign trade became an administrative priority and a major
source of revenue for both the court and the economy. The
sophistication of the Song system is evidenced by the multitude of official
posts that were created in the maritime bureaus and in the ways in which
goods were categorised and taxed. The Song devised a number of
means to tax traded goods. One such scheme was chou jie, or sample
and let go, which entitled authorities to appropriate a sample from the
cargo by way of a contribution. This usually represented around ten
percent of the cargo, but it would vary according to the nature of the
goods being traded and could be extremely valuable. Another scheme
for taxation was bo mai, or cheap buy, which entitled the Bureau to
purchase any traded goods it wanted at prices below the market value.
The existence of such comprehensive methods of taxation demonstrates
that the Song court was deeply involved in appropriating profit, and in
fact succeeded in monopolising all imports.
The Song regime reaped gigantic profits from the taxation of private
trade. So lucrative was taxation on foreign trade that Chao Zhongchen
has suggested that revenue from this source might have represented as
much as twenty percent of the Southern Song national income. No
wonder Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127-1162) once remarked: 'Maritime
trade is the most profitable; its profits can reach hundreds of millions if it
is managed properly. This is much better than taxing the ordinary people.
This is why I have paid special attention to this'. Frederick Mote believed
that: 'The Song state's interest in the revenues it collected from long-
range domestic trade and even more from the international trade was a
major stimulus to the growth of that kind of trade in this period.'
Concerned with regulating trade and travel, the Song issued licenses
called guan juan or official tickets, or gong ping and gong ju, which can
be translated as official proof or receipts, which were not much different
from the Han system of fu or chuan to control entry and departure. Morris
Rossabi summarised the impact of state intervention:
'As the seaborne commerce flourished, the Sung's concern for shipping
and, as a result, for naval power grew. The court developed the navy to
counter piracy along the coast, and its great ships with their rockets,
flamethrowers, and fragmentation bombs became an important branch of
the Sung armed force, posing an obstacle to Mongolian conquest.'
While the Song was fundamentally conservative, as can be seen in
everything from its political philosophy to its social institutions and
cultural practices - even naming practices - it adopted a liberal attitude
towards the maritime world in order to survive. Such was the significance
of Song maritime trade that Hao Yen-p'ing has suggested that it ushered
in the first of three commercial revolutions that transformed China. He
argues that the seas gave birth to Chinese capitalism and modernity.
Several other developments testify to the private trade that began to
flourish during the Song. The period saw the invention of the south-point
needle, also called south-point fish/turtle, known to us as the compass.
Using a whole array of primary sources, from philosophy to physics,
Joseph Needham had meticulously studied the various aspects of the
history of the compass in China. Eminent Song scholar Dieter Kuhn
believes that the inventiveness and transformation of the Song
surpassed the European Renaissance in many ways.*
[* The Age of Confucian Rule: the Song Transformation of China
(Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009).]
It was during the Song period that the mythical figure of Mazu first
appeared. This female goddess was said to have miraculously protected
her father and brother on their fishing trips, and has been worshipped
ever since as a deity with the power to shield seafarers from the perils of
the seas. Many scholars believe that it was the increase of private
seafaring during the Song that led to the emergence of this goddess. A
thriving trade thus gave birth to a deity and a seafaring tradition that lives
on today in the Mazu temples which can be found in coastal China and
Taiwan and in the Diaspora communities of Southeast Asia and the
Americas. One of the largest Mazu temples was built in Penglai during
the Song. This legendary place grew tremendously, since Song China
and Korea depended on the sea for exchange as a result of the Jin
regime blocking the land route. The importance of this maritime link can
be seen from the spread of Chinese culture and Buddhism to Korea in
this period.
An increasing number of scholarly works on the geography, society and
indigenous products of southern China and Southeast Asia appeared
during the Song. Among them were the aforementioned Zhu Fan Zhi or
History of the Various Foreign Countries, Ling Wai Dai Da or Impressions
From South of the Five Ridges, and Yi Yu Zhi or History of Foreign
Places. As Southern China became the engine of economic progress
and a region of high culture and literary excellence, classically-trained
men of letters turned their attention to the large region which had been
overlooked by their predecessors. These books were devoted to the
study of the Song's trading partners in Southeast, South and West Asia,
their geography, customs and natural products. All of these writings
indicate that fragrances were of primary importance amongst the range
of Song imports, a fact which has been overlooked by scholars who have
written surprisingly little on the subject.
The increasing demand for fragrances during the Northern and Southern
dynasties (420-588), particularly during the Song era, was directly
related to religious trends. Worship of any kind involved the burning of
joss sticks made of fragrances. Religious worship had intensified during
the Tang, when Buddhism reached its zenith, and increased still further
in the Song due to the spread of Islam and the revival of Confucianism.
This revival of Confucius and ancestor worship is particular to the Song
period, as it was linked to the migration of northern families to southern
China. Anxieties caused by dislocation and the desire to keep traditions
alive and families together found expression in the burning of joss sticks
in ancestral halls. A careful reading of Song official histories and private
memoirs reveals, however, that the Song court was the most important
consumer of fragrances. Candles were the only source of artificial light,
and the practice of the Song court was to pour fragrance into the several
hundreds of candles they burned on a daily basis, and the thousands
more that were consumed at festival times. The Song palace was
steeped in brilliance and aroma, as were the offices of its scholar-
officials:
'I am fond of fragrances, especially in the office. Before I sit down to
work at my desk every morning, I must start the two fragrance burners
and put my official attire on top of it in a way that aroma ascends through
the long sleeves, this way when I sit down and spread my arms, the
sleeves rent out thick perfume and the whole room is steeped in aroma.'
Perhaps therein lays the reason why the Song was no match for the
advancing Jin and Mongol soldiers; the Song's scholar-officials preferred
research and writing in their fragrant offices to defending their country on
the battlefield. The popularity of fragrances may have signalled the birth
of a modern and polite society, where personal and public hygiene
reflected one's social status. Fragrance pouches, like perfumes later,
were a must-have for respectable women, who carried them about
wherever they went. It was fashionable for elite families to mark the
departure of their guests by enlisting servants to wave fragrance-balls,
the aroma of which lingered on long after the coach had left. Fragrance
was also used in cooking and medicine, to purify air and to make
cosmetics. A large demand came from the making of mosquito-repellent
incense, which helped the Chinese endure the long hot sub-tropical
summers of southern and coastal China. The emergence of a
sophisticated fragrance culture is best reflected in the array of books
dedicated to it, which included Xiang Pu, Xiang Cheng and Xiang Qian,
all published during the Song. Detailing the properties and usages of
fragrances, these books reflected the new culture of consumption which
would flourish into the Ming.

The Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) which swept away the Song saw the
displacement of a polite culture by a warrior ethos. The Mongols did not
initially value the learning of the Chinese men of letters, but they were
certainly very interested in the revenue which could be generated from
trade. Consequently, while they dismantled the examination system, they
reinstated the old Silk Road and were careful to retain the maritime
institutions of the Tang and the regulatory systems of the Song. They
reinstated old trading towns and established new ones along the Silk
Road. They kept the three Song Maritime Trade Bureaus in Guangzhou,
Quanzhou and Qinyuan (Ningbo) and added four others along the east
coast: Shanghai, Xupu, Hangzhou and Wenzhou. 'The number of
Maritime Trade Bureaus rose to seven by 1293, as Khubilai's financial
advisers at the court sought to fill the government treasury through
percentage levies on cargoes and trade taxes.'
Like preceding regimes, the Yuan court commissioned voyages and
even stationed diplomats in powerful Southeast Asian countries. They
campaigned to conquer Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Java, which has
recently attracted serious attention.* In February 1296, Zhou Daguan
(1266-1346) set sail from Wenzhou and arrived in Angkor Wat in August.
He returned to China in 1297 and produced a most valuable study,
Zhenla Fengtu Ji or The Customs of Cambodia, about the country and
court of Angkor Wat.106 In 1301, Yang Shu (1283-1331) left the port of
Guangzhou at the head of a government delegation which travelled as
far as Hormuz and the Persian Gulf on his second voyage in 1304. In
1330, a twenty-year-old young man named Wang Dayuan (b. 1311) set
sail from Quanzhou on the first of several voyages which took him to
Southeast, South and West Asia and even East Africa. Wang's work,
Dao Yi Zhilue or A Brief History of Island Foreigners, records almost 250
products that he discovered in these foreign countries and has become a
most valuable source in the study of these regions. The Song-Yuan era
was China's Age of Exploration. Witnessing the birth of long-distance
seafaring and voyages undertaken by individuals, it foreshadowed the
maritime activity of the later Ming era.
[* Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas: the Treasure Fleet of
the Dragon Throne 1405-1433 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p.
54.]
'Let everyone come and trade with us and with whoever they like in
China.' That the Mongols adopted a laissez-faire attitude towards foreign
trade might be a reflection of their nomadic origin. It was more likely
borne out of necessity, as trade provided steady income to fund their
endless campaigns. The extent to which maritime trade contributed to
Mongol expansion is debatable, but there can be no doubt that the
Mongols took foreign trade seriously and grew increasingly protectionist
as family-based private trade networks emerged to challenge the court
monopoly. Indeed, the Mongols became so defensive that the regime
issued four sea bans, which 'forbade merchants to go out to the seas'.
Taken together these bans were in place for barely ten years, and we
wonder how effective they were. Nevertheless, they established a
precedent which the Ming and Qing would follow. It would become
commonplace for a regime to claim that the private trade which
threatened their own sources of profit must be curtailed in the interest of
national security and social order. Private trade conglomerates
continued, however, to challenge the Yuan, and the contest between the
political regime and private merchants would intensify in the Ming, when
it became impossible for the court to control the private trade which grew
to be the norm.
The Mongols published China's first maritime law, called Maritime Trade
Law, in 1292. This legal code consisted of 22 regulations, some of which
are listed below:
'Regulation Four:
On the subject of diplomats, big or small ranking officials and military
personnel who are sent abroad for work, have their fares and expenses
paid by the government, but many of them still use the opportunity to do
business on their own. If they have done so, upon their return, their
goods must be handed to the Maritime Trade Bureau for taxation or
confiscation.'
'Regulation Five:
 On the subject of Buddhist monks and priests, Daoists, Christians and
Muslims who often take lay people with them in order to undertake
business when they travel abroad and who often escape taxation. From
now on, when they travel abroad, they can't escape taxation without the
Emperor's permission. Otherwise, all their goods will be taxed
accordingly.'
'Regulation Ten:
Concerning the arms, ammunitions and gongs used by seafaring
merchants for self-defence during their voyages, these must be counted
and stored with the port authority, which will hand these items back to
them should they put to sea again.'
'Regulation Thirteen:
Gold, silver, copper money, iron products, people, male or female
cannot be privately traded to foreigners / foreign places.'
The Law established rules of taxation, restrictions on goods traded, and
guidelines of conduct for diplomatic and religious travel. Regulations
Four and Five are revealing: everyone, even men of religion, was
engaged in making money; this is demonstrative of the scale and
profitability of maritime trade under Mongol rule.
During the Song-Yuan dynastic era, Quanzhou overtook Guangzhou to
become the largest port of foreign trade, and as Angela Schottenhammer
has remarked, the city became the 'Emporium of the World'. Quanzhou
thrived at the expense of Guangzhou for at least two reasons. First, the
economy and reputation of Guangzhou had been severely damaged by
the peasant rebel forces led by Huang Chao in 878. Expressing their
hostility towards the Tang regime, the peasant army launched an assault
on those things which the regime prized most as they marched into
Guangzhou, they burnt the valuable silk cocoons and massacred the
foreign traders, mostly Muslims, who brought so much revenue to the
Tang regime. Secondly, Guangzhou declined because the prosperity of
the port fostered widespread corruption, which eventually made it
unfeasible for foreign traders to continue to operate there; they inevitably
looked for a new and more suitable place. Corruption and massacres
drove foreign traders away from Guangzhou to neighbouring Quanzhou,
which was home to a mixed population that controlled the foreign trade
and was second only to their Mongol masters in the social hierarchy.
One of the most visible was the Pu conglomerate. Maritime merchants
of Arab-Muslim descent, the Pu family rose to eminence through the
fragrance trade, and Pu Shougeng (1205-1290) became a key official in
charge of maritime trade in the Fujian bureaucracy. He surrendered to
the Mongols and served in the Yuan hierarchy, which further enhanced
his position and wealth, making the Pu family one of the most powerful
during the Yuan dynasty. Shi Zongle (1318-1391) vividly describes the
mixed landscape and culture of Quanzhou:
Rare is the place of Quanzhou in the south
Fragrance wafts around the city and temples
Arabs, Persians and Mestizo merchants
Tall ships usually bring sea treasures.
Muslim traders continued to come and stay in China, despite violence
and corruption, because silk and porcelain remained the most numerous
and most profitable items for export, followed by domestic necessities
such as iron woks, textiles and stationery. It was during the Yuan period
that the Islamic Encyclopaedia of Medicine was translated into Chinese;
it would have a profound impact on the practice of traditional Chinese
medicine (TCM). While historians continue to question whether or not the
Venetian merchant Marco Polo really went to and lived in Song-Yuan
China, the legend alone lent force to the allure of the land itself. While
Persian and Arab traders had led the way, they would soon be replaced
by Europeans, whose race for Asian, and especially Chinese, luxuries
began soon after the Mongol tide subsided in the fourteenth century.
The Tang turned to the sea for contact and exchange when the Silk
Road fragmented. The Song institutionalised foreign trade management
with a regulatory system, and the Mongols built still further on this
infrastructure. How effective were the Song Regulation and Yuan Law?
This would involve much more research, as regional authorities often
responded to central directives with their own strategies; this continued
during the following Ming-Qing dynastic era - and in fact continues to the
present day. The Tang-Song-Yuan regimes solicited foreigners to come
and facilitated private trade because this enriched and empowered them.
Kent Deng was right to call the Song a 'money-hungry state' that created
and drove a vigorous market. The Song survived and even thrived,
despite being isolated from northern China, because of the profits it
garnered from its open attitude towards the seas and maritime trade. The
Song-Yuan era, as Li Donghua and Chen Xinxiong have remarked, saw
the pinnacle of China's maritime trade and shipbuilding, which enabled
their engagement with the seas. The maritime world thus became
indispensable, with obvious, far-reaching, consequences."
"The Ming Paradox: 1368 to 1643
If, as Valerie Hansen asserts, China faced the West from 200 to 1000
and the North from 1000 to 1600, she also faced the seas and almost
only the seas from then onward. The founding of the Ming dynasty in
1368 marked a return to Chinese rule; it also marked a changing attitude
towards the seas. The founding monarch, the Hongwu emperor (1368-
1398) [Zhu Yuanzhang], was suspicious of the sea and hostile towards
seafaring. This attitude was immediately evident in Hongwu's first wave
of edicts:
'Order to the Deputy Prime Minister Prince Wu and Marquis Jing Hai
(Pacify Seas): Because the followers of Fang Guozhen in Wenzhou,
Taizhou and Qingyuan three districts and the people in the Lanxiu
Mountain have been made boat people and there are 111,730 of them,
put them under your army. Still do not allow coastal people go to the
seas on their own.'
Hongwu enforced the ban with zeal and reissued a decree every
decade. Sometimes the ban was so strict that people were not even
allowed to fish inshore waters. His lines would be evoked by other
monarchs later in history, and even historians. That the emperor included
this demand in Ancestral Instructions made it extremely difficult for his
sons and grandsons to adopt a different approach to the sea, as this
would have been considered unfilial, a most serious transgression for
any Chinese. Hongwu did re-open the famous Maritime Trade Bureau for
business, but only for tribute trade, which as usual was dictated by and
served the Ming court. This was characteristically different from the
Tang-Song-Yuan regimes, which fashioned policies to encourage and
manage private trade. Timothy Brook recently summed up the
importance of tribute trade: 'The Hongwu emperor cared deeply about
receiving tribute embassies. Every visit confirmed his right to rule, to
potentates beyond his borders as well as to his subjects watching the
foreign embassies enter the capital.'
There are a number of reasons why the new emperor, a peasant boy
who once nearly died of starvation, was so antagonistic towards the sea
and seafaring. Hongwu's political and economic ideology was a
decidedly conservative one, which gave precedence to agriculture over
commerce and underpinned his hostility towards the maritime world.
Hongwu's armies, wherever they marched and were stationed, undertook
garrison and commercial farming which helped to feed the soldiers and
the increasing population, reducing the need for revenue garnered from
maritime trade. As the Ming gained control over northern China and
expanded into the southwest, the land available for cultivation expanded
considerably. The Ming's self-sufficiency was complimented by the
introduction of new foodstuffs from the New World, namely maize and
the foreign yam, as will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three.
Secondly, the forces which competed with Hongwu for the imperial
throne, led by Zhang Shichen and Fang Guozhen as mentioned in his
first decree, maintained a presence on the open sea. Zhuang Jinghui has
carefully studied the dangers posed by these enemies on the sea during
Hongwu's reign and has identified 23 severe raids in this period. This
marks a turning point in Chinese history, as the threats to preceding
dynasties had almost always come over land. The Ming did notice it, and
Hongwu did his best to manage the situation, but they did not develop a
long-term strategy and could find no solution. For Hongwu, seafaring
activities undertaken by individuals were dangerous and provided an
opportunity for ordinary Chinese to associate freely with rebel forces and
invite potential enemies ashore. Understandably, fear of returning
enemies who might challenge him for the throne was a most pressing
issue for Hongwu. However, all this would soon change.
The Yongle emperor (1402-1424) [Zhu Di], Hongwu's son, adopted a
dramatically different attitude toward the maritime world, beginning the
father-son tug of war that lasted into the Qing. To many he seemed
curious, and the voyages he commissioned audacious. But he was not
much different from the First Emperor, the King of Wu, or the Sui, Song
and Yuan monarchs who had commissioned similar voyages that were
considered epic in their own times. Admiral Zheng He called on many
ports of Southeast, South and West Asia, as well as East Africa, in seven
epic voyages. He visited Mecca and reached Malindi near present-day
Mombasa (Kenya) in 1418, eighty years before Vasco de Gama rounded
the Cape of Good Hope. These voyages punished, silenced or
intimidated anti-Ming remnants wherever they were hiding or plotting,
from the East China Sea to the Indian Ocean. They more importantly
projected China as a benevolent power and facilitated tribute trade.
Although the voyages did not establish colonies as the expeditions of
Europeans would a hundred years later, they did have significant
consequences. In the short term, the voyages were costly and depleted
the treasury; they were unrealistic in their ambitions and they contributed
to ferocious political infighting between eunuchs and scholar-officials.
From a longer-term perspective, however, these voyages were
instrumental in shaping Asia's early modern economy, inaugurating
'Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450 to 1680' and 'China's
silver century, 1550-1650'.* They encouraged private trade and
facilitated Chinese migration to Southeast Asia. Upon Yongle's death in
1424 his son, the short-lived Hongxi emperor (1424-1425) [Zhu Gaochi],
resumed a strict ban on private seafaring that would remain in place for
the next eighty years. During this time tribute trade flourished and
peaked as foreign tribute missions arrived frequently, but the father-son
tug of war would continue, and with it the ban-and-lift cycle of Ming
maritime policy.**
[* Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce; Richard Von Glahn,
Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, Fourteenth to
Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996),
p. 113.]
[** Angela Schottenhammer, ed. The East Asian Maritime World 1400-
1800: its Fabrics of Power and Dynamics of Exchanges (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2007).]
It was under the Zhengde emperor (1505-1521) [Zhu Houzhao] that the
ban began to be relaxed. Zhengde knew that private trade had been
flourishing because of the ban, and that the court could profit from it by
taxation, so he did not need - nor did he dare - to lift the ban imposed by
the Hongxi emperor. For the first time during the Ming, non-tribute ships
were permitted to anchor in Guangzhou, signalling the legalisation of the
private trade that had flourished in spite of the eighty-year ban as
Zhangzhou on the Fujian coast became a heaven for private trade.
Historians generally agree that Zhengde's reign saw the displacement of
tribute by private trade. The tribute missions came not, as official
histories claim, because they admired Chinese civilisation, but because
this was the only means by which to legally procure what China had to
offer. For the Ming court, too, this was the best way to procure what they
needed. Some missions came often and became a financial and logistic
burden on the Ming administration. Meanwhile, the ban did not stop
individuals from seafaring; private trade actually thrived because of the
ban, as can be seen from the outflow of coastal Chinese to Southeast
Asia and the growth of their settlements there.*
[* Roderich Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund, eds. Emporia, Commodities,
and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, C. 1400-1750 (Stuttgart:
Steiner Verlag, 1991); Roderich Ptak, China and the Asian Sea: Trade,
Travel and Visions of the Other (Aldershot & Brookfield [VT]: Ashgate,
1998); and Philip A. Kuhn, Chinese Among Others: Emigration in Modern
Times (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008), pp. 7-
52 & 55-104.]
Zhengde's reign is also significant because it saw the arrival of the
Portuguese. The early decades of the sixteenth century marked the
Portuguese endeavour to find a footing in China; Zhang Zengxin has
traced their footsteps and activities along the Chinese coast in this
period. After several attempts by Jorge Álvares, Rafael Perestrello, Tomé
Pires and Fernão Pires de Andrade, the mission of King Manuel I of
Portugal to the court of the Zhengde emperor finally succeeded in
securing for the Portuguese the right to send tribute missions to Beijing.
This understanding was, however, damaged irreparably by the actions of
Simão Pires de Andrade, brother of Fernão Pires, who allegedly
assaulted a Guangzhou official in 1519.* What was worse, he sailed
north and landed in Xiamen and then Ningbo without official permission.
In 1545, his men ransacked the town and took women and children
captive, in response to feeling himself cheated in a deal. Chinese local
authorities retaliated, destroying the Portuguese settlement and attacking
their ships.
[* John E. Wills, Jr., 'Relations with Maritime Europe, 1514-1662', in The
Cambridge History of China Volume 8.]
The Portuguese episode damaged the reputation of European traders
and provoked a return to the policy of banning seafaring under
Zhengde's successor, the Jiajing emperor (1521-1567) [Zhu Houcong].
This encounter strengthened the Ming's resolve to keep all foreigners
away from its shores, including not only the Europeans but also the short
pirates, referring to the Japanese.* Profit had given rise to fierce
competition and intrigue as pirates devastated the Ming coast; as Zhang
Bincun has pointed out, however, most were actually Chinese, with
relatively few Japanese amongst them. The battle against piracy saw the
rise of Qi Jiguang (1528-1588), a native of the legendary Penglai area
and the Ming's most effective naval commander, who succeeded in
restoring calm to the seas from Bohai to the Taiwan Strait, if only
temporarily.
[* Ivy Lim, Lineage Society on the Southeastern Coast of China: the
Impact of Japanese Piracy in the 16th Century (Amherst [NY]: Cambria
Press, 2010); and Kenneth M. Swope, A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's
Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009).]
Where foreign trade and merchants had helped the Tang-Song-Yuan
regimes to make money, they proved problematic and threatening for the
Ming. Timothy Brook's new book, Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan
and Ming Dynasties, lends force to this argument. Trouble was brewing
at sea and devastating the Ming coast. There was also trouble in the
weather; as Brook points out, the Yuan-Ming era coincided with what
environmental historians called the 'Little Ice Age'. The Longqing
emperor (1567-1572) [Zhu Zaihou] succeeded Jiajing in 1567. As
expected, he relaxed the maritime ban immediately. This was the Ming's
last maritime policy change, as the dynasty saw its twilight during the
reign of Longqing's successor, the Wanli emperor (1573-1620) [Zhu
Yijun].
The history of the Ming is, as scholars have often remarked, perplexing
and complicated. Kent Deng aptly characterized the Ming paradox when
he described the dynasty as a 'power-hungry state which bullied the
private sector'. On one hand, the Ming regime is synonymous with the
epic voyages of Zheng He; on the other, it is renowned for its
conservative anti-trade stance. The conservative policy of the Ming
actually contributed to the rise of private trade, as family-led multinational
networks emerged and thrived. One of the most powerful was the Zheng
Chenggong conglomerate, which reached from Nagasaki to the Straits of
Malacca by the end of the Ming. The more private trade was banned, the
bigger and stronger it grew. The Zheng army and fleet put up a brave
resistance that helped the dying Ming dynasty last four more decades. It
is ironic that the court which so despised maritime trade came to rely on
the maritime world in the end: who knows what would have happened if
the Ming had adopted a more Song-like attitude towards the seas?
Historians revisited the Zheng He voyages as the People's Republic of
China celebrated its 600-year anniversary. As the debate regarding their
purpose continues, Chen Kuo-tung has advanced a new view that Zheng
He's voyages had three distinct aims: sappan wood, pepper, and
giraffes. Foreign to China, the giraffe resembles the Chinese mythical
holy animal Qilin, and was valued highly. Pepper was a necessity in
cuisine and the Chinese were dependent on a steady supply of the
seasoning. As for sappan wood, Chen argued that this product was
destined for the Ming court, where it was used to pay the salaries of
high-ranking officials, who would sell it to make a profit. Why then did the
Chinese need so much sappan wood during the Ming, and apparently
neither before nor after? Sappan wood exposes what I call the 'Red
Revolution'.* When boiled, sappan wood yielded a reddish tint which was
popular as a dye. This is significant because the Ming passion for red
passed down to the Communists. Red is the official colour of the
Communist Party, the flag it flies, and the army it created. The Chinese
appetite for red deserves independent study, which will undoubtedly
reveal some of the dynamics of psychological and socio-cultural change
wrought by foreign trade.
[* I hope to elaborate this in a new book titled 'A History of the Colour
Red in China'.]
The Ming era is significant because it marked the beginning of large-
scale overseas migration, which had begun - on a smaller scale - much
earlier and can be traced back to the Tang-Song or even, as some
historians point out, to the time of Xu Fu. Official histories since the Song
have listed the places frequented by coastal Chinese, which include
Lusong (Philippines), Brunei, Palembang, Malacca and Cambodia. Song
Shi or History of the Song mentions merchants who stayed in overseas
countries for long periods, as long as twenty years, and returned to
China with foreign wives and children. It seems that Palembang had
become a safe-haven for the Chinese by the early Ming. Ma Huan,
translator to Zheng He, detailed the kind of Chinese who found
themselves in Palembang in his memoir:
'Many people in this country are from Guangdong, Zhangzhou and
Quanzhou who fled here; they are rich. So is the land. ... During the time
of Hongwu, Cantonese Chen Zuyi and his entire family fled here. He
became the head of the locality, he is loaded and big-headed; he
harasses and plunders boats that come and go.'
The Chinese presence in Southeast Asia has continued to fascinate
travellers and scholars interested in the region.* It is surprising that mass
migration took place under the Ming and not under earlier dynasties,
when it would have been much easier for Chinese to travel. Several
historians have demonstrated that migration under the Ming was
motivated both by necessity and opportunity; Yang Guozhen pointed to
the rise of what he called the 'maritime economy and society'. An
increasing number of coastal Chinese left to seek their fortune: China
needed what Southeast Asia could provide as population increased and
cultivable land shrank, while the global trade that stretched from China to
England via Southeast Asia, and to the Americas via the Philippines,
seemed to offer abundant opportunities to become rich. The commercial
instinct and talent of the Chinese finally found a match in the environs of
Southeast Asia. The increasing pressure from within and the arrival of
Europeans made the space that Southeast Asian countries provided,
together with the absence of government restriction on commercial
activities in these lands, particularly attractive to the Chinese. The
consequent Chinese exodus drew China into greater economic, if not
political, entanglement with Southeast Asian countries.
[* Thomas S. Raffles, The History of Java (London: Black, Parbury and
Allen, 1817); Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London:
Oxford University Press, 1951).]
The Ming also saw the arrival of the Jesuits and the initial spread of
Catholicism on Chinese soil. As we shall see in Chapters Four and Five,
the Jesuits used goods manufactured in Europe, such as clocks, to gain
access to China and the Ming political establishment. While obviously
shrewd, their machinations did not produce the kind of success they
imagined, and their missions ended in the disastrous 'Rites Controversy'.
But the Jesuits, the Portuguese, and their rivals the Spaniards and the
Dutch were not the only Europeans on Asian waters.
On 14th April 1636 a fleet of four ships, the Dragon, Sunne, Catherine,
and Planter, and two pinnaces, the Anne and the Discovery, left the
Downs near London and sailed for Asia.* Eager to catch up, the English
East India Company wished to establish direct trade links with China.
Captain Weddell carried with him two royal commissions and three
letters from H. M. King Charles I; they were addressed to the agents of
the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie or
VOC), to the Portuguese Viceroy at Goa and to the Governor at Macao.
That the letters were addressed to such diverse authorities reveals that
control of Asian trade was complex and that the British venture would be
far from straightforward.** Dutch and English competition, in the words of
H. B. Morse, was 'one of constant fighting like two dogs over one bone'.
Just as Captain Weddell was setting forth, the Manchus christened their
northern kingdom 'Qing' and were planning their next plot to invade Ming
China, which they managed successfully in May 1644. The English
would test the shores of Qing China and challenge her much as the
Portuguese had done during the Ming. The dynamics of their encounter
would shape the history of the Qing.
[* H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to
China 1635-1834 (4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), vol. 1, p. 16.]
[** The mission ended in disaster. See John Keay, The Honourable
Company: A History of the English East India Company (London:
HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 123-24.]"
"Conclusion
The consistencies and disparities of the last two millennia of Chinese
encounters with the sea have been laid bare in this chapter. Although the
Qin-Han regimes emphasised control, the smaller dynasties that came
after had to be flexible in order to survive. The Tang-Song-Yuan regimes
recognised the potential of maritime trade to generate much-needed
profit, and they installed institutions and fashioned laws that allowed
ordinary Chinese to pursue trade and travel. The biggest beneficiaries of
this maritime activity were, of course, the regimes themselves. The
relationship of the Ming to the sea was far more ambivalent and
paradoxical. The Ming had neither the mentality nor the need for a liberal
seafaring policy, and the period was characterized by the reigns of hard-
line anti-maritime monarchs like Hongwu, and maritime visionaries like
Yongle. The Ming saw the zenith of tribute trade; it also saw the rise of
private trade. Foreigners, too, had noticed China ever since the Qin, if
not earlier. Han China appeared in The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea;
Tang-Song China and porcelains in Arab memoirs like Anciennes
Relations des Indes et de la Chine by Sulayman Al Tajir; Yuan China in
European travel logs; and Ming China in Jesuit memoirs.*
[* Ancient Accounts of India and China by Two Mohammedan Travellers
(London: Sam Harding, 1733). See also Catherine C. Brawer and Geri
Wu, Trade Winds: the Lure of the China Trade, 16th-19th Centuries
(Katonah [NY]: Katonah Gallery, 1985).]
China's engagement with the seas has a long history and demands
much more examination. Ever since the founding of the Middle Kingdom,
monarchs from the First Emperor to the Yongle Emperor commissioned
epic voyages. While some sought the secrets of longevity and revenue in
the seas, others sought recognition, power and exotic goods. In
succession, Buddhist monks, Song-Yuan diplomats, and finally ordinary
Chinese journeyed to South and Southeast Asia. While the rise and fall
of the Qin-Han dynasties coincided with that of the Western Roman
Empire, the ascendancy of the Tang-Song epoch paralleled the
expansion of Islam. While the Ming flourished at the same time as the
Portuguese, the Qing would come to face the English. Trade was
instrumental in introducing new religions such as Buddhism, Islam and
Christianity into China, as well as bringing a diversity of new goods such
as fragrances, tobacco and maize. How would the consistency of Tang-
Song-Yuan policy towards the seas, and the rupture in this policy that
was represented by Ming ambivalence, shape the Qing's attitude
towards the maritime world? What, in other words, would the Manchus
learn from their Chinese and Mongol predecessors?"
"2 'THE INCONSISTENCY OF THE SEAS'
Matteo Ripa was one of many Jesuits who worked for the Kangxi
emperor (r. 1662-1722) [Xuanye] in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries. He served as an interpreter when Kangxi received
the Russian embassy led by Count Ismailof in the winter of 1720, and he
remembered the audience:
'His Majesty then began to speak, and after a bombastic preamble, said
that the people and welfare of the two nations depended on the Czar's
health; and that having heard how he delighted in marine excursions, he
was desirous to warn him against the inconsistency of the seas, lest he
should thus expose himself to destruction. At the conclusion of this
solemn illustration of the old saying 'Parturient montes, nascentur
riduculus mus,' Count Ismailof had great difficulty in refraining from
laughter, as he himself afterwards told me.'*
[* Memoirs of Father Ripa during Thirteen Years' Resident at the Court of
Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China (London: John Murray,
1844), pp. 111-12.]
Kangxi thought the seas were inconsistent and destructive, even though
the Manchu sphere of control had extended to the Liaodong Peninsula-
Bohai area before they entered China in 1644. Perhaps Kangxi knew of
the lessons the early Manchu court learnt from the late Ming general
Mao Wenlong (1584-1630), who demonstrated to them the difficulty of
managing the seas. A major figure in the late Ming fight against the
advancing Manchus, General Mao operated from Pi Dao, an island at the
mouth of the Yalu River, where he held the Manchus at bay for nearly a
decade. Pi Dao is a most strategic place, situated at the heart of the
Northeast Asia maritime triangle, which consists of the Shandong-
Liaodong peninsulas, Korea and Japan (Jiuzhou or Kyushu). Not much
has been written on this important episode of history; the two volumes of
the Cambridge History of China on the Ming do not discuss Mao
Wenlong at all, which again demonstrates the lack of interest in the
maritime regions.
Perhaps Kangxi had not forgotten about Ming loyalist Zheng
Chenggong, whose four-decade-long resistance will be discussed in the
following pages. His comment may also have merely been words of
caution, which he habitually offered to many - whether they wanted or
not - but 'inconsistency' certainly captures the essence of his maritime
policies. This chapter focuses on the Qing's foremost encounters with the
maritime world after they entered China. In doing so, it lays bare the
Qing's political philosophy and control mechanism toward the seas, and
illuminates the circumstances behind their several vacillations: the ban of
1656, which was reinforced in 1661 but relaxed in 1684; the ban of 1717,
revoked in 1727 before a change in 1757 implemented the so-called
'Guangzhou one port system'. This dictated Sino-foreign trade in theory,
but not in practice, as the seafaring provinces continued - as they always
had - to circumvent court policies in whatever ways they could in order to
protect their own interests, until the Treaty of Nanking in 1842."
"Change but Continuity
On the 14th day of the 6th moon (July) in the Kangxi emperor's 22nd
year (1683), 238 ships carrying more than 21,000 soldiers set sail from
the island of Dongshan on the southeast coast of Fujian province. Led by
Shi Lang, the Fujian Naval Commander and Junior Guardian to the Heir
Apparent, the fleet rode on the south wind and sailed straight towards
Penghu (Pescadores in Portuguese or Fishermen), an archipelago off
the southwest coast of Taiwan consisting of 90 small islands covering an
area of 141 square kilometres.* Their target was the anti-Qing forces
which, led by Zheng Chenggong, had established themselves in Taiwan
in 1662 after they were driven from their mainland stronghold in Xiamen.
In the face of this successful assault the Zheng regime surrendered a
month later, in August 1683.
[* John E. Wills, 'Maritime China from Wang Chih to Shih Lang', in From
Ming to Ch'ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-
century China, eds. Jonathan Spence and John E. Wills Jr. (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 203-238.]
This victory was not an easy one, despite the fact that Dongshan is not
at all far from Taiwan; it is as far as Miami is from Cuba. It came forty
years after the Manchus installed themselves in Beijing as the Qing
dynasty, and after several failed attacks led by the same general. What
made this attempt successful? This conquest is important not because it
brought Taiwan into the Qing orbit, but because history threatens to
repeat itself as the Communist regime on the mainland continues to
pursue the dream of unification. This was the first and last time that the
Qing court utilised the talents and resources maritime China had to offer
and assembled a large naval force that sailed to victory. This supremacy
on the seas was lost soon after the Taiwan conquest, a loss which
ultimately led to the Qing defeat in the Opium Wars in the nineteenth
century. This section traces the Qing encounter with the maritime world
when they swept down the central plains to coastal China. It analyses
Qing responses to the challenges of the seas and assesses what
lessons were learnt from the Ming, if not from history.
The Manchu regime and its armies of the Eight Banners entered Ming
China in 1644 without firing a single shot, thanks to treacherous Ming
general Wu Sangui, who opened the Mountain Sea Pass. The Manchus
quickly installed themselves in the old Ming palace, and their luck may
indeed have been a manifestation of a 'Mandate from Heaven'. Ho Ping-
ti believes that the Qing was 'the most successful of conquest dynasties',
and Charles Hucker describes the conquest as 'the least disruptive
transition'. As soon as the Manchu court had accustomed itself to the
Forbidden City, they began the real conquest. Like the Mongols before
them, they swept through the north and central plains easily, until they
arrived at Fujian in 1648. The Manchus soon realised that southern
China was not as easy to conquer, as it was not only exotic but also
challenging. The Zheng Chenggong conglomerate would offer strong
resistance in the city of Xiamen and the Taiwan Strait vicinity until 1683.
The Qing court and officials began to reinforce the old Ming naval force
to help them defeat the Zheng opposition. To prevent the coastal
population from communicating with and providing support to the Zheng
forces, the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644-1661) [Fulin], the first Manchu
monarch to rule from China, issued the first Sea Ban edict in August
1656:
 'Sea rebel Zheng Chenggong and his troops hide themselves in the sea.
They have not been wiped out; traitors will pass on information to them.
