The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire [ebook ed.] 1108341136, 9781108341134

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The Blue Frontier

In this revisionist history of the eighteenth-century Qing Empire from a maritime perspective, Ronald C. Po argues that it is reductive to view China over this period exclusively as a continental power with little interest in the sea. With a coastline of almost 14,500 kilometers, the Qing was not a landlocked state. Although it came to be known as an inward-looking empire, Po suggests that the Qing was integrated into the maritime world through its naval development and customs institutionalization. In contrast to our orthodox perception, the Manchu court, in fact, proactively engaged with the ocean politically, militarily, and even conceptually. The Blue Frontier offers a much broader picture of the Qing as an Asian giant responding flexibly to challenges and extensive interaction on all frontiers – both land and sea – in the long eighteenth century. Ronald C. Po is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Cambridge Oceanic Histories Edited by David Armitage Alison Bashford Sujit Sivasundaram

Across the world, historians have taken an oceanic turn. New maritime histories offer fresh approaches to the study of global regions, and of longdistance and long-term connections. Cambridge Oceanic Histories includes studies across whole oceans (the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic) and particular seas (among them, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the North Sea, the Black Sea). The series is global in geography, ecumenical in historical method, and wide in temporal coverage, intended as a key repository for the most innovative transnational and world histories over the longue durée. It brings maritime history into productive conversation with other strands of historical research, including environmental history, legal history, intellectual history, labour history, cultural history, economic history and the history of science and technology. The editors invite studies that analyse the human and natural history of the world’s oceans and seas from anywhere on the globe and from any and all historical periods.

The Blue Frontier Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire Ronald C. Po London School of Economics and Political Science

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108424615 DOI: 10.1017/9781108341134 © Ronald C. Po 2018 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2018 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-108-42461-5 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments List of the Emperors of the Qing Dynasty, 1644–1912

page vi viii ix xi xv

Introduction

1

1 Setting the Scene

29

2 Modeling the Sea

44

3 The Dragon Navy

89

4 Guarded Management

143

5 Writing the Waves

181

Conclusion

206

Appendix 1 “Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents 216 Appendix 2 A Chronicle of Sea Patrol Regulations in the Long Eighteenth Century 232 Appendix 3 Glossary of Chinese Characters 234 Bibliography 242 Index 291

v

Figures

0.1 A satirical cartoon featuring Sino-Japanese relations after the First Sino-Japanese War. Source: China Punch. page 2 0.2 Da Qing fensheng yutu 大清分省輿圖 (Provincial Atlas of the Qing Dynasty), showing the coastline of the Qing Empire (late eighteenth-century edition). Source: Library of Congress 4 0.3 Yuti pingding Taiwan zhantu 欽定平定臺灣戰圖 (Military Diagram of Pacifying Taiwan), showing how the Qing mobilized its navy to Taiwan in the Qianlong era 8 1.1 Part of the Qisheng yanhaitu 七省沿海圖 (A Coastal Map of the Seven Provinces) (Reading Digital Atlas, Taipei) 36 2.1 Zhang Xie’s Dong Xi Nan haiyi zhuguo zongtu 東西南海夷諸國總圖 (1618) 53 2.2 The Coastal Map of the Seven Provinces (Qisheng yanhaitu) 57 2.3 Wanli haifang tushou 萬里海防圖說 (1524–1526 first edition; reproduced in 1725) 58 2.4 Part of the Qisheng yanhaitu 59 2.5 Changshi shuishiying neiwaiyang yutu 昌石水師營內外洋輿圖 (c.1730, British Library Board; Shelfmark: Cartographic Items Additional MS. 16,359.i.) 66 2.6 Pingyang ying yanhai jiezhi tu 平陽營沿海界址圖 (c.1739, British Library Board; Shelfmark: Cartographic Items Additional MS. 16,358.g.) 67 2.7 The diagram of fengzhou (fengzhou tu 封舟圖). Source: Zhongshan chuanxin lu 中山傳信錄 68 3.1 Part of the Shandong, Zhili, Shengjing haijiang tu 山東直隸盛京海疆圖 (preserved in the Library of Congress) 92 3.2 “Dividing lines” (fenjie 分界) (Qisheng yanhai tu, nineteenth-century edition) 98 3.3 Patrol limit of the Dengzhou navy (Qisheng yanhaitu, 1880s edition) 106 vi

List of Figures

3.4 Shandong Dengzhou zhenbiao shuishi qianying beixun haikou daoyu tu 山東登州鎮標水師前營北汛海口島嶼圖 3.5 Dingjian Taijun jungongchang tushuo 鼎建臺郡軍工廠圖說 (1778, National Palace Museum) 3.6 Juan Jian Penghu Xiyu futu tushuo 捐建澎湖西嶼浮圖圖說 (by Jiang Yuanshu, 1778, National Palace Museum) 3.7 Nan’ao (Qisheng yanhaitu, 1780s edition) 4.1 Eight major sea routes I 4.2 Eight major sea routes II

vii

107 124 126 130 165 166

Tables

3.1 The eight different types of sea waters (Shandong tongzhi, Yongzheng edition) page 4.1 Three layers of the Customs Offices 4.2 Summary of the eight domestic trade routes 5.1 Chen’s “maritime categorization” A.1 “Inner sea” and “maritime frontier” in imperial documents A.2 “Outer sea” in imperial documents

viii

105 149 167 192 218 226

Preface

This book provides a bird’s-eye view of the maritime endeavors of the eighteenth-century Qing Empire. Even if the Qing was commonly seen as a continental-oriented regime, at least by the end of the eighteenth century, it does not follow that it was incapable of exerting its influence across the sea. To prove my proposition, I approach the topic by examining the conceptual framework of Qing maritime policies, its maritime militarization and the institutionalization of its Customs Offices, as well as some nonofficial maritime writings. In a nutshell, I attempt to place in the foreground the indigenous dynamism of high Qing maritime policies and its maritime consciousness so as to substantiate the history of frontier and maritime studies in Asia. I also hope that the present study will contribute to the existing research by introducing both a theoretical and a historical analysis that positions the Qing Empire as a maritime player in the early modern period. I am immensely indebted to the works of previous scholarship for the insights I have gained on the issues to be discussed in The Blue Frontier, from the inner–outer model to maritime militarization, and from the Customs Office to maritime writings. I am particularly obligated to the work of John E. Wills Jr., Wang Gungwu, and Jane K. Leonard, who noted that late imperial China was also a sea-based society whose elaborate civil bureaucracy can be studied from a maritime point of view. Timothy Brook, Chen Guodong, and Zheng Yangwen see the Qing as a prime mover in maritime and global history, beginning in the seventeenth century, during the first wave of globalization. Therefore, the dynasty’s participation in the maritime sphere should be studied in parallel with its ambitious achievements on land. Research conducted by Huang Hongbin and Li Qilin further inspired me to focus on the naval development of the high Qing across the East Asian Sea; and Hans van de Ven’s, Gang Zhao’s, and Angela Schottenhammer’s studies inspired me to trace the origins and significance of the Customs Office in the early modern period. Above all, this book connects their discerning perspectives to the works of Peter C. Perdue, Leonard Blussé, and many others, ix

x

Preface

who have pioneered a refreshing Qing history that is based on the study of both land and sea frontiers within the broader global context. I have learned tremendously from their substantial and stimulating academic contributions to late imperial China and maritime Asia. Without their insights, this book, in its present form, would never have seen the light of day.

Acknowledgments

I habitually enjoy reading authors’ acknowledgments, usually after spotting the titles of their works and consulting the tables of contents. I consider these several pages of gratitude to be the most sincere part of a book. I am not saying that the chapters following the acknowledgments are less genuine. What I want to emphasize is that authors usually write the acknowledging section of their books at the very last. To me, at least, this is a critical phase when a writer is ready to reflect on what they have achieved, so far, both academically and professionally, and to whom they owe an array of debts. If we treat the acknowledgments as a type of primary source, then we should be able to map out the social networks and concrete linkages these authors have developed throughout their academic journeys and whether or not these journeys have been voyages or treks. I am also curious about whom the writers would like to thank. By reading their names, along with their affiliations, I feel as if I am expanding my circle of friends, even though I may not have personally met those being mentioned. In any event, I still find joy in making these associations. At the same time, I continue to be amazed by the enormous and growing circle of scholars who are interested in Chinese, Asian, and maritime studies. Some acknowledgments consist of more than 100 names, and I believe that every single individual listed therein has played a crucial role in making those books possible. By the time I began typing this sentence, I did not know how many names and affiliations I would be writing out. But to all of you listed below, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say that you mean a lot to me and, indeed, more than you will ever know. Unlike most acknowledgments, which usually begin with “I thank the following people for their support and inspiration . . .,” I would like to begin with a couple of apologies. This book has taken me a long time to complete. During the course of researching this project, I have always prioritized this book over my family and those who have been supporting me unfailingly, specifically Sharon and Hermine. They are not academics xi

xii

Acknowledgments

and sometimes they have no idea why I am so interested in this discipline. Yet they never question or complain about my decisions. So, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my apologies to them. I am not a good son, nor am I a good brother. But I am very certain that I love you all. To my little sister Erica, particularly, I want to apologize for not being able to stay in Hong Kong over the past nine years and fulfil my role as a big brother. I know that you have done a lot for our family and you are amazing. I also want to let you, Daddy and Mami, know that this book is something I take very earnestly; therefore I have decided to dedicate it to you both. The idea for this book came to me during my high-school years. The first few pages of the forthcoming Introduction explain the reasons for my curiosity and ensuing dedication to this subject. I only decided to embark on this academic project as a graduate student. And I was occasionally asked if this project was even possible, as it was questioned whether the Qing was either a maritime power or a sea power and the period I wished to cover – the long eighteenth century – was simply too vast. However, I am deeply indebted to my teachers, who never suggested this project could not be done and coupled this reassurance with their constant support. My largest debts are to Clara Ho, Ricardo Mak, Angela Leung, Joachim Kurtz, Harald Fuess, Robin D. S. Yates, and Grace Fong. Your astute guidance and words of encouragement have been invaluable gifts over many years. Not only have you all been fantastic mentors, but you have also taught me how to mentor others. It would be impossible to count the many ways you all helped me during this journey. I will remain forever grateful. Peter C. Perdue, Hans van de Ven, Robin D. S. Yates, Mark Elvin, and Robert Antony took the time to read my early drafts. Their insightful comments and inspiring suggestions helped sharpen my ideas and arguments. The late John E. “Jack” Wills Jr. also provided indispensable vision as I was formulating the theme of the project. Helen Siu, likewise, inspired me to look at coastal China from not only a historical angle, but also an anthropological one. Without their blend of wisdom, incisive feedback, and intellectual stimulation, this book would almost certainly never have come to exist. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their incredibly constructive, thoughtful, and meticulous reports. Needless to say, while all of them helped sharpen and improve the manuscript, the responsibility for any remaining errors is mine alone. My sincere thanks also go to Rudolf Wagner, Barbara Mittler, and the postgraduate community I became part of when I was in Heidelberg, particularly Xu Chun, Yi-wei Wu, Liying Sun, Emily Graft, and Arthur Yang. Meanwhile, I have to express my appreciation for the grant

Acknowledgments

xiii

generously provided by the Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies toward the cost of publishing this book project. The same level of gratitude goes to Philip Buckley, Griet Vankeerberghen, Macy Zheng, Shi Song, Cuilan Liu, Allen Chen, Anne-Sophie Pratte, Dan Blurry, Ina Lo, Wenyi Huang, Shuojun Chen, Zhifeng Wang, Wanming Wang, Tracy Cui, and Danni Cai, whom I met when I was at McGill University, where I received my first academic position as a postdoctoral fellow. All of you made this Canadian, or Quebec, metropolis a warmer hub. The year 2016 was a remarkable turning point in my career as I was offered a position as a faculty member at the London School of Economics. Since then, I have been surrounded by stimulating, devoted, and supportive colleagues. I am especially grateful to Janet Hartley, Matthew Jones, Antony Best, Gagan Sood, David Motadel, Paul Keenan, Paul Stock, Leigh Jenco, Demetra Frini, Nayna Bhatti, and Jacquie Minter for their comradeship and for creating such a stimulating environment for historical studies. Beyond LSE, I have had the privilege of obtaining love and support from a cluster of friends and colleagues who are either based in or have visited the UK. Lily Chang, Victor Fan, Leon Rocha, Andrea Janku, Xuelei Huang, Loretta Kim, Pauline Khng, Ada Yung, Catherine Chan, Shing-ting Lin, Bin Xu, and many others have made England even more likable. I’d like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to you all. My copyeditors, Glenna M. Jenkins and John Gaunt, have been with me at various stages of my writing. I deeply appreciate their perception, endurance, and care with the text. I would also like to thank my editor Lucy Rhymer and the Cambridge University Press, particularly Natasha Whelan and Lisa Carter, for their enthusiastic support. The editors of Late Imperial China, the American Journal of Chinese Studies, and the European Review of History kindly accepted for publication portions of some chapters of this book. They also generously granted permission for those pieces to appear here. By reading my acknowledgments, I hope you now have a better sense of who I am and also of the people who are so very special to me. If you have skipped ahead to this last paragraph, then I strongly recommend you go back to the first sentence and start all over again before moving on to the next page.

Emperors of the Qing Dynasty, 1644–1912

Name by which most customarily known

Reign

Shunzhi Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong Jiaqing Daoguang Xianfeng Tongzhi Guangxu Xuantong

1644–1661 (18 years) 1662–1722 (61 years) 1723–1735 (13 years) 1736–1796 (60 years) 1796–1820 (25 years) 1821–1850 (30 years) 1851–1861 (11 years) 1862–1875 (13 years) 1875–1908 (34 years) 1909–1912 (3 years)

xv

Shengjing Ya lu

Jinzhou

Zhili

R.

Sea of Japan

Beijing

Bohai Sea

Tianjin

Lüshun

Korea

Yellow R.

Dengzhou

Shanxi

Yantai

Yellow Sea

Jiaozhou

Shandong

Henan Jiangsu Yangzhou

Anhui

Ch Fuzhou

Shantou

Macau

Pearl River Delta

Hainan Is.

So

ut

h

i Ch

na

Se

n

nS tra i

Taiwa

ng doGuangzhou g n (Canton) ua G

t

Fujian Xiamen (Amoy)

Guangxi

Ea

st

Jiangxi

Hunan

Taiw a

Guizhou

Zhejiang

Dinghai Ningb o

ina

Hangzhou

Sea

Shanghai

R.

Yan g

tze

Hubei

Sichuan

Pa c i f i c O c e a n

a

0 0

300 miles 500 kilometers

Introduction

Imagine being aboard a vessel that is facing a naval base situated behind a line of war junks. Imagine sailing toward these war junks and standing in wonder at their size, number, and exquisite naval architecture. These floating sentinels sit at anchor, keeping watch over the harbor. They are a testament to your years of hard work, and you feel satisfied with your efforts and proud to be Chinese. But as you approach, something seems amiss. On closer inspection, you find that most of these battleships are either wrecked or in disrepair. As you sail past them, you see that the soldiers guarding the upper decks are wearing dirty uniforms, having trouble standing at attention, and armed only with crude spears. The rest of the crew are drinking, chatting, relaxing in the sun, or napping. When you ask them about their mission, they have difficulty answering your queries. They cannot tell you the type of cannon they are lounging around, let alone load and fire the machine guns that have been mounted on board. Once they are off duty, these soldiers usually wander around with hookers and party along the coast. They are no different from a group of undisciplined hedonists. A nineteenth-century Qing official who worked tirelessly to strengthen his country, Zheng Guanying (1842–1922) captured something very similar to the above shortly after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895).1 Based on the state of the troops he descried, Zheng declared the Qing naval force to be unprepared for any potential acts of aggression on the part of imperialistic Western military powers. Beyond this disappointment, he also recognized the complications inherent in mounting a large-scale reform. Nepotism and corruption were everywhere – from the imperial office in Beijing to the naval office in a small dockyard. The Qing navy

1

Zheng Guanying, Shengshi weiyan (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1998), p. 430. For more about Zheng Guanying, see Guo Wu, Zheng Guanying: Merchant Reformer of Late Qing China and His Influence on Economics, Politics, and Society (Amherst: Cambria Press, 2010), pp. 2–8; Yi Huili, Zheng Guanying pingzhuan (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 1998), pp. 2–3.

1

2

Introduction

Figure 0.1 A satirical cartoon featuring Sino-Japanese relations after the First Sino-Japanese War. Source: China Punch.

lagged far behind the other military sea powers, whose vessels were equipped with the most dreadful weapons of the time. To most Chinese scholar-officials at the turn of the twentieth century, China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War was humiliating for the Qing Empire (1644–1912). The Chinese had long regarded the Japanese as their “tiny little brothers” and could not have conceived of such a defeat – just as the Americans could hardly have imagined losing a war against Vietnam. In China and the sinophone sphere, the Sino-Japanese War marked the climax of China’s so-called “century of humiliation” (bainian guochi),2 after which it could no longer present itself to other world powers as the master of East Asia (see Figure 0.1). The defeat was disastrous for China, both politically and economically, and it has 2

Alison Adcock Kaufman, “The ‘Century of Humiliation,’ Then and Now: Chinese Perceptions of the International Order,” Pacific Focus, vol. 25 no. 1 (2010), pp. 1–33; Paul Cohen, China Unbound: Evolving Perspectives on the Chinese Past (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), p. 148.

Introduction

3

remained so in the memories of most Chinese to this very day. To the best of my recollection, I was told to analyze the causes and consequences of this war as a secondary-school student in colonial Hong Kong. I had to answer the following questions: “Why was China so weak in sea battles?” “Why was the Qing court incapable of defeating the Japanese navy?” Focusing on China’s defeat by Japan in 1895 would lead us to believe that China was a weak or even a failed state. Yet, if we were to investigate the Qing Dynasty of the early modern period, we would find that it was once a superpower with a prosperous economy and a military whose expansion shone in Inner Asia.3 So, in essence, the conventional image of the Qing as an Asian giant that was determined to be weak and incapable in sea battles does not make sense. The conflicting halves of this image – China as a powerful continental empire and, at the same time, a weakling at sea – seems contradictory and calls for a convincing explanation, one that goes beyond the simplistic “model answers” provided by my secondary-school teachers who noted that “the Qing was defeated by the Japanese and by other European seafaring powers because it was a continental, land-based power.”4 My enduring dissatisfaction with this view and also in the absence of substantial evidence to support it have compelled me to investigate further and, ultimately, to write this book. The primary purpose of this book is to give the eighteenth-century Qing Empire its due as a maritime power, which has arguably been

3

4

As a superpower in East Asia, the Qing mobilized its troops to inner Asia during the Kang–Yong–Qian period (the long eighteenth century). In Peter Perdue’s description, the Qing was in fact an evolving state structure engaged in mobilization for expansionist warfare. see Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 524–532, and his “Empire and Nation in Comparative Perspective: Frontier Administration in Eighteenth-Century China,” in Huri Islamoglu and Peter C. Perdue (eds.), Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India, and the Ottoman Empire (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 21–45. In fact, many scholars have an aversion to thinking of the Qing as a sea power. “For the greater part of its long history,” as John K. Fairbank (1907–1991) once put it, “Chinese naval power in the modern sense of the term remained abortive.” See his China Perceived: Images and Policies in Chinese–American Relations (New York: Knopf, 1974), p. 25. Likewise, US Admiral Bernard D. Cole, commander of Destroyer Squadron 35, adamantly asserts that “China historically has been a continental rather than a maritime power, despite its more than eleven thousand miles of coastline and six thousand islands.” See Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China’s Navy in the Twenty-First Century (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010), p. xvi. Even in the context of contemporary China, a Chinese analyst argues in the same vein that “for a power like China, possessing strong sea power can only be a component of China’s land power.” See Ye Zicheng, “China’s Sea Power Must Be Subordinate to Its Land Power,” Xiandai guoji guanxi, vol. 20 (April 2008), pp. 53–60.

4

Introduction

Figure 0.2 The Da Qing fensheng yutu 大清分省輿圖 (Provincial Atlas of the Qing Dynasty), showing the coastline of the Qing Empire (late eighteenth-century edition). Source: Library of Congress.

overlooked, if not discounted, by most historians. With a coastline of almost 14,500 kilometers (see Figure 0.2),5 the Qing was not a landlocked state, nor was it always inward-looking. In fact, since the late 5

China’s coastline in the early modern period spreads about latitude 20 to 42 north, and longitude 103 to 125 east. Some scholars, such as Mark Elvin and Caroline Blunden, describe it as a giant “fishhook lying on the West Pacific Rim toward the heart of what may be called the Asian Mediterranean.” See Caroline Blunden and Mark Elvin, Cultural Atlas of China (New York: Checkmark Books, 1983), pp. 34–35. According to Gang Deng, in the Qing dynasty, China had a land boundary of about 16,000 kilometers, whereas the coastline was over 18,000 kilometers (probably closer to 14,500 kilometers). The ratio of land boundary to coastline is therefore about 0.9 to 1. For details, see Gang

Introduction

5

seventeenth century, the empire had been integrated into the maritime world through its maritime militarization and seaborne shipping. Even if the Qing was commonly seen as a continental empire, at least by the end of the eighteenth century, it does not follow that it was incapable of exerting its influence across the sea. I believe this refusal to acknowledge the Qing or China as a maritime power is largely conditioned by an ingrained notion that an early modern empire can either be a land power or a maritime power but cannot be both, and that its focus is primarily influenced by social and cultural factors, such as traditions, religions, and beliefs. This book will present a more balanced picture of the geopolitics of the Great Qing, which has long been obscured by the reductive logic that divides land and sea. It has been suggested that “empire building was dependent upon the ability to mobilize irresistible armies and navies.”6 I aim to counter the conventional wisdom as I argue that Qing land and sea policies were closely linked. Indeed, I will prove that the state’s engagement with the sea, in terms of its political vision, its military deployment, and its administrative practice, was proactive and substantial throughout most of the long eighteenth century, which spanned from around 1680 to the decade after the death of the Qianlong emperor in 1799.7 In other words, I suggest we avoid the kind of reasoning that a country’s political and military policies are based on certain identifying factors of its civilization or culture, thereby pointing to it being either land-based or sea-based and not both. Georg Hegel (1770–1831) and Max Weber (1864–1920), the creator and the chief proponent of ideological determinism, respectively, believed that social development is predominantly fostered by a spirit or an ideology.8 One advantage of this approach is that ideological factors that are associated with differences in developmental performance, and are usually unique to specific civilizations or cultures (such as traditions, religions, and ideas), are not difficult to recognize

6 7

8

Deng, Chinese Maritime Activities and Socio-economic Development, c.2100 BC–1900 A.D. (London: Greenwood Press, 1997), pp. 1–4. Palmira Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 7. Chinese historians generally agreed that the “long eighteenth century” stretched from Kangxi’s final consolidation of Qing rule, around 1680, to the death of the Qianlong emperor in 1799. See Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997). For some global historians, the long eighteenth century extends even further, from 1660 to 1830. In this book I side with the “global historians’ definition,” expanding the period to include the first few decades of the nineteenth century. Juan Segundo, Faith and Ideologies (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1984), pp. 234–235; Jonathan E. Dyck, The Theocratic Ideology of the Chronicler (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 55–56.

6

Introduction

and trace. Hence, certain identifying factors of civilization or culture can be directly attributed to ideological or spiritual origins. Many observers, including my own secondary-school teacher, have applied this reasoning to explain the Qing’s weak connection to the sea. They believe that Qing ideology and cultural values were primarily focused on land-based campaigns and developments, which chilled their interest in the ocean and left the nearby seawaters open to Western Europeans. This view has an obvious weakness in that it is tainted as fatalistic – as if all development is preprogrammed. Modern investigations into the determinants of development show that spirit and/or ideology do not singularly determine societal growth.9 Changes in geography, ecology, political climate, economic structure, and even random factors may also have decisive effects on the path of human progression. Therefore, in our analysis of the Qing’s maritime history, we should not cleave to a single explanation of a civilization’s cultural makeup, especially as it pertains to the long eighteenth century.

Standing in the Shadow of the Nineteenth Century An understanding of Qing maritime capabilities requires stepping outside the confines of the traditional views of a country’s approach to ideological determinism. It also requires no longer adhering to the shortsighted notion that the Qing’s attitudes toward the maritime world were responsible for its disastrous outcomes on the nineteenth-century battlefield. The First Opium War (1839–1842), the Arrow War, and the SinoJapanese War undoubtedly dealt heavy blows to the Qing regime by draining its treasury and exposing its ineptitude in battles at sea. As a classic saying goes, “those who win become champions; those who lose become bandits.” Many scholars use these events to conveniently indicate that the Qing Empire fell victim to Western, and later Japanese, imperialism because it ignored its maritime frontier and suffered crushing defeats at sea. Some maritime historians, for instance, argued that the Qing were not interested in “incorporating the maritime space into their empire” and “the Manchu had almost totally neglected the strategic considerations [of the maritime world] prior to the Opium War.” A naval historian even commented, “during the Qing dynasty, the Chinese did not understand the developing maritime dimension of their 9

For instance, see Mark Moberg, Engaging Anthropological Theory: A Social and Political History (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 248–249; Susan A. Wheelan, Group Processes: A Developmental Perspective (New York: Pearson, 2004), p. 42; and Katie Wills, Theories and Practices of Development (Oxford: Routledge, 2005).

Standing in the Shadow of the Nineteenth Century

7

national security and prosperity. So the Qing never turned to the sea and suffered dire foreign policy consequences as a result.”10 This perspective may contain a measure of truth, but, in effect, it is more or less a view of history that has been filtered through the consequences of history. That is, it fails to capture the complex dynamics and full significance of the high Qing period (c.1680s to 1800), much less its intricate connections with the preceding and succeeding eras. This view also obscures the important fact that the three prominent high Qing emperors, Kangxi (r. 1661–1722), Yongzheng (r. 1722–1735), and Qianlong (r. 1735–1795), initiated a series of proactive, extensive, and deliberate maritime policies that served to prepare the dynasty for any (potential) challenges it faced in the long eighteenth century. After all, even if the Qing was repeatedly defeated during the chaotic period that followed the two Opium Wars, it does not follow that the empire was oblivious to maritime affairs before then. Too often the Qing is viewed from the perspective of external patterns, both Western and Japanese, and the influences of the nineteenth century, whereas it was an independent entity with its own history and momentum. Indeed, I believe a different picture comes to light when one analyzes how the Qing interacted with its maritime frontier in the early modern period, and in the process, a new lens featuring new Qing history from a maritime perspecitive (haishang xin Qingshi) could also be formulated.11 Those familiar with eighteenth-century Qing history might immediately assume that the Qing enjoyed prosperity in both its domestic and foreign sea trade at the time because this was a splendid century 10

11

S. C. M. Paine, “Imperial Failure in the Industrial Age: China, 1842–1911,” in N. A. M. Rodger (ed.), The Sea in History: The Modern World (Martlesham: Boydell Press, 2017), p. 308. See also Bodo Wiethoff, Chinas dritte Grenze: Der traditionelle chinesische Staat und der küstennahe Seeraum (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1969), p. 79; and Jane Kate Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 1. Leonard elaborated her argument by saying that the eighteenth-century Qing’s approaches to its maritime frontier were based upon the idea of “coastal control.” In other words, its policy was mainly directed toward what were perceived as threatening internal security problems. I agree with Leonard totally that the Qing prioritized internal problems over potential threats from the outside world in administering its maritime frontier, but I would like to highlight that the high Qing emperors also took “potential threat from the maritime world” into account. I will further explicate this point in my forthcoming chapters, but I will briefly bring to light my proposition here: the Qing had its navy ready throughout most of the long eighteenth century. It is invidious to argue whether or not the navy, and by extension its naval strategy, were simply designed for internal threat as the only single objective. In fact, the naval plan of the eighteenth-century Qing court changed over time, and occasionally was subject to disruption. Moreover, the Yongzheng emperor, for instance, was always aware of the potential threats from the external world, ranging from the Japanese to overseas Chinese settling in Southeast Asia. In light of the School of New Qing History (xin Qingshi), I attempt to name this new lens of analysis as a New Qing Maritime History (haishang xin Qingshi).

8

Introduction

Figure 0.3 Yuti pingding Taiwan zhantu 欽定平定臺灣戰圖 (Military Diagram of Pacifying Taiwan) – section “Shengqin Zhuang Datian” (Catching Zhuang Datian), showing how the Qing mobilized its navy to Taiwan in the Qianlong era.

(shengshi) wherein there was not much trouble at sea.12 Yet, as I will demonstrate in this book, even in peacetime, the Qing navy played a significant role in monitoring and policing its maritime frontier, which included suppressing marauding pirates. My argument, here, is candid and straightforward: if we concede that there was rapid growth in both domestic and foreign sea trade along China’s coast in the early modern period, then the role the navy played must be considered a factor in this economic development. In fact, the eighteenth-century Qing state was not as prosperous as we commonly assume. In the late Qianlong era, in particular, the Qing Empire was overburdened with domestic strife, a slowing economy, and piracy at sea. Consequently, it was pushing the limits of premodern empire building. These pirate attacks, including some domestic rebellion in Taiwan, and economic imbalances became acute structural problems (see, for example, Figure 0.3).13 Yet the result was not just the state’s diminished capacity and increased challenges; the 12

13

John Bowman (ed.), Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 47–48; Daniel Woolf, A Global History of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 320–323. G. B. Cressey, China’s Geographical Foundations: A Survey of the Land and Its People (Columbus: McGill-Hill, 1934), p. 337; Wensheng Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South

Historical Connections and Continuity

9

Qing court attempted to adjust its governing priorities and strategies in order to establish sustainable control of its troubled waters. For instance, the reorganization of the navy and the establishment of a customs structure in the Qianlong era are examples of a moderate, decisive reform aimed at remedying the situation. This, in turn, helped sustain the position of the Qing Empire in the East Asian Sea, which was patrolled by both Asian and later distant Western European powers.

Historical Connections and Continuity Knowing more about maritime circumstances in the early modern Qing helps us understand Chinese history. It also helps illuminate a broader picture of the maritime tactics China uses today. One of this book’s underlying arguments is that most of the present maritime strategies and maneuvers of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) can be traced to the Qing in the eighteenth century. Although the Qing court was determined to conquer its adversaries in Inner Asia by horse and bow and arrow,14 it was also practical and strategic in its use of war junks, patrol boats, and batteries to stabilize its maritime frontier by maintaining tight supervision and effective control. In the words of the Qianlong emperor, “the maritime frontier is of utmost importance; we (the Qing) can never ignore or neglect it” (haijiang guanxi jinyao, bushi liuxin jicha).15 Therefore, what the Qing court strove to achieve through managing all of its borders – both land and sea – was a sustainable balance between naval management and westward inland expansion. This might be seen as a historical footing of China’s “one belt, one road” initiative (yidai yi lu). “Road” (lu) refers to the Silk Road, which links China with Europe through Central and Western Asia; and “belt” (dai) refers to the maritime Silk Road – the seas of East and Southeast Asia. China’s current yidai yilu initiative somehow parallels the maritime and frontier

14

15

China Pirates: Crisis and Reform in the Qing Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), pp. 17–36. By the mid-eighteenth century, Qing aggressive expansion was at its peak, putting China among the most powerful polities in the world. Aside from the pan-Asian Pax Mongolica, the Great Qing was the largest political entity ever to govern Central Eurasia. See Perdue, China Marches West; William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 1–10; Piper Rae Gaubatz, Beyond the Great Wall: Urban Form and Transformation on the Chinese Frontiers (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996). Qianlong’s words were recorded in his response to the memorial of Wang Deng, chief commander of the Jiangnan Susong naval force. See Wang Deng, “Zoubao xuncha haijiang suijing qingxing,” Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 13 nian, June 30; no. 002501 [archive preserved at Academia Sinica, “Neige daku dang’an” database]).

10

Introduction

politics that were formulated in the Qing period, particulalrly in terms of its maritime consciousness. Its current efforts to extend control over its natural resources and seaways in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean thus give this study broader relevance. This book might also be seen as a maritime counterpart to Peter C. Perdue’s impressive volume China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia, on imperial China’s western landward expansion.16 While the Qing Empire, as argued by Perdue, significantly transformed the economies and societies on its Inner Asian frontier, the state also played a crucial role in shaping the patterns of political development and the velocity of economic interactions across its maritime frontier. If we agree that the Qing conquest of Central Eurasia has much contemporary relevance as it seems to underpin the claim of the PRC that these territories have always been part of China, the Qing’s control over some particular sea spaces (for instance, Taiwan and its outying islands) would serve the similar purpose of justifying such an aspiration endorsed by the Chinese government in the present century. In addition to the historical continuity between the Qing and the PRC, this book also focuses on that between the Ming (1368–1644) and the Qing. In effect, the Ming Empire is generally considered to be a successful maritime power; this is mainly based on the seven voyages of the famous admiral and navigator Zheng He (1371–1433/35).17 Compared to the Manchu-ruled Qing, the Han-ruled Ming seemed to pay closer attention to the sea and to be more attached to it. In terms of maritime cartography, for example, the Ming court produced more coastal maps (haitu) and sea charts than the Qing. At times, the Ming court was politically involved in maritime affairs (haiyang zhishi), especially during its early years. Yet this book does not mean to compare the two dynasties based on their maritime achievements. Rather, its purpose is to situate the Qing more carefully within the maritime context of the early modern period. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the Ming dynasty and its engagement with the sea will be ignored. On the contrary, the many connections in maritime affairs between the Ming and the Qing are noteworthy. For example, the Ming set up a foundation that the Qing was able to use to actualize its military and naval plans for maritime militarization, which I call maritime defensive realism. Yet, despite the 16 17

Perdue, China Marches West. See Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405–1433 (New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007); Jan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak, China’s Discovery of Africa (London: A. Probsthain, 1949); Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Sea: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405–1433 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Sea Power versus Land Power

11

Qing’s reliance on some of the precedents established by the Ming, “the Ming’s way” was not the only model used by the Qing court. Throughout the long eighteenth century, the Qing also departed from this model when implementing its maritime tactics. For example, the Qing was more interested than the Ming in annexing offshore islands, shoals, and sandbars.18 According to John E. Wills, “defensiveness” was the leitmotif of the Ming era on all frontiers, maritime and continental,19 whereas the Qing, in conceptualizing the naval zone across its maritime frontier, did push beyond Ming concepts in a relatively proactive and deliberate manner. Not to mention that the Qing further professionalized the structure of its navy by appointing regional naval commanders (shuishi tidu) in specific coastal provinces, and increased the salary of the marine corps.20 Above all, the connections between the Ming and the Qing’s maritime realities can neither be over- nor understated.

Sea Power versus Land Power The temporal frame of this study is the long eighteenth century. It was during this period that the voyaging empires of Western Europe endeavored to conquer Asia, India, East Africa, and America, and gain greater access to the revenues offered by sea trade.21 These voyaging empires were commonly labeled sea powers, especially after Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) published his highly regarded The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Without question, the admiral is to be credited with the classic exposition on the role of sea power as the basis of national power, a juxtaposition that was frequently reiterated by generals, politicians, and even renowned political leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Wilhelm II (1859–1941).22 In his work, Mahan theorized that both 18 19

20 21 22

Wang Hongbin, Qingdai qianqi haifang: sixiang yu zhidu (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2002), p. 71. John E. Wills, “Relations with Maritime Europeans,” in Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 333–375. Yong Rong, Lidai zhiguan biao (Taipei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1966), juan 56, p. 11a. Richard Harding, Seapower and Naval Warfare, 1650–1830 (London: UCL Press, 1999), pp. 37–58. Following Mahan’s sea power theory, Sun Yat-sen gave priority to the establishment of a navy for national defense. See Sun Yat-sen, Guofu de guofang xueshu sixiang yanjiuji (Taipei: Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo, 1996), p. 321 (translation excerpted from Andrew Erickson and Lyle Goldstein, China, the United States, and 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010), p. 479); Kaiser Wilhelm II also wrote in 1884, “I am just now devouring the book [The Influence of Sea Power upon History] and am trying to learn it by heart.”

12

Introduction

naval strategy and sea power backed commercial expansion or “mercantilist imperialism.” Similar to Adam Smith in his work on political economy and that of Darwin on natural selection, Mahan strove to discover the “considerations and principles [that] belong to the unchangeable, or unchanging, order of things, remaining the same, in cause and effect, from age to age.”23 Mahan’s central thesis was elaborated mainly in his book’s first chapter, entitled “Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power,” which is sufficiently well known to need only a brief summary here. Using both description and analysis, Mahan sought to demonstrate that, in wartime, a country’s international struggles were often determined by its command of the sea. Mahan also noted that, in peacetime, sea commerce has defined a nation’s relative strengths and wealth. Indeed, sea power fostered eighteenth-century European imperialism. During this period, strong monarchs exported their kingdoms’ products and people to overseas colonies that were designed to function as closed, monopolized markets. These nations’ numerous merchant marine vessels provided their mode of transport, and so they protected them with their large navies. In Mahan’s view, sea power was pervasive wherever large warships could operate and mobilize. This meant that the outer reaches of an empire no longer defined the limits of its imaginable conquests. It is not easy to extend Mahan’s theory to include imperial China. This is because China has rarely been considered a major sea power. In both China and the West, it has frequently been claimed that “Chinese strategists and leaders did not articulate a commitment to, or even a firm grasp of, sea power in the classical sense.”24 Unlike Atlantic seafaring empires, “China had not elevated sea strategy to the level of grand strategy.”25 Indeed, the view was that the Chinese Empire was fundamentally different in the sense that it was nothing like the established and recognized seafaring nations: Great Britain, Spain, France, and the US. It has even been claimed that, in the past, China did not need to consider the sea or sea power, as this was not relevant to the maintenance of a

23 24 25

Alfred Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1991), p. 88. Gang Deng, Maritime Sector, Institutions, and Sea Power of Pre-modern China (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999), p. xvi. Daniel M. Hartnett and Frederic Vellucci, “Toward a Maritime Security Strategy: An Analysis of Chinese Views since the Early 1900s,” in Phillip C. Saunders, Christopher D. Yung, Michael Swaine, and Andrew Nien-Dzu Yang, eds., The Chinese Navy: Expanding Capabilities, Evolving Roles? (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2014), pp. 8–10.

Sea Power versus Land Power

13

great land empire.26 However, the notion that the definition of a sea power is principally derived according to Mahan’s criteria is, in itself, problematic. Indeed, historians and political scientists have shown that there is no single model of sea power: what control of the sea meant to Great Britain and Japan in the Second World War contrasted sharply with what it meant to the Soviet Union – just as sea power was far less significant to Ukraine in the sixteenth century than it was to Portugal at the time.27 The limitations of Mahan’s insights have long concerned theorists of naval strategy in the United States and England who question the influence of sea power and its significance in the modern and premodern eras. For instance, in 1935, Tyler Dennett (1883–1949), the Pulitzer Prizewinning expert on East Asian politics and history, sharply criticized Mahan for overstating the significance of sea power.28 In 1937, Julius W. Pratt (1888–1983) noted that Mahan’s view of the influence of sea power “was narrowly and unacceptably mono-causal, and that it was interpretatively superficial” and contained nothing original.29 Further to this, R. B. Wernham (1906–1999) and Garrett Mattingly (1900–1962) called attention to the limitations of maritime forces because of the amateurish nature of the navies of that time and because the struggle for control of Europe, between the Habsburgs and their enemies, took place primarily on land. Edward Ingram, representing the British naval school in the Gerald Ford era (1974–1977), roundly attacked those who clung to the mythology of the Mahanian blue-water school.30 And in his famous article entitled “The British Way in Warfare Revisited,” Sir Hew Strachan even questioned the efficacy of Mahan’s theory in explaining the outcomes of conquests and battlefields.31 In twentieth-century scholarship, Mahan’s theory received criticism and censure. Yet Philip Crowl points out that as the premier theorist of sea power, Mahan will most likely “rise as well as decline, refreshed by the recollection that he asked his nation and his navy some

26

27 28 29 30 31

Jeanette Greenfield, “China and the Law of the Sea,” in James Crawford and Donald R. Rothwell, eds., The Law of the Sea in the Asian Pacific Region: Developments and Prospects (Norwell: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), p. 21. Paul Kennedy, “The Influence and the Limitations of Sea Power,” International History Review, vol. 10 no. 1 (Feb, 1988), pp. 2–17. Tyler Dennett, “Mahan’s ‘The Problem of Asia,’” Foreign Affairs, April (1935), pp. 464–472. Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936), p. 28. Edward Ingram, “Illusion of Victory: The Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar Revisited,” Military Affairs, vol. 47 (1984), pp. 140–143. Hew Strachan, “The British Way in Warfare Revisited,” Historical Journal, vol. 26 (1983), pp. 447–461.