They hope to profit from the trade and provide the rebels with provision
and ammunitions. If we don't set the rule, how can we turn our seas into
calm waters? From now on, all the civil and military officials of the coastal
provinces/regions cannot allow merchants and ordinary people to go out
to the seas on their own.'
The edict also stipulated that those who helped provide provisions,
especially rice, and other kinds of help to the rebels would be punished
severely. However, this ban on coastal people going to sea did not
prevent rebels from sneaking in, and the vigilance of local military
officials, who could be tempted to let them pass with a little money, was
not always to be depended on. Punishment was therefore also laid out
not just for those who were immediately responsible for such
transgressions, but for the entire chain of command. Sea bans had been
frequent during the Ming and remained so during the early Qing, as the
father-son tug of war continued; neither the Ming nor the Qing was able
to produce a sensible policy. The 1656 ban was motivated by security
concerns and imposed along the coast from Shandong to Guangdong;
but it did allow people in less affected areas to use one-mast vessels for
fishing in coastal waters.
The Qing differed from the Ming in their enforcement of sea bans due to
their determination to wipe out the Zheng resistance. To tighten the net
on the Zheng forces, the Shunzhi emperor issued Order to Move the
Boundary in 1661:
'Move the coastal people of Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangnan and Zhejiang
provinces thirty miles inland from the sea... No one can help supply the
Zheng rebels and they will disappear before we attack them. Order the
governors-general of the four provinces to give those who moved 'land
and housing' so that they can settle in the interior. Their houses and
boats should be burnt and destroyed. Not a single plank of wood is
allowed into the sea. Build walls, put up stone boundaries, erect bunkers
and barracks. The punishment for those who go beyond the boundary is
death.'
Unprecedented in maritime history, the 1661 Order forced tens of
thousands of coastal people to leave their homes and move inland, some
more than one hundred miles. By cutting off their moral support and
material supply, the Manchus thought they could starve the Zheng rebel
forces to death. The Manchus were determined, thorough and effective,
and the Zheng-led resistance was forced off the mainland in 1662 due to
a shortage of food, rice in particular.
Far from easing the problems, however, the expulsion of Zheng's forces
from the mainland made matters worse. The rebels managed to oust the
Dutch from Taiwan in 1662 and obtained a rich island base that could
provide everything from manpower to supplies. The Qing court could
have left the rebels in Taiwan but they didn't. The Manchus realised that
the threat was even greater than before, since they could now no longer
foresee when and where enemy forces might emerge from the sea. The
worst scenario was that the Zheng resistance coordinate with their
supporters on the mainland and mount covert attacks. In the meantime,
the Order to Move the Boundary proved to be catastrophic for the
ordinary people who lived along the coast, as evidenced in the works of
Zhu Delan, who has carefully studied life during this period. Some
inhabitants would return decades later, but many would never again see
their home villages or the seas as they settled permanently in the
interior. This naturally affected the maritime trade that now stretched
from China to Europe via Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean on the
one hand, and to the Americas via the Philippines on the other.
But the Kangxi court had much more urgent matters to deal with at this
time, as pockets of resistance persisted in various areas of southern
China, challenging the nomadic banner warriors who were more used to
the cold weather of the north. Heat and tropical diseases proved to be
more menacing than the Chinese, but the Manchus held on. Kangxi
managed to crush the so-called 'three feudatories' scattered in Yunnan,
Guangdong and Fujian provinces. He then turned his attention to the
Zheng forces in Taiwan. The 1683 assault was very successful and the
1680s marked the Qing's final campaigns in southern China; these
territories would remain under Manchu control until the Taiping Rebellion
in the 1850s.
Decades of war and the maritime ban not only ruined families and
businesses but also emptied local and court treasuries. Many of Kangxi's
officials had complained about the lack of funds ever since the Manchus
began the southern campaigns; they blamed the maritime ban and
suggested lifting it, even during the Taiwan campaigns, in order to garner
badly-needed financial resources. Kangxi read their memorials carefully
and acknowledged the issue, as we can see from the jottings he made
on those documents, which usually read 'Noted'. National security,
however, took precedence over all else, even profit-making. When all
southern resistance was crushed and Taiwan brought into the realm, the
debate over whether to lift the ban re-opened immediately within
officialdom. Kangxi clearly took the issue seriously this time, and
convened with his advisers to discuss lifting the ban in Jiangnan,
Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. He sent a team of officials to
investigate and assess the situation in these coastal regions. Jin Shijian
returned in the spring (lunar April) of 1684 and reported on the situation
in Zhejiang:
'Your Majesty's virtue and power have spread to all the corners and the
seas are calm. Along the coast of Zhejiang, we should be able to use the
same policy for Shandong. We could allow the people to use boats under
500 dan capacities to go fishing and trade on the sea.'*
[* See also Lillian M. Li, Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market,
and Environmental Decline, 1690s-1990s (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2007), appendix on weights and measures, pp. 391-92.]
Reports from Fujian and Guangdong read more or less the same, as life
returned to normal after years of unrest. These were not just
recommendations from a handful of officials in the field; they reflected
the consensus that was building among the majority of those who served
in the maritime regions. Kangxi read their memorials and made up his
mind:
'I intend to lift the ban of sea trade because it would benefit the small
people along the Fujian and Guangdong coast. If these two provinces
have enough, the circulation of money and goods will be smooth, and
every other province would benefit from it. Those who could go do
overseas trade are not poor people but big merchants. We can tax them
heavily; this would not burden the small people. We could use the money
for military purposes and help other provinces in need. This way, the
provinces can help each other out in terms of grains and funds; and the
small people can enjoy peace and plenty. I therefore lift the ban on
maritime trade.'
Qing maritime policy was determined by considerations of national
security, as it had been during the Ming. Like the founders of the Ming,
the Manchus rose with a few thousand men and without the support of
the maritime world. Seafaring was not of great concern to them, even
though Kangxi, followed by his son and grandson, were interested in
what the maritime world could bring. The court benefited from the
revenues it generated, and they themselves became addicted to the
exotic foreign goods brought in by maritime trade, which will be
discussed in greater detail in Chapters Four and Five.
After lifting the ban, the Qing set up four Sea Passes/Checkpoints, to
manage maritime affairs: Guangdong Customs in Guangzhou, Fujian
Customs in Zhangzhou, Zhejiang Customs in Ningbo, and Jiangnan
Customs in Songjiang (Shanghai). A government agency was also
established in Guangzhou; this was the Gong Hang or Co-hong which
managed acquisition and taxation for the court, just like the old Maritime
Trade Bureau during the Tang-Song-Yuan era. The Qing did not invent
these institutions, but simply re-opened them for business. The Manchus
proved to be sensible in allowing private trade, which generated badly-
needed revenue after decades of devastation. Below is a rare image
found in the Chinese Collection held at the John Rylands Library at the
University of Manchester, depicting what is called 'Caton Customs
Inspection'.
The lifting of the ban would usher in one of the most dynamic periods in
maritime trade. Southeast Asian historian Leonard Blusse has referred to
the 1684 relaxation as 'liberalisation' and 'institutionalisation', which is the
correct terminology in the language of economics but does not
adequately reflect the perspective of the Qing. They could - and did -
resume the ban should the situation change, but seafaring and trade
went on, despite or even because of the restrictions, as it had during the
Ming. We know this from the countless efforts of the East India
Company; they 'had striven for a third of a century to obtain entrance to
the China trade, and had had no success'. They tried again in the year
1676:
'A ship was dispatched from England to Amoy, with a view of
establishing a factory there, in which they succeeded; but the trade was
obstructed by the civil wars which then raged in China. In 1680 the
Tartars drove the Chinese from Amoy, and destroyed the Company's
factory, their servants escaping to Tonquin and Bantam. In 1684 the
Tartar General permitted the factory to be re-established. In the following
year the Company's Residents there observed that 'having had five
months' experience, of the nature and quality of these people, they can
characterise them into no otherwise than as devils in men's shape;' and
they stated, 'that to remain exposed to the rapaciousness of the
avaricious Governors was considered as more detrimental than the trade
would be beneficial.' The factory was, however, continued, till the
Emperor's edict for confining the trade to Canton, compelled them to
withdraw.'*
[* William Milburn, Oriental Commerce: Containing a Geographical
Description of the Principal Places in the East Indies, China, and Japan
(2 vols. London: Black & Parry, 1813), vol. 2, p. 546.]
This Company account testifies to the opening of the Customs in 1684
(despite its apparent mistake about the year 1680). Trade went on during
the ban years and became more sophisticated, as people learned to
avoid patrol boats and as Chinese communities in the various Southeast
Asian destinations began to take shape, making it easier for people to
settle. Official sanction in 1684 only made things easier for the 'small
people', as Kangxi called them; it legitimised maritime activities in the
official dictionary. The English came at a time of dynastic change, which
complicated their own business just as it had complicated Portuguese
affairs during the Ming. The consolidation and rise of the Qing in China
coincided with the ascent of Britain on the seas.
Historians of Northeast and Southeast Asia have noticed the increasing
number of Chinese vessels that called upon ports in those areas in the
post-1684 years. Zhu Delan has carefully studied Sino-Japanese trade
and finds that a total of 7 Chinese ships (excluding those from Taiwan)
called on Japan in 1684; this figure jumped to 57 in 1685 and reached
153 in 1688. Between 1644 and 1684, fewer than 7 Chinese ships
annually called on Manila, where Sino-Philippine commerce had
flourished after the Spanish established themselves there in 1571 and
fostered the Galleon trade. An average of 20 ships, however, sailed into
Manila each year from 1685 to 1716, the dawn of another maritime ban
which is examined in the next section. Thai scholar Sarasin Viraphol
believes that 'after 1685 the number of Chinese ships calling at Siam
increased steadily' to about 15 in 1689.*
[* Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652-1853 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1977), p. 55.]
Another indicator of the obvious consequences of the 1684 relaxation
was the increase in Chinese settlement in small Southeast Asian
countries. Viraphol believes that the Chinese population in Siam grew to
more than three thousand in the post-1684 years, and a similar increase
was also noted in Java. Leonard Blusse has argued that the 1680s saw
the decline of Dutch trade in Asia; indeed, it was not just the English,
Javanese and other peoples of Southeast Asia who were competing with
the Dutch, but the Chinese.* Luc Nagtegaal argues that increased opium
smoking in Java in the 1680s was linked to the increased circulation of
Chinese merchants and labourers on the island.** The Chinese who
sojourned in Java learned to smoke opium there; they returned to the
coastal provinces with opium and the habit of smoking the substance.***
Maritime traffic continued to increase over the following decades, as
greater numbers of Chinese went out to trade and labour in Southeast
Asia.
[* 'No Boats to China: the Dutch East India Company and the Changing
Pattern of the China Sea Trade, 1635-1690', Modern Asian Studies 30, 1
(1996): 51-76.]
[** Riding the Dutch Tiger: the Dutch East India Company and the
Northeast Coast of Java, 1680-1743 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996), pp.
143-47.]
[*** Zheng Yangwen, The Social Life of Opium in China (Cambridge:
Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2005), pp. 41-55.]
The 1680s proved to be a successful decade for the Kangxi emperor, as
he secured a territory larger than the old Ming and established the border
with Russia in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689.* He would then march
west into Central Asia to pacify the Zunghars (Mongolian and Tibetan-
Buddhist), the Tibetans and the Uyghurs (Turkic and Islamic).** These
campaigns, which continued into the mid-eighteenth century, are
significant because they redrew the map of China and established the
boundaries which still stand today and continue to generate
controversy.*** Kangxi accomplished a feat of which his forefathers could
only dream. He undertook his first Southern Tour in 1684, a practice
begun eighteen hundred years prior by the First Emperor and continued
by Kangxi's Ming predecessors; his grandson Qianlong would perfect the
practice, and even Deng Xiaoping would emulate it in the 1980s. Kangxi
also took time out to renew his Manchu skills, such as hunting and
archery, and stumbled upon an old Ming garden in ruin, which he
claimed for himself and began to rebuild and enlarge. He called it
Garden of Eternal Spring.
[* The impact of this Treaty went beyond China and Russia. See
Boleslaw B. Szczesniak, 'Diplomatic Relations between Emperor K'ang
hsi and King John III of Poland', Journal of the American Oriental Society
89, 1 (1969): 157-61.]
[** Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: the Qing Conquest of Central
Eurasia (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).]
[*** 31 The latest was the so-called Wulumuqi Incident in Xinjiang that
began on 5th July 2009.]"
"The Kangxi Emperor versus Pope Clement XI
Just as Kangxi was beginning to enjoy the fruits of his hard work in the
early years of the eighteenth century, Pope Clement XI issued a decree
to Chinese Catholics in 1704 which addressed the way in which they
should worship:
'I. We use Deus to call the creator of Heaven, Earth and everything in
the universe in Europe; but these two words do not exist in the Chinese
language. Europeans in China and the Chinese converts to Catholicism
have been using Tian Zhu (Heavenly God) for a long time. From now on,
they can't use the word Tian (Heavenly), they also cannot use the phrase
Shang Di (Heavenly God); they can only use Deus. As for the horizontal
board Jing Tian (Reverence for Heaven) that hangs in churches, don't
hang it if you haven't and take it down if you have.
II. During the Confucius and ancestor worship in the spring and autumn,
Chinese Catholics are not allowed to participate or help with the
ceremonies; they should not even stand by because that constitutes
participation.'
These were only the first two of a long list of restrictions the Pope placed
on Chinese converts; they effectively dictated that converts relinquish
Chinese cultural practices once they became Christians. Many Chinese
converts and officials found this unacceptable, and the Kangxi emperor
reacted strongly:
'Reading this proclamation, I can only say that the Europeans are really
small-minded. They don't read or understand Chinese; how can they
have such opinions and lecture us about China? They are absolutely
ridiculous. They are not different from monks, priests and other extreme
sects. I have never seen anything full of such nonsense. To avoid further
trouble, we should not allow them to preach in China from now on.'
[* D. E. Mungello, ed. The Chinese Rites Controversy: its History and
Meaning (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994); Ben Elman, On Their Own
Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2005), pp. 160-68; Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural
History, 100 Roman Documents Concerning the Chinese Rites
Controversy (1645-1941) (San Francisco: Ricci Institute for Chinese-
Western Cul-tural History, 1992); and Paul A. Rule, 'The Chinese Rites
Controversy: a Long Lasting Sino-Western Cultural History', Pacific Rim
Report 32, (February 2004).]
This was the so-called Chinese 'Rites Controversy', in which an
increasing number of historians have become interested; none, however,
has linked it with the 1717 maritime ban, the focus of this section.* It is
vital to explore this link, as the Pope's quarrel with the Qing court over
the issue of dual worship would provide the context for another maritime
ban, imposed by the ageing Kangxi emperor. In other words, the
controversy led to yet another change in the Qing's attitude and policy
towards the seas. It also highlights the challenge that would continue to
face the Qing regime. The Jesuits had been operating in Macao since
the 1550s and in China since the 1580s; they managed to gain some
converts, both high status - such as the late Ming scholar-official Xu
Guangqu - and low status, or 'rice Christians'.36 Chinese Catholics made
good Christians, but the problem from the Church's perspective was that
they also worshiped Confucius, their ancestors, and possibly many other
gods at the same time. Not only that, they used the word Tian, which
means 'Heaven', and Di, which means 'God'. Although these are native
Chinese words, the Pope found their wide usage unacceptable and
claimed a Catholic monopoly over them. This struggle was not new; it
had surfaced during the very first Catholic-Chinese encounters in the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.*
[* Alvarez Semedo, The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy
of China (London: E. Taylre, 1644), p. 205.]
Matteo Ricci, the first Jesuit to arrive and settle in Ming Beijing, seemed
to have resolved the issue. Ricci believed that the Jesuits must respect
Chinese tradition if they were to be successful in China, and turned
himself into a defining example of tolerance. He learned to speak
Chinese and wore Chinese clothes, and also followed Chinese customs.
Ricci believed that the commemoration of Confucius and one's ancestors
was not a religious act in the same way as the worship of God in the
Catholic faith was; he therefore did not consider these rituals to be in
conflict with the worship of God. Catholicism could, and did, live in
harmony with Chinese cultural practices, and many Jesuits tolerated or
put up with this 'Ricci doctrine', even though they might not have been
reconciled to it in their hearts. This was what Ben Elman calls the 'Sino-
Jesuit accommodation'.
To a large extent, the Chinese rites controversy resulted from the arrival
of the Dominicans and Franciscans, what Liam Brockey calls the 'arrival
of rivals'.* Juan Bautista de Morales, one of the first Dominicans to arrive
in China in 1633, not only reopened the debate but also reported to the
Pope, accusing the Jesuits of allowing dual worship and compromising
Catholic etiquette. A fundamentalist, Morales was also jealous of the
Jesuits' success and dominance. The first edict from Pope Innocent X
was issued in 1645; it stated that Chinese Catholics should not
participate in activities that commemorated Confucius and that they
should not establish altars and tablets for their ancestors. This edict
arrived in China at a time when the Ming court had escaped to southern
China and the Manchus had barely established themselves on Chinese
soil.
[* Liam Brockey, Journey to the East: the Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-
1724 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), pp.
151-63; and Jonathan Spence, The China Helpers: Western Advisers in
China 1620-1960 (London: Bodley Head, 1969), p. 20.]
How the Manchu court perceived the various missionaries after they
entered Beijing in 1644 is certainly a question worth exploring if we
assume that they had never seen Europeans, except the Russians,
before. Anxious to 'consolidate their claims as the holders of the
Mandate of Heaven, the true heirs to the Ming', the Shunzhi emperor
treated those with astronomical skills well, as the calendar of the
Mandate of Heaven rested in their hands. It seems that he was on very
friendly terms with Jean Adam Schall von Bell (1591-1666), whom he
called Mafa, a Manchu term for a respected senior.* This prompted some
Jesuits, Alvarez Semedo for example, to believe that Shunzhi was
converted.
[* Louis Pfister, Notices Biographiques et Bibliographiques sur les
Jesuites de l'Ancienne Mission de Chine 1552-1773 (2 tomes. Chang-
hai: Imprimerie de la mission Catholique, 1932), tome 1, pp. 168-69. It
was translated as 'Venerable Père' in French.]
Kangxi inherited his father's ministers and missionaries when he
became emperor in 1662. A reading of the various Jesuit memoirs
reveals that Kangxi was not initially hostile to the Catholic faith. He was
friendly with the missionaries, as they themselves remembered and as
historians have acknowledged. He treated those with technical abilities
extremely well; he was well-disposed to the educated missionaries in
part because of his intense interest in astronomy and geography and his
desire to master mathematics and music, about which I shall elaborate in
Chapter Four. Good relations with the missionaries made Kangxi flexible
when friction surfaced, a trait evidenced in the ways in which he received
and handled the special envoy of Pope Clement XI. Nevertheless, it is
important not to overestimate the emperor's leniency, and he did not
hesitate to punish and banish those who did not follow his rules as the
rites controversy escalated into a bitter clash between the Qing court and
the Vatican. Kangxi was well aware of what the missionaries came for
and he knew how to handle them. The struggle over dual worship would
decide the fate of Christianity in China, the consequences of which is still
felt today.
The situation between the Qing court and the Vatican had already
begun to deteriorate in 1693, when the French missionary Charles
Maigrot publicly forbade Chinese Catholics in Fujian to carry on dual
worship. This angered many converts, as well as officials who reported to
Kangxi. To make things worse, Pope Clement XI issued the above
decree and sent a special envoy, Cardinal Carlo Tommaso Maillard de
Tournon (1669-1710), who arrived in Beijing on 4 December 1705.
Tournon was sent to reiterate and reinforce the ban on dual worship
among Chinese Catholics. Kangxi was deeply serious about this and, as
court documents and missionary memoirs testify, received the envoy on
31 December. When Tournon mentioned a figure somewhat like a
Cardinal for China, Kangxi replied that this must be someone who had
stayed long enough in the country - at least ten years - to know the
culture well. Kangxi clearly had a representative of the Jesuit community
in mind, which aroused the jealousy of the Dominicans and Franciscans.
Kangxi received Tournon again on 29 and 30 June 1706, when Tournon
mentioned that Charles Maigrot was to arrive in Beijing.
Kangxi received Charles Maigrot at the Palace of Heavenly Purity in
early August. Kangxi tested his Chinese by asking him to translate the
four characters on a horizontal sign behind the dragon throne, which
read Jing Tian Fa Zu or Reverent to Heaven and Follow the Ancestors.
Maigrot could only decipher the second, and most common, of the four
characters, Tian or Heaven. Kangxi's reaction was understandable: 'You
don't even read Chinese, how dare you lecture the Chinese about the
ways in which they should behave.' Already furious that someone who
neither read their language nor understood their culture should dictate
the religious life of the Chinese people, Kangxi was further angered by
the fact that Tournon communicated the Vatican's edict to the missionary
community in Beijing against his wishes. Tournon left for Nanjing in
August and spoke publicly about his mission. He denounced the Kangxi
emperor and demanded unconditional compliance from Chinese
Catholics. This was not acceptable to Kangxi, who expressed his
displeasure by expelling him to Macao, where he died in 1710. Liam
Brockey has called this episode 'a cruel tragedy'.
Kangxi then introduced a bond system for the missionaries. Those who
agreed to follow the 'Ricci doctrine' and signed the bond could continue
to practice in China; those who refused would be forced to leave.
According to the research of Wu Liwei, 75 signed the bond, 43 were
expelled, and 5 restricted to work only in the Guangdong area. Kangxi
was not hostile to Catholicism and the missionaries; what made him
angry was that they interfered with the practice of Chinese tradition, and
more importantly defied his authority. Hard-line missionaries did not
understand why Catholicism could not replace Chinese culture and found
it difficult to accept that their God had to live side-by-side with Confucius
and the ancestors of the converts. Cultural accommodation held the key
to success for the missionary enterprise, but it seems that fundamentalist
Catholicism had foreshadowed the future of Christian faith in China.
The battle with the Catholic Church over dual worship did not end here,
but intensified in the following decade and culminated in 1716, when
Kangxi discovered that the Pope had bypassed the Qing court and
secretly sent agents to China to enforce the ban on dual worship. This
enraged not only Kangxi, but also the political establishment, especially
those in the localities affected. A tidal-wave of memorials poured in,
attacking foreigners in general and missionaries in particular. Many, if not
all, called for an immediate and permanent ban on foreign missionary
activity. The letter from Governor-General Yang Lin of Guangdong-
Guangxi provinces detailed the whereabouts of the various foreigners:"
"Just as the court in Beijing recognised the difference between Jesuits,
Franciscans and Dominicans, so local officials in Guangdong knew how
to distinguish the different kinds of foreigners, even though their
knowledge was imperfect. They had 'Red Hair' and came from the 'West
Ocean', which at that time meant Europe, and had established
themselves in places like Siam, Java and Luzon. Some came to trade
and others to establish churches; most came with arms, while many
stayed. Governor-General Yang did not have negative opinions of the
merchants, but he did harbour the suspicion that all foreigners were
potential troublemakers. It seemed to him that keeping all of them at bay,
regardless of whether they were merchants or missionaries, were by far
the safest option. Macao was a particular cause for concern, as it was
the destination of the expelled missionaries."
"'The recommendation was followed, and the Kieu-king resolved that
Canton should be closed against foreigners, our holy religion prohibited,
all the Christians imprisoned, and their churches demolished.'
The news filled Ripa and others with horror and despair, even though
they had signed the bond pledging their allegiance to the 'Ricci doctrine'
that respected Chinese tradition. In the meantime, Kangxi realized that
banishing the missionaries to Macao was similar to driving the Zheng
resistance to Taiwan; it only made his empire less secure, as it would be
easier for them to organize and return. He needed to keep them at bay, if
not destroy them as he did with the Zheng rebels, and he also needed to
restrict Chinese access to Macao, where the missionaries were
banished, and to places where they congregated."
"Even as he aged, however, Kangxi did not lose his mind or control, and
the 1717 maritime ban testifies to this fact. The emperor knew where
potential dangers lay and he dealt with them in the best way he knew.
Neither expelling missionaries nor banning trade to the South Ocean
brought peace to the ageing Kangxi; instead, these actions caused more
problems. Guangdong and Fujian were by this time unable to feed their
population and relied on inland provinces and neighbouring countries for
rice, especially in times of famine, such as the year 1721: lack of rice
could lead to unrest and rebellions. Kangxi was advised that the country
of Siam was rich with rice and that it could be easily obtained to relieve
the situation, which was growing urgent. Kangxi had to act immediately,
and authorised the import of rice from Siam in June 1722. This seems to
be the first time the court authorised a rice import, but henceforth this
would become a necessary policy. Although it was the Qing court who
invited the Siamese to come, the news encouraged many Chinese to go
and procure rice in Siam in violation of the 1717 ban. Siam lies close to
Java, and ships could stop at the island on their way to and from their
destination. Kangxi became seriously ill and died in December 1722,
leaving a cloud of confusion regarding his successor. The Qing Empire
might have looked strong and stable, but the question of succession
sparked an unprecedented family feud.
The Yongzheng emperor [Yinzhen], Kangxi's fourth son, managed to
succeed him, but would be plagued for the rest of his life by the
suspicion that he had usurped the throne from his fourteenth younger
brother, despite the fact that his own son, the Qianlong emperor, seemed
to have redeemed his ascension. Yongzheng proved to be an ambitious
and astute ruler, seemingly better than many of his brothers. He knew
very well that corruption was rampant, and upon ascending the throne he
quickly eliminated his rivals and took effective measures to curb
corruption. Yongzheng confiscated the property of corrupt officials and
made Manchu princes and Banner men work for a living, but such
measures, as the emperor himself was aware, only served to make him
more enemies. Observing that 'the treasury was several hundred millions
short', and that this deficiency extended to local government and military
coffers, Yongzheng established a central agency to oversee the
collection and distribution of money and provisions. He also created a
most important central agency: the Grand Council, which consolidated
and controlled decision making.
Yongzheng was ruthless toward his own brothers; he would be even
more so to foreigners. Like his father, he retained those with technical
and artistic skills but had little tolerance for the rest. Matteo Ripa,
Kangxi's favourite painter, noticed the difference between father and son:
'A few months after, all the Europeans were summoned to appear
before the Too-yoo-soo, or Board of the Imperial Household, when the
manda-rins informed us in the name of the Governor, who was the
seventeenth brother of the Emperor, that for the future, when they
wanted anything, they must no longer go to the palace, but communicate
with the Board. In consequence of this measure, which has certainly
emanated from the Sovereign, the Europeans were excluded from the
imperial residence, to which they had hitherto been admitted; and from
that day forward no one of them was allowed to enter it unless by his
Majesty's especial permission, as in Scipel's case and my own.'
Missionaries were treated better in Kangxi's time. Many were taken to
see Kangxi upon their arrival, as he was keen to learn about their tech-
nical skills. While some lived in the imperial compound, others were
allowed to walk freely in the various royal palaces, an honour that only
the emperor could bestow. Some even spent hours with Kangxi, who
seemed to enjoy their company, as Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730) vividly
remembered:
'The whole Court have been eyewitness (to their great Surprize) of the
private Audiences and Conferences we had duly every day, no body
being admitted to be present, but three or four Eunuchs of the
Empereur's Bed-chamber; where the Chief Subject of our Discourse was
concerning all manner of Sciences, the Manners and Customs, and what
else was worth our Observation in the European, and some other States
of the World. As there was not any Subject, wherewith we used to
entertain this Prince with more particular Satisfaction, than the Glorious
Actions of Lewis the Great, so I can testify it my self, That there was not
any thing of this Nature, in which he took more delight to be inform'd in.
At last, he gave us such ample Marks of his great Esteem, that he would
absolutely command us to sit down near his side; an Honour never
granted before to any Body living, unless to his own Children.'
Yongzheng thought his father was too kind to the foreigners and was not
about to continue in the same vein."
"Yongzheng established rules for those in Beijing, as detailed by Ripa,
and he kept a close eye on the rest through his army of local officials,
who reported to him often and in secret. Yongzheng was suspicious by
nature; he worried about retaliation from missionaries scattered in the
provinces and those in Macao in particular. Many officials, especially
those in the maritime region, shared his concern, as they would have to
deal with the foreigners should they make trouble. Kong Sunxun, the
new Governor-General of Guangdong-Guangxi provinces, wrote to
Yongzheng in his second year (December 1724) about the situation in
Macao:
'Foreigners have been living in Macao for a long time. After I took up
office, I checked the situation with regard to the mixed population and
foreign vessels. There are now three thousand five hundred sixty-seven
foreign men and women there; twenty-five big or small foreign ships,
eighteen of which are old and seven new. There are two thousand five
hundred and twenty four Chinese mouths there.'
He proposed to Yongzheng: 'Those foreigners who came without a
reason should not be allowed to stay; even if they came to trade and
make money, they can't reproduce here and mix with our people'. One of
Sunxun's colleagues, Liang Wenke, was even more worried. 'Over the
years', he wrote, 'their population has grown; we can't rule out evil wills.
We must be careful so we can prevent potential concerns to come true.'
Just as the Dutch authority noticed and worried about the increase of
Chinese merchants and migrants on the island of Java at the same time,
so Chinese officials saw and concerned themselves with the increase of
Europeans in Macao.* Apprehension of the 'other' is common. Many, not
just European merchants and missionaries, but also Chinese outlaws,
frequented or had taken refuge in Macao, and the enclave had grown
significantly. Like the retreat to Taiwan by the Zheng resistance, the
increase in foreigners and foreign vessels in Macao provoked the
anxieties of local and court authorities, but neither the Ming nor the Qing
had a durable policy; when worries arose, regimes reacted with a ban,
and when circumstances or regimes changed, they responded with
relaxation. While some scholar-officials exaggerated the danger from the
foreigners, others knew that the cycle of ban and lift had not deterred
coastal Chinese from departure or homecoming, and bans were in fact
an opportunity for many. Just as Yongzheng was contemplating a
decision regarding the foreigners, a domestic crisis once again emerged
from the coastal provinces, one which demanded a quick solution.
[* A. R. T. Kemasang, 'The 1740 Massacre of Chinese in Java: Curtain
Raiser for the Dutch Plantation Economy', Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars 14, (1982): 61-72.]"
"Rice or Riot
Kangxi's 1717 maritime ban on South Ocean, like those introduced by
emperors before him, outlawed seafaring activities in theory but not in
practice. Many of those who dared to continue their seafaring adventures
would thrive, as the ban meant less competition; the more restrictions the
court imposed, the more innovative local circumvention became. Of
those unable to skirt the new rules, some switched to other livelihoods,
while others lost partial or entire incomes. In times of natural disaster and
bad harvest, this relative decline in wealth would have grave
consequences. Kangxi made an exception and authorised the import of
Siamese rice in 1722, but in order to have real impact Siamese rice ships
would have to come every month and keep coming. Many local officials
were aware of this; some were outspoken about necessary change.
Kong Sunxun made bold suggestions to the Yongzheng emperor in the
first year of his reign, 1723, proposing a lift of the 1717 ban in order to
facilitate the import of rice, but it would take more than just memorials for
Yongzheng to revise his father's policy. Trouble was brewing in these
provinces as his Grand Council sat on the pile of requests from officials.
Posing a challenge to his young mandate, bad news poured in
throughout the first two years of Yongzheng's reign. While the supply of
rice had been stretched to its limit in 1723 and 1724, the spring and
summer of 1725 brought further disaster to the Guangdong region.
Governor-General Kong's deputy Yang Wengan wrote to Yongzheng to
report on the situation in the region: 'Local thugs gathered people and
plundered the government rice depot; they beat up officials and guards.
They also stormed local government offices where the Banner troops are
stationed.' The reason for the shortage of rice and the outbreak of riots,
as Yang elaborated, was bad harvests in previous years and flooding in
eleven counties of the Pearl River delta region in the spring and summer.
If the news from Guangdong was bad, that from Fujian was worse. The
autumn harvest of 1725 was appalling, and that of spring 1726 even
worse. Soon crowds gathered and stormed rice shops and government
depots reserved for emergency and military purposes."

"The reports from the provinces demanded a quick response and

effective solution. The questions of why the Cantonese and Fujianese
could not feed themselves, and why rice-producing provinces like Hunan
and Jiangnan could not help feed these areas in times of disaster as they
had done previously, lead us to three important issues, the first two of
which have been at the heart of the academic debate: the eighteenth-
century population explosion and the growing cash cropping economy
that diverted land from rice cultivation. The third issue was an increasing
dependence on foreign supply, as growing numbers of coastal Chinese
sojourned to Southeast Asia, where rice was abundant and cheap and
where they could make a living - even a fortune - growing and shipping
rice to China.* The shortage of rice and resulting riots exposed
fundamental change in Qing society; they also point to the ways in which
we could approach the study of the Qing as it became dependent on the
maritime world - Southeast Asia in particular - for its food supply. The
coastal provinces had made money for the Tang-Song-Yuan dynasties,
but made only trouble for the Ming and Qing regimes.
[* See also Peter Perdue, Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in
Hunan, 1500-1850 (Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East
Asian Studies, 1987), pp. 17-24.]
 Let us first look at Fujian; its geography seems to have dictated the fate
of the Fujianese. It sits right above the Tropic of Cancer, facing the East
China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, on the same latitude as Saudi Arabia
or central Mexico. Seventy-five percent of the province consists of
mountains, which not only separate Fujian from other provinces but also
form a natural divide separating the two economies, mountain and plain,
of the province itself. Fujian enjoys warm winters but humid summers,
and two big waterways, Long River and Min River, nourish the lowland
plains. This geography and climate allow the Fujianese to cultivate and
reap two to three harvests per year, but this did not produce enough to
feed themselves, even with the help of the maize and foreign yam crops
introduced during the late Ming. The Fujianese needed to import rice
even in good harvest years. In bad years, price cuts and government
subsidies were a necessity, while imports from inland provinces like
Hunan as well as Taiwan and Southeast Asia became vital from this
point on, if not earlier. Rice importation became a specialised and
lucrative business and would remain so until the mid-twentieth century.
There are three important reasons why a semi-tropical province blessed
with two or three cultivation seasons could not grow enough rice to feed
itself. First and foremost was population growth. Ramon H. Myers and
Yeh-chien Wang point out that Fujian was home to nine million people by
1750. The province had been the destination of massive migration from
the interior, the great southward move of the Chinese people which had
begun with the Yongjia Disturbance in 311 and had intensified during the
Song as the Mongols pushed down the central plains. It became a real
problem during the Ming, as the province became over-crowded and the
population spilled over into Taiwan, the Philippines and Southeast Asia
as opportunities presented themselves. The increase in new births since
the Ming had put pressure on a land with limited resources, and a
shortage of land for cultivation meant shortages of food. While
neighbouring rice-producing provinces had often helped before, these
regions were increasingly faced with the same problems and thus could
export little or no rice. The maritime ban that prevented the trade which
would have imported rice from Southeast Asia only compounded the
problem.
What exacerbated the dilemma of an increasing population on limited
cultivable land was cash cropping, the Chinese 'capitalist sprout' that
began to bud in the Song and blossomed since the Ming. The mountains
of Fujian made large-scale rice cultivation difficult, but their sunny valleys
and warm climate made it easy to grow tea, tobacco, fruits and
vegetables. This had become the lifeline of many Fujianese and an
integral part of the local and regional economy. Fujian was home to
many exotic fruits, like li zhi (lychee) and long yan or dragon eye; it
supplied the court and the country with fresh fruits and vegetables all
year round. One of the three provinces to first cultivate tobacco in China,
Fujian had become famous for its 'golden slice smoke' by the early
Qing.* The most profitable item was tea, grown in the lush Wuyi
Mountains, and synonymous with Fujian in the Sino-British tea trade.
The Min River and its tributaries carried this local produce downstream to
regional commercial centres and coastal metropolises, where they were
bought and shipped to other parts of China and Asia - and increasingly
Europe, in the case of tea. The cultivation of such products had provided
a livelihood for people in the mountains as well as those in the plains;
more importantly, it balanced the two economies.
[* Carol Benedict, Golden-Silk Smoke: a History of Tobacco in China,
1550-2010 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 34-60.]
While the steady and healthy income from cash cropping had given
many Fujianese enough money to buy what they did not cultivate - rice,
life's necessities and even luxuries - the sea was another source of
income. Seafaring, whether fishing or trading and whether to nearby
shores or distant lands, had been part of the local economy since ancient
times, as seen in Chapter One. The sea provided livelihood, as well as
escape at times of disaster. Large numbers of Fujianese had migrated to
Taiwan, Luzon, Java, Siam and other Southeast Asian countries since
the Zheng He voyages during the Ming. This had not only reduced the
burden of numbers at home but also helped those who stayed behind, as
those who sojourned overseas often sent home, or returned with, money
and goods. The Fujianese had become dependent on the sea; this
dependence would encourage more seafaring and the development of a
maritime trade that would ultimately see the establishment of farms in
Southeast Asia producing exclusively for the China market. This would
lead to the rise of the Chinese in the region, as they turned many parts of
Southeast Asia into what Carl Trocki called an 'offshore production zone
for China'. Rice is a defining example of this process, and will be
examined in Chapter Three.
 Where nature had given the Fujianese mountainous terrain, it gave the
Cantonese a land of water. Like Fujian, Guangdong had been the
destination of waves of migrants since the Western Jin. It saw rapid
population growth during the Ming, and also experienced a growing cash
cropping economy, but its geography is very different from that of Fujian.
The province sits on the Tropic of Cancer, the same latitude as the Bay
of Bengal and Cuba. It marks the end of the continent, and its entire
southern coast faces the South China Sea. The province is blessed with
many rivers, which converge in the Pearl River estuary to join the sea.