14

Introduction

very difficult and pertinent questions, questions still relevant, questions each generation must ask and answer anew.”32 In light of this observation, it makes sense to acknowledge both the influence and the limitations of Mahan’s sea power model. However, its efficacy largely depends on the historical and geographical context of the land or sea conflict in question. The concept of sea power, itself, is not exclusively a Western one. For instance, the seventeenth-century maritime writer Zhang Xie (1574–1640) noted that Chinese literati employed the notion of “extending military control onto the sea.”33 Joseph Needham (1900–1995) called our attention to the nature of sea power, in the sense that “naval armed might meant something very different indeed in the Chinese and the Portuguese interpretations.”34 David Kang also rightly sounds a note of caution over the problem of using Mahan’s theory to analyze maritime history in Asia because it was derived exclusively from the European experience.35 An analytical model of sea power applied to Asia should exercise due respect for the differences between the European and Asian historical experiences of the sea and the substantial factor of differing maritime management. To quote David C. Gompert, sea power is “the ability to exert power over what occurs at sea – or power of the sea.”36 The historical and contemporary variations of sea power point to real processes that have to be studied on their own terms. My use of the term “sea power” rests on the caveat that it is a complex and multivarient concept that refers to a variety of historical and regional experiences, ranging from imperialistic overseas expansion to the consolidation of political power across strategic bodies of water, such as maritime frontiers. Thus acquiring sea power or becoming a sea power does not necessarily mean aggressively conquering others over the sea. To this end, this book uses the concept of sea power, or maritime power, to refer to the Qing’s control of vast tracts of domestic sea space through military force and its mechanism of managing its maritime frontier from the center of the empire. More fundamentally, the term “sea power” is used to denote the set of maritime practices and policies through which the Qing court fashioned and maintained its maritime borders. Sea 32

33 34 35 36

Philip Crowl, “Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian,” in Peter Paret ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 476–477. See Zhang Xie, Dongxiyang kao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), “Zhou shi kao.” Joseph Needham and Mansel Davies (eds.), A Selection from the Writings of Joseph Needham (London: McFarland & Company, 1994), p. 175. David C. Kang, “Getting Asia Wrong: The Need for New Analytical Frameworks,” International Security, vol. 27 no. 4 (Spring, 2003), pp. 58. David C. Gompert, Sea Power and American Interests in the Western Pacific (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2013), p. 6.

Maritime Consciousness

15

power also means the practice, conceptualization, and attitudes of a ruling center that governs a vast body of seawater. Moreover, as a concept, this term can serve as a starting point for finding a common ground to address “European Mahanian sea power,” and “Qing sea power.” This is not to deny the historical specificity of late nineteenthcentury European imperialism or the Qing experience in the eighteenth century, nor is it a plea for returning to a generic or Mahanian definition of sea power. Rather, it is an attempt to extend the ground on which we delineate historical, particular, and localized accounts of sea power. It is likewise an effort to initiate an interchange between the realities of maritime East Asia and those of the maritime West. Examining the Qing maritime world within the broader framework of studies on sea power, rather than confining it within the purview of studies that point to geographic area, allows us to see China in the context of global historical forces rather than as a unique and timeless entity unto itself.

Maritime Consciousness A rediscovery of the connection between the Qing and the ocean means broadening the spectrum of analysis by studying the evolving sense of Chineseness and how this relates to China’s maritime world. Over the past few decades, there has been a wealth of literature on such topics as “China and the sea” and “maritime China in transition.” Much attention has been especially paid to the importance of foreign incursions, maritime commerce, nautical technology, and overseas diasporas. The “Fairbank school” has long been directing interest toward diplomatic relations with maritime powers in the West.37 The influence of G. William Skinner’s regional model of China led scholars to undertake intensive socioeconomic studies of the large regions that cover the western and northern frontiers, and China Proper and its coastal region. Some studies, influenced by Wang Gungwu, have stimulated research on the patterns and processes of Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia.38 In terms of periodization, most studies have concentrated on the age of the Opium Wars (1839–1860), the Restoration Era (1861–1875), and the final decades of Qing rule (1875–1912). Even if the recent remarkable research 37

38

The term “Fairbank school” applies to the research inspired by John King Fairbank. This term has been used by scholars such as Kelly Boyd, Chihyun Chang, Mary G. Mazur, and Wang Hui. For instance, see Wang Gungwu, China and Southeast Asia: Myths, Threats, and Culture (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1999); and Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-chin Chang (eds.), Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2011).

16

Introduction

conducted by Gang Zhao, Zheng Yangwen, and Angela Schottenhammer has successfully moved the Qing maritime experience in the eighteenth century from a marginal to a more central position of attention, it primarily focuses on sea trade in response to the period of early globalization in general, and the process of East Asian integration in particular, rather than the Qing administration’s “official mind” toward,39 and its conceptualization of, its maritime frontier.40 Despite the significant contributions these studies have made, an in-depth examination in English has yet to be undertaken on the interrelationships between the imperial projection of the power of the maritime world and the way the high Qing government conceptualized the maritime world before the 1840s. As such, this study aims to place in the foreground the indigenous dynamism of high Qing maritime policies and its maritime consciousness in order to substantiate the history of frontier and maritime studies in East Asia and, thereby, make a contribution to the existing literature. A comprehensive history of Qing maritime politics over the long eighteenth century could easily devolve into a chronological listing of dates, battles, pirate skirmishes, and statistics. That is not the aim of this book. Rather, its aim is to demonstrate the extent of Qing maritime consciousness, based on how the imperial court conceptualized, modeled, and administered its maritime frontier in the early modern period. The ecology and geography of the coast were not the sole factors that shaped Qing maritime consciousness, at least during the long eighteenth century. Equally influential were the scale and type of activities the state employed in using the channels and resources of its seawaters. The more dependent the state was on sea space, the more intense was its maritime 39

40

Leonard Blussé used the term “official mind” in his remarkable Visible Cities. He mentioned that John King Fairbank and his students have studied the connection between China and the overseas community from a viewpoint of the “official mind” of the Ming and Qing governments based on the tribute system framework. Blussé found this approach problematic because overreliance on the tribute system framework gives a very one-sided view of the past. For details, see Leonard Blussé, Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 11–12. For the problem of overreliance of the tribute system, see Hans Bielenstein, Diplomacy and Trade in the Chinese World, 589–1276 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). See Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean: Chinese Maritime Policies, 1684–1757 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013); and Yangwen Zheng, China on the Sea: How the Maritime World Shaped Modern China (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008); The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006). It has to be emphasized that Zhao, Zheng, and Schottenhammer have provided an appropriate and insightful platform for revisiting the Qing from a maritime perspective; this book is aligning with their critical and analytical enterprises.

Maritime Consciousness

17

consciousness. If the state’s domestic economic activities were either closely related to or even conditioned by seaborne trade, particularly those activities related to production and distribution, then the state’s maritime consciousness would be considerable. In this sense, a wide variety of engagements contributed to this maritime consciousness, such as the economic linkages afforded through seaborne trade, and the political naval involvements across the maritime sphere. Hence it is not merely the physiology of the state’s coast but also the extent of its economic dependence on the sea and its maritime capabilities that served to generate this consciousness. Over the long eighteenth century, domestic and trans-regional sea trade, especially in coastal communities, grew to become an important part of the Qing economy. In order to regulate, monitor, and oversee an expanding market, the Qing court needed to establish a formidable navy and institutionalize a customs structure. These initiatives are arguably the two best examples of maritime consciousness in the Qing during the early modern period. The Qing court’s maritime consciousness is also manifested in the way the empire modeled and divided its maritime frontier. Although the maritime frontier had no exact boundary that defined its outer limits, under the Qing the predominant geographic and political model was the “inner–outer” binary, which separated and defined the two sea spaces as they were known and understood by the administration. Here, the inner sea constituted the empire’s domestic seawater, where the emperor could claim ownership of maritime resources within the empire’s readily accessible oceanic realm. By contrast, the outer sea was a capricious domain that lay beyond the purview of administrative governance and economic extraction. Yet we must understand that this view of sea space may not always have been explicitly hierarchical. Therefore I would argue that inner and outer sea spaces are best understood as nested and overlapping spheres whose boundaries shifted in accordance with the circumstances of the time. In other words, what constituted “inner” and “outer” fluctuated with shifting geographic, political, and cultural factors (these are analyzed more extensively in the next section and in Chapter 2). Yet, despite its fluctuating character, this inner and outer view of sea space was a conceptual foundation on which the Qing established its navy and structured its Customs Office. In fact, looking at the sea as a territory that is either “inner” or “outer” is a traditional Chinese spatial concept that also extends to how it separates the land and the sea. Yet scholars have long overlooked the extent to which this concept actually applies to the Qing maritime sphere. This book’s critical examination of this “inner–outer” conceptualization will help explain how the maritime frontier was divided and conceptualized in Qing

18

Introduction

terms and, more importantly, help challenge the conventional assumption that the Qing failed to formulate a conceptual foundation for ruling its maritime frontier. I hope this approach will revise most Western and Chinese analyses of China’s maritime policies that merely rely on the concept that its land–sea view determined its relationship with and developments around the sea.

Contextualizing the Maritime Frontier In addition to understanding that the Qing was a maritime power with a developed sense of sovereignty and a sphere of influence in the sea, it is also essential for us to gain a greater sense of its historical progression. Doing so gives us a sense of the Qing’s considerable achievements, particularly in its development of an active, adaptable, and flexible system of maritime regulations and in its encouragement of commercial interactions. Throughout this book the opportunities, significant events, and possible crises that prompted the shifts that took place in the high Qing’s maritime administration of the time are explicated. This particular section provides a brief, yet critical, overview of the historical context, the long eighteenth century, and its major dynamics of change that pertained to a kind of maritime concentration the Qing focused on. As argued above, the long eighteenth century has long been conceptualized as a period of prolonged peace and prosperity. Thanks to three promising and gifted Manchu emperors, the Qing Empire was at its peak during this time, and can be compared to the flourishing eras of the Han and Tang dynasties. Nevertheless, even though the Qing in the eighteenth century was relatively more stable than during the century that followed, we should not unreservedly equate the high Qing with absolute prosperity. A few scholars have already argued that the last quarter of the eighteenth century was a period of increasing upheaval that rocked the Qing regime.41 For instance, the White Lotus rebellion, the Wang Lun revolt, and the Miao rebellion were all interacting crises that exposed the Qing’s structural limits. Also, the coastal region at the time was not as calm as we once acknowledged. The problem of piracy in South China, the Lin Shuangwen uprising in Taiwan, and low rice production, to name a few internal crises, also served as distinctive and troubling conjunctures during which the Qing court formulated its maritime policies. As such, from a historiographical point of view, the eighteenth-century 41

Zhang Hongjie even named the latter stage of the eighteenth century a “prosperity with hunger” (jie de shengshi). See his Jie de shengshi: Qianlong shidai de de yu shi (Xingbei: Guangchang chubanshe, 2015).

Contextualizing the Maritime Frontier

19

Qing Empire was not unquestionably tranquil and peaceful. That is, it was not devoid of glitches and complications. In fact, some of these problems, or their roots and origins, were already visible in the early part of the century. We are always under the impression that after the Kangxi emperor annexed Taiwan, the Qing Empire had nothing to worry about in terms of aggression coming across its maritime frontier, particularly across the Taiwan Strait. This is not exactly the case. On the contrary, the Qing court did not lose sight of its maritime frontier after Taiwan was officially integrated into its empire. First of all, it strove to maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait. It wanted to avoid the possible contingency that another “Zheng regime” might be established in Taiwan, thereby threatening the security of coastal southeast China. Therefore the Kangxi government not only forcefully designated the Zheng clan’s members to the Eight Banners in Beijing,42 but also assigned two respective navies to patrol and police the Taiwan Strait on a regular and deliberate basis. Second, the Qing court was well aware of the need to rebuild the coastal economy after the sea blockade policy was abandoned. The Kangxi emperor, for instance, had been attentive enough to foster coastal prosperity by maintaining maritime security.43 But his plan to rebuild the coast did not present an easy task. This required many precipitating factors, including a formidable navy; a structured customs system; and the experts, money, and manpower to put it all in place. As such, we should be sympathetic enough to contend that Kangxi maritime policies were not flawless, as we shall see in Chapters 3 and 4. Even so, the Kangxi era is still significant as it is a period of formulation that prompted further developments in the decades that followed. If the Kangxi era was a period of the formulation of maritime policies, the Yongzheng era could probably be called a period of crystallization. Toward the end of the Kangxi regime, the Qing court began to feel the repercussions of its poor financial management. In a nutshell, the empire was close to bankruptcy. The drain on the treasury meant that the Qing had difficulties performing most of its administrative duties and that many official units were nearly unable to function or to be set up to begin with. Under such dire financial constraints, it was difficult to maintain maritime militarization along the coast and the Qing’s Customs 42

43

Xing Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c.1620–1720 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 238–239. See, for instance, Wei Qingyuan, “Lun Kangxi shiqi cong jinhai dao kaihai de zhengce yanbian,” in Tang Mingsui and Huang Qichen (eds.), Jinian Liang Fangzhong jiaoshou xueshu taolunhui wenji (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1990), pp. 121–136.

20

Introduction

Offices remained in limbo. But, thanks to the Yongzheng emperor, who was absolutely a key figure in the regime by saving the country from further ruinous decline, the economy and the empire’s fiscal shortfalls were quickly restored within a remarkably short period of time. Once the Qing’s financial problems were mitigated, the empire could be repositioned on a proper track. Here, we are able to witness the steady development of the Qing’s maritime militarization and its customs management, which took place between 1723 and 1735. Additionally, compared to his father, Yongzheng was more pragmatic in terms of his approach to governmental administration. He prioritized efficiency, proficiency, and absolute control over most of the imperial and local units. As a result, Qing maritime policies were considerably refined and professionalized. For instance, as is discussed in Chapter 4 (“Guarded Management”), during the Yongzheng era the customs structure became more sophisticated and imperial control over the system was significantly tightened. The Yongzheng emperor also took a cautious approach toward potential dangers, from both land and sea. He was skeptical about the Japanese, the Russians, the missionaries, and his own people, namely the expatriate Chinese living overseas. His naval policies were thus more or less carefully formulated, taking all potential intruders into consideration. As we shall see in Chapter 3 (“The Dragon Navy”), the Yongzheng emperor did not lose sight of these prospective threats from across the ocean. Even though his primary concern was still the Northwest, the emperor would not allow his empire to be disturbed on both fronts (land and sea). For instance, he asked Li Wei, one of his trusted officials, to gather the relevant information concerning Japanese activities in the Jiangsu region, for a given period of time. After consulting Li’s report, the emperor believed that the Japanese could easily invade China via the sea. He therefore reminded Li Wei, the relevant provincial officials, and other naval officers to pay special attention to any Japanese activities that were taking place along the coast. The scope of Yongzheng’s naval policies was thus initially one of a guarded-management framework that directed how the Qianlong office (at least during its early years) administered its maritime affairs and dealt with potential dangers from afar. Most scholars label the Qianlong emperor a fortunate monarch who was “handed the empire on a platter.”44 On reflection, the emperor had the fortune to rule during one of the most affluent eras in Qing history and one that had been structurally restored by his father Yongzheng.

44

Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates, p. 21.

Contextualizing the Maritime Frontier

21

Actually, not only did the Qianlong emperor inherit a better and more refined system of administering his empire’s maritime frontier, but also he acquired a state treasury with surplus financial resources. In Seth L. Stewart’s summary, such a healthy circumstance “allowed him [Qianlong] a gigantic fortune to play with.”45 Without a doubt, the Yongzheng legacy enabled the Qianlong emperor to preside over and further develop a highly centralized bureaucratic government, one that covered all frontier regions, both land and sea. As such, the first half of the Qianlong era could be seen as the period of consolidation in terms of maritime governance. Both the naval and the customs structures were consolidated and expanded during this period. For instance, the number of customs substations increased and the number of officials tripled. The Qianlong administration was also able to maintain warships for three, five, and ten years on a regular basis, while professional naval patrols were directed and operated on a recurrent basis. Despite all of this, as the Qing Empire moved into the latter phase of the eighteenth century, it faced a host of concerning and interrelated challenges on multiple fronts. On the politics and administration side, for instance, the Qianlong government was plagued by a set of structural problems, including corruption, nepotism, factional struggles, and the worsening ratio of organizational resources to population size.46 Meanwhile, as Wensheng Wang persuasively argued, “the aging emperor was [also] increasingly beset by an eternal principal-agent problem as his ability to tame the officialdom declined, which in turn exacerbated the state’s administrative disarray and fiscal weakness.”47 On the societal side, explosive population growth, the rise of commercial incentives, inflation, the exploitation of frontier resources, and the collapse of the granary system also led to widespread malfeasance. The consequence of all this was that the Qing at the time was unlikely to see substantial development in its maritime policy. Some warships and battalions were gradually damaged and there were no plans for repairs. The problem of piracy added to a number of domestic rebellions that broke out in Taiwan. All of this meant that the empire was facing

45

46

47

Seth L. Stewart, “Qianlong, the Taipings, and Changes: The Decline of the Qing Empire and the Dynastic System of Governance” (PhD dissertation, University of Louisville, 2008), p. 49. See, for instance, Pankaj Mishra, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia (New York: Farrar, Straus and Girous, 2012), pp. 138–139; Robert J. Antony and Jane Kate Leonard (eds.), Dragons, Tigers, and Dogs: Qing Crisis Management and the Boundaries of State Power in Late Imperial China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates, p. 22.

22

Introduction

mounting challenges in terms of maintaining effective imperial control and central co-ordination over its maritime frontier. The decline of the Qing’s maritime forces, as such, did not occur suddenly at the turn of the nineteenth century, namely during the Jiaqing period. Rather, its flaws and weaknesses had built up over time, especially in the late Qianlong era when the problems of corruption and nepotism were rife. In addition to these structural crises, the prolonged peace at sea was one major cause of the decline in the Qing’s naval development. As Peter C. Perdue and Frederic Wakeman have both effectively argued, the Qing was, in a way, a victim of its own success. That is, once the Qing had established its dominance in Asia and had expanded its borders to the largest extent in history, the empire remained virtually unchallenged until the mid-nineteenth century. Thus it had effectively removed the stimulus for military innovation and a comprehensive scale of naval reform. It is also important to add that, unlike in Europe, several strong powers maintained the balance of influence and stability in Asia, namely the Russian, Qing, Indian, and Mughal Empires. I call it the balance of great Asian powers. This means that, when in relative peace, the Qing Empire was not compelled to strengthen its naval capability by innovating its military techniques and strategies or by incorporating any new methods and technologies that could be acquired from beyond East Asia. The result was the great military divergence, a recent theorizing introduced and pioneered by Tonio Andrade in his new book The Gunpowder Age.48 Nevertheless, we have to be very careful here that, despite all these misfortunes, this did not mean that the Qing no longer invested in and maintained its navy and customs structure. After all, the fact the Qing had little need, or few incentives, to adopt or incorporate foreign techniques on a significant scale does not mean that it did not continue to develop and govern its maritime frontier. On the contrary, as long as the Qing court kept functioning, the maritime frontier was still clearly included in its administrative agenda. Even though there is no evidence of the Qing developing its naval establishment on a remarkable scale, especially when compared to what was happening in Western Europe, the state continued to sustain its navy; and its customs structure operated fairly well during the latter period of the Qianlong era. As we will see in Chapter 4, the Customs Office, particularly in Canton, was able to retain a guarded managerial policy toward foreign traders and overseas shipping. Therefore I will argue that, regrettably, the later Qianlong empire missed out on many opportunities to strengthen and reinforce itself as a 48

Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2016).

The Blue Frontier and the East Asian Sea

23

maritime power. Nevertheless, I intend to maintain that even though the Qing bureaucracy was overwhelmed by an underlying complex of both political and social problems, this does not mean that the Qing court, at that time, was unwilling or unable to administer its maritime frontier.

The Blue Frontier and the East Asian Sea This book describes the sea space adjacent to the Qing Empire as its maritime frontier rather than as a coastal area or coastal waters. This is because the Chinese traditionally used the term haijiang to indicate coastal areas. The term hai refers to the ocean, while the character jiang means “boundary” or “frontier.” Further, if we consider, as some scholars do, that a frontier is a middle ground or an in-between space that facilitates the flow of people, ideas, and commodities,49 then little justification is needed for accepting that China’s coast is a maritime frontier. Frontier also connotes trans-regional interactions. A recent development in the concept of a maritime frontier is that it implies a sea space with fixed boundaries;50 although, admittedly, some of these boundaries are under dispute.51 The size and extent of the maritime frontiers that were recognized as having political or military value significantly fluctuated under different reigns and dynasties, over the centuries. Moreover, there was no exact boundary for the maritime space claimed by the Qing court. Instead, time and space were the foundation of the Qing’s justifications for sovereignty across its maritime frontier. On the one hand, a long history of a shared culture served as the basis for common bonds and a sense of belonging among its coastal populations. This historical connection provided the empire with the kind of authority that can only be derived from calling up its cultural associations with those of the past. On the other hand, national sovereignty requires a strong degree of maritime militarization. Deploying warships to patrol respective sea zones, on a regular basis, provided the Qing court with the legitimacy to police the region and also to spread its imperial might over 49 50

51

Richard Wright, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. ix–xvi. For further discussion, see Kären E. Wigen and Martin W. Lewis, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). For instance, the dispute over the sea space around the Diaoyu/ Senkaku islands has been a heated issue since the 1990s. See Thomas A. Hollihan, The Dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands: How Media Narratives Shape Public Opinion and Challenge the Global Order (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014); and James Manicorn, Bridging Troubled Water: China, Japan, and Maritime Order in the East China Sea (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014).

24

Introduction

the ocean. In some cases, the geographic limits of China’s navy patrols also served as indicators of the extent of its imperial rule or the outer boundary of its empire. The annexation of islands off China’s coast likewise projected the state’s power and legitimized its sovereignty, in a sea space, in accordance with its own designs.52 The term “East Asian Sea” is used throughout this book to refer to the collectivity of the waters that are more conventionally referred to as the “Japan Sea” (or “East Sea”), the “Yellow Sea,” the “East China Sea,” and the “South China Sea.”53 The intention is to cut against the “nationalization” of the oceans of East Asia that resulted from the attachment of nationalist prefixes (e.g. “Japan” or “China”) that created conventional names of ocean bodies based on their locations near powerful states. Likewise, many find the term “Indian Ocean” misleading and inappropriate when used to describe the interlocking regional maritime systems that stretched from East Africa to the Indonesian archipelago in early modern times.54 The term raises concerns among maritime historians who question whether it ever had any real coherence. Yet there is no obvious substitute for what that extensive sea space should rightly be called.55 In light of this, it seems appropriate to use the encompassing geographic term “East Asian Sea” to avoid heeding the nationalistic claims and privileges asserted through the uncritical use of “China Sea,” “Japan Sea,” “Indian Ocean,” and other such terms. Here, my aim is to alert readers to the problematics of using such terms to label particular seas and waterways across the globe when, in essence, they are not solely part of the country or region the name implies. Chapter Précis This book is organized into five substantive chapters, a conclusion, three appendices, and a reference section. Chapter 1, “Setting the Scene,” 52 53

54 55

Maritime militarization and other means of projecting state power into the maritime frontier will be discussed in greater depth in the chapters that follow. The United Nations Environment Programme, as well as some maritime historians and political analysts, such as Chua Thia-Eng, Danilo A. Bonga, and David Cyranoski, also apply the term “East Asian Sea.” See the United Nations Environment Programme (www.unep.ch/regionalseas/regions/eas/eashome.htm); Chua Thia-Eng and Danilo A. Bonga (eds.), Safer Coasts, Living with Risks: Selected Papers from the East Asian Seas Congress 2006 (Oxford: Elsevier, 2009); David Cyranoski, “Angry Words over East Asian Seas: Chinese Territorial Claims Propel Science into Choppy Waters,” Nature, vol. 478 (2011), pp. 293–294. See Michael Pearson, The Indian Ocean (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 13–26. For a brief discussion that sets the scene very effectively, see K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 1–33.

Chapter Précis

25

presents an overview of the maritime landscape of East Asia and the major dynamics within it. The maritime frontier is defined as a multilayered, transcultural region that can be understood both physically and culturally. This is not a static boundary, but a dynamic canvas of interaction whose conceptualization shapes imaginations, policies, and patterns of behavior. By reconstructing how the Qing viewed its maritime frontier, we can obtain a deeper understanding of the government’s changing aims and motivations in its dealings with the maritime world. The physical topography of the East Asian seascape is one feature that shapes conceptualizations of this frontier. A review of the features of this topography highlights the multiple ways in which geography, ecology, climate, wind currents, and tides not only shaped trade and travel patterns but also gave rise to an awareness of what we might now call the East Asian Sea. Chapter 2, “Modeling the Sea Space,” defines the formation of maritime space in the high Qing. This entails a complex process of social construction, based on three interacting mechanisms: external utilization, internal perception, and regulatory representation. Hence any indepth analysis of the sea space not only requires an examination of its natural geography (as in Chapter 1) or its “deep structure,” but also entails an investigation into the history of how the sea was used and conceptualized. This chapter analyzes the high Qing emperors’ and their advisers’ nuanced conceptualizations of the maritime world. It will show that the distinction between an “inner” and an “outer” sea space that emerged in the high Qing framed many of the policies that were adopted during the reigns of three consecutive emperors (Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong). To a substantial degree, the idea of an inner–outer binary formed the conceptual framework of Qing maritime policies; it is also the foundation of this study. Chapters 3 and 4 illustrate how conceptualizations of an inner and outer sea space shaped concrete policies. Chapter 3, “The Dragon Navy,” attempts to reconstruct high Qing coastal defense. It uncovers the historical background and overall structure of maritime militarization in the high Qing, including the establishment and construction of naval bases, warships, and coastal fortresses that have largely been overlooked, especially by Western historians. In fact, almost nothing has been written extensively about eighteenth-century Qing naval development in the anglophone historiography. This chapter reviews the measures used to strengthen and maintain the military defenses of the seven coastal provinces that were bounded by four interconnected strategic sea zones, namely the Guangdong sea zone, the Taiwan Strait, the Jiangsu–Zhejiang sea zone, and the Bohai area. It provides a picture of the strategic complexities that high

26

Introduction

Qing emperors faced along the empire’s extensive coastlines and the policies they adopted to address them. Like the high Qing, many other formidable premodern states maintained rather modest standing armies, recruiting and training soldiers and sailors as they were needed at any given time. The Qing also had a reputation for maintaining a small bureaucracy and a small military relative to the huge population it served. The high Qing had nothing to compare to Britain’s central Admiralty, nor did it have a naval dockyard that invested in innovation and developed naval technology. The Qing court seems to have been more concerned with and fearful of threats from convergent domestic military forces than from external changes in maritime warfare or new world powers on the high seas. However, as Chapter 3 shows, there were recurrent attempts at rebuilding bases and ships of certain kinds and sizes during the long eighteenth century. Chapter 4, “Guarded Management,” chronologically addresses the affairs of a badly neglected branch of the high Qing administration: the maritime Customs Office (not the Customs Services) and its significance in the management of the Qing Empire. The high Qing government was well aware of the intimate connection between military defense and economic growth, and it exerted considerable energy establishing an efficient customs regime along the southern tier of its inner sea space. Periodic shifts from more open to more restricted maritime trade policies reflected the changing strategic exigencies within a framework of guarded management. Nevertheless, this should not be taken as an indication of ignorance or irrational swings in attitudes toward the maritime world. Indeed, the wealth of statistical and geographical data available on this topic allows for a detailed examination of the institutional development of and state investment in this customs organization, including its management strategies and personnel recruitment. Chapter 5, “Writing the Waves,” extends the discussion from the policy realm to a more conceptual level. To support my argument regarding the significance of the maritime world in the Qing imagination, this chapter analyzes three non-official texts by Chen Lunjiong (?–1751), Wang Dahai, and Xie Qinggao (1765–1821) that were dedicated to the maritime world and China’s place within it. In responding to Chinese geographical traditions and contemporary intellectual trends, such as the turn toward “evidentiary scholarship” (kaozhengxue), this chapter offers an overview of some scholarly treatments of the sea and the countries that were connected by the ocean to the Qing Empire. Although there are more official than unofficial records of maritime governance, the latter are no less significant. In fact, when combined with official Qing documents, they provide a more thorough picture of the Qing’s maritime world.

Chapter Précis

27

The conclusion aims to summarize the study’s main arguments and findings and relate them to maritime histories and global studies. It shows that Qing maritime management, in the eighteenth century, can be understood in terms of the empire’s multifaceted strategies toward the maritime world. The sustainability of the empire and the growth of an international and a domestic sea trade compelled the Qing court to undertake a series of moderate, decisive, pragmatic, and perhaps interventionist policies that were aimed at managing a variety of maritime issues. It is in this sense that the eighteenth-century Qing court took a positive and proactive role in the East Asian sea space. Furthermore, this study shows that the Qing maritime policies of the Qianlong reign shifted from those of the Kangxi administration. The high Qing, which is traditionally regarded as a symbol of impressive and prosperous development, was in fact burdened by short-term crises and long-term problems that proved intractable. Max Weber saw Asia as stagnant and lacking the necessary spark that had produced dynamic, self-motivated change in the West.56 By contrast, this study suggests that, in several instances, high Qing maritime management was driven by a series of remarkable crises that were transformative within a seemingly stagnant tradition. Rice shortages, piratical violence, corruption, problems with foreign traders, and other crises became catalysts for the Qing court to alter, modify, and refine its maritime policies within different temporal and spatial contexts. As a whole, this study presents historical documentation and contextual information to illustrate how high-ranking Qing leaders conceptualized their maritime territory and strategized how to govern it. Contrary to the prevailing view of seeing the eighteenth-century Qing court as an inward-looking continental empire, this book finds that the Qing did not regard the sea as the third frontier, nor did it treat its sea space with indifference. And even though land power and sea power are entirely different, they are not incomparable. During the Qing, the land–sea relationship was not so dichotomized that an expansion of land territory 56

Max Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: Konfuzianismus und Taoismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1922). Weber’s thesis is cited by many Western and Asian sociologists and political scientists writing on China, its foreign policy, and the tributary system. For instance, Marion Joseph Levy, The Rise of the Modern Chinese Business Class (New York: International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1949); Andreas E. Buss (ed.), Max Weber in Asian Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1985); Ku Chuang-hwa, “The Spirit of Capitalism in China: Contemporary Meanings of Weber’s Thought,” in Chu Yin-wah (ed.), Social Transformations in Chinese Societies: Chinese Capitalisms (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 63–94; Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); John E. Wills Jr. (ed.), Past and Present in China’s Foreign Policy: From Tribute System to Peaceful Rise (Portland, ME: MerwinAsia, 2010).

28

Introduction

was predicated on a neglect of the sea, and vice versa. Instead, Qing officials in the eighteenth century tended to balance their control of naval management and westward expansion with their maintenance of control over specific geographic locales, either on land or at sea. As a result, the connection between continental governance and maritime control was never as clear-cut as has been commonly assumed.

1

Setting the Scene

Introduction The renowned Eurasian specialist Owen Lattimore (1900–1989) draws a remarkable distinction between a frontier and a boundary. In his celebrated study Inner Asian Frontiers of China, he explains that a boundary represents the intended limit of political power, “the farthest extent to which a state or empire is able to exert its will on geographical space,” whereas a frontier is a zone of active interaction that “exists on both sides of the boundaries.”1 Within any frontier region, distinct communities of “boundary-crossers” can be identified as those who transgress the physical borders of polities and environments, and the sociological borders of ethnic, religious, and language groups.2 It is also a zone of contention across which competing ideas of civilization converge and conflict. It has been argued that the borderlands between the core of China and the farthest nomadic pastures were a zone of frontier interaction, a ‘middle ground’ where peoples following radically different ways of life adapted to one another and to their surroundings. Extending this concept, I suggest that a frontier is a multilayered transcultural region that can be understood in both physical and cultural terms. Physically, a frontier

1

2

Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (New York: American Geographical Society, 1951), pp. 238–239. The definition Lattimore developed in the 1950s is still largely embraced in contemporary scholarship. Peter C. Perdue, William T. Rowe, Hugh R. Clark, Craig A. Lockard, and others still use Lattimore’s observations to explicate their own views on the nature and significance of “frontier zones.” See Perdue, China Marches West, pp. 41–44; William T. Rowe, “Owen Lattimore, Asia, and Comparative History,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 66 no. 3 (August 2007), pp. 759–786; Hugh R. Clark, “Frontier Discourse and China’s Maritime Frontier: China’s Frontiers and the Encounter with the Sea through Early Imperial History,” Journal of World History, vol. 20 no. 1 (March 2009), pp. 1–33; Craig A. Lockard, “‘The Sea Common to All’: Maritime Frontiers, Port Cities, and Chinese Traders in the Southeast Asian Age of Commerce, ca. 1400–1750,” Journal of World History, vol. 21 no. 2 (June 2010), pp. 219–247. See Richard Wright, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

29

30

Setting the Scene

refers to a landscape or seascape that is shaped by a number of geological, ecological, and/or cosmological factors. Culturally, a frontier is a product of the various ways in which certain groups of people conceptualize and model any given space. People carrying a particular or multiple sociopolitical backgrounds (such as emperors, government officials, traders, seamen, educated elites, and pirates) in a specific time–space and context will generally construe the character and significance of a particular frontier in diverse ways. One may conceptualize it as a depiction of interactions, a cosmopolitan gateway for the import and export of goods and ideas and the movement of people, or as a barricade that divides civilizations. Either directly or indirectly, different conceptualizations of frontiers will shape trade, diplomatic strategies, political dynamism, and the identity and consciousness of nations. Being a contact zone, a frontier is tied to the interactions and antagonisms between two separate parts and/or opposing forces. The classic form of this is when more “civilized” and economically superior powers subordinate what they consider to be “barbaric” and inferior populations (as in the legendary cases of Captain Cook in Hawaii or Commodore Perry in Japan). As mediums of social interaction and movement among people who transmit goods, technologies, fashions, and ideas, oceans sensibly form a frontier that facilitates sociopolitical and cultural development across different realms of space.3 In the era of the empire, however, maritime frontiers stood apart from all other frontiers. Transportation across sea frontiers incurred significantly lower costs than it did on land. Travel by sea in the premodern period was usually “cheaper in human terms.”4 Incidental hazards of negotiation, protection money, willful obstruction, and downright violence at sea were much rarer than when carrying goods by land from region to region and from one settlement to another.5 Sea travel was also cheaper because of its low energy and technology requirements. Even before the steamship age (c.1840s), sea traffic was far more cost-effective than overland trade. Indeed, it has been estimated that the 3

4

5

David Armitage, Alison Bashford, and Sujit Sivasundaram (eds.), Oceanic Histories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 3–4. See also Maria Dusaro and Amelia Polonia (eds.), Maritime History as Global History (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010). Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez, “General Editors’ Preface,” in The Pacific World: Land, Peoples and History of the Pacific, 1500–1900, vol. 7, Science, Empire and the European Exploration of the Pacific, ed. Tony Ballantyne (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004), p. xiii. Alfred Mahan also pointed out that “travel and traffic by water have always been easier and cheaper than by land.” See Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 88. Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 377.

Introduction

31

same amount of energy would move 250 kilogrammes of goods on carriages, 2,500 kilogrammes by rail, and 25,000 kilogrammes by water.6 Also, it has been broadly calculated that one dhow could travel the same distance as a camel caravan in one-third the time, and that each vessel could carry the equivalent of 1,000 camel loads. Furthermore, only one dhow crewmember was needed for several tons of cargo, as compared with two or probably more men for each ton transported in a camel caravan.7 Sea transport as such was plausibly the most cost-effective means of moving people and goods before the age of air transportation.8 From the fifteenth century onward, cross-border shipping experienced stunning growth in both scale and complexity.9 Western Europeans were the first to cross the boundaries of the known Old World and extend their reach into the so-called “New World.” Between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries,10 European sea traders expanded their shipping routes across the Atlantic to America and Africa, and across the Indian Ocean to India, Southeast Asia, and the Far East. A large volume of consumer commodities, including sugar (from the West Indies), coffee (from Latin and South America), tea (from China), tobacco (from Virginia), fish (from Newfoundland), and spices (from the East Indies) flowed steadily and continuously to Europe from different corners of the world.11 By the

6

7

8 9

10

11

H. Neville Chittick, “East Africa and the Orient: Ports and Trade before the Arrival of the Portuguese,” in Historical Relations across the Indian Ocean, ed. C. Mehaud (Paris: UNESCO, 1980), p. 13. Ralph Austen, African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency (London: James Currey Press, 1987), 58. However, it may also be the case that, at least on some routes, land travel was faster than by sea. For example, when an empire like the Ottoman or Tang China set up secure and highly accessible road networks, people chose to travel by land even though they could have traveled via the ocean. Daniel R. Headrick, Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 302. See, for example, Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, 2nd edn (New Heaven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993); “An ‘Age of Commerce’ in Southeast Asian History,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 24 no. 1 (1990), pp. 1–30; John E. Wills, Jr., “Contingent Connections: Fujian, the Empire, and the Early Modern World,” in Qing Formations in World Historical Time, ed. Lynn A. Struve (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 167–203; Kenneth R. Hall, “MultiDimensional Networking: Fifteenth-Century Indian Ocean Maritime Diaspora in Southeast Asian Perspective,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 49 no. 4 (2006), pp. 454–481. Timothy Brook has termed these centuries an age of improvisation, when “the age of discovery was largely over, and the age of imperialism yet to come.” See Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008), p. 21. However, the so-called “intercontinental market integration” was very limited prior to 1830. For details, see Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, “After Columbus:

32

Setting the Scene

end of the Napoleonic Wars, commerce and cultural interactions across the oceans were much more globally connected than in previous decades. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries represented a decisive turning point in the history of globalization, with the evolution of the world system and, in particular, the use of the oceans.12 Although oceans were understood, in the twentieth century, as transnational water frontiers fostering the “global flow of commodities and ideas,”13 the question remains whether the Qing court, in the long eighteenth century, also conceptualized the oceans as contact zones where international trade and cultural interactions could be forged. If it did not, then how did the visions of Qing monarchs differ from those in the West? How did the Qing governing body model the ocean and its maritime frontier at a time of frequent and vibrant transoceanic interaction? Before moving into a discussion of this matter, an understanding of the “deep structure”14 of the East Asian Sea, including its geographical boundaries, climatology, and topography, will effectively set up the background context for the reader and elucidate the scope of this study.

Geography and Ecology The so-called “ancient” division of the Earth’s landmasses and sea spaces are, to a substantial extent, recent social constructions of physical spaces that are imprecise and full of biases.15 However, these geographical divisions and territorial claims also provide a useful framework for exploring geography across the globe, and for understanding historical junctures, developmental patterns, and even contemporary proceedings.16 For this study, in particular, looking at the world geographically provides a useful context in which to investigate the land, water, and

12

13 14

15

16

Explaining the Global Trade Boom, 1500–1800,” in National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper no. 8186 (March 2001), pp. 9–49. Michael Geyer and Charles Bright, “World History in a Global Age,” American Historical Review, vol. 100 (1995), pp. 1045–1046. See also Jerry H. Bentley, “Sea and Ocean Basins as Frameworks of Historical Analysis,” Geographical Review, vol. 89 (1999), pp. 215–224. Geyer and Bright, “World History in a Global Age,” p. 1045. The term “deep structure” is used by Michael Pearson to indicate the geographical settings of the maritime landscape surrounding India. See Pearson, The Indian Ocean, pp. 13–26. See also Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 36–62. Marin W. Lewis also raised a similar observation, See his “Dividing the Ocean,” Geographical Review, vol. 89 no. 2 (April 1999), pp. 188–214. Ronald G. Knapp, “East Asia and the National Geography Standards,” Education about Asia, vol. 16 no. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 5–11.

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people in East Asia. It also inspires us to ask some straightforward, plainsailing questions regarding the study of maritime Asia, such as what is the (East) Asian Sea? And where is it? The East Asian Sea is a vast body of water that covers a significant part of the world’s maritime surfaces (the East China Sea, 1,249,000 square kilometers; the South China Sea, 3,500,000 square kilometers; Bohai Sea 78,000 square kilometers; and the Sea of Japan 1,300,000 square kilometers). Its average depth is about 3,478 feet (1,060 meters). The deepest part is called the China Sea Basin, which has a maximum depth of 16,457 feet (5,016 meters).17 A broad shallow shelf extends up to 150 miles (240 kilometers) in width between the mainland and the northwestern side of the basin and includes the Gulf of Tonkin and the Taiwan Strait. To the south, off southern Vietnam, the shelf narrows and connects with the Sundra Shelf, one of the largest sea shelves in the world. It covers the area between Borneo, Sumatra, and Malaysia, including the southern portion of the South China Sea. In his Records of Sea Travels (Hanghai shuji), Zheng Deyi (1847–1918), a native of Fujian, recounted the sea as being “enormously huge” (gai haiyang zhi da) and “without a limit” (tianshui wuya) and asserted the impossibility of grasping its full extent.18 In a similar fashion, Qian Cai also has this to say: “we cannot locate the other side of the gigantic ocean, just like we are not able to reach the limit of the sky” (mangmang dahai wu bianan, miaomiao tianya wu jintou).19 In his distinguished geopolitical record, Shuofang beicheng, the experienced Qing traveler He Qiutao (1824–1862) also considered the sea “wide and never-ending” (haiyang guangda).20 Likewise, in his Study of Eastern and Western Seas (Dongxiyang kao), Zhang Xie wrote, “once out of Moon harbor . . . there are no coastlines to follow, no villages to note, and no courier stages to tick off.”21 These writers were fairly precise in suggesting that it was almost impossible to know the seemingly limitless contours of the ocean during their time, even though the Ming Dynasty had developed a number of sailing techniques that would possibly provide those writers more detailed information to survey the ocean.22 In fact, today, even when 17 18 19 20 21 22

John B. Hattendorf (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (Oxford University Press, 2007), “South China Sea” and “East China Sea.” Zhang Deyi, Gaoben hanghai shuji huibian (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 1997), pp. 272, 448–449. Qian Cai, Shuo Yue quanchuan, juan 17, p. 12a. He Qiutao, Shuofang beicheng (Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe, 2002), juan 40, ji 2, p. 42a. Zhang Xie, Dongxi Yangkao, p. 170. John H. Gibbons (ed.), Technology and East–West Trade (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1979), pp. 245–248.

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Setting the Scene

using contemporary topographic measurements, it is complicated to establish the full extent of the oceans. According to the United Nations Oceans Atlas and the International Hydrographic Organization, the two leading entities concerned with maritime geography, the longitudes of the East Asian Sea are roughly 120 E to 140 E. If we include the Sea of Japan, this would make Sakhalin Island, broadly speaking, its northern limit. From there, we go around the coast, passing through the gulf between the Korean peninsula and Shikoku, past the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, to what is geographically the southern limit at the Malay peninsula and the greater Sunda Islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Other international geographical organizations may incorporate waters passing north of Australia, around the Arafura Sea and Arnhem Land, Mackay, Brisbane, the east coast of Tasmania, and then down to Antarctica. However, this is far too much of a stretch, especially given Alan Villiers’s (1903–1982) explication of geopolitical congruency.23 In his book The Western Ocean: The Story of the North Atlantic, Villiers addresses how geopolitics asymmetrically conditions trade, empire, and populations in the north and south Atlantic.24 Villiers’s apt contention is also applicable to the maritime seascape of East Asia and the high Qing authority in that the intricacies of a particular coastline, the distribution of the islands proximal to it, its variety of marine resources, and the locations of its port cities can shape not only the patterns of the regime’s shipping circuits, fisheries, and piracy, but also its maritime strategy. For instance, the Kangxi bureaucracy continued to refine the blueprint for the empire’s coastal administration. The emperor regularly ordered government officials to “scale the mountains and navigate the littorals” in Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Soon after their surveys were completed, officials submitted memorials to the emperor, providing detailed analysis for harnessing the nation’s variable seascape. Kangxi’s grandson Qianlong even launched a series of “grand projects” to thoroughly examine the coastline in order to put his maritime policies into practice. As a result, precise sea charts were officially produced throughout the long eighteenth century. Examples, such as Qisheng yanhai quantu (A Complete Maritime Map of the Seven Provinces), Haijiang yangjie xingshitu (A Strategic Map of the Maritime Frontier),

23

24

See Li Xiaocong, “Maritime Space and Coastal Maps in the Chinese History,” in Angela Schottenhammer and Roderich Ptak (eds.), The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006), pp. 155–176. See Alan Villiers, The Western Ocean: Story of the North Atlantic (London: Museum Press, 1957), pp. 13–15.

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and the reproduction of the Wanli haifang tushou (A Map of the Maritime Frontier) first published in the Ming are all maritime diagrams (haitu) composed by scholarly officials and geographers who were under imperial supervision at the time. These maps served as tools to empirically trace the variations in the empire’s coastline. They also show that few, if any, commercial or maritime activities between Asia (China in particular) and the east coast of Australia had developed by the eighteenth century. So any attempt to include eastern Australia in the East Asian Sea, as some scholars have done, is not very helpful. People who inhabited Australia, over the long eighteenth century, had negligible contact with China, India, and Southeast Asia. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that Chinese gold seekers began arriving at the Australian gold rushes, while its aboriginal peoples seldom ventured beyond its shallow coastal waters.25 Therefore, rather than considering the waves off Australia and Antarctica as part of the scope of this study, I am inclined to stop at the South China Sea and go no further south. One way to visualize the East Asian Sea is to see it as an outstretched belt that embraces East Asia. The starting point is around 50 north latitude and then goes south to the Bohai Sea, the Liaodong peninsula, the Shandong peninsula, Hainan Island, down the east coast of Vietnam, and then down along the coast of Malaysia and the Strait of Malacca. The topography of the East Asian Sea varies from place to place, being quite different in the more enclosed bays, for example the strategic Bohai Gulf, than in areas of wide open ocean. Some coastal regions along the Russian seaboard have been uninhabited since Neolithic times because they are either uninhabitable or are cut off from the interior by impenetrable mountains.26 But most of the shores of the East Asian Sea are not so inhospitable. The coastal fringe on the western shore of the East Asian Sea, close to South Korea, the North China Plain, and the southeastern part of China, is an arguably large, productive, and fertile region. The ancient Chinese had favored this terrestrial plane, for its pleasant environment, since the Warring States period (475 BC–221 BC).27 The Koreans and Japanese also found this topography favorable. Even though its high mountain ranges cut through Korea’s two southernmost

25 26 27

Benjamin Mountford, Britain, China, and Colonial Australia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 264. Nicholas T. Mirov, Geography of Russia (New York: Wiley Publications, 1958 reprint), pp. 14–22. Ping-hua, Lee, The Economic History of China: With Special Reference to Agriculture (New York: Columbia University, 1921), pp. 1–7.

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Setting the Scene

Figure 1.1 Part of the Qisheng yanhaitu 七省沿海圖 (A Coastal Map of the Seven Provinces) (Reading Digital Atlas, Taipei)

provinces (Cholla-Namdo and Kyongsang-Namdo) and Japan’s main island (Honshu), none of these landscapes were altogether impassable.28 The East Asian Sea also extends into deltas and harbors and has different sea depths and other geological features. By the eighteenth century, or perhaps earlier, Qing leaders and cartographers had noted these variations and tried to explain their causes. For instance, in the Qisheng yanhai tu (a coastal diagram mentioned earlier), the mapmaker succinctly indicates that the sea surrounding northern China is relatively shallow out to the edge of the continental shelf (see Figure 1.1). The seafloor of the continental shelf is composed mostly of sand, silt, and 28

See Yongwoo Kwon and Jaeduk Lee (eds.), The Geography of Korea: National Geographic Information Institute, Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (Suwon-si: National Geographic Information Institute, 2010); Robert Clayton, Japan & Korea (St. Albans: Hart–Davis Educational, 1973), “Introduction.”

Climatology

37

mud from the Yellow River. The mapmaker further described this geographical feature as follows: The Yellow River delta lies between Haizhou and Miaowan. The greater sea is clearer than the Yellow River in terms of volume of sediment. When sediments of the Yellow River flow into the greater sea, the bottom of the sea is elevated and the seabed structure changes. The depth of the seawater thus becomes shallower. To sail across shallow waters, merchants must sail on sand ships (shachun) constructed in the Jiangnan region. The bottom of a sand ship is flat and smooth so as to enter the northern seawater with less friction. By contrast, merchant vessels, which are constructed in Fujian and called minchuan, usually have difficulty coping with this geography because of their round hull. The best way to sail across this section of seawater is to wait for low tide. The receding tide means that the seawater will become deeper. It is safer to proceed in this circumstance.

This paratext indicates the mapmaker’s familiarity with the topography, sedimentation, and tides of the floor of the Bohai Sea. He provides his readers with an explanation for why the Bohai Sea is shallow and recommends the type of ship sailors should use to navigate the “troubled waters.” He also highlights guidelines for safe sailing. By detailing general information regarding the complicated shoreline, sailing and shipbuilding, the mapmaker may have hoped to aid scholar-officials to better analyze coastal conditions and the empire’s maritime frontier. In this sense, coastal maps, like the Qisheng yanhaitu, also seem to have served to systematize the reader’s strategic and geographical understanding of the coast, rather than simply surveying its intricacies.

Climatology In the age of oars and wind, weather constrained much, if not all, maritime activity. These factors profoundly influenced ship design; the periodic cycles of sailing routes and seasons; and the state of the fisheries, harbor control, and naval policies. For instance, tidal patterns and the seabed depth influenced the evolution of ship design in both the North Sea and Bohai Sea.29 Mariners in the Black Sea had long been warned to pay particular attention to the chokepoint between Cape Sarych, in Crimea, and Cape Kerempe, in Anatolia, because of the sea storms there.30 Even very late in the Middle Ages (1031–1350), the formidable ocean currents made it difficult to sail from the Mediterranean Sea to the 29 30

Roger Morris, Atlantic Seafaring: Ten Centuries of Exploration and Trade in the North Atlantic (Camden, ME: International Marine, 1992), pp. 112–113. Charles King, The Black Sea: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 16.

38

Setting the Scene

Atlantic Ocean.31 In addition, naval bases were often established in deepwater ports in regions with moderate climates, such as Amoy (Xiamen), Baltimore, Canaveral, Portsmouth, Devonport, and Ryojun. Conditions conducive to good ports include the prevailing wind patterns, the currents and waves, and the coastal topography. From ancient times to the age of exploration, roughly until the eighteenth century, wind patterns (including scorching winds) and seasonal monsoons decidedly influenced shipping routes and schedules. The wind system truly mattered in premodern maritime shipping. The difference between the seasonal monsoonal patterns and the prevailing winds was especially important, the latter of which were consistent year-round. “Before the age of steam, wind determined what man could do at sea: by comparison, culture, ideas, individual genius or charisma, economic forces, and all the other motors of history meant little.”32 The wind system largely regulated when and where people could sail. Through experience, sailors in imperial times learned that the shortest-line distance on sea charts was not necessarily the most expeditious route. Instead, the best route was the one that took advantage of the wind patterns. For instance, the Greeks and the Romans left their ships in port between October and April because of the strong northerly prevailing winds in winter.33 In Egypt in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the sea was closed off from November to March for the same reason.34 In the Qing era, most of the officials and mariners also recognized the importance of wind patterns in both short- and long-distance navigation (shun feng xiangsong).35 In simple terms, monsoons are generated by the Earth’s rotation, and their strength and speed are governed by the interaction of continental 31

32

33

34

35

A. R. Lewis, “Northern European Sea Power and the Straits of Gibraltar, 1031–1350 A.D.,” in W. C. Jordan, Bruce McNab, and Teofilo f. Ruiz (eds.), Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 139–164. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, “The Indian Ocean in World History,” in Anthony Disney and Emily Booth (eds.), Vasco da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 16. Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991, second edition), pp. 39, 234. Shlomo D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 316–317. Vessels of the Qing dynasty often had on their stern the words “voyage with the tailwind” (shun feng xiangsong) to signify the sailors’ wish for a safe and smooth journey. See National Palace Museum (ed.), Voyage with the Tailwind: Qing Archival and Cartographical Materials on Maritime History in the National Palace Museum (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 2013), p. 17.

Climatology

39

pressure systems and the temperature of the water at the ocean’s surface. The East Asian Sea is affected by the East Asian Monsoonal System (EAMS), which carries moist air from the Indian and the Pacific Oceans to East Asia. The EAMS influences the climates of Japan, Korea, and much of coastal China, and thereby affects approximately one-third of the global population. The EAMS is divided into two seasons: the warm and wet summer monsoon season and the cold and dry winter monsoon. In summer, considerable heat warms the Asian continental landmass. Hot air rises and creates a low-pressure zone. Moisture-laden air from the East Asian Sea then moves into this low-pressure area, rises in the upward-moving air current, cools, and finally forms into clouds that produce rain. The reverse occurs in winter, as the sea cools more slowly than the land, and the offshore winds flow out from China to the East Asian Sea. Because of the EAMS, the monsoons in the East Asian Sea follow a regular pattern: southwest from May to September and northeast from November to March. Similar to the East Asian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean also has predictable year-round trade winds with regular patterns. Yet round-trip sailing has always been much easier along the East Asian Sea than in the Atlantic. In fact, it used to be said that “mariners always have to beg Neptune’s forbearance while they passed through the Atlantic Ocean.”36 By contrast, the East Asian Sea offers relatively favorable conditions for shipping, such as clearer skies and warmer temperatures, for many more months of the year. Also because of its relatively smaller size, the East Asian sea rarely generates the huge swells that make the Atlantic Ocean so treacherous to navigate.37 The above-mentioned monsoonal patterns highly influenced navigation under oar and sail. The winds and currents made sea travel difficult for medieval and early modern navigators, thus compelling sailors to confine their season to the months when it was possible to sail a relatively calm sea that is backed by suitable wind patterns.38 To be more specific, if a sea merchant successfully caught the wind pattern, his expedition would not be overly challenging. Those who ignored the monsoons, or who were ignorant of them, would have difficulty crossing the ocean. For

36 37

38

Michael A. Palmer, Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 20. Alexander Bridport Becher, Navigation of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the China and Australian Seas (London: Elibron Classics, 2005; first published 1859); see also Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford, Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), p. 36; and J. J. Branigan and H. R. Jarrett, The Mediterranean Lands (London: Macdonald & Evans, 1969), p. 21. John Pryor, Geography, Technology, and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean 649–1571 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 7.

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Setting the Scene

example, if a merchant decided to make his way from Shanghai to Makasar in June via a junk, thereby sailing against the summer monsoon, his voyage would take a minimum of six weeks, a crossing roughly twice as long as it would have been earlier in the season.39 Like Asian sailors, Atlantic seamen were also constrained by the Asian Sea’s formidable monsoons. For instance, in early July 1541, a marauding Portuguese vessel departed the Red Sea for India. The ship’s headstrong captain refused to listen to the advice of his experienced Muslim pilots, who told him that no ship could navigate the Arabian Sea without adhering to the trade winds. Of course, that “Muslim advice” turned out to be correct.40 Likewise, in 1980, Tim Severin refused to listen to the seamen who had urged him to catch the monsoonal winds when he sailed his dhow on a “Sindbad” voyage from the Persian Gulf to China. Instead, he chose March and April, and got stuck, for thirty-five days, east of Sri Lanka.41 These examples show that, despite the existence of unbeatable wind patterns, sailors charted sea passages where the wind was less favorable because they had been drawn in by either commercial or political interests.42 Similarly, examples are also identified by some provincial generals and naval commanders in the Qing, as we shall see in Chapter 3. When petty pirates in the South China Sea decided to plunder a village by hit and run, they did not care about the wind pattern. On such occasions, human factors present challenges that are in addition to those posed by the forces of nature. Apart from the wind patterns, sea voyages in East Asia were conditioned by many other climatic constraints, such as ocean currents and breaking waves. These two geographical factors could also alter how and when one traveled, as well as how and when to patrol. In the most general terms, an ocean current is a continuous directed movement of ocean water that is driven by waves, wind or differences in air pressure. Most sailors understood how these currents affected their ship’s movements. That is, knowledgeable seafarers could choose a faster course by sailing with the current or they could avoid a course that would have them sailing against the current. In other words, ocean currents can either be an opportunity or a problem. Ever since the ninth century BC, the Chinese made use of water currents to speed up their voyages. They learned that sea currents would enable them to sail efficiently, safely, and 39 40 41 42

Ibid., p. 221. Goerge F. Hourani, revised by John Carswell, Arch Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Medieval Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 150. See Tim Severin, The Sindbad Voyage (London: Hutchinson, 1982). Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 138–139.

Climatology

41

pleasantly from point to point (renchuan anle, guoyang pingshan, shuang peng gaogua yong wu you).43 At the same time, the Greeks also utilized currents for navigation in the Black Sea. If they met an appropriate current pattern, they could travel from Odessa to Istanbul “in only one day, without hoisting a sail.”44 Yet water currents can also be problematic. When traveling to the East in the 1270s, Marco Polo (1254–1324) recorded that the Muslim sailors never went south of Madagascar, or even Zanzibar, because of the Lagullas or Agulhas currents. To the Muslims, both currents “would obstruct their way to return to the north.”45 The Portuguese Jesuit Jerónimo Lobo (1595–1678) also believed that “if one ignored the impact of water current, things could go badly astray.” When his ship had trouble getting around the Cape of Good Hope, he regretted not keeping closer to land in southeast Africa so he could have made better progress, because “the water current between Madagascar and the East African coast was so strong that it could carry a ship to the south even when the winds were contrary.”46 Waves also affected sea voyages. Chinese maritime writers described huge waves and their impact in the South China Sea, though perhaps some of these accounts were slightly exaggerated by overzealous narrators. But it should not be hard to understand that a serious wave could make sea travel and sea patrol difficult and even cause traumatic shipwrecks. A wave pattern could not only obstruct a passage; it could also beat on shorelines and damage poor harbors and littorals. As recorded in the Da Qing Shichao shengxun (The Sacred Instructions of the Ten Reigns) (1616–1874) and the Qing shilu (The Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty), hydrological disasters generated by strong waves occurred regularly in the reign of Kangxi (1662–1723).47 Local gazetteers of coastal provinces recorded that when hit by serious sea waves, some shores in Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shandong were almost unapproachable by fishing boats and policing vessels.48 Tides – the rise and fall of the sea level – are also perilous for sailors in “narrower” 43 44 45 46 47

48

See Xiang Da, Liangzhong haidao zhenjing (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju; Xinhua shudian Beijing faxingsuo, 1961), p. 2. Jamie Morton, The Role of the Physical Environment in Ancient Greek Seafaring (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 164. See Jennifer Ackerman, “New Eyes on the Oceans,” National Geographic, October 2000, pp. 92–93. Jerónimo Lobo (trans. Donald M. Lockhart), The Itinerary of Jerónimo Lobo (London: Hakluyt Society, 1984), p. 308. Ronald Chung-yam PO, “When the Sea Dragon Roars: Hydrological Disasters and the High Qing Emperors,” School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University: Postgraduate Forum E-Journal, Edition 7 (2010), p. 1. Fujian tongzhi, juan 7, p. 11a.

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Setting the Scene

seaways, such as the Taiwan Strait.49 The effect of a strong tide can be felt a hundred miles up the Fujian coast and into South China’s estuaries and deltas. These incalculable factors presented daunting challenges to officials and mariners who either governed or attempted to venture into the sea.

Concluding Remarks The “deep structures” of East Asian seas, from climate and topography to currents and winds, have influenced almost all seafaring activities from antiquity to the 1800s. It was not until the very late nineteenth century that the direct influences of these climatic factors became less predominant – as the advent of combustion engines and coal steamers made it easier to overcome the impacts of monsoons, currents, and waves. During the age of the steamship, marine navigation evolved into a fully systematic technique.50 The history of the East Asian Sea entered a new chapter, when the “industrialization of ocean passage” dramatically altered its economic and sociological dimensions for the first time. A variety of climatic factors determined what occurred within the boundaries of the East Asian Sea during the age of sail. Important characteristics such as the “deep structures” of the seas were also determining factors that shaped the routes sailors charted and the maritime policies set up by governments. Indeed, evidence shows that climatic and geographical forces shaped the seascape. And in many cases in China and elsewhere, rulers, sailors, and sea merchants had to adjust to all of these climatic flows. However, it is imperative to note that the sea space could be shaped by human hands at many levels. This sea space could be conceptually modeled by a group of intellectuals, with little, if any, experience going aboard and only a very limited knowledge of the waves and the winds and their impact on navigation. Regarding the naval setting along the coast of China, the reason why some of these port cities were strategically important depended, to a significant extent, on other factors and limitations in addition to the wind and the waves. In other 49

50

Li Youyong, “Zoubao bingchuan zaofeng jipo,”Junjichu dangan (Documents from the Grand Council; unpublished archives preserved at the Academia Sinica, Taiwan) (Qianlong 16 nian, December 11; no. 403000947); Xiong Xuepeng (Acting viceroy general of Fujiang and Zhejiang), “Zoubao Taiwan haiwai qianzong yu fenglang zhe,” Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 32 nian, December 17; no. 403023679). For more details, see, for instance, James T. Flexner, Steamboats Come True: American Inventors in Action (New York: Viking, 1944); Louis C. Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949).

Concluding Remarks

43

words, it must be emphasized that the East Asian Sea, like many other maritime spaces, was constantly shaped by both human and non-human factors.51 While those non-human elements were instrumental in molding the natural history of the watery plain, in Chapter 2, we will see that on some occasions, over the long course of history, the human hand has also been a significant factor in shaping the East Asian Sea.

51

David Abulafia also raised this similar concern in his The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

2

Modeling the Sea

Introduction In addition to the East Asian Sea, the world’s key maritime spaces include the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic Oceans. These oceans seem natural and normal as they cover most of the Earth’s surface. They are also customarily seen as geographic features that have been investigated through objective analysis rather than being handed down by convention. When we examine the portions of the globe that are covered by seawater, we find that there is no discrete physical boundary between the East Asian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Like the division of contiguous continents into Europe, Asia, and North and South America, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are more intellectual constructs than they are geographic features of the natural world.1 In other words, their existence is to a substantial degree shaped by human factors. Dividing the body of seawater that covers the globe into specific oceans is problematic, simply because water, itself, is boundless. A Qing official in the eighteenth century put it simply when he recorded, “at sea, there is no way to fix boundaries.”2 Even though geographical materials have been used to map each ocean’s “exact” physical dimensions, these dimensions are not at all standardized. For instance, the World Almanac and Book of Facts indicates that the Pacific Ocean covers 64,186,300 square miles,3 whereas Goode’s World Atlas reports it as 63,800,000 square miles.4 And even if the difference of almost four hundred thousand square miles might seem insignificant and hardly urgent, most maritime geographers have contended that these measurements are merely approximations, reflecting a rather arbitrary division of the 1 2 3 4

Wigen and Lewis, The Myth of Continents. Yunnan sheng lishi yanjiu suo (ed.), Qingshilu Yuenan, Miandian, Taiguo, Laowo shiliao zhaichao (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1995), p. 52. R. Famighetti, ed., World Almanac and Book of Facts (Mahwah, NJ: World Almanac Books, 1997), p. 593. J. P. Goode, Goode’s World Atlas (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1990), p. 250.

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Introduction

45

boundless sea. Aside from the matter of size, the same oceans are often given different names. For example, the Chinese in the Ming and Qing dynasties had a different name for the Indian Ocean than the Ottomans used for the same body of seawater.5 And even today, for political and historical reasons, Koreans insist that the body of water bordering their country is the “Eastern Sea” and not the “Sea of Japan.” Similarly, some Vietnamese and the West Africans occasionally refer to the Indian Ocean off their shores as the Indonesian Ocean and the African Ocean respectively. These inconsistencies of nomenclature indicate that the way we divide oceans into “relatively internationally recognized units” is not flawless, in that by being so named by different political entities, this implies the historical, political, and cultural constructions of a particular sea space. In this regard, it is notable that the maritime world can be titled and conceptualized beyond the so-called “modern standard.”6 Arguably, alternative views or conceptualizations of the ocean allow us to perceive the maritime world afresh and to discover the patterns and connections that have been obscured by our reliance on a singular worldview. In fact, the standardized maritime spatial classification (into the five great oceans) that we know today only emerged in the nineteenth century and was rooted in the European legacy of colonialism. Prior to that, most of the non-Western world conceptualized the seas as boundless. Compared to the relative consensus among the Dutch and British authorities, Qing monarchs and Japanese daimyo conceptualized the East Asian Sea differently: as a constituent part of their respective maritime territories. By studying non-European oceanic conceptualizations before the 1800s, we can identify not only that these alternative conceptualizations existed, but also that they can shed light on certain political usages of geographical ideas and the historical patterns and processes that exist beneath our constricted assumptions about the watery plane in East Asia. Based on the above assumptions, we now turn to an examination of how the Qing court of the long eighteenth century named and modeled maritime spaces. I argue that Qing leaders named the maritime world in their own way and tended to conceptualize the ocean asymmetrically, dividing it into inner and outer spaces from a state-centered perspective. Unlike the European voyaging powers that successfully established trans-maritime enterprises, the Qing court showed little interest in mapping a capitalist geography across the globe, where what mattered most was access to 5 6

Hynhee Park, Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-cultural Exchange in Premodern Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 48–49. See Martin W. Lewis, “Dividing the Ocean Sea,” Geographical Review, vol. 89 no. 2 (April, 1999), pp. 188–214.

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Modeling the Sea

profitable commodities and resources. Instead, it directed its attention toward its inner oceans. There, the empire could claim ownership of the marine resources within an oceanic realm that was readily accessible. The outer ocean, or outer sea space, was regarded as an uncertain and changeable domain beyond administrative governance and economic extraction. Although the inner–outer sea connection may not always have been hierarchical in a straightforward fashion, such a spatial construction deserves an analytical narrative because it represented a continuation of a preexisting Han Chinese spatial conceptualization, while embodying the political ideology of the ruling authorities in Qing frontier management. By studying the way in which the Qing conceptualized its sea space over the course of the long eighteenth century, we can better complicate our understanding of its maritime policies within the broader scope of the empire’s strategies for governing its frontier. On reflection, the inner–outer sea model is similar to how the PRC’s government nowadays claims its maritime territory as its maritime frontier across the East Asian Sea. Yet it must be noted that the way we have come to understand this maritime frontier (covering the Bohai Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea) is informed by modern knowledge and also by maps and charts. For us, today, a maritime frontier implies a sea space that has fixed boundaries. However, this assumption or conceptualization, as argued earlier, is a relatively recent development. The size and extent of the maritime frontiers that were recognized by China’s dynasties as having political or military value significantly fluctuated over the centuries. Moreover, no exact boundary had been established for the maritime space the Qing court claimed. Instead, as I already suggested in the introduction of the book, time and space, coupled with relationality, malleability, mutuality, and contrariety, were the foundation of Qing justifications for sovereignty across its maritime frontier. The inner–outer sea model underwent a transformation when the Qing Empire was threatened, internally and externally, during the transition from the Qianlong (1735–1796) to the Jiaqing–Daoguang era (1797–1850). This was a period of consequential turmoil and disorder, wherein the Manchu court in the early nineteenth century was no longer as eager to maintain its dominance or to be as proactive in controlling its inner sea space as it had been during the previous century. Eventually, the inner–outer model that had been sustained for a century was forcefully challenged by Western intruders who sought to impose their aggressive, capitalistic policies upon East Asia, during the age of high imperialism. Among these policies was one wherein sea space was conceptualized as “free sea” (mare liberum), on which we will further elaborate in due course.

The Classical Tradition

47

The Classical Tradition To examine the way the Qing authority named and modeled the ocean, one must begin with the ancient Chinese cartographic tradition. Not surprisingly, the ancient Chinese view of maritime geography was focused on the immediate sea space that attached to northern China. One of the earliest recorded representations was the Shanhai jing (Classics of Mountains and Seas), which pictured the maritime world as an unknown and eerie domain full of strange animals and deities.7 In ancient times, the sea off the coast of China was depicted in myth and fantasy, similar to the way the Greeks depicted the sea at the time.8 The legend of the Isles of Penglai might serve as a good example. Penglai was one of many mythical and mystical islands, thought to be situated somewhere in the farthest reaches of Bohai Sea, or beyond, and to be inhabited by celestial beings from the sea. On several occasions, Qin Shi Huang (259–210 BC; r. 220–210 BC), the first emperor of China, sent missions in search of these islands, but his envoys never returned.9 There was supposition that they went to Japan and found the earliest kingdom there. According to other Daoist records on Chinese mythology, the ocean was thought to be ruled by four dragon kings who governed the sea’s four cardinal quadrants.10 These dragon kings were thought to have had their own royal courts and to have commanded armies that consisted of various marine creatures. This early view shows a sea space that was literally and figuratively a hierarchical kingdom that existed on the seabed. This mythological vision of a primordial ocean gradually yielded to a more mundane conceptualization. During the Han Empire, although some of the underlying Daoist perceptions of the maritime world were retained, such as the existence of dragon kings, the ocean was now considered part of the territory ruled by the Son of Heaven (the Chinese monarch) within the sihai (four seas) worldview. The term sihai signified the seas that spread out in all directions (north, east, south, and west), or the vast domain of land and sea under imperial control. Han Dynasty scholar Jia Yi (201–169 BC) criticized the Qin Empire (221–206 BC) for

7

8 9 10

Shanhai jing (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985); see also Richard E. Strassberg, A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways through Mountains and Seas (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002) p. 41. Marie-Claire Beaulieu, The Sea in the Greek Imagination (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), pp. 1–3. Robert Ford Campany, Making Transcendent: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009), p. 122. See Yang Erzeng, The Story of Han Xiangzi: The Alchemical Adventures of a Daoist Immortal (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), pp. 171–172.

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its aggressive expansion, and cast it as a power that “swept across the four seas and invaded the eight borderlands” (nangkuo sihai, bingtun bahuang).11 Jia’s comment suggests that maritime territory, presumably the sea off the coast, at least during Han times, was not considered an unknown, mysterious space but part of the empire. As the Qin and Han Dynasties expanded, the southern coast of China became part of these empires. However, even before the incursion of the Qin, the nanyue peoples of the far south were already interacting with the coastal seawaters and littoral regions of Southeast Asia, and, as suggested by some scholars, even further to the Mediterranean.12 Shanhai jing records show that “Panyu [nowadays Guangzhou] is the first place where ships were built.”13 Likewise, Nanyue zhi, a Han text that only survives in fragments, notes that “the king of Yue constructed a great boat, and three thousand people drowned.”14 More significantly, when excavating an ancient tomb in Guangzhou, archeologists found a boatyard and wooden models of a dozen different boat designs.15 If this evidence is sufficiently reliable, then the nanyue civilization would be among the first people in the world to have developed impressive maritime technology. In the centuries that followed, the south became increasingly integrated into the empire and the southeastern coast of China became a key platform that linked Southeast Asia to China. Official documents from the Han and Tang Dynasties indicate that “there were over a hundred tribute missions, made via the sea, to the Chinese courts from fourteen different kingdoms throughout Southeast Asia.”16 From this perspective, the oceanic space that connected China with Southeast Asia (the nanyang) was identical to the tributary system or network. Even though early Chinese empires might not have regarded the nanyang as their own territory, this body of water was considered a gateway that consolidated the tributary system. In the increasingly China-centered worldview of the time, arguably, the maritime world had profound politico-cultural influence, whereas the Daoist and mythical perceptions of the ocean had become relatively trivial.

11 12 13 14 15 16

Jia Yi, “Guo Qin lun,” in Jia Yi zhuan zhu (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1975), p. 43. Raoul McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China (London: Continuum, 2010). Shanhai jing, p. 67. Huang Qichen, Guangdong haishang sichou zhi lu shi (Guangzhou: Xinhua shuju, 2003), pp. 21–25. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), see Figures 961–965. Huang Qichen, Guangdong haishang sichou zhi lu shi, p. 25.

The Classical Tradition

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Between the Han and Tang Dynasties, specific segments of the ocean also received locational references within the tributary framework, such as the Eastern Ocean (donghai) and the Southeastern Ocean (dongnan yang). The aforementioned term, nanyang (Southern Ocean), was used to refer to the body of water near the Malay–Indonesian archipelago, whereas the Indian Ocean was commonly called the xiaoxiyang (the little Western ocean), the seawater off the coast of India and Sri Lanka (the Lion Kingdom). In addition to the locational terms, the Chinese had long used the suffixes hai and yang for oceans. A bronze inscription, from as early as the tenth century BCE, included the character hai, which is believed to signify the sea. Around the same time, the term yang began to stand for the idea of a “border region,” a “mythical area,” or an “extensive space.”17 Gradually, yang also became synonymous with hai, meaning the sea.18 From the Song period onward, several maritime maps or coastal diagrams (haitu) that depicted spatial patterns of land and sea were produced both officially and unofficially. For example, the Yu di tu (Map of the World), produced by the imperial court in the 1260s, depicted the Southern Song Empire as being surrounded by the East Asian Sea and a cluster of islands in Southeast Asia.19 In Nantai an zhi sansheng shidao tu and Guangyu jiangli tu, two official maps produced by Han Chinese cartographers during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), the southern part of the empire was encircled by the ocean (the maritime frontier). Modern observers might find one of these maps striking in that the maritime frontier at the periphery of the terrestrial region, whatever its extent, was not represented as the edge of the known world. Likewise, it is inscribed in the southwestern quadrant of the Guangyu jiangli tu that “this way connects to India and the Indian Ocean.” This is evidence that the ocean was perceived not only as part of the empire but also as a potential conduit for interregional communication. That is, unlike the Daoists, the Chinese of the Song period no longer merely saw the surrounding sea as a huge nonhuman sphere. During the Ming dynasty, Zheng He led seven voyages that resulted in a radically new vision of the Sino-centric world and its oceanic reaches. 17

18

19

The concept of extensive space was expressed early on in the Shijing (Book of Odes) and the Daoist classic Liezi in early imperial China. For instance, the term donghai (Eastern Sea) was considered a mythical place in Liezi. Angela Schottenhammer, “The Sea as Barrier and Contact Zone: Maritime Space and Sea Routes in Traditional Chinese Books and Maps,” in Angela Schottenhammer and Roderich Ptak (eds.), The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006), p. 3. Li Donghua, “Qin Han bianju zhong de NanYueguo: Lingnan diqu duiwai fazhan shi yanjiu zhi yi,” in Zhang Yanxian (ed.), Zhongguo haiyang fazhan shi lunwenji, vol. 3 (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan sanmin zhuyi yanjiusuo, 1988), p. 234.

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Zheng He’s maritime endeavors introduced the Chinese maritime worldview to the east coast of Africa and parts of the Atlantic region. When the Chinese discovered this vast maritime expanse, the maritime world no longer was simply divided cardinally (north, south, east, west), but an inner–outer view of the oceans also evolved. One example is the naming of the Indian Ocean. What we now call the Indian Ocean was usually referred to as xiyang (the Western Ocean), a term first recorded in an anecdote entitled Xishan zaji, which was published in the era of the Five Dynasties (897–979).20 Chinese geographers continued to refer to the Indian Ocean as the Western Ocean for several centuries. For example, in his Daoyi jilüe (Records of Island Barbarians), published in the Yuan period, Wang Dayuan considered the south Indian city of Calicut to be the strategic front gate of the xiyang region, encompassing the Indonesian sea waters and the northern portion of the Indian Ocean.21 In Zhou Zhizhong’s Yiyu zhi (Gazetteer of Strange Regions), most of the countries located in the Indian Ocean were listed under the chapter entitled “xiyang guo ” (Countries in the Western Ocean).22 Later, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the term xiyang appeared with increasing frequency and referred to the ocean water that extended far beyond the Indian Ocean (after Zheng He’s voyages suggestively broadened the maritime landscape). In a series of geographical writings of the time, the term xiyang encompassed the Atlantic Ocean, which then became the wai daxiyang (the Outer Great Western Ocean), while it is shown that the Indian Ocean was renamed xiaoxiyang (the Little Western Ocean).23 Whether this reflected popular usage is difficult to determine but, in any event, what is notable is that the term “outer” (wai) was used in some Ming records, which implies that the Atlantic Ocean was regarded as a discrete sea space that was far from China. This somehow evinces that the Atlantic Ocean was categorized as a discrete outer sea space that was beyond the influence of the Sino-centric tributary system.

The Maritime Frontier in the Eighteenth Century In the Qing, the concept of the inner sea and the outer sea gradually became a dominant geographical and political means of conceptualizing the maritime frontier. This was particularly so after the Kangxi emperor 20 21 22 23

Zhou Zhizhong, Yiyu zhi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), p. 373. Wang Dayuan, Daoyi zhilüe (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1987), p. 44. See Tang Wenji, Fujian gudai jingji shi (Fujian: Fujian jiaoyu chubanshe, 1995), p. 190. See, for instance, Zhang Xie, Dongxiyang kao; Gong Zhen, Xiyang fanguo zhi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995).

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conquered Taiwan, in 1683. Since the seventeenth century, provincial officials tended to discern the inner sea as the farthest extent of their maritime authority, a region legitimately subject to sustainable governance and state possession. They saw the outer sea space as an uncertain bluewater domain that increasingly lay beyond the purview of administrative governance and economic extraction. As discussed earlier, demarcating the ocean’s dividing lines was seen as problematic. The sea has no clear physiographical boundaries, such as mountain ranges or dense forests, to help demarcate its imagined inner and outer zones. Hence the division of natural and cohesive realms into two discrete parts was a product of sociopolitical construction rather than of any topographical and ecological continuity. Even though it has been recorded in the the Taiwan bingbei shouchao that “five li away from the coast is considered inner sea” (yanbian linhai wuli wei neiyang),24 this is not a standardized measurement at all, as the dimension of “five li ” is rarely documented in imperial papers. Therefore I would argue that the separation of aquatic spaces into inner and outer oceans primarily functioned to set limits on the state’s reach and responsibilities in terms of regulating government operations across this expanse. In the demarcation between the inner and outer sea space, some Qing official documents literally identify inner sea space as waihai or waiyang (which literally means the outer ocean). In such a case, the word wai (outer) did not essentially connote a sense of externality or exteriority. Given that the boundary between nei and wai was always shifting, one wonders if such mutability was meant to define the outer limits of the inner sea and, thus, differentiate it from a region’s more distant and lesser-known waters. This question must be addressed through perspectivism and the political ideology of the Qing court rather than through logical reasoning. The term “perspectivism” refers to a spatialization that was contingent on the land–sea relations of the time. When seas and rivers were juxtaposed, the Qing government and some other governing elites would consider the sea space to be relatively external to its rivers. On such occasions, even the inner sea was considered within the sovereignty of the Qing government, and waihai was used to indicate this, whereas the rivers were termed neihe (inner rivers). The Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu (Completed Records of the Qianlong Emperor), for example, recorded that some areas in the waiyang off the Dongguang coast were labeled locations where pirates and gangsters hid, whereas the “neihei (inner-river) region” was comparatively less troublesome (di bijin 24

Taiwan bingbei shouchao, in Taiwan wenxian congkan, vol. 222 (Taipei: Taiwan yinhang, 1966), p. 19.

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waiyang, yicang jianfei . . . dizai neihe, shiwu jianshao).25 When specifying the difference between waihai and neihe, the scholar-official Wu Shijun (1800–1883) also juxtaposed the two terms in his analyses of the maritime militarization that took place along the coast. He wrote, “[until now], some obstinate officials still uphold the idea that it is much more practical to guard against invaders along the inner river (neihe) rather than across the ocean (waiyang)” (yu zhu waiyang, buru yu zhu neihe).26 In fact, the Green Standard navy (lüying shuishi) was divided into two main categories, namely the “inner river navy” (neihe shuishi) and the “outer-water navy” (weihai shuishi).27 This implies that the sea was often conceptualized as an external (outer) space when mentioned in collocation to the river region, although this does not mean that the former was necessarily less important than the latter. The use of perspectivism also points to the elastic classification of sea space, which means that it is contingent on the position of any given person or community relative to that sea space. For example, someone looking at the ocean from the coast of Fuzhou might regard the shallower, more easily accessible seawater as the inner sea. Conversely, one might regard the seawater that lies beyond one’s reach and sight as the outer sea.28 In this sense, the deep seawater around the islands a hundred miles away from Fujian could be regarded as outer sea space. When the Ming cartographer Zhang Xie produced his Completed Map of Maritime Barbarians from the East, West, and South Seas (Dong Xi Nan haiyi zhuguo zongtu) (see Figure 2.1), he described the seawater inside the boundary (in this case, the inner sea) as a closer and more easily accessible maritime region, whereas the water beyond the boundary (the outer sea) was unreachable and hard to comprehend due to its unpredictable wind patterns. As such, the idea of perspectivism captures the distinction between the inner and outer oceans. Dian Murray has this to say: 25

26

27 28

Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu (Taipei: Xin wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1978), juan 155, “Zuo dou yushi guan Guangdong xunfu Wang Anguo yifu, anchashi Pan Siqu zouqing Dongguang xian quekou zhensi xunjian” (Qianlong liunian, xinyou, shiyi yue, renwu). Wu Shijun, Zhurong zuoshi zhenquan, collected in Guojia tushuguan fenguan (ed.), Qingdai junzheng ziliao xuancui (Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2002), juan 6, “shuizhan huoqi zonglun,” pp. 463–464. For details concerning the inner-river and outer-water navy, please refer to the following chapter. See Guangdong tongzhi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), juan 123, “haifang lüe” 1, p. 1093; Jiang Chenying, Haifang zonglun, in Congshu jicheng chubian, vol. 3229 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991), pp. 8a–b. In addition, from time to time the Chinese regarded the sea space beyond their sight and reaches as an area where the pirates congregated and set up their bases. See Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, “tianxia yanhai xingshi lu,” pp. 2a–3a.

The Maritime Frontier in the Eighteenth Century

Figure 2.1 Zhang Xie’s Dong Xi Nan haiyi zhuguo zongtu 東西南海夷諸國總圖 (1618)

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Modeling the Sea

[O]ffshore, as the open expanse of the South China Sea stretched from the border of Guangdong and Fujian provinces, around Hainan Island and the Leizhou peninsula to the Gulf of Tonkin, the saltwater realm of shallow seas and inshore islands were referred to in Chinese sources as the inner sea (neihai) or inner ocean (neiyang). Once the shallows deepened, the inshore islands gave way to offshore islands farther from the land, and the South China Sea became the southern ocean (nanyang). This region of deep seas, offshore islands and coral reefs constituted the outer sea (waihai) or outer ocean (waiyang).29

The Qing court seldom used perspectivism to define sea space but from a political, state-centered perspective. In some cases, the high Qing monarchs regarded the seawater that was instrumental to their maritime and economic policies as the inner sea, whereas anything that fell outside their plans was viewed as the outer sea.30 In 1712, for instance, the Kangxi emperor forbade Chinese fishermen to trawl in the outer sea, which is regarded as the inner sea (neihai) of the Korean empire (jin qianchu waiyang Chaoxian bianjie buyu).31 In Guochao xianzheng shilüe, Li Yuandu (1821–1887) also recalled the directive that was promulgated by the Yongzheng emperor to expel unregistered foreign battleships that anchored and sailed across China’s inner sea space (waiyi bingchuan huoji neiyang, ju diaobing jishi quzhu).32 In this regard, Li did not conceptualize the inner sea as a contact zone where international trade and cultural interactions could be freely forged. Instead, the state oversaw all maritime activities across the neiyang region, and those waiyi (foreign barbarians) usually came from the waiyang. The word waiyang here, though literally translatable as the outer sea space, refers to the external world, covering both land and sea. It is, in fact, quite common to see Qing intellectuals using waiyang to indicate the external world. For instance, an official in the Kangxi era, Lao Zhibian, has this to say: “the rising price of rice in the Jiang-Zhe region is attributed to the fact that many Chinese merchants decided to export rice from China to the outer sea” (Jiangzhe 29

30

31 32

Dian Murray, “Piracy and China’s Maritime Transition, 1750–1850,” in Wang Gangwu and Ng Chin-keong (eds.), Maritime China in Transition 1750–1850 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004), p. 55. See, for example, Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu (Taipei: Xin wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1978), juan 232, gengwu, “Duo chayuan qiandou yushi Lo Zhibian shuyan”; juan 243, runqi yue, “Yu bingbu: Ju Shandong xunfu Jiang Chenxi zoubao;” juan 251, bingwu, “bingbuyifu: Zhenhai jiangjun Ma Sanqi shuyan.” See also Da Qing Shizong Xianhuangdi shilu (Taipei: Xin wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1978), juan 72, dingwei, “Yizheng wang dachen deng yifu;” Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu, juan 105, jiwei, “Jiangsu xunfu Zhangqu zou”; juan 167, dinghai, “Yuju Zhejiang tidu Peishi zou”; juan 176, gengyin, “Zai ju Min-Zhe zongdu Nasutu zou.” Kangxi chao shilu, juan 249 (Kangxi 51 nian 8 yue), “Chaoxian guowang Li Tun zou.” Li Yuandu, Guochao xianzheng shilüe [collected in Sibu beiyao], vol. 46 (Taipei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1989), juan 21, “Mingchen Wu Huaijiang gongbao shilüe,” p. 275.