Like blood vessels, they irrigate the lowland plains, nurture a vibrant
cash-cropping economy, and provide easy transportation for trade even
to this day. Guangdong's waterways connect the province with the
interior and capital, with easy access to neighbouring Vietnam and Siam,
the 'Rice Bowl of Asia'. But when these waterways flood, the entire
region suffers, since there is no escape from the water. Guangdong
enjoys warm winters (a January average of 10-20 degrees Celsius) and
hot summers (a July average of 30-40 degrees Celsius). The lowland
plains and tropical climate allowed the Cantonese to harvest virtually all
year round, which would have fed the populace had they not, like the
Fujianese, found more profitable things to cultivate, mulberry and sugar
among them as pointed out by William T. Rowe.
'In every Chinese region, physiographic features of the landscape -
topography, climate, water supply, and soil quality - condition the forms
of agricultural production'. It seems that Peter Perdue's verdict on Hunan
in south-central interior China is also applicable to the case of the
maritime region. The people of Fujian and Guangdong had become sea-
and-trade oriented rather than land-and-agriculture bound. This was a
perfect example of 'Geography as Destiny', as outlined by Heather
Sutherland.* Fujian and Guangdong faced the same problem, brought on
by different geographies. The issue of food shortages, which surfaced
during the Ming and now confronted the Yongzheng regime, could lead
to serious consequences, as provincial officials well understood. Many
people had already taken matters into their own hands, indifferent to
government sanction. When the land didn't provide, they turned to the
sea. It seemed natural for the 'small people', but it was a matter of great
concern for local officials. Governor-General Gao Qizhuo summarised
the reason for Fujian's instability as follows: 'The terrain is limited and
densely populated, there is not enough land to cultivate, people left to
become pirates.' For the authorities, when people turned to the sea they
became by definition outlaws.
[* 'Geography as Destiny? The Role of Water in Southeast Asian
History', in A World of Water: Rain, Rivers and Seas in Southeast Asian
Histo-ries, ed. Peter Boomgaard (Singapore: National University of
Singapore Press, 2007), pp. 27-70.]
Governor-General Gao, like many of his classically-trained colleagues,
seemed prejudiced against seafaring, but he had a much better
understanding of the needs and circumstances of the 'small people' than
many in the bureaucracy, and he was pragmatic in trying to find a
solution to the problem he faced. He wrote to Yongzheng again:
'The five districts of Fu, Xin, Zhang, Quan and Ting have little land, and
people increase day by day. Many cannot find land to cultivate; no
wonder many became thieves, thugs and pirates. I have thought about
the problem over and over; the only solution is to provide them with
opportunities for survival. If we lift the ban that was imposed, the rich
would become ship owners and merchants, the poor headmen and
boatmen; one boat takes a few hundred, they won't consume the rice
produced here but they would bring in money to feed their families. ...
Lifting the ban would benefit the local area enormously. I beg you to lift
the ban.'
Lifting the ban would facilitate rice imports and feed the hungry, while
the profit generated would benefit the provincial treasury, supplementing
the local economy and stabilising the region. Many, not just the
governors-general of the two regions, petitioned Yongzheng to lift the
ban. The emperor and his Grand Council more or less agreed with Gao
and his colleagues: what concerned them was how to regulate the 'small
people' in their dealings with the maritime world. They were told that ship
owners reported sixty, seventy or eighty passengers when they set sail,
when in fact they carried two to three, or even four to five hundred, on
board. Most left without notice and many would not return, which was
why the Philippines and Java were home to tens of thousands of
Chinese by the early eighteenth century. Why should this worry the
regime, given that it reduced the population in China and the burden of
feeding them?
The debate that ensued gives us a hint. Local authorities wanted to
register everyone who departed; they also wanted to see them return 'on
time', which was certainly difficult, if not impossible, to regulate.
 This desire to track a sojourning population showcases the regime's
concern with foreign travel and exposure. Gao and his pro-relaxation
provincial officials proposed two rules: first, anyone who wanted to leave
must produce two warrants, one from one's neighbourhood watch
committee and the second from one's professional organisation. Only
when these two warrants were presented would the authority issue a
pass, which would record the name, age, appearance, and fingerprint of
the person; details for each individual would be checked upon their
return. This method is similar to the Han-invented and Song-enhanced
public proof system, and is a precursor to today's passports. As for those
who did not return, their relatives and the owners of the ships that bore
them would be punished. On this, Yongzheng replied immediately:
'I don't really mean that I want to see these people come back. What
good would this do to the country? What I am concerned with is those
who left and settled in foreign lands: they must harbour the idea of
returning to their motherland one day. Once they return, we can not
guarantee that there are no traitors among them who might have bad
ideas/designs.'
Yongzheng was not concerned with those who settled overseas,
understandable given that it removed the problem of having to feed
them. On the contrary, he was concerned with those who might return
and suspicious that they would harbour different or rebellious ideas. Like
his father Kangxi and some of the Ming emperors, Yongzheng was
convinced that those who had been abroad would be exposed to - and
return with - evil designs for their homeland. The Ming-Qing regimes
seemed to believe that any potential threat to their rule would come from
abroad rather than from within, a political mentality which continued well
into the Cold War: the Communist regime was suspicious of overseas
Chinese, including their relatives in China, doubting their loyalty to their
'motherland'. For Yongzheng, those who lingered and settled in foreign
lands were better left beyond China's shores. He criticised his officials:
'In the vast ocean, shipwrecks are quite common. What's the use of
chasing after their families?'
A consensus was building within officialdom: no harm could be done to
the local economies if the ban were lifted, despite lingering concerns
about the overseas Chinese and the expelled foreigners, who might be
contemplating retaliation or even a full return. Guangdong officials asked
Yongzheng to lift the ban in early 1727, arguing that their province
needed this policy urgently; this request was granted immediately, as
was the similar petition by Governor-General Gao of Fujian-Zhejiang.
The maritime ban to South Ocean imposed by Kangxi in January 1717
was lifted by his son Yongzheng in the summer of 1727.
In theory, this was welcome news for the 'small people': unlawful
departures and returns had continued as usual - and perhaps been even
more rampant during the ban years - and this relaxation gave them the
much-desired official green light. But it also created unforeseen
problems: most seamen had rough hands with calloused skin which did
not produce clear fingerprints; this created difficulties for the authorities
who were required to fingerprint them. There was also the problem,
foreseen by Yongzheng, of what to do if a seaman died during the
voyage, which given the conditions of the time they often did. Liu Xufeng
has written expertly about the management of ocean-going ships and
their crews during the Qing. Like Kangxi's 1717 decree, Yongzheng's
new legislation was full of loopholes and rules that were impossible to
enforce. In the winter of 1727, 21 ships left Xiamen; 12 returned in the
autumn of 1728. They bore many goods, from staples like rice to luxuries
like bird's nests, as well as many Fujianese with their Southeast Asian
wives and employees.
Leonard Blusse has carefully studied trade during this period, and
observed the numbers of ships that left the three key ports of Xiamen,
Ningbo and Guangzhou for Batavia (present-day Jakarta), the heart of
Dutch trade.
The increase of ships to Batavia after the 1727 lifting of the ban is
obvious: the total nearly doubled. Xiamen claimed the lion's share,
followed by Ningbo and Guangzhou. The sharp decline after 1740 was a
result of the Dutch massacre of Chinese in Java, when nearly 10,000
Chinese were murdered and the rest expelled by the Dutch colonial
authority. Despite this, 41 Chinese junks called on Batavia over the next
five years, although that number would gradually halve by the 1780s.
The 1740 massacre by the Dutch sheds light on the making of that
nation's colonial legacy in the region; it also reveals the extent and
increase of Chinese settlement in the post-1684 and post-1727 periods.
Chinese competition had seriously challenged Dutch supremacy, as can
be seen from the regulations imposed by the Dutch authority after the
massacre. First, it stipulated how many passengers each vessel could
carry, so as to limit the profit of ship owners and the number of new
Chinese migrants to Dutch-controlled territory. Second, the authority
forbade the Chinese to go to neighbouring Sumatra, Malaya, Sulawesi
and especially the Spice Islands, which were most dear to the Dutch.
Third, and most important, the Dutch imposed heavy taxation on the
Chinese who operated in the environs of Java. The Dutch might have
dominated Asian waters in seventeenth century; but their trade had gone
into decline beginning in the 1680s. The Chinese were catching up, and
so were the English.
English competition was becoming significant, and it forced the Dutch to
tighten their grip; it would also force the Qing to modify its maritime policy
in 1757. The English would ultimately replace the Dutch, but not without
difficulties. The East India Company had been unsuccessful in
establishing a strong foothold in Asia due to Portuguese and Dutch
dominance; it was also frustrated with the China trade, which was less
profitable than it could be. The Company had been trying to bypass the
Guangzhou-Macao authority and open direct trade with other localities
along the coast. Captain Wendell's 1636 voyage, mentioned in Chapter
One, and the 1676 expedition related in the first section of this chapter
were two such efforts. Neither met with success and another attempt was
made under James Flint, whose ship surprised the Ningbo port authority
in 1755:
'The Ningpo mandarins were taken by surprise but 'received us very
graciously, not at all like the Hoppo of Canton', reported Flint. Pending
reference to higher authorities the ship was allowed to trade on most
reasonable terms as were the two vessels sent in the following year.'
The English were seemingly better treated in Ningbo than in
Guangzhou. This was a ray of hope, and the English returned in 1756
and 1757. The Qianlong emperor was more or less ready to allow this to
continue, judging from comments he made in August 1757. However, he
changed his mind in November, based on the petition of Fujian-Zhejiang
Governor-General Yang Tingzhang, who accused the English of seeking
special treatment and better profit than other foreigners in Guangzhou.
Qianlong was also informed that the English ships were heavily armed,
and was persuaded immediately: 'From now on, Guangdong is the port
and no one should go up to Zhejiang. This concerns the livelihood of the
Cantonese; it benefits the passes in Shaoguan and Jiangxi. And the
waters of Zhejiang can be calm.'
 James Flint returned to Ningbo in 1759, hoping to take up residency and
open a British factory, but this time he was turned away immediately.
Instead of returning home, he sailed north and into the harbour of Tianjin
in July. This was exactly what the 1757 decision sought to avoid: armed
foreign vessels in the vicinity of the capital. Flint's unexpected arrival
shocked the port authority, as did his submission of a long list of
complaints about the treatment he had suffered in Ningbo and
Guangzhou, for which he demanded redress. Although the Qing court
knew that Flint could not do much harm, they were disturbed. The
Portuguese had ravaged the coast during the Ming, and now it seemed it
was to be the English. The court assured the Englishman that they would
send a commissioner to Guangzhou to investigate the situation and
address his grievance, but Flint was promptly arrested upon his return to
Guangzhou and imprisoned for three years, until November 1762. In
their eagerness to establish themselves, the English had destroyed their
opportunities and reputation. They would try again with Lord McCartney
in 1793, Lord Amherst in 1816, and Lord Napier in 1834, but success
eluded them until the conclusion of the Opium War. We can only imagine
whether the first Sino-British conflict would have even taken place had
the English been granted a factory in Ningbo in 1757."
"Conclusion
It is strange that Chinese historians have overlooked the significance of
Qing maritime policy while scholars of Southeast Asia have made much
out of the two waves of liberalisation of the seas. Let us assume for the
moment that it is only fitting, since the consequences were felt acutely in
the small countries of Southeast Asia where coastal Chinese sojourned
and settled. Anthony Reid described the Chinese waves of migration this
way:
'It is the curious reversals of the flow southward, periodically running
evenly, occasionally gushing, sometimes tightly shut, more often dripping
like a leaking tap, that provides the rhythm behind the historical
interaction of China and Southeast Asia. Beneath that tap we might
envisage the pool of water it feeds, which sometimes looks constant or
expanding although in reality seepage is occurring from the pool into the
surrounding terrain it helps to fertilize. Only when the tap is shut
relatively tightly can one observe the seepage draining the pond
altogether.'*
[* 'Flows and Seepages in the Long-term Chinese Interaction with
Southeast Asia', in Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia
and the Chinese, ed. Anthony Reid (Honolulu: Hawaii University Press,
1996), p. 15.]
If the flow was 'gushing' in 1684 it was also doing so in 1727, whereas in
the decade between 1717 and 1727 it merely 'dripped'. Reid labelled the
century from 1740 to 1840 the 'Chinese century', as many Cantonese
and Fujianese came to settle, stimulate and ultimately control the small
economies of Southeast Asia and in turn shaped the region as we know
it today.
What was distinctive about the Qing's encounter with the seas in
comparison with earlier regimes discussed in the previous chapter?
While profit-making was a constant in shaping the Tang-Song-Yuan
preoccupation with the sea, it seems that national security took
precedence over profit during the Ming and Qing dynastic era. The Ming
period therefore marked a clear change in attitude towards the sea. What
can explain this dramatic change, one that continued during the Qing?
Was it due entirely to a conservative political philosophy, or to fear of
desperate and violent foreigners? This obviously demands further study.
The anxieties expressed by the Qing court and officials over the various
foreigners and sojourning Chinese seemed to have been justified by the
Opium Wars with Britain; the Taiping Rebellion, led by a Cantonese with
missionary connections, that challenged the Manchu mandate; and the
Nationalist Revolution, led by a sojourning Cantonese, which ultimately
overthrew the Qing dynasty. The worst fears of the Kangxi and
Yongzheng emperors came true in the end; they had envisaged the
means of their downfall a hundred or so years prior.
The Ming marked the beginning of large-scale Chinese migration to
Southeast Asia, and the outflow increased massively during the Qing.
The question remains why large-scale and persistent migration did not
begin earlier, in the absence of restrictions. The rice shortages in
Guangdong and Fujian provide at least one answer, but this need for
foodstuffs was not limited to the coastal provinces, as Yongzheng quickly
learned. Feeding China was not a new problem, but it did become a
more challenging one. Rice is hardly mentioned in Ming documents but
dominates those of the Qing - Veritable Records and Emperor
Commented for example. The preoccupation with rice reflected in these
documents is indicative of the major change in the demographics and
economy of China. Increasing population, cash cropping and
dependence on overseas supply led to food shortages, and feeding the
people became an administrative priority. This had surfaced in Kangxi's
reign; it intensified under Yongzheng, as we have seen, and it would
become acute in Qianlong's time."
"3 FEEDING CHINA
'His Majesty went to the Temple of Agriculture and made offering. Then
He changed clothes and went to the field. He ploughed four times. Then
He asked Prince Zhuang Yung Lu, Prince Yi Yung Xiang and Prince Yu
Guang Lu to plough five times. Then He asked the Ministers of Law, of
Finance, of Ceremony, of War, of Punishment and of Works and the
Directors of the Three Grand Courts to plough nine times.
The third month of the Yongzheng Emperor's eleventh year or 1733 At
the season for threshing rice, His Majesty went to thresh at the
Sweetmeat crown fields. Then He took the rice and placed it in small ox
carts and He had all His Holy Royal sons, His Holy royal daughters, His
maids in waiting and His ladies pull them to the interior of the Palace
enclosure. Then He took the (twice-threshed) rice stalks, made into large
tiered umbrellas, and rice gruel to present to (the members of the) Royal
Synod who were living in the crown temples every year without
exception.' (Book Ten: King Borommakot, 1733-1758*)
[* Siam Society, The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya (Bangkok: Siam
Society, 2000), pp. 423-24; and John Crawford, Journal of an Embassy
from the Governor-general of India to the Courts of Siam and Cochin
China (London: Henry Colburn, 1828), pp. 135-36.]
The significance of rice can be seen from the royal ploughing of the
Qing emperors in China and the harvest ritual of the Ayutthaya monarchs
in Siam, which Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman tried in the early
1930s: 'The threshing is done by hand in a fashion which requires a
great amount of human labor.' Rice worship was not by any means a
royal monopoly in China and Siam. The common people, not just the
celestial beings, pay their respect to and celebrate rice through rituals, a
common practice among many peoples: 'Rice rituals are widespread
throughout rice-growing Asia, and villagers show honour to the rice
spirits at certain stages of rice farming. Although the form of the
ceremonies differs from place to place, attitudes toward and reverence
for rice bear a very close resemblance.' The Chinese seemed to have
emphasised ploughing, as the Son of Heaven himself symbolically
opened the season of cultivation, whereas the Siamese were more
interested in the joy of harvest. A visible and interesting difference
between the Chinese and the Siamese is that the Siamese treated the
royal threshing as a family affair, including the King's daughters and
ladies, whereas no record is found of women participating in the Chinese
ploughing ritual."
"This chapter investigates how the Qing regime managed to find more
rice to feed the increasing Chinese population from the early eighteenth
century onwards. When the coastal regions could not feed themselves,
and neighbouring provinces which had traditionally offered assistance
faced the same problem, the maritime region and its people naturally
looked to the seas for help. 'Feeding China' forced the Qing court to
come up with a policy that stimulated trade from Siam as that agrarian
kingdom transformed into Thailand, the focus of sections one and two.
China's demand for rice had a transformative effect on the smaller
economies of Southeast Asia. As the population in China continued to
grow and Southeast Asia became more accessible, many Chinese left
their motherland to make a living; some even made their fortune. But
Southeast Asian rice still could not feed the exploding Chinese
population. Section three, 'Maize and Foreign Yam', traces the
indigenisation of maize and the foreign yam during the Qing. Introduced
during the late Ming from South-Southeast Asia by both overland and
overseas routes, maize and the foreign yam were widely cultivated by
the mid-eighteenth century. Southeast Asia therefore played an
unmistakable role in the making of the Qing: on one hand, it drained the
overpopulation in China, and on the other it fed the increasing number of
mouths. Southeast Asia helped write the legacy of China's 'last golden
age'."
"'To Compensate for the Shortage of Cultivation'
'Rice or Riot' exposed the difficult socio-economic circumstances that
made necessary the 1727 liberalisation of the ban on seafaring.
Yongzheng justified his act by quoting his father that this was done in
order to 'compensate for the shortage of cultivation'. The addition of
Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang (New Dominion), Tibet and Taiwan did not
add to the burden of feeding China since, with the exception of the
Taiwanese, these were nomadic people who did not base their diet on
rice. On the contrary, these territorial acquisitions provided space for
internal migration and land for cultivation as well as diversification.
Whereas Jiangxi filled up Hu-Guang - people from Jiangxi province
migrated to Hunan-Hubei and Guangdong-Guangxi region during the
Ming - Hu-Guang filled up Sichuan: people from these provinces
populated the Sichuan region during the Qing. Peter Perdue calls this
'state-directed colonization'. Jonathan Spence believes that China's
population during the early Ming stood between 65 to 80 million, whereas
John K. Fairbank puts the number at 80 million: and where Spence
estimates the 1850 figure to be 430 million, Fairbank puts it at 400
million. This is similar to estimates advanced earlier by Xu Dixin and Wu
Chengming, who asserted that the population jumped from 120 million
during the late Ming to 400 million during the Daoguang emperor's time
(r. 1820-1850). This volume will use 400 million as a yardstick.
Although demographic historians have continued to help us understand
how the population grew, and economic historians have cast
considerable light on how the early and middle Qing regime managed to
amass grains from around the country and how they administered the
grain system, they have not addressed the issue of how the Qing
managed to find more rice from outside China and miscellaneous grains,
to actually sustain the population and enable it to grow still fur-ther.12
The Qing court appreciated that failure to feed the people would lead to
hunger and rebellions. Knowing the absolute importance of rice, Kangxi
prohibited the export of this staple as early as his 47th year, 1708.
'Ocean going ships', declared the legislation, 'can carry no more than 50
dan of rice. If found exceeding that amount, the ship owner will be
punished and rice confiscated'. 50 dan (1 dan = 50 kilograms) measured
2,500 kilograms. This law was reinforced by an edict in the following
year, and again in 1717 when Kangxi imposed the South Ocean
maritime ban: 'When going overseas, one person is allowed to carry 1
sheng (which equals 1 litre) of rice per day and an extra sheng in case of
emergency on the sea. If found, excess rice will be confiscated, and the
ship owner and merchants punished.'
The severe shortage of rice surfaced towards the end of Kangxi's reign
in 1722, when he authorized the first official import of rice, 30,000 dan
from Siam in order to relieve the situation."
"As explained in Chapter Two, the increase in population; the geography
of the coastal regions that contributed to cash cropping, which took land
away from staple cultivation; natural disasters; and the maritime ban that
prohibited trade which would have facilitated rice import from Southeast
Asia all contributed to the shortage of rice in the early years of
Yongzheng's reign. As the population exploded towards the mid-
eighteenth cen-tury, the demand for food increased still further; more rice
was needed and more rice ships were expected by the local authorities.
What was initiated by Kangxi and reinforced by Yongzheng would
become insti-tutionalised by the first decade of Qianlong's reign. Like his
father and grandfather, the Qianlong emperor took charge of rice imports
and issued orders as Siamese rice ships kept coming."
"Qianlong's tax incentive also created problems whereby an increasing
number of coastal Chinese journeyed to Siam, knowing that the rice
trade was profitable. Using the cheap timber available there, they built
ships and returned to China with rice, only to be told that they were not
entitled to the tax benefit, since the benefit was intended only for foreign
ships. Many subsequently opted to ship other, more profitable, goods
such as sappan wood and bird's nests, but again faced punitive
measures."
"The rice trade called for better management and regulation. Qian-long's
officials in the maritime region studied the situation and came up with a
mechanism to ensure a steady supply by encouraging local Chinese to
engage in the trade. As a reward, the Qing would grant them degrees
and official titles, depending on the amount of rice they shipped home. In
other words, any Chinese who left China and came back with rice could
obtain rewards which money otherwise could not buy - position and
prestige in the local community."
"In memoirs like Dong Xi Yang Kao or An Examination of the East and
West Oceans, first published in 1617, which listed the tariff for imported
rice and discussed the smuggling situation.* It is not surprising that
China first became dependent on foreign rice during the late Ming, as
this period witnessed rapid population growth, a significant increase in
cash cropping, and the beginning of large-scale migration to Southeast
Asia.
[* Zhang Xie (12 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), vol. 7, pp. 144 &
146-47.]
While Xiamen rose and shone as the prime trading port during the Tang,
Song and Yuan dynasties, it dwindled during the Ming, displaced by
neighbouring Zhangzhou. Although the question of why Xiamen fell and
Zhangzhou rose lies beyond the scope of this chapter, it is important to
consider the resurgence of Xiamen during the Qing. In the early Qing
Xiamen was a primary concern, as the stronghold and battleground of
the anti-Qing resistance led by the Zheng Chenggong conglomerate.
Xiamen History of Rice has argued that rice was the decisive factor in
the battle between the Zheng Chenggong resistance and the Manchu
troops, and that it was a shortage of rice that contributed to Zheng's
defeat in 1662 and subsequent flight to Taiwan. With an army of more
than 100,000, the Zheng forces faced problems of supply. Based on the
assumption that a soldier consumed 30 jin (1 jin = 1/2 kilogram) a month,
the army alone would have needed 3,000,000 jin or 1,500,000 kilograms
of rice every month, a gigantic amount to procure at a time of war and
economic embargo.
Focusing on the Qing period, Xiamen History of Rice explains that trade
in rice flourished from 1728 onwards, testifying to the shortage of rice
that had begun to surface at the time of Yongzheng and 1727 relaxation.
It claims that thousands of boats and ships were engaged in the rice
trade that fanned out to Tianjin, Taiwan, the Philippines, Siam and
Vietnam. Indeed, the rice trade became so sophisticated that Xiamen
Maritime Custom officials were able to tell where the vessel came from
and how much rice was on board simply by the size of the vessel. For
example, the smallest was the guo tai chuan, or cross Taiwan boat.
There were more than one thousand of these at the peak of the trade,
and they specialised in shipping rice from Taiwan. Chu yang chuan, or
ocean going ships, were mostly Chinese-owned boats. There were up to
295 of these boats which, having a capacity that varied from several
thousands to tens of thousands of dan of rice, shuttled between the
Fujian coast and Southeast Asian countries. The biggest carriers were
called fan chuan, or foreign ships, that originated in the Philippines, Siam
and Vietnam.
Xiamen re-emerged as a hub of the rice trade during the late Ming and
triumphed during the Qing. Chen Kuotung has argued that the mid-Qing
saw the heyday of Xiamen; there is no doubt rice made that possible. It
is little wonder, then, that the Fujianese came to control not only the rice
trade, but also rice farming and eventually industry, in Siam as well as in
many other parts of Southeast Asia. The case of Xiamen in particular,
and the maritime region in general, reflected larger trends in the entire
country, and the shortage of rice can be seen from the rising price on the
national, or macro-economic, scale. Jiang Jianping has carefully studied
and calculated price fluctuations from the early to mid-Qing.
 During the reign of the Shunzhi emperor, rice sold at nearly 2 taels per
dan, as the famine and rebellion that marked the end of the Ming and the
beginning of Manchu conquest drove prices up. After the Manchus
entered China in 1644, prices dropped dramatically and reached a low of
0.8 taels in the second year of Kangxi's reign (1663). For the next four
decades prices remained stable as everyday life returned to normal and
agriculture recovered after years of unrest. In the last two decades of
Kangxi's reign, however, prices again began to climb, as the chart
shows, which explains the urgency for Kangxi to autho-rise the first
import of Siamese rice in 1722. Given that prices continued to soar
during the reigns of Yongzheng and Qianlong, hitting a record 3.5 taels
in the early 1780s, the question inevitably arises as to what factors drove
this increase.
The year 1767 saw the Burmese invasion of Siam, and while Siam
managed to continue shipping rice to China, it would take some time for
Siamese rice production to return to pre-invasion levels. It is difficult to
measure the quantity of Siamese rice shipped or estimate the number of
people it fed in the absence of comprehensive cross-regional research,
but some preliminary remarks can be made."
"Siam to Thailand: The Rice Bowl of China
How did the growing Chinese appetite for rice affect the economy, and
even politics, of Siam? To what extent can we say that demand from
China, which would soon include opium, helped to shape and transform
this and other small economies of Southeast Asia? What was the
significance of Cantonese and Fujianese involvement in the rice trade
and other emergent enterprises? These are just some of the questions
that Southeast Asian, rather than Chinese, historians have been
grappling with: Jennifer Cushman, Carl Trocki and Li Tana are amongst
those who have produced outstanding works. A cooperative effort is
necessary among scholars if we are to better comprehend a
phenomenon that shaped the economy and history of both regions.
While foreign trade drove Siam's economy and transition to modernity,
the zenith of the Qing was made possible by assistance from Siam and
other parts of Southeast Asia. The two countries and regions were tied
inextricably by maritime trade and seafaring Cantonese and Fujianese.
Many foreigners who travelled to the Kingdom of Siam, for example Dr.
Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) in the seventeenth century and Jean-
Baptiste Pallegoix (1805-1862) in the nineteenth century, saw that rice
was an integral part of the landscape, culture and history. This remained
so into the 1930s, when scholar Carle Zimmerman saw that 'the village
along a waterway is most prevalent. The waterway furnishes the water
for the rice growing'. Well into the Cold War period, 'rice still maintains a
fundamental position in her economy and consequently in government
revenues and politics'. Arthur Goodfriend, an American official serving in
Thailand, came to the realisation that '... it is at the rice roots that Asia's
great men and great causes are nourished. It is here, at the rice roots,
that America's understanding of Asia might well begin'.*
[* Rice Roots: An American in Asia (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1958), p. 4.]
Historians who study Thailand have observed a gradual political
consolidation and with it a southward migration and expansion that
encouraged lowland rice cultivation and discouraged upland production.
This transition is reflected in the southward relocation of capitals, which
always sat at the heart of rice production; it also manifested in a shift of
agricultural trends. Tadayo Watabe has carefully studied the difference
between northern-upland rice in the Lanna Kingdom and southern
lowland rice in the maritime region."
"This remarkable change was accompanied by another transformation,
the naissance of the Ayutthaya Kingdom (1351-1767), contemporary with
the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). In other words, the 'maritime' region - the
old Sukhothai Kingdom in the south - overtook the 'hydraulic' region - the
old Lanna Kingdom of Chiang Mai in the north. It is possible that the
maritime geography and economy that exposed Siam to frequent contact
with the wider world led to the southward migration of the Thai polity and
economy. It is also possible that this was driven by Chinese expansion to
the southwest, Yunnan in particular, during the Ming.* The dynamics of
internal and external forces at work can be seen not only from the
gradual reclamation of land and intensified canal digging, but also from
the emergence of the 'plantation type' agricultural economy with the
foundation of the Ayutthaya dynasty in the fourteenth century. Voneo
Ishii believed that the 'plantation type' marked the transition from
'medieval' to 'modern'. This transition was economic, turning Siam into
the 'Rice Bowl of Asia', but it was also political, as it would see the birth
of modern Siam.
[* Norman G. Owen et al., The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia: A
New History (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2005),
pp. 93-105. See also Ann M. Hill, Merchants and Migrants: Ethnicity and
Trade Among Yunnanese Chinese in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale
University Southeast Asian Studies, 1998).]
How much of this transition was stimulated by forces from China is
naturally debatable and requires a joint effort from both Thai and
Chinese historians. There is no doubt that rice became the pillar of the
Siamese economy from at least the mid-fifteenth century. The question
remains, however, whether demand from China encouraged the rice
production in, and imports from, Siam which came to dictate the
character of Sino-Siamese relations."
"Siam became central in the provision of rice to China in the Ayutthaya
period, and as we have seen in the previous section by the eighteenth
century it was undoubtedly the Rice Bowl of Asia."
"Rice was flowing into the coastal provinces regularly until 1767, when
Chinese officials noticed a sharp decline in the number of Siamese rice
ships calling on Chinese ports: they did not know that Burma had
invaded Siam. Despite the interruption, the Siamese still managed to
ship rice, as Thonburi Taksin emerged to lead the nation in their fight
against the Burmese and founded the Thonburi dynasty in 1769. Half
Chinese, Chaozhou or Teochew to be precise, the new king's father
came from the above-mentioned Zhenghai district of Chaozhou
municipality in Guangdong province, and married a Siamese woman.
Taksin himself was therefore the product of Chinese trade with, and
settlement in, Siam. Leading the Siamese to drive out the Burmese,
Taksin the Great, as he was called, united the divided country and also
the scattered Teochew Chinese communities before marching into
Cambodia and Vietnam.* Leaving aside his rise and fall, which is
fascinating but not the focus of this chapter, his reign saw more Chinese
flood to Siam, where they enhanced the plantation system of agricultural
economy. These rice farms were sanctioned by the government with a
license fee; run by Chinese on a family/kinship/village basis, they
produced almost exclusively for the Chinese market. This new plantation
economy would revolutionise the production of rice, followed by other
crops, in Siam and eventually elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
[* Yumio Sakurai, 'Eighteenth-Century Chinese Pioneers on the Water
Frontier of Indochina', in Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in
the Lower Mekong Region, pp. 35-52.]
 China needed rice; the Qing regime welcomed and rewarded the
Siamese rice trade, and also encouraged the 'small people' to go to Siam
to procure rice. This would inspire an industry based on rice production
and processing, and mills began to emerge in Siam. No previous
Chinese regime had ever promoted foreign travel; as we have seen, the
Tang-Song-Yuan regimes welcomed, even solicited in some cases,
foreigners to come and trade in China, but they did not encourage the
Chinese to settle overseas. The Qing exception was made possible by
rice - now a staple in its political economy. The increasing demand for
rice and the trade that thrived into the mid-twentieth century can explain
why large-scale overseas migration began during the Ming and
intensified during the Qing.
Anthony Reid believes that 'the greatest of all Chinese ports outside
China, however, was Bangkok, which probably replaced Batavia at the
end of the eighteenth century as the busiest port between Calcutta and
Canton'. To what extent Bangkok's rise came at the expense of Batavia's
fall is debatable. Could the mighty Dutch East India Company have
survived the competition and maintained its supremacy had they worked
with the Chinese on rice, since Java was equally fertile? The 1740
massacre spelt the end of the VOC's success and it would never regain
its former glory. In its place, Bangkok rose to become the busiest intra-
Asian port. Bangkok was destined to replace Batavia not just because
the Chinese were turned away from Java, but because Siam possessed
the rice that China prized. John Barrow, secretary to Lord McCartney,
observed the abundance of rice in Southeast Asia and commented on its
importance to China in the 1790s. 'For rice', he wrote, 'there is a never-
failing demand in the populous city of Canton, and sugar and pepper are
equally acceptable; all of which are most abundantly produced in the
fertile valleys of Cochinchina'.*
[* John Barrow, A Voyage to Cochinchina in the Years 1792 and 1793
(London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806), p. 341.]
Eager to catch up, British diplomats and Company agents noticed the
absolute importance of rice to both China and Siam. John Crawfo[u]rd
was one such agent, arriving in the region in the 1820s. When his ship
entered the Menam River on its way to Bangkok, Crawford saw 'the
neatest and best description of dwellings' lined up on the river bank,
which he was informed were 'occupied by good Chinese shops'.* The
same can be said about other ports in Siam and Southeast Asia. As he
spent more time there, Crawford became aware that 'the useful arts
practised in Siam are commonly in the hands of Chinese and other
strangers'. In addition to rice and commerce, the Chinese also controlled
the production of and trade in sugar and pepper. Crawford concluded
that 'of the foreign trade of Siam, the most important branch is that with
China' and that the Chinese were the 'only foreigners whose trade is
upon a fair footing', while the English and the Americans were 'subjected
to much vexation and imposition'.
[* Journal of an Embassy, p. 79.]
This is quite revealing, as Europeans - the British in particular - would
continue to complain that their trade with China did not enjoy equal
footing. The attempt to gain such parity would become the very purpose
of the McCartney and Amherst missions, and the motivation behind the
actions of Lord Napier and ultimately the Opium War. Would the British
have complained if China needed and sought what they could offer?
They certainly didn't complain when China began to buy so much opium
from them. Howard T. Fry summed up this situation brilliantly: 'The harsh
fact was that the Chinese were chiefly interested in their trade with
neighbouring islands and states, a commerce helped by the fact that
wherever they did business they tended to leave behind colonies of their
fellow-countrymen.'
This brings us to the human consequence of China's interaction with
Southeast Asia. Like many others, Crawford became fascinated by the
Chinese presence in Siam and throughout the region, and researched
the subject. He noticed that there were 280 junks and about 11,500
seamen, almost all ethnic Chinese, based in Bangkok."
"By the 1820s, Chinese outnumbered the Malays, Siam's immediate
neighbours. The number of Chinese would increase to 3,000,000 out of a
total population of 18,000,000 by 1950, when Thailand could claim the
largest Chinese community in Southeast Asia. The penetration and
power of the Chinese in Thailand was palpable by the mid-twentieth
century; this was initially and mainly made possible by the demand for
rice. Old Siam drained China's excess population, just as Siamese rice
saved more hungry souls on the mainland; this process helped China
grow and transformed Siam as well.
'China's population growth was expanding and could only be fed by the
import of rice from Vietnam and Siam', concluded Norman G. Owen and
colleagues. Rice had set the pattern for other commodities to come, just
as Siam provided an example for the rest of Southeast Asia to follow.
Having learnt from rice, the Chinese soon came to dominate the
cultivation of and commerce in staples like sugar and pepper. The region
would become an 'offshore production zone for China' by the nineteenth
century; Carl Trocki has brilliantly demonstrated how this process worked
in the case of opium.* The Chinese came to control the Siamese
economy over time; many foreigners arrived at the conclusion that 'A
Typical Merchant of Siam Usually has Chinese Blood':**
[* Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy.]
[** Kenneth P. Landon, Chinese in Thailand (New York: Russell &
Russell, 1973), p. 11.]
'... His grandfather, more than likely a full-blooded Chinese who smoked
a long pipe of red tobacco and wore a queue, may have come to settle in
that community when it was still unincorporated, when there were no
railroad tracks, no rice mills or steam boats or trade with the outside
world. Our native Siamese were not commercial minded, and they did
not know how to develop their fertile valleys into trade centers. It was
these uncouth Chinese and some of his friends who built the first grass-
roofed store shacks where local goods could be exchanged. Now the
shacks have been transformed into concrete buildings, mills have been
built on the river banks, and steam boats are distributing the local goods
to remote lands. The old man may still worship his ancestors by burning
gold paper, but his sons have gone to Siamese schools and learned how
to write on their shingles in both languages. The third generation do not
remember Chinese; many of them have changed their family names, and
begin to forget their origin. These Siamese-born Chinese belong to one
of the most desirable classes of our society.'
The mention of queues points to the Qing dynasty, as the hairstyle was
a symbol of Manchu rule. Overseas Chinese were the first to cut their
queues, a platform of the Nationalist Revolution led by Sun Zhong-shan,
who relied on overseas Chinese for support.
What pushed the Chinese in the coastal provinces towards Southeast
Asia were disasters and survival; what pulled them back were profits, the
prestige money could buy and attachment to their homeland, especially
for those who were born on Chinese soil. While many made a living in
old Siam, some, such as Kaw Su Chiang, made fortunes in the new
Thailand. A coolie immigrant who went to Thailand without a penny, Kaw
Su Chiang amassed such a fortune through tin mining and trade that his
wealth was second only to that of the King by the time of his death. Kaw
Su Chiang and his family were so important to Thailand's economy that
he was given the title of 'Phraya' when he was Governor of Ranong. Tan
Kay Kee, one of (if not the) richest Chinese in the first half of twentieth
century, also began as a rice merchant, and used his fortune to help
China fight the war against Japan. A more contemporary example would
be ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (governed 2001-
2006), a wealthy businessman whose ancestors came from the rice-
trading Zhenghai district of Chaozhou municipality. Captain Xu Song,
Taksin the Great, Kaw Su Chiang, Tan Kay Kee and Thaksin Shinawatra
illustrate the case of Siam, but more importantly exemplify the broader
impact of the Chinese Diaspora throughout Southeast Asia.