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mijia tenggui jie you neidi zhimi wei jiangshang fanwang waiyang suozhi).33 And from the 1720s onward, an authorized monopolistic guild, known as the cohong, required Western merchants (waiyang shangren) to conduct all of their maritime activities through their Chinese counterparts. Here, direct contact between Chinese and “foreign merchants from the outer sea” (waiyang) was strictly forbidden across the inner sea, except via the government-designated agents, or cohong, who served as the selected middlemen. The existence of the inner sea from a state-centered perspective is also illustrated in official imperial maps that were produced in the eighteenth century. In fact, examining the cartography used in mapping the maritime frontier at the time is one of the most effective ways to understand the empire’s concept of territoriality and how it perceived its exposure to its frontier. Maps are instruments of military, fiscal, and commercial power that define strategic locations and efficient routes for military movement. They are also a measure of the holder’s obligations, fixing them in a geographic place and indicating their trade routes.34 In facilitating a series of mapping projects, the monarchs of the great powers, in early modern times, were striving to consolidate their rule within their domains and to simultaneously work toward establishing boundaries in an era in which “sovereignty was gradually becoming increasingly tied to territorial integrity.”35 Therefore cartography played a significant role in the creation and extension of empires in the early modern period. The Qing is no exception. From the Kangxi to the Qianlong reigns, the Qing court took the initiative of sponsoring and supervising the development of exotic scientific survey and mapping technology available, while simultaneously continuing to promote indigenous mapping traditions.36 Indeed, the Kangxi emperor was “well aware of the use and value of cartographic accuracy, and . . . he was not simply a passive player who was unwittingly allowing outsiders access to information about his

33 34

35 36

Kangxi chao shilu, juan 231 (Kangxi 47 nian, gengwu), “Douchayuan qiandou yushi Lao Zhibian shuyan.” See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1991), chap. 10; David Buisseret (ed.), Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Earl Modern Europe (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), chap. 5, “Space.” Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 74. Mark Elliott also argues that cartographic projects in the Qing were important because they enabled the representation of a space that the Manchu could claim as their own, thereby sustaining the idea of superior Manchu power. See Mark C. Elliott, “The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National Geographies,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 59 no. 9 (2000), pp. 603–646.

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realm.”37 In a similar vein, the Qianlong emperor was also obsessed with large-scale mapping projects. In his view, the practice of mapping could profoundly legitimate Manchu rule and showcase his empire’s triumphs and glories to his followers and to his empire’s tributary states.38 In order to promote the conception of the empire, with its newly expanded territories, such as Taiwan and the Great Northwest (da xibei), the Qing court commissioned a number of geopolitical works, such as the Kangxi Atlas, which was compiled by the Jesuits in 1717; the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Qing Realm (Da Qing yitong zhi), published in 1746; and the Qing Imperial Tribute Illustrations (Huang Qing zhigong tu), published in 1769. Among these imperial undertakings, the importance of inner sea space was precisely articulated in a maritime diagram entitled Qisheng yanhaitu (the haitu mentioned in preceding chapters), produced in the 1780s. This haitu is one of very few topographical maritime maps that showcases information that was critical to the strategic management of the maritime frontier in the eighteenth century. It is also one of very few Qing-era imperial maps featuring the inner sea that has been preserved in proper condition. This haitu is notable for both its salient features and its rarity. The map’s detailed paratextual information touches on a variety of issues, such as the importance of maritime governance, the significance of Bohai Sea, and the demarcation lines between certain sea spaces. In addressing the importance of maritime governance, for instance, the yanhaitu offers this anonymous introduction: Maritime defense is totally different from river defense. Even though we can construct watchtowers and fortresses along the coast as we build them along the rivers, the method (dao) of maritime governance is not the same as river management. In the past, we had such books as Haifang tongzhi (The Complete Records of Maritime Defense) and Chouhai tubian (An Illustrated Collection of Maritime Management). But these books were more or less about the strategies of suppressing pirates. These books are also not up-to-date because the contemporary situation has changed dramatically. We are now living in a great empire with proper order and less violence. Our maritime frontier is riskfree. We not only have the technique to overcome flooding along the coast and rivers, we have also set up a series of maritime policies to attract foreign traders to come and visit our empire. These foreign merchants have traded exotic goods, luxury products, and seafood from all over the world with us. There is no doubt that our coastal population has benefited considerably from this sea trade. However, we have to be aware of our elongated coastline from the 37 38

Joanna Waley-Cohen, “China and Western Technology in the Late Eighteenth Century,” American Historical Review, vol. 98 no. 5 (December 1993), p. 1525. James A. Millward, “Coming onto the Map: Western Regions Geography and Cartographic Nomenclature in the Making of Chinese Empire in Xinjiang,” Late Imperial China, vol. 20 no. 22 (December 1999), pp. 61–98.

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north to the south. There are numerous islands scattered along the coast. These are favorable places for pirates and other potential dangers. As a result, we cannot ignore our maritime frontier. Instead, we must patrol the area cautiously and deliberately. But before we set up a scheme for naval patrolling, we must first evaluate the coastal conditions. Even though it is true that the officials of each county are able to evaluate the coastal conditions in the province by referencing the respective gazetteers, the information recorded in the gazetteers is not comprehensive enough for a thorough overview of the entire maritime frontier of our empire. As far as I know, there is a comprehensive coastal map preserved in Beijing, but officials in other provinces rarely have the opportunity to examine it. This maritime map [the yanhaitu] was produced using books and maps produced in the past, as well as a series of local surveys. Having this map in hand enables one to better understand the overall situation of our great maritime frontier.

The tone of this introduction clearly suggests that the cartographer of the yanhaitu was targeting a broader audience of official titleholders in different provinces. This passage gives us the sense that the yanhaitu aims to encourage officials not to underestimate the importance of maritime governance and to better evaluate the inner sea of the empire (covering the coast and seawater). Apart from this, the yanhaitu also documents the coastal conditions. Most of the river mouths, harbors, and islands are marked in Chinese, whereas the coastline was distinctly delineated and the northern and northeastern borders were clearly indicated (see Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2 The Coastal Map of the Seven Provinces (Qisheng yanhaitu)

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Unlike other maritime maps produced in the Ming–Qing period, such as the Topographic Diagram of Maritime Defense (Wanli haifang tu) (1561), the Complete Topographic Diagram of Maritime Defense of the United Empire (Qiankun yitong haifang quantu) (1605), and the coastal maps collected in the Siku quanshu, the Qisheng yanhaitu portrayed the maritime frontier horizontally, placing the land mass of coastal China in the upper part of the map, while the vast body of water was depicted in the lower part. In this regard, the diagram showed the eastern side of China and the western part of the East Asian Sea in a landscape orientation. As such, looking at the yanhaitu was like “viewing the coast from the sea,” while in other maritime diagrams, such as those produced in the Ming dynasty, it was like “looking at the sea from the coast.”

Figure 2.3 Wanli haifang tushou 萬里海防圖說 (1524–1526 first edition; reproduced in 1725)

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Figure 2.4 Part of the Qisheng yanhaitu

Another significant feature of most of the coastal maps and atlases produced under official supervision in the Qing Dynasty is that areas beyond governmental control were not described in detail or were even left blank because the extension of Qing mapping was directly related to imperial expansionism.39 In the Qisheng yanhaitu, a large portion of sea space was filled with detailed information (see Figure 2.4). For instance, the northern and northeastern borders of the coastline were indicated with this text printed on the map: The northern border of the maritime space begins from the coast of Tianjin and then [goes] all the way east to the Sea of Liaodong. This piece of seawater covers Iron Mountain Island, Yellow Castle Island, and Pi Island, facing the Korean peninsula. The northeastern border starts from the water off the Sea-Mountain Pass (Shanhai guan). This piece of seawater covers Jinzhou Island, Lüshun City, and the Yalü river mouth. The Yalü river mouth is the point that marks the boundary between the Qing and Joseon Korea. The eastern part of the [Bohai Sea] is where the Shandong merchants benefited considerably. Dengzhou, a city located in Shandong, and Lüshun face each other. This piece of seawater is strategically important since it connects Pi Island in the east and the imperial region in the west. The distance between Temple Island (an island situated off the eastern coast of Shandong) and Lüshun is 550 li. Sailing in favorable winds, the journey only takes one night.

39

Emma Jinhua Teng, Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 143.

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The above paragraphs introduce the mapped northern and the northeastern boundaries of the late eighteenth-century maritime frontier. Using Tianjin as a starting point, the cartographer first draws our attention to the Bohai Sea, the closest maritime space to the imperial region (jingji). The inscription indicates that the Bohai Sea is considered a strategic gateway that links together three provinces: Zhili, Liaodong, and Shandong. It is worth noting that the paragraph even details the time it takes to sail between the eastern part of Shandong and the Lüshun harbor. Sailors and merchants, at that time, most likely followed that route to travel from Shandong to Liaodong. This textual information also indicates the eastern limit of the Shandong coast. The mapmaker makes it clear that “the eastern limit of the Shandong province ends at Mount Cheng [Chengshan]. Merchants intending to sail to Chengde and Tianjin use[d] Mount Sheng as their standard.” On the map, Mount Sheng is located at the tip of Shandong province, near Rongcheng City and Fishpond Harbor (Yangyuchi), which are two significant naval stations that were established by the Yongzheng emperor, administrated under the Shandong navy and patrolled by the Rongcheng water force (shuishi).40 We therefore have a sense that the Shandong navy protected Mount Cheng and kept it secure and that it was one of the best strategic entrances from southern China to the Bohai area. Furthermore, some specific sea spaces, such as Dinghai (the seawater off the coast of Jiangsu), were even indicated as the “foremost region[s] guarding the inner sea” (you Dinghai wei zhi hanwei, shi neihai zhi tangao ye), while the boundary between the seas off Guangdong and Vietnam is indicated by the phrase “the limit and the edge (yuan jin zhi chu),” which signifies that the sea space beyond that boundary was outside imperial control.41 This cartographic evidence supports the notion that some sea space was clearly “included on the map” (ru bantu), whereas some further sea space had “not yet entered the map” (weiru bantu) and visually served as an outer sea space from a state-centered perspective. The above attempts to demarcate inner and outer sea spaces could also be reflected in the diplomatic strategies applied by the Qing court to identify inner and outer tributaries in Inner Asia. Under the tributary system, the Manchu court deliberately divided their tributaries into inner 40 41

Shandong shifan daxue lishi xi Zhongguo jindaishi yanjiushi (ed.), Qing shi lu Shandong shi liao xuan (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1984), 1753. This piece of information might also help substantiate Charles Wheeler’s argument that it was difficult to ascertain where the Gulf of Tonkin started and ended. See Charles Wheeler, “Rethinking the Sea in Vietnamese History: Littoral Society in the Integration of Thuan-Quang, Seventeenth–Eighteenth Centuries,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 37 (2006), pp. 123–153.

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polities (dependencies) and outer polities. Only the inner polities (such as Nepal and Kanjut) would be granted military protection,42 whereas the outer polities (such as Tashkent, Bukhara, Badakhshan, and Kazakas) were client states that were not directly linked to the Qing Empire.43 For instance, in 1751 the Qianlong emperor issued an imperial decree stating, Our dynasty has unified the vast terrain that lies within the frontiers. The various barbarians, inner and outer, have submitted and turned toward civilization. Each of them has a different costume and appearance. We order the governor general and the provincial governors along the frontiers to have illustrations made that copy the likeness of the clothing and ornaments of the Miao, Yao, Li, and Zhuang, under their jurisdiction, as well as of the outer barbarians, and to submit these illustrations to the Grand Council, so that they may be compiled and arranged for imperial survey.44

This imperial edict reflects not only the emperor’s desire to have his officials compile the Huang Qing zhigong tu, but also his interest in using the concept of the inner and outer binary as a rhetoric of governance and control that explained, if not justified, the Qing exertion of power over certain selected or desired peoples and regions – whether on land or at sea.45 Moreover, in dealing with the question of civilization and “barbarity” in the seventeenth century, the Qing tended to follow an inner–outer model. Unlike the Ming Dynasty, which tended toward a view of a people as being either civilized or “barbaric,” the Qing tended to eschew this binary, considering the categories “civilized” and “barbaric” to be relative and not mutually exclusive. The Qing also adhered to an inner–outer model of maritime reality. By the eighteenth century, “these degrees of inner and outer were distinctly narrative; that is, they might be contrasted to moral, ethical, or cultural criteria.”46 Most of

42 43

44 45

46

See Nicola Di Cosmo, “Qing Colonial Administration in Inner Asia,” International History Review, vol. 20 no. 2 (1998), pp. 287–309. See Joseph Fletcher, “Ch’ing Inner Asia c.1800,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, part I, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 35–38. See Taiwan yinhang jingji yanjiushi (ed.), Qing zhigong tu xuan (Taipei: Taiwan yinhang, 1963), p. 3. This imperial edict is translated by Emma Teng. Scholars such as Pitman B. Potter also apply the inner–outer binary to analyze the PRC’s frontier management. See his “Theoretical and Conceptual Perspectives on the Periphery,” in Diana Lary ed., The Chinese State at the Borders (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), p. 249. Pamela Kyle Crossley, Helen F. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton (eds.), Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 15.

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the inner groups were associated with the early conquests, such as the Banner Manchus, the Mongols, and the Hanjun, while most of the outer group remained unincorporated after these conquests. Here, the inner–outer model is demonstrably hierarchical, with the innermost society enjoying the greatest intimacy with the ruling lineage and the outermost society having the least. A Doubled-Layered Framework According to written evidence on the Qisheng yanhaitu, the inner–outer framework could also be conceptualized as a double-layered one. Within the inner sea, the sea space was deliberately divided into wai and nei. As the cartographer of the Qisheng yanhaitu wrote, “The inner sea was strategically important, while the outer sea was full of scattered islands and tiny isles.” This differentiation, noted in the haitu, is primarily based on the depth of the seawater and its distance from the coast. As large war junks often had difficulty approaching the shore at low tide, they were responsible for patrolling the deeper “outer coastal waters,” which, it must be noted, still included the region of the inner sea, in order to “defend the frontier” (han bianchui). Small patrol ships were assigned to police the shallower “inner coastal waters” in order to “strengthen the foundation of coastal defence” (cun genben). This “double-layered framework” also revealed how the inner and outer seas were demarcated at the provincial administrative level. In the simplest sense, both the neiyang and the waiyang were regarded as the inner sea. The difference between them is attributed to the ways in which the two yangs were patrolled and governed. Normally, the seawater closer to the coast was referred to as the neiyang, where provincial officials were responsible for policing the respective areas in collaboration with the navy. The waiyang referred to the surrounding or nearby seawaters of some of the islands off the coast. Since this area of seawater usually could not be seen from the shoreline, this implied that it was “out of provincial reach.” As a result, the navy was the only unit responsible for patrolling the waiyang and provincial officials did not have to share this mission. For instance, the Qianlong emperor and his son Jiaqing (1760–1820; r. 1796–1820) pointed out that officials in the coastal provinces did not dare venture into what was considered the waiyang. Qing officials often wrote off the incidents the occurred in these waters as being beyond their provincial administration and of little concern. Some officials even ordered the empire’s official saltwater junks to avoid passing over the outer ocean, suggesting that the provincial offices may have altogether abandoned policing this unfamiliar sea

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space.47 The waiyang, in this sense, was a place where provincial governance ceased, yet it was also a place where pirates sought to maximize their autonomy and power.48 However, this may have made little sense to the seafaring people who regarded the sea as a vital resource for their survival and not as a territory with state-based boundaries.49 The Guangdong haifang huilan, published in the 1760s, provides an illustrative example of the patrolling operations pertaining to this “double-layered framework.” At that time, the strength of the maritime force across the Guangdong sea space consisted of 167 war junks of various sizes. The purpose of this force was to intercept the smuggling activity that was occurring in the shallower waters along the coast. This fleet was divided into thirty-eight separate units and placed under the command of the admiral (shuishi tidu). It patrolled some 3,000 li of an inner sea space that had been divided into two sectors, from Chaoyang on the eastern flank to Hainan on the western flank, and along the Guangdong coast. The “neiyang fleet” meticulously patrolled the islets, harbour areas, shoals, and half-tide rocks, while the “waiyang fleet” was responsible for policing the more remote region that was situated at a greater distance from the coast.50 In fact, this “double-layered dissection” is perspicuously indicated in the Collected Administrative Statutes of the Great Qing (Da Qing huidian): “If an accident happened in neiyang, both the provincial (wen) and naval officers (wu) would be punished; if an accident happened in waiyang, only the navy would be penalized” (neiyang shishi, wen wu bingcan, waiyang shishi, zhuanze guanbing, wenzhi mian qi canchu).51 Tian Wenjing, the governor general of Hedong, during the Yongzheng period, also stated, “The navy was reprimanded if they managed the waiyang poorly, whereas the provincial officers were punished if they failed to properly administer the neiyang ” (waiyang ze zhi xunshao guanbing, neikou [neiyang] ze zhi zhouxian yousi).52 According to this logic, the seawater further away from the waiyang was considered foreign sea space; in other words, the “outer sea from a political, state-centred perspective,” as I mentioned earlier. A concrete way to visualize this framework would be as follows: 47 48 49

50 51

Imperial edicts of January 10 and November 10, 1796, in Jiaqing daoguang liangchao shangyudang (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2000). Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates, p. 103. Ruth Balint argues that “drawing lines in the sea, to the fishermen, is ludicrous.” See her Troubled Waters: Borders, Boundaries and Possession in the Timor Sea (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2005), p. 4. Chen Hongchi et al. (eds.), Guangdong haifang huilan, chap. 12, pp. 25a–27b. 52 Da Qing huidian, juan 115, p. 48. Shizong Xianhuangdi zhupi yuzhi, juan 126, p. 36.

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Those who are curious might wonder about the exact limits of the waiyang, the neiyang, and the foreign sea space in quantifiable distances, such as in li or nautical miles. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a definitive answer to this question. Yet, thankfully, there exist two pieces of written evidence that can, more or less, provide us with some useful hints. For instance, in his Record of the Ocean (Haiyang jilüe), Fang Junshi had this to say: To identify whether the sea space belongs to us (the Qing), we have to use the Old Ten Thousand Mountain [Laowanshan; an island off the coast of Guangdong] as the demarcating line. The sea space beyond the Laowanshan [the writer was probably referring to the southern part of island] is an extensive ocean we call the Blackwater Ocean (Heishuiyang), which is beyond our governance and control. By contrast, the seawater near the Laowanshan, such as the Linding and the Jiuzhou oceans, is called the waiyang, while the sea space closer to the coast of Guangdong, such as the area near the isle Jinxingmen, is called the neiyang.53

According to the above quotation, Fang showed that the limits of the neiyang and the waiyang normally depended on the locations of the islands off the coast. Therefore the actual distances of the neiyang and the waiyang varied among the different coastal provinces. In the case of Guangdong, as contoured by Fang, the neiyang covers the seawater from the coast to the Linding and Jiuzhou oceans (i.e. the seawater closer to the Laowanshan), whereas the waiyang is the maritime space closer to the Laowanshan. The waiyang ends at a certain point off the southern coast of the Laowanshan, 53

Fang Junshi, Haiyang jilüe (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995), p. 38.

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which Fang considered the point where the “extensive ocean (the foreign sea space)” begins. We may use the same diagram to visualize Fang’s perception of the waiyang, the neiyang, and the foreign sea space:

In addition to Fang Junshi’s account, the Qingshilu reported that a detailed Oceanic Diagram (Yangtu), in which the limits of the neiyang and the waiyang were identified, was produced in Jiangsu province during the Qianlong period. This was reported by Gao Jin, the governor general of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi (Liangjiang zongdu), in 1765: It is hard to map the waiyang because it is not easy to demarcate a boundary in the ocean. At the moment, even though we have already charted and recorded the limits of some of the waiyang surface in li (quantifiable distances) in an oceanic diagram entitled Yangtu, which has been circulated among officials, we should revise and update the diagram in order to make it more accurate and precise. If we can produce a more detailed Yangtu for our colleagues, we will be able to assign the patrolling duties accordingly and accurately.54

Gao Jin provided the Qianlong emperor with a remarkable piece of information, suggesting that a detailed official oceanic diagram, which indicated the limits of the neiyang and the waiyang, was published and circulated in Jiangsu. It is equally significant that some officials, such as Gao Jin, were aware of the importance of signifying such limits in order to facilitate the sea patrol in a more careful manner. For instance, Fan Shichong also suggested 54

Qinggaozhong shilu, juan 750, collected in Qingshilu, vol. 18, pp. 259–260.

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Figure 2.5 Changshi shuishiying neiwaiyang yutu 昌石水師營內外洋輿圖 (c.1730, British Library Board; Shelfmark: Cartographic Items Additional MS. 16,359.i.)

that “the governors of all maritime provinces should identify and document the names of all neiyang and waiyang for patrolling purposes” (qi gesheng neiwai yangming . . . ying ling gai dufu zaoce zibu, yibei chahe).55 However, I am still unable to locate the oceanic diagram introduced by Gao Jin; and from the above quotation, we can only discern that such a tool existed in the eighteenth century. Otherwise, I am certain that we would be able provide a better and more complex inner–outer model by using this Yangtu as a promising and illustrative example. In addition to the above accounts, we can even obtain a more complicated picture of the “double-layered” framework of the inner–outer model if we focus on some rare sea charts entitled yingxuntu (diagram of coastal garrisons) produced in the long eighteenth century, such as the Changshi shuishiying neiwaiyang yutu and the Pingyang ying yanhai jiezhi tu (see Figures 2.5 and 2.6). From these diagrams, as we shall see, the maritime 55

Kangxi chao shilu, juan 249 (Kangxi 55 nian 3 yue), “Fan Shichong shuyan.”

Inner–Outer: A Traditional Binary

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Figure 2.6 Pingyang ying yanhai jiezhi tu 平陽營沿海界址圖 (c.1739, British Library Board; Shelfmark: Cartographic Items Additional MS. 16,358.g.)

frontier was not simply demarcated by a straight line indicating the inner and the outer seas, but by multiple lines and curves. These lines and curves were probably drawn by local officials specifying the exact patrol spaces, and in turn featuring the extent and level of their patrolling duties. As a result, these yingxuntu diagrams serve as an effective tool showing that the Qing was actually able to divide its maritime frontier into various sectors; and it also pushes us to reconsider the fact that the Qing did not have any lines drawn at sea in order to exercise its maritime power and vision. Inner–Outer: A Traditional Binary The inner–outer binary was not only applicable when modeling and demarcating sea space, but also had long been viewed as a traditional spatial paradigm in Chinese philosophy and philology. Throughout the history of imperial China, ideas about the configuration of space and

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Figure 2.7 The diagram of fengzhou (fengzhou tu 封舟圖). Source: Zhongshan chuanxin lu 中山傳信錄

mankind’s position within it were vital to officials, thinkers, writers, and intellectuals. Indeed, analyzing China through a lens of spatial configuration is “a mode of inquiry” that has been “enormously productive in Chinese history.”56 In his masterpiece The Construction of Space in Early China, Mark Edward Lewis has shown how spatial configuration was applied at every level of Chinese thinking, from the skin as the boundary of the human body to visions of the cosmos. Chinese thinkers insisted on adhering to boundaries while simultaneously maintaining proper relations across these boundaries, so that internal order and external openness remained compatible.57 Lewis unequivocally demonstrates that the importance of boundaries that separate inner and outer spheres is deeply rooted in the Chinese conception of space from a philosophical perspective. Like Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Lewis holds that space, like time, is relational. In imperial China, the Chinese concept of space evolved over roughly a thousand years, and came to be ordered and conceived primarily in terms 56 57

Robin McNeal, “Constructing Myth in Modern China,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 71 (August 2012), p. 679. Mark Edward Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), pp. 1–12.

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of basic juxtapositions, such as inner and outer, central and peripheral, superior and inferior. In this regard, the inner and the outer space came to be constructed or represented through the actual and conceptual means of producing or reproducing social and political hierarchies, and to characterize relationships within micro and macro levels of society. For example, in the symbolic language of sacred writing, the inner and outer referred to the images and formulations that simultaneously conformed to the laws of one’s inner world and also to those of the wider world.58 In the I-Ching, there was an inner spirit and an outer presence,59 the civil court contained an inner administrative office (neiting) and an outer political office (waiting),60 traditional Chinese houses had inner chambers and outer courtyards, and inner chambers had further divisions of interiority and exteriority.61 In this regard, in Chinese culture it is essential to understand one’s position in space, time, and society. The establishment of a structure of tangible spatial reference greatly facilitates the development of this orientation. In other words, the inner–outer opposition and other forms of spatial division are ubiquitous and omnipresent in Chinese settings and spaces.

Ruling the Inner Sea Unlike the seventeenth-century Portuguese, who claimed sovereignty over sea space not on the basis of proximity but through martial force, wherever their ships might have taken them, the Qing court never contemplated the possibility that a monarch’s control could transcend physical and geographical boundaries across thousands of miles of ocean. Instead, Manchu monarchs governed their inner sea space through a policy of continued action. They saw the inner ocean as a legitimate arena that was critical to both empire building and national security.62 58 59 60 61

62

Laozi (trans. Gia-fu Geng, Jane English and Toinette Lippe), Tao Te Ching (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), p. xl. See Alfred Huang, The Numerology of the I Ching: A Sourcebook of Symbols, Structures, and Traditional Wisdom (Rochester, NY: Inner Tradition International, 2000). For details, see Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in MidCh’ing China, 1723–1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 4–7. Giovanni Vitiello argues that “inner and outer were associated with women and men, and by extension with hetero- and homosexuality, respectively.” See his The Libertine’s Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 40. See, for instance, Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, dated to “Kangxi liunian (1667) dingwei jiuyue, renyin shuo,” “bingbu yifu” (message directed to the Ministry of War); Zhao Erxun et al. (eds.), Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4015–4018; Qing Gaozong (the Qianlong emperor), Qingchao wenxian tongkao, juan 185, “bingkao,” no. 8, pp. 6463–6470; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan (ed.), Yongzhengchao Hanwen zhupi

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Thus the eighteenth-century Qing court expended its energy ruling and supervising the inner sea space through the establishment of an imperial navy. This imperial navy was responsible for guarding and policing four discrete, yet interconnected, sea zones off the China coast. From north to south, these included Bohai Sea, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang sea spaces, the Taiwan Strait, and the Guangdong sea space. The cartographic depictions of the Qisheng yanhaitu and other maritime diagrams such as the Wanli haifang tu (see Figure 2.3) clearly depict a maritime frontier that was divided into four sea zones. The Qisheng yanhaitu presents viewers with a dividing line (fenjie) across a maritime frontier. For instance, the Jiangsu and the Zhejiang sea spaces are divided by the Jiang–Zhe fenjie (the Jiang–Zhe dividing line), while the Taiwan Strait and the Guangdong sea space are divided by the Fujian–Guangdong fenjie (Fujian– Guangdong dividing line). Apart from guarding and policing the four sea zones, the imperial navy was also responsible for suppressing piratical violence. In fact, in the eighteenth century, the Qing court was eager to solidify its sovereignty over its inner sea space by rigorously fighting piracy. Indeed “confrontations at sea were both an important instrument of state power and a measure of the degree to which state authority was actually established . . . [T]he state was responsible for quashing piracy within its own territorial waters, that is, where it claimed sovereignty.”63 The piracy crisis in China, especially in south China, posed a challenge for the Qing court regarding what sort of power and order could be enforced at sea, and how security across pirate-infested waters and in the maritime littoral could best be ensured. In short, control of piratical violence created actual issues related to maritime sovereignty. In the eighteenth century, the Qing emperors were deeply aware of the intermittent maritime violence. For example, the Yongzheng emperor encouraged his officials to crack down on sea raiders and frequently admonished them when they failed to do so. His son, Qianlong, ordered the naval fleets in Guangdong and Zhejiang to regularly patrol the inner sea and the maritime littoral in order to eliminate any opportunities for illegal trade and other unlawful activities. However, given the maritime environment’s unpredictability and the extreme mobility enjoyed by the pirates, these sea bandits could easily escape government suppression by

63

zouzhe huibian (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1989–1991), juan 8, “Memorial submitted by Gao Qizhuo,” p. 279. Anne Perotin-Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor: Power and Law on the Sea, 1450–1850,” in James D. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 202.

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fleeing far beyond the reach of the Qing naval patrols. Some pirates even invested resources outside China, in order to survive Qing suppression and expand their power and autonomy.64 Consequently, for the Qing, control of piratical disturbances long remained a festering problem. To further assert its maritime vision and power, the Qing navy also assumed responsibility for rendering aid to vessels that became shipwrecked in the inner sea along its long stretch of coastline. In fact, the Qing was more proactive than its Asian neighbors in repatriating survivors, irrespective of race or origin. The Da Qing huidian recorded numerous cases of the navy rescuing shipwreck survivors and repatriating them to their homelands, including Siam, Luzon, Korea, and the Ryūkyūs.65 However, between the 1680s and the early 1710s, the Qing did not standardize any regulations for handling these maritime misfortunes. In 1718, owing to the increasing number of shipwrecks at the turn of the eighteenth century, the central court ordered local officials to submit summary reports on the rescue and repatriation of foreign shipwreck survivors toward the end of each year. Yet, for the majority of county officials, the source of funding for these rescue operations was not specified until 1729.66 In redefining the policy at that time, the Yongzheng emperor informed local officials they should use state funds in order to provide equal treatment and aid to all foreign vessels shipwrecked in the inner sea. The Qianlong emperor continued his father’s policy and approach managing beached foreign vessels. For instance, in 1737, when a Ryūkyūan merchant vessel was found shipwrecked off the coast of Zhejiang, the emperor ordered Zhejiang provincial officials to use state funds to provide the survivors (who were mostly Ryūkyūan civilians) with food and clothing and to help them repair their ships. Immediately after the incident, the emperor even promulgated a decree reminding all coastal officials to follow the same procedure for future shipwrecks along the maritime frontier.67 In hindsight, the Qing response to these incidents can be seen as an exercise of maritime power across its inner sea space.68

64 65

66 67 68

See Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates, pp. 209–229. See Kangxi Da Qing Huidian, vols. 72, 73, and 74 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1993); and Yongzheng Da Qing huidian, vols. 104, 105, and 106 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1994–95). Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan (ed.), Ming–Qing shiqi Aomen wenti dang’an wenxian huibian, vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999), p. 397. Qing Gaozong shilu, vol. 52 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), Qianlong 2 nian run 9 gengwu. For details, see Liu Shiuh-feng, “Shipwreck Salvage and Surviors’ Repatriation Networks of the East Asian Rim in the Qing Dynasty,” in Fujita Kayoko et al. (eds.),

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In addition to establishing a strong navy and a humanitarian response to shipwrecks, the Qing court also gave substantial administrative consideration to its inner sea space by setting up a customs system, which we will discuss in fuller detail in Chapter 4. In 1683, it relaxed its ban on maritime trade, following the annexation of Taiwan. Sun Hui, a supervising secretary in the revenue office, urged the Kangxi emperor to establish a customs system to regulate the issuance of licenses and the collection of duties, as a means of managing sea trade after the embargo was lifted. Kangxi adopted Sun’s suggestion, mentioning to his officials that, “without a regular way of collection, levying duties would trouble maritime traders [who would be subject to extortion from customs officials]. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the same system in the coastal regions as inland and appoint special officials to deal with related affairs.”69 One year later, Customs Offices were established in Guangdong (Guangzhou, Xiangshan, and Macao) and Fujian (Fuzhou, Nantai, and Xiamen). Over the next three years, two more Customs Offices were set up in Zhejiang (Ningbo and Dinghai) and Jiangsu (Huating, Chongque (which no longer exists), and Shanghai). Once the four Customs Offices were established and institutionalized, maritime activities across the inner sea were controlled and governed. And instead of relying on the river Customs Office (queguan) to manage shipping matters, the Qing set up a specific maritime customs structure to manage trading activities across its maritime frontier. The establishment of the new Customs Office suggests that the Qing was aware that the rhythms and dynamics of maritime activities across the inner sea were different from those of the river/land region. Indeed, the economic activities that took place across the Qing’s inner sea space had developed to the point where it had become necessary to establish a new management and monitoring system. By policing and regulating maritime activities across its inner sea space, the Qing court was able to assert its sovereignty, by force, over its immediate coastal waters against (potential) foreign penetration and invasion. However, the Qing was not the only proactive state power in Asia that attempted to guard against foreign aggression in domestic seawaters. Other Asian states extended their naval power in order to stem foreign incursions off their coasts. For example, over the sixteenth century, the Ottomans – having long been in conflict with the Portuguese – built up a considerable navy to protect their maritime interests. They

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Offshore Asia: Maritime Interactions in Eastern Asia Before Steamships (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013), pp. 211–235. Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean, p. 118. Translations are also by Gang Zhao.

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tried to reopen the Red Sea route to the Persian Gulf by repelling a Portuguese blockade.70 And for a time these Ottoman actions managed to fend off Portuguese incursions. In the early part of the sixteenth century, Gujarat formed an alliance with Egypt to regain its trade networks from the Portuguese (having lost control of these networks when it was defeated by Portugal in the 1509 Battle of Diu).71 A number of small states in Asia also mounted effective responses to stem the conquest of European sea powers. For instance, in the seventeenth century, the Kingdom of Oman managed to oust the Portuguese from Muscat and a few other coastal enclaves.72 After all, although Asian powers did not capitalize on the ocean in the way the Europeans did (for example, by using the sea as a means to colonize the globe), most of them regarded their domestic sea space as a significant geographic, political, and economic sector. Like the Qing in the eighteenth century, they responded to foreign incursions into their domestic sea spaces by raising and arming navies and imposing trade restrictions to protect their maritime interests.

Beyond the Inner Sea Before the Manchu came to power, Zheng He, and the seven great odysseys he led, are a telling example of how China projected its power beyond its inner sea space. In 1405, the Yongle emperor (1360–1424; r. 1402–1424) sent sixty-three warships carrying 27,000 men across the equatorial and subtropical waters of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Over the next twenty-five years, six more expeditions were launched and some even reached the Arabian peninsula and the east coast of Africa. “The renowned voyages led by Admiral Zheng . . . revealed that the Ming court exerted considerable power from the southern coastal region of China to the coast of India.”73 The projection of power across sea space in the early Ming was primarily based on the sea-power paradigm theorized, in the 1890s, by Alfred Mahan, as discussed in the Introduction. Beginning in the “age of discovery,” roughly the sixteenth century, Spain, Portugal, Holland, 70 71 72

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S. Ozbaran, “The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf, 1534–1581,” Journal of Asian History, vol. 6 (1972), pp. 45–87. See Edward A. Alpers, “Gujarat and the Trade of East Africa, c.1500–1800,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 9 no. 1 (1976), pp. 22–44. Abdul Ali, “Struggle between the Portuguese and the Arabs of Oman for Supremacy in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean,” Hamdard Islamicus, vol. 9 no. 4 (1986), pp. 75–80. Geoffrey Wade, “The Zheng He Voyages: A Reassessment,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 78 no. 1 (2005), p. 37; Dreyer, Zheng He.

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France, Britain, and other Western European states had fought their way to power via the ocean, while, in the late nineteenth century, Germany, Japan, and the United States followed the same path.74 Following Mahan’s paradigm, modern historians have tended to agree that Zheng He’s mission, which was directed by the Ming court, indicated that China also had the capacity to pursue a program of imperial and colonial expansion based on sea power. Yet it should be noted that the Chinese projection of power to the outer sea space differs from the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British projections of transoceanic sea power. The Chinese imperial court did not seek to claim sovereignty over other sea spaces in order to generate economic wealth. Even though Zheng He reached the Arabian coast and East Africa, his large fleet did not attempt to conquer territories or set up colonies. His purpose was merely to establish and consolidate diplomatic relations with foreign countries and to strengthen commercial contacts between the Ming and other Asian states across the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the practice of pursuing trade and establishing monopolies by dominating the ocean “was uniquely European.”75 In contrast to the European seafaring powers that were interested in sponsoring overseas colonialism,76 neither the Ming nor the Qing Empires attempted to capitalize on their naval supremacy beyond their inner sea. In other words, they did not seek to transcend the boundary between their domestic sea space and the foreign sea spaces, thereby exploiting and controlling the latter.77 As such, even though some scholars may contend that the Qing should be considered a colonial empire, it was presumably “land-based colonial,” but apparently not “maritime colonial.” In essence, the Qing court viewed their domestic sea space as a part of their territorial realm and sought to keep the inner ocean under tight imperial control and supervision. In this regard, the inner–outer model could partly explain China’s general disinclination to conceptualize the ocean as a power base and battleground for international conflict and competition, in contrast to Western Europe.

74 75 76 77

See, for instance, Ronald S. Love, Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery, 1415–1800 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006). Satish Chandra, The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1987), p. 26. John E. Wills Jr., “Maritime Asia, 1500–1800: The Interactive Emergence of European Domination,” American Historical Review, vol. 98 (February 1993), pp. 83–105. It must be noted, however, that some scholars, such as Nicola Di Cosmo and Dorothea Heuschert, believe that the Qing should be considered a colonial empire. See Di Cosmo, “Qing Colonial Administration in Inner Asia,” pp. 287–309; and Dorothea Heuschert, “Legal Pluralism in the Qing Empire: Manchu Legislation for the Mongols,” International History Review vol. 20 no. 2 (1998), pp. 310–24.

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Nonetheless, it is evident that the Qing projected its imperial influence across the outer sea through its attempts to mandate autonomous power over its maritime tributaries. As is well known, the high Qing continued to enforce its authority over the tributary system in order to maintain order across much of Asia, on both land and sea. Yet it must be remembered that the Qing did not consider the maritime space connected to its tributary states as part of its inner sea, thereby asserting a kind of colonial predominance. To a substantial degree, the Qing court did not consider the tributary system an imperialistic tool with which it could acquire and maintain control over its tributaries and the seawater attached to them. In hindsight, its approach to maritime sovereignty was very different from that exerted in the “New World” territories claimed by European sea powers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, this does not mean that the Qing had no imperial influence, which is fundamentally different from colonial possession of power, over the outer sea space that surrounded its tributaries. Instead, on many occasions, as an expression of its ascendency, the Qing exerted its power over these outer seas through the deployment to its tributaries of specific navy ships, called “imperial vessels” (fengzhou; see Figure 2.7).78 For instance, in 1719, the Kangxi emperor enjoined an “imperial vessel” to sail across the Taiwan Strait to the Ryūkyū kingdom, aiming to bestow power and grant protection to the Ryūkyū monarch. Commander in chief Xu Baoguang recorded the respective mission in full detail in Zhongshan chuanxin lu. According to the commander, the imperial vessel is 105 feet long and 29.8 feet wide, and has four compartments and three levels. The officials and servants occupy the middle level, while skilled soldiers, armed with bows and shields, guard the upper deck . . . All compartments of the ship are competently designed to avoid excessive rainfall and overheating. Fresh water is securely stored in one of the compartments. The podium for the commander, where the flag is hoisted, is in the stern of the vessel; and underneath it is an altar for the goddess of the sea . . . Altogether, twelve cannons are installed on board.79

Judging from Xu Baoguang’s depiction, the “imperial vessel” was huge and well equipped. Though the vessel lagged far behind first-rate Western European ships of that era, such as the HMS Royal Sovereign, which was equipped with 100 guns of various weights of shot, at the time the Qing “imperial vessel” was considered a symbol of Qing military 78

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The Ming court also dispatched fengzhou to its tributaries, yet the Ming court did not do it on a regular basis. See Xu Baoguang, Zhongshan quanxun lu (Taipei: Taiwan yinhang, 1972), p. 4. Xu Baoguang, Zhongshan quanxun lu, pp. 4–5.

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presence in the East Asian Sea. Compared to most war junks in East Asia, in the early and mid-eighteenth century, the fengzhou was superior and strong enough to consolidate Qing maritime power beyond its inner seawater within the framework of the tributary system. Yet, despite the mobilization of these fengzhou across the inner and outer maritime spaces, the Qing rarely used its maritime competence to suppress activity in its tributaries, let alone to colonize these areas. The soldiers and the cannons on board these vessels more or less served as precautions against potential danger. Most Sino-tributary disputes were resolved through diplomatic negotiation. In other words, even though the fengzhou were equipped with powerful armaments, the Qing scarcely used them to overpower other entities in its maritime tributaries. After all, the high Qing was more inclined to rule the inner rather than the outer sea. In considering the actions of Qing rule over its inner sea space, we might think of the high Qing policy of imposing a sea blockade (haijin). In the late seventeenth century, the Kangxi emperor issued an imperial decree to “block the sea” (jinhai) by imposing a strict ban on navigation, which aimed at cutting off ties between the insurrection in Taiwan led by Zheng Chenggong (or Koxinga; 1624–1662) and the coastal population of Fujian.80 Based on this sea blockade, some historians have concluded that the Qing Empire “was an isolated land power that ignored the ocean,” leaving the seas open to Western Europeans.81 However, this assumption is faulty because it overlooks the actual reason the sea ban was imposed. In fact, the coastal evacuation, at the time, meant only that security concerns trumped all other concerns; it did not mean that the Qing court was keeping an absolute distance from the sea. Even during the period of the sea blockade policy, the Kangxi emperor began extensive shipbuilding, fortified coastal cities, trained marine forces,82 and even established an alliance with the Dutch in order to utilize their advanced naval technology.83 And in the early eighteenth century, as soon as the region was pacified and economic growth once again became politically feasible, the emperor and the banner elites immediately challenged the blockade restrictions. In this regard, the Qing court was far

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81 82 83

Jonathan D. Spence, “The K’ang-hsi Reign,” in Willard J. Peterson (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9, part I, Ch’ing Empire to 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 150–160. For instance, Barry Cunliffe, Europe between the Oceans: 9000BC–AD1000 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008, 2nd edn 2011), p. vii. See Du Zhen, Yue Min xun shi ji lüe (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2008), juan 1, p. 10a. See John E. Wills Jr., Pepper, Guns, and Parleys: The Dutch East India Company and China 1622–1681 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 98–99, 125–132.

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from ignoring the inner sea, even during the so-called age of blockade. The haijin policy should be read as “a strategy of denial” that aimed to prevent opponents from achieving control of the sea, instead of disassociating or segregating the empire from the ocean.84 After rendering the sea secure for its own military and commercial purposes, the Qing still viewed all parts of its inner ocean as special strategic areas of vital importance. Mare Liberum and Mare Clausum In The International Law of the Sea, D. P. O’Connell examines the history of ocean governance as a fluctuation between free seas (mare liberum) and enclosed seas (mare clausum): The history of the law of the sea has been dominated by a central and persistent theme: the competition between the exercise of governmental authority over the sea and the idea of the freedom of the seas . . . When one or two great commercial powers have been dominant or have achieved parity of power, the emphasis in practice has lain upon the liberty of navigation and the immunity of shipping from local control. When, on the other hand, great powers have been in decline or have been unable to impose their wills upon smaller states, or when an equilibrium of power has been attained between a multiplicity of states, the emphasis has lain upon the protection and reservation of maritime resources, and consequently upon the assertion of local authority over the sea.85

O’Connell’s observation is somewhat accurate, but it rests on the notion that conventional legal principles and strategies of ocean management have been constant or static rather than the more dynamic and fluid approaches to maritime sovereignty and dominance we have seen in the maritime history of the East Asian seas. Indeed, the maritime hegemony of the Qing government of the long eighteenth century, as argued above, was very different than that exercised by the Portuguese, French, and British. As a corollary, O’Connell’s example indicates that the binary classifications of “freedom” and “enclosure” in maritime governance might not be as absolute as they first appear. It also suggests that the binary construction “freedom versus enclosure” lies only within a specifically European organization of space and society and is obviously not a uniform global pattern.

84 85

For details about the strategy of sea denial, see Ministry of Defense, British Maritime Doctrine (Norwich: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 2004), pp. 41–43. D. P. O’Connell, The International Law of the Sea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 1.

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One of the important systems O’Connell addresses is mare liberum. An example of this can be seen in the response to Iberian complaints about French encroachment on their littoral, where the French monarch Francis I (1494–1547; r. 1515–1547) proclaimed that navigation of the seas was open to all nations. In 1608, Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) theorized that Francis I’s action was based on mare liberum. Through mare liberum, Grotius proclaimed that the sea was an international territory, equally free for all to use for seafaring activities. He further indicated that freedom to navigate the oceans was an essential condition for the development of international sea trade.86 Unlike Francis I and Grotius, the Qing court made no claims to freedom of navigation. Nor did it ever assert that all countries have a “basic right” to the open waters beyond their inner sea space.87 In other words, high Qing emperors formulated no concepts akin to those of James I of England (1566–1625; r. 1567–1625), Elizabeth I, or Francis I – namely that both “royal jurisdiction” and “free-trade property right” could be exerted on any water surface of the globe.88 Rather, the eighteenth-century Qing Empire continued to model sea space on the concept of inner–outer. To the Manchu administration, the inner sea was like a land space, and thus was subject to a high degree of social incorporation and territorial control. In contrast to Western European powers, the Qing viewed the inner sea as part of its territory – what lay beyond this space was simply beyond its interest of control. By understanding this inner–outer conception, we can also revise some conventional notions about the Qing Empire, such as the idea that, unlike other seafaring powers, the Qing viewed the ocean as an insignificant space that lay outside their territorial control, and therefore was immune from the kind of social supremacy imposed on terrestrial territory. In fact, the Qing court deemed the inner sea to be spatially important to its program of territorial control and empire building. They governed the blue frontier as much as they governed the land – as a political space to be demarcated and administered according to spatial principles that they formulated on their own terms.

86 87

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John C. Colombos, The International Law of the Sea, 6th edn (New York: David McKay, 1967), p. 8. For instance, the Qianlong emperor once stated that the seawater near the Ryūkyū Kingdom only belonged to the Ryūkyū monarch, even though at that time Ryūkyū was one of the Qing’s tributaries. See Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu, juan 167, dinghai, “Ju Zhejiang tidu Pei Shi zou.” Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France, c.1500–c.1800 (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 11–28.

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The Challenges The Qing Empire reached its zenith of control and power between 1693, the year of Taiwan’s annexation to China, and 1795, when the Qianlong emperor abdicated the throne. Throughout this golden epoch, the Qing court successfully maintained its dominance, which allowed it to claim jurisdiction over its inner sea space without significant resistance. However, after this period of expansion, occupation, and stabilization, its resources became depleted. In fact, in the final stage of the Qianlong regime, as briefly discussed in the Introdution, the Qing began to decline and, owing to a series of internal and external crises, the Manchu rulers succeeding Qianlong were forced to revise the model on which their empire had been built. During this period of turmoil and disorder, it took some time for the Qing state to modify its means of governance from one marked by “an extraordinary combination of expansion and stability”89 to one that aimed to resolve the problems of overpopulation, economic downturn, and two destructive rebellions: the Miao Rebellion of 1795 and the White Lotus Rebellion, which took place a year later. Unfortunately and sympathetically, most of the new policies pursued by the Jiaqing government proved futile. By 1804, the costs of putting down these two rebellions had almost depleted the state treasury,90 and by the end of the 1810s, other domestic crises had drained away the reserve’s remaining 60 million taels of silver.91 And in his declining years, the so-called “glorious stability” that Qianlong had created was reduced to a veneer. With the death of the Qianlong emperor in 1799, the Qing navy quickly descended into passivity and incompetence, even though we are able to recognize some signs of decline earlier. But during the Jiaqing era, the Qing court was noticeably not as proactive in safeguarding the inner sea space as it had been during the golden age. For example, in the case of Guangdong, the military presence along the coast was hopelessly overstretched: in 1806, only 137 fortresses dotted the 2,500-kilometer coast, while a significant number of them were not operated in favourable condition. Moreover, these fortresses were insufficiently manned, poorly 89 90

91

Pamela Kyle Crossley, The Manchus (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1997), p. 108. William T. Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 149–175; Wang Yeh-chien, Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750–1911 (Cambridge, M: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 131; John Robert Shepherd, Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600–1800 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 398. See Helen Dunstan, State or Merchant: The Political Economy and Political Process in 1740s China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 446.

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equipped, and loosely co-ordinated. Further, the navy’s patrolling fleets were also spread wretchedly thin, given the size of the area they were tasked to patrol and protect. According to Nayancheng, the governor general of Liang-Guang, over 1,000 pirate vessels sailed the Guangdong waters, but the provincial navy had been reduced to only eighty-seven battleships at that time.92 Furthermore, the Qing court was strained by its prolonged and expensive battles against domestic rebellion, and the cost of increasing militarization along the maritime frontier would have been considered exorbitant and unnecessary. The shortage of state funds meant that the navy was incapable of enhancing its combat powers, and the government had to rely on customs revenues and loans from merchants and religious groups to support its military operations against the Miao and White Lotus insurgents.93 Without state support and strong sponsorship, it was impossible to maintain sufficient naval militarization. The Qing navy had deteriorated, over the course of the early nineteenth century, to an extent that it even lacked the ability to keep in check the illegal sea crime that took place along the littoral. For example, in the first decade of the 1800s, large pirate leagues pillaged and terrorized the south China coast. Pirate chiefs, such as Zhu Fen and Cai Qian, even formed an alliance, and tried to set up a maritime regime in Taiwan. More importantly, piratical predations in Guangdong and Fujian were directly supported by the newly unified Vietnamese state that emerged from the Tay Son rebellion of the 1770s. Secret sponsorship by foreign powers not only integrated different bands of Chinese pirates into several wellequipped fleets that operated in Guangdong waters, but also showcased the structural limitations of the Qing state in the face of attempting to properly govern its maritime frontier, thereby signifying that Manchu sovereignty over the dynasty’s inner sea space had become increasingly insignificant. In addition to this spate of domestic crises, in the nineteenth century the Qing Empire also faced the incursion of Western imperialism. After the dissolution of the Napoleonic empire at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the newly enshrined international order provided Western European powers with greater impetus for overseas expansion, which was asserted and materialized through advancements in the steel-making and steam-powered industrial technologies that also fostered the modernization of the military. The seafaring powers of the West “now found 92

93

Imperial edict of May 30, 1804, collected in Jiaqing Daoguang liangchao shangyudang (Imperial Edicts of the Jiaqing–Daoguang Reigns) (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2000). Da Qing lichao shilu (Renzongchao) (Taipei: Huawen shuju, 1964), juan 91, pp. 6b–7b.

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[themselves] suddenly in possession of the motives (a need for foreign markets), the ideological justification (the association of nations and an adherence to free-trade liberalism), and the means (new military technology)” to force the “opening” of the Qing Empire and other East Asian countries at an unprecedented pace.94 Among these seafaring powers, Britain was one of the most ambitious and aggressive. This island country had developed a vast naval enterprise that was sustained by its growing industrial might and unparalleled financial resources. It was also the first European power to declare war on China. In 1802 and 1808, it exploited the chaotic situation that existed in Chinese waters and launched two naval expeditions aimed at occupying the long-standing Portuguese settlement of Macao. Situated between the West River and the Pearl river delta, Macao consists of a small peninsula and two islands near Canton. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Portuguese had gradually transformed Macao from a desolate space into a flourishing seaport that was actively involved in trade. Indeed, Macao justified its appellation as “the best and most important pillar the Portuguese had in all the East.”95 Unlike the British, the Portuguese approach to China rested on economic pragmatism. In 1557, Portugal’s assistance in suppressing piracy in the late Ming helped it acquire settlement rights in Macao. During the Ming and the Qing, the Portuguese even paid annual tribute to the court and took part in obligatory court rituals, such as kowtowing to the emperor to show respect both to him and to the court. The Portuguese of Macao were even given the right to set up and elect their own municipal government, thereby giving the settlement considerable selfgoverning power. However, none of this meant that the Qing had given up control over Macao and the waters that surrounded the city. In fact, during the eighteenth century, the Qing court gradually intensified its bureaucratic oversight over this entrepôt. For instance, in 1763, the Qing posted a Chinese official in Macao, followed by a district magistrate. And, in 1800, it set up a vice magistrate.96 So, in essence, the Qing had established itself as the real master of Macao before the outbreak of the First Opium War. Therefore, the British attempt to occupy Macao, and use it as their trading foothold in China, effectively violated Qing sovereignty over its inner sea space in Guangdong. At that time, Henry

94 95 96

Rowe, China’s Last Empire, pp. 169–170. Robert Montgomery Martin, The Colonial Magazine and Commercial Maritime Journal, vol. 1 (London: Fisher & Son, 1840), p. 226. H. B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, vol. 1 (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1910), p. 43.

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William Parish of the Royal Artillery even predicted that a British occupation of Macao would lead either to the rise of contraband trade or to the independence of south China from the Qing Empire.97 Later, in 1802, the British decided to send warships to Chinese waters, even though they hoped to achieve their aim without waging war with either Portugal or the Qing. Yet, however sincere Britain’s intentions may have been, its military actions were sufficient to alarm the Jiaqing emperor. However, unlike in previous decades, the Qing was unable to suppress British military activity and restore order in Macao. Instead, in response to British encroachment, the Qing court collaborated with the Portuguese by signing a mutual treaty wherein it was agreed that the Qing’s sovereignty across its inner sea space would be protected.98 In order to avoid military conflict with both the Qing and the Portuguese, the British sought to find a new way to achieve their goals. In 1805, after noticing that the waters off the Macao coast were infested with fleets of Chinese pirates, the British volunteered to provide naval assistance, to fight the pirates that infested the waters between Macao and Canton. In return, they requested permission to expand their interests and power in Macao and the Pearl river delta. At this time, piracy activity dramatically intensified. In addition, the Qing court came to realize that the Portuguese were using routine British patrols to facilitate their opium trade off the Canton coast. With these two factors in mind, the Qing court became more receptive to British offers of assistance, as the Portuguese were found to be facilitating the opium trade by using their routine patrol off the Canton coast. In order to restore local order, without further delay, the Jiaqing emperor accepted the British offer to dispatch warships to suppress the sea bandits and also to escort the British East India Company’s (EIC) cargo to and from the mouth of the Pearl river.99 The British were not entirely satisfied with this arrangement. And in 1807 and 1808, when the army of Napoleonic France invaded Portugal and forced the Lisbon government to flee to Brazil, Britain became more aggressive toward the Qing. On July 21, 1808, British admiral William Drury, who had been based in Bengal, arrived in the port of Macao with a detachment of 300 marines. His squadron of nine warships anchored at

97 98 99

Quoted from J. L. Cranmer-Byng, “The Defense of Macao in 1794: A British Assessment,” Journal of Southeast Asian History, no. 5 (1964), pp. 135–143. Wang Wensheng provides an illuminating account of this in his White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates. This section is basically based on his fascinating narrative. Paul A. van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700–1845 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), p. 131.

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Jijing, a piece of ocean off Xiangshan County.100 With only 200 soldiers in the Portuguese garrison, Bernardo Aleixo de Lemos Faria, the Portuguese governor of Macao, believed that the only way to fight the British was to follow British orders while at the same time sending a messenger to Canton, asking the Qing for help.101 On August 2, as the British moved into the city of Macao, Miguel Jose de Arriaga (1776–1824), the chief justice of Faria, worked diplomatically with the Qing authorities in Canton. He emphasized that if the Chinese were serious about their sovereignty over their inner sea off Macao, then the Qing court should send troops to help the Portuguese drive the British away.102 Even though the Qing had anticipated that a British incursion could pose a threat to the empire, Jiaqing harshly criticized its unauthorized intrusion, asserting that it was an outright transgression of Qing sovereignty over its inner sea space: If you say you [the British] come because the pirates have not yet been suppressed and you are eager to serve the Celestial Empire, this is utter nonsense! The pirates on the seas have been repeatedly suppressed, and now they are powerless, driven to escape now to the east, now to the west . . . Within the near future, the remaining pirates will be annihilated. We do not need to borrow military aid from your country. We can well imagine that the barbarian merchants of your country, jealous of the Portuguese privileges at Macao, wished to take advantage of the critical moment when the Portuguese were weak, and attempt to occupy Macao and live there. If this is the case, you have drastically violated the laws of the Celestial Empire.103

This is an important edict because it shows that, although the empire was grappling with domestic crises and financial problems, the Jiaqing emperor, who embodied the Qing state, was eager to protect its sovereignty over its inner sea space. Moreover, in this edict, the emperor toned down the “celebrated rhetoric of tributary superiority . . . Instead, he took the moral high ground through another route: by emphasizing the relatively new norms of formal equality, territorial rights, reciprocity, and nonintervention.”104 Since the British were not entirely ready to fight the Qing, at that time, and, more importantly, were worried about destroying that season’s trade, Jiaqing’s warning achieved its desired effect. On

100 101 102 103 104

Horace Hayman Wilson, The History of British India: From 1805 to 1835, vol. 1 (London: James Madden, 1858), p. 318. Austin Coates, Macao and the British, 1637–1842: Prelude to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), p. 97. Coates, Macao and the British. Lo-shu Fu, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations, 1644–1820 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1966), pp. 369–370. Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates, p. 244.

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October 25, within forty-eight hours of Jiaqing’s edict, Britain withdrew its warships from the Pearl river, where they had been cruising near the Bogue and Whampoa. And, on November 12, it also withdrew any ships that had been lying at anchor off Macao, and left the peninsula.105 After this incident, Britain’s relationship with the Qing seemed to take an uneasy turn for the worse. In the early 1840s, the British were known to be ready to wage a war; they would do so by sending naval fleets up the Pearl river. In July 1839 they occupied Dinghai. In August, they threatened to move directly to Beijing. And when the British struck a decisive blow to the Qing defenses in the Yangtze valley, the Qing court went into a tailspin. In August 1842, unlike his father, the Daoguang emperor (1782–1850; r. 1821–1850) committed to signing a peace treaty. This infamous Nanjing Treaty authorized the British Navy to regularly patrol the Yangtze region and to set up a colony and a naval base in Hong Kong. But the treaty contained no provisions for extraterritoriality (zhiwai faquan), which would effectively strip away the protection of these territories and profoundly erode the inner–outer model. Such provisions were formally granted to the British, only after the “General Regulations of Trade” were signed between Britain and the Qing, in July 1843. In subsequent years, following the British example, the French and Americans also concluded treaties, which contained extraterritorial clauses, with the Qing government. Against the backdrop of the humiliating treaty system with regard to ports, the extraterritoriality practiced in China was likewise inequitable. While the foreigners who sailed and settled along the coast were exempted from the Great Qing Legal Code (Da Qing lüli), Chinese sojourners in Europe and North America had to submit to foreign laws.106 Clearly, extraterritoriality not only meant that foreigners in China could be tried under their own consular jurisdiction, but also forced the Qing Empire to give up its sovereignty over some parts of its inner sea space. In stark contrast to the maritime policies in the high Qing, when all vessels that sailed across its inner sea were strictly monitored under imperial supervision, now, for the first time in Chinese history, the imposition of extraterritoriality substantially challenged China’s inner–outer framework over its maritime border.

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H. B. Morse, Chronicles of the East India Company, vol. 3 (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 88–91. See Pär Kristoffer Cassel, Grounds of Judgment: Extra-territoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 46–55.

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The Qing government was far from ignorant of the potential hazards and problems wrought by these unequal extraterritorial treaties. After signing the “General Regulations of Trade” with Britain, the Manchu government emphasized that the legal concessions made to the British should never be taken as precedents for other countries.107 So, in December 1842, for example, when American commodore Lawrence Kearny (1789–1868) went to Guangzhou and asked for similar privileges, immediately following the conclusion of the First Opium War that same year, he was rebuffed and ordered by the Daoguang emperor to stick to the “old rules” that had been established during the previous century. Nevertheless, things took a sharp turn under the advice of two Manchu statesmen, Yilibu (1772–1843) and Qi Ying (1787–1858), who suggested that Daoguang extend to other foreign powers the same privileges, across the inner sea space, that had been granted to Britain. This would avoid the appearance of privileging Britain as a pre-eminent power along China’s maritime frontier.108 By granting the same privileges to other foreign powers (yiti junzhan), the Qing government could limit British influence to the extent that no other country would rely on Britain to help it pursue its interests in China. The Qing government called this diplomatic tactic “controlling one barbarian [with] the other barbarian.” This strategic turn also transformed the inner–outer model. That is, the Qing court believed that, by giving up some portion of its sovereignty across its inner sea space to several foreign nations, it could protect its imperial autonomy because foreign powers would now have to compete with each other in terms of their commercial interests in the region. To the Manchu monarchs, these adjustments were, in a sense, tantamount to an overhaul of the strategy required to safeguard the maritime frontier. And, of course, this entailed a new type of sea modeling.

Concluding Remarks The history of ocean space can be characterized as “explicitly constructivist,” in which institutional arrangements, social structures, individual behaviors, and natural features all intersect to create special territorial 107

108

See the note from Qizing, Yilibu, and Niu Jian to Sir Henry Pottinger, dated September 1, 1842, in Sasaki Masaya, ed., Ahen Sensō no kenkyū: Shiryō hen (Tokyo: Kindai Chūgoku kenkyū iinkai, 1964), p. 218. See Tsiang T’ing-fu (Jiang Tingfu), “The Extension of Equal Commercial Privileges to Other Nations than the British after the Treaty of Nanking,” Chinese Social and Political Science Review, vol. 15 (October 1931), p. 423; and Guo Weidong, Zhuanzhe: Yi zaoqi Zhong–Ying guanxi he “Nanjing tiaoyue” wei kaocha zhongxin (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2003), pp. 560–588.

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space, either on land or at sea.109 By positioning the history of the ocean within the spatiality of territoriality, the inner–outer framework detailed in this chapter may reflect how, in particular historical eras, some waters were crisscrossed by both natural features and the institutional practices of actual regimes. This argument asserts that the production of space is not only social and dialectical, but also political.110 In examining the inner–outer model from an epistemological perspective, this chapter has demonstrated that such spatial binaries are very much the outcome of territorial politics. Indeed, territoriality has been defined as follows: a form of behavior that uses [the] bounding of space for political advantage. Territoriality is about attempting to control both people and their activities within a delimited area and flows of people and their products in and out of an area.111

As I have demonstrated in this chapter, the inner–outer model both defined the possession of the oceanic territory and differentiated the rights of access. The Qing court used this model to define which peoples and resources were under their control and exactly what the relationship of this control should be. To a certain extent, the inner–outer model that was adopted by the Qing Empire during the eighteenth century was similar to the territorial conception embraced by the Western European seafaring powers of the time. Here, territoriality was constructed in a way that supported empire building and the concept of political space. Further to this, an exploration of the Western European history of territoriality in the eighteenth century points to the European concept of territoriality as being similar to the way the Qing conceptualized and constructed its inner sea space as “a behavioral phenomenon associated with the organization of space into spheres of influence or clearly demarcated territories which are made distinctive and considered at least partially exclusive by their occupants or definers.”112 As analyzed above, the Qing state also conceptualized and constructed inner sea space in a way that was similar to that of Western Europe according to the so-called “behavioral phenomenon.” The inner–outer model presents one of the clearest pieces of evidence for such similarities, since the model itself consolidated the political system of a sovereign, territorially defined, sea 109 110 111

112

Philip E. Steinberg, The Social Construction of the Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 1–7. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991). Peter J. Taylor, “Territoriality and Hegemony: Spatiality and the Modern World System” (report submitted to the Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton, New York, 1991), p. 2. Edward W. Soja, The Political Organization of Space (Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers, 1971), p. 19.

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space. Like the Western European oceanic powers, the high Qing also utilized various territorial mechanisms at sea to manufacture specific social constructions, and these social constructions created certain spatial patterns that were closely linked with the idea of sovereignty (in the inner sea space) and otherness (in the outer sea space). As a corollary, this facilitated the conceptualization of the inner sea as a relative space (distinct from the outer sea space) where power was applied and projected, and also where the inner–outer framework played a key role in constructing the “other” foreign sea space. Nevertheless, we also need to be aware of the limitations of this polarity. The framework led the Qing court to think of the “outer” regions as less important either for strategic planning or for information gathering, so they managed to learn a good deal about coastal regions and nearby countries of Southeast Asia, but relatively little about countries farther away. From this perspective, the inner–outer model contrasts quite sharply with European thinking, which did extend to a global scale from the sixteenth century and continued until the twentieth. Hence we have to be careful when comparing the inner–outer concept with that of the European maritime ruling ideology. For the most part of the long eighteenth century, this “inner–outer framework” was trusted as a viable principle upon which the Qing monarchs could base their maritime affairs. But starting from the late eighteenth century, the Qing Empire faced a series of crises when it no longer had sufficient resources to maintain a substantial naval power across its neihai region. The death of the Qianlong emperor marked a turning point in the political strength of the Great Qing, when it was cast into remarkable, if not irretrievable decline. By the early nineteenth century, the Qing navy was plagued by inertia, backwardness, and indecision. Had the Qianlong emperor not shaken the foundation of the empire, or had the late Qing emperors been more practical and proactive, in terms of vision and ability, the Qing court in the late nineteenth century might have mobilized a comprehensive naval reform that could have saved their empire from the encroachments of the European seaborne powers. However, such reform remained elusive, and the naval structure bequeathed by the high Qing remained in stasis and even decayed gradually until the First Opium War. As a consequence, by the 1840s, most warships, naval bases, and armed forts were too outmoded to meet any challenges brought by steamships and destructive cannons, and the navy was undermanned and badly trained. Although there was an appeal for naval reform, during the Daoguang era, most attempts to facilitate such change trickled away into an ocean of inertia. China at that time was in no position to challenge the British

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Empire.113 Indeed, the dragon navy was pathetically inferior compared to the well-armed and better-equipped European armadas, which were proving to be indispensable to the realization of Europe’s aggressive policies in East Asia.114 It was only after the two Opium Wars – after the Qing Empire had suffered crushing defeats – that the Manchu governing body begin to reassert their sovereign power across China’s inner sea space. But by then it was too late. Nonetheless, would it be fair to say that the Qing was unable to establish a navy throughout its long history on the basis of its numerous maritime defeats during the nineteenth century? So far, we have seen a picture of the Qing way of consolidating its presence across the East Asian Sea during the long eighteenth century, and how the inner–outer model as a foundational concept shaped actual maritime policies. Next, we will examine in more detail the Qing way to establish and sustain its dragon navy.

113

114

Mao Haijian, Tianchao de bengkui: Yapian zhanzheng zai yanjiu (Beijing: Joint Publishing Co., 1995). Mao Haijin (trans. Joseph Lawson), The Qing Empire and the Opium War: The Collapse of the Heavenly Dynasty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Frederick A. Talbot, Steamship Conquest of the World (London: William Heinemann, 1912); Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 17–82; Daniel R. Headrick, Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. 177–225.

3

The Dragon Navy

Introduction In 1990, Zhang Lianzhong, the naval commander of the Peoples’ Liberation Army, lamented China’s defeats during nineteenth-century sea battles: “We will never forget that China was invaded seven times by imperialist troops from the sea. The nation’s suffering for lack of sea defense still remains fresh in our minds, and history must not repeat itself.”1 Here, Zhang portrays the Qing as a passive victim on the sea and anything but a naval power. His intention was to advocate for a strong contemporary (late twentieth-century) PRC navy. Zhang is not alone in refusing to grant the Qing Empire a place in world history as a sea power. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, conventional historiography has cast the Qing as indifferent to the maritime world, and instead portrays it as assigning its naval development to a marginal and subordinate status. This chapter aims to challenge this convention by showing that the high Qing can and should be studied from the perspective of a naval power. The eighteenth-century Qing court was not merely driven by an imperialistic impulse to conquer territory in Inner Asia; it did not put aside the matter of security across its inner sea. Indeed, its naval project was deliberate and precautionary, to offer an effective response to disturbance and potential external disruption. Furthermore, the navy’s ability to consolidate and maintain peace along the perimeter of its inner sea, in the eighteenth century, made it possible for Qing troops to carry out the empire’s conquests in Inner Asia. During most of the Kang–Yong–Qian period, the Qing navy was plausibly potent in suppressing piracy, in protecting commodity shipping, and in intimidating real and potential enemies. Additionally, prior to the nineteenth century, its supremacy on the East Asian Sea fostered domestic and Sino-nanyang trade in a period 1

Shen Shugen, “An Interview with Chinese PLA Navy Commander Zhang Lianzhong,” Junshi Shijie no. 2 (September–October 1988), pp. 11–18.

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during which the pattern of trade among Western European nations in East and Southeast Asia had considerably intensified. In the broader context of Asian power relations, as discussed in the previous chapter, the Qing used its navy (among other vehicles) to showcase the empire’s sea power in the eighteenth century, thereby developing its trading interests, securing the China coast, and supporting the transport and provisioning activities the empire required to govern its littoral. Although this chapter only provides an overview of the high Qing maritime militarization project from 1683 to 1798 – a period of 115 years – I believe this is adequate to demonstrate that the efforts of the Qing court were not simply a contingent reaction to unexpected circumstances, but rather a measured and effectual precautionary maneuver that aimed at thorough and formal coastal rule.

Establishing the Navy It is argued that the history of the Manchu navy was established in 1615, almost thirty years before the Manchu entered the Sea-Mountain Pass and swept across northeast China. According to the Collected Archival Materials written in Manchu (Menwen laodang), Nurhaci (r. 1616–1626), the founder of the Qing dynasty, was the first Qing monarch to organize and create a “navy”: The Manchu were not familiar with warship construction before they entered China. On July 9, 1615, Nurhaci sent out 600 followers to the river Ulgiyan in order to harvest timber for navy construction. But at that time, the Manchu were only able to build 200 lightweight canoes.2

The text indicates that Nurhaci sent his troops to harvest timber for warship construction in what is now Huanren county. Although this navy was poorly structured, the Manchu did manage to establish a naval presence in Manchuria, mainly to facilitate logistical support for banner cavalries before they invaded the Ming Empire. At that time, the navy was not well trained, as the Manchu administration did not give priority to naval development. As the early Qing official Chen Jin commented, “our navy was imperfectly designed, plus there were not many soldiers on board.”3 Several years later, the Manchu continued to construct its navy along the coast of Zhili and Liaodong. 2 3

Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan, Menwen laodang (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju; Xinhua shudian, 1990), p. 78. Chen Jin, “Michen jinchao jiyi shu,” collected in Taiwan yinhang jingji yanjiushi (ed)., Qing zoushu xuanhui (Taipei: Taiwan yinhang, 1968), p. 1.

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This naval expansion cannot be explained without factoring in the conflict between the Manchu and the Ming. First, the Manchu required a revamped navy to monitor any activity outside the coastal waters off Zhili and Liaodong. This navy was, then, directed toward defense and its region was broadened to include the Bohai Sea, its port cities, and some of the region’s strategic islands. This expanded naval presence mirrored the spheres of the Qing’s economic interests in the northern Bohai region and, eventually, the northern coast of Shandong. From the 1630s to the 1640s, Manchu shipyards were established in the Liaodong peninsula and vigorous shipbuilding activity took place. Nonetheless, the Manchu navy was defeated by a Ming force that was stationed on the Island of Pi (Pidao). This Ming victory thus set aside the threat from the Manchu via the Bohai Sea until 1644, when Ming defector Wu Sangui opened up the Sea-Mountain Pass, one of the critical and major gates of the Great Wall. The Shunzhi emperor, who led the Qing cavalry through the SeaMountain Pass, was the first Manchu monarch to realize the importance of maritime defense across an inner sea that stretched from southern Manchuria to the Zhili and Shandong coasts. By 1645, the Qing court had already noticed that it was crucial to monitor the coastline in order to protect the newly established Manchu regime. Thus the emperor ordered his officials to create a map delineating the coastal condition of northeast China. Entitled Shandong Zhili Shengjing haijiang tu (Maritime Diagram of Shandong, Zhili, and Shenjing) (Figure 3.1), this is most likely the earliest oceanic map to be officially produced by the Manchu authority. The three coastal provinces, in this map, weighed heavily in the network of Qing coastal defense. For instance, Shenjing was considered to be inseparable from the maritime world: Shengjing: a city protected by a mountain range and a stretch of islands off the coast. The atmosphere surrounding the city is full of imperial might (huangqi), coalescing from this topography. Because of its geographic advantages, the city is sufficiently safe to become the foundation for a growing empire. The city could also benefit significantly from the maritime world. As a city located next to the sea, it is a desirable place with reliable maritime transport (haiyun) to connect [it] to other coastal provinces. Once these coastal provinces are connected, the navy can be skillfully reorganized to guard this piece of seawater.

This signifies that the Manchu regime recognized not only the importance of coastal defense, but also the strategic connections between the three coastal provinces in northeastern China. The map thus provides a very useful picture, giving a glimpse into the early Qing’s naval strategy. Yet it bears remembering that, although the Shunzhi emperor was keen on setting up a maritime policy initiative across the Bohai area and in

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Figure 3.1 Part of the Shandong, Zhili, Shengjing haijiang tu 山東直隸盛 京海疆圖 (preserved in the Library of Congress)

constructing a navy to protect the empire against Zheng’s force in Fujian and Taiwan,4 naval development remained less of a priority for the Qing court. Hence, by the 1660s, the Qing navy had not substantially expanded in either size or structure. 4

From 1650 to 1655, the Shunzhi emperor promulgated a series of regulations concerning naval development along the coast. For instance, the official statement that a war junk should be repaired every three, five, and ten years was established in 1651. See Zhao Erxun, Qingshigao, juan 135, p. 3981. In 1655, the emperor dispatched 30,000 elite soldiers from the Manchu Eight Banners, led by Jidu (1633–1660), to the Fujian coast to cower Zheng into submission. See Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 166.

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All of this changed for the Qing when, at the turn of the seventeenth century, the Zheng clan took a firmer stance toward overthrowing the Manchu leadership and restoring the Ming dynasty by establishing a remarkable navy and basing it in Taiwan. In response to this visible resistance from the sea, the Kangxi emperor made a series of decisive moves. He began to utilize and expand the military and naval capabilities that the Qing had built up in earlier decades. Following the suggestion proposed by Yao Qisheng, the emperor also imposed an embargo policy that isolated Taiwan, which we already covered briefly in Chapter 2. The Qing navy was divided into two camps: the Eight Banner navy (baqi shuishi) and the Green Standard navy (lüying shuishi). The former was responsible for guarding particular sectors or cities (difang zhufang), whereas the later patrolled and policed the entire maritime frontier, giving particular attention to the coastal areas off Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces. The Kangxi government utilized both navies to work toward building up a most formidable water force; it also planned ever-greater naval conquests. For instance, in the early Kangxi era, the Zhejiang navy was significantly expanded from approximately 5,000 to 11,200 soldiers.5 The only obstacles were the lack of both skilled sailors and an outstanding naval commander.6 To meet these needs, Kangxi recruited Shi Lang (1621–1696), who had defected from Zheng’s side to join the Qing force. Actually, the story about Shi Lang is worth mentioning here. Before joining the Qing, Shi Lang originally served the Zheng camp and was once considered a valuable member of the Zheng family. Yet, by the mid-1600s, he had turned his back on his former allegiances and sided with the Manchu. Shi Lang’s relationship with the Zhengs was intriguing and complex. This is especially so of his relationships with Zheng Zhilong (1604–1661) and Zheng Chenggong, the two respective heads of the Zhengs’ maritime enterprise. Zheng Zhilong was the founder of the Zheng force and the first leader to recognize Shi Lang’s proficiency in naval warfare. In 1640, he appointed Shi captain of the navy’s left vanguard, gradually promoting him to ever higher ranks. However, in 1646, quite startlingly, Zheng Zhilong began to consider the possibility of defecting to the Manchu, and this had a profound impact on Shi Lang’s career. Knowing that some Ming generals, who had gone over to the Qing, were being treated favourably, Zhilong decided to withdraw his resistance against the Manchu. This left the 5 6

Shengzu renhuangdi shilu, juan 9, p. 153. Chen Zaizheng, Taiwan haijiangshi yanjiu (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 2002), pp. 58–59.

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Zhejiang passes unguarded and allowed the conquerors to capture Fuzhou.7 As a result of this Manchu victory, Zheng Zhilong was substantially rewarded. Yet the leader failed to persuade all of his followers to serve the Qing, most notably his son, Zheng Chenggong, and his righthand man, Shi Lang. With Zheng Zhilong no longer opposing the Manchu, Zheng Chenggong became the legitimate successor of the maritime empire, and Shi Lang continued to be a reliable subordinate. However, whereas Shi Lang was once Koxinga’s sworn brother, he failed to maintain a harmonious relationship with his new commander. Koxinga had always been jealous of the bond of trust that existed between Shi Lang and his father. Added to this were the many occasions during which Shi Lang offended Koxinga, both publicly and privately.8 The most intense conflict between the two men occurred after Koxinga’s military loss at Xiamen. Shi Lang had accurately predicted Xiamen’s vulnerability and, therefore, grew increasingly arrogant and often openly questioned Koxinga’s military tactics and decisions.9 In late 1651, no longer able to bear Shi Lang’s arrogance and temperament, Koxinga imprisoned him on a boat, along with his father and younger brother. But two sympathetic followers helped Shi Lang escape to the Qing, where he surrendered to the Manchu. Meanwhile, back in Taiwan, Koxinga showed no mercy to Shi’s family. In a single night, he executed Shi Lang’s father, brother, son, and nephew. Shi Lang considered this bloody retaliation unforgiveable and vowed never to rejoin the Zheng camp. Instead, he committed himself to serving the Manchu and to seeking revenge for the death of his family. The Kangxi emperor valued Shi Lang for his extensive naval experience and his network of commercial contacts in East Asia. Shi was thus swiftly promoted to the rank of assistant brigadier general. As “one of the very few maritime experts in the very continental early Qing,”10 the general was given the authority to lead and direct the navy in Fujian. Over the course of two decades (1662–1683), he launched a major naval reorganization aimed at increasing the number of skilled sailors, repairing the existing fleet, constructing newer and more powerful

7 8 9 10

John E. Wills, Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 224. Edward L. Dreyer, “The Myth of ‘One China’,” in Peter C. Y. Chow (ed.), The One China Dilemma (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), pp. 26–28. Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia, p. 81. John E. Wills Jr., “The Seventeenth-Century Transformation: Taiwan under the Dutch and the Cheng Regime,” in Murray A. Rubinstein (ed.), Taiwan: A New History (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2007), p. 96.

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battleships, and adopting Dutch military technology on navy vessels.11 Under Shi’s leadership, Qing vessels became more formidable and its soldiers became skilled in fighting at sea. By the late 1680s, the Qing had at their disposal an impressive array of warships. After more than twenty years of preparation, Shi Lang was commanding 300 warships and a force of 20,000 sailors. And in the summer of 1683, the emperor ordered him to attack the Zheng naval base in the Pescadores. Shi’s navy succeeded and moved on to attack Zheng Keshuang (1670–1707), the leader of the Tungning kingdom at the time and the grandson of Zheng Chenggong. Shi also attacked other surviving leaders in southern Taiwan. In August of that year, Zheng Keshuang was unable to repulse the Qing attack and, instead of committing suicide, he surrendered to the Kangxi emperor. The fifty-plus years of rivalry between the Qing and Zheng forces ultimately came to an end. This long campaign against the Zheng was arguably one of the most successful examples of maritime warfare that was planned and fought by the Qing court, thus making the 1680s one of the most successful historical watersheds of Qing governance. This success was the direct result of Qing maritime militarization in the North and South and also the extension of its naval power across territory (both continental and maritime) that had previously been controlled by the Ming Dynasty. Other historians have purposefully called the 1680s a turning point in the development of the Qing Empire. Mainly, they base this on the Qing defeat of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories and the Zunghar question in the North.12 However, the role that maritime development played in this epochal change in the state of Qing development has not received the attention it deserves. I think this neglect stems primarily from the assumption that once Taiwan was conquered and under Qing control – that is, once the known threats to the empire were eliminated – then the Beijing court would have ignored the ocean and devoted all its energy to 11

12

Christine Verente, Hsueh-chi Hsu, and Mi-cha Wu, The Authentic Story of Taiwan: An Illustrated History Based on Ancient Maps, Manuscripts and Prints (Taipei: Mappamundi Books, 1991), pp. 127–130. Lawrence D. Kessler, K’ang-hsi and the Consolidation of Ch’ing Rule (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 97–103; Mark Mancall, Russia and China; Their Diplomatic Relations until 1728 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), Chapters 2–5; Fletcher, “Ch’ing Inner Asia c.1800,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, part I, Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, pp. 35–39; Spence, “The K’ang-hsi Reign,” p. 150; Yuan Sengpo, Kang Yong Qian jingying yu kaifa beijiang (Qing Governance and Explorations of the Northern Frontiers during the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong Periods) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1991), pp. 36–58.

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“marching west” to Inner Asia.13 Nevertheless, as pointed out earlier, I contend that the Qing court did not dichotomize the land–sea relationship, in the sense that any land expansion was not necessarily predicated on neglecting the sea, and vice versa. Instead, the Qing tended to control both naval management and westward expansion in order to maintain the empire in a balanced manner. Moreover, the logic of the above mutual exclusivity seems to stem from Kangxi’s statement, which he made before the island was conquered and annexed, wherein he asserted that “Taiwan is a barbaric, distant island (waidao), unworthy of obedience.”14 Yet if we take into consideration Kangxi’s various deliberations to impose control over sea trade with Taiwan, then the notion that the emperor simply ignored this waidao should be taken with a pinch of salt. For instance, even though the emperor once mentioned that “Taiwan was outside the empire,” he took a series of measures to resume the mainland’s maritime trade with the island, not to mention the fact that he soon made Taiwan a prefecture (fu) of Fujian province, on May 27, 1684. By reason of this “opening policy,” hundreds of Chinese junks annually carried raw materials such as rice, sugar, peanut oil, deerskins, indigo, and hemp from Taiwan to Amoy, Fuzhou, Ningpo, Shanghai, and Tianjin. Over the first few decades of the eighteenth century, three merchant guilds, supported by the central government, were thus established in Taiwan to facilitate commodity trading and other business transactions.15 After all, even if the emperor had decided, at one point, to abandon this “distant island,” this does not necessarily mean that he ignored the Taiwan Strait that connected Fujian and the west coast of Taiwan. We will discuss in fuller detail the debate over the importance of Taiwan below in this chapter, in the section “The Fujian Coast/Taiwan Strait.” After Taiwan was annexed, the succeeding decades were long considered a time of peace with no large-scale rebellions or dissent. As a consequence, most Qing historians tend to focus more on the rapid development of short- and long-distance sea trade across the East Asian Sea. Much has been written about how Chinese sea merchants contributed to the promising growth of the coastal economy. Among other 13 14 15

See Perdue, China Marches West; Crossley, The Manchus, p. 8. See Hung Chein-chao, A History of Taiwan (Rimini: Cerchio Iniziative Editoriali, 2000), p. 128. Zhou Xianwen, Qingdai Taiwan jingjishi (Taipei: Bank of Taiwan Economic Research Room, 1957), p. 80; Zhang Benzheng, Qingshilu Taiwanshi ziliao zhuanji (Foochow: Fukien People’s Publishing, 1993), pp. 59, 82–83; Ts’ao Yung-ho, “Taiwan as an Entrepôt in East Asia in the Seventeenth Century,” Itinerario, vol. xxi no. 3 (1997), p. 105.