The reduction in Siamese rice exports as a result of the Burmese
invasion allowed others in the region to exploit this opportunity. Vietnam
began to ship rice to Guangdong as early as 1756, according to the
research of Yu Dingbang. Perhaps this can help explain the reason for
the drop in prices in the early 1780s, as supplies from other Southeast
Asia countries filled the vacuum left by Siam. Yumio Sakurai has
carefully studied the water frontier of Indochina in the eighteenth century,
when 'it rapidly became a Chinese 'Promised Land', attracting Chinese
immigrants' who founded the Chinese port polity kingdom of Hatien and
turned the region into an 'export-oriented rice bowl'. Many more such
'rice bowls' sprang up along the coast of Southeast Asia as the so-called
junk trade flourished in the eighteenth century. Vietnam was not alone;
Korea sent rice to China, as did the Philippines, while Malaysia's exports
would come to rival those of Thailand in the late nineteenth century as
the population further exploded on the mainland and China became the
land of famine. The place of rice in the history of Southeast Asia was
expertly summarised by Norman Owen: 'Rice was also the export that
introduced Burma, Siam, Vietnam, and Cambodia to the modern world
system, and it remained their leading export earner up to World War II.
It was in reference to the expansion of China's trade, the intensification
of migration, and China's subsequent role in shaping and dominating the
economies of Southeast Asia that Leonard Blusse called for the
eighteenth century to be treated as a Chinese category, and Anthony
Reid labelled the period from 1740 to 1840 the 'Chinese Century'. Reid
has taken a comprehensive view of their activity, if not achievement:
 'This era saw the establishment of colonies of Chinese miners in
northern Vietnam, western Borneo, Phuket, Kelantan and Bangka.
Chinese planters established new export industries of pepper in Brunei,
Cambodia, and Chantaburi, and of gambier in Riau-Johor. In southeast
Siam as well as Kedah and Java, sugar plantations were opened by
Chinese immigrants. The Mekong delta area became a new frontier for
Chinese agricultural and commercial enterprise. Whereas rulers in
Burma and northern (Trinh) Vietnam reacted with fear and tight controls,
the Nguyen rulers of Hue, like Taksin and Rama I in Siam and the
Yamtuan Mudas in Riau, were eager to use Chinese colonists to
increase not only their revenue but their control over frontier areas. Most
of these economic pioneers produced or traded for the China market.
Hence a great expansion occurred in the junk trade to such ports as Ha
Tien, Saigon, Trengganu, Riau, Brunei (where seven junks a year were
said to be arriving in the 1770s) and Sulu.'
Generations of Southeast Asian historians have explored the Chinese
Diaspora in Southeast Asia and produced outstanding works that cast
light on the making of the region's economy. However, situating their
work within the larger picture of China requires the response of Chinese
scholars. Whereas the Yongzheng and Qianlong regimes made efforts to
secure the importation of rice, it was ordinary Chinese who made it
sustainable in the long run. China's growing population required more
rice, and Siam responded to this demand as coastal Chinese grabbed
the opportunity. Many shuttled back and forth, but many more settled in
Siam. The growing demand and economic specialisation contributed to
the kingdom's transformation from Siam to Thailand, even if the extent is
debatable. Thai fragrant rice remains the most favoured brand among
the Chinese people today, no matter whether they live in Shanghai or
San Francisco, Manchester or Melbourne. But Thai rice still could not
feed the population of eighteenth-century China. What alternative
foodstuffs were available to feed the Chinese?"
"Maize and Foreign Yam
In his memorial about the rice riot in Fujian in 1726 (as discussed in
Chapter Two), Governor-General Gao Qizhuo of Fujian-Zhejiang
province also included the following information:
'The two districts of Quan-Zhang are densely populated. Even in years
of good harvest, their own rice could not feed the population. We have
just had a 7/10 harvest this year, this obviously is not enough. Due to the
shortage of rice in these two regions, many people have replaced rice
with fan shu; it has become a staple food.'
The above-mentioned fan shu is the foreign yam or the common sweet
potato. Hunger had turned the Fujianese to whatever they could lay their
hands on, which also included maize. Rice, in other words, whether
Chinese-grown or imported from Siam, was not enough to feed the
increasing population. Both official and private sources indicate that
maize and the foreign yam helped to feed the ever-increasing number of
hungry souls and made it possible for the population to grow. It is
important to consider their introduction, the timing of their widespread
cultivation, and the ways in which they were integrated into the Chinese
diet, because population growth might not have continued without these
New World crops, or what the Chinese call miscellaneous grains.
Historians tend to assume that the foreign yam and maize, and the
peanut as well, arrived in China after the Columbus-Da Gama voyages,
because another New World product, tobacco, is understood to have
appeared in the 1550s, if not earlier. They have overlooked the
possibility that the foreign yam, native to Africa, could have been
introduced during the Song-Yuan era, when China and West Asia- East
Africa had frequent contacts. Shen Fuwei has suggested that it was
already in use during the Song, a timeframe which has some legitimacy
but should be subjected to further research. The foreign yam could also
have been introduced after the Zheng He voyages, given that his fleet
visited West Asia and East Africa. Xie Guozhen put the date of maize's
entry as early as 1511, slightly late if we assume that it came with the
Zheng He voyages, but slightly early if we believe that it was brought to
Asia by the Portuguese or Spaniards.
Ho Ping-ti remains the only historian who has carefully studied and
compared the introduction of these three foreign food plants. Ho's dating
is rather precise: maize came to China 'two or three decades before
1550', and the foreign yam decades before 1594.* Ho suggests that
maize was first introduced to the maritime regions, namely Jiangsu,
Zhejiang and Fujian. He also points out that the earliest reference to
maize appeared in Henan, a province in central China far from the
maritime frontiers. Ho believes that it is possible that various ethnic tribes
had passed through Henan on their way to Beijing to pay tribute, and that
is why maize was initially called imperial wheat. According to Ho, the
gazetteers of Changle and Zhangzhou in Fujian claimed that the foreign
yam was first introduced and grown in their localities: Changle's
gazetteer even named the native who brought the plant from the
Philippines. Ho also found that the 1563 edition of the Dali Gazetteer and
the 1574 edition of the Yunnan Province Gazetteer claimed the foreign
yam as local produce.
[* 'The Introduction of American Food Plants to China', in European
Intruders and Changes in Behaviour and Customs in Africa and Asia
before 1800, eds. Murdo J. MacLeod & Evelyn S. Rawski (Brookfield
[VT]: Ashgate 1998), pp. 283-294.]
While Chinese historians believe that these New World foodstuffs came
via Southeast Asia, whether overland or overseas, Southeast Asian
historians have suggested that maize spread from China to Southeast
Asia. Clearly the study of maize and foreign yam - not excluding tobacco
and others - demands the collaboration of scholars who work on Africa,
America and Asia. How did the Chinese perceive these foodstuffs, and
more importantly, when did they start to cultivate them and integrate
them into their diet?
Let us look at maize first, because it appears in the written works of
Chinese scholars earlier than the foreign yam. Li Shizhen (1518-1593),
the founding father of traditional Chinese medicine, left vital information
about maize in his definitive Bencao Gangmu or Compendium of Materia
Medica, first published in 1578:
'Yu shu shu comes from the West; those who cultivate it are few. Its
sprout and leaves make it look like sorghum except they are wider and
shorter. It also looks like barley and the sprout can shoot up to 3 or 4
inches high; and it blossoms like wheat in June or July. It grows into one
wrapped crop, somewhat like a small fish. It breeds a fluffy willow-like tail
at the end. Soon the wrapped crop opens up with seeds inside; they are
cuddled together, bigger than millet and yellow-whitish. One can fry or
puff it. When puffed, they open up like white flowers, just like sticky rice
when they are puffed.'*
[* (52 vols. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1998), vol. 23, p. 997.]
Given that Li researched and wrote during the mid-Ming period, the
'West' should have referred to Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and
Tibet, or to Central Asia. 'Puff' seems to suggest that the Chinese were
making what we now call popcorn in 1578 or earlier.
Another late Ming scholar, Tian Yiheng (b. 1524) also wrote about maize
in his memoir. Tian explained that it came from the 'barbarians to the
West', and it was called imperial wheat because it used to be a tribute
item. It is difficult to ascertain whether Tian copied information from Li or
had conducted his own research into the subject, but it is clear that he
was fascinated with the ways in which the imperial wheat was shaped
and seasoned: 'Its fruit figures like a fist; it bears a red fluffy tail, its grains
are hard, big and whitish; it blossoms at the top and bears fruit at the
end; it is really unusual'. The works of Li Shizhen and Tian Yiheng offer
us some very important information about maize. First of all, the
statement that maize came 'from the West' demonstrates that late Ming
scholars did not consider the grain to be native to China. It is possible
that maize was indeed a tribute item from the indigenous tribes to the
west of Ming China. It is also possible that it came to the maritime region
first due to its proximity to Macao, where the Portuguese settled in 1557,
and to the Philippines, where the Spaniards established themselves in
1571.
Regardless, we are still left with the question of when it was introduced.
The comment that 'those who cultivate it are few' suggests that maize
had arrived before 1578 when Li published his masterpiece. Li was a
native of Hubei in central China, where he carried out most of his
research. Although he travelled widely, we can assume that his travels
most likely did not cross the Ming boundary. This would imply that maize
was at the beginning stage of localisation in at least south-central China
by the late sixteenth century. Alvarez Semedo (1585-1658) spotted
maize in the north when he travelled from Macao to Beijing in the early
seventeenth century: 'The Northern Provinces use for their proper
sustenance Wheate, Barly, and Maiz; eating rice but seldome, as we do
in Europe; leaving it for the Southern Provinces.'
Thirdly, 'one can fry or puff it' demonstrates that people in the late Ming
(late sixteenth century) had discovered more than one way of consuming
maize. This is the key phase in the social life of maize, because its
survival would have depended on how its first consumers perceived it
and more importantly consumed it - that is, how it fitted in with or
enhanced existing modes of consumption. Puffed rice with sugar was,
and still is, a common snack for children and adults as well; puffed maize
with sugar proved even more popular. Li Shizhen might not have
foreseen that every peasant household would be cultivating maize a
century after he died, and that the grain would become a welcome
addition to the cash-cropping economy and a major food staple on the
Chinese dinner table, with an attendant name change from Yu shu shu
and imperial wheat to jade rice. The change of nomenclature is
significant, and might suggest that the hungry Chinese valued maize
highly, as 'jade' implies value and status.
Leaving aside the history of its introduction, which requires far more
extensive research, this chapter is concerned with the timing of its
indigenisation and the ways in which it fed the Chinese people: when
they began to cultivate it as a foodstuff and how they consumed it. Wang
Chongli, Magistrate of Yanchang county in the poor Shaanxi province,
saw that maize helped the locals weather famine in the 1750s. He wrote
to the Qianlong emperor in 1762, in a memorial entitled 'Persuading
Peasants to Grow Maize for Food Shortage', which became famous in
mid-Qing officialdom. Wang explained what he called the 'ten
conveniences' and 'five profits' of maize, in classic prose:"
"Magistrate Wang's opinion was virtually the same as that of Doctor Juan
de Cardenas, a Spanish doctor practicing in Mexico in the 1580s, who
praised the many virtues of maize in Problemas y Secretos Maravillosos
de las Indias (1591). Separated by 171 years and great oceans, a
Spanish doctor and a Chinese official had reached the same conclusions
about maize. Their observations can be grouped into three kinds of
advantages: maize was easy to grow, simple to harvest and store, and
great to consume, offering more nutrition than other grains.
Maize's first advantage is that it grows everywhere: in cold, hot, dry or
wet climates, and in mountains, valleys and plains. While Chinese
peasants devoted the best land to rice cultivation, they used the ragged
mountain side and valley range to grow maize. This was good news to
many during the Qing, especially those in the mountainous regions.
While rice and other crops need constant weeding and irrigation, maize
hardly needs any care after sowing. Less labour-intensive, maize needs
little attention and investment, a great advantage when resources were
hard to come by, let alone in years of famine and drought. Seasoning
quickly (within three or four months), the people in south, central and
even north-central China could, and did, grow and harvest maize twice a
year, or three times in two years. This meant a steady supply of the
staple year-round. Most importantly, maize has a high yield, ranging from
at least 100 to 200 measures of grain per measure of seed sown.
The second key advantage is that maize is simple to harvest and store.
Picking maize involves much less work than gathering other grains and
anyone, even children, could be employed in this respect. Wu Shixian, a
magistrate in Hubei province, penned a classic verse, 'Song to Maize' in
1763. He described the scene of harvest and celebrated the power of
maize, as he was relieved that his people would not go hungry. Wu's
verse is one of many devoted to maize. Like opium, maize generated its
own literature, which sheds detailed light on the indigenisation of a
foreign foodstuff and on eighteenth-century peasant life. Maize is also
easy to store, as it requires no further processing after picking and can
be left in baskets, in piles or hung up. Dr. Cardenas and Magistrate
Wang both emphasised the way in which every part of the plant could be
put to good use. The two peoples naturally found different uses for
maize: where the Mexicans hollowed out corncobs to make instant
smoking pipes, Chinese peasants hung them below their roofs to trumpet
their harvest and abundance. In fact, maize-decorated peasant
households have become the symbol of a middle-class or even rich
peasant family.
The third advantage is that maize is great to cook and healthy to
consume. It contains more nutrients than other grains, and the Chinese
discovered many ways of eating it. A Chinese meal is composed of main
dishes of meat, vegetables or a mix of both, cooked in a multitude of
ways and consumed with rice or noodles, with variations such as
steamed or stuffed buns and dumplings, which can also be eaten as
snacks. The consumption of maize fitted in seamlessly with these
existing modes of cooking and consumption. Rice was boiled, as was
maize; rice was ground to make noodles, buns and cakes, and so was
maize; rice was fermented into wine, and so was maize. As was only
natural, the Chinese first cooked and ate maize in the same way they
cooked and ate other grains, before beginning to innovate: maize soup
tops the menu of many Chinese restaurants today, since every proper
Chinese meal usually starts with, and sometimes ends with, soup. Maize
has also been made into stuffed buns, especially in the north, and into
cakes, popcorn and snacks; it can also be stir-fried with meat and
vegetables.
Doctor Juan de Cardenas and Magistrate Wang were maize enthusiasts
and advocates whose writings were based on years of observation and
experience. Wang's memorial lends credibility to the naturalisation of
maize in northwest China by the 1760s, if not earlier. This is late in
comparison with the maritime regions, and suggests that it took time for
maize to spread to the interior, as it did for tobacco and would for the
foreign yam. If this timeframe is adopted, it could possibly help explain
the sudden drop in the price of rice in the 1780s as illustrated in the
Jiang Jianping diagram. As we have seen, the Yongzheng and Qianlong
reigns saw a steady rise in the price of rice until it hit 3.5 taels in the early
1780s. Is it possible that the subsequent drop in the price of rice could be
attributed to the fact that maize had now begun to help feed the
Chinese? This supports my hypothesis (which should of course be
subject to further research) that China probably did not desperately need
maize until the population exploded in the mid-eighteenth century. If we
accept Li Shizhen's timeline of a mid-sixteenth century introduction, it
took about two centuries for maize to spread, as a multitude of sources -
government documents, local gazetteers, memoirs and even poems -
testify to its widespread cultivation and consumption by the mid-
eighteenth century.
The 'botanical bastard', as anthropologist Arturo Warman labelled
maize, was born in south-central Mexico. From the New World, maize
rose to dominate the economies and diets of the Old. The crop nourished
the Maya, Aztec and Inca civilisations, and beginning in the 1550s, from
the Venetian plain to the mountains of Assam and from Qianlong's China
to Khrushchev's Collectivization Program, maize fed the exploding
populations of Europe and, more importantly, Africa and Asia.* Maize
sustained African slaves and the slave trade; it lent power to colonial
authorities as they controlled foreign trade and appropriated commercial
farming; it sanctioned the modernising endeavours of aspiring nation-
states.** Despite its humble origins, maize has come to dominate the
global food market and epitomise capitalism, and it may yet play a larger
role in the fuel revolution that is presently unfolding. Maize's significance
extends beyond the fact that it fed, and continues to feed, China, the
world's second largest producer today after the United States.
[* Warman, Corn and Capitalism; James C. McCann, Maize and Grace:
Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press,
2005); and Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Food in World History (New York:
Routledge, 2006).]
The success of maize lay in the fact that it fitted in with and enhanced
the existing culture of food consumption. Maize was welcomed in China
because it fed the increasing millions; more so was the foreign yam, also
called red yam or sweet potato. The late Ming scholar, astronomer,
mathematician and agricultural scientist Xu Guangqu (1562-1623), who
was also one of Matteo Ricci's first converts and partner in translation,
devoted a section to 'yams' in his famous Nongzheng Quanshu or
Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, printed in 1639:"
"Several other late Ming scholars, for example Qu Dajun (1630-1696)
and Zhou Lianggong (1612-1672), also wrote about the foreign yam, and
claimed it came from the Philippines during or after the reign of Wanli
(1573-1619); so did the local gazetteers of Fujian. It is quite possible that
the foreign yam was indeed introduced via the overseas route, from the
Philippines to Fujian in this case, or by land from South and Southeast
Asia. That the foreign yam is native to the African continent rather than
the Americas complicates matters and could have several implications.
As China had contact with Africa before the discovery of the New World,
it is possible that Asian travellers to Africa or West Asia, not excluding
the Zheng He voyagers, could have brought the foreign yam to Asia and
China before Europeans arrived. The global life of the foreign yam
clearly demands the attention of both Asian and African scholars.
Leaving the issue of timing aside, Xu's writing highlights even more
important aspects.
First, the foreign yam was new to the late Ming. By comparing the
foreign yam with the mountain yam, which was believed to be native to
China, Xu gives evidence of the novelty of the foreign yam to the
Chinese agricultural landscape and economy. Xu lived and worked
during the late Ming; he was known for his research and has been hailed
as the godfather of modern Chinese agriculture. Secondly, according to
him Fujian and Guangdong were the two regions that first cultivated the
crop, during the late Like maize, foreign yam is easy to grow, needing
very little labour and care. Harvesting takes more effort, as the yam that
has grown deep in the mud must be dug out and washed prior to sale,
and again, more carefully, before cooking; preparation of yams involves
labour and tools or utensils, and valuable resources like water. But it is
also a versatile foodstuff, fun to consume. Like maize, foreign yam
arrived on the Chinese dinner table as a main food replacing or
complementing rice, as noodles, with side dishes, and as deserts.
Foreign yams were processed, cooked and consumed in many different
ways, from steamed to fried, and from noodles to dried slices. Dried
foreign yam slices were a state ration during the Cultural Revolution as
the country faced severe food shortages. Toasted red yam remains a
favourite snack for children, whereas many adults prefer fried foreign
yam chips to potato chips. Stir-fried alone or with meat, the stem has
become a favourite green, as China's conscientious urban elite try to
catch up with their Western counterparts in terms of healthy eating. Ming.
A native of Jiangsu, Xu travelled widely and worked in Beijing, where he
served the Ming court, but his research only mentions Fujian and
Guangdong. In other words, the spread of foreign yam was limited during
the late Ming. Thirdly, people already knew that the foreign yam tasted
sweet, meaning that they were learning to consume it during this period.
It did not take long for many more peasants to grow the foreign yam and
for it to appear on the Chinese dinner table.
He Qiaoyuan (1557-1633), a late Ming scholar who served as Deputy
Minister of Finance and Works, provides further clues to the spread of
cultivation and the mode of consumption in the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries. Not only did he know the conditions under which
it would grow and what parts of it were edible, but he also knew the ways
in which people cooked and consumed it:"
"A contemporary of Xu Guangqu, He seems to know more about the
foreign yam, possibly because he was a native of Fujian, where the crop
might have first been introduced and cultivated.
The island of Jinmen (Quemoy) celebrated the foreign yam with a
festival in 1999. Lying just off the coast of Xiamen, Jinmen belongs to
Taiwan or the Republic of China; its strategic importance and turbulent
history was expertly analysed by Michael Szonyi in 'Cold War Island:
Quemoy on the Front Line'. The local government commissioned a
volume titled Fanshu Jinmen Sibainian or Foreign Yam, Jinmen and Four
Hundred Years, which details the crop's introduction and naturalisation.
The Jinmenese claim that the foreign yam arrived on the island in 1599,
and the book traces its journey on the island over a period of four
hundred years. The foreign yam means much to the islanders, who
believe that they could not possibly have survived without it. Four
hundred years later, they are convinced that the foreign yam symbolises
what they call the 'Jinmen spirit', as they have weathered so many
political storms and natural disasters that almost destroyed them.
Perhaps they are reminding themselves that the worst storm may be yet
to come, given the very real threat by the People's Republic of China to
'liberate' the island, which would be very easy given its proximity to
Xiamen, where the Manchus and Zheng-led resistance battled it out in
the early Qing. As the preface of the book explains, 'In the past four
hundred years, Jinmen people grew fanshu, they ate fanshu, they drank
fanshu wine, and they spoke fanshu dialect'. Fanshu were forbidden to
leave the island in 1933, a disastrous period for the Jinmenese. The
foreign yam had by this time replaced rice for the people of the island,
and like rice it had become a strategic commodity that contributed not
only to local law and order but also to collective survival. The 1599
Jinmen timeline sits comfortably with those proposed by Xu Guangqu
and He Qiaoyuan; this rare and concrete case shows that the foreign
yam began to spread from the coast to the interior in the seventeenth
century.
Like maize, the foreign yam became indigenised by the mid-Qing, even
though it was introduced during the late Ming. This supports the
hypothesis I advance regarding maize, namely that China did not
particularly need to incorporate the foodstuff before the population
exploded in the mid-eighteenth century - when it acquired another name,
golden yam or, just as maize transitioned to jade rice. This can be seen
from the memorials of many officials who wrote to the Qianlong emperor,
Chen Hongmou in particular. He wrote to the emperor as early as 1745
to advocate the cultivation of the foreign yam, which he called sweet
yam, in Shaanxi, where he served as Governor. Chen was one of the
most exemplary officials of the Qing and he showed the way for others
such as Wang Congli, as we have seen in the case of maize. Qianlong
himself took a great interest in the cultivation of the foreign yam, as
evidenced by frequent comments in the memorials. Imperial
endorsement and local official promotion helped to spread the cultivation
of maize and the foreign yam, and fed the Chinese when the population
exploded towards the late eighteenth century.
How much maize and foreign yams were cultivated, and how many
people did they feed? Not much attention has been paid to this specific
question, which will take years of research and demands information
from across the country, as cultivation increased from the late Ming to
the mid-Qing, and yield differed greatly from north to south."
"Yi Yongwen, a culinary scholar, believes that the yield of maize and
foreign yam in 1813 could have fed more than 51,900,000 people. The
unorganised nature and paucity of numbers demonstrates the poor state
of research; the introduction and naturalisation of maize and the foreign
yam in China demands much more micro- and macro-level research,
which will undoubtedly shed light not just on how the 400 million Chinese
survived, but also on how the population continued to grow, to 646.5
million by 1957 despite a century of wars and natural disasters, and to
more than 1.34 billion in 2011."
"Conclusion
Song and Yuan China exported rice to Southeast Asia, which
demonstrates the abundance of rice in China and the demand from
Southeast Asia. The earliest rice import can be traced to 1593, according
to Xiamen History of Rice. Population increase was clearly putting strains
on the traditional output by the late sixteenth century, but the
seventeenth century saw rebellions and dynastic change which reduced
the population. A shortage of rice surfaced again in the final years of the
Kangxi emperor in the early eighteenth century, when life returned to
normal after a century of unrest. Yongzheng's reign saw the turning
point, as the consequences of long-term demographic change began to
unfold. Can we thus attribute the food shortage to the population
explosion alone? Leadership mattered, and Lillian Li has recently shown
that the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors amassed an
enormous amount of grain in the capital granaries to weather famine and
social unrest of any kind. The three emperors took measures to solve the
problem and were effective in finding grains from outside China to feed
the increasing population. After they left the scene, China would become
the land of famine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The story of feeding China sheds light on the long-term demographic
and economic changes that took place during the Qing. The 'battle over
rice' continued into, and even worsened, in the Republican era, as
Christian Henriot highlights in the case of Shanghai. Despite a century of
rebellion and revolution, the Chinese population tripled, from 400 million
at the dawn of the Nationalist Revolution to more than 1.3 billion today.
The Communist regime had to import grain from Japan and the United
States in the 1960s, as failure to feed the growing population during the
Cold War threatened national security. What would have happened to
Qing China without rice from Siam and the introduction of maize and the
foreign yam? The exodus to Manchuria, Taiwan and Southeast Asia
would certainly have been much greater.* Today's Asia, both the
Northeast and Southeast, would look very different had the Ming-Qing
regimes encouraged overseas migration and settlement in order to
manage overpopulation and reduce the burden of feeding them.
[* Christopher Isett, State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria,
1644-1862 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 55-56 & 109-
13.]"
"4 CETTE MERVEILLEUSE MACHINE
Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), who served the last Ming and
the first two Qing emperors, might be the best witness to the Ming-Qing
dynastic transition."
"Whether it was due to the purposeful guidance of Verbiest or the curious
nature of the young prince himself, Kangxi asked the Jesuits many
questions regarding European science and took lessons from them.
Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730) wrote much on this, as did Jonathan
Spence. Mainland scholars have recently found Kangxi's writing on
mathematics, entitled 'Essence of Mathematics', and the special desk
and calculation tools he used. Kangxi was also interested in music,
which would lead to the introduction of European compositions and
instruments, and the compilation of the Qing encyclopaedia of music.
Knowing that Kangxi liked music, Verbiest spoke of the talent of
Philippus Maria Grimaldi (1639-1712) and Thomas Pereyra (1645-1708),
who soon joined him in the Qing court upon Kangxi's invitation. Verbiest
was persuasive and Kangxi was pleased, as Jean Baptiste Du Halde
(1674-1743) remembered:
'In the year 1679 he (Kangxi) sent for P. Grimaldi and P. Pereira to play
upon an Organ and the Harpsichord that had formerly presented him; he
liked our European Airs, and seemed to take great Pleasure in them;
then ordered his Musicians to play a Chinese Air upon their instrument,
and played likewise himself in a very graceful manner.
P. Pereira took his Pocket-book and pricked down all the Tune while the
Musicians were playing, and when they had made an end repeated it
without missing one Note, which the Emperor could scarcely believe his
surprise was so great. He bestowed great Encomiums upon the
Justness, Harmony, and Facility of the European Musick; but he admired
above all, that the Father had learnt in so short a time an Air which had
been so troublesome to him and his Musicians, and that by the
Assistance of Characters he could recollect it at any time with Pleasure.
To be more certain of this he put him to the Trial several times, and
sung several different Airs, which the Father took down in his Book, and
repeated exactly with the greatest Justness: It must be owned, cried the
Emperor, the European Musick is incomparable; and this Father
(speaking of P. Pereira) has not his Equal in all of the Empire.'*
[* The General History of China (3 vols. London: J. Watts, 1741), vol. 3,
pp. 68-69.]
The Jesuits were very proud of this episode, and this story is retold in
several places in their chronicle.8 Pereyra was a gifted musician and
could play Chinese music after hearing it just once, a feat which may be
unsurprising to musicians themselves then and now, but which amazed
Kangxi, who also heard the difference in notation. He was so enthralled
that he established an institution where Chinese scholars and Manchu
princes could learn from the Jesuits, and commissioned Lu Lu Zhengyi
or The True Doctrines of Music, a comprehensive work on music theory,
instruments and practice, compiled by Pereyra and his successor Don
Pedrini. The instrument Pereyra played was called a clavecin, which
Jean-Baptiste Du Halde translated as 'harpsichord'. The clavecin was
widely used in baroque music, and can be seen in contemporary Dutch
paintings such as Lady Seated at the Virginals by Johannes Vermeer.
Kangxi ordered instruments like this to be made, and invited the Jesuits
to the court to perform. He took great pleasure in their performance,
joining in from time to time. An increasing number of historians believe
that Kangxi ordered his sons, Princes Third, Fifteenth and Sixteenth, to
study music theory and learn to play the instruments with the Jesuits.
China's first chamber orchestra was thus made up of Jesuit missionaries,
Chinese eunuchs and Manchu princes. What music did they play, given
that this was the age of Bach (Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750) and
Handel (George Frideric, 1685-1759)? Kangxi toured the south again in
1703 and returned to Beijing with Gao Shiqi (1642-1704), a well-known
painter whose garden in Hangzhou had impressed the emperor."
"Kangxi studied European sciences, enjoyed European music and
trusted European medical practice. Music can be both elevating and
entertaining; it spoke to European royals and elites, and also resonated
with their Manchu counterparts in China. But the music Kangxi liked
never travelled beyond the Qing palaces, despite an attempt by Qian-
long to revive it at one point. The tunes vanished with Kangxi and would
not re-emerge until the late nineteenth century. In fact, many of the
things that lived with Kangxi gradually disappeared after his departure,
except the clocks. Why did music die and clocks live and thrive in Qing
China?"
"Visa Fee for China
Clocks were not new to Ming-Qing China; in fact, many argue that Su
Song of the Song dynasty invented the world's first clock, which Joseph
Needham called the 'striking water-clock' and studied carefully. Powered
by water and therefore involving human labour, this Chinese invention
travelled with Arab merchants to West Asia during Song-Yuan times and
onward to Europe, where it was reinvented in a process which Needham
has dubbed the 'westward flow of techniques'. After its transformation in
Europe, the clock travelled back to China with the Jesuits in the late
sixteenth century. Tracing the global footsteps of the clock, beginning
with its invention in Song China, would surely be welcomed in this age of
global history, but the focus of this chapter will be limited to the
introduction - re-introduction to be more precise - of European made
clocks to China, and their indigenisation. In so doing, this chapter casts
light on the popularity and circulation of clocks in and around the court
from the late Ming to the early Qing, and considers their consumption
among the urban elite and their indigenization beginning in the mid-
Qing.* The social life of clocks is significant because, like opium
smoking, they came to govern the lives and work of many Chinese. The
adoption of clocks, hence European time, modernised China and laid the
foundation for globalisation.
[* Catherine Pagani, Eastern Magnificence and Europe Ingenuity: Clocks
of Late Imperial China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001);
Historians usually attribute the introduction of clocks to Matteo Ricci, but
it really began with Michel Ruggieri. Ricci joined Alexander Valignano,
Michel Ruggieri and Franciscus Pasio in Macao in August 1582;
Valignano and Pasio were destined for Japan, Ruggieri and Ricci for
China. Francis Xavier had preceded them, but had failed to enter the
country and died a miserable death offshore. Ruggieri would be the first
missionary to enter China, and Ricci the first to enter Beijing and be
received by the Ming court. The men discussed the ways in which they
could persuade the local authority to let them enter China and establish a
mission, as: 'The Viceroy of the Province of Canton is looked upon as
one of the influential of his order.' The power rested with the Governor-
General of the Guangdong-Guangxi provinces, Chen Rui (Ricci spelt it
Cinsui), who according to Ricci was 'decidedly avaricious and took
advantage of the settlement at Macao'. Chen had the authority to
continuously deny their entry into the Middle Kingdom at his pleasure.
The Portuguese authority was summoned by Chen Rui in 1582, and
they knew very well they had to bring gifts for the audience. Michel
Ruggieri accompanied the first delegation, bearing gifts and novelties
'valued in all at more than a thousand gold pieces', but he could not
undertake the second meeting as he was taken ill. Matteo Ricci had just
arrived from India, and he 'avait apporté avec lui une horloge sonnante'.
Knowing that Chen Rui liked novelties, Ruggieri asked the delegation to
convey to the Governor that 'he regretted being detained by his illness,
because he had intended to bring with him a certain beautiful little piece
of mechanism made of brass that struck the hours without anyone
touching it'. This ploy worked, as he was invited back immediately:"
"The first European clock to enter China, that 'marvellous machine that
tells time so exactly', was a gift to Governor-General Chen Rui. Like
today's visa application fee, it earned the Jesuits a permit to enter China
in December 1582.
The clock became the Jesuit's ticket to the city of Zhaoqing, where they
established the first Catholic Church beyond Macao. Their strategy, or
bribery if we are less generous, worked, and opened the door for the
operations of the Jesuits in China, as gifts and novelties like clocks
became their ticket to Ming officialdom and ultimately to the court in
Beijing."
"Clocks brought good tidings to the Jesuits, and transformed the order in
China into court merchants and artisans, as the Ming and later the Qing
court relied on them to mount and adjust the clocks, as well as repair
them when the marvellous machines stopped 'telling time so exactly'.
The Jesuits found a means to the end, but in doing so had doomed their
holy enterprise to remain merely, as Florence Hsia has correctly labelled
it, a 'scientific mission'. Did they realise that? Perhaps simply being in
China was considered an end. Clocks and European curios helped Ricci
make his way from Macao to Zhaoqing and soon Nanjing, where he
bestowed gifts on and befriended key officials who promised to take him
to Beijing, which they managed on the 'twenty-fourth of January, in
sixteen hundred and one'."
"Like a favourite toy, the clock captivated the Wanli emperor. Mounting,
initiating, adjusting and repairing clocks was the reason that Ricci was
retained in Beijing."
"This was the start of the Jesuit mission to China, which ended in the
'Rites Controversy' as detailed in Chapter Two."
"While Ricci spread the gospel of clocks from Zhaoqing to Nanjing and
Beijing, Macao exposed more Chinese to the devices. The city had
become both a window to China for the missionaries and a window to
Europe for the Chinese. Here Europeans and European goods assem-
bled; they opened the eyes of many who travelled there. A native of
Jiangsu (1589 jinshi), Wang Linheng journeyed there for work in 1601
and wrote about his experience in the maritime frontier province. He was
very impressed by what he saw:"
"Wang's description is crude but extremely informative. Clocks fascinated
Governor-General Chen Rui, the Wanli emperor, Feng Shike, Wang
Linheng and his colleague Liu Tianyu; they would also fascinate their
successors, the Qing emperors and their elite scholar-officials, as
timepieces became more available with the arrival of more Jesuits on
Chinese soil and more European merchants in Asia. This contributed to
the spread and localisation of clocks during the mid-Qing. Aomen Jilue or
A Brief History of Macao describes St. Paul's Cathedral, of which only
the façade still stands today, as a symbol of the once flourishing
enclave:"
"Why were the scholar-officials from the late Ming to the early Qing
fascinated with this foreign way of keeping time? Was it its novel nature,
curio status, mechanical genius or functional value that captured them?
How did the Chinese keep time themselves, given that they invented the
clock? Time-keeping is universal; different peoples and cultures found
their own ways to keep and tell time, and the Chinese were no exception.
While the sound of bells from city gates or towers told the time, peasants
in the countryside measured the height of the sun with such simple tools
as bamboo sticks. As a matter of fact, Chinese ways of keeping time had
impressed the Jesuit Gabriel de Magaillans (1609-1677). I have quoted
his entire description as such detail is hard to find even in Chinese
sources:*
[* A New History of the Empire of China Containing a Description of the
Most Considerable Particulars of that Vast Empire (London: Golden Ball,
1688), pp. 124-26.]"
"Like the water clock invented by Su Song, this 'invention becoming the
wonderful industry' of the Chinese, as Magaillans called it, required
elaborate human labour. What made European clocks fascinating was
the exotic nature of the devices and their self-working elements, such
that they did not require manual labour. This mechanical ingenuity was
new to the Chinese and made them believe they were magic. Most
importantly, they were rare and foreign, a status symbol. They were not
just useful but delightful, as they precisely told time by making music.
Such foreign objects were hard to find and undoubtedly expensive, a
collector's item from the beginning."
"Kangxi's 'Discipline Regime'
The Ming to Qing transition in 1644 did not end the Jesuit mission, even
though there was 'no lack of vexations'. The Jesuits were lucky that the
new, alien, masters of China did not throw them out with the old regime.
The Manchus might not have seen Europeans (except the Russians)
before, but they appreciated their technical and artistic skills and retained
them for good use. The first and most important change for a new regime
would be the calendar, as each Mandate of Heaven was believed to ring
in a new era. Jean Adam Schall von Bell became so important to the
new ruler that the Shunzhi emperor nominated him Vice-president of the
Board of Astronomy, which became the monopoly of the order until the
last Jesuit astronomer died in 1837. The Jesuits became deeply
entrenched in the politics and rituals of the new dynasty. If astronomy
was the obsession of the first Qing emperor on Chinese soil - since it
was his divine duty to get the calendar right - clocks would mesmerize
his son and grandsons. Kangxi shared a passion for clocks with his Ming
predecessor Wanli: he had them standing and mounted on the walls in
the halls where he read court documents, consulted his ministers and
gave audiences to foreign dignitaries.
Kangxi travelled with clocks; they were fitted on the imperial cruiser
which carried him down the Grand Canal on his Southern Tours. Wang
Yingkui (1683-1759) knew the 1699 tour very well:"
"Why would Kangxi worry about time when he was on holiday, and when
he had the power to dictate time as the Son of Heaven? Clocks were a
wonder and a novelty that the ordinary people had not heard of, as the
story testifies. They were majestic and extraordinary; they signalled
imperial power and prestige. Kangxi obviously liked clocks, so much so
that he could not bear being away from one, but his addiction to clocks
demands a more sophisticated explanation. This ingenious instrument
was far more important than other European curios to Kangxi: he liked its
mechanical ingenuity, but more importantly he liked the fact that it helped
him manage his precious time and affairs. This can be seen from one of
his many poems, entitled Song to Self Sounding Clocks:"
"Discipline came from his determination to rule; it also came from the
machinery that told time. The 'golden clock' woke him up in the morning.