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things, there is a consensus that the sea trade played a key role in maintaining the stability of the Qing Empire during the long eighteenth century. However, few historians touch on how the Qing navy protected and policed its sea space in order to establish relatively “risk-free” conditions for its numerous maritime activities.16 Most studies have overlooked the important role the Qing navy played. In fact, once the Qing court had assimilated the Taiwan Strait into its political space, one of its aims was to direct its maritime militarization project to work in collaboration with its inland armed forces for policing coastal areas and protecting maritime business. To a considerable extent, in the high Qing, maritime militarization was always tied to its sea trade, as Kangxi succinctly noted in his 1686 imperial edict: The development of maritime trade is regulated by the governor general, the governor, and the military commanders. If they handle maritime affairs righteously, avoid groundless disputes, and work together, then private traders will benefit from the peaceful situation. By contrast, if the provincial administration and the navy selfishly compete with the common people, then this is bound to make things difficult for the regular traders.17

From this, we should appreciate that the significance of the navy could neither be denied nor overlooked in the socioeconomic context from the beginning of the long eighteenth century. The naval development that began in the Kangxi era was a multistage operation. It involved repairing the fleet, dismantling and reconstructing ships, and building new ones. Even in peacetime, the navy played a significant role in monitoring, regulating, and overseeing the blue frontier. Therefore its role since then must be considered in line with the development of domestic and foreign sea trade. Maritime militarization in the high Qing was best embodied in the establishment of a strong navy to garrison four sea zones, namely the Bohai Gulf, the Jiangsu–Zhejiang region, the Fujian coast (or the Taiwan Strait), and the Guangdong coast. Although the Qing court did not explicitly spell out these zones across its maritime frontier, this fourzone model is used because high Qing officials often mentioned these specific sectors in their memorials to the emperors. Also, its seven large 16

17

Both Wang Hongbin and Li Qilin portrayed the naval development of the early and high Qing. Both works are highly informative. Yet Wang’s research is very descriptive, while Li’s research only touches upon the naval development in south China. See Wang Hongbin, Qingdai qianqi haifang: Sixiang yu zhidu; and Li Qilin, Jianfeng zhuanduo: Qingdai qianqi yanhai de shuishi yu zhanchuan (Taipei: Wunan tushu chuban youxian gongsi, 2014). Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Kangxi qijuzhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), p. 1454.

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Figure 3.2 “Dividing lines” (fenjie 分界) (Qisheng yanhai tu, nineteenth-century edition)

fleets were literally assigned to police and guard these four maritime divisions. Moreover, this four-zone model derives from a set of coastal diagrams that were produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this cartographic evidence, such as the Qisheng yanhai tu and the Wanli haifang tushuo, the mapmakers introduced the concept of “dividing lines” (fenjie) or “ending points” (zhi) between specific maritime spaces (see Figure 3.2). All of this indicates that specific maritime spaces were policed and governed by their respective coastal provinces. Breaking down the maritime frontier of the Qing Empire into the (similar) divisions that were applied at that time is perhaps the best way to study maritime policies, consciousness, and ideologies as they pertained to the Qing’s maritime spaces. This model is appropriate as such, as it helps us

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better conceptualize the significance of the high Qing navy and also the interrelationships between the different pieces of seawater. Yet we must keep in mind that the vast geographical differences between the four sea zones imply differences in wind patterns, currents, depth, wave levels, and other environmental conditions. In addition to the ecological differences from one sector to another, each had specific problems that called for particular solutions. The Bohai Gulf Of all the sea zones that bordered China, the Bohai Gulf was the closest to the Qing capital and the Manchu homeland (Manchuria). This region’s location was also the most strategic and its resources were plentiful. Therefore, in the eyes of many Qing intellectuals and officials, the Bohai was one of the most important regions of the empire’s maritime frontier. As the senior officer Du Zhen wrote in his Haifang shulüe (A Concise Study on Maritime Defense), “this lake-like sea space [Bohai] and its surrounding geography were a strategic maritime frontier guarding three prominent provinces, namely Shandong, Mukden (the Liaodong peninsula), and Zhili, for the Qing Empire.”18 According to Du Zhen, this piece of maritime territory was “born to be a strategic sector (tianzao dishe zhi xian) to defend the Qing against invaders.”19 The renowned Qing geohistorian Gu Zuyu also observed that the Bohai area was a “main gate as well as a protector” of the Qilu region, which encompassed the three aforementioned provinces. Gu went on to describe the strategic importance of Bohai Sea to the mainland: “once Bohai is under strict control, the country would greatly benefit from this natural buffer.”20 Like Du and Gu, the author of a slim, undated, anonymous and presumably mid-1720s publication, entitled Qingchu haijiang tushuo (An Illustrated Commentary of the Maritime Frontier Areas in the Early Qing), was equally aware of the Bohai area’s strategic importance in sheltering the capital region from potential danger. The writer emphasized that the Bohai region “is the front door of our capital [Beijing], which must be safely guarded by faithful sailors and a strong navy.”21 In the high Qing, at least, the Bohai Gulf – surrounded as it was by 18 19 20 21

Du Zhen, Haifang shulüe (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1967), p. 3a. Du Zhen, Haifang shulüe, p. 3a. Gu Zuyu, Dushi fangyu jiyao (Taibei: Xinxing shuju, 1967), juan 24, p. 7a. Qingchu haijiang tushuo (Nantou: Taiwan sheng wenxian weiyuanhui, 1996), p. 5. This anonymous text is preserved at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. It was reprinted by the Taiwan sheng wenxian weiyuanhui and entitled as the Qingchu haijiang tushuo in 1996.

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Manchuria, Zhili, and the Shandong peninsula – was considered to be both a strategic corridor to the open sea and a natural buffer for the region around the Qing capital. Scholar-officials in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also studied its topographical features. Another notable facet of the Bohai Sea was its extensive maritime resources. In Haifang zonglun (A Comprehensive Study on Maritime Defense), Jiang Chenying, a scholar from the early Ming, already mentioned the Bohai’s fame for its sea salt and its variety of fish.22 Gu Zuyu, in his Dushi fangyu jiyao (Essence of Historical Geography), also noted the bountiful sea salt and seafood production across the Bohai, explaining how it significantly contributed to the prosperous coastal economy along northeastern China.23 As some scholars have pointed out, beginning in the eighteenth century, significant maritime resources (e.g. sea salt) and trading goods produced in northeastern China (e.g. soybean paste) were shipped to south China from the Bohai Gulf.24 Therefore it was not only a strategic gate or natural buffer but also a critical channel that facilitated the traffic and sea trade between the North and the South. Between the late seventeenth and the late eighteenth centuries, three major navies were gradually set up along the Bohai Gulf to protect this strategic and economically important sea zone. Most of these navies were based in Shandong, Mukden, and Zhili, and expanded moderately throughout the high Qing period. This growth in the scale of the Qing’s naval forces was marked by an increase in the number of sailors and warships stationed at its naval bases, which allowed for more frequent maritime policing.

Shandong In another anonymous account, entitled Shandong haijiang tuji (An Illustrated Study of the Maritime Frontier of Shandong), published in the late Kangxi period, Shandong was described as being the front door of coastal defense. It was also the province where the Manchu carefully set up their first naval base, after entering China proper.25 At first, there were 386 sailors and thirteen battleships (or thirty sailors per ship) stationed in the water castles (shuicheng) along the coast of the northern

22 23 24 25

Jiang Chenying, Haifang zonglun (Taibei: Iwen chubanshe, 1967), p. 5b. Gu Zuyu, Dushi fangyu jiyao, juan 24, p. 7a. Ueda Makoto (trans. Ye Weili), Hai yu diguo: Ming Qing shidai (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 2017), pp. 347–348. Shandong haijiang tuji, p. 1a.

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part of Shandong.26 Their primary duty was to police the assigned region and guard the merchant ships that commuted from the South via Shandong province (mainly from Suzhou and Fujian) to Tianjin.27 In 1661, following Zhou Nan’s suggestion, the Shunzhi emperor decided to consolidate the maritime frontier to ensure Ming loyalists had no way to attack the Qing from the sea.28 As a response, the Manchu set up a naval base in Dengzhou to strengthen its control.29 Compared to better-known port cities, such as Tianjin and Port Arthur, Dengzhou was a relatively small and less familiar seaport located in the northern part of the Shandong peninsula. Yet, despite its size, this port city remained politically and militarily significant into the eighteenth century. However, in 1661 Dengzhou became the center of a disturbance. A peasant rebellion against the Qing broke out in Shandong near Dengzhou and escalated out of control along the Shandong littoral. It was led by Yu Qi – a native of Shandong. Yu Qi and his followers captured Dengzhou and turned the city into a stronghold for their anti-Manchu campaign. The anti-Qing character of this revolt added a new sense of political urgency to the threat of domestic crisis. The Qing court quickly developed new strategies to suppress internal rebellion, and, in less than a year, it brought Dengzhou back under its control.30 After Dengzhou was recaptured in 1675, the pragmatic Kangxi emperor began increasing the naval militarization of Dengzhou in order to strengthen the Bohai region’s military capability. The emperor ordered that additional soldiers be added to the Dengzhou naval base, which had been established in 1644 by the Shunzhi emperor. The navy’s structure was also reorganized. Consisting of nearly 1,200 soldiers and twenty war junks and patrol boats, it was divided into two specific teams: the “front team” (qianying) and the “back team” (houying). The former was responsible for policing the sea space between Dengzhou and Ninghaizhou, in the east, while the latter was ordered to police the sea space between Dengzhou and Laizhou, in the west. In 1706, in order to further expand the zone of policing, the qianying was relocated to Jiaozhou and renamed the Jiaozhou navy (Jiaozhou shuishi). The houying continued to 26 27

28 29 30

Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, dated “Kangxi liunian (1667) dingwei jiuyue, renyin shuo,” “bingbu yifu” (message directed to the Ministry of War). Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, “Kangxi wushisan nian (1714) jiawu shiyi yue, renyin,” “bingbu yifu: Shandong Dengzhou zongbingguan Li Xiong shu” (message directed to Li Xiong, the general commander of the Dengzhou Navy). Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, juan 2, p. 54. Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, dated “Kangxi liu nian (1667) dingwei jiuyue, renyin shuo,” “bingbu yifu” (message directed to the Ministry of War). Fang Ruyi (ed. Jia Hu), Dengzhou fuzhi (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2004), pp. 142–143.

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be stationed in Dengzhou. At that time, the Jiaozhou navy patrolled the sea in southern Shandong, while the Dengzhou navy (the Dengzhou shuishi), which was considered large and strong, retained control of the sea that surrounded northern Shandong.31 As an anonymous writer in the early Qing noted, compared to its structure in the Ming, the navy was more capable of attacking seafaring targets (mainly pirates) across the waiyang sector, thereby preventing intruding vessels from entering the harbor.32 However, the navy did not arrive at a consensus as to where to confront these intruders. Some officials attested that the best way to deal with pirates was to stop them well away from the harbor, while others believed that pirates could be more effectively dealt with after they had moved closer to the shoreline because the waiyang (in this case, the sea space at greater depths) was too vast to permit the navy to apprehend and crush them. Once they spotted navy vessels, pirates could easily turn away and elude the authorities.33 It was not until the Yongzheng period (1722–35) that the Dengzhou navy was given clearer instructions. As Huang Yuanxiang, the general of Dengzhou, has verified, war junks only attacked pirates after they were spotted entering the harbor area.34 One of the logics of Qing defensive tactics, known as the “land–sea protection scheme” (hailu lianfang), was that it promoted co-operation between the imperial navy vessels and the paotai (barbettes) in destroying pirates.35 In 1714 and 1734, the maritime militarization of Dengzhou underwent two waves of reform. In 1714, the Kangxi emperor believed that “there was not much trouble on the sea” and that the Bohai could already be solidly guarded by the two other navies that were stationed in Fengtian and Tianjin. He then ordered the merging into one of the Dengzhou and Jiaozhou navies, which then became the Jiaozhou shuishi. Thereafter, the Dengzhou naval base was moved to Jiaozhou, and the Jiaozhou shuishi became the only naval force to police the sea across northern and southern Shandong (nanbei fangqu). The relocation of the naval base to Jiaozhou diminished Dengzhou’s military significance. Altogether, for twenty years, Jiaozhou functioned as the base that monitored all war junks operating in Shandong seas.36 This situation did not change until the 31 33

34 35 36

32 Dengzhou fuzhi, pp. 134–135. Qingchu haijiang tushuo, p. 11. See Ng Chin-keong, “Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and Hai-fang during the Late Ming and High Ch’ing”, in Sabine Dabringhaus and Roderich Ptak (eds.), China and Her Neighbours: Borders, Visions of the Other, Foreign Policy, 10th to 19th Century (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997), pp. 224–231. Dengzhou fuzhi, pp. 134–135. “Land–sea protection” is discussed toward the end of this chapter. Dengzhou fuzhi, p.142.

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Yongzheng emperor decided to re-elevate the Bohai region’s maritime military structure and Dengzhou’s strategic importance. Due to the gradual expansion of the sea trade across the Bohai Sea, the Yongzheng emperor implemented stronger military control to oversee domestic and overseas economic interactions in the region, especially interactions between the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas.37 In fact, since Ming times, Shandong and Liaodong had long been considered two closely connected provinces. Tao Langxian, a governor of Shandong in the seventeenth century, once warned the imperial court that “Deng [Shandong] and Liao should not be governed separately.”38 Situated at the northern tip of Shandong province, near the Liaodong peninsula, Dengzhou’s location made it the preferred site from which to strengthen ties between these two counties. As a consequence, in 1734, Yongzheng divided the Shandong navy into three divisions, with two divisions based in eastern Jiaozhou and the third based on Mount Cheng (Chengshan), at the eastern extremity of the Shandong peninsula. Further, the Yongzheng emperor designated Dengzhou the naval base to monitor and operate the three naval stations in order to ensure that they would collaborate and properly fulfill their duties. This meant that Dengzhou became a place where officials dealt with a wide range of logistical and administrative needs, including personnel matters, overseeing revenues and expenses, and the administration of shipbuilding and the weaponry warehouses. It also conducted defense against intruders; training exercises; patrol and seizure; military administration; and the construction of barbettes, beacon mounds, and fortresses. From the mid- to the late eighteenth century, Dengzhou remained the naval center in Shandong.39 In the mid-Yongzheng period, Dengzhou’s strategic location continued to be highly valued. The Qing court established garrisons (wei) and military stations (suo) to guard its land and marine palisades. The wei-suo system along the coast was a pre-Manchu development that had existed in the Ming coastal defense system. The suo were subdivisions of the wei, and the wei and suo formed units of either battalions (qian hu suo) or companies (bai hu suo) that were actively involved in coastal defense.40 Under the wei-suo system, in an effort to promote self-sufficiency, 37 38

39 40

Dengzhou fuzhi, p. 134. Tao Langxian’s account is extracted from his Tao Yuanhui zhongcheng yiji, which is collected in Yu Hao (ed.), Ming–Qing shiliao congshu (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 2005), pp. 72–87. Dengzhou fuzhi, p. 135. Gu Yanwu, Tianxia junguo libing shu (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), juan 26, p. 17b.

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soldiers were provided with farmland. Barbettes and beacon mounds were constructed to protect the littoral and also to send warning signals along the coast. The first set of barbettes along the coast of the Shandong peninsula were built in 1726, when the Yongzheng emperor assigned his Dengzhou officials to supervise the construction of barbettes in “Guangdong style.”41 From 1726 to 1732, twenty coastal barbettes were constructed in what are today Longkou Harbor, Taozi Bay, Shuangdao Harbor, Chaoyang Harbor, Rongcheng Bay, Yangyuchi Bay, Shidao Bay, Jinghai Bay, Tadao Island, and Sushan Island.42 Until the mideighteenth century, the Beijing government continued to provide financial support to these barbettes, working collaboratively with the Shandong navy to protect the Bohai region. All of this indicates the strategic importance of Shandong and Dengzhou in defending the region against pirates, domestic rebels, and other potential intruders from the sea. Every year, large-scale sea patrols (huishao), or “military tours,” were launched in northern Shandong, most of which were monitored and operated by officials in Dengzhou. To get a complete picture of how the Qing court actualized its patrolling exercises across the Bohai Sea, the boundaries of the Shandong navy policed under the supervision of the Dengzhou authority deserve analysis. The Dengzhou fuzhi recorded that the navy patrolled 1,770 li of sea.43 The navy consisted of roughly 410 soldiers and seven war junks, and first departed from the Dengzhou naval base that was located in a harbor called the Bridge Mouth (Tianqiao kou). The navy, then, turned east and sailed all the way to the Mount Cheng (Chengshan), the eastern limit of its maritime patrol. It then moved back to Dengzhou, passing Temple Island, and continued to head west until it reached the mouth of the Daigu river. During peacetime, large-scale sea patrols operated for seven months a year, from March to September. According to records, this large-scale patrol cost the Qing court more than 10,000 liang every year. Figure 3.3 depicts the Dengzhou navy’s patrol limit and the large body of water (the Bohai Gulf ) it covered. The seas off Shangdong and Liaodong were divided by a vertical line that cuts across Temple Island. Although the vertical line drawn in Figure 3.3 is not the actual dividing line drawn by the Qing government, according to the textual records in the Dengzhou gazetteer, we can assume that the islets located north of Temple Island, namely the islands of Gaoshan, Daqin, and Xiaoqin, were considered to be far from Dengzhou. All of these islands were considered to be in the “outer sea” (waihai), in such a case; that is, beyond the defense perimeter of Dengzhou’s navy. 41 42 43

Dengzhou gugang shi, pp. 91–92. Zhao Erxun (ed.), Qingshi gao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), p. 4003. Dengzhou fuzhi, p. 135.

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Table 3.1 The eight different types of sea waters (Shandong tongzhi, Yongzheng edition) Type of seascape (xunbie 汛別)

Description

Strategic importance

xian 險

Waters between two isles

yao 要

Waters where sailors found it most favorable to pass through Waters near the harbor or the coast Waters which connect all other types of seascapes

Obstructing enemies (宜用把截) Garrison (宜屯重兵)

chong 沖 hui 會 xian 閑

Exit and entrance of currents

san 散

Waters next to small isles, also suitable anchorage for short periods of time Waters where the wind direction changes Waters connecting to rivers

yu 迂 pi 僻

Defense (宜用防守) Best location to set up the commander’s main camp (宜立軍門) Best location to construct forts (宜設堡墩) Police and patrol (宜用巡哨) Observing enemies (宜用了望) Scouting (宜用偵探)

A coastal map, entitled Shandong Dengzhou zhenbiao shuishi qianying beixun haikou daoyu tu (hereafter Daoyu tu; see Figure 3.4), also provides us with valuable information about the large-scale sea patrol operated by the Dengzhou navy. According to the description provided by the Chinese Academy of Science, where the Daoyu tu is now preserved, this coastal map was compiled, under official supervision, sometime between 1734 and 1842.44 It depicts Dengzhou’s coastal situation and it portrays a series of significant islands off the Shandong coast. The paratextual materials written on the coastal map indicate the time it would have taken the Dengzhou navy to reach these islands. The map also shows the navy’s patrol limits. For instance, it mentions that “from Dengzhou to the western part of Bohai, the navy must pass by several islands. It is a 720-li journey. Once the navy reaches the river mouth of Daigu, this

44

Sun Jingguo (ed.), Yu tu zhi yao: Zhongguo kexue yuan tushuguan cang Zhongguo gu ditu xulu (Beijing: Zhongguo ditu chubanshe, 2012), p. 382.

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Figure 3.3 Patrol limit of the Dengzhou navy (Qisheng yanhaitu, 1880s edition)

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Figure 3.4 Shandong Dengzhou zhenbiao shuishi qianying beixun haikou daoyu tu 山東登州鎮標水師前營北汛海口島嶼圖

would be the patrol limit and the dividing line between the Shandong and Tianjin sea spaces.” The practice of sending vessels from Dengzhou to patrol the Bohai Gulf continued during the early Qianlong era. In collaboration with the region’s land forces, Dengzhou authorities were able to assemble war

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junks in Shandong to police and protect the Bohai region. The navy was also effective in attacking targets that were situated within their patrol limit, thus preventing any intruding vessels from entering the northern coast of Shandong. By the late eighteenth century, patrol posts and forts, equipped with weapons (from cannons to bows and arrows), dotted the coast. Most of the commanders in Dengzhou (Dengzhou zongbing), such as Shi Wenbing (?–1694), Huang Yuanji, and Dou Bin (1715–1802), were experienced and energetic in maintaining a competent navy.45 Therefore there is little doubt that developments between the Yongzheng and mid-Qianlong eras resulted in the Dengzhou navy progressively becoming more sophisticated. Dengzhou continued to serve as the military base that was responsible for monitoring the navies and assuming patrol duties in Shandong. However, during the mid-Qianlong period (1742–1783), Dengzhou’s naval structure contracted, due to a long period of peace and the prolonged absence of pirates and domestic rebels on the sea. From 1742 to 1783, the Qianlong government reduced the number of soldiers and war junks supervised by the Dengzhou office. It also failed to provide sufficient repairs and refinements for the remaining vessels.46 Further, the troops were not properly trained and some of the warships were not suitably equipped. As a consequence, the marines who served in the water force suffered from low morale and were often afraid of venturing to sea. These problems were not rectified until the Daoguang period. As Tuohunbu, the governor general of Dengzhou, and Yu Ming, the commander of Dengzhou, describe in a joint memorial, In order to support the militarization in Zhili and Fengtian, it is essential to increase the numbers of soldiers in Dengzhou. Dengzhou is important because it is a strategic city where we can oversee the large body of seawater attached to Shandong and Fengtian. The strategic location of Dengzhou enables us to control the seaway from Japan to Tianjin, as well as the sea routes from Fengtian to Zhili. It is where we can attack pirates and prevent foreigners from entering the northern part of our empire. At present, we only have 187 soldiers stationed in Dengzhou, which is obviously insufficient to protect the country.47

The above memorial indicates that Dengzhou’s maritime military defenses were no longer developed after 1783. From then until the early nineteenth century, no significant effort was made to expand or consolidate Dengzhou’s naval structure. While he did not neglect the importance of the Bohai Gulf, the Qianlong emperor relied on the navies 45 47

46 Dengzhou gugang shi, p. 92. Dengzhou fuzhi, p. 143. Qing shilu: Daoguang chao shilu, collected in Da Qing lichao shilu (Taipei: Hualian chubanshe, 1964), juan 156.

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stationed in Daigu and Fengtian to police and patrol the Bohai Sea, rather than on expanding or fortifying the Dengzhou navy itself.48 Compared to Daigu and Fengtian, which developed larger naval bases, Dengzhou was no longer as advanced as it had been in previous decades.

Mukden/Fengtian In addition to Dengzhou in Shandong, the Qing government also considered Lüshun (Port Arthur) one of the most important seaports in Fengtian province, again because of its strategic location. Lüshun was located at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula, which formed an integral part of the natural barrier (with Dengzhou and Jinzhou) that shielded the highway to and from Beijing and its surrounding area. As indicated in the Qishigao, Lüshun and Jinzhou were the two most important seaports in northeast China (Dongsansheng yanhai ge kouan, yi Jinzhou Lüshun wei youyao).49 It was also the closest port city that guarded Manchuria – the homeland of the Manchu. The nature of its harbor further elevated Lüshun’s importance because its depth and breadth made it ideal anchorage for large numbers of warships.50 Early in the Shunzhi period, a “water castle” was constructed in Lüshun. This castle was supposed to overlook almost all the major seaways that passed through the Bohai Gulf near the Liaodong peninsula, but at the time it only harbored ten battleships. Later, in 1676, the Kangxi emperor conscripted sixteen naval generals and 500 troops to serve in the Lüshun water castle.51 In 1714, the emperor took steps to further enhance the strength of the Lüshun naval base, ordering artisans in Fujian to build six more battleships for Lüshun’s navy. This was perhaps the first time a Manchu ruler had used warships that had been constructed in the shipyards in the south to carry out military operations in the north.52 Fifteen years later, Kangxi 48 49 50

51 52

Kun Gang et. al., Qinding da Qing huidian shili (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), juan 547, p. 67. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, p. 3999. Guo Songyi, “Qing qianqi Tianjin de haishang jiaotong,” in Tianjin shizhi (History of Tianjin) (Tianjin: Tianjin shi defangshizhi bianxiu weiyuanhui bianjishi, 1985), pp. 24–25; see also G. R. C. Worcester, Sail and Sweep in China: The History and Development of the Chinese Junk as Illustrated by the Collection of Junk Models in the Science Museum (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1966); Yang Ying et. al., Liaodong Bandao: Dongbei duiwai kaifang de chuangkou (Shenyang: Liaoning daxue chubanshe, 1988). For more information on the historical development of the Liaodong peninsula, please refer to Jin Yufu, Liaodong wenxian zhenglue (Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe, 2002). Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, p. 4000. Zhongguo diyi lishi danganguan (ed.), Kangxi chao Hanwen zhupi zouzhe huibian, juan 3, no. 818, “memorial submitted by Guo Wangsen,” p. 316; See also Lan Dingyuan,

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continued to develop the Lüshun naval base. He added ten sailors to every battleship, increasing the entire navy by 160 men.53 At that time, Qing warships were capable of accommodating nearly forty people armed with melee weapons (i.e. bows and arrows) as well as a small number of Dutch-style cannons and firearms. Although the combat power of these individual warships had been enhanced, the Qing navy remained both technically and qualitatively behind Spanish and British fleets. Beginning as early as 1501, these Western European battleships had gunports installed in their hulls, which provided much more destructive power.54 Compared with northeast China’s other naval bases in Jinzhou, Moergen, and Qiqihaer, where only about 100 sailors were stationed throughout the long eighteenth century,55 Lüshun clearly had the strongest naval force, which was located in the Liaodong peninsula to protect the Bohai Sea. Construction of another naval base, near Heilongjiang, began in 1684, forty years after the Manchu army seized Beijing. Initially, it was manned with nine generals, thirty warships, and 419 troops. In 1701, forty warships were added to the base and more fortification towers were built near the water castle.56 Unfortunately, there are few records on naval development in Heilongjiang. Regardless, we know that, to the Manchu, the Mukden naval context was essential to their naval tactics and political agenda. Compelled by their cultural and ethnic ties to Manchuria, Qing governors understandably strove to ensure Mukden’s stability.57 Mukden’s prominence was reflected in the ethnic backgrounds of its sailors. The Lüshun navy was one of the very few naval forces made up

53 54

55 56 57

“Caoliang jianzi haiyun shu,” in He Changling (ed.), Huangzhao jingshi wenbian (Taipei: Guofeng chubanshe, 1963), juan 48, p. 8b. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, p. 4000. See Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004); Roger Knight and Martin Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, 1793–1815: War, the British Navy and the Contractor State (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2010), pp. 46–66; John D. Harbron, Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy: The Spanish Experience of Sea Power, reprint (London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd, 2004), pp. 11–50; R. A. Stradling, The Armada of Flanders: Spanish Maritime Policy and European War, 1568–1668 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 153–175. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, p. 4000. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, p. 4000. Jonathan Schlesinger also pointed out that “under Qing rule, Manchuria conformed largely to the model predicted by economic geography for market-oriented peripheries: the southern coast [Mukden] shipped grain to Chinese markets, whereas the northern interior specialized in exporting expansive, lightweight resources.” See his A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017), pp. 57–58.

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solely of bannermen – the most privileged soldier clan in the Qing, whose members had to declare their national identity to be Manchu, regardless of their actual original ethnicity. This changed, in 1722, only after the Yongzheng emperor came to power. The emperor noticed that the bannermen were weaker in sea battles than the Han Chinese in the Green Standard army, as he stated: “our Manchu warriors are capable of mastering several kinds of martial arts, but they are unfortunately not well trained in sea battles.”58 In fact, the bannermen at the naval detachments across the four sea zones had to master sailing skills, which are entirely different from the skills required for hunting and equitation. For the Chinese bannermen, perhaps this was not so traumatic, but for the Manchu and Mongol troops, who often suffered from seasickness, operating on the sea was a real challenge.59 Apart from the basic techniques of sailing and navigation, which included boarding and disembarking, casting anchor, hoisting sails, scaling masts, and so on,60 (and were taught by Chinese sailors from the Green Standard), the bannermen also had to learn how to effectively adapt muskets and cannon to maritime use.

Zhili The most important naval base in Zhili was established in Tianjin, in 1726 (during the Yongzheng period). One old saying sums up the strategic importance of this city: “If you want to conquer Beijing by sea, you must first seize Tianjin.” Lei Xing, a Tianjin official in the Shunzhi era, also explicated that “the Dagu fort [guarding the river mouth of the Hai River] is a strategic gateway to the capital (shenjing), it is therefore essential to properly guard this area by warships in order to consolidate our coastal defense” (Dagu haikou wei shenjing menhu, qing zhi zhanchuan yi bei haifang).61 Indeed, once the united force of the Western imperial powers trashed the navy station outside Tianjin, during the Anglo-French Expedition to China (1856–1860), the Beijing authority went into a tailspin. It goes without saying that the Zhili navy was one of the firewalls that shielded the imperial capital.

58 59 60

61

Da Qing Shizong Xianhuangdi shilu, juan 23, p. 193. Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 182. See Da Qing huidian (year 1763), juan 67, p. 46a. There were also different types of special weapons reserved for naval use, such as the “sickle lance” and the “flag spear.” The former was curved and used for hooking as well as for cutting ropes; the latter was a straight throwing spear. Zhao Erxun et al., Qingshigao, juan 138, “bingzhi,” no. 9, p. 4098.

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The first navy stationed in Tianjin was also established in 1726 and was led by the Manchu commander Jiaoluo Bayande.62 Like the Lüshun navy, the Tianjin navy in North China consisted solely of Manchu and Mongolian bannermen (baqi shuishi). It was exclusively responsible for policing the coast off Zhili Province. A large-scale patrol was deployed for six months a year, from April to September. Most of the warships in the Tianjin navy were constructed in Jiangnan, Zhejiang, and Fujian. By the late Yongzheng era, roughly thirty to thirty-five vessels were based in Tianjin. Another significant feature of the Tianjin navy is that its sailors were required to attend lectures about maritime affairs (shuiwu) and sea battles.63 This is perhaps the first example of naval education the Qing court provided to the bannermen. Prince Yinxiang, the thirteenth brother of Yongzheng, was the key figure who promoted this training. He once wrote, Looking at the sea space of Tianjin, it is strategic because it connects Chengde and Korea, in the east, Fujian and Zhejiang, in the south, and Beijing the capital, in the west. Even though we have land forces guarding the coast, maritime defense is much more important. Our Manchu warriors are well trained on land but not at sea. It is, therefore, essential to send them to Tianjin to study how to fight sea battles. After training our soldiers to become the best warriors on the sea, they will be able to help consolidate the defense system of our maritime frontier, on the one hand, and their battle capabilities will be very much enhanced, on the other.64

Tianjin became the only naval base, in the high Qing, where the bannermen could receive a kind of naval education. Even though the program was not conducted like that of Great Britain’s Admiralty academy and tsarist Russia’s naval school, the move toward naval education was a significant step for the Manchu. It also shows that, at least during the Yongzheng period, Manchu ruling officials did not rely exclusively on land forces and land-based defensive tactics to police the maritime frontier. Although Tianjin held great importance as a strategic naval base, its navy lost its capability as a reliable, united force. Corruption was one of the biggest problems. According to the Qing archives, the Tianjin navy was the most corrupt, even though corruption was well recognized as a

62 63 64

Zhao Erxun et al., Qingshigao, juan 9, “Shizhong benji,” p. 316. Zhao Erxun et al., Qingshigao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, p. 4001; juan 138, “bingzhi,” no. 9, p. 4098. Yun Lu et al. (eds.), Shizong Xian huangdi shangyu qiwu yifu (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1983), juan 3, pp. 370–372.

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nationwide complication, rather than a regional or local one.65 Only three years after the establishment of its naval forces, Tianjin navy commander Gong E Qi was demoted by three levels for corruption. In 1732, four years later, it was reported that almost the entire navy was bribable. Gong E Qi, the demoted commander, was sent to jail because the Yongzheng emperor had discovered that he was involved in yet another large-scale case of corruption. Corruption in the navy led to a decline in navy discipline. As in the case of Chang Jiu and Fu Qing, the commander generals of the Tianjin navy in the early Qianlong period, reported, Even though the navy in Tianjin received training both on land and at sea on a regular basis, the bannermen lack discipline and have poor morale. Their ability to fight our enemies is thus significantly weakened. If we want to maintain the navy, the sailors have to be better officered and their bad habits prohibited.66

To reform the navy, the Qianlong emperor granted Chang Jiu the authority to resolve its legacy of corruption in Tianjin. The emperor even decided to add thirty-two war junks to the navy, showing that he was willing to make an effort to consolidate the Manchu bannermen in the Zhili naval structure. However, Chang Jiu failed to engage in any serious reform with the other Manchu naval commanders and officers in Tianjin, and the navy failed to respond to or even constructively acknowledge the emperor’s efforts. In 1767, after visiting the Tianjin naval base, Qianlong decided to dissolve the entire navy. Zhao Lian recorded the precise details of this visit in Xiaoting Zalu: In the year of Dinghai (1767), the Qianlong emperor visited the coast of Tianjin. It was a windy day, but the direction of the wind was inappropriate for the navy to leave the coast. Hou Yingjun was the commander in charge of the navy. He was old and ill. He was even too weak to carry the heavy armor and too inexperienced to command the navy. He gave out the wrong commands several times, in front of the emperor. The sailors were not well trained either. They were noisy and unprofessional. The emperor was furious at what he had seen. He then decided to dissolve the entire navy.67

When the Tianjin navy was dissolved, in 1767, the bannermen were relocated to Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Liangzhou, and Shanhai guan. Among them, 692 sailors were removed from the banner system.68 Yet, with the disbandment of the Tianjin navy, the Qing court had not given up on its 65 66 67 68

Nancy E. Park, “Corruption in Eighteenth-Century China,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 56 no. 4 (November 1997), pp. 967–1005. Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu, juan 194, p. 497. Zhao Lian, Xiao ting za lu (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1980), juan 4, p. 106. Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu, juan 797, pp. 762–763.

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maritime militarization project in Zhili. Indeed, that same year, Fang Guancheng (1698–1768), the governor general of Zhili county, proposed that the navy that was stationed in Daigu should replace the majority of the Tianjin navy, otherwise the maritime frontier of Zhili would be endangered. The emperor agreed with Fang’s proposal and moved the Daigu navy to Xincheng (New City), where the Tianjin navy had originally been based. Thus the Daigu navy, which consisted mainly of Han Chinese, became the major force policing the western side of the Bohai Sea. Yet it was smaller than the navies in Shandong or Mukden.69

The Jiangsu–Zhejiang Zone The Jiangsu–Zhejiang zone (Jiang-Zhe) had long been considered the “fishing (and rice) basket of China.” Here, thousands of species of fish and other marine life inhabited the numerous fishing areas in the seawater off Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In the 1830s, Liu Menglan vividly captured the evocative scene in the Zhuoshan archipelago, the chain of islands off the coast of Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces that makes up China’s most important maritime fishing ground: “Countless fishing boats, gathered in a harbor. The flickers of fishing lanterns flow in the rippling waves. Stars in the highest heavens have fallen in the dead of night. Shining everywhere, like a coral islet in the sea.”70 Indeed, ever since the period of disunity, or the so-called “Six States Period” (220–589), the Jiangnan area’s significant sea trade, agricultural productivity, and commercialization meant that it functioned as the key economic zone for successive empires. Jiangsu and Zhejiang retained their economic vibrancy during the Qing. As Kangxi once noted, “the southeast [Jiangnan] is the key economic area; I often give my thoughts to it.”71 Moreover, copper imports from Nagasaki (Japan) to Jiangsu rose dramatically during most of the eighteenth century, until the 1780s, when copper was discovered and mines were opened in Yunnan.72 By the middle of the Qianlong reign, Jiangsu was one of the busiest coastal 69 70 71 72

Da Qing Gaozong Chunhuangdi shilu, juan 797, pp. 762–763. Quoted from Micah S. Muscolino, Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 1. See Da Qing lichao shilu: Shengzuchao, juan 192, p. 21b. See Patrizia Cariotti, “The International Role of the Overseas Chinese in Hirado (Nagasaki) during the First Decades of the XVII Century,” in Chen Huang et al. (eds.), New Studies on Chinese Overseas and China (Leiden: International Institute for Asian Studies, 2000), pp. 31–46; Chen Chingho, “Chinese Junk Trade at Nagasaki at the Beginning of the Qing Dynasty,” New Asia Journal, vol. 1 no. 3 (1960), pp. 273–332; Marius B. Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 9–11, 23–29.

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provinces in China. It connected with other East Asian polities and was the headquarters of the country’s greatest traders of goods shipped from northern China to Japan, its strong economic neighbor to the east.73 Indeed, compared to Ming rulers, the high Qing monarchs had a more open attitude toward sea trade with Japan. This is clearly reflected in Kangxi’s reaction to Governor General Wang Lian’s proposal to impose more limits on Japanese traders. Kangxi noted, During my tours to southern China, I noticed the presence of forts and asked locals what they were for. I was told that, in the late Ming, some from Japan had come to Huizhou to trade, but they were arrested and then killed by the Ming army. None of them survived. Since then, the conflict has never ceased . . . But times have changed; our court is now diligent and capable of dealing with these affairs.74

Kangxi also sent two provincial officials to Japan, in order to explore other trading opportunities between the two countries.75 His attempt proved successful. According to the Ka’i hentai – a collection of SinoJapanese sea trade reports written between 1684 and 1722 and edited in 173076 – by the mid-1730s, nearly seventy Chinese ships departed China en route to Japan every year.77 The Japanese were also interested in opening up trade with the Chinese more extensively in the eighteenth century. For example, Suzhou, one of the biggest cities in the Jiangsu region, attracted a sizable number of Japanese traders by importing raw materials for manufacturing ceramic goods and porcelain.78 The warships that operated in the Jiangsu–Zhejiang region had to be designed for navigation around the numerous clusters of small islands 73

74 75 76

77 78

Adachi Keiji, “Dai mamekasu ryuutsuu to kiyoshi dai no shougyou teki nougyou,” Touyoushi kenkyuu, vol. 37 no. 3 (December 1978), pp. 35–63; Zheng Zhongmin, “Qing qianqi Shanghaigang fazhan yanbian xintan,” Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu, vol. 3 (1987), pp. 85–94; Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800–1830 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003– 2009), pp. 189–191; Anthony Reid, Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000), p. 95. Da Qing shengzu renhuangdi shilu, vol. 5 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), p. 556. Hayashi Shunsai and Hayashi Hoko (eds.), Ka’i hentai (Tokyo: Toyko bunko, 1958), pp. 499, 527–535. From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the Tokugawa bakufu required all merchants, including foreign and Japanese traders, who arrived in Nagasaki from abroad to submit a report on their travels. About twenty-three hundred of these reports were collected in the Ka’i hentai. See also Iwao Sei’ichi, “Kinsei Nisshi boeki ni kansuru suryoteki kosatsu,” Shigaku zasshi, vol. 62 no. 11 (1953), p. 1015. Wang Zhenhong, “Tangtu mengbo yu haiyang laiwang huotao: Yicun Riben de Suzhou huishang ziliao ji xinangguang wenti yanjiu,” Jianghui luntan, no. 2, pp. 18–29; Arai Hakuseki (trans. Zhou Yiliang), Zhenfen chaiji (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), p. 134.

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that dotted the coast.79 Due to this complicated geography, Qing naval policy had to be island-oriented in order to accommodate this complex, rugged, crisscrossing and interlocking terrain. Compared to naval defenses under previous dynasties (particularly the Ming), the Qing were more meticulous in these coastal matters. By comparison, the Ming government had no contingency plans for taking care of the small, minor islands along the seacoast. In other words, the Qing advanced their line of defense beyond that of the Ming, which signified their willingness to incrementally expand their inner sea space through their naval development and activity.80 The Qing maintained two substantial naval forces in the Jiangsu– Zhejiang region, namely the Jiangnan navy (Jiangnan shuishi) and the Zhejiang navy (Zhejiang shuishi). These two navies were responsible for managing a total of eighty-three naval bases that were scattered along a seafront that stretched across an elongated coastline. Despite the vastness of this sea zone, the locations of these naval bases tied them together: all of them were either at or near the intersection of the Yangtze river and the sea. Therefore the responsibilities of these naval bases were divided between river defense and sea defense.

The Jiangnan Naval Force The Jiangnan navy was once the largest naval force of the Great Qing, comprising seventy-three naval bases and more than 325 battleships.81 These bases were administered by high-ranking officials, such as the governor of Jiangsu and Jiangxi (Liangjiang zongdu), the general of Jiangnan (Jiangnan tidu), and the chief commander of Susong (Suzhang zhongbin). Since 1675, this powerful naval force had been responsible for defending the Jiangsu coastline, which spanned 954 kilometers.82 The Jiangnan navy was indispensable to the boom in both the north– south sea trade and the Sino-Japanese trade. Most shipping lanes were established to connect Zhili (Tianjin), Shandong (Dengzhou), and Jiangsu (Suzhou) – the three highly developed provinces, economically. 79 80 81

82

Li Zengjie, Waihai jiyao, p. 21a; Gao Jin, “Waiyang ge shandao qingxing,” Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 36 nian, June 18, no. 014274). Li Zengjie, Waihai jiyao. See Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4003–4010; Qing Gaozong (Emperor Qianlong), Qingchao wenxian tongkao, juan 185, “bingkao,” no. 8, pp. 6463–6470. Shan Shumo, Wang Weiping, and Wang Tinghuai (eds.), Jiangsu dili (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1980), p. 7; Yuan Cheng, Zhongguo haian he daoyu (Taipei: Haiwai wenku chubanshe, 1957), “Jiangsu” entry.