But more importantly it helped him to 'attend politics and ask whether
memorials have arrived'. Clocks kept Kangxi's rhythm of life; they helped
him manage the empire and his army of officials from daybreak. Clocks
gave him one more power - the power to impose imperial rule and watch
over his officials.
Clocks became Kangxi's 'discipline regime', as articulated by Michel
Foucault. Time is power, and the most powerful tool for a leader.
Kangxi's passion for and adoption of clocks is consequential. It enhanced
the management of the big imperial household, as clocks reminded
officials and princes of their duties and eunuchs and maids of their
chores. The emperor led by example and ensured that his officials were
reminded of their jobs on an hourly basis. Kangxi bestowed clocks upon
his favoured Manchu and Mongol princes, Chinese literati and ranking
officials, many of whom mentioned the rarity and desirability of clocks in
their memoirs. They were very popular and much sought-after in
Kangxi's time: the internal demand for clocks was so great that the
emperor established a workshop devoted to the making of clocks inside
the walls of the Forbidden City in 1692. This was the famous Clock
Workshop, under the direct supervision of the Royal Manufactory in the
Imperial Household Department.
The IHD was in charge of dressing, feeding, housing, transporting and
entertaining the imperial family; it produced garments, food, furniture,
utensils, carriages, curios and everything the royals desired."
"One of the masters in the Clock Workshop was Gabriel de Magaillans,
who so admiringly described the Chinese way of time-keeping, but
nonetheless tried to impress the Kangxi emperor with the European
way:"
"A descendant of the legendary Portuguese navigator Magellan, Gabriel
had become a clock-maker at the Qing court, and was very good at it.
His clock described above sounded a different piece of music for each
hour, followed by a diminishing striking sound as if a volley of gunfire
was receding into the distance - how imaginative and entertaining! The
fun and functional aspects of clocks were fully exposed here, explaining
to a great extent why Kangxi and so many others loved them. Magaillans
was preceded and succeeded by many other Jesuits who served the
Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors, a roster that includes
Thomas Pereyra, Pierre Jartoux, Jacques Brocard, Leopold Liebstein,
Charles Slaviczek, Valentin Chalier, Gilles Thebault, Michel Benoist,
Nicolas-Marie Roy, Pierre-Martial Cibot, Jean-Mathieu de Ventavon,
Hubert de Mericourt and many more.
Though Men of God, the Qing court better appreciated the Jesuits' lay
skills. Kangxi simply told the Society of Jesus to send more of those with
technical skills. Court documents such as Emperor Commented show his
eagerness: 'As for the foreigners, do send those with knowledge and
professional skills to Beijing as quickly as possible.' He met many upon
their arrival and was eager to learn about their knowledge and abilities.
This explains the expansion of the Jesuit enterprise during the early
Qing, when many came as astronomers, mathematicians, painters,
musicians and doctors, and notably clock-makers, who introduced
European clock technology to China and trained Chinese clock-makers
as described in Kangxi's poem. What Matteo Ricci started had become
an industry within the Qing palace, as the Society continued to supply
the most devoted artisans and technicians that Europe had trained."
"'Outward and Downward Liquidation'
Kangxi spread the gospel of clocks; Yongzheng increased their
production and Qianlong's reign saw the 'outward and downward
liquidation' of time pieces. Clocks were luxuries or collector's items from
the time of their introduction in the late Ming until the mid-eighteenth
century, when court production peaked and imports proliferated. Clocks
enriched Chinese art connoisseurs and seized the imaginations of the
royals and the elite. The ingenuity of the devices fascinated not just the
Ming-Qing emperors, but many men of letters who were trained in
classics and philosophy. Given that not every European invention or
curio survived and thrived in China, it is important to consider what it was
about the clock that made it so popular amongst the Chinese. How, in
other words, did ordinary urban consumers perceive it and absorb it into
their everyday work and life? It is important to understand the
indigenisation of foreign goods and objects because, as I have argued in
the case of opium smoking, it sheds light on the emergence and
development of a new consumer culture that helped shape - some would
argue significantly changed - the course of history.
 Various foreign goods and objects led very different lives once they
landed in China. What can the 'outward and downward liquidation' of
clocks tell us about the culture and society of eighteenth century China?"
"Automation and music-making were dominant features of eighteenth-
century clocks."
"European clock-makers produced for the China market, and in the
eighteenth century some even went to the country to sell their clocks;
more clocks therefore became available. Like opium, maize and the
foreign yam, clocks had travelled to the far corners of the Qing empire by
the mid-to-late eighteenth century, as we can see from the mem-oirs and
verses of Ji Yun (1724-1805), Qianlong's one-time favourite scholar-
official who was banished to Wulumuqi, capital of Xinjiang or New
Dominion, in 1769:"
"What made clocks welcome and popular was not merely their exotic
nature and mechanical ingenuity, or the fact that they did not require
manual labour, but more importantly their intrinsic value, which enhanced
existing modes of work and life. Being exotic and a symbol of status is
not enough for a foreign product to survive; the European music and
instruments that Kangxi liked and collected exemplify this point. The new
object and its appreciation and consumption must fit in or improve
existing ways of life in order for consumers to appreciate its value, during
which process it may well indigenise; the cases of opium, maize, and the
foreign yam all testify to that. Even then, its survival still hangs in the
balance, as availability and - more impor-tantly - affordability matter a
great deal in the process of localisation; more so did the socio-economic
environment, such as the population explosion in the case of maize, and
consumer culture change in the case of opium smoking. In a vast country
like Qing China, it would take time for clocks to spread and for local
production to emerge, and it would take even more time for them to
become affordable.
The 1790s was Qianlong's last decade, and it witnessed the visit of the
first official English embassy to China, led by Lord McCartney."
"The English guests were welcomed by a London-made musical clock
playing familiar melodies from their home country; the Qing officials, if
not Qianlong himself, were thoughtful, since exhibits and decorations in
this hall changed frequently in accordance with different occasions and
guests. Like the Jesuits, the Russians and others before them, the
English brought clocks as gifts. Ostensibly they came to celebrate
Qianlong's birthday, but their real purpose was to seek commercial
favour for themselves. These were two very different objectives, and
their combination served to deepen Chinese suspicion. Did they assume
that the Qing court and Chinese officials had forgotten about Captain
Weddell, who forced his way into the Guangdong estuary in the 1630s,
the challenge from George Anson in the 1740s and the character of
James Flint in 1750s?"
"A peek at their timepiece, whether its decoration was pornographic,
sentimental or playful, kept them on time for their work and meetings;
more importantly, it amused them and fired their imagination. Clarke
Abel, secretary to Lord Amherst, carefully observed the ranking officials
who received them in 1816 and 1817: 'Fans, pipes, and chopsticks hung
by their sides; and English watches in embossed cases, were suspended
from many of their girdles.'*
[* Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China and of a Voyage to and
from that Country in the Years 1816 and 1817 (London: Longman, et al.,
1819), p. 82.]"
"Time told by clocks and watches had become the Qing court's 'discipline
regime'. What Kangxi began, his grandson Qianlong continued, and the
practice would become the norm by Jiaqing's time (1799-1819)
[Yongyan]. The clocks that hung in the Forbidden City could be heard
from a distance, and served as a reminder to the officials who worked in
the vicinity; more so did the watches that hung on their bodies. Like
opium, clocks generated enormous profits and became a source of
corruption. This was noticed by the East India Company, and they took
action in the early nineteenth century:"
"This timing couldn't have been more perfect. Clocks were popular in
eighteenth-century China, and this popularity not only fuelled demand
and consumption but also encouraged corruption. Just when the East
India Company stopped shipping clocks to China, Zi Ming Zhong Biao
Tushuo or A Pictorial Explanation of Clocks and Watches, appeared
(1809). The vacuum left by the Honourable Company would be filled by
private traders and Chinese production. This caught up so quickly that
John Henry Cox, son of the above-mentioned James Cox who made his
fortune in China in the eighteenth century, was bankrupt by the early
nineteenth.
Jiaqing's reign (1799-1819) was the key to the social life of opium, as I
have argued; it was also key to the social life of clocks, and not just
because imports declined. This was when private Chinese entrepreneurs
emerged to experiment with clock-making; and this was also when court
production declined dramatically, as the Jiaqing emperor was not nearly
as interested in European objects as his forefathers had been. Both
imports and court production dwindled, marking a turning point as the
court and upper classes moved onto other status-bearing hobbies and
the consumption of urban consumers began to grow. This, once again, is
similar to the social life of opium; the popularity of opium smoking among
the elite fuelled domestic cultivation by the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. As local brands invaded the market, more clocks
were made available to general urban consumers even though foreign
brands still, and would always, command higher prices. Court production
stopped during the reign of Daoguang (1820-1850), and by the time of
the Tongzhi and Guangxu emperors (1861-1908) the Qing court had to
take its malfunctioning clocks outside the palace for repairs. Clocks did
not experience 'McDonaldization' in the late Qing as opium did: this
would come in the mid-twentieth century, when the People's Republic of
China industrialised and modernised. This is one theme of variation in
the process of localisation.
The Treaty of Nanking, signed between China and Britain in 1842,
opened China to foreign trade and investment, and the following
decades saw rapid commercialisation in the Treaty port cities. Clocks
became a symbol of urbanity and modernity: many were mounted on
large buildings, and like the buildings themselves clocks became part
and parcel of a new urban mosaic by the mid-nineteenth century. Old
and new, Chinese and foreign, they existed face-to-face and side-by-
side, competing with and complementing each other."
"China was a land of low architecture, as noted by the Jesuits and many
other foreigners. Clocks stood high to make up the new, and what I call
foreign, urban mosaic. The tall and imposing Western-style buildings
stood like a brick forest in the otherwise flat city, when sunshine, dust
and mist created an enchanting atmosphere around this new urban
landscape. The tranquility of tradition was interrupted by the uproar of
modernity. The striking of the hours proclaimed the birth of a new era,
where clocks timed human activity and ensured efficiency. For some, this
was a picture to the eye and music to the ear; for some, the symbol of a
new city; and for others, a reminder as they hurried to the next job or
destination; all manifestations of urbanity and modernity. For those city-
dwellers who could afford a watch, the clocks were their only means to
correct the time before the age of radio, as indicated in the second verse.
Clocks regulated city life and urban behaviour, if not yet the whole
country.
What the Kangxi emperor initiated in the late seventeenth century
became a norm by the late nineteenth. The utilitarian aspect of clocks
explained why they indigenised in China once technology and supply
were no longer issues. The massive advertisement of clocks and
watches in the print media from the mid-nineteenth century onwards
testifies to the popularity of, and demand for, these instruments, and
signalled the arrival of a consumer culture.* The spread of clocks can be
seen extending from the port cities where foreign clocks were sold and
Chinese clocks were made. As with the case of opium, this was obvious
in Shanghai. The presence of clocks signalled the arrival of a different
age, where profit making was measured not only by international
standards but also by minutes. They put Shanghai on the map of
efficiency and modernity. Opium smoking transformed from luxury into
necessity and flourished in China because its consumption fit in with
Chinese food culture and ways of leisure. Clocks also transformed from
luxury to necessity and became a consumer trend because they
enhanced the management of work, life and time.
[* Advertisement of clocks and watches, whether foreign or Chinese
made, can be found in almost all major late Qing newspapers. The very
first issue of Shen Bao in Shanghai carried such an advertisement in
April 1872.]"
"Conclusion
The standardisation of time during the Qing is similar to the
standardisation of measures, weights and language during the Qin, the
dynasty founded by the First Emperor in BC 221. Clocks standardised
the management of time and enforced imperial rule; time was, and still is,
the most powerful 'discipline regime' of all. European clocks were not
only exotic status symbols, but were also ingenious and functional.
These properties made timepieces fashionable among the elite from the
late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, and desirable to all as
China rapidly commercialised from the mid-nineteenth century onward.
Clocks were agents of change during the Qing; they globalised China,
whether the Chinese were aware of it or not, and they set urban China
firmly on the path of fundamental socio-economic and cultural change.
Where time was power to those who were powerful, time would soon be
money to those whose objective was to make profit.
Clocks and opium share a similar pattern of indigenisation; they help us
mine deep into Ming-Qing court life and long-term socio-economic and
cultural shifts. Royal consumption is key, but not every foreign product
that the royals appreciated thrived or even survived in the competitive
Chinese consumer culture and society. Popularity translates into demand
only when consumption fits in with and enhances existing ways of life,
and only when a market begins to emerge. Supply plays a key role from
then onwards, as the emergence of retail facilities devoted to
consumption signals the 'liquidation' of a formerly limited or luxury
commodity and thus the arrival of a new consumer trend. Globalisation
already started when Kangxi adopted clocks and used them to dictate his
work and life, and hence that of the imperial family, his officials and his
subjects. Time was, and still is, the biggest globalising force of all, and
began to modernise and globalize China long before the words
modernisation and globalisation were coined.*
[* P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and
Expansion, 1688-1914 (London & New York: Longman, 1993).]"
"5 LES PALAIS EUROPÉENS
Jean Walter (1708-1759) arrived in Beijing in 1742, as the French came
to dominate the Jesuit ranks in China in the eighteenth century. He made
this observation on the Qianlong emperor [Hongli], who was then in his
thirties (b. 1711):"
"Qianlong seemed to have inherited his grandfather's love for European
music and his father's obsession with clocks. The Jesuit musicians from
his grandfather's time had by then left China or died, so Qianlong had to
start from scratch. In 1741 he instructed Zhang Zhao (1691-1745, 1709
jinshi) to look for musicians among the missionaries. A musician and
theorist himself, Zhang investigated and reported back:"
"What did they sing to please the unpredictable Qianlong, given that this
was the age of Vivaldi (Antonio Lucio, 1678-1741) and Handel (George
Frideric, 1685-1759)? The eunuchs learnt to play instruments and sing; it
is not inconceivable that they also danced."
"But Qianlong was soon distracted, as Jean Walters had predicted. His
passion for music was displaced by a preoccupation with European
architecture, interior design and furniture, as manifested in the
construction of Les Palais Européens."
"'A Veritable Paradise on Earth'
When the Manchu regime entered Beijing in 1644, they went straight to
the Ming palace, the Purple Forbidden City, which would be their home
and workplace. Despite its glory, the Forbidden City seemed more like a
prison, and it had suffocated many during the Ming. This was even more
pronounced for the Manchus, who were used to traversing the
wilderness and open spaces of Manchuria on horseback. The
claustrophobic atmosphere of imperial palace might explain why Kangxi
often went on hunting trips: not solely to renew Manchu skills, as some
historians have claimed, but perhaps to escape the suffocating walls of
the Forbidden City. As we have seen, Kangxi stumbled upon an old Ming
garden during one of his excursions and claimed it for himself as the
Garden of Eternal Spring. This was his pleasure-palace; he liked the
place so much that he built a new palace next to it in 1709. He called the
new addition Garden of Perfect Brightness, which would become the
name of the entire complex, including later additions, even though they
all retained their individual names.
This chapter traces the construction and decoration of the European
palaces within the garden. In doing so, it exposes the growth and scale
of the Qing monarchs' appetite for European architecture, interior design
and decor. This was a step further than the appreciation of clocks, as it
involved the adoption of - or show of enjoying - a European lifestyle, and
even mentality. A century of royal fascination with and consumption of
European objects would bear consequences not felt until the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which will be discussed in greater
detail in Chapters Six and Seven. Matteo Ripa left us a most rare and
extremely detailed description of the garden as it was in the 1710s when
he worked there, painting, interpreting and waiting on Kangxi until the
emperor's death in 1722:"
"This, as well as the other country residences which I have seen in
China, is in a taste quite different from the European; for whereas we
seek to exclude nature by art, levelling hills, drying up lakes, felling trees,
bringing paths into a straight line, constructing fountains at a great
expense, and raising flowers in rows, the Chinese on the contrary, by
means of art, endeavour to imitate nature. Thus in these gardens there
are labyrinths of artificial hills, intersected with numerous paths and
roads, some straight, and others undulating; some in the plain and the
valley, others carried over bridges and to the summit of the hills by
means of rustic work of stones and shells. The lakes are interspersed
with islets upon which small pleasure-houses are constructed, and which
are reached by means of boats or bridges.
To these houses, when fatigued with fishing, the Emperor retires
accompanied by his ladies. The woods contain hares, deer, and game in
great numbers and a certain animal resembling the deer, which produces
musk. Some of the open spaces are sown with grain and vegetables,
and are interspersed with plots of fruit trees and flowers. Wherever a
convenient situation offers, lays a house of recreation, or a dwelling for
the eunuchs. There is also the seraglio, with a large open space in front,
in which once a month a fair is held for the entertainment of the ladies.
All the dealers being the eunuchs themselves, who thus dispose of
articles of the most valuable and exquisite description.'
Many historians believe that Kangxi was a conscientious and frugal
monarch, but Kangxi took great pleasure in his southern tours, indulged
very much in women and pampered himself in the Garden of Eternal
Spring. His constructions were modest, however, in comparison with
those to be undertaken by his son and grandson. He spent much of his
later life in the garden and died there. Yongzheng began expansion
immediately after he finished mourning his father, in his second year,
1724.
He ordered raw materials and set up a Silver Bank for the expansion of
the garden; its first deposit was 'three hundred thousand taels' of silver.
The Bank became the private coffer of Yongzheng and his son Qianlong.
If Kangxi treated the garden as a place of leisure, a retreat from politics,
Yongzheng moved work and politics into it. He began the construction of
the Palace of Grandness and Brightness, the political machine where
Qing emperors received and entertained ranking officials and foreign
dignitaries, including Lord McCartney in 1793. He also built the site Nine
Prefectures Peaceful and Clear, the living quarter of the royal family. In
the summer, the lakes allowed his family to enjoy boating and sunsets on
the water. The garden was a place of fun as well as a place of work for
the monarch.
The First Emperor and the King of Wu commissioned epic voyages to
look for the 'Three Celestial Islands' of Penglai, Fangzhang and
Yingzhou, but Yongzheng instead simply had them built, in the largest
lake, Sea of Happiness, which sits at the heart of the garden, shown
below:
 The Manchus carried on the Chinese imperial obsession with, and
search for, the celestial islands; the only difference was that they made it
accessible. Smarter than their predecessors, they turned legend into
reality and lived in it - how brilliant and pragmatic!
Yongzheng was indeed a unique character: so different, in fact, that he
commissioned a portrait of himself with a wig.
What persuaded Yongzheng to assume this pose, given that he disliked
missionaries? He even ordered a European moustache to be made, and
cared for it attentively. Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione (1688- 1766)
would become significant from now on, [...] Yongzheng liked the
Milanese artist and his oil paint-ing, but didn't want to talk to him, a
relationship very different than that which developed between Kangxi
and Matteo Ripa, as we have seen. Yongzheng's fondness for European
exotica can be found in five hundred or so tribute lists."
"[Dressing Table with Clock and Singsong]"
"Yongzheng died in his beloved garden, just like his father Kangxi.
Qianlong finished where his father had left off, completing the forty
distinct scenes in 1743, seven years into his reign and the year Jean-
Denis Attiret (1702-1768), yet another Jesuit painter, arrived."
"Yuan Ming Yuan is central to the story of the Qing from at least two
perspectives. First, it points us directly to the maritime world and how it
galvanised and facilitated the imperial appetite for everything European;
this was the Xi Yang Feng, or the Wind of the West, that began to blow
from the Qing court. This fascination with things European is significant
because it evolved to become a consumer trend that, like opium smoking
and the adoption of clocks, helped shape the course of Chinese history;
the manifold impact of this preoccupation will be examined further in
Chapters Six and Seven. Second, the garden and the European palaces,
designed by the Jesuits, built with European materials and furnished with
European furniture and objets d'art, would be burned by Anglo-French
forces in 1860 during the Second Opium War (1856-1860), less than a
century after they were completed. The garden, in other words,
epitomizes both the Qing's heyday and its subsequent demise. Its ruins
stand today as a site of patriotic education, reminding millions of visitors
of China's ultimately disastrous love affair with Europe."
"Curiosity aside, Qianlong might well have desired to outdo his
forefathers; he might even have wanted to show the Jesuits that he could
outdo his counterparts in Europe. He certainly achieved this: Louis XIV
built but one Chinese-style pleasure pavilion, the Trianon de Porcelaine,
which his architects covered with ceramic tiles to give the impression of
China.
Qianlong could not have undertaken the construction of the 'Chinese
Versailles' without the help of Attiret and Castiglione.* Castiglione 'fit le
dessin de la maison de plaisance de K'ien-long dans le jardin Yuen-
ming-yuen, et il en dirigea la construction'. Soon Michel Benoit (1715-
1774) was sent in to help with the construction, as he was a
mathematician who might have knowledge of hydro-science which could
aid in the construction of fountains. Many others were also called in:
Ignatius Sickelpart, Ferdinando Moggi, Pierre d'Invarville, and Gilles
Thebault, to name but a few. The Jesuits designed and supervised the
construction of the European palaces, checking every detail from the
selection of raw material to the laying of pipe. Acquisition was no small
matter: the pipes needed for the fountains, for example, had to be
imported. Qianlong turned the Jesuits into architects and hydro-
scientists; this proved to be a recipe for disaster toward the end of his
reign, once they died or left China.
[* Cecile and Michel Beurdeley, Giuseppi Castiglione: a Jesuit Painter at
the Court of the Chinese Emperors (Rutland [Vermont] and Tokyo: E.
Tuttle, 1971).]"
"European Palaces
The European Palaces or 'Chinese Versailles' sits in the northeast
corner of the garden: the entire section is devoted to European-style
palaces and gardens, although it contains a few Chinese scenes and
several Chinese pavilions connected by bamboo bridges. This was the
most expensive imperial project ever undertaken, as nearly all of the
materials and furniture were imported from Europe. It was built and
completed from left to the right, in two phases."
"Qianlong was very pleased with his first European palace; he named it
Xie Qi Qu, which literally translates as Harmonious, Exotic, Interesting,
because the structure was symmetric, curious and different. An image of
it sits at the start of the Copper Engravings of the European Palaces in
Yuan Ming Yuan, which I found at the John Rylands Library."
"A gigantic box sat to the north of the maze complex, and an enormous
sing-song. Music boxes, like clocks, were another fashionable foreign
novelty, and the sound of exotic music must have made the experience
of the maze even more exotic. A pagoda stood atop a mound at the
north end, as if guarding the entire complex. Completed in 1751, the
palace Harmonious, Exotic, Interesting, the Flower Garden and the
Myriad Rows of Flowers constituted the first phase of the European
palace construction. Fifteen years into his reign, at age 40, Qianlong had
just begun. Over the next decade he would build more and grander
European palaces and gardens to match his power and glory. The
second phase, as he called it, was calculated to be complete in 1760, to
help celebrate his fiftieth birthday in 1761; all of it would be put to the
torch exactly a century later, during the Second Opium War.
The palaces were European in style, so naturally they had to be
decorated with European furniture and pictures, objets d'art and curios.
Qianlong did not spare anything that would please him and his ladies. He
even took matters into his own hands, laying down purchase orders for
those objects that China could not offer:
'His Majesty's Order: Ask the Royal Manufactory to prepare a list of
European objects, glass mirrors and materials for the construction of
water fountains and furniture needed. Ask the Imperial Household
Department to give twenty thousand taels of silver to the imperial mer-
chant Fan Qing who should go to procure these European goods. The
15th year of the Qianlong Emperor (1751).'
The Royal Manufactory in the IHD was where many Jesuits had been
working, making clocks, instruments and other European items. They
would know where European furniture and curios could be found. The
Jesuits had been helping procure European goods since 1585, as we
have seen in the case of clocks in the previous chapter. The first wave of
objects for the European palaces arrived in 1753, a quick turnaround
given the distance involved. Qianlong made it clear that European
objects should go to the European palaces, and he took pleasure in
giving instruction as to where they should be displayed: 'Your humble
slave reports that the nine consignments of European objects and
furniture have been placed in Xie Qi Qu palace. They include European
lamps, microscopes, mirrors, awnings, and globes'.
Chinese lamps and decorations would have looked out of place in a
European palace. Likewise, Chinese awnings would not have fit on a
European bed, and besides, European awnings were not only novel but
also more suggestive. European mirrors, especially full-size ones, were
rated highly, since they were made of glass; glass products had been
one of China's major imports since the Han dynasty. A large number of
microscopes were imported during the Qing. What were they used for?
Judging from where they were placed, it seems they were on display
rather than being used for scientific purposes, although we cannot rule
this out given the variety of missionaries working around the Qing court.
It seems the three emperors liked globes, as they could be found in
nearly all the Qing palaces, not just in the garden. What was it about
them that pleased the Qing monarchs? Made in Europe, they would not
have highlighted the centrality of China. Was it seeing the sheer size of
China, which they had managed to conquer, that pleased them? We do
know that Kangxi often used it to ask the new Jesuit arrivals to point out
where in Europe they came from."
"Qianlong made it clear that foreign products made in Guangzhou were
not foreign enough; new acquisitions must be genuinely European and
made in Europe. He was not concerned with prices and he was clear that
they must arrive in time for the important festival in early summer when
he gathered and entertained family, Manchu elite, ranking officials and
foreign dignitaries - an opportunity to show off, one art that Qianlong had
come to perfect. This was an important year, as the emperor's generals
managed to finally subdue the Uyghurs and brought him a most fitting
gift, the so-called Fragrant Consort, whom I shall describe further in the
next section. The European palaces were the destination for expensive
European furniture and objects, including sofas made by Henry James
Cox for the Qing emperor; he boasts of his illustrious customer in the
description of item 48, 'A Superb Sopha':"
"The sofa was a great addition to the Qing palaces and imperial interiors.
It filled the gap between the chair and the bed, or kang in northern China.
It was a perfect solution to a situation where one is neither sitting nor
lying down, and where one can be both formal and relaxed. Like
European music and instruments, sofas would disappear with the
Qianlong emperor and return in the late nineteenth century with the re-
opening of China, when it would become an indicator of a westernising
urban household with modern taste. China would come to produce its
own sofas, and the piece is now a necessity in ordinary households. Like
clocks, the sofa influenced - if not revolutionized - Chinese interior
design, and made an impact on domestic life, which was traditionally
based on hierarchy and which prioritised family and gender separation.
The story of sofas reinforces the argument advanced throughout this
volume, that foreign stuff had to fit in with, or enhance, the existing way
of life in order for it to be welcomed in China. What would the social life
of sofas in China tell us? Although Ming-Qing furniture has attracted
much attention in recent years, no scholar has written about the
introduction, gradual hybridization and indigenisation of European
furniture, let alone their influence on interior design, domestic life and
social change.
How much European furniture and objets d'art did Qianlong manage to
amass? Jesuit Francois Bourgeois (1723-1792) saw the variety of
foreign objects in the garden's various palaces and halls:
'The European palaces contain only ornaments and furniture. It is
unbelievable how rich the sovereign is in curiosities and magnificent
objects of all kinds from the Occident. You ask me if the Emperor has
any Venetian and French glass? Thirty years ago he already had so
many pieces that, not knowing where to put them, he had a quantity of
the first quality broken up to make window-panes for his European
palaces.
In the hall which he had made for the tapestries of the manufacture of
Gobelins, which the French court sent in 1767, there are many pier
glasses. You see this hall, seventy feet long and of good width
proportionally, is so full of machines that one can scarcely move in it.
Some of the machines have cost two or three hundred thousand francs,
for the work in them is exquisite and they are enriched with innumerable
precious stone.'
By the time Francois Bourgeois arrived in Beijing in 1767 (where he died
in 1792), the European palaces had become overcrowded with the most
expensive and splendid objects from Europe. Bourgeois would play a
central role in the construction and maintenance of the water fountains
after Attiret died, and was granted free access to all the pal-aces as he
laid the pipes. His claim is substantiated by the two volumes published
by the Number One History Archive and the work of Yang Boda, who
tells us that the tribute lists in Qianlong's reign numbered tens of
thousands and are impossible to exhaust without extensive research. He
listed some of the most important tribute items destined for the Qianlong
court and garden, including 'foreign guns', 'foreign moving bed', 'foreign
diamond push clock', and 'foreign smoke'. The 'foreign moving bed' is
puzzling; so is the 'foreign smoke', which could mean tobacco, snuff or
even opium. Much of the furniture and objects were imported directly
from Europe; some were made in the Royal Manufactories under the
supervision of the Jesuits; some came from the various missionaries and
East India Companies; and others from officials in Guangdong who
procured them from abroad.
Qianlong took great pleasure in dictating where the foreign objects and
furniture should be placed, especially at important occasions. As we saw
at the end of the previous chapter, he ordered a musical clock playing
twelve old English tunes, made by George Clarke of Leaden-hall-street,
London, to be placed in the audience hall for Lord McCartney in 1793.
Precisely a year later, he issued another order for the visit of the Dutch
embassy: 'Put the globe and other English gifts in the Palace of
Grandness and Brightness of Yuan Ming Yuan'. Did Qianlong want to
show the Dutch that he already possessed the best Europe could offer,
or was he trying to play them against each other? Qianlong did not hide
his interest in and possession of things European, but he deprecated
them in his letter to King George III, which sounds very different from
what he was thinking and doing:"
"What contradiction between rhetoric and reality, as we have seen so far.
The matter of fact was that China did not 'possess all things', and
Qianlong himself set great 'value on objects strange or ingenious'.
'Strange and costly objects' had surrounded and interested him since he
was born, yet he sought more of, and found great use for, England's
'manufactures', which by this time extended to wool, replacing animal
skins in the making of many items, especially imperial robes, chairs and
coaches. 'We must examine Chinese acts rather than Chinese words',
Joanna Waley-Cohen has cautioned us, and as I demonstrate in the
case of opium.51 There are certainly more 'acts' we need to examine in
order to learn more about Qianlong, and how European objects made
possible by maritime trade defined Qing court life. Did the few Jesuits
who were still present help translate this famous letter, as had been their
monopoly? What did they think when they turned Chinese words into
English sentences - or were they responsible for making the letter sound
this way, since no Chinese official would have been able to check
whether anything was lost in translation?"
"Big Water Magic
The second phase of construction extended eastward from the Flower
Garden, through a gate which opened to a small pond that led to two
small bridges, one of them zigzagging towards a pavilion facing a
building called Look Abroad Hall. Facing south, in accordance with
Chinese fengshui or geomancy, the Hall was a handsome two-story
palace built on a raised marble platform and flanked by two staircases
ascending to the second floor. The elaborate carving on the door,
windows and steps demonstrated the labour and care put into its
construction and the importance of the future resident. The front door
opened to a main marble pathway flanked by a multitude of terraced
flower beds, which led to the bridge over the canal mentioned above;
beyond stood five bamboo pavilions, joined by galleries. Common in
southern China due to the watery geography, this cluster of bamboo
structures showcased the effort to integrate Chinese landscape art.
The canal was home to tens of thousands of exotic fishes from southern
China, whereas the pavilion garden collected the most exotic plants and
flowers from Southeast Asia, Siam in particular."
"What ensured the fame of Look Abroad Hall was neither the way the
European structure was integrated with Chinese pavilions and
landscape, nor the juxtaposition of exotic fish from southern China and
tropical plants and flowers from Southeast Asia. Rather, it was the
palace resident, Rong Fei (1734-1788), known popularly as the Fragrant
Consort, who has become a legend and inspired much study. A beautiful
captive from the Uyghur campaigns, who supposedly exuded a unique
and captivating natural fragrance, she was a gift to the Qianlong
emperor, who liked her so much that he made her an Imperial Consort.
Qianlong's new captive was a Muslim and said her prayers in the palace
where she lived; the building served as a mosque too. Qianlong tried
very hard to make her happy, as evidenced by other vistas built after her
arrival. The Uyghur native was surrounded by circling canals that took
her to terraced promenades for walks, to the five bamboo pavilions for
tea or rests, and the ponds on both sides that featured so many fishes
and plants she had never seen before.
When the Fragrant Consort opened her door and walked left, she stood
in front of the biggest and most impressive palace in the Euro-pean
complex. This was the renowned Hall of Peaceful Seas, which the
Jesuits compared to the Court of Honour at Versailles. It consisted of
four connected palatial structures, with entrance foyers on all four sides
opening to large squares dotted with water foun-tains among gardens.
The west side featured zigzagging staircases that ascended to the
entrance, which was distinguished by possibly the most elaborate water
fountain ever built to that point. Michel Benoit worked hard on its
construction:"
"Michel Benoit poured his heart and mind into the fountain work, knowing
that it pleased the Qianlong emperor. The two layered basins in front of
the west entrance were flanked by marble carved stairs that led to the
grand foyer, where two dolphins and two lions greeted guests. They
spouted water into the top basin, from where it poured down like a
miniature waterfall into a lower basin flanked by twelve Chinese zodiac
animals: the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Serpent, Horse, Goat,
Monkey, Cock, Dog and Boar. These aminals marked the passing hours
in turn by spouting into the fountain. The railing of the stairs was also
fitted with small jets; one can only imagine the dancing and shimmering
water cascades at noon, when all the fountains sprang into action. An
image of the Hall of Peaceful Seas is found among the Copper
Engravings, and the animals are apparent on both sides of the lower
basin of the large complex.
This combination of Western technology and Chinese culture pleased
Qianlong, as we can see from his poems. Qianlong dedicated many
verses to the garden, some on the subject of water fountain:"
"How can we explain Qianlong's fixation with shui fa or water magic? His
new taste can help us better comprehend the Ming-Qing fascination with
what Europe had to offer in general, and water foun-tains in particular.
The Chinese tradition of water management, epitomised by Da Yu and Li
Bing, was devoted to perfecting the rerouting of flows from higher to
lower ground. This law of nature, which no one can alter, is particularly
emphasised in Chinese garden art, which aims to 'imitate nature'. In
other words, man-made water projects were synchronized with the
environment. Projecting water into the air with a mechanism to control
not only its volume but also its shape was something new and
unprecedented; water fountains presented something completely
different - water under human control, with the help of 'European water
technology', in Qianlong's own words. Europe mastered the use of
science and machines to manage water - and clocks, as we have seen -
and with this they impressed the Ming-Qing emperors and elite. China's
lack of science and innovation was noticed by many Jesuits such as
Alvarez Semedo: 'Notwithstanding in general we do much exceed them
in manufactures and mechanick Arts.'
 Qianlong's appetite for water magic did not stop there. If the fountain
work on the west side of the Hall of Peaceful Seas dazzled the Fragrant
Consort, what lay to the east of the hall must have blinded her. The hall's
front opened to a gigantic water fountain composite, which Qianlong
simply called Da Shui Fa, or Big Water Magic. Modelled after St. Cloud in
Versailles, a pool sat in the centre of the fountain square, where statues
depicted a deer surrounded by 12 dogs; all were fitted with jets. When
the dogs spouted water, it appeared as if they were baying at and
chasing after the deer, reflecting the important Manchu ritual of deer
hunting. Two pyramids of carved stone stood to the east and west of the
pool, with two nine-story pine trees between them; each structure was
furnished with a level of thirty jets, surrounded by another of eight larger
jets. Two similar but smaller pyramids stood a bit further off, with more
jets hidden among the rocks. One can imagine the cloud of water that
filled the sky when all the jets were activated: below is an image of the
Big Water Magic found among the Copper Engravings.
This was the grandest and most elaborate water work within the gar-
den, and the emperor could admire it from his perch on an elevated
dragon seat, built on a raised marble platform flanked by a dragon
screen with intricate carving. This seat gave the Son of Heaven the best
view when the jets were at work. Francois Bourgeois observed the sight:"
"Benoit's worries proved well-founded, because the fountain broke down
after he died and nobody knew how to repair it. The Chinese technicians
who worked with him never learned its technology. Why not? Kangxi had
made sure that his artisans learned the science of clock-making from the
Jesuits through 'smart teaching'. Why didn't Qianlong make sure that his
architects and engineers mastered the science of fountain-making, given
how important this was to him? This omission certainly says much about
the emperor. Nevertheless, Qianlong made sure that the fountains
continued to flow. Francois Bourgeois knew how this was made possible,
as he detailed in a letter he wrote to M. de Latour in 1786:"
"The Hall of Peaceful Seas may have externally resembled the Court of
Honour in Versailles, but was actually a reservoir providing water to the
multitude of fountains it supported. After Benoit's death, this was filled by
buckets carried by hundreds of soldiers and labourers for days before
the water fountain could display its magic. Qianlong spent millions on Big
Water Magic, which never really quite worked."
"Was the Fragrant Consort the reason for the second phase of the
'Chinese Versailles', given that two palaces - Look Abroad Hall and View
of Distant Lake - and two sites - Line Method Hill and Square River -
were seemingly created for her use? What could be more exotic than a
Muslim town, built for the comfort of a Uyghur captive turned Manchu
Imperial Consort, who lived in Jesuit-designed European palaces
decorated with European furniture and filled with exotic flora from
Southeast Asia, in the midst of the Chinese imperial palace? Qianlong
was indeed a 'Man of the World', as Mark Elliot has labelled him. He
made sure he would go down in history as the 'Son of Heaven Rarely
Seen Since Antiquity', in European style, thanks to the Jesuits at his
disposal. Castiglione helped him:"
"How much did the garden in general, and the European palaces in
particular, cost? No scholar of China has ever calculated how much
silver (also brought in by the Europeans through maritime trade) was
spent on building the imperial complex."
"We can state that the entire contribution of 18,339,000 taels of sil-ver is
from the Cheng clan, since every entry bears a donor from the Cheng
family: Cheng Kecheng's individual contribution amounted to 4,270,000
taels. One clan financed the lust and luxury of the three emperors; no
wonder they went bankrupt in the nineteenth century."
"The money donated by salt merchants was loaned back to the
merchants in order to make more money. Obnoxious and greedy, Qian-
long was also self-serving: another source of income for his endless
expansion was the assets of officials he investigated and indicted."
"Conclusion
Palace and garden building had been key to all imperial dynasties, and
not just in China; they raced and rivalled one another to leave their mark
on the landscape and on history, and the Manchus were no exception.
Like European music, which Kangxi and Qianlong enjoyed, Les Palais
Européens, though limited to the Qing court, spread consciousness
about European architecture. As a matter of fact, small-scale emulation
had already begun in Guangdong, China's maritime frontier, and
Jiangnan, where the Royal Manufactory operated, as I will discuss in
Chapter Seven. This shows the power and influence of royal
consumption, as the court made European-style buildings a desirable
status symbol just as it had clocks. Such construction would surface
again after 1842, in Beijing itself and a growing number of Treaty port
cities. This was a different kind of resurgence, one that daily exposed
ordinary Chinese to foreign influences, as those with the means would
build them and those with the taste would move in. It was during this
phase that European-style buildings began to change the Chinese urban
landscape and shape a new urban mosaic, which will be discussed in
Chapter Seven.
What does the three emperors' appreciation of all things European tell
us? Firstly, the Qing court and elite were not only interested in, but were
also kept up-to-date and furnished with, the latest innovation and luxury
from Europe. Qing China, starting with the court, was not closed to and
isolated from the outside world, as some historians have argued. Would
Sino-Western conflict have surfaced in the nineteenth century if the
Qing's fascination with European science, music, art and architecture
had continued? What do we learn from the fact that this fascination
disappeared after Qianlong died in 1799? Secondly, Kangxi, Yongzheng
and Qianlong sought after, enjoyed, and in some cases depended upon,
the skills and knowledge of the Jesuits, and they loved the exotic
European goods that China could not produce. This love affair did not,
however, extend beyond the superstructure - the Chinese embraced
material Europe but rejected its religious or political ideals, a situation
similar to that prevailing in the modern Muslim world, where many have
embraced material and technological modernity but rejected the political.
A mirror image of this exchange took place on the other side of the
Eurasian continent, as Europeans wore Chinese silk, drank Chinese tea
from Chinese porcelain, and raced each other to procure Chinese
artefacts; but they did not need the ideology that had nourished and
made China, even though some of them - intellectuals in particular -
flirted with it.
We have learnt a good deal about Qianlong; he professed to be
uninterested in Europe while accumulating an astonishing array of
European objects. His insecurity manifests itself in his attitude toward his
grandfather; he paid him verbal reverence and yet spent his life
attempting to outshine him. Where Kangxi fought numerous battles to
secure China for the newly-founded Qing, Qianlong became so famous
for the ten battles he won that he was called Old Man of Ten
Enumerations. Where Kangxi added a few new palaces to the garden,
Qianlong spent millions to expand it, adding an entire section of
European palaces. While Qianlong proclaimed that he would abdicate in
order not to exceed his grandfather's 61-year reign (1662-1723), he
nevertheless sat on the throne for 63 years (1736-1799). Qianlong was a
shrewd historian, who skilfully choreographed his own legacy as Son of
Heaven Rarely Seen Since Antiquity."
"'WIND OF THE WEST'
'I am of the opinion that the Chinese possess the ingenuous trait of
preferring that which comes from without to that which they possess
them-selves, once they realize the superior quality of the foreign product.
Their pride, it would seem, arises from an ignorance of the existence of
higher things and from the fact that they find themselves far superior to
the barbarous nations by which they were surrounded.' (Matthew Ricci)
Chinese fascination with yang huo, or foreign stuff/goods, led Matteo
Ricci to this conclusion as he journeyed from Zhaoqing to Beijing via
Nanjing and many other places. '[T]hat which comes from without'
included clocks and other exotica from Europe, as we have seen in
Chapters Four and Five. Ricci had detected a most important aspect of
the Chinese consumer psyche, one that was changing the country and
which continues to dictate the behaviour of many Chinese consumers
today. This is what mainland scholar Liu Shanling called Xi Yang Feng:
translated literally, the Wind of West Ocean, which meant Wind of
Europe after Europeans appeared in Asia, and Wind of the West after
the Opium Wars. It is a consumer trend that discriminated against local
or Chinese goods in favour of foreign, particularly European/Western,
goods. This wind gathered force during the Qing as more Europeans
arrived, evidenced by the popularity of clocks and the building and
decorating of les Palais Européens. It would sweep through the taste-
making and trend-setting metropolises in the eighteenth century and
engulf the entire country by the early nineteenth. It is vital to understand
the origin, strength and scale of this wind, because the introduction of
foreign products such as opium and clocks led to fundamental socio-
economic and cultural changes that significantly altered the course of
history.
Having studied the Qing court and elite and their lives with foreign goods
earlier in this volume, in this chapter I examine the social life of foreign
goods among ordinary consumers. I pinpoint the emergence and
introduction of such goods; the increase in their trade; and the growing
popularity and - crucially - increasing availability of these goods that
stimulated their consumption. In doing so, this chapter highlights ordinary
consumers' esteem for, and increasing awareness of and reliance on,
what the maritime world could supply. This allows us to closely examine
the major socio-economic changes inside China that created the demand
and the absorbing power of Chinese consumer culture. Why was Europe
referred to as West Ocean? What can its emergence and nomenclature
shift, from Europe to the West, teach us about China's engagement with
the maritime world? Tracing the evolution of this engagement is
imperative, as it will help us time the crucial moments when foreign
goods, especially European products, appeared. It will also allow us to
locate the moments when the Chinese people reached out to the seas,
as well as identify the watershed of fundamental change."
"'Works on Travels to the West Ocean Start from Zheng He'
'Of the word yang, in Shandong they call a multitude of things yang ...
but today it refers to the middle of a sea where there is most water.' This
short excerpt by a Song dynasty scholar illustrates China's increasing
awareness of and engagement with the maritime world, beginning with
the Song dynasty if not earlier. Tracing the origins of Xi Yang or West
Ocean and of the category yang huo or foreign stuff can help us pinpoint
the beginning of increased contact with the maritime world and - more
importantly - explore the circumstances behind this contact and its
significance. The growth of Chinese knowledge of the seas is
noteworthy, as it demonstrates that China was interested in the maritime
world and attempted to relate to it. This briefly takes us back to 'China's
March toward the Tropics', or the 'Southward Expansion of the Chinese
People'. It was the massive migration from the north beginning with the
Yongjia Disturbance in 311 that opened up and peopled southern China,
and exposed the court and its scholar-officials to maritime Southeast
Asia, a region they had previously deemed less civilised. Some would
visit these countries as ambassadors while others would write about
them. The literature produced by the Chinese, and later by Europeans
too, concerning these countries consistently demonstrates an interest in
the region's geography and an over-riding preoccupation with the goods
it could offer.
Major works on Southeast Asia began to appear in the Song-Yuan era,
when frequent seafaring led to a better understanding of the seas. They
include, as I mentioned in Chapter One, Impressions From South of the
Five Ridges by Song dynasty official Zhou Qufei (b. 1134), History of the
Various Foreign Countries by Song imperial clansman Zhao Rushi
(1208-1224), The Customs of Cambodia by Yuan dynasty diplomat Zhou
Daguan (1266-1346), and A Brief History of Island Foreigners by Yuan
traveller Wang Dayuan (b. 1311). Zhou Qufei (1163 jinshi) served for six
years with various local governments in what is now Guangdong-
Guangxi province. He travelled widely during his tenure there and kept a
diary that recorded his encounters with the peoples and cultures of that
region and beyond. As a source of information the book, finished in
1178, can be considered relatively reliable. Of the ten volumes on local
people, culture, geography and other topics, six were devoted to
southwest China and Southeast Asia. Zhou used the prefix fan or foreign
to denote the goods found in these countries, which continued to be
used as a common term well into the nineteenth century.
Song China came to have a better understanding of the maritime world;
the Mongols further strengthened China's tie with that world, as Persian
and Arab merchants sojourned to China and spread the gospel of its
riches. The early Ming came to have a much clearer understanding of
the ocean world. The seven epic voyages marked the beginning of a
long-term trend towards greater Chinese interaction with Southeast Asia,
which would materialize fully after the Europeans journeyed east and
established themselves in the theatre of Asia. Three key participants in
the seven epic Zheng He voyages (1405-1433) left individual works.
They are Ying Ya Sheng Lan or A General Survey of the Oceans by Ma
Huan, printed in 1451; Xing Chai Sheng Lan or A General Survey of
Overseas Assignments by Fei Xin; and Xi Yang Fan Guo Zhi or History
of the West Ocean Foreign Countries by Gong Zhen. The authors
described the places they visited and their people, and illustrated in great
detail the types of goods they had to offer - local produce and exotic
items which China lacked. This led mid-Ming scholar Huang Shengzeng
(1490-1540) to conclude that 'works on travels to the West Ocean start
from Zheng He'."
"A century after Zheng He embarked on his first voyage in 1405, the
Portuguese finally discovered a direct route to Asia via the Cape of Good
Hope, and to China via the Straits of Malacca, where they dropped
anchor in 1511; they were at the Guangdong estuary by 1514. They
were followed by the Society of Jesus and the Dutch East India
Company in the course of the sixteenth century. Feng Chengjun believed
that the usage of the term West Ocean to denote Europe did not emerge
until after the Jesuits journeyed to the East. There may well be some
validity in this, as the Europeans were at first referred to as yang ren,
ocean people when translated literally, a term that is still in use today.
The definition of West Ocean, according to Ma Huan and in the
understanding of generations of historians, had during and even after the
time of the Zheng He voyages been the region and the ocean that lay
west of Brunei or the South China Sea. However, it gradually came to
denote Europe after the Portuguese and Jesuits established themselves
in East-Southeast Asia beginning in the mid-sixteenth century; it was
increasingly, and soon exclusively, used to refer to Europe during the
Qing.
The definition of what constitutes foreign stuff is not as straight-forward,
because it took time for the Portuguese and other Europeans to establish
themselves after their initial arrival, and even longer for them to
determine what they could sell to the Asians and Chinese."
"An Examination of the East and West Oceans, written by the late Ming
scholar Zhang Xie (1574-1640), examined trade and profit in the Fujian
vicinity during the period."
"The works of Zhang Xie and Qu Dajun help us gauge the changes that
were taking place in the late Ming and early Qing. They recorded the
arrival of new actors in the late Ming period and the emergence of the
yang category that could now mean both the traditional and the new
types of foreign goods. At this moment yang was still predominantly used
to denote goods from Southeast Asia, but by the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth century it was gradually used to refer to European
products. This complex transition is also reflected in Ming court records
such as Da Ming Hui Dian, and in newly released and printed Qing
archives such as the Complete Archive of the Royal Manufactory in the
Imperial Household Department. Seeking out spices, silk, and porcelain,
the new foreign traders realised that trade in Asia was controlled by
Arabs, Indians, Malays and Chinese, depending on the localities and
commodities. They would have to work very hard to earn the trust of
Asian traders, or resort to intrigue, even force, in order to cut into this
long-established and lucrative intra-Asian trade."
"'Most Exotic Treasures Come from Europe'
My previous research into opium, and into maize, the foreign yam and
clocks for this volume, has taught me the importance of identifying
individual commodities that significantly changed Chinese economy,
culture and society; it is even more important to identify with precision
the category that such goods belong to. While tracing a commodity like
maize exposes a particular socio-economic change that emerged, the
category it belongs to, maize as foodstuff for example, can highlight the
long-term developments that distinguished that era and made its
collective emergence possible. The introduction of New World foodstuffs
like maize helps pinpoint the coming of new actors, whereas the spread
and indigenisation of such staples points to socio-economic conditions in
China, where they were welcomed and indigenised. This section
analyses the categories of foreign goods that came into China from the
late Ming, late sixteenth through seventeenth centuries, to the mid-Qing,
late eighteenth to early nineteenth centu-ries; it more importantly
compares the late Ming and the mid-Qing categories. This comparative
analysis is essential, as it will highlight the long-term changes that were
occurring during the eighteenth century. Thanks to the work of mainland
scholars, the comparison can begin in the Tang to illustrate the
overarching trend.
Tang dynasty (618-960) imports include four general categories:
Minerals (including precious metals);
Plants (including spices and herbs);
Animals (including birds);
Handicrafts and household items.
Song dynasty (960-1278) imports include five general categories:
Treasures and jewellery;
Fragrances;
Herbal medicines;
Household items;
Weaponry.
Yuan dynasty (1279-1367) imports include six general categories:
Treasures and jewellery;
Fragrances;
Herbs;
Textiles;
Utensils;
Raw materials.
Tang, Song and Yuan China imported similar things. Most were either
luxury items, such as treasures, exotic plants, fragrances, animals,
medicinal herbs, foreign handicrafts; raw materials, which included
precious metals, woods, dyes; or weapons, a category specific to the
Song. Mark E. Lewis has recently highlighted the pattern of trade in early
imperial China (pre-Tang), and his insight can also be applied to the
case of mid-imperial China (Tang-Song-Yuan):
'Most of the goods that flowed in the other direction from the west
(central Asia) into China were exotic curiosities or rare items that
contributed to the self-aggrandisement of the ruling elite: precious
metals, glass, slaves and entertainers, animals both wild and domestic,
furs and feathers, rare plants and woods, exotic foods, perfumes and
drugs, textiles and dyes, secular and sacred art objects, as well as books
and maps telling of foreign places. When brought in as tribute, these rare
goods testified to the power and prestige of a Chinese ruler who could
summon from across the world. When purchased by the elite, these
items demonstrated the wealth and taste of their purchaser, who
participated in the passion for things foreign that characterised the
Chinese elite from the Han to the Tang. These exotica included
innovation in costumes, white face powder, new musical instruments and
songs, foreign fruits, and new styles and techniques in the arts, all of
which became defining elements of Chinese civilisation.'
This pattern of importing exotic treasures continued into the late Ming.
Huang Quchen has produced excellent work on the period, and
categorized the goods that came to China during the 'latter half ' of the
Ming dynasty, from the reign of the Longqing emperor (1567-1572)
through that of the Wanli emperor (1573-1620), as follows:
Fragrances and spices;
Rare birds and animals;
Exotics and precious things;
Herbs and herbal medicines;
Weaponry;
Handicraft raw materials;
Handicrafts, textiles and household appliances.
The Ming categories did not therefore differ greatly from those of the
Tang, Song, and Yuan periods. However, there is one change, and it lies
in the seventh category, which included ordinary consumer goods. Such
goods were imported before, but the Ming category is much longer and
its products much more diverse. I have translated, as literally as
possible, yang as foreign and Xi Yang as European, in order to illustrate
the complexity of naming imported goods in this period, and thus the
caution with which we should identify their origin, since yang could refer
to goods from both Southeast Asia and Europe, while Xi Yang
increasingly meant imports from Europe, even though yang would
replace Xi Yang to become the standard appellation for Western goods
after the Opium War in 1842. The seventh category includes:
'Bamboo cloth, foot basins, garments (Turfan style), gold enriched rings,
golden belts, gold plaited fans, paper fans, white cotton, small flower
mattresses, European cloth, picked leather, glass vases, foreign flower
handkerchiefs, gold and silver utensils, gold sprinkled cooking gear, gold
sprinkled stationary desks, gold painted powder boxes, gold sprinkled
hand boxes, hemp cloth of all colours, dragon print lined curtains, red
ribbon flower handkerchief, colourful yarn, red cotton cloth, white cotton
cloth, dark cotton cloth, round flower cloth, curtains with red flower rim,
curtains of mixed colours, foreign flower handkerchiefs, brocade
quilts/duvets, white head wrapping cloth, red Sahara cloth, red skein
cloth, red flower head wrapping cloth, dim white cloth with red rim, chess
boards with brocade design, flower cloth with human figure imprints,
fused cloth, oiled red cloth, European fine cloth, precious stones, gold
rings, copper drums, cloth with woven red flowers, sheared flannel mixed
flower quilt covers, mixed silk bamboo cloth, red flower silk
handkerchiefs, mixed red thread curtains with human figure imprints,
European iron, iron guns, iron knives, rings with gold inlays, white
Sahara cloth, yellow cloth, Sahara fine cloth, flower curtains, foreign tin,
foreign salt, wild stem mattresses, garbage bins, foreign knives and
bows, etc.'
Why did this particular category grow in the latter half of the Ming? Who
needed these goods? A brief analysis of the Ming categories and
individual commodities can help us see the fundamental socio-economic
and cultural changes that were emerging, and thus examine the situation
of the Qing more clearly.
Fragrances and spices top the Ming imports, as they had since the Han
dynasty. Fragrance trade rose during the Northern and Southern
dynasties (420-588) when Buddhism began to indigenise. It flourished
during the Song, as I explained in Chapter One, and the Ming saw the
zenith of the trade. Many of the fragrances mentioned, cloves for
example, were used to make cosmetics. Some were used in medicine;
some, such as lavender, were used to purify air while others were used
for making joss sticks, mosquito-repellent incense, and even for time-
keeping, as described by Gabriel Magaillans in Chapter Four. Why did
the fragrance trade flourish during the two Han Chinese dynasties, Song
and Ming? Perhaps the Han Chinese are more superstitious than the
Mongols and the Manchus; they have a multitude of gods, including
ancestors and Confucius, to whom they must pay respect. From the Han
to the Ming, China had relied on the tropical regions stretching from East
Africa to the Pacific Islands for a steady supply of fragrance. It is peculiar
that Huang did not mention black fragrance or opium, which can be
found alongside these fragrances in many Ming sources, such as Da
Ming Hui Dian.
Rare birds and animals made up a considerable portion of the long list
of products that the Ming imported, as they had during previous
dynasties; these were destined for the Ming court and elite households.
Included in the list of rare birds and animals is a name which literally
translates as 'black little slave'. Did this refer to human beings, and if so
where did they come from? They were categorised as animals, indicating
that they were most likely treated as such. If we look back to the Tang,
this doesn't appear unusual: in his study of the Tang's exotic imports,
Edward Schafer included a category called 'men', which included 'slaves,
dwarfs and human tribute'. Dwarfs were brought from southern China
and Southeast Asia during the Tang, and possibly came from the same
areas during the Ming. They served as entertainers during the Tang, and
it is quite possible that they continued to dance and perform magic
(including acrobatics) during the Ming.
Medicinal herbs, which can include spices and fragrances, had been the
staple of China's imports, used as (or in) medicines and supplements.
Herbal science was the foundation of traditional Chinese medicine, which
continues to command a large patient base today both in China and
among overseas Chinese. Nutmeg broth, boiled with other herbs, was
used to treat various kinds of indigestive problems; so was asafoetida,
though it could also stimulate the nervous system. Aloe vera was - and
still is - widely used to treat skin conditions. Opium was first introduced
and used as a panacea to stop pain and diarrhoea. Still valued highly in
China, the elixir ginseng has been used in many formulas to prevent and
treat a multitude of problems. From Northeast Asia to North America,
China's appetite for health and longevity nearly exhausted the world's
supply of ginseng by the nineteenth century.*
[* Kristin Johannsen, Ginseng Dreams: the Secret World of America's
Most Valuable Plant (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006);
David A. Taylor, Ginseng, the Divine Root (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books
of Chapel Hill, 2006).]
Weaponry and precious metal had always been government
monopolies. Late Ming China still imported horses and saddles, a trade
which dated to before the Han dynasty. The mention of guns is curious,
however: what kind of guns were they, and from where? The category of
raw materials is wide-ranging and fascinating, from Islamic blue and
sulphur to red copper and foreign red mud. The Ming Chinese seemed to
prefer dyes from other countries, like sappan wood and Islamic blue,
which was used to make the famous blue and white Ming porcelain - was
it the specific shade of blue the Chinese liked, or the fact that the dye
was foreign? We can only wonder to what purpose the late Ming
imported foreign red mud; and the large quantities of red copper that
were imported were most likely used to make Buddhist statues and ritual
objects. The mention of European iron is puzzling: perhaps it did not
come from Europe, despite the prefix Xi Yang, but from European
enclaves in South and Southeast Asia.
Handicrafts, textiles and household items, the seventh category, is the
longest list, composed of the most commonly used consumer goods.
Small quantities of these had been imported in earlier times and
throughout the Ming, but the list was growing longer and becoming more
detailed. These imports ranged from such common objects as paper fans
and gold-plated powder containers to red Sahara cloth and foreign
flowered handkerchiefs. The old prefix fan was used to describe the
foreign flower handkerchiefs, foreign tin and foreign knives, but the new
prefix Xi Yang was in evidence, describing European textiles and fine
cloth. The latter half of the Ming is a puzzling juncture, when yang or
foreign could mean both traditional imports from South-Southeast Asia
and new things made in Europe. Perhaps this is what John E. Wills
called 'old ways made new.' The textiles included many kinds of fabric
which could be used for making clothes and household necessities like
curtains and quilts, whereas utensils ranged from glass ware and
gold/silver containers to gold rings and foot basins. Was Ming China
unable to make enough foot basins, or were the foreign ones thought
better? Perhaps the Ming Chinese washed themselves more, in addition
to the fact that as the population grew there were more feet and bodies
to be washed.
 The categories of commodities and individual items being imported
during the late Ming raise a number of questions. Systematic research
into the demand for and consumption of these imports will undoubtedly
shed new light on the changing socio-economic and cultural landscape
of late Ming China. At the very least, these categories tell us on the one
hand that foreign trade during the latter half of the Ming echoed earlier
patterns of import, while on the other we see that important changes
were beginning to emerge in the seventh category. Why did late Ming
China import so many kinds of handicrafts, textiles, and household items
that could usually be found in China? Perhaps as in the case of rice, the
Ming's population was beginning to outgrow production and putting
strains on the resources normally available. The seventh category is a
mix of both old imports and new additions, but whether old or new they
are general consumer goods for ordinary consumers. This is extremely
important, as China's imports since the Han-Tang had been mostly
luxuries destined for imperial and elite households, as I have shown in
Chapters One, Four and Five. The late Ming was the most important
turning point in the economic history of China, as the bulk of Chinese
imports shifted from luxury items to mundane consumer products. Very
few historians have written about this.
The latter half of the Ming period witnessed the beginning of a revolution
that would become obvious by the mid-Qing. The following verse
celebrates the changing season of foreign trade in Guangzhou:
Most exotic treasures come from Europe,
Foreign ships carry them when they come/return,
New prince of commerce and shining silk,
Foreign money fills the Thirteen Companies.
Xi Yang or Europe takes a prominent place in this description of trade.
Looking for silk, the 'new prince of commerce' brought exotics to China
and continued to make the Thirteen Companies rich in the mid-Qing."
"'Western Merchant Ships Fly Here Everyday'
The best and most comprehensive list of foreign goods can be found in
the possession of Qianlong's favourite minister, master of corruption He
Shen."
"Exotic and expensive goods that were only available to the Qing court
less than a century ago were at the disposal of anyone with means by
the mid-nineteenth century. The opening of China as a result of her
defeat in the Opium Wars had made that possible. Shrewd as they had
always been, Chinese merchants knew that foreign products were the
future, and they were joined by their counterparts from across the seas
as 'Western merchant ships fly here everyday'."
"Conclusion
The nomenclature change from West Ocean to Europe and ultimately
the West teaches us much about China's increasing engagement with
and understanding of the seas. Not only the Qing court and elite, but also
ordinary consumers, appreciated and needed foreign - European/
Western - goods. Royal and elite consumption that began in the late
Ming and intensified in the early Qing had consequences as the Wind of
the West blew across China. However, this hypothesis cannot fully
explain the situation. Would Qing China have needed so many foreign
consumer goods had the population remained low? What would have
happened if the Europeans never arrived? I ask these obvious counter-
factual questions in order to highlight the significance of the seas and call
for more studies that will examine maritime trade and its role in the
making of Qing China.
The categories of China's imports since the Tang lend force to my
argument that major change was taking place during the Ming, but did
not reveal itself until the late Ming and then became obvious by the mid-
Qing. The categories laid bare the changing consumer needs wrought by
population increase; consumer goods for the first time in history dictated
the volume of maritime trade. China's trade pattern changed as its
imports shifted from luxuries catering to the court and elite, as they had
done since the Han-Tang, to mundane consumer items beginning in the
latter half of the Ming. The categories and the individual commodities
shed light on Ming-Qing China's increasing reliance on maritime trade;
they also reveal the changes inside China manifest in the demand for
more consumer goods. This economic watershed demands much more
study, as it will undoubtedly expose the dynamics of foreign trade during
the Qing and the westernisation or globalisation that was gathering pace.
Foreign goods emerged as a special category and a specialised
commerce of their own by the eighteenth century, as more were brought
in and more people were exposed to them and began to consume them.
Some items would survive and thrive, some would slowly indigenise,
while others would disappear. What can their diverse social lives in
China tell us about Qing consumer culture and society?"
"7 PATTERN AND VARIATION: INDIGENISATION
 The growing consumption of foreign goods was part of a long historical
process that began in the latter half of the Ming and continues today, as
China catches up with the West.
Europeans appeared in the maritime theatre of China a century after
Zheng He's voyages, but the significance of their arrival would not make
itself felt until the mid-Qing, when the population exploded. This is a most
important intersection, where endogenous and exogenous forces met to
shape the course of history. The rising popularity and increasing
availability of foreign goods beginning in the early Qing led in turn to
commercial specialisation, which can be seen from the emergence by
the mid-Qing of businesses, shops and streets that were dedicated to the
import, retail and marketing of foreign products. They gave birth to a
foreign urban mosaic; they not only encouraged but also grew
consumption. This can be seen in the ways in which people dressed
themselves, ate, drank, smoked and entertained; it can also be seen
from where people lived and how they moved around, hence the
Chinese categories of clothing, food, housing and transportation. Foreign
goods were changing the mentality of the Chinese and shaping a new,
sometimes hybrid, urban landscape and consumer behaviour."
"The cult of cultivating exotic flowers had its origin in the 'garden mania'
of the late Ming and raged into the mid-Qing, as many literati and
scholar-officials competed with each other to grow not just the most
beautiful but, more significantly, the most exotic plants. This short verse
tells us much more than just the celebrity of foreign chrysanthemums
and peaches; it informs us about who their early consumers were and
how they were procured. 'Super rich' indicates that it was the top echelon
who could afford such luxuries; this included the Qianlong emperor, who
loved foreign chrysanthemums. He commisioned paintings of, and also
devoted verses to, this exotic plant. He was concerned that his readers
might not understand this foreign spe-cies and inserted an explanatory
note before the verse he composed:"
"A bay area on the south coast of the Shandong peninsula which grew
into today's Qingdao, Jiaozhou faces the Yellow Sea and Korea to the
east, and it sits on the same latitude as northern Syria and the American
state of Virginia. How did the beauty and fragility of those plants survive
the long journey from Europe or elsewhere to north China if they didn't
come from the usual 'Eastern neighbours', as Qianlong emphasised?
Perhaps they were hybridised or transplanted in places like Macao.
Leaving aside these important issues of where they came from and how
they were delivered, this verse reminds us of more important things.
Some sort of commercial network was in place to facilitate the purchase,
sale and delivery of exotic foreign flora like foreign chrysanthemum and
peach, and it serviced the 'super rich'; but this did not constitute a market
in the strict economic sense. This kind of elite demand can grow and
transform into a market and further a consumer trend - as in the case of
opium and clocks - if at least two other major conditions are met."
"First and foremost is the intrinsic value of the foreign goods, or the value
potential consumers attribute to them. I have argued that opium smoking
fit in perfectly with the existing Chinese culture of consumption, and this
explains why it germinated and flourished in China. The case of the
foreign chrysanthemum is different, because even if the ordinary people
enjoyed these flowers and wished to grow them, they were constrained
by a few variables. The foreign chrysanthemum is perishable and blooms
in winter: September for early bloom, October to November for mid
bloom, and December to January for late bloom. Its delicate nature and
unusual blooming season meant that it demanded expertise in purchase
and extra care in handling. North China's cold winters make the flower
unsuitable for outdoor display; ideally a large and specially-designed
indoor space is necessary to properly exhibit these exotic flowers. The
fragile nature of the plant, its blooming season and the demand for
indoor space conditioned the ways in which the ordinary could afford
such a luxury; but more so did geography and climate, as sailing to the
northern hemisphere in winter with easily-damaged expensive foreign
goods could be a costly, even dangerous, undertaking.
Equally important, if not more so, is the capability of commercial
networks to meet or grow the demand once the market has been
discovered. Again using the example of opium, we can see that supply
certainly met and even created a demand in the 1830s; commercial
operators cashed in on its popularity and fuelled consumption. This was
not the case with foreign chrysanthemum. Their perishable nature
dictated that their maintenance cost, from shipping to delivery, was high.
If traders had a choice, they might choose something else, opium or rice
for example, which are easy to handle. Opium and rice circulated like
currency, which points to their market value. Supply involves acquisition,
transportation, warehousing and wholesale - it requires, in other words,
the existence of responsive local commercial networks and operators.
Foreign chrysanthemum and peach might have been as popular as
opium and clocks during the early Qing, but the demand for them didn't
grow into a consumer trend. Instead they disappeared not only from
gardens, but also from the memoirs of the elite. Why did some foreign
goods disappear, some remain luxuries and others thrive?"
"'No Less Dazzling than the Imperial Robes of Zhang Lihua'
'Whoever says Industrial Revolution says cotton', stated eminent
historian Eric J. Hobsbawm.* Cotton marked the first phase of the
Industrial Revolution: 'Until 1770 over ninety percent of British cotton
exports went to colonial markets in this way, mainly to Africa'. The cotton
industry advanced further after 1785 as the Revolution accelerated. The
textile trade was one of the reasons for Lord McCartney's mission to
China in 1793, and it was hope for the British before opium was
discovered. Although the British and others continued to speculate and
ship cloth to Asia and China, they would have to wait until 'after the
middle of the nineteenth century' when 'it found its staple outlet in India
and the Far East'. Even after the Opium Wars, they still had to compete
with indigenous cloth and find ways to make their brand appealing to
ordinary Chinese consumers. This harks back to what I have articulated
throughout this volume: that is, the success of a foreign export to China
is highly dependent on the intrinsic value that potential consumers
attribute to the product itself, and the ability of commercial operators and
networks to make it not only desirable but also affordable.
[* Industry and Empire from 1750 to the Present Day (London: Penguin
books, 1990), p. 56.]"
"First of all, China's cloth-making industry was household-, clan- or even
village-based, and these small social organisms fed, clad, housed and
employed their own members, even though more and more profit-driven
workshops and factories emerged during the Ming. 'The family as an
entity felt an obligation to take care of its members, which made them
more dependent on family support than they would be otherwise.'
Surplus labour was put to good use, as young girls learned to spin and
weave at an early age; this could potentially earn them good husbands
and provide for their own family in the future. This form of economy was
self-sufficient and relatively resistant to external pressure. As in the case
of rice, the demand for more would only emerge when the formerly self-
sufficient unit could no longer provide. In other words, it would take
fundamental demographic and socio-economic change for the
indigenous cloth industry to change or collapse.
[* Chao Kang, The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China, p.
39.]
While economic historians have produced excellent works on the history
of cotton production and trade in China, they have not explained why it
was able to resist foreign brands for so long. The strength of Chinese
cloth lay in the fact that it was coarser than foreign cloth; it was not only
more durable but also warmer. This was important to the majority, as
keeping warm was a key concern. 'Thin as silk' cloth, which would evolve
into machine-made cloth with the Industrial Revolution, was much less
durable than the traditional Chinese textile. In addition, the old way of
washing, involving soaking the fabric and pounding it with a club, could
easily damage 'thin as silk' foreign cloth at the first wash. Above all,
foreign cloth was more expensive than Chinese; in other words it was not
only undesirable but also unaffordable to the ordinary people. The self-
sufficient family-based textile industry, the strength of local cloth and the
sheer number of Chinese consumers can help explain the longevity of
indigenous cloth and the slow progress of foreign cloth imports.
Unlike the Qing court and the elite, who had silk and rare skins at their
disposal, the majority of Chinese consumers at this time valued the
usefulness of indigenous cloth. They did not know and could not have
desired something more fashionable, let alone something much more
expensive. In other words, China's socio-economic and cultural
conditions were not yet ready to embrace foreign cloth. The economy of
late Ming through mid-Qing China was still largely agrarian, despite
intensified commercialisation and urbanisation. Cities and towns did
grow but the majority of Chinese consumers were still peasants. An
agrarian economy continued to support a philosophy and culture that
centred on the land and what it could provide."
"Foreign cloth had begun to cross class as well as urban-rural lines in the
mid-nineteenth century. As a brand it seems to have finally begun to
spread throughout general consumer society more than two centuries
after it first appeared in China, if we use the Franciscus Sambiasi
timeframe (even though the cloth he gave Mao might not have come
from Europe). What made it possible? This brings us to the second major
reason I advanced earlier: the affordability of the foreign product. The
Treaty of Nanking had allowed British and other foreign manufacturers to
not only dump their products, but also set up their own factories in China,
while Chinese entrepreneurs were still catching up. The first Western-
style cotton textile factory began to operate in Shanghai in 1878.32 A
late Qing scholar Wu Qingshi saw the foreign product this way:
'Foreign yarn is pretty and cheap, our yarn is no way compa-rable. ... Its
weave is small and even, the cloth it makes is much better than the
indigenous cloth. The best thing about is that it is bright and eye-catching
after being dyed, something that we cannot imagine with indigenous
cloth.'
Wu was full of praise, like Mao Xiang and Lu Hong. He noticed the
smaller weave of foreign yarn and liked its eye-catching brightness.
Foreign yarn was not only prettier but also cheaper, and this made a
difference to ordinary consumers. Both foreign cloth and foreign yarn
were widely available by the late nineteenth century; foreign yarn would
squeeze Chinese yarn out of the market. Foreign cloth, imported or
made in China by Western or Chinese manufacturers with machines,
came to dominate the market by the early twentieth century, although
this did not extend to every single township and village of China. This
doesn't mean that the deficiencies of foreign cloth in comparison to
Chinese cloth had disappeared."
"Women, especially young women, became the spokespeople of the new
urban culture through their western-style school uniforms or clothes."
"This desire to emulate Western fashions extended to headwear like
hats: 'foreign felt' was now rated above the old hide headgear which had
been extremely fashionable in the eighteenth century, as we have seen
in Chapter Six. This also extended to a new style of shoes, called 'foreign
inlay' after the way in which they were sown together. New garments
made with foreign fabrics in foreign styles became part and parcel of a
new urban landscape. Yet this was not just a new urban mosaic, but the
dawn of a consumer revolution, where westernisation and modernisation
replaced old values as well as old attire. Con-sumption filtered down to
general consumer society because cheaper products, both imports and
local brands, made general participation possible at the same time as
consumers themselves were changing, which was equally - if not more -
important. Local production signalled the arrival of general consumption;
this would challenge the imports. Chinese cloth caught up quickly and,
as Linda Grove has pointed out, it was difficult to distinguish tu or native
and yang or foreign in places like Tianjin by the early twentieth century,
when Chinese competition was winning.
From the late Ming, when it appeared as a tribute item, to the late Qing,
when it became widely available, the name foreign cloth never changed.
But it took more than two centuries for the general category to be
established. China needed cloth, but it also had to be affordable. Yet
demand and price alone could not have brought about a consumer
revolution until the socio-cultural conditions changed in favour of the
foreign brands, as they did after the Opium Wars. The opening of China
after the conflicts brought as consequences the replacement of
handmade products by machine-made cloth, just as washing machines
would ultimately replace hand washing. Foreign cloth com-pletely
changed China's cotton industry and fashions. Would foreign cloth have
spread without the yang - foreign or European and Western depending
on the period in which it was imported - prefix and connotation? I believe
so, as the scale of population growth and the changes that would have
arrived with or without foreign intervention would have necessitated
mass production aided by machines sooner or later."
"Foreign Pepper to the Peanut and Foreign Wine
From what the Chinese wore to what they smoked and ate: foreign
cloth, tobacco and opium, and maize and foreign yams had been quietly
changing the Chinese economy, consumer culture and society ever
since the late Ming. While foreign cloth and clocks took a few hundred
years to localise, it did not take that long for maize and the foreign yam
to indigenize. A simple explanation is that they are foodstuffs: once
people discovered that they were edible, they naturally found ways to
consume them. Nevertheless, the exact timing of their widespread
cultivation demands more explanation. They came during the late Ming,
possibly at the same time as tobacco, but they did not spread as quickly
as tobacco did. They did not land on the Chinese dining table until a time
of great need during the mid-Qing, when the population exploded; this
explains its delayed localisation. It is vital to factor this timeline into the
narrative, as it sheds light on the mid-Qing period, an important junction
of socio-economic change. Each foreign item led a different social life
upon entering the indigenous economy and society. Some foreign
imports, like music, stayed within the walls of royal palaces; some, like
maize, settled with peasants; others, the foreign chrysanthemum for
example, blossomed and disappeared. While some foreign goods shared
a similar pattern of indigenisation, the progress of others differed
radically.
Foreign pepper, which was also called chilli pepper, is a great example,
and another New World produce that significantly changed Chinese taste
buds and culture of consumption. No Chinese historian has written on
the foreign pepper that revolutionised the southern styles of cuisine in
the provinces of Hubei-Sichuan, Hunan-Jiangxi, and Yunnan-Guizhou,
where it was first called hai jiao or sea pepper, an indication of its
maritime origin. Like maize and the foreign yam, the timing and route of
its introduction into China is unclear."