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Due to its relative closeness to the North, Jiangsu was the cradle of goods and fresh resources, and the merchant ships that departed from it (mainly from Suzhou and Jingkou) outcompeted their counterparts from Fuzhou and, hence, dominated the sea trade with the North.83 As the merchant ships that traveled between Tianjin and Suzhou gradually became one of the key financial sources of the Qing government, their safety on the sea also became imperative.84 One major Qing policy was for officially appointed battleships to escort specific Jiangnan merchant ships through the Tianjin–Jiangsu sea lanes.85 The merchant ships that were not being escorted had the following legal rights: if a merchant ship got wrecked, then the navy was to rescue and search for victims without delay. If pirates attacked a merchant ship, then the Qing navy was required to begin investigating the crime no less than one day after the initial report was filed. If these rules were not followed, then the naval officer in charge would risk demotion. Records were kept on naval officers who were found to have abused or shirked their duties. For example, if an officer intimidated a victim into not reporting a crime, this officer would be either demoted by three badge levels or immediately sacked. If the officer were found to have taken part in pirate activity, he would be sentenced to imprisonment.86 The Jiangnan navy used a system of patrols and tactics that were notable for their “demonstrative” nature throughout the river and sea spaces (jianghai huishao). As mentioned earlier, most Jiangnan naval bases were located where the Yangtze river intersected with the ocean. Thus the navy had a responsibility to both the river and the sea. Its mandate was to weave a sprawling dragnet that could efficiently detect and eliminate pirates.87 To give a brief, figurative picture, when a pirate ship was detected in the inner sea, the responsible battleship would immediately sail to the reported area and deal with the crime. Yet, in most cases, the pirates would escape through the closest connecting river and the battleship would have to pursue them. Due to the ineffectiveness 83 84 85

86 87

Duan Guangqing, Jinghu zizhuan nianpu (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1960), p. 66. See Guoli gugong bowuyuan (ed.), Gongzhongdang Yongzheng chao zouzhe, “memorial submitted by Liu Yuyi,” p. 265; “memorial submitted by Li Wei,” p. 761. Shengzu renhuangdi shilu, Kangxi wushiqi nian, February, jiashen, “Fujian Zhejiang zongdu Jueluomanbao shuyan.” See also Lin, “Zoubao waiyang xunshao zhe,” Junjichu dangan (Yongzheng 6 nian, June 3, no. 402021493). Yan Ruyu (1759–1826), Yangfang jiyao, juan 2, “yangfang jingzhi,” pp. 91–96. Jiaoluo Langxu, Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 54 nian, May 25, no. 403057218). See also Yan Ruyu, Yangfang jiyao, juan 2, pp. 91–96. For details, see Ronald Toby in his State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of Tokogawa Bakufu (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 110–167; Mizuno Norihito, “China in Tokugawa Foreign Relations: The Tokugawa Bakufu’s Perception of and Attitudes toward Ming–Qing China,” SinoJapanese Studies, vol. 15 (April 2003), pp. 244–269.

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of such pursuits, the Qing government divided the navy into two groups: one specializing in the sea (i.e. the sea navy) and the other in the river (i.e. the river navy). The sea navy would pursue fleeing pirates until it reached the mouth of the winding river. There, it would leave the pursuit to the river navy. Meanwhile, the sea navy would remain stationed at this confluence in order to prevent the pirates from escaping.88 Moreover, the Jiangnan navy calculated the climatological conditions and the seasonal wind directions to assist them in projecting where to find the targeted pirates.89 Although there was no guarantee that these pirates would not slip away through creeks or hidden inlets, the system was comprehensive in that they could be arrested “in any waters.” The Zhejiang Navy Compared to Jiangsu, Zhejiang has a much longer coastline, spanning almost 2,253 kilometers. Naturally, this extensive length required a more complex and rigorous naval organization. There were eight key naval bases located along the Zhejiang coast, in Zhapu, Jiaxing, Shaoxing, Dinghai, Huangyan, Wenzhou, Ruian, and Yuhuan.90 By the early nineteenth century, ten naval bases were garrisoned along the coast, with a total of about 9,400 sailors and 302 battleships.91 Among the ten “water castles,” Taizhou, Jiaxing, Dinghai, and Huangyan were the more heavily armed. Taizhou was the largest of the well-fortified naval bases in Zhejiang. Situated in the middle of the Zhejiang coastline, Taizhou was at the midpoint that connected the northern and southern parts of the province. Its geographical topography also made Taizhou strategically indispensable. Taizhou was surrounded by mountain barriers on three sides and the sea on the other side. This is considered one of the best defensive topographies in maritime militarization. A number of isles were situated off the coast of Taizhou, some reaching north into the Sanmenshan and others reaching south into the Yuhuanshan. In all, they formed an island chain that protected the entire naval harbor. Taizhou’s strong navy and its numerous fortresses that lined up along the coast benefited from these natural advantages (tianxian). From a broader perspective, the naval bases in Taizhou, Jiaxing, Dinghai, and Huangyan complemented one 88 90

91

89 Jiaoluo Langxu, Junjichu dangan. Jiaoluo Langxu, Junjichu dangan. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4010–4013; Qing Gaozong (Emperor Qianlong), Qingchao wenxian tongkao, juan 185, “bingkao,” no. 8, pp. 6479–6484; Ji Zhengyun, Shen Yiji et al., Zhejiang tongzhi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991), juan 97 and 98. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4010–4013.

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another to form a comprehensive protection net. With more than 7,000 sailors, the navies stationed at these bases were the principal entity that patrolled the inner sea surrounding Zhejiang and protected the major shipping lanes throughout Zhejiang waters.92 During the eighteenth century, the Zhejiang navy never ceased to train on and patrol the sea. From February to September, the prime time for commercial and fishing activities, the navy’s chief commander conducted a large-scale sea patrol (haiyang huishao).93 In every large-scale sea patrol, battleships from two or three naval bases would join together to augment their defensive forces and provide military deterrence.94 For example, an imperial edict promulgated by the Qianlong emperor stated, The Dinghai navy and the Huangyan navy must patrol the Bay of Kowloon on March 15 and September 15. On May 15, the Dinghai navy must join the navy in Congming to patrol the waters off Mountain Goat Island; the Huangyan navy must join the Wenzhou navy on September 1. These dates are unchangeable. The naval generals must send their officers to the destinations in order to report to and exchange information with each other regarding their patrol areas for further action of combined effort.95

Strict policies regulated these large-scale sea patrols. If any battleships arrived at a particular meeting point more than one day (or sometimes two days) late, without providing a proper reason, the chief commander would be demoted or even sentenced to prison. But the Qing court also realized that, in some cases, severe weather might make it impossible to initiate a large-scale sea patrol. For instance, the Qianlong emperor made this announcement: Large-scale sea patrols are conducted under a set of strict regulations. Generals and naval commanders cannot refuse to fulfill their duties simply because of strong wind or bad weather. But I understand that weather conditions can sometimes be worse than expected. In such cases, it is possible for generals and naval commanders to delay their operations. Yet they have to report to other naval bases and reschedule sea patrols as soon as possible. The governor generals should also check with the naval commanders to see if the weather conditions are tolerable or not. If it is found that a naval commander is not reporting the actual weather conditions, then he and his team must be severely punished.96 92 93

94 95 96

Yin Jishan, Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 4 nian, April 9, no.00464). Zhongguo diyi lishi danganguan (ed.), Yongzheng chao Hanwen zhupi zouzhe huibian, juan 8, “memorial submitted by Gao Qizhuo,” p. 279; Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4015–4018. Kaer Jishan, Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 14 nian, July 6; no. 004530). Yan Ruyu, Yangfang jiyao (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1975), juan 2, “yangfang jingzhi,” pp. 91–96. Liu Qiduan et al., Qinding da Qing huidian shili: Guangxu chao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002), juan 632, “Qianlong 17 nian waihai xunfang,” p. 1187.

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The Zhejiang navy served as a pivotal lever in the commercial hub that connected Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian. The merchants from Jiangsu, Fujian, and Guangdong dominated the domestic sea trade, although merchants from many different provinces also conducted their business across the seacoast.97 Before 1850, close to seventy percent of the “seatrading enterprises” on China’s coast were based in Fujian, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. And at major seaports, such as Tianjin, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, eight out of ten companies were affiliated with businessmen who came from one of these three provinces.98 As Zhejiang was geographically proximate to Jiangsu and Fujian, a large number of sloops, barges, and coasters in full sail passed to or from Zhejiang every year.99 Therefore Zhejiang’s navy not only was responsible for handling local affairs, but also was tasked with protecting the merchant vessels that departed from Jiangsu and Fujian. Apart from offering protection, the Zhejiang navy was also required to police some areas near the two neighboring provinces. According to an edict pronounced by the Qianlong emperor in 1750, As the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian coastlines are interconnected for a thousand li, the Zhejiang navy has had to assist both the Jiangsu and the Fujian navies by sending warships to stretches of islands off the Jiangsu and Fujian littorals. The Zhejiang navy should patrol the sea zones of Fujian and Jiangsu every two months in order to protect the merchants and eliminate the pirates (baoshang jingdao).100

As an armed force with a large number of battleships and sailors, the Zhejiang navy was instrumental in intercepting crimes at sea and helping to thwart pirates in these areas. The extent of the Zhejiang navy’s responsibilities demonstrates that the Qing state endeavored to strengthen Zhejiang’s capability as a launching pad for its military operations in

97

98

99 100

Fu Yiling, “Qingdai qianqi Xiamen yanghang,” in his Ming–Qing shidai shangren ji shangye ziben (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1956), pp. 203–204; Zhou Kai, Xiamen zhi (Taipei: Taiwan yinhang jingji yanjiushi, 1999), p. 193. For details, see, for instance, John Chaffee, “At the Intersection of Empire and World Trade: The Chinese Port City of Quanzhou (Zaitun), Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries,” in Kenneth R. Hall (ed.), Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in the Indian Ocean Realm, c.1400–1800 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 99–121; Wills, “Contingent Connections”; Wang Gangwu, “Merchants without Empire: The Hokkien Sojourning Communities,” in James D. Tracy (ed.), The Rise of Merchant Empires: LongDistance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 400–421; and Chang Pin-tsun, “The Formation of a Maritime Convention in Minnan (Southern Fujian), c.900–1200,” in Claude Guillot, Denys Lombard, and Roderich Ptak (eds.), From the Mediterranean to the China Sea: Miscellaneous Notes (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), pp. 143–155. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4015–4018. Ji Zengyun and Shen Yiji et al., Zhejiang tongzhi, juan 98.

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the waters that stretched from Jiangsu to Fujian, extending across almost sixty percent of the Qing’s southeastern coastline. The Fujian Coast/Taiwan Strait Fujian is a mountainous landscape, with a twisted and convoluted coastline, and is second only to Guangdong in length. The Min river is the province’s largest waterway. Its tributaries traverse the northern half of Fujian province, then they wind eastward, creating narrow drainage basins, before emptying into the Taiwan Strait. According to a famous general in the Yongzheng period, Lan Tingzhen, Fujian is clearly a maritime province. As commented by Lan in his memorial, the province “has very limited arable farmland and more than half of the population turned to maritime trade.”101 In fact, in the Song and Yuan Dynasties (960–1368), Fujian was already a key economic hub due to its vibrant sea trade with Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean world and, indirectly, Western Europe.102 Quanzhou harbor, once the foremost seaport in Fujian, was considered the biggest center of transnational trade in world history.103 At the end of the thirteenth century, Marco Polo spared few words in describing the wealth of trade that passed through Quanzhou. He wrote that Quanzhou was the port “to which all the ships from India come with many dear goods,” carrying to and from the city “so great an abundance of goods and of stones and of pearls that it is a wonderful thing to see.” “You may know,” he concluded, “that this is one of the two ports in the world where most merchandise comes, for its greatness and convenience.”104 Unfortunately, Quanzhou lost this status following the destructive Ispah Rebellion (1357–1366). Since then, Fujian did not merit the status of a key economic area until the Ming–Qing transition, or the so-called “age of commerce,”105 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was 101

102

103 104 105

Lan Dingyuan, Luzhou quanji (Xiamen: Xiamen daxue chubanshe, 1995), juan 3, 2a–b. Note: the memorial was written by Lan Dingyuan on behalf of his brother Lan Tingzhen. Chen Dasheng and Denys Lombard, “Foreign Merchants in Maritime Trade in Quanzhou (Zaitun): Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Denys Lombard and Jean Aubin, Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 19–23. See Angela Schottenhammer (ed.), The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400 (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 2001). Marco Polo (trans. A. C. Moule and Paul Pelliot), Marco Polo: The Description of the World (London: Routledge, 1938), p. 351. Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988–1993); Anthony Reid, “An ‘Age of Commerce in Southeast Asian History,’” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 24 no. 1 (1990), pp. 1–30.

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reborn as a key economic area and served as a critical point in both the Ming and Qing governments’ naval management, thereby factoring largely in maritime China’s socioeconomic development. Nevertheless, in the late seventeenth century, Fujian experienced another economic downturn when the “sea blockade” policy was decreed. During this time, the state’s strategic focus changed and many trading connections between Fujian and Southeast Asia were destroyed. Although most maritime businesses that operated between Fujian and other countries were wiped out, the naval settlements along the Fujian coast, as explained previously, did not decrease in either number or capacity. This is because the Kangxi emperor had decided to strengthen Fujian’s naval forces for its military operations toward Taiwan, which was then occupied by Zheng Chenggong, who used it as his base of operations in his bid to become emperor.106 After the suppression of the Three Feudatories, Kangxi sought someone to lead an amphibious operation against Zheng’s regime. Following the advice of Li Zhuangti, he chose Shi Lang (see earlier in this chapter to know more about Shi Lang).107 Under Kangxi’s expansive strategy, the Fujian navy was tasked with supporting the Qing’s engagement in Taiwan. By that time, the navy was well officered and well captained, and had relatively well-trained crews. However, the navy’s frequent reinforcement and mobilization did not necessarily increase Qing control over coastal Fujian province. Rather, the sea policing system and Qing control of the littoral were weakened by its mobilization toward war with Taiwan. Indeed, the civil bureaucracy was so preoccupied with supporting this military campaign that it lacked the capacity to police the sea zone. In September 1683, Shi Lang assembled a fleet of three hundred vessels, mostly from the Fujian navy, and swiftly defeated Liu Guoxuan, the leading naval commander of the Zheng forces, in a major engagement near the Pescadores. A few weeks later, Zheng Keshuang surrendered. This victory put Kangxi at ease, as he expressed in a poem: “I am always concerned with the hardships faced by the coastal people [due to the sea blockade policy]; now all the people in the empire will be able to live in peace and prosperity.”108

106 107

108

Spence, “The K’ang-hsi Reign,” pp. 150–160. The conversation between the emperor and Shi Lang was recorded by the imperial diarists, and is translated into English by John E. Wills Jr. See his 1688: A Global History (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), pp. 119–120. Qing Shengzu, Kangxi yuzhi wenji, juan 38, p. 86.

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Following this successful campaign, the Kangxi emperor showed only little interest in acquiring Taiwan. Either intentionally or unintentionally, he announced to his officers, “Taiwan is a place beyond the sea; it is no bigger than a ball of mud. We gain nothing by possessing it.”109 Although the Portuguese may have dubbed Taiwan “beautiful island” (Formosa), the emperor did not see its merits. Consequently, Su Bai, the court’s emissary, proposed abandoning the island, once the remaining rebel troops and the Chinese civilian population were evacuated. The majority of Beijing’s high officials supported this plan. Only Shi Lang voiced an objection, noting that, far from being a wasteland, Taiwan was strategically situated and amply endowed with natural resources and arable land. He further asserted that the Qing should not abandon this strategic island that guarded its maritime frontier. To Shi, Taiwan served as a kind of palisade that protected the empire from outside invaders – not a ball of mud situated outside the Qing’s domain.110 And understandably, he also considered Taiwan a platform to accumulate his political capital. In the late seventeenth century, the question whether to withdraw from Taiwan became a heated debate. And in the spring of 1684, after learning more about Taiwan’s situation, the emperor finally sided with Shi Lang and had the island officially “included in the register” of the Qing Empire, as Fujian’s ninth prefecture. The establishment of central control over Taiwan was remarkable. “Taiwan’s location was strategically critical as the Qing’s holding of Taiwan would prevent pirates and foreign powers from using the island for activities that might be harmful to the Qing Empire.”111 Even so, prior to the nineteenth century, Taiwan’s militarization was not as intensive as that of the Qing’s other peripheral territories (such as Sichuan province). Fujian’s provincial office and its navy respectively took care of Taiwan’s administrative and military affairs.112 The naval organization along the Fujian coast demonstrates, rather conclusively, that the Manchu monarchs were attentive to maintaining control over the Taiwan Strait, rather than over the island of Taiwan itself, probably until the Mudan incident in 1874. Yet it is

109 110 111 112

Taiwan yinhang jingji yanjiushi (ed.), Qing Shengzu shilu xuanji (Nantou: Taiwan shengwenxian weiyuanhui, 1997), p. 129. Shi Lang, Jinghai jishi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), pp. 60–63. John Robert Shepherd, Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600–1800 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 182. In fact, the Qing official record states, “Among the Taiwanese, there was an outbreak every three years, and every five years a rebellion.” See Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 24–27.

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Figure 3.5 Dingjian Taijun jungongchang tushuo 鼎建臺郡軍工廠圖說 (1778, National Palace Museum)

notable that, over the eighteenth century, Taiwan also played a significant role in maritime militarization in that it had a shipyard for building and repairing warships. Its forest also produced suitable timber for warship construction.113 Figure 3.5 shows an image by Jiang Yuanshu, an official stationed in Taiwan during the Qianlong period, picturing artisans building warships in a military factory in Taiwan. In the upper left-hand corner, several artisans are selecting the appropriate wood, while others are hewing beams. The large area in front of the factory was used to build and repair warships, with one currently under construction. Two warships – one complete, the other missing a mast – are anchored along the shore in front of the factory. The capture of Taiwan also fostered changes in Qing naval tactics in Fujian. On the one hand, the Manchu rulers had made skillful use of the 113

See Chen Guodong, “Jungong jiangshou yu Qingling shiqi Taiwan de famu wenti, 1683–1857,” Renwen ji shehui kexue jikan, vol. 7 no. 1 (1995), pp. 123–158.

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Fujian navy to sustain and shelter the sea trade across the region.114 On the other, they had begun to adopt a more interventionist approach to the Taiwan Strait, in an attempt to ensure that no anti-Qing forces could alter the stability of a piece of sea that had just been assimilated into the jurisdiction of the Manchu Empire. The Fujian navy underwent another transformation because of this strategic turn. As reflected in the Fujian tongzhi and the Qingshi gao, by 1722, the year of the Kangxi emperor’s death, the Fujian navy was made up of 237 warships (comprising ten different types, each with specific military functions).115 During the Yongzheng era, the Fujian navy was further expanded and contained a wide variety of warships, such as the ganzeng chuan (the largest warship in Fujian), the bajiang chuan (scout ship), and the huazuo guanchuan (chief commander’s ship). No doubt, this was an impressive array of warships to have at their disposal. Each warship could carry twenty to forty mostly well-trained sailors.116 Aside from guarding the coast of Fujian, the Fujian navy also policed the sea that surrounded Penghu, a maritime crossing between Fujian and Taiwan. Most of the vessels that sailed to and from Taiwan and Xiamen had to pass through the Penghu archipelago, which was geographically situated at the strait’s midpoint. One of several harbors in Penghu, Xiyu was the busiest. The Fujian navy was responsible not only for patrolling the harbor in Xiyu but also for helping construct watchtowers, guard posts, and lighthouses there. Another maritime map, entitled Juan Jian Penghu Xiyu futu tushuo (Illustrated Guide to Penghu’s West Island Lighthouse), also illustrates a five-tiered pagoda-style watchtower situated in Xiyu. Figure 3.6 shows a cluster of war junks policing the area to ensure that the harbor is “risk-free.” It should be noted that, apart from guarding the Taiwan Strait, the Fujian navy was often regarded as one of the most proficient navies that served the inner sea space (throughout the eighteenth century, the number of warships of the Fujian navy was always around 340). For instance, the emperor relied heavily on Fujian’s navy and its soldiers to pacify several internal rebellions that took place in Taiwan during the Qianlong era (1788–1790). The Fujian navy was the major force that sailed across the Taiwan Strait and brought glory back to the emperor. Yet, even though it was long considered highly competent, the navy did not expand significantly in the Qianlong era. In fact, the Qianlong 114 115 116

See Zhong Yin (governor general of Fujian and Zhejiang), Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 42 nian, November 12, no. 403033212). Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4014–4015; Chen Shouqi et al., Fujian tongzhi (Taipei: Huawen shuju, 1968), juan 86 and 87. Du Zhen, Yue Min xunshi jilüe (compiled in Jingyin wenyuange siku quanshu, “shibu” 7, “chuanji lei” 4), juan 5, pp. 67–75.

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Figure 3.6 Juan Jian Penghu Xiyu futu tushuo 捐建澎湖西嶼浮圖圖說 (by Jiang Yuanshu, 1778, National Palace Museum)

government was confident that the Fujian navy was already sufficient and, therefore, virtually no substantial naval development took place during that era.117 However, the emperor was probably wrong in assessing the picture. In actuality, the Fujian navy was under constant and severe pressure in supressing pirates off the coast of Fujian. One may now be curious about the host of causes that turned Fujian into a significant pirate hub in the Qianlong era. One of the reasons is attributed to the establishment of the Canton system in 1757, which we will discuss in fuller detail in the upcoming chapter. Although the end of the embargo policy in the early Qing brought Fujian some fifty years of gradual recovery, the establishment of the Canton system profoundly diminished Fujian’s economic importance in overseas shipping. It was at this point that Guangdong began to monopolize most of the sea trade that connected China with the nanyang region (Southeast Asia) and 117

Xin Zhu (Fuzhou jiangjun (general of Fujian and Zhejiang)), Junjichu dangan (Qianlong 16 nian, October 21, no. 007531).

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Western Europe. As a result, more and more haishang (maritime merchants) decided to move their bases of trade from Fujian to Guangzhou; some of them even migrated to the Leizhou peninsula and Hainan Island. This southward shift from Fujian to Guangzhou, in turn, contributed to a dramatic upsurge in predation by Fujianese pirates along the Fujian coast. Labeled a “haven for pirates” by some Qing officials, Fujian furnished a large part of the coastal population with illicit jobs that enabled them to earn a living, especially after the 1750s. Research shows that 73.8 percent of the pirate population consisted of people who struggled on the edge of survival; and fishermen alone made up 80.7 percent of all sea robbers.118 These pirates, based in Fujian, pillaged up and down the coast of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang. Thus the Fujian navy faced a thorny problem in its battle against this activity. As such, the navy was ordered to conduct the highest number of sea patrols throughout the year. For example, according to the records of the Gazetteer of Jinmen, Every year on February 1, the naval commander of Jinmen [one of the navies in Fujian] was ordered to lead six warships to operate a large-scale sea patrol. The navy had to first reach Xianjiang on April 1, meet with the Haitan navy, and police that maritime territory. On June 15, the navy had to reach the southern part of the Fujian seas and police that region; on August 1, it needed to sail north and oversee the northern waters. According to the schedule, the navy had to return to Jinmen on September 30, on time. From October to January, the navy had to initiate two other large-scale sea patrols. During the patrol, the navy had to collaborate with land forces in order to spot pirates and eliminate them.119

Even though the Fujian navy was busy combating pirates, many local officials and scholar-officials believed that the ultimate solution to piracy was to expand the maritime economy by encouraging coastal trade. They realized that downtrodden people were not born pirates and that poverty

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119

Robert Antony calls the 1520–1810 period the golden age of Chinese piracy and furthermore divides it into three great waves. The second wave covers the period from 1644 to the early 1790s. According to Antony, soon after Taiwan was brought into the empire, as both overseas and domestic junk trade increased, China’s coastal economy recovered and expanded greatly throughout the eighteenth century. These favorable changes, unsurprisingly, furnished ample opportunities for small-scale parasitic maritime predation. Yet such violent activities, unlike the mid-Ming or the early Qing counterparts, rarely crossed the dangerous threshold from petty to professional piracy and thus posed little threat to either government or commerce. See his Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Mid-Qing South China (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2003), “Introduction” and “Conclusion.” Lin Kunhuang, Jinmen zhi (Taibei: Taiwan yin hang chubanshe, 1960), juan 5, pp. 88–89.

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had pushed them into this illegal activity.120 For example, in his Yangfang jiyao, Yan Ruyi explained the persistence of piracy in the South China Sea, noting that the pirates in Fujian were not like the Miao rebels who attempted to reclaim the lands occupied by the Manchu, nor were they like the White Lotus sectarians who strove to overthrow the Qing regime. The Fujian pirates’ primary motivation was profit, and they attained this through theft, extortion, kidnapping, looting villages, attacking ships, and collecting protection money. When they were offered better opportunities by surrendering, many did so. In responding to the piracy crisis, Qing policies were, therefore, both offensive and caring, yet the government believed that the ultimate solution was to expand the maritime economy by encouraging, rather than prohibiting, coastal trade in Fujian territory. By the late Qianlong era, the combination of both the aggressive and the appeasing policies had considerably mitigated the problem of piracy along the Fujian coast. This also serves as an outsourcing mode by which the Qing reduced its direct military commitment. By that time, only small-scale petty piracy existed in Fujian waters; this was a form of sporadic raiding led by disorganized bands of impoverished seafarers or marauders.

The Guangdong Coast As the Liangguang governor general Lu Kun once commented, Guangdong consists “of hills and rivers blended together and borders on foreign countries.”121 Of all the Chinese provinces, Guangdong enjoyed the most extensive trade links with other parts of Asia, due to its many well-endowed seaports that connected the open seaboard with the province’s interior. These powerful trade links could not even be severed by two sea blockades: the first was imposed between the 1470s and 1567 when the Ming government sealed off maritime emigration and private sea trade; the second was imposed between the 1660s and the 1680s by the Qing government.122 However, the Guangzhou traders were tenacious in circumventing these enforced embargoes. Their will to exploit the sea, or “land the sea,” hints at their tendency to conceive 120

121 122

Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan (ed.), Kangxi chao manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1996), p. 822. See also Chen Xiaomei, “Qingdai dongnan dufu Jiaoluo Manbao minzhe zhili yanjiu” (master’s thesis, Nankai daxue, 2011), pp. 15–20. Almost one-seventh of Guangdong’s counties and prefectures bordered the maritime world. Ye Xian’en, Guangdong hangyun shi: Gudai bufen (Beijing: Renmin jiaotong chubanshe, 1989), pp. 212–213.

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the sea as a walk-on land.123 As a Guangdong official noted in the Qianlong era, “whereas Guangzhou has a huge population, its land is very limited. Most of the coastal residents make their living by relying on seagoing ships.”124 Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the vivid and immediate resurgence in the sea trade that took place around the Guangdong area once the embargo was lifted. This compelled the establishment of a stronger naval force that worked exclusively for the Guangdong region. The governor general of Guangdong and Guangxi (Liang Guang zongdu) directed and administrated the Guangdong navy.125 In practice, the navy was divided into two categories: a “governor’s fleet” (dubiao shuishi) and a “regular fleet” (changshe shuishi). The governor general directed the former and the military commissioner of the navy (shuishi tidu) directed the latter. By 1745, whereas the regular fleet was much larger in terms of its number of sailors and warships, the governor’s fleet consisted of fifty-six warships and approximately 1,700 sailors, and was responsible for garrisoning eight key spots along the Guangdong coast.126 According to the Qingchao wenxian tongkao, there were around 400 battleships under the regular fleet, stationed in Nan’ao, Chaozhou, Gaolian, and Luqin. By the 1850s, each battleship could carry twenty to thirty sailors.127 Moreover, in 1745, a new special “fleet,” manned exclusively by bannermen, was added to the Guangdong navy. But the force itself was relatively smaller in size and consisted of only 500 sailors. Like the Fujian navy, the Guangdong navy’s regular fleet had a wide variety of warships. Among them, the armed ganzeng chuan and juchuan were considered the largest and fastest. Until 1799, most of the war junks in Guangdong were replaced by “rice boats” (miting), a type of vessel first used in commercial trade and later remodeled as a battleship. Weighing 2,500 shi, the miting was 31.7 meters long and 6.8 meters wide, which was far bigger and more formidable than both the ganzeng chuan and the juchuan. 123

124 125 126 127

In his New Discourses on Guangdong, the Qing scholar Qu Dajun captured the quintessence of the most southerly of China’s maritime province with two simple sentences, “Guangdong is a kingdom of water; many people need boats to make a living.” See Qu Dajun, Guangdong xinyu (Bejing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), p. 395. Da Qing Gaozong chun huangdi shilu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), juan 15, pp. 1023–1025. If a navy was directly administrated by a particular governor general, it was called dubiao shishe in Chinese. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4015–4018. Zhao Erxun et al., Qing shi gao, juan 135, “bingzhi,” no. 6, pp. 4015–4018. See also Mao Keming (left-wing commander of Guangzhou (Guangzhou zuoyi dutong)), Junjichu dangan (Yongzheng 11 nian, March 28, no. 402004075).

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Figure 3.7 Nan’ao (Qisheng yanhaitu, 1780s edition)

Across the Guangdong sea zone, Nan’ao Island was closely linked to concerns over maritime militarization across the maritime frontier. A mapmaker had this to say about the small island (see Figure 3.7), Situated in the eastern part of the great ocean, Nan’ao is the stronghold guarding the maritime frontier. It is a strategic island in the seawater off the Fujian and Guangdong coasts. In particular, it protects the eastern coast of Guangdong province. The coastline of Nan’ao Island is approximately 300 li, with four important harbors. The harbor in the eastern part of the island is named Qing’ao; it is not favorable for anchoring. The harbor in the western part is called Sheng’ao. It is a nice harbor that can accommodate more than a thousand vessels.

No discussion of coastal defense on the southeast coast, during the late imperial times, could possibly leave out Nan’ao.128 This small island was situated at the intersection of the Fujian and Guangdong sea zones. In the early Ming, this island was a paradise for pirates, before it was turned into a strategic naval base. In 1576, following a proposal by naval commander General Luo Gongchen, a lieutenant colonel was assigned to Nan’ao Island, and a walled defense fortification was built. The strategic position of Nan’ao continued to be highly valued into the eighteenth

128

Ng Chin-keong, “Maritime Frontiers, Territorial Expansion and Hai-fang”, in Dabringhaus and Ptak, China and Her Neighbours, p. 232.

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century.129 The Qing court was determined to develop Nan’ao into a bastion against piracy and to integrate it into its imperial domain. The most important development was the establishment of five maritime garrisons on the island, as the Qisheng yanhaitu shows (Figure 3.7). Such measures not only helped strengthen the island’s defense against potential intruders but also provided a fine example of maritime governance in island management and of imperial motivation to extend the regime’s territorial jurisdiction across its maritime frontier. In 1757, the Qianlong emperor received a petition from Yang Yingju, the governor general of Fujian and Zhejiang, about Western merchant ships armed with dreadful weapons harboring in Ningbo (the vessels were led by James Flint (c.1720–?), an Englishman who had served for many years in China as interpreter and translator for the EIC).130 The emperor soon became keenly aware of these armed foreign vessels along his empire’s shoreline.131 He immediately and explicitly declared that all armed foreign merchant ships, either harboring in Ningbo or along the coast of China, be declared illegal. In fact, twelve years earlier, in 1745, the imperial court had already started the discussion about how to respond to the Dutch massacre of Chinese in Batavia.132 The Qing court considered this bloody dispatch a potential danger from Western Europeans and pondered whether they should limit the existing Sino-Western interactions. It was the Guangdong officials who convinced the emperor that trade with Southeast Asia had to be continued and Guangzhou could not be blocked to overseas business. As recorded in the imperial documents, the Guangdong officials argued that whereas Guangzhou has a huge population, its land is very limited. Most of the coastal residents make their living by relying on seagoing ships and the twenty-six hong merchants. Thus it is right to channel Western merchants to Guangdong. This is beneficial to the livelihood of the people of Guangdong and contributes to tax revenues in Jiangxi and Shaoguan. It also eliminates the potential threat to maritime defense in Zhejiang.133 129

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131 132

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Even the Dutch had long been showing their interest in this strategic island. See Weichung Cheng, War, Trade and Piracy in the China Seas (1622–1683) (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 42–46. James Flint was also a protagonist later, in the Flint affair. For details, see Victor H. Li (ed.), Law and Politics in China’s Foreign Trade (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1977), pp. 363–365. Da Qing gaozong chun huangdi shilu, juan 15, pp. 1023–1025. In 1740, the Dutch carried out the first and most sinister massacre of the Chinese in Batavia. They burnt 600 houses, killing every Chinese, including adults and children. For details, see Lee Khoon Choy, Golden Dragon and Purple Phoenix: The Chinese and their Multi-ethnic Descendants in Southeast Asia (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Ltd., 2013), pp. 161–163. Choy, Golden Dragon and Purple Phoenix, p. 161.

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Taking both the “Batavia discussion” and the James Fint affair into account, in 1757 the emperor eventually decided to curb the trading rights of the British merchants by promulgating a policy that required them to trade with the hong merchants merely in Guangzhou.134 Even though European traders, other than the British, were allowed to trade in other port cities during the trading season, they were inclined to conduct their business in the so-called “thirteen factories” (shisan hang) next to Canton harbor.135 These policies swiftly transformed Canton from a “median point” to a core city in the Eurasian trade network and a Chinese seaport where European traders preferred to congregate. These outcomes provided the Qing court with a plausible justification for giving extra attention and military support to Guangdong. As a result, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a cadre of warships (around ten), sailors (around 1,000), and veteran generals were added to the Guangdong forces. From then on, the Guangdong navy had to keep constant and intense surveillance over Western merchant ships that sailed along the Guangdong coast. Apart from checking for pirates and domestic sea crime, the navy was responsible for warding off the potential danger that foreign seafarers might pose to the coast. Owing to the growing importance of Guangdong, the Qianlong government was also aware of the potential threat imposed by the Vietnamese. As recorded in the Da Qing huidian, there was also an increase of warships stationed in Qinzhou, guarding the Sino-Vietnamese border, between roughly the 1750s and the 1760s.136 Apparently, the establishment of a series of new regulations, together with the enlargement of the Guangdong navy, after 1757 proved to be a political move that limited Western access to the inner sea space. Yet we should keep in mind that these changes, in themselves, do not provide a complete picture of the dynamic sea trade between China and the rest of the world. Most scholarship that took place before the 1970s reinforced the perception that virtually all of China’s foreign trade after 1757 was conducted in Canton and that the Guangdong navy was the military force that governed foreign maritime trade. As a result, the Chinese were always a passive party patiently waiting for Westerners to trade with them in Canton, while Western Europeans, by contrast, were the only active side attempting to maximize their profits. However, as early as the 1990s 134 135

136

Yet not all European could trade in Canton. For instance, the Russians were forbidden to have direct contact by sea with Canton. Liang Jiabin, Guangdong shisanhang kao (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1999), pp. 2–7. European traders were inclined to trade in Canton because they found it not profitable to sail further north. I will discuss this in detail in the following chapter. See Li Qilin, Jianfeng zhuanduo, p. 374.

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this perception was convincingly refuted. Research shows that, throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Chinese sea traders actively engaged with foreign merchants not only in Canton but also beyond continental China.137 Sailing in large and versatile junks, many with three masts, Chinese merchants from Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong regularly traveled between China, Java, Indonesia, Siam, and the Philippines to trade with foreigners from afar.138 Some of them even permanently settled in Southeast Asian seaports in order to solidify and expand their trade connections with the Far West. If we accept the view that China’s superiority in manufacturing and transport, early in the sixteenth century, drew China, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Americas into an extensive trading network that laid the foundation for the modern global economy,139 then it is fair to say that the Canton and Fujian traders effectively linked the Qing Empire to “the hemispheric trade nexus,” even after the Canton system was established in 1757. The increasing numbers of Chinese sea traders ushered in what has been called a “Chinese century” in the global economy, which began around 1750 and extended to the mid-1800s.140 By that time, as many as one million Cantonese seafarers were plying Asian waters, thus facilitating sea trade across the globe.141 The Qing court also interacted with these Chinese traders and the wider maritime world by regulating its Customs Office. However, this is a topic for Chapter 4.

Land–Sea Protection The dragon navy that was stationed in the four sea zones was supported and protected by a chain of forts (paotai) that were armed with artillery batteries and stationed along the maritime frontier from north to south.142 In contrast to the navies of other dynastic states in greater Asia, 137

138

139 140

141 142

Jennifer Wayne Cushman, Fields from the Sea: Chinese Junk Trade with Siam during the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993). Wang Gungwu, A Short History of the Nanyang Chinese (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1979), pp. 1–13; Tansen Sen, “The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia,” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 49 no. 4 (2006), pp. 421–453. Brook, Vermeer’s Hat, pp. 22–25. Carl Trocki, “Chinese Pioneering in Eighteenth-Century South Asia,” in Anthony Reid (ed.), The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1760–1840 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 83–102. Trocki, “Chinese Pioneering in Eighteenth-Century South Asia.” In fact, in the Ming and Qing the coast was guarded by both paotai and guard towers (fenghou), but the Qing relied more on paotai than on fenghou throughout the eighteenth century.

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such as those of the Ottoman, the Arabic, and the Russian Empires,143 the Qing’s seven navies were fortified by an assemblage of protective onshore cannons. In fact, since the late Ming era, the coast of China, particularly the southeast, saw the development of a coherent system of fortifications that lasted into the late Qing. To both the Ming and the Qing governments, coastal fortifications were a critical piece of an integrated system of defense. However, owing to the fact that both dynasties created these structured fortifications, historians generally speculate that China relied exclusively on “passive defense,” which simply consisted of fortifying the shoreline.144 However, I would argue that the Qing court often found a tactic of maintaining a “passive defense” to be inadequate. Indeed, it held that an integrated naval program required a comprehensive sea patrol in addition to a substantial coastal and estuarine defense system. To this end, the Qing made use of co-operative measures. That is, it combined a standing navy with a powerful fortress structure in order to forge a consolidated initiative against the existing hegemony over its inner sea space. To some extent, this “land–sea protection scheme” (hailu lüanfang) echoes what was argued earlier: that the Manchu emperors of the eighteenth century were inclined to integrate the inner sea into their terrestrial domains. Meanwhile, the Qing court was well aware of the fact that while the navy was the primary means of defense across the inner sea, the navy would always be at risk without coastal fortifications that provided safe harbor and a place to refit.145 A coastal paotai was a fixed, fortified military installation equipped with cannons, magazines, and cisterns. It functioned as a launch pad for attacks, a provision storehouse, a signal tower, and sometimes a warning station when enemy and pirate vessels were sighted along the coast. Under this chain of protection, both navy and merchant ships could seek shelter from potential danger at coastal fortifications. Battleships could also stop for minor repairs and replenishment at some of the large paotai.

143

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145

Hassan S. Khalilieh, “The Ribat System and Its Role in Coastal Navigation,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 42 no.2 (1999), pp. 212–225; Ian M. Matley, “Defense Manufactures of St. Petersburg 1703–1730,” Geographical Review, vol. 71 no. 4 (October 1981), pp. 411–426. For instance, see Yang Jinsen and Fan Zhongyi, Zhongguo haifang shi (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 2005); Zhang Tieniu and Gao Xiaoxing, Zhongguo gudai haijun shi (Beijing: Bayi chubanshe, 1993), pp. 68–72; John R. Dewenter, “China Afloat,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 50 no. 4 (July 1972), p. 738. There are mainly four types of paotai in the Qing period altogether: (1) fort on island (haidao paotai), (2) fort located on river mouth (haikou paotai), (3) fort located along the coastline (haian paotai), and (4) fort along the river (jiangfang paotai). See Zhongguo junshi bianxie zu (ed.), Zhongguo lidai junshi gongcheng (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 2005), p. 346.

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Located near the mouths of navigable waterways or strategic locations along the coast, the coastal paotai did not arise from the need to protect the interior but rather from the need to facilitate access for military and commercial shipping.146 Most of the paotai of the Qing Empire were constructed in the following periods: first, in the early decades of the Qing dynasty, and later, in a period of expansion that began during the middle of the Kangxi reign and extended through the early Daoguang era (1821–1850). As the installation of armed fortifications may have spanned nearly two centuries, this development should not be considered a “single” project – even though certain construction projects may have been more or less planned coherent building programs. For instance, early in the 1650s, the Kangxi emperor stated that there was a definite need to create coastal forts to protect harbors and anchorages against possible enemy landings along the coast (yanhai paotai, zuzi fangshou).147 He further asserted that these undertakings would have to be planned and supervised by experienced generals and military architects. As a result, after the first paotai was built, in Guangzhou, in 1662, many more were constructed along China’s southeastern coast between 1684 (after the official Du Zhen (jinshi 1658) conducted his survey in Fujian and Guangdong) and 1716 (when Jiaoluo Manbao suggested constructing fortresses extensively along the coast of Fujian).148 Thereafter, the construction of armed forts proceeded at a moderate pace. In keeping with Kangxi’s emphasis on coastal fortifications, the Yongzheng and the Qianlong emperors both considered a network of forts to be a vital component of the empire’s defense network along its maritime frontier.149 For instance, Li Wei was responsible for supervising the construction of a series of new paotai in Zhejiang during the Yongzheng era.150 By the year 1754 (in the Qianlong period), the number of soldiers guarding those paotai cannons in Zhejiang was more than 2,000.151 146

147 148 149

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Li Qilin conducted fantastic research on coastal fortification. See his Jianfeng zhuanduo: Qingdai qianqi yanhai de shuishi yu zhanchuan, pp. 276–333. See also Xiao Guojian, Guancheng yu paotai: Ming Qing liangdai Guangdong haifang (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of History, 1997). Shengzu ren huangdi shilu, juan 270, p. 650. Shengzu ren huangdi shilu, juan 282, p. 758. Lu Kun, Guangdong haifang huilan (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2009), juan 31, “fanglüe” 20a, “Liangguang zongdu Yang Lin jian yanhai paotai xu”; Yue Jun, Du Zhao et al., Shandong tongzhi (Hong Kong: Dizhi wenhua chuban youxian gongsi, 2002), juan 20, chapter entitled “Haijiang”; Ruan Yuan, Yanjingshi ji, vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), juan 7, “Guangzhou Dahushan xinjian paotai beiming.” Shizong xian huangdi shilu, juan 82, p. 81. Guoshi guan (ed.), Huangchao bingzhi (preserved by the Palace Museum in Taipei), juan 276, p. 7b.