"I have probed the question of why Chinese people of various classes
and regions became addicted to opium smoking at particular historical
periods of time. But opium is only one of a dozen commodities and
cultures of consumption that challenges scholars who work on addictive
substances, which can include sugar, vodka, qat, tea, and possibly even
curry and kimchi. If, as David Christian and Thomas Brennan have
argued, vodka and public drinking encouraged revolutions of a kind,
perhaps we might consider the role of the pungent foreign pepper in the
Nationalist and Communist Revolutions, both led by pepper-eating
southerners. If vodka, kimchi, betel nut and curry have earned the
Russians, the Koreans, the Indonesians, and South Asians respectively
some sort of cultural identity, then perhaps the foreign pepper has been
similarly important in shaping some sort of southern Chinese
temperament, which at times can be characterised as stubborn and
feisty.
Might it be possible to consider the role of geography, climate, local
beliefs and traditions in influencing a region's or people's affection for -
and addiction to - certain foods in a certain period of time?"
"Zhao's elaboration points to the medicinal value of the foreign pepper;
more importantly, it sheds light on other issues that might help explain
the southern preference for, if not addiction to, the foreign pepper. Like
opium, the foreign pepper began its social life in China as a beautiful
plant, until its therapeutic and recreational values were discovered; the
same can be said of tea in the case of England, as I shall detail in the
next chapter. This seems to be a pattern for a handful of exotic plants
that are also addictive. This revelation is significant, because it suggests
the intimacy between traditional Chinese medicine and the practice of shi
liao, or healing and treatment through food. A pipe of opium not only
chases away the aches and pains of the world but also relaxes one's
body and mind, as I explained in the The Social Life of Opium in China.
A little bit of foreign pepper in one's food not only galvanises one's taste
buds but also treats one's bodily illnesses, as Zhao Xuemin discovered
and detailed.
This takes the discussion into uncharted and challenging territory, which
is the combined impact of geography, weather, traditional beliefs, class
and gender, not excluding consumer culture and marketing, on diet and
addiction. Encircled by the coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong,
southern interior China doesn't escape the monsoon rain in the winter
and spring, when it becomes extremely damp. A little bit of foreign
pepper in food can help drain the extra fluid - or excess moisture - from
the body, which can cause problems if left in the system. This is an
important theory in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), as Zhao explains
that extra fluid in the body, especially those containing bacteria, can
cause malaria, common to the region due to the wet air and the
mosquitoes that thrive in this environment and transmit many diseases.
The rainy season is followed by long, hot and humid summers without
relief, which affects the appetite and immune system. Foreign peppers
not only help create the craving for food, but also help to fight disease,
as they contain high amounts of vitamin C and other essential nutrients
like magnesium and iron. Prevention and treatment through food is an
enduring philosophy and practice in TCM, which contributed to the
spread and popularity of foreign peppers in southern China. The foreign
pepper inspired a culinary revolution that obviously demands much more
academic attention than it has received here."
"Foreign wine reminds us of the Kangxi emperor in the early Qing; it
came back to China, along with beer and other soft drinks invented in
Europe and America, as a common commodity in the late Qing. Alcohol,
not opium, precipitated the Opium War. Drunken British sailors attacked
a Chinese grocer, Lin Weixi, after he refused to serve them more alcohol
once they were already drunk. Grocer Lin subsequently died of his
injuries, provoking the first shot to be fired and leading to the outbreak of
the first Sino-British conflict in the hot summer of 1839. The Treaty of
Nanking helped to spread foreign wine and beer quickly in the port cities
where they were sold in the various foreign Settlements. "
"Foreign wine and beer did not replace traditional Chinese wine; they
only made dining out and brothel-going more exotic and exciting. Like
opium smoking, they were a welcoming and natural addition to the
existing Chinese culture of consumption and mode of leisure. They
would flourish once a supply chain was established to meet or to grow
demand and facilitate consumption. China's first brewery, Qingdao Beer
(Tsingtao), began production in the 1910s. It now accompanies Chinese
dining and toasting whether at home or abroad, and regardless of who is
being entertained. Indeed, Qingdao beer has gained an international
reputation and has now invaded the global market. If we can say that the
southerners accepted spices more readily, the Chinese in general
accepted foreign smokes and drinks readily; alcohol consumption -
addiction as well - is more wide-spread in northern rather than southern
China, but it exists throughout the country. China remains the largest
market for foreign food, drinks, and smokes as well, as targeting China's
new middle class has become a most profitable business, and recent
efforts have been made at 'selling cheese to the Chinese', as a 2009
BBC documentary reported."
"'Western Means Tall Buildings that Number Nearly a Hundred'
To buy or live in foreign buildings and foreign houses became a middle
class ambition, synonymous with urban professional life and upward
social mobility. This has intensified in the post-Mao era, as both
exclusive villas and gated high-rises, still called yang lou yang fang,
target a new generation of professional urbanites and foreign
expatriates. The social life of foreign buildings continues as Beijing and
Shanghai have more skyscrapers, some technologically more advanced
and others more environmentally friendly, than London and Paris."
"Self Moving Vehicle and Many More
The foreigners brought their textiles and fashion, food and drink, and
houses and religion with them, and they also brought their modes of
transportation, which would revolutionize the way the Chinese traveled.
This included the so-called self moving vehicle, or the bicycle. The Qing's
last emperor Pu Yi, Qianlong's great great grandson, mentioned his love
for the bicycle in his memoir. This fondness was popularised by the
Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor [1987]. After he and the imperial
family were driven out of the Forbidden City in 1925, he often went on
long bicycle rides in the early hours of the morning:"
"Like clocks, the novelty and ingenuity of the bicycle caught not only the
attention of the westernising urban elite in port cities but also everyone
who could use it, and those who were open-minded. Bicycles were
advertised regularly in all the newspapers and sold in the various foreign
settlements and port cities. They were so popular in Shanghai that the
first bike-riding competition was held there as early as 1897.
Indispensable to small businesses and the newly-created Post Bureau,
bicycles helped deliver goods and provide public services. The bicycle
came to play an ever-bigger role after 1949, when local governments
were provided with bicycles so that officials and police could patrol cities
and towns to enforce law and order. The very mention of China today
conjures up images of massive bicycle hordes waiting for the traffic light.
Nine Million Bicycles, a [2005] song by Katie Melua, starts with the line
'there are nine million bicycles in Beijing'. In addition, China makes and
exports millions each year.
The pattern by which the bicycle became Chinese is clear. Like clocks,
the 'feet-peddling vehicle', as it was initially labelled, was a novelty when
it was first introduced in the late nineteenth century. It became a general
consumer good when China began manufacturing its own brands in the
mid-twentieth century. China now supplies the world with its cheap
brands and the bicycle has come to define post-Mao economic reform. A
leisure and sports vehicle in the West today, the bicycle continues to be
a means of transport in China. It has served China as she rapidly
industrialises, urbanises and catches up with the environmental
revolution. The popularity of the bicycle soon extended to other
inventions that enhanced Chinese travel: 1905 saw the first installation of
electric buses or trams in Hong Kong, followed by Tianjin in 1906 and
Shanghai in 1908."
"This era was one that was marked by the arrival of foreign - European
and Western - fabrics and fashions, food and drink, houses and
buildings, modes of transportation, entertainment, and science and
technology, all of which offered new possibilities. The introduction of
these imports gave rise to a foreign and sometimes mixed urban mosaic
that was transforming the mentality and lifestyle of ordinary Chinese
urbanites in the late nineteenth century, as can be seen from the
following folk verse:
Hankou folk verse: Western style furniture
Traditional decorations no longer fashionable
Everyone wants to decorate with foreign style
Many Ningbo people sell foreign furniture
The fashion is beds made with copper or iron."
"The impact of foreign influences on China is best seen in the reforms
undertaken by the Qing court, collectively known as the Foreign Affairs
Movement, even newly-opened archives of this era are titled Foreign
Matters and Foreign Cases. China aimed to catch up with the West by
building 'foreign guns, cannons and ships', railways, telegraph lines,
anything a modern nation state could build and control. This was what
Hans van de Ven calls the 'onrush of modern globalisation' in China. As
reform deepened, this 'onrush' extended to what used to be the most
enduringly Chinese institutions, schools and the arts."
"Learning to do business was the priority in these new schools. While
some embraced them, others resisted - but not for long, as the author
lamented. Foreign education was emerging and in many places
replacing traditional education. Yeh Wen-hsin discussed 'commerce as
learning' and 'business schools' briefly in her new work Shanghai
Splendor. Business and professional schools mushroomed in the early
twentieth century. In 1912, the young Mao Zedong arrived in Changsha,
capital of Hunan province, to pursue a better education. He was still
roaming around the city looking for a school after he 'had been a soldier
for half a year':
'I began to read advertisements in the papers. Many schools were then
being opened and used this medium to attract new students. I had no
special standard for judging schools; I did not know exactly what I
wanted to do. An advertisement for a police school caught my eye and I
registered for entrance to it. Before I was examined, however, I read an
advertisement of a soap-making 'school.' No tuition was required, board
was furnished and a small salary was promised. It was an attrac-tive and
inspiring advertisement. It told of the great social benefits of soap-
making, how it would enrich the country and enrich the people. I changed
my mind about the police school and decided to become a soap-maker. I
paid my dollar registration fee here also.'*
[* Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China (London and Southampton:
Camelot Press, 1937), pp. 139-40.]
The tuition included housing, food and even financial aid - quite a deal
for a country boy who depended on his peasant family. Learning to make
the soap seemed to promise a living, if not a fortune. Unfortunately, the
young student apprentice didn't want to make a living, nor a fortune; he
was more interested in making a revolution, which would further
westernise China, even though his political platform was built on anti-
imperialism stance. Foreign education was transforming the lives of
many young men like Mao; it was challenging age-old moral values and
shaping new artistic creativity:"
"A monopoly of the Qing emperors, oil painting returned to China as
common education; so did European music. This lent force to the
argument I have pursued persistently in this and other works. The agent
and agency of introduction, the Jesuits and the Qing court in this case,
dictated the social life of oil painting in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. What came in as imperial privilege lived through, and thus was
limited by, royal patronage. The soil upon which it could grow on a
common scale was absent despite the fact that a small export industry
developed in Guangzhou in the mid-Qing; this too had its own specific
origin which limited its spread. The general socio-political environment of
reform and learning from the West provided the soil upon which it could
and did grow in the late Qing. Not only progressive artists but also the
young Mao Zedong and the Communist Party embraced oil painting. The
foreign genre would play a disproportionately significant role in the
Communist Revolution, as the regime used it to spread the gospel of
communism and indoctrinate its citizens, new and old, until Mao's death
in 1976.
From foreign furniture and foreign education to oil painting, what once
only the Qing emperor could afford had become readily available to
those with the means and the inclination ever since the Opium Wars. Not
only was foreign education available, but one could travel to foreign
countries to study. This had long-term consequences, as the Taiping
Rebellion and the Nationalist and Communist Revolutions were all based
on foreign ideologies and led by foreign-connected or educated
intellectuals. The so-called Foreign Affairs Movement or in essence
'Learning from the West', gave birth to Chinese patriots; it also gave birth
to generations of scholars, scientists, writers, artists and capitalists who
would transform not just China's polity and economy, but also its culture
and society, in the twentieth century. Today's China, from its political
ideology to its economic platform, from interior design to artistic forms,
bears testimony to the westernization of China that first began during the
late Ming as a result of intensified contact and exchange with the
maritime world. The seas facilitated and defined China's path to
modernity."
"Conclusion
 From what the Chinese wear to what they eat, chew, drink and smoke,
from how they live to the ways in which they move themselves, and even
to the manner in which they think about and re-invent their country,
foreign goods, inventions and ideas have fundamentally changed China.
How do their diverse social lives enlighten us? Some, like the foreign
chrysanthemum, disappeared after being fashionable for only a few
decades; some, like foreign cloth, would take time to grow; some, like
foreign pepper, only spread to certain regions; some, like foreign houses,
only developed in hybrid shapes, while others, like the bicycle,
indigenised quickly in its original form. The processes by which foreign
goods were indigenised in China help shed light on the condition of the
local economy and society, the capacity of local commercial networks
and consumer culture. What also mattered were geography, weather,
and medical philosophy, as was the case with the foreign pepper, but
even more important could be the resilience of the local product and the
timing of the import's introduction, as can be seen with foreign cloth. As I
have argued in relation to opium, the 'outward and downward liquidation'
of foreign imports depends on a number of complex variables.
Introduced during the late Ming, many of them did not spread and
indigenise until the mid- and even the late Qing. While the Ming dynasty
saw the arrival of the Portuguese and the Dutch, the Qing witnessed the
rise of the British on Asian waters. In other words, the introduction and
indigenisation of many of these foreign goods coincided with the ascent
of Europe. This raises questions about the dynamics of internal and
external change, namely population growth and commercialisation in
China and the industrial and political expansion of Europe, made
possible by maritime contact and exchange. It seems that this trend is
reversing today with China's industrialisation, as Chinese products head
towards Europe and America. Industry and commerce need markets and
consumers regardless of when and where. Their interaction has shaped
the course of global history, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. Just
when the Wind of Europe was blowing in China, the Wind of China -
Chinoiserie - was being felt in Europe. This too had its own specific
origins and consequences."
"'RACE FOR ORIENTAL OPULENCE'
'During the period from the first penetration of the Portuguese to the
coasts of China in 1514 to the close of the eighteenth century the nations
of Europe drew a cordon around China both by sea and land, so that at
the end of the period the country bore a resemblance to a walled city in a
state of siege, a siege wherein the invaders coming from afar have
occupied the open country but are not yet strong enough to storm the
walls, while the defenders made no serious attempt to drive them away.
In the centre of the city the Son of Heaven continued to reign in
ceremonious majesty, and refused to accept any other ruler of men as
an equal...'
This seemingly dated comment makes an important point. Europe had
been trying to find the 'Seres' (silk people) since Roman times, but they
did not accomplish this feat until the early sixteenth century. The first
Europeans to arrive in Asia were the Portuguese, who were soon
followed by all the major actors on the political stage of Europe. They
took on China with diplomacy and force, but nothing worked until the
English used gunboats to throw open the gates of the Middle Kingdom.
The 'state of siege', in other words, lasted 328 years, from 1514, when
the Portuguese first called on the port of Guangzhou, to the end of the
Opium War in 1842. The Spanish had even toyed with the idea of an
invasion of China during the late Ming: we can only wonder what
dissuaded them, given their supremacy at that time.
This chapter traces the race to appropriate the trade in three Chinese
commodities - silk, porcelain and tea. A particular emphasis is placed on
the early modern era and the British demand for tea. The previous seven
chapters have examined China's, and especially the Qing's, engagement
with the maritime world; this chapter aims to show how the world reached
out to and engaged with China through the trade in these Chinese
commodities over two thousand years. The seas were vital to Sino-
foreign trade after the fragmentation of the Silk Road following the
Yongjia Disturbance in 311, as I highlight in Chapter One. Tracing the
world's interaction with China through maritime links will highlight key
themes, even 'strange parallels', in global trade, economic life and the
great convergence that began two thousand years ago, and showcase
the importance of comparative world history. The race that began in
Roman times and crystallized in the Chinoiserie of the eighteenth century
ended in a series of conflicts beginning with the First Opium War in 1839,
followed by the 'Scramble for China' and what eminent Chinese historian
John K. Fairbank (1907-1991) called the 'century of unequal treaties',
1842-1945.* How did Europe in general and Britain in particular come to
admire and then despise and molest China?
[* Robert Bickers, The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing
Empire 1832-1914 (London: Allen Lane, 2011).]"
"'Seres' to 'Sinae' and 'Tsinistan'
Two thousand years ago, four large empires contemporaneously
occupied the Eurasian landmass. They were the Qin-Han Empire, the
Kushan Empire, the Persian Empire and the Roman Empire; they grew
and thrived separately. But the desire to live better and to expand
pushed them into contact, exchange and conflict.* While Chinese
historians have noted that Western Han China saw an increase in silk
production, they have not explained why this household-based industry
suddenly grew in this particular era. Taiwan-based historian Fang Hao
has advanced the idea that Zhang Qian's epic journeys to Central Asia,
commissioned by the Han court, were not undertaken with the diplomatic
aim of making peace, but rather to locate markets for the surplus silk that
Han China produced. Fang's claim is as yet unsubstantiated, but the fact
that the famous Silk Road came into existence and flourished during the
Han is unquestionable. In other words, foreign demand must have
contributed to the expansion of silk production in China, although to what
extent this was the case is a matter which, like Fang's claim itself,
demands vigorous research.
[* Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag, eds. Conceiving the Empire:
China and Rome Compared (Oxford & New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008); and Walter Scheidel, ed. Rome and China: Comparative
Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (Oxford & New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009).]
The foreign trade of the Roman Empire, according to Mortimer Wheeler,
was based on five major commodities: German amber, African ivory,
Arabian incense, Indian pepper and Chinese silk. Many believe that it
was the Parthians who introduced silk to Roman Europe in the first
century AD. The Romans loved it so much that Pliny the Elder
complained: 'By the lowest reckoning, India and China (Seres) and the
Arabian peninsula take from our empire 100 million sesterces every year:
that is how much our luxuries and our women cost us.' The luxury and
decadence which was associated with Arabia, India and China was
perceived to be detrimental to human character, and it was a trait that
worried Roman scholars; many historians even claim that this led to the
downfall of the Roman Empire.* The Romans were no more extravagant,
however, than any of their trading partners in the other three empires.
[* Andrew Dalby, Empire of Pleasure.]
There is no doubt that silk marketed China during the Qin-Han era,
earning the Chinese the name of 'Seres', the 'Silk people'; this can be
seen from one of the earliest works on Asia, The Periplus of the
Erythraean Sea. As there was neither direct trade nor a direct route
between China and Europe, silk travelled a long way and passed through
at least four major layers of merchants, scattered from Kansu to the
Pamirs and from the Merv oasis to Seleucia, before it reached 'the city of
Antioch, in the Roman province of Syria'.* The vast landmass between
China and Europe enabled all kinds of middlemen to monopolise the silk
trade, and it was the attempt to bypass these merchants that drove the
Romans and their descendants to look for a direct sea route to the riches
of the East. This was the beginning of the 'race for Oriental opulence'
that would last for the next two thousand years.
[* Frederick J. Teggart, Rome and China: A Study of Correlations in
Historical Events, p. 120.]
While the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, the Eastern Roman
or Byzantine Empire managed to survive until the Ottoman Turks
captured Constantinople in 1453. Trade between Byzantium and
Sassanid Persia (224-651) thrived, but the Sassanids were swept away
by the Islamic Empire in the seventh century. This was a transitional era,
as Islam rose to shape the course of history from North Africa to
Southeast Asia, where modern-day Indonesia claims the world's largest
Muslim population. The spread of Islam would have a profound impact
on global trade, as the seventh and eighth centuries saw the
regularisation of the silk trade and the introduction of another important
Chinese product: porcelain, the 'Tang cargo' being a great example.
Persian and Arab merchants would continue to control trade between
China and Europe for the next thousand years, until the Portuguese
emerged. Historian George Hourani cites the vivid recollection of an Arab
merchant in Tang-dynasty Guangzhou:
'When the seamen come in from the sea, the Chinese seize their goods
and put them in the (customs) sheds; there they guard them securely for
(anything up to) six months, until the last seaman has come in. After that,
three tenths of every consignment is taken as a duty, and the remainder
is delivered to the merchants. Whatever the Government requires, it
takes at the highest price and pays for promptly and fairly.'
 Just as six months is a long time, three tenths is a large toll. What made
the Arab merchants accept these conditions and unfair practices?
Baghdad-born historian and geographer Mas'ûdi (896-956) explained:
'The Chinese are the most clever people on earth: they have
extraordinary skills in plastic and other arts, so that no other nation can
be compared with them in any kind of workmanship. ... China is rich in
remarkable objects, and there are many interesting accounts of the
inhabitants.'*
[* Mas'ûdi Ali-Abu'l-Hassan, Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems
(London: Ori-ental Translation Fund, 1841), pp. 340-41.]
Some of the 'remarkable objects' can be found in the 'Tang cargo'. They
include: a 35-inch-tall ornamental ewer of unique size and design with a
dragon-head stopper and a wine cup.
Qin-Han China produced silk for the Roman Empire, the most powerful
empire of the ancient world; Tang-Song China manufactured household
utensils and artefacts, including the Changsha ceramics, for the Islamic
Caliphate, the most powerful empire of the medieval world; and Ming-
Qing China supplied not just silk and porcelain but also tea to Europe,
the most powerful region in the early modern era. This continues today,
as China supplies the United States with everything from artificial
Christmas trees and cheap clothing to computer parts and rare earth, a
key material in many high-tech devices. It seems that not much has
changed since the Han-Tang era. A rare drawing from the 1780s, titled
'Painting Porcelain' depicts the changing wind of the porcelain trade, as
the sign at the door reads: 'This shop accepts (orders) for painting
European style flowers, multiple coloured figures, and landscapes.'
The study of Chinese porcelain has been the monopoly of art historians,
but also demands the attention of economic historians, as porcelain is an
excellent yardstick with which to measure the extent of Sino-Arabian and
Sino-African trade. Mainland scholars have called North Africa the
'museum', and East Africa the 'depot', of Chinese ceramics, and have
traced their extent as far as South Africa. Their research so far has
identified the Tang as the era when porcelain first made its way to Africa,
and Chen Xinxiong has written about the 'indirect but strong maritime
trade' between Tang China and Africa. The emphasis on the Tang as a
significant period in the history of China's trade - not just maritime - is
supported by the discovery of the 'Tang cargo' and by the works of
Middle Eastern and African scholars on Chinese porcelains that have
been discovered in Topkapi, Ardebil, and other parts of the Near East
and Africa.* Persians, Arabs and Africans, many of them Muslim, valued
Chinese porcelain so much that they used ceramics in the decoration of
shrines, some of which still stand today. Europeans would emulate this a
thousand years later, as will be discussed in the next section.
[* James S. Kirkman, The Arab City of Gedi: Excavations at the Great
Mosque, Archi-tecture and Finds. (London: Oxford University Press,
1954); John A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine
(Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Freer Gallery of Art, 1956);
Tagatoshi Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East:
Topkapi and Ardebil (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1981).]
The Persian-Arab domination of the China trade lasted until the Mongols
swept through the Eurasian continent in the thirteenth century. 'The
Mongol conquests restored mutual knowledge and communication
between Europe and China after all contact had been lost for at least
four centuries'. This was the last time that the old Silk Road would regain
some of its former glory, as merchants were now able to travel from
China to Europe unharassed 'whether by day or night'. As the Mongols
helped to spread knowledge about China, a handful of Europeans came
to Asia. Regardless of whether or not the Marco Polo episode is true, the
legend itself testifies to the popularity of China in Europe, which would
accelerate the 'race for Oriental opulence' after the Mongol empire
collapsed.
The beginning of the fifteenth century saw Zheng He's voyages
spreading the gospel of China and reinforcing China's ties with
Southeast, South, and West Asia and East Africa. Just as post-Yongle
officials were burning the maps of the Zheng He voyages and vowing
never to allow anyone to embark on the seas again, Portuguese
explorers were drawing up their own maps, and Vasco da Gama
rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. The Oriental riches that the
Portuguese brought back to Europe generated profits for the crown, and
more importantly fostered jealousy and competition amongst the nations
of Europe. The Portuguese led the 'race': the English were no serious
competitor at this time, instead remaining in European waters to attack
Spanish and Portuguese ships returning from the East.
On the 26th of July, 1592, Thomas White in his ship the Amitie of
London captured two Spanish ships bound for the West Indies. The first
of these was the 'mightie and rich Carak called the Madre de Dios', which
belonged to the Portuguese Crown. On board were 1400 chests of
quicksilver, which 'amounteth to 600000 pounds'.* Richard Hakluyt went
to great lengths to record the catalogue of the sundry rich commodities
that were also taken from the Madre de Dios:
[* Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and
Discoveries of the English Nation (3 vols. London: George Biship, 1599),
vol. 3, pp. 7-8.]
'To give you a taste (as it were) of the commodities, it shall suffice to
deliver you a general particularity of them, according to the catalogue
taken at Leaden hall the 15 of September 1592. ... Where upon good
view it was found, that the principal were often the jewels (which were no
doubt of great value, though they never came to light) consisted of
spices, drugges, silks, calicos, quilts, carpets & cloves, &c. The spices
were pepper, cloves, maces, nutmegs, cinamom, greene ginger; the
drugs were beniamin, frankincense, galingale, mirabolans, aloes,
zocotrina, camphire; the silks, damasks, taffatas, sarcenets, altobassons,
that is, counterfeit cloth of gold, unwrought Chinese silke, slaved silke,
white twisted sike, curled cypresse.'
This was followed by a category called calicos, which listed all kinds and
colours of materials, alongside other goods such as elephant teeth,
porcelains of China, coconuts, hides, eben-wood, bedsteads of the
same, and cloth of artificial workmanship. The value of these goods
amounted to no less than 150,000 pounds which, Hakluyt continued,
'being divided among the adventures where of her Majesty was the chief
was sufficient to yield contentment to all parties'. Was Queen Elizabeth
the chief recipient of the booty from the Madre de Dios? This was very
different from the situation of the late Ming court in 1585, when it asked
Governor-General Chen Rui to purchase European curios, who then
turned to the Jesuits for help, as we have seen in Chapter Four.
Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616) reminds us of Zhang Xie (1574-1640), who
wrote An Examination of the East and West Oceans, and Qu Dajun
(1630-1696), author of The New Language of Guangdong, whereas the
above lists of goods are reminiscent of those from the late Ming to the
mid-Qing, which were examined in Chapter Six. The Madre de Dios
belonged to the Portuguese Crown and was laden with all kinds of Asian
goods, such as spices, silk, calicoes, and porcelain; spices topped the
list of desired products, just as fragrances topped the category of
Chinese imports. While the demand for spices drove the European race
for Asia and China, the desire for fragrances dictated China's foreign
trade until the late Ming.* Silk and porcelains followed spices, and as a
consequence of maritime trade with China, Europeans could dine and
dress better; soon they would also drink better.
[* John Keay, The Spice Route: a History (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2006).]
The Dutch East India Company proved to be a formidable competitor to
the Portuguese in the seventeenth century. Their struggle began early in
March 1602, when the Dutch successfully seized the San Jago in St.
Helena.* The San Jago was a Portuguese ship on its way back to
Europe with 'a large amount of porcelain and other Chinese goods'. Two
years later, in 1604, the Dutch took another Portuguese ship, the
Catharina, 'fully laden with porcelain, raw silk, silk textiles, gold, lacquer,
furniture, sugar, drugs and other Chinese goods' in the Gulf of Thailand.
The booty went under the hammer in Amsterdam as 'buyers poured in
from far and wide and at the end the proceeds amounted to almost six
million gilders'. The money and prestige generated from the sale of these
goods encouraged the Dutch in their ambitions to secure a prominent
place on Asian waters and a large share in the Eurasian trade. It also
kicked off the Europe-wide race for Chinese and Asian luxuries, as the
Swedish, French and English joined them.

[* C. J. A. Jörg, Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade (The Hague: M.

Nijhoff, 1982); see also John E. Wills, Jr. Peppers, Guns and Parleys:
the Dutch East India Company and China 1622-1681 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1974); and Francesco Carletti, My Voyage
Around the World (New York: Pantheon, 1964).]
The Dutch taking of a Portuguese ship on Asian waters signalled that
the 'race' was moving away from Europe and towards Asia, or more
precisely the Straits of Malacca and South China Sea, where this kind of
'taking' would continue into the mid-eighteenth century, when the British
finally emerged as the dominant party. George Anson (1697-1762)
captured a Spanish Manila Galleon called Nuestra Señora de
Covadonga, commanded by the Portuguese-born general Don Jeronimo
de Montero, in the waters of the Philippines in 1743. Its cargo was mostly
silver from the Americas, and its value amounted to 'near a million and a
half dollars'.* This seizure signalled the rise of the British, who had seen
the importance of trade with China:
[* Richard Walter, Anson's Voyage Round the World in the Years 1740,
1741, 1742, 1743, 1744 (London: Blackie and Son, 1748), p. 199.]
'That the Chinese trade is the most important and the most
advantageous of the Company's extensive concerns is, I believe,
universally admitted; and that it is worthy of high consideration in a
national point of view requires but little proof. It employs direct from
England 20,000 tons of shipping, and nearly three thousand seamen; it
takes off our woollen manufactures and other products to a very
considerable extent; and it brings into the Exchequer annual revenue of
about three millions sterling. It is the grand prop of the East India
Company's credit, and the only branch of their trade from which perhaps
they may strictly be said to derive real profit.'
This 'only branch of their trade' refers to the tea business; tea could only
be procured from China, which was also seen as the ultimate market for
the products of the Industrial Revolution. It is hardly surprising, given that
China seemed to be an ideal partner in trade, that the Honourable
Company had been continuously trying to gain a foothold in this market,
as we have seen with the voyage of Capital Weddell, the attempts made
in 1676 and again by James Flint in the 1750s, and in the missions led
by Lord McCartney, Lord Amherst and finally by Lord Napier.
Silk had defined China's foreign trade since Roman times, while
porcelain rose to define her trade with the expansion of Islam. Tea had
joined these exports by the eighteenth century, marking the third phase
of Sino-foreign interaction. Trade with China had never ceased, but only
changed hands, from Parthians and Sassanids to Muslims and
Europeans. While Persians and Arabs had enjoyed a China that was
open and had freely taken up residence in cities like Yangzhou, the
Europeans encountered a different China under the Ming and Qing, one
wary of foreigners. Many Ming-Qing emperors seemed inward-looking
and conservative; but some of them showed flexibility, even innovation,
when necessary. The Europeans were certainly more competitive as
they battled each other, and were less tolerant and more violent than
their predecessors - they came heavily armed, which concerned Chinese
officials; and they did not hesitate to use force. As the Han dynasty fell
with the Roman Empire, the Tang rose with the Islamic Caliphate; the
Ming and the Portuguese emerged and declined more or less
simultaneously. The English and the Manchus, for their part, seemed to
have been inextricably tied together by the seas. These empires and
dynasties traded with each other, and really were what Victor Lieberman
calls 'strange parallels'."
"More 'Strange Parallels'
Historian Victor Lieberman fashioned the concept of 'strange parallels' in
his effort to better comprehend and synthesise the rich histories of
Southeast Asia in conjunction with the history of its colonial masters. I
have found many more parallels; the Yongle emperor (1360-1424) and
Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) are perfect examples. They were not
the first-born (and thus not chosen heirs), but they distinguished
themselves in battle; the only difference was that Yongle took the throne
by force. They were both interested in the maritime world but left very
different legacies. Less than a century after Zheng He's fleet
disappeared over the horizon of South-Southeast Asia, the Portuguese
arrived to establish colonies; this set the example for other Europeans to
follow. This section contrasts several 'strange parallels' to illustrate what
early modern Europe had in common with Ming-Qing China, and
exposes European appreciation and desire for Chinese luxuries which
culminated in the so-called Chinoiserie.
Not just Ming but also Qing monarchs had much in common with their
counterparts in Europe. The reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI, which
lasted from 1643 to 1792, coincided with the rule of Shunzhi, Kangxi,
Yongzheng and Qianlong, who reigned from 1644 to 1796. If Kangxi and
Louis XIV had 'fought rivers and mountains', or secured the empire, as
the Chinese saying goes, Yongzheng and Louis XV 'sat on the rivers and
mountains', whereas Qianlong and Louis XVI certainly squandered
whatever their forefathers had managed to amass: 'Fortune doesn't last
beyond three generations', is another common saying. This was not all
that these French and Chinese rulers had in common. They shared a
passion for exotic things and indulged in building foreign palaces; they
patronised the arts, encouraged scholarship and compiled
encyclopaedias. While Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in 1793, the
revolution did not arrive in China until 1911. The Chinese imperial
structure therefore seemed more resilient: perhaps the French were less
patient; perhaps weather and diet played a role. Would the Revolution
have broken out if the weather was cold and no one was drinking in Paris
on that legendary 14th of July?
While the 'three emperors', Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, helped
blow the Wind of the West, their counterparts in France helped bring
about the storm of Chinoiserie. Many have studied it but nearly all have
focused on the artistic aspect; they have neglected the economic origin
of this phenomenon, and more importantly its economic consequences.
The absence of historical debate can be seen in the fact that there is, as
yet, no clear definition of what is meant by Chinoiserie. Historians have
not firmly established whether this term refers to royal fascination,
consumer culture, artistic imagination or philosophical interest. Oliver
Impey believed that it was an era and style, or 'the European idea of
what oriental things were like, or ought to be like'. Definition aside, there
is no doubt that China was at the centre of this European fascination with
what the Orient had to offer. Like the Wind of the West, Chinoiserie was
an intellectual fascination inspired by the Jesuits and a consumer
revolution created and maintained by the various East India Companies.
It embodied the European desire for things Chinese; it reached its zenith
in the eighteenth century, although it started earlier and lingered on after.
Like the Wind of the West, Chinoiserie began as an imperial obsession,
as European royals competed with each other to build Chinese rooms,
pavilions, and palatial structures decorated with Chinese furniture,
carpets, tapestry, needlework, drawings, engraving and metalwork, and
adorned with Chinese cabinets full of ceramics and other oriental
curiosities. This fascination extended to Chinese puppet shows and
costumes, as the royals and elite in Europe raised goldfish and drank
Chinese tea from Chinese cups. Although royal consumption reached its
apogee in the mid-eighteenth century and declined thereafter, the middle
classes of Europe were just catching on at this time. Increased
industrialisation and urbanisation gave birth to a middle class that was
eager to participate in new consumer trends such as the drinking of tea;
this is similar to the Wind of the West in China, where court fascination
with foreign goods came to an end in the mid-eighteenth century, just as
the middle classes had begun to appreciate them. This 'strange parallel'
alone deserves a greater degree of comparative study and synthesis.
Unlike the Wind of the West, Chinoiserie varied greatly depending on
the duration and degree of European exposure to China. It emerged first
in Italy, Portugal and Holland, reflecting the fact that it was associated
with the praises of the Jesuits who, in the early days, were mainly
Portuguese and Italians. Although Baroque emerged from Italy,
Chinoiserie did not blossom there as it would elsewhere in Europe.
Portugal and Holland were exposed to the Orient earlier; they had
probably grown out of their initial fascination by the time France and
Britain joined in. It swept through the French court in the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but ended up as a consumer
culture in England in the late eighteenth century. In Germany and
Sweden, it was a phenomenon confined to the court and elite. Although
Chinoiserie touched all of Western Europe, there are great variations in
its spread, penetration and longevity.
Where the Jesuits helped the Qianlong emperor to build a Chinese
Versailles, French monarchs had tried to build a Chinese chateau that
similarly symbolised absolute power. There were no Confucian
missionaries in Europe, and the Bourbon court left the construction in the
hands of real architects - a better choice, it would seem. Built around
1670, the Trianon de Porcelaine consisted of a main pavilion with four
wings. It was inspired by the porcelain tower in Nanjing, a nine-story
pavilion covered with porcelain and wind bells. Louis XIV built it for his
mistress Madam de Montespan, much as Qianlong would construct
palaces for the Fragrant Consort. Built as a pleasure pavilion, the
architects covered the central structure and its four branch buildings with
blue and white Chinese-style ceramic tiles to give an impression of
China, just as some Muslims did with their shrines. Unaware that blue
and white were really peasant colours during the Ming, the architects
equated the colour scheme with Chinese style and furnished the
reception hall with marble stone laden with blue patterns; even the tables
and chairs were painted this way.
This Chinese-style palatial structure attracted the attention of many
European royals. The Trianon was demolished in 1687 due to the
difficulty of its maintenance - the tiles fell off in cold weather - and as a
result of the fall from favour of Madam de Montespan. Nevertheless, the
competition to build Chinese pavilions, and Chinese rooms with Chinese
cabinets full of Chinese ceramics, surrounded by Chinese décor and
curios, had just begun. They included the Chinese pavilion at Harmstown
House, built in 1750; the Chinese house in Drottningholm in Sweden,
built around 1760; and the Pavilion Chinois a Bonnelles at Cassan, to
name a few. The Hapsburgs tried to rival the French in Schönbrunn,
where:
'The Chinese Cabinets were decorated with the most precious artefacts
from China and are excellent illustrations of the early eighteenth century
predilection for Far Eastern lacquer work, silk wall-hangings and
porcelain from China and Japan, which were to have an increasingly
formative influence on the home decor of princely residences in Europe.
Materials, wall paper, furniture and vases followed their way into the
interior decoration of princely residences in Europe. They were exhibited
in special rooms reserved for them, or were adapted for decorative
purposes. Huge sums were spent on imports from the Far East, and not
infrequently the imported objects were not given a final finish until they
arrived at their destination.'
This reminds us of Francois Bourgeois's description of European objects
in Qianlong's palaces. Chinese and European monarchs desired those
items which the other possessed. While European royals learned to drink
tea from Chinese porcelain and enjoy Chinese plays such as L'orphelin
de la Chine, the Manchu monarchs in China drank European wine,
listened to European music and enjoyed clocks. Where Louis XIV built
one Chinese palace, the Qianlong emperor built a cluster of European
palaces decorated with European furniture, objets d'art and exotica.
These constructions were, in both cases and in large part, affairs of the
heart, and neither lasted long. What did last was the so-called Anglo-
Chinese garden that would become the prototype of garden art in
Europe. The English came to re-define, hybridize and integrate the
Chinese way of garden design in Europe. William Chambers spent some
time in old Guangzhou, where he was impressed with the gardens:
'The Chinese excel in the art of layout gardens. Their taste in that is
good, and what we have for some time past been aiming at in England,
though not always with success.'"
"The Muses Friend, Tea, does our Fancy aid,
Repress those Vapours which the Head invade,
And keep that Palace of the Soul serene
Fit on her Birth-day to salute a Queen.
Fit for a Queen, tea had become a panacea that inspired genius and
cured drowsiness. Does 'Queen' refer to Elizabeth I, Catherine of
Braganza, or both? Jane Pettigrew believes that it was Queen Catherine
of Braganza who popularised tea.*
[* A Social History of Tea pp. 28-29.]"
"'Long after their intrusion Asian trade remained substantially what it had
always been - exchange between Asian countries themselves con-
ducted by Asian merchants. Trade with Europe, until the late eighteenth
century, was comparatively unimportant to Asia. It sought little from
Europe beyond precious metals or slaves; some amber, coral, and glass,
a few linens or woollens, minor novelties, and, after the fifteenth century,
increasing quantities of fire-arms.'
The Europeans did not have much to offer China or Asia; this is
supported by the works of many other economic historians, E. H.
Pritchard, Michael Greenberg, Charles Boxer and K. N. Chaudhuri
among them. This changed in the mid-eighteenth century with the rising
demand for tea in Europe, Britain in particular, and the rising demand for
opium in China. Tea had made Britain dependent on China, just like
opium made China dependent on British trade. Maxine Berg believes
that tea was not a major factor or consideration in the EIC voyages until
1763, when tea became the reason for the voyages. The mid-eighteenth
century, in other words, appears to mark the breakthrough of tea in the
British consumer market and trade. Tea's popularity would continue to
increase; this is reflected in the Commutation Act of 1784, by which the
government required the East India Company to provide a year's stock
and reduced the tax on tea from 119 to 12.5 percent."
"The ritual of tea drinking can be found in a multitude of Victorian novels,
demonstrating that it was integral to Victorian society: it defined Victorian
'sense and sensibility'. Like the Dream of the Red Chamber, Victorian
novels lent force to the sophisticated tea culture, vividly describing the
ways in which it was consumed and the meaning of its consumption. The
increasing specialisation and sophistication of Victorian tea ritual would
see the emergence of such classics as Mrs. Beeton's The Book of
Household Management."
"The English, rather than the Chinese, had come to perfect the art of tea,
just as the Chinese, rather than the Javanese, came to perfect the cult of
opium smoking. This kind of tea etiquette gave rise to the so-called
observance of High Tea, which became the six o'clock evening meal,
and the Afternoon Tea, which many hotels still serve - especially to
tourists, as it is seen to define Englishness. The Ritz in London
advertises its Afternoon Tea in grand style:
'TEA AT THE RITZ is an institution in itself and we are proud to be a
member of the Tea Council's prestigious Tea Guild.'"
"From Chinoiserie to the 'Scramble for China'
This section tries to probe how the 'race for Oriental opulence' led to
what Robert Bickers recently called the 'Scramble for China'. Europe's
fascination with China began with silk, followed by porcelain and
ultimately crystallized in tea. These products are domestic luxuries that
only China could provide for a sustained period of time. They made
Europe, and Britain in particular, dependent on China until they were
able to produce their own, and this dependence brought Europe/Britain
and China closer together. China lured merchants seeking profits, and it
was a destination for Jesuits who attempted to convert China to
Christianity. While the various East India Companies made Chinese
luxuries available, the missionaries made China more accessible. Many
sang the praises of China from the very beginning of intensified Sino-
Western contact in the fifteenth century. But criticisms increased by the
late eighteenth century, and intensified on the eve of the Opium War.
How and why did admiration turn into contempt, and ultimately hostility?
It took two thousand years for Europeans to find their way to China; it
seems that they were disappointed with what they found. What was the
difference between the European idea of China and the real China that
they discovered?
European works on China began to appear in the decades after the
voyages taken by Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama. The first
important analysis of China was produced by Juan González de
Mendoza (1540-1617). Mendoza never went to China, and his main
sources of information were Galeote Pereira (a Portuguese soldier),
Martin de Rada (of the Order of Saint Augustine) and Gaspar da Cruz (a
Portuguese Dominican friar), who lingered along coastal China in 1550s.
Mendoza's work was first published in 1585 and the scarcity of writing on
China meant that it was soon translated into many European languages.
It is the most comprehensive work of this period and it covered many
aspects of Chinese culture, society and polity. Its significance lay in the
fact that it became a must-read for many who headed to China, and
many more who would never set foot in the country. This book not only
dictated but also grew the European imagination of China. The two
volumes honoured China, while also pointing out the country's problems,
one of which was corruption on the part of officials. Mendoza, in
researching and writing extensively about China, became possibly the
world's first Sinologist, establishing a scholarly discipline that continues
today.
Mendoza was full of praise for a country he had never seen nor been to;
this alone demonstrates his admiration. He elaborated: 'How that in all
this mightie kingdom there is no poore folks walking in the streets nor in
the temple a begging, and the order that the King hath given for the
meantayning of them that cannot worke.' A rich and morally-enlightened
kingdom where the sovereign takes care of the poor: this was Mendoza's
China. He imagined and invented for himself a China, and this fictitious
China became the only one that many who read his work knew.
Mendoza might have heard that this was called Confucianism: like a
father, the sovereign takes care of - controls to be more precise - his
people, who in turn revere him, just as children respect and obey their
parents. Did it ever occur to him that the sovereign might not have
permitted the poor to beg on the street?
Mendoza procured his information from a few men who visited coastal
China for an extremely short period of time, ranging from a few hours to
a few days. It is possible that this was what they saw briefly, in a small
town, at a time when there was neither conflict nor famine. It is also
possible that Mendoza's data collectors were told of such things and then
relayed this information to him, for it is impossible not to notice the
goings-on of any place if one stays long enough. Alvarez Semedo (1585-
1658) did, and noted: 'As the number of the people is so great, there are
not wanting also among them idle persons and vagabonds, a common
and irremediable plague.' The significance of Mendoza's writing was that
it inspired many and carried the imagination of many more. In fact, what
Mendoza described can be found in the newspapers of Mao's or Cold
War China and what he wrote sounded similar to the propaganda of the
Chinese Communist Party.
The picture Mendoza painted was of an enlightened and humane
society where the less privileged were taken care of by the most
privileged. This was, and still is, a moral principle preached by
Christianity, but one that only the Church tried to follow in Europe, a
noble deed that few could afford, since feeding the poor is an expensive
and political enterprise as we saw in 'Feeding China'. Yet the Chinese
had supposedly achieved this at a time when Europe seemed to have
just emerged from the Dark Ages. What an awe-inspiring kingdom China
was: what made it possible? There were two major reasons: first, the
enlightened political philosophy of Confucianism; and second, the
institution that practiced this philosophy, the officialdom run by an army
of scholar-officials who came to define meritocracy. These officials were
the best-educated of the empire and they had earned their right to serve
the emperor and lead the people, rather than being born with such
privileges as was the situation in Europe. Endowed with wisdom through
years of learning, China's rulers were not only the most powerful but also
the most learned.
Confucianism was perceived to be the foundation of an enlightened
society and the examination system the pillar of Chinese enlightenment.
This line of thought would come to influence generations of historians.*
The ideal and practice of Confucianism were undoubtedly noble and
commendable, and the system did produce generations of dedicated
scholar-officials who tried to live up to the highest moral principles. But
many of them became corrupt once they attained office and used their
position to lay their hands on rewards of all kinds, as we have seen in the
case of Cao Yan, He Shen and many others throughout history. The only
thing Mendoza had to criticize was this: 'I do prosecute the religion they
have, and of the idols they do worship.' Everything China had to offer
was superior except its religion. Mendoza believed that his God was
better, and he was followed by generations of Jesuits with the same
opinion. The words of the missionaries were more powerful, since they
lived, worked and sometimes died in China. They reinforced the
European imagination of China that Mendoza first presented, and they
created new visions as well. The first and foremost amongst these
influential Jesuits was the celebrated Matteo Ricci:
'Another remarkable fact and quite worthy of note as marking a
difference from the West, is that the entire kingdom is administrated by
the Order of the Learned, commonly known as The Philosophers. The
responsibility for orderly management of the entire realm is wholly and
completely committed to their charge and care.'
[* Ho Ping-ti, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social
Mobility, 1368-1911 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962);
Etienne Balazs, Chinese Civilisation and Bureaucracy: Variations on a
Theme (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964); Ben Elman, A
Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000).]
Ricci was followed by many, including Gabriel Magaillans. After having
praised nearly everything about China, from Confucius to clocks, as
detailed in Chapter Four, Magaillans continued: 'If China be to be valu'd
for those things which we have already related, it merits certainly a far
greater reputation for the Excellency of its Government.'
 Louis D. Le Comte was another.* Confessor to the Duchess of
Burgundy and one of the French King's mathematicians, Le Comte
arrived in China in February 1688. Like other Jesuits before him, Le
Comte kowtowed or performed the prostration to the Kangxi emperor. He
wrote to the Cardinal D'Estrees with expressions of admiration for China:
'Amongst the several models and plans of government which the
ancients frame, we shall perhaps meet with none so perfect and exact as
is that of the Chinese monarchy. ...
Thus, my lord, I have set before you a general scheme of the
government of China, of which people have spoken such wonders, and
which is indeed admirable for its antiquity, for the wisdom of its maxims,
for the plainness and uniformity of its laws, for that exemplary virtue
which it has produced in a long succession of emperors, for that
regularity and order which it has kept the people in...'
[* Memoirs and Remarks: Geographical, Historical, and Ecclesiastical.
Made in above Ten Years Travels through the Empire of China (London:
John Hughs, 1738).]
An extremely vague but flattering account of China written with an
admiring set of eyes. Le Comte did not speak Chinese; he went to China
at a time when the activities of Jesuits were limited. Yet he wrote expertly
and his writings came to influence many. He caught a glimpse of Kangxi:
'He was something above the middle stature, more corpulent than what
in Europe was reckon handsome; yet somewhat more slender than a
Chinese wish to be: full visaged, disfigured with the small pox, had a
broad forehead, little eyes, and a small nose after the Chinese fashions;
his mouth was well made, and the lower part of his face very agreeable.
In fine, tho' he bears no great majesty in his looks yet they show
abundance of good nature; yet his ways and actions have something of
the prince in them, and show him to be such.'
Like his previous comment on the Chinese polity, his description of
Kangxi is generous and constructive. Writings like this furnished
seventeenth-century Europe with the latest and most authentic
information about China. This would be further reinforced by the
eighteenth-century generation of Jesuits: Jean-Baptist Du Halde (1674-
1743), Jean-Denis Attiret (1702-1768) and Jean Joseph Marie Amiot
(1718-1793) among them. The work of Du Halde became influential, as
he spent thirty-two years in China, ten of them in Beijing serving the
Qianlong emperor; he called China 'the most remarkable of all Countries
yet known'. He was full of admiration for the Chinese form of
government:
'The Political Government of China entirely turns on the Duty of Parents
to their Children, and of Children to their Parents. The Emperor is called
the Father of the Empire.
One cannot help being surprised to see a People infinitely numerous,
naturally unquiet, self-interested even to excess, and always
endeavouring to be rich, nevertheless governed and kept within the
Bounds of their Duty by a small number of Mandarins at the Head of
every Province.'
Du Halde echoed Mendoza and reinforced earlier writings about the way
in which China was governed: the brightest few led the less-educated
majority. What he saw might have been true: people working hard and
going about their business. They were 'kept within the Bounds of their
Duty' by a small number of officials whom they didn't dare to challenge,
as the price was often too high. This doesn't, however, mean that they
never rebelled, as dynastic changes were often, if not exclusively,
brought about by peasant rebellions. Although du Halde saw China's
deficiencies in many branches of sciences just as Mendoza and Ricci
had, and he was not impressed at all with the creative arts such as
music, he was not prepared to denigrate the Chinese on this basis since
they were so advanced in many other branches of learning. The praises
that were heaped on China centred on the Chinese government, which
can be compared to the Catholic Church, with Beijing as the Vatican and
the degree-holding scholar-officials as clergy, leading the flock that
outnumbered them. China was a secular example of what the Catholic
Church could achieve. The superstitious and filial Chinese, many
assumed, could become the best Christians. The Jesuits lauded praise
on a distant land that was so different to Europe, a land that they never
fully understood even after living and working there. What they admired
most was a civil society governed by the most learned rather than the
most powerful. China functioned on a principle that they had tried to
practice with the Catholic Church. The Jesuits wrote what they wanted to
see. Their praises came to influence many who never went to China, as
well as scholarship on the country:
'In China, no Man is a Gentleman by his Birth, but that the Mandarins, or
Gentlemen, become such by their own Parts and Learning: That the
utmost Care and Impartiality is used to examine whether a man is really
qualified to be a Mandarin, before he is admitted into an Order which is
so truly Honourable: That out of these Mandarins, distinguished by their
Habit and Language, the most considerable Officers are chosen for all
Civil and Military Employments.'*
[* Eustace Budgell, A Letter to his Excellency Mr. Ulrick D'ypres, Chief
Minister of the King of Sparta (London: S. West, 1731), p. 30.]
'The long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing
to the operation of a principle, which the policy of ever successive
dynasty has practically maintained in a greater or less degree, viz. That
good government consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit
only, to the rank and power conferred by official posts.'*
[* Thomas T. Meadows, Desultory Notes on the Government and People
of China and on the Chinese Language (London: W. H. Allen, 1847), p.
124.]
Elites in Europe, be they politicians or intellectuals, became increasingly
interested in what China could offer during the Age of Enlightenment.
Labelled the 'Confucius of Europe', François Quesnay (1694-1774) was
an economist and philosopher. John Hobson has argued that his famous
economic theory, that of laissez-faire, was derived from the Chinese
concept of Wu-Wei, and this was part of what he called 'Eastern origins
of Western civilisation'. Bourbon expert Nicholas Dew tells the story of
'printing Confucius in Paris', and believes that the printing of Confucius
Sinarum Philosophus during the reign of Louis XIV 'marked a watershed
in the history of European knowledge of, and access to, the Chinese
philosophical tradition'.* This access was made possible by the King, the
Jesuits and the Bibliotheque du Roi. They were 'manufacturing
Confucius', in the words of Lionel Jensen. This is best seen in the ways
in which many Jesuits presented themselves. Many of their memoirs
opened with themselves in the image of mandarin scholars in their
studies, wearing mandarin hats and robes and holding a book in their
hand.
[* Orientalism in Louis XIV's France (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009), pp. 205-33.]
Royal interest and patronage in China continued into the eighteenth
century, with a different twist. The longevity and stability of the Chinese
monarchy seemed to have fascinated Louis XV and XVI. It more
importantly galvanised their supporters, like Henri-Leonard Bertin (1720-
1792), one of the Louis XV favourite ministers. Bertin carried on a life-
long correspondence with the Jesuits, most persistently with Jean
Joseph Marie Amiot (1718-1793). Like a spy, Amiot reported back to the
French minister on every detail of Qianlong's China, from politics to
herbal medicine, and the letters to Bertin formed the Correspondance
Litteraire, one of the best sources available for the study of Qianlong's
court and China. The nature of Bertin's interest in China is obvious:
where the absolute monarchy was crumbling in France, it remained
stone solid in China and it seemed that lessons gleaned from the
Chinese example might help the Bourbons retain their authority.
Although French and European scholars and art historians have
highlighted Bourbon and French interest in China, few if any have
pointed out the bizarre combination of the French fascination. François
Quesnay, Henri-Leonard Bertin and Jean Joseph Marie Amiot are three
strange bedfellows - intellectual, monarchist and Jesuit, respectively.
They are very different people with diverse, if not opposing, political
views. Where intellectuals saw enlightenment in Confucianism, the
Catholic Church saw opportunity for revival, whereas the Bourbon kings
and their loyalists saw hope in the Chinese monarchy. How could
eighteenth century China offer so much to such a different array of
people? This obviously demands much more study, and joint attention
from both French and Chinese scholars.
Admiration and wishful thinking defined the early writings on China that
came to influence many, a great lesson about sources. If we dispute the
account and conclusion of Mendoza because he never went to China, it
would be hard to do so with those furnished by the Jesuits. Matteo Ricci,
Lewis D. Le Comte and Jean-Baptiste Du Halde all seem to validate
Mendoza. They have provided the most coherent account of China, and
their works live on as original sources, shaping the research and writings
of past as well as future generations of scholars. Yet some of the content
of these sources is undoubtedly exaggerated, inaccurate and biased.
They were written with an admiring set of eyes and wishful thoughts, and
they stand in sharp contrast to observances written from a more critical
perspective. These commentators on China saw and consequently wrote
about their own, very different, China.
Negative views of China eventually emerged to challenge the writings of
the Jesuits. Damaging views began to gather an audience by the mid-
eighteenth century, just as the British were rising to be the dominant
maritime power in Asian waters. Despotism and corruption were the key
points of criticism. Daniel Defoe (1659-1731) did not have any positive
things to say about China, as the British became increasingly frustrated
with the corruption of Chinese officials they had to deal with and the
manner in which they were treated by the Chinese authorities. Macao
and Guangzhou were the last stops of George Anson (1697-1762),
captain of the flagship Centurion, before he returned to Britain in 1744.
He had heard of the vexations in dealing with the Chinese and now he
learned of these difficulties first hand. He was only able to meet the
Viceroy after a great deal of trial and tribulation, and this is a description
of their encounter:
'Mr. Anson then proceeded, and told him that the subjects of the King of
Great Britain trading to China had complained to him, the Commodore,
of the vexatious impositions, both of the merchants and inferior custom-
houses officers, to which they were frequently necessitated to submit by
reason of the difficulty of getting access to the Mandarins, who alone
could grant them redress; that it was his, Mr. Anson's duty, as an officer
of the King of Great Britain, to lay before the Viceroy these grievances of
the British subjects, which he hoped the Viceroy would take into
consideration, and would give orders that hereafter there should be no
just reasons for complaint.
Here Mr. Anson, and waited some time in expectation of an answer; but
nothing being said, he asked his interpreter if he was certain the Viceroy
understood what he had urged; the interpreter told him he was certain it
was understood, but he believed no reply would be made to it.'
The Viceroy and his entourage the Jesuits praised. These men were
examples of the very people that were not the living examples of high
moral principles, but corrupt and inept officials. It is very interesting that it
took an economic historian, E. H. Pritchard, to rationalise the behaviour
of these officials: 'Competition among scholars stimulated corruption
before getting into office and extortion afterwards, to make up for the
long years of privation and financial loss.' Corruption, arrogance and
refusal to deal with problems would become chief British grievances with
regard to China, and they would ultimately provide the case for war.
Criticism of China fell into two large categories: the authoritarian system
and corrupt officials. It is really the other side of the same coin that the
Jesuits saw. Anson could not have failed to notice China's military
weakness, and this would be the subject of Cornelius Franciscus de
Pauw (1739-1799), private reader to King Frederic II of Prussia.
 Like Mendoza, De Pauw had never been to China, yet he was deeply
contemptuous of China's military. He saw China in a different light not
only because he was a critical observer, but possibly because he also
saw what he wanted to see, much like the Jesuits. What de Bauw wrote
reveals what was on his mind and that of his sovereign, Frederic of
Prussia, who was eager to catch up with the French and, more
importantly, the British. De Bauw ridiculed the five divisions of the
Chinese, Manchu to be more precise, military forces in great detail:
'The first comprehends the cavalry; they have no fire arms of any kind;
because the Tartars, who perhaps understand this part of tactics better
than any other, are convinced that bows are so much preferable to
musketoons; and they continue, like all the Parthians and Scythians, to
shoot arrows when in full gallop. The second division is composed of
cannoniers and arquebufiers; the third of pikermen; the fourth of infantry,
who use bows; and last of all, those who are armed with swords and
bucklers.'
With arrows and swords, the Romans, Arabs and Mongols had
conquered much of the world, and the Manchus had subdued China. De
Pauw was contemptuous; he forgot that it was China which had invented
gunpowder. But he was correct that Qing China was falling behind as it
rested on its glory, while the smaller kingdoms of Europe were competing
against each other and modernising their militaries. The deficiencies in
the Chinese military system which de Pauw pointed out would be fully
revealed in the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century. He pointed his
fingers at the Jesuits and criticised 'the system of misrepresentation,
formerly introduced by the Jesuits, respecting China'. He named Jean-
Baptiste Du Halde and Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, among others, whom
he accused of falsely representing China. He believed that 'China is
more governed by police than by laws' and:
'The two chief springs of this government are the whip and cudgel; and
neither Chinese nor Tartar can be secure against this discipline. The
emperor, say Father du Halde, sometimes orders a few bastinadoes to
persons of great rank and consequences, and afterwards treats them as
if nothing had happened. This is the conduct of all the despots of Asia
without exception.'
The emperor and his government were, in De Pauw's view, tyrants who
bullied and intimidated their people: terror and cruelty were their
weapons. This is a very different country than the one which the Jesuits
described for us. De Pauw did not see the presence of a highly
admirable moral principle, which like an invisible hand dictated the lives
and works of everyone. The almighty emperor was aware and did punish
the corrupt officials, who continued in their ways despite the occasional
outburst of punishment. De Pauw believed that all Asian rulers were
similar and this was driven home by later observers like George
Staunton: 'The political, moral, and historical works of the Chinese
contains no abstract ideas of liberty, which might lead them to the
assertion of independence.' De Pauw and his fellow critics of China
exposed the fundamental flaws with the guiding philosophy of the
Chinese government and the institution that had made it possible for this
to last.
Admiration and praise for China seemed to have completely
disappeared by the 1790s. Perhaps it was the French Revolution that
made Europeans in general, and the French in particular, change their
mind about China, as well as the suppression of the Society of Jesus.*
Where the Industrial Revolution shaped Europe's economic
development, the French Revolution influenced the course of politics and
set the standard for European-style democracy. The English had
knocked on China's door several times; they remained somewhat
hopeful in the 1790s, despite the negative image they held of the
country. Reports of Lord McCartney's mission would damage the
European image of China still further. The focal point centred on how
Lord McCartney was received by the Qianlong emperor in 1793:
'The Ambassador, instructed by the president of the tribunal of rites,
held the large and magnificent square box of gold, adorned with jewels,
in which was inclosed his Majesty's letter to the Emperor, between both
hands lifted above his head; and in that manner, ascending the few step
that led to the throne, and bending on one knee, presented the box, with
a short address, to his Imperial Majesty; who graciously receiving it with
his own hands, placed it by his side, and expressed 'the satisfaction he
felt at the testimony which his Britannic Majesty gave to him of his
esteem and good will, in sending him an Embassy, with a letter and rare
presents; that he, on his part, entertained sentiments of the same kind
towards the Sovereign of Great Britain, and hoped that harmony should
always be maintained among their respective subjects.''
[* D. E. Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-
1800 (Lanham [MD]: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), pp. 28-7 &
53-60.]
While George Staunton clearly states here that Lord McCartney did not
perform the humiliating ritual of kowtow, this nevertheless became a
source of irritation, criticism, and an abiding controversy in Sino-British
relations, and ultimately the case for war. As the debate about kowtow
goes on and is revived from time to time, historians seem to have
forgotten a more revealing issue, namely why kowtowing was a problem
for the English when it wasn't for others before them, such as Louis D. Le
Comte:
'Next we fell on our knees, and having joined our hands, and lifted them
up to our heads, so that our arms and elbows were at the same height,
we bowed thrice to the ground, and then stood again as before; The
same prostration was repeated a second time, and again a third, when
we were ordered to come forward, and kneel before his majesty.
The gracious prince, whose condescension I cannot enough admire,
having enquired of us the grandeur and present state of France, the
length and dangers of our voyage, and the manner of our treatment by
the Mandarins.'
The Jesuits kowtowed; so did all the merchants, the Portuguese and the
Dutch. What the Jesuits and merchants had accommodated since the
late Ming was rejected by the English in the late eighteenth century.
China had not changed since the late Ming but Europe, the English in
this case, had. China had irritated the missionaries, but most of them
seemed to have internalised these irritations. China had also frustrated
the merchants, but many had found ways to accommodate or deal with
their displeasure. The English, however, were not prepared to swallow
their pride. Like De Pauw, they realised that China was not as rich and
strong as they read about or were told; this message was driven home
by the Amherst mission in the early nineteenth century. Clarke Abel,
secretary to Lord Amherst, went ashore to look for plants when they
passed the Gulf of Pe-tche-lee that led to Beijing. Poor and savage, this
was the China her critics, the English in this case, saw twenty years
before the Opium War:
'On my return, I passed through the village, and was presently
surrounded by its male in habitants. Dirt, squalidness, and extreme
poverty were as usual their leading characteristics. Their inhabitations
were miserable beyond anything which England can exemplify. Built of
mud, and divided into unfurnished rooms, ventilated by several
apertures, they looked more like the dens of beasts than the habitations
of men.'
We have seen two very different kinds of representation, one positive
and the other negative, shaped by the two opposing perspectives and
convictions of the commentators. It was natural that observers admired a
kingdom that seemed prosperous and promising; it was equally natural
that a closer look allowed them to see the differences, while closer
contact generated friction. Respect turned into contempt, ultimately
culminating in the hostilities of 1839 and the outbreak of the Opium War.
The late eighteenth century was the turning point, as fundamental
political and socio-economic change took place in Europe. Europe,
England in particular, was changing, not China. In many ways, China
remains fundamentally the same today, despite two centuries of often
violent change.
Did the Chinese, both the court/elite and the ordinary people, go through
a similar journey which led them to see the outside world, Europe in
particular, in a different light? Perhaps this helps answer the question I
posed in Chapters One and Two. If the Tang-Song-Yuan regimes
behaved like a friendly merchant, the Ming-Qing regimes behaved more
like a suspicious trader who carefully guarded his own territory and
resources. Where the Tang-Song-Yuan regimes had welcomed
foreigners to come and do business in China, the Ming-Qing regimes
were deeply suspicious of them. The new wave of European visitors was
very different from their predecessors. They were more arrogant, like the
Portuguese Simão de Andrade; more violent, like the Dutch who
massacred tens of thousands of Chinese in Java; and more persistent,
like the English who kept knocking at the door.
The English had come before: Captain Weddell, George Anson, James
Flint, Lord McCartney and Lord Amherst, as we have seen. They would
come again in 1834, represented by Lord Napier, and followed by
Captain Charles Elliot, who led the first expedition during the Opium
War."
"The small island nation, which China had managed to keep at bay since
the failure of Captain Weddell in 1636, brought the Qing dynasty to its
knees two hundreds years later. Britain would dictate not only its future,
with the Treaty of Nanking, but also the ways in which China should
conduct its business and foreign affairs, as evidenced by the
establishment of the Zhongli Yamen and the British-controlled Maritime
Customs after an even more humiliating Second Opium War in 1860.
Although the Qing court embarked on reform, more battleships came to
humiliate China in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95 and in the
suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Not only did more foreign
goods and foreigners continue to arrive, but many Chinese sailed away
to foreign shores, not to make money but to learn. They came back and
led the Nationalist and then Communist revolutions - the worst fear of the
Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors came true. The seas they feared and
the people they suspected, those who sojourned to foreign lands and
returned, overthrew the Qing dynasty. Foreigners, foreign goods and
ideas that came from the seas, saw the end of the Middle Kingdom
founded in BC 221, and played a most important role in the creation of
modern China."
"Conclusion
Just as foreign goods enriched and transformed the Chinese economy,
culture and society from the late Ming onwards, silk, porcelain and tea
re-shaped European, and particularly British, history and ways of life at
roughly the same time. These 'strange parallels' testify to common
themes in global history which demand global analysis and synthesis.
The Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors were interested in
European clocks, oil painting and architecture; their counterparts in
France and the rest of Europe were likewise fascinated with Chinese
philosophy, objects d'art and architecture. This mutual appreciation did
not last long, however. The Europeans sought after and laid siege to
China, but closer contact led to irritation. Sixteenth and eighteenth
century China, and some would say even today's China, operated on the
same political philosophy. But Europe went through fundamental change
over the course of those two hundred years, and those transformations
also changed European attitudes towards China.
The Europeans wanted what China had to offer; they also wanted China
to accept European values; they desired - and still do - a different China.
When they found that China was not accommodating, they used force to
subdue and carve out their spheres of control and interest. Unlike the
earlier regimes, the Ming-Qing were preoccupied with the threat posed
by foreigners, and foreign ideas borne by sojourning Chinese returning
from overseas. They had reason as the Europeans were different from
earlier waves of foreigners: they came heavily armed and often used
force; they were competitive and aggressive. A comparative study of the
different waves of foreigners who traded with China will undoubtedly help
us better comprehend Chinese regimes' changing attitudes towards the
sea and how their interaction with it shaped the course of history."
"CONCLUSION
Charles Hucker has summarised the reign of the Kangxi, Yongzheng
and Qianlong emperors (r. 1662-1796) thusly:
'For the first century and a half of their rule the Manchus gave China
good government and strong leadership, so that Chinese life flourished
in every regard. In the eighteenth century China attained the last golden
age of the imperial tradition and very likely was the most awe-inspiring
state in the world.'
Neither he nor any other historian has pointed out that this was made
possible by the seas. The seas shaped the Qing's political outlook and
characterised its economic policy, while the foreign goods which came
from overseas distinguished Qing court life and transformed Chinese
consumer culture. The seas defined China's relations with the outside
world too, from Southeast Asia to Europe. It was the maritime world that
drained excess population and enabled millions more to live on the
mainland. It was products made overseas that clothed China's expanding
population and furnished their households. And it was visitors who came
from the seas who helped spread the gospel of China and introduced
European luxuries. We can only imagine what would have happened to
the Qing if it had not engaged with the seas at all.
Looking at China's relationship with the seas helps us to better
understand Qing politics and policies. National security took precedence
over a more liberal policy that would have generated revenue; the
Manchus didn't leave their survival to chances, as evidenced by their
crossing of the Taiwan Strait to crush resistance. Could this
preoccupation explain their other adventures, such as the conquest of
Tibet and Xinjiang? If the Tang-Song-Yuan regimes were confronted with
the same problem, they fashioned laws to deal with it. The
'inconsistencies of the seas,' the father-son tug-of-war pattern peculiar to
the Ming-Qing, demands greater study; more so does the challenge of
the Europeans, who were more dangerous than the foreigners who came
before. Managing China meant feeding an ever-increasing population
during the Qing. When the land could no longer meet the growing
demand, the regime turned to the seas, as coastal people had done for
centuries. The Qing court solicited rice from Southeast Asia and even
devised a scheme that encouraged the Chinese to go and procure the
grain. The Manchus were flexible and innovative when they had to be.
The seas help us better comprehend the Qing's dependence on
maritime trade and Southeast Asia. Rice is one of many products that
the region offered China: Southeast Asia has been pivotal in the gradual
transformation of China since the Song, if not earlier, and China would
not have become what it is today without its links to the region. The
peoples of Southeast Asia responded to demands from China, a process
which transformed the smaller economies of the region. Trade with
Southeast Asia enabled the population to grow on the mainland, but it
also emboldened China to meddle in the region's internal affairs,
interference which continued into the Mao era, and which some argue
persists today. In the same way, China's growing appetite continues to
transform the economies of Africa, as many Chinese have already
flooded that continent. To what extent will this transform Africa as it did
Southeast Asia? What do these regions have in common that have made
it possible for the Chinese to exploit them? This should inspire cross-
regional and cross-disciplinary research in this age of global history.
Maritime trade distinguished Qing court life and high culture. Just as
fragrances shaped court culture from the Han to the Song and the Ming,
scientific inventions from Europe fascinated first the Ming and later the
Qing emperors. Royal affection for exotic and expensive foreign goods is
consistent throughout history, and this was made possible by the Jesuits
during the Qing. In their endeavour to convert the Middle Kingdom, the
Jesuits put themselves at the service of the Qing emperors, who were
indeed very interested in what Europe and the missionaries had to offer.
Would the Opium War have taken place if this had continued? Qing
China was not closed to the outside world, as generations of historians
have argued. It was more open than Europe, where no monarchs
employed Chinese men of letters. It even tolerated Christianity, until the
Vatican itself became intolerable. Its openness, however, came with
conditions, as the regime appropriated foreign goods and ideas
according to its needs, or 'on their own terms', to use the phrase
fashioned by Benjamin Elman.2 This aspect of Qing China's openness
demands independent studies.
 Maritime trade transformed Qing consumer culture. Opium is a good
example, as I explain in The Social Life of Opium in China; so are foreign
cloth, maize, foreign houses, clocks, bicycles, and many more. While
some foreign products survived and thrived, some languished for years
or disappeared, and others would reappear after the Opium War. How do
their different social lives enhance our understanding of Qing China? A
pattern with variations did emerge. Perceived value is key to a
commodity's acceptance and survival, and even more so are the timing
and agent of introduction, and the calibre of its first consumers. Each
foreign import led a different social life and each deserves independent
study, as their diverse routes to indigenisation can tell us a great deal
about demographic change, the needs of local consumer society, the
capacity of local consumer culture, the resilience of local brands, and the
competence of local commercial networks. Geography and climate
mattered; more so did traditional belief in healing.
The changing categories of imports point to the Wind of the West and
help us see long-term socio-economic and cultural changes more clearly.
Population growth and increasing urbanisation surfaced during the late
Ming and manifested during the Qing through consumer demand, and
China's foreign trade responded - for the first time - to demands from the
market. This is extraordinary, as foreign trade had catered only to the
court and elite from the Han through the mid-Ming. This shift coincided
with the coming of Europeans and the onset of the Industrial Revolution
in Europe. We see the dynamics of endogenous and exogenous forces
at work. In fact, the Wind of the West is still blowing. Many foreign goods
are still deemed better and valued higher than their native counterparts,
a trend that has intensified in the post-Mao era, as young Chinese wear
the same outfits as their counterparts in the West and enjoy American-
style fast food, while their upwardly mobile parents have moved the
family into small villas or gated high-rises - which are still called yang
fang and yang lou - and more importantly drive foreign cars. Many have
also opted to educate their children in North America, Europe or
Australia rather than in China.
The seas defined the Qing's relations with Europe and there are many
'strange parallels' to be drawn between Chinese and European history.
China had offered the world silk since the Roman era, porcelain since
the rise of Islam, and tea after the Zheng He-Da Gama voyages. In
return it received Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, fragrances, maize,
clocks and much more. Qing China welcomed much of what Europe had
to offer, just as Europe sought Chinese luxuries. But the court and elite
were nevertheless deeply suspicious of European ideas and rejected
Christianity. The Taiping Rebellion and the Nationalist and Communist
Revolutions, however, represent a break in this pattern, as they were all
inspired by foreign religious or political thought. Does this volume help us
better grasp this?
This certainly is a large question that demands systematic attention; but
some preliminary conjunctions can be made here. For a foreign product -
foreign religious or political thought in this case - to survive, the Chinese
must see its usefulness to them. To evoke Ricci again, 'the Chinese
possess the ingenuous trait of preferring that which comes from without
to that which they possess themselves, once they realize the superior
quality of the foreign product'. The Taiping rebels, the Nationalists and
the Communists found something 'superior' or useful in Christianity,
Republicanism and Communism respectively. Even then, they had to
redefine these foreign ideals before they could exploit them to further
their own political ambitions. This is important, as the Chinese may yet
find some usefulness in the practice of democracy, which continues to
sour China's relations with the West, but history has taught us that China
will only do so in its own timeframe and on its own terms.
This volume has enhanced our understanding of the Qing; it has also
helped us better comprehend China's maritime history from the Qin-Han
to the Yuan-Ming. From the First Emperor to Qianlong in the eighteenth
century, China's Sons of Heaven sought luxuries, profit, power and
prestige from the maritime world; so did their officials, as exotic and
expensive foreign goods defined Chinese corruption. While the Wind of
Hu blew from the west during the Tang, the Wind of the West arrived to
re-define Ming-Qing China. The tribute trade was transformed into a
consumer market when foreign goods - cultures as well - became the
'elements of Chinese civilisation', as Mark Lewis put it. It was the seas
that made Tang China a 'Cosmopolitan Empire', the Song dynasty
China's 'Greatest Age', and the reign of the three Qing emperors China's
'last golden age'.
This volume has challenged the 'Walled Kingdom' perspective, a biased
framework that has not only limited the vision of scholars of China, but
also the horizons of the Chinese themselves. This can be seen from the
book and documentary He Shang or River Elegy, which inspired the
1989 student-led pro-democracy movement. The Elegy is dedicated to
the sand-clogged Yellow River, which symbolises the land-bound
civilisation it bred: authoritarian and backward. The blue sea, on the
contrary, offers hope, representing democracy and progress. The
message is that the River and the civilisation it bred have died; China
should now look to the sea for inspiration. The ocean was thought to be
the source of new blood, and the opening of China as a result of the
Opium Wars was expected to lead China to a new civilisation bred by the
sea. Like Witold Rodzinski, the author Su Xiaokang did not see that
China's coastline is longer than the Great Wall; it has also bred a
civilisation that has been marginalised and mystified precisely by writers
like himself.
This volume has highlighted the seas and their role in the making of
Qing China. It has demonstrated that the seas can be used to measure
China's audacity and capacity; they can also reveal her authoritarianism
and weakness. They can be used as a benchmark to better comprehend
China from the Qin-Han to the Ming-Qing. The maritime world shaped
China, late imperial China in particular, possibly much more than the
continental world. Although it will take extensive and cross-regional
research to fully comprehend the importance of the sea in Chinese
history and integrate it with the main narrative, I believe that in
highlighting the case of the Qing, this volume has at least laid the
foundation for future studies."