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The “land–sea protection” devised in the high Qing represented a developed form of coastal defense on the part of an Asian empire. Until the early nineteenth century, the Qing court had demonstrated distinctive cohesion in co-ordinating its dragon navies and coastal fortifications. However, it has to be noted that in order to properly control the maritime frontier, the use of coastal fortresses was far less important than active sea patrols, as well as the reliance on local junkmen, merchants, and ad hoc forces, sometimes recruited from potential pirate crews. This is one of the examples of the outsourcing mode by which the Qing reduced its direct commitment along the coast. In the following chapter, we will identify another type of outsourcing, in which the Customs Offices had to rely on local merchants to operate the customs administration. Another feature of eighteenth-century coastal fortification is that the system was not developed in response to national emergencies. It was intended to be designed as part of an integrated system of coastal defense. The relatively long period of peace allowed the Qing court time to establish a long-term protection net. Officials from coastal provinces were given the authority to construct the paotai well as those barracks attached to them. Since the late Kangxi period (1719), coastal officials were responsible for maintaining the status of these fortifications on a regular basis. In fact, the Beijing authority was quite generous in allocating the money for the establishment or reconstruction of these coastal fortifications. For instance, the Yongzheng emperor even argued with one of his officials, Hao Yulin, over the money spent on constructing a coastal fort in Taiwan. The emperor clearly stated that “a coastal fortification is essential for a comprehensive coastal defense, we should not budget to spend less on this” (shubu zhi chengyuan zhi she, suo yi fang waihuan . . . sui zhongfei hexi).152 Nevertheless, even though most of the fortifications were meant to be constructed permanently, some of them were temporary in nature, used for a short time and then left to deteriorate. For instance, according to the memorial prepared by Cui Yingjie in 1769, quite a number of the paotai along the coast of Fujian were destroyed and not maintained in good condition.153 It is thus fairly difficult to trace whether all of the paotai constructed at the time were conserved properly and accordingly. But what we can be certain of is that, during the mid-nineteenth century, the land–sea protection system was toppled when the empire was beset by large-scale internal rebellions and, later, when Western and Western-inspired imperialistic incursions burst onto Asian waters. 152 153

Yu Wenyi, Xuxiu Taiwan fuzhi (Nantou: Taiwan wenxian weiyuanhui, 1993), p. 61. Cui Yingjie, “Zouqing xiu paotai,” in “Junjichu dangan zhejian” (no. 010872).

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Although some domestic rebellions were quelled in the 1820s, the Jiaqing emperor and his successors felt incapable of restoring a powerful “land–sea” system of protection. Like the Islamic rulers, who used ribat fortifications, the Manchu monarchs shifted to “passive defense” by forming a chain of paotai within military strongholds.154 As a result, a remarkable surge of paotai construction took place between the 1810s and the 1840s. The famous Shitai quantu (A Complete Diagram of Ten Forts) is an example that features the ten superior paotai in Guangdong that were built there to ensure safety across a specific sea space. However, the architectural design of the paotai built in the nineteenth century fell considerably short of the “modern” standard used by Western Europeans. Moreover, it has long been maintained that the heavy reliance on “passive defense” was no longer viable, as demonstrated in the cases of Korea and Japan, where Western ironclad steamships, armed with batteries and carronade, triumphed in sea battles.

Concluding Remarks The above discussion, although brief, demonstrates that, in many respects, the Qing court did not neglect its inner sea militarily. Rather, its considerable efforts included the establishment of a navy, the consolidation of a naval structure, and the actualization of land–sea protection. And even though the physical and economic landscape of China’s coast was immensely complicated and in constant flux, it is discernible that the Qing managed to manifest its power over its maritime frontier. Now it is essential to inquire, in more detail, into both the means and the extent to which the Qing was able to remain a maritime power. First, the Qing naval story has provided us with a more thorough picture of the nature of a navy. In most of the studies, the term “navy” invokes an image of armed vessels engaging in warfare on the open sea – in effect, a seaborne, voyaging version of an army. Nonetheless, sea battles were not the primary function of navies, as shown in the Qing case, in East Asia, over the long eighteenth century. Rather, naval functions were those of transport, policing and patrolling, defending commerce, supporting sieges and land campaigns, and protecting against present or potential piracy. Several factors mediated against the Qing’s ability to maintain its navy – a relatively large-scale fleet – under sail, for a continuous period. Foremost among them were technology and the economy. As discussed in Chapter 1, human activities are very much 154

Khalilieh, “The Ribat System,” pp. 212–225.

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subject to ecological and climatic considerations. The vessels of the time could not remain continuously at sea in the face of changing wind patterns, seasonal weather, and changes in tides and waves. In addition to those nonhuman restrictions, storage limitations and crew size determined the number of days a ship could remain at sea without stopping for provisions. The soldiers on board needed food and water, and this requirement did not contribute to mobility. As such, the image of navies as floating armies must be carefully re-examined in order to comprehend the development and capabilities of these navies during the period under discussion. In the eighteenth-century Qing, the cost of maintaining navy vessels and the soldiers they transported was much higher than the cost of supporting standing navies of fighting ships; that is, those that remained in port and were only requisitioned when needed. Maritime states adopted varying patterns of naval organization to cope with the specific limitations of technology and economy. For instance, Venice’s navy, which was a formidable fighting fleet at the time, was usually kept ready in port for the occasions when it was necessary to mobilize an armada. There was also bidding for warships, and public debt could be utilized to pay for additional crews.155 However, standard shipping consisted of private ventures or state-sponsored galley convoys leased out to private bidders. As such, the composition and the regularity of employment of this naval structure very much depended on maritime commerce. By contrast, the Qing had ready access to lumber from southwest China and Taiwan, shipbuilding materials from most of the coastal provinces, and manpower. Therefore it was able to produce a sizable navy within a short period of time. For example, to avoid transportation costs, battleships were built in coastal cities linked to rivers or near lumber supplies. This meant that most vessels were built in south China, which included Taiwan. However, staffing the vessels with trained seamen was a chronic problem. The mariners and compatible soldiers onboard were mostly Fujianese and Cantonese. Even though the Manchu commanded most of the navy, in the formation of its fleets the Qing court was limited to relying on the southern Chinese. Equally necessary for the Qing state was the protection of its commercial and shipping interests, and the ability to provide naval troop transport and artillery support for military campaigns or defense. Even though the eighteenth century was considered an era of relative peace and stability, this period, as we have seen, also saw the problem of piratical violence along the coast. The Qing navy, at the time, especially its Fujian 155

Frederic C. Lane, Venice and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), pp. 87–98.

Concluding Remarks

139

and Guangdong fleets, was preoccupied with deterring coastal raiding and corsair attacks on merchant vessels, particularly those vessels based in the Taiwan Strait and along the coast of Guangdong. To defend against such attacks, the two navies cruised almost continuously over the years. Destroying corsair activities was a means of making naval engagement immediately profitable from an administrative perspective. Actual fleet battles, such as those involved in the process of bringing Taiwan back to the fold, were usually less profitable except in terms of gaining control of territory. Even territorial gains required that siege operations endure over an extended period of time, and this after expensive fleet actions in terms of destroyed ships, ordnance, and manpower. However, launching campaigns against pirates usually involved less immediate risk. In fact, in many cases, actual battles never took place. Petty pirates, frequently with no more than three or four ships, were often ill-armed and, when overwhelmed by superior forces, they simply found it prudent to surrender. Some of the corsairs – that is, those with potential as soldiers – if captured, were frequently recruited into the navy and their pirated ships were incorporated into the official fleets. This chapter has illustrated that, from the Kangxi era to the mid-Qianlong era, the Qing was, most of the time, able to consistently construct and remodel battleships. It was also a significant, if not the only, power in East Asia that was able to maintain regular fleets. For instance, the Korean flotillas were organized only on a temporary basis for special purposes, such as embassies and material transport. With hindsight, Qing naval policy developed in response to one set of priorities in the Bohai region and another set in the East and South China Seas. In the Bohai region, its purpose was primarily defensive and it was tasked with protecting the zone of interest that surrounded the capital district. The establishment of a triangular-shaped protection site in the Bohai Sea shows that the Manchu monarchs viewed this region as being situated very close to the heartland of the central authority (jingji), extending to Beijing and Mukden. For the Qianlong period, as has been pointedly argued, Regarding previous studies on coastal defense, scholars generally saw the coast of Guangdong as the most strategic and important, followed by the coast of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangnan, and finally Shandong and Liaodong [i.e. Bohai Sea]. However, in my view, the importance of the Bohai region should come first, mostly because it is the nearest sea space guarding Shengjing [the Manchu homeland] and Beijing [the center of the Qing Empire] against external threats and dangers.156 156

Xue Chuanyuan, Fanghai beilan, “fanli,” 1a (compiled in Guojia tushuguan fenguan (ed.), Qingdai junzheng ziliao xuancui, vol. 8, p. 17).

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According to these observations, the Qing required an extensive type of preventive naval policy. Even though the Qing court had fewer threatening enemies in the eighteenth century than it did in the century that followed, the potential threat posed by potential invaders, such as the Russians and domestic corsairs, kept Qing officers constantly on guard. By contrast, the East and South China Seas were more open to the wider world. The nanyang region, in particular, was more directly focused on the Qing’s long- and short-term economic interests. As such, the Qing navy in the south had to oversee a large volume of trade and help sustain the Qing’s political and commercial hegemony in the Sino-Asian sphere, thereby connecting China, the nanyang, and the Indian Ocean. At the same time, foreign influence along the Qing’s southeastern coast was a major concern. Among the foreign powers in the eighteenth century, Japan was already considered a potential risk that threatened the southeastern provinces. The Yongzheng emperor, for instance, was particularly aware of Japanese ambitions in the region. As a result, he asked Li Wei, one of his trusted officials, to gather relevant information in the Jiangsu region for a given period of time. Li linked Japan’s efforts to acquire sensitive information about China to the pirates of the midsixteenth century: Although Japan is a small country with remote islands, its copper cannon can attack distant places, and its knives and swords are also of unusually high quality. Thus, Japan became a serious maritime threat to China during the Ming and its pirates dominated the Eastern Ocean.157

After reading Li’s report, Yongzheng suspected that Japan could easily invade China. Thus he reminded Li Wei, the relevant provincial officials, and other naval officers to pay particular attention to Japanese activities along the coast.158 Therefore, in stark contrast to most of the elites of the Manchu conquest in the late seventeenth century, with their largely selfcontained economy (based on agriculture and hunting) and limited intercourse with the ocean,159 the high Qing emperors distinctly

157 158 159

Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Yongzheng chao hanwen zhupi zouzhe huibian, vol. 13, p. 140. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Yongzheng chao hanwen zhupi zouzhe huibian, vol. 13, p. 140. In fact, hunting for the Manchu was a form of military training and an expression of tribal community, as it had been for the Khitans, Jurchens, and Mongols. And it should be noted that the tradition of hunting was not forgotten even after the conquest of China. In 1684, for instance, the Kangxi emperor ordered the garrison generals at Xi’an, Suiyuan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Jingzhou to organize local hunts. Kangxi announced, “if the officers and soldiers at the provincial garrisons are not made every year to go hunting to practice their martial skills, they will eventually become lazy.” See

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managed the sea space under a rather diverse and multifaceted maritime tactic. It was not merely “fortress protection,” which is commonly regarded as making a passive perimeter to discourage rivals and intruders on the sea. Instead, both deliberate naval deployment and strategic development aimed at protecting certain areas of the sea and deterring (potential) enemies from pursuing maritime intrigue.160 Nonetheless, we should be mindful of the fact that, by standards of durability and combat effectiveness, the Qing Empire was still considerably weaker than the European seafaring powers of the time. Western sea powers, such as Spain, Portugal, France, and Britain, had mastered Mediterranean, Atlantic, and other sea spaces remarkably well in “the age of enhanced maritime capability.”161 The British were almost without rival at sea, which proved to be their “key arena of expansion.”162 The Qing did not require naval policies that were as extensive as those of the eighteenth-century Western seafaring powers. The main reason is that the Qing faced fewer threats from rivals than did the Mediterranean powers. Compared to those European empires, it had relatively little to fear from the sea during peacetime. The primary threats to the Qing were the Japanese, local pirates (including Chinese), and anti-Qing rebels. Unlike the situation the Qing found itself in a century later, in the eighteenth century it was less preoccupied with internal and external maritime crises, which in turn put the Qing in a disadvantageous position in advancing their war junks, weaponry, and fortress designs. The military gap between Europe and China was then gradually and later significantly widened. However, despite the relatively long peace at sea, as I mentioned previously, the Qing did not overlook its maritime frontier, and the Chinese merchants and junks roaming its sea lanes were not “stateless.”163 Rather, they were in various ways protected and overseen by the state.

160

161

162 163

Baqi tongzhi chuji, juan 31, p. 583. For the significance of hunting, please also refer to Qianlong chao Manwen zhupi zouzhe, juan 72, Uhetu, “Qianlong 3 nian, April 9.” For instance, when Yongzheng replied to Wang Chaoen’s memorial in 1728, he highlighted his concern about the potential dangers from the Japanese via the ocean. See Wang Chaoen, “Yizou Riben dengguo fengfan haijiang deng shi,” Junjichu dangan (Yongzheng 6 nian, October 13, no. 402015712). Michael A. Palmer, Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 26–27; see also Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 21. Jeremy Black, War and the World: Military Power and the Fate of Continents (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 170. Xing Hang also pointed out that we have to be careful not to simply treat the East Asian maritime frontier as a vast and stateless zone before the nineteenth century. See his Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia, p. 242.

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All in all, I hope the findings in this chapter have revised the notion that the Qing Empire was merely a passive continental power with limited interest in naval development. I also hope that I have successfully suggested that the Qing maritime policy that was formulated in the midnineteenth century was not driven merely by European territorial invasions. Instead, there is evidence of a historical continuation of a bridging between the two centuries in terms of maritime militarization. The Qing navy in the eighteenth century not only was crucial in maintaining stability across the inner sea, but also incorporated the Qing state as the inheritor of the East and Southeast Asian trading networks, and was a participant in the contest for commercial hegemony in the economic sphere that stretched from Northeast Asia to the South China Sea. During this period, the navy was not only a waterborne wing of the military but also a conduit by which the state could engage in transregional sea trade, provide a sustainable mechanism for protecting the exchange of commodities, and be a force of intimidation in conducting diplomatic relations. The navy enabled the Qing to maintain its superiority and to subordinate its neighboring countries, thereby providing Chinese businessmen with access to avenues of commercial investment and, in turn, the accumulation of wealth. Yet it has to be noted that the navy was not the only factor that helped sustain the situation. As we will discuss in the following chapter, in the eighteenth century the Qing court’s focus on the sea was perceptive enough for it to utilize the Customs Office to actualize its maritime vision so that it accorded with its political concerns.

4

Guarded Management

Introduction Following the abandonment of the Bureau for Maritime Trade (shibosi),1 the maritime Customs Office (haiguan) emerged in 1684 as an institutional innovation that provided a more systematic and centralized approach to managing private sea trade and maritime security. The office’s structured administrative framework made it possible for the Qing to regulate, police, and govern these maritime activities that occurred along China’s coast. The Qing set up the first government institution that was solely tasked with managing domestic and overseas trade (both short- and long-distance). The establishment, development, and evolution of the four major Customs Offices, from the late seventeenth century to the eve of the First Opium War, enabled the empire to protect its coastline, to support its merchant sea trade, and to play an increasingly active role in the market. The Qing used “guarded management” as its guiding principle in its investment in and development of an institutionalized customs organization. This policy of guarded management also indicates that the high Qing administration never lost sight of the harsh strategic and logistical realities of ruling a vast oceanic realm. The Customs Office (not to be confused with the mid-nineteenthcentury British customs service2) is more significant and more closely linked to high Qing maritime politics than one might realize. Indeed, as has already been noted, the eighteenth-century Qing court was keenly aware of the intimate connection between economic development and

1

2

For a brief history of the shibosi, see Roderich Ptak, China, the Portuguese, and the Nanyang: Oceans and Routes, Regions and Trades, c.1000–1600 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 42–43. I raise this concern here is because the recorded history of Chinese customs affairs has focused almost exclusively on late nineteenth-century conditions, when foreigners became inspector generals, overshadowing and marginalizing circumstances in the long eighteenth century for most historians.

143

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Guarded Management

the empire’s stability. High Qing maritime policy was, thus, very much directed at attaining and co-ordinating these two objectives. The customs networks covered “eight major coastal trading routes,”3 stretching from the Bohai Sea to the Guangdong coast. So it is easy to understand why the Qing court exerted considerable effort on administering them. In projecting imperial control over its maritime frontier, through the institutionalization of customs affairs, this particular Qing maritime policy led to a significant evolution in the management of sea trade during the late imperial era. And from the perspective of economic pragmatism, it also enshrined the Great Qing as the “last golden age.”4 Nonetheless, it should be noted that Manchu leaders deliberately gave a degree of autonomy to a number of local commercial elites, allowing them to operate the Customs Offices. In fact, especially during the late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, the Qing court was not very familiar with maritime shipping, particularly that which took place along China’s southeastern coast. The central government had no choice but to rely on a group of local merchants whose knowledge of the industry meant they could make key decisions. As the Yongzheng emperor once reminded his officers, “I am unfamiliar with the ocean and maritime affairs (haiyang zhishi); therefore, I appreciate any advice from my officials and those local experts [provincial officials and sea merchants].”5 This was a “reciprocal co-operative policy” in which a merchant’s allegiance to the government was countered by the monarch’s legal obligation to provide the merchant with protection and to support his business interests through measures that spanned from monetary rewards to social privileges. This symbiotic relationship between the government and the merchants contributed to a remarkable growth in the domestic sea trade between the northern and the southern sectors of the coastal economy. It was also instrumental in the gradual and unprecedented development of overseas shipping between China and the rest of the world. Actually, the Customs Office also strengthened the commercial ties between the coast and the regional economies in the interior via river and caravan transport. In this chapter, however, I will

3

4 5

Huang Guosheng, “Chinese Maritime Customs in Transition, 1750–1830,” in Wang Gungwu and Ng Chin-keong (eds.), Maritime China in Transition 1750–1850 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004), pp. 183–185; Akira Matsuda (ed.), Jindai dongya haiyu jiaoliu shi xubian (Taipei: Boyang wenhua shiye youxian gongsi, 2011), pp. 7–13. Charles O. Hucker, China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975), p. 295. See “Shandong xunfu Chen Shiguan, Dengzhou zongbinguan Huang Yuanxiang zouwei jingchen caifang shiyi,” in Yongzhengzhao zhupi yuzhi, no. 8, ‘Huang Yuanxiang,’ p. 93a.

Introduction

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only focus upon the maritime commerce between the coastal provinces and the expansion of Chinese overseas trade with East and Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean world, and Western Europe. As briefly introduced in the previous chapter, in 1684, the Kangxi emperor had promulgated a new policy of opening up the empire to sea trade.6 This was followed by the establishment of the four Customs Offices, which monitored this trade and ensured that it flourished for the benefit of China. However, most previous investigations into Qing maritime trading policies have overlooked the Qing framework of the inner–outer sea and its linkages to the customs mechanism. Therefore, in this chapter I will suggest that the high Qing customs policies could also be analyzed from the inner–outer perspective. Yet it has to be taken into account that the Qing court did not simply apply an identical paradigm of the inner–outer framework, the one they applied in naval deployment and substantiation, to its customs administration. That is, the Qing did not strive to set up a (in)visible demarcation between the inner and outer seas – unless the topic of its trading policy was elevated to the question of security. Over a long stretch of time, the Qing had considered the blue frontier to be a profitable gateway, which facilitated a sea trade across the inner and outer seas that could benefit both the coastal and inland populations. And it tasked its navy with monitoring this maritime activity insofar as it pertained to the movement of local and foreign vessels within this region and the security of domestic vessels and coastal communities. Additionally, rather than assuming that the Qing dynasty took an “open approach” to maritime policy,7 this chapter reveals that the high Qing maritime strategy was, as argued above, one of guarded management, which is similar to what John E. Wills commented on the conduct of Chinese relations with foreigners as “a defensively minded one.”8 Indeed, on many occasions, the Qing court sagaciously and cautiously reaffirmed and adjusted its customs policies, especially after the 1750s. Therefore, if we look at the period from 1684 to 1757, to a certain extent the Qing was open enough to facilitate its sea trade policy, but after the 1750s, the era when the volume of European trade with China expanded on a large scale, its policy headed toward a more guarded style. 6 7

8

See Gang Zhao’s path-breaking The Qing Opening to the Ocean. I have to admit that I agree with Gang Zhao totally that compared to the Song, Yuan, and Ming maritime trading policies, “the Qing was the most open in Chinese history in terms of encouraging private traders and opening ports.” See Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean, p. 18. What I would like to do is to remind my readers not to overinterpret the word “openness” and to assume that the Qing opened its door for free trade. John E. Wills Jr., Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to Kang-hsi, 1666–1687 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 187.

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From Sea Ban to Sea Passes Between the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns, a series of sea bans was imposed on the southeastern Chinese coast. Added to this was a measure of coastal evacuation. These strict navigation bans and the evacuation caused not only a depopulation but also untold hardship for coastal families and maritime businesses.9 During the sea blockade, smuggling along the coast of Fujian and Guangdong dramatically increased. Many of the officials who were tasked with enforcing this blockade were even involved in the smuggling, while many others were either bribed or bullied into co-operating.10 Sensibly, after the annexation of Taiwan, a circle of scholar-officials criticized the sea ban and petitioned the Kangxi emperor to rescind the restrictions on navigation.11 In fact, as early as 1642 (in the Ming dynasty), Ni Yuanlu had already pointed out that the embargo policy was harmful, if not destructive, to the economy of coastal China: The court was defeated by private traders in the competition for commercial profits and so ordered the implementation of the maritime trade ban. But now the precious ivory and spices produced abroad and imported to China by private traders can be seen everywhere. Under such circumstances, anyone who believes that the sea ban policy is working effectively would be deceiving himself.12

Like Ni Yuanlu in the preceding dynasty, some officials in the Kangxi era criticized the vexing maritime bans because of the expanding private sea trade that was gradually taking place along the coast. Among the first to raise this conern was the governor of Jiangnan, Mu Tianyan, who submitted a memorial entitled “A Plea for Abolishing the Sea Ban” (Qing kai haijin shu) in February 1680.13 After examining the records submitted by Mu and other officials who petitioned the emperor to terminate the sea blockade policy, Kangxi dispatched a team of officials, including Du Zhen, Si Ju, and Jin Shijian (1647–1689), to investigate the situation in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangnan. A few years later, further

9

10 11 12 13

During the period of the sea ban policy, Macao tells a different story. Since the early Qing era, Macao had already become an important gateway for Sino-foreign sea trade. For more detail, see Wills, Embassies and Illusions, pp. 116–144; Tang Kaijian, Ming– Qing shidafu yu Aomen (Macao: Aomen jijinhui, 1998), pp. 158–183. Lo-shu Fu, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations, vol. 1, pp. 43 and 46; Cushman, Fields from the Sea, pp. 160–187. Ng Chin-keong, Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast, 1683–1735 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983), pp. 249–303. This memorial is translated by Gang Zhao. Ni Yuanlu, Ni wenzhenggong zouyi (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1987), juan 9, p. 7a. Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean, pp. 51–52.

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investigations were carried out in coastal provinces, yielding similar results. This team of officials advised the emperor to revive the sea trade in order to relieve the misery caused by the troubled economy.14 Their entreaties proved successful as, in 1684, the Kangxi emperor instated the famous “open-sea edict,” which gave Chinese traders the legal right to sail to some foreign ports: I resolve to lift the ban on the sea trade simply because it would benefit my people settling along the coast of Fujian and Guangdong. If the economic misery of these two counties can be sorted, then the circulation of money and goods will also benefit the neighboring provinces . . . In a nutshell, I agree that maritime businesses are important and beneficial to the development of the empire, and I hereby endorse lifting the imperial ban on maritime trade immediately.15

On another occasion, the emperor also emphasized his reason to “open the sea”: Why did I open trade along the coast? The development of maritime trade will largely benefit the people of Fujian and Guangdong. As the people of these two provinces become rich and commercial commodities circulate smoothly, this prosperity will benefit other provinces and our empire.16

This evidence indicates that the Qing Empire under Kangxi’s reign did not seek to close China off from trade; nor did it resist trade with other countries by isolating the empire from the maritime world. Instead, Kangxi recognized that maritime trade would benefit both his people and his country (tongshang yuguo), and that the people would be able to accumulate capital. By lifting the embargo, the emperor saw that his empire would largely benefit from the circulation of money and goods across East and Southeast Asia (haishang maoyi youyi yu shengmin),17 involving trade with diasporic merchant communities such as the Hindus, Arab Muslims, Persian Muslims, Parsis, Jews, and Chinese, and the more recently arrived Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish. He also realized that it was the wealthy Chinese merchants, rather than the lower classes, who would engage in overseas maritime trade. The government 14

15 16 17

Some officials held a very different attitude, however. For example, in his report submitted to Kangxi, Si Ju suggested postponing the curtailment of the sea ban for a couple of years. Si believed the government needed to be vigilant regarding the newly conquered territories, including Taiwan, Jinmen, and Xiamen. But Kangxi rejected this suggestion, quickly decreeing the resumption of sea trade. See Da Qing Shengzu renhuang shilu (Kangxi), juan 116, pp. 3b–4a. Qing Shengzhu shilu, vol. 166, p. 212. See also Dou Ruyi and Sun Rong, Huangchao wenxian tongkao, vol. 33 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1983), pp. 10b–11a. Kangxi yuzhi wenji (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1966), juan 14, p. 8a. Neige qiju zhu, “Kangxi lingzhuoding haiyang maoyi shoushui zeli,” in Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Ming–Qing gongcang zhongxi shangmao dangan, juan 1, p. 127.

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could heavily tax these merchant shippers without burdening the poor. It could, then, use these revenues for military and administrative purposes to bring about peace and prosperity.18 To a substantial degree, this view closely resembled that of seventeenth-century Western European nations that considered maritime trade a major source of state power and wealth, as argued by Jacob Viner.19 Consequently, when the ocean was officially reopened for the sea trade, the Chinese were allowed to return to the south China coast and the coastal economy flourished. In light of the revival of the coastal econmy, some historians have argued that this relaxation of the coastal trade was an act of “liberalization.”20 However, I would suggest that the Kangxi government’s “reopening policy” still contained many restrictions, which were administered through the Customs Offices. In other words, the Manchu authority did not completely liberalize the sea trade or open the gate to the country unrestrictedly, in the sense that the merchants were not given a “free hand.” Instead, the government intended to intensify the control and supervision of maritime commerce by setting up four Customs Offices in Guangdong (Guangzhou, Xiangshan, and Macao), Fujian (Fuzhou, Nantai, and Xiamen), Zhejiang (Ningbo and Dinghai), and Jiangsu (Shanghai, Chongque, and Huating).21 As Emperor Kangxi decidedly stated, Levying duties, without a regular means of collection, would trouble maritime traders. Thus, it is necessary to establish the same system in the coastal regions as the inland one (queguan) and appoint special officials to deal with related affairs.22

18

19

20 21

22

Da Qing Shengzu renhuangdi shilu (Kangxi), juan 116, p. 18a (1555); see also juan 117, p. 10b. See also Zhang Bincun, “Shiliu zhi shiba shiji Zhongguo haimao sixiang de yanjin,” in Zhongyang yanjiuyuan sanmin zhuyi yanjiusuo (ed.), Zhongguo haiyang fazhanshi lunwen ji , vol. 2 (Taipei, Academia Sinica, 1986), pp. 39, 39–58, 57. Jacob Viner, “Power versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Douglas A. Irwin (ed.), Trade in the Pre-modern Era, 1400–1700 (Brookfield: Elgar, 1996), pp. 303–321. Leonard Blussé, “Chinese Century: The Eighteenth Century in the China Sea Region,” Archipel, vol. 58 (1990), pp. 107–129. According to the Da Qing Shengzu renhuangdi shulu, it was recorded that “all four coastal provinces – Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong – have been opened, and foreigners are now permitted to enter and trade in any of their ports.” See Da Qing Shengzu renhuangdi shulu, juan 5, p. 205. Additionally, Gang Zhao reminds us that “most pre-2000 works merely follow the incorrect view of the nineteenth-century historian Xia Xie that Kangxi opened four coastal ports – Zhangzhou in Fujian, Guangzhou in Guangdong, Ningbo in Zhejiang, and Yuntaishan in Jiangsu, in 1684. Actually, according to Huang [Guosheng], there were at least fifty large and small ports in these four provinces opened for developing overseas trade.” See Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean, p. 6. See Da Qing shengzu renhuangdi shilu, juan 5, p. 327.

Customs Offices in the Kangxi Era

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Table 4.1 Three layers of the Customs Offices Main Customs House

daguan 大關

Customs stations

shuikou 水口

Inspection stations

jicha kouan 檢察口岸

Provincial headquarters, housing the offices of the superintendent of customs (haiguan jiandu 海關監督) Divided into large stations (dakou 大口) and small stations (xiaokou 小口) Responsible for the suppression of smuggling and maintaining order in commercial activities

The state establishes Customs Offices for collecting taxes in order to increase wealth, develop trade, and ultimately enrich the people. In the process of handling customs affairs, customs officials must follow rules and avoid mistakes. If they do, all goods will circulate smoothly and society will become prosperous.23

The four Customs Offices consisted of three layers (see Table 4.1) and were subordinate to the Beijing-based Imperial Household Department (neiwufu),24 which was, in turn, directly supervised by the emperor.25 This institution subsequently became the necessary mechanism to establish imperial control over trade throughout the seacoast. Although no Customs Offices were formally established in Shandong, Zhili, and Mukden (the coastal provinces in the north), a set of regulations pertaining to sea trade was implemented.26

Customs Offices in the Kangxi Era After abolishing the sea ban in 1684, the Qing court aimed to restore and facilitate the coastal economy in order to maintain the empire’s stability. The maritime Customs Offices that were established in the four 23

24 25 26

See Jin Duanbiao, Liuhe zheng jilüe, compiled in Zhongguo difang zhi jicheng, vol. 9 (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1992), juan 3, p. 14b. Yet it has to be noted that not all revenues collected from the customs office were transferred to the neiwufu. As Chen Guodong argued, in the customs structure of Guangdong, for instance, a large amount of revenue was turned over to the imperial Ministry of Revenue (Hubu) and the Guangdong armed forces; only a small amount was transmitted to the neiwufu. See Chen Guodong, Qingdai qianqi de Yue haiguan yu shisanhang, pp. 3, 357–380. For the history and significance of the neiwufu, see Lai Huimin, Qianlong huangdi de hebao (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 2014). He Changling, “Si queguan zhi shiyi,” in He Changling (ed.), Huangchao jingshi wenbian (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1972), juan 83, p. 10b (2958). Zhongguo renmin daxue, Qingshi biannian, vol. 2, p. 485; see also Yao Meilin, Zhongguo haiguan shihua (Beijing: Zhongguo haiguan chubanshe, 2005).

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southeastern coastal provinces played a significant role here. And they continued to evolve between the Kangxi and Qianlong eras. Aiming to enrich the state by properly regulating sea trade via the Customs Office, Kangxi introduced “uniform” procedures to inspect and tax merchant ships and cargo (based on tonnage) and to minimize extortion, smuggling, swindling, and illegal trading. Incoming and departing shipping merchants were subject to these regulations, and had to register their names, the sizes of their vessels, and their final destinations.27 Meanwhile, one of the most important functions of the maritime Customs Office was to issue licenses (zhizhao) to sea merchants. But first, traders and shipowners had to present to local officials their commercial plans and a document from the head of their local community that attested that they had no criminal record. Once an application was approved, the Customs Office would then issue a license to the trader. These licenses contained personal information, such as the bearer’s age, birthplace, and physical description, along with details on the ports of departure and arrival. When entering or leaving a Chinese seaport, maritime traders were required to show their licenses to the customs inspectors.28 Furthermore, in co-operation with the navies deployed along the coast, the customs officials were ostensibly responsible for inspecting almost every vessel on a regular basis. However, sometimes the inspection process was not as smooth as it was claimed to be. Yet the situation in Fujian was notably different from that of other coastal provinces in the early eighteenth century. In order to deal with the lingering security problems that followed the “suppression” of Zheng’s force in Taiwan,29 the commander of the Fujian navy was concurrently assigned to administer the Customs Office while also carrying out his naval duties. Apart from regular patrolling duties along the coast, the Fujian navy was in charge of inspecting and registering private shippers and managing the grain trade between Taiwan and Fujian.30 The Fujian navy was also poised to mobilize local merchant elites to assist the customs administration. Only during the mid-Kangxi period – when the emperor believed

27 28 29

30

Customs Offices were usually differentiated according to their functions and duties, i.e. tax collection (zhengshui), inspection (jicha), and registration-patrolling (guahao). Qinding da Qing huidian (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban wenhua gongsi, 1969), p. 240. The tension between Fujian communities and the Qing regime grew significantly after the suppression of the Zheng resistance in 1683. The Qing government therefore also deployed a large number of Banner and Green Standard troops in Fujian during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Zhun Tai (acting general of Fuzhou and the supervisor of the Customs Office), Junjichu dangan (Yongzheng 13 nian, April 24, no. 402001300).

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that most coastal regions were completely under control – did the central authority appoint specific superintendents to manage Fujian’s Customs Offices and the related substations along the southeastern seafront.31 “The key factor in the successful establishment of any regime in imperial China was the forging of an alliance between the local gentry and the central bureaucracy.”32 Thus the four Customs Offices “develop [ed] out of local practices.”33 The co-operation of the local gentry with the central authority was seen as necessary for the consolidation of the empire across different provinces. Indeed, the high Qing emperors relied on the help of the commercial elites in stabilizing local projects and in managing the four Customs Offices. In other words, the commercial elites were one of the critical voices in shaping the customs network, as is reflected in numerous imperial edicts and memoirs from the Kangxi to the Qianlong eras. For example, local elites in Guangzhou and Fujian not only invested money to set up the customs station infrastructure, but they also assisted by advising the government in matters of inspections and taxation procedures.34 Without the strong alliances between the Beijing authorities, the local governments, and the provincial merchants in the initial stages, the two Customs Offices may not have developed as progressively as they did. Broadly conceived, the Customs Offices may have been working in tandem with local communities to rebuild and foster the coastal economy, which in turn was critical to the empire’s goals of pacification and the maintenance of security across the maritime frontier, which accords with its outsourcing strategy.35 The end of the sea ban, in 1684, also led to substantial development in the pattern, scale, and complexity of maritime trade with other Asian countries and with Europe. One historian calculated that in 1684 only seven Chinese junks sailed to Nagasaki, plying routes between Japan, 31

32

33 34

35

Yet in the Qianlong era, the Customs Office in Fujian was sometimes administrated by the naval general (Fujian haiguan shuiwu, zhe jiangjun guanli). See Tuojin et al. (eds.), Da Qing huidian shili: Jiaqing chao (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1991–1992), juan 189, “hubu juan.” This is probably to be attributed to the problem of piracy along the coast of Fujian. Rowe, China Last’s Empire, p. 27; Jerry Dennerline, “Fiscal Reform and Local Control,” in Frederic Wakeman and Carolyn Grant (eds.), Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 86–120. Huang, “Chinese Maritime Customs in Transition,” pp. 183–185. Liang Tingnan et al. (eds.), Yue haiguan zhi (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1975), juan 25, “hangshang,” pp. 47–51; Peng Zeyi, “Qingdai Guguangdong yanghang zhidu de qiyuan,” Lishi yanjiu, vol. 3 (1957), p. 16. For instance, local elites also helped construct waterways, harbor facilities, and warehouses near customs stations. Some customs officials even placed operational aspects of trade management in the hands of coastal commercial groups. For further details (especially the co-operation in Fujian), see Ng, Trade and Society, pp. 95–152.

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Jiangsu, and various Southeast Asian ports. But in 1685 that number had climbed to fifty-seven and had reached an impressive 153 junks three years later.36 Statistical research also indicates that in 1684 fewer than seven Chinese vessels had sailed from Guangzhou to the Philippines. However, between 1685 and 1716 almost twenty vessels anchored in Manila every year.37 From 1685 to 1689, the number of Chinese junks calling on Siam also increased steadily.38 This indicates that economic conditions in China had considerably improved after the end of the “sea ban depression” that had spread across coastal China in the mid-seventeenth century. The Kangxi emperor was more than satisfied to learn that the sea trade was flourishing across the seaboard of his empire, stating, “the growth of private sea trade is a reflection of the richness of our country and a reward bestowed by our ancestors and the grand heavens.”39 Relaxing the sea ban stimulated the continued expansion of the sea trade between China and the rest of the world, particularly with Southeast Asia, in terms of the volume of trade. This meant that the four Customs Offices were responsible for overseeing an unprecedented increase in the number of vessels traversing the East Asian Sea. However, the Customs Office was not the only agent in the arena. The Manchu government had to co-operate with local merchants in administering and handling shipping affairs. The baoshang zhidu (merchant inclusion system) is one significant example. Established in 1704 by the Kangxi emperor, it aimed to give local merchants exclusive rights to trade with foreigners according to a set of regulations that specified the specific areas of and special procedures for trade. In return, the Chinese merchants who received such “privileges” were required to assist the Customs Office in collecting revenue from overseas merchants. Over time, the baoshang system proved to be a successful synergy in aligning the central government with local merchants throughout the late Kangxi reign. It also laid the foundation for the establishment of the cohong system that came later, in 1725.40 The Manchu official Jiaoluo Manbao 36

37 38 39 40

Zhu Delan, “Qing kaihailing hou de Zhong–Ri changqi maoyi yu guonei yanhai maoyi,” in Zhang Yanxian (ed.), Zhongguo haiyang fazhanshi lunwenji, vol. 3 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1988), pp. 369–416; See also Lan Daju, Xuannao de haishi: Min dongnan gangshi xingshuai yu haiyang renwen (Nanchang: Jiangxi gaoxiao chubanshe, 1999), p. 166. Yu Dingbang and Yu Changsen, Jindai Zhongguo yu dongnan ya guanxi shi (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1999), pp. 386–387. Sarasin Viraphol, Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652–1853 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 55. Du Zhen, Yue Min xunshi jilüe, juan 2, p. 21a. Ramon H. Myers and Yeh-chien Wang, “Economic Developments, 1644–1800,” in Willard J. Peterson (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9 part I, The Ch’ing Empire to 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 589.

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was also a key protagonist who proposed a series of guarded policies to manage sea trade and maintain coastal security. He emphasized the importance of training disciplined soldiers and customs officials in order to regulate coastal conditions. He was also the one who promoted the shihu lianbao policy, which is a kind of collective punishment, among the coastal community in Fujian in 1712. The Manchu officer was convinced that “once the people were controlled and regulated, the law could be easily exercised” (you zhiren er houyou zhifa).41 By 1716, the year before the second sea ban was imposed, Chinese maritime trade within “the Asian network” saw vibrant growth in both scope and magnitude. However, the notorious “Rites Controversy” profoundly altered official Manchu attitudes and policies toward foreign maritime trade and led to the imposition of another sea blockade in 1717.42 Thus changes in political philosophy and control mechanisms required new institutional adaptations and approaches to the management of the provincial customs operations. In order to deal with the situation between the Catholic Church and the Qing court, following the Rites Controversy, Chen Mao strongly advocated for a ban on the nanyang trade (between China and Southeast Asia).43 In response to Chen’s proposal, the aging Kangxi emperor decided to keep a distance between his empire and the European traders who had gained considerable influence in China and in the “Southern Ocean” (particularly in Siam, Java, and Luzon). In January 1717, he announced, Merchant vessels can only go and trade in the Eastern Ocean (dongyang) – while sailing to the Southern Ocean (nanyang), namely Luzon and Java, is prohibited. All merchant ships are required to stop at Nan’ao and go no farther west or south. The customs officials and coastguards of Guangdong and Fujian are given the power to arrest and punish those who defy the sea ban . . . Foreign vessels can continue to trade in China but should be strictly supervised . . . From now on, those who build ships must report to the Customs Offices immediately. Shipbuilders are told to sign a contract indicating the details of their vessels; and customs officials have to check, categorize, and file all these details every single month.44 41 42

43 44

Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Kangxi chao hanwen zhupi zouzhe huibian, vol. 3, p. 344. For details about the Rites Controversy, see D. E. Mungello (ed.), The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Nettetal: Stezley Verlag, 1994); Benjamin Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 160–168; Paul A. Rule, K’ung-tzu or Confucius: The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986), pp. 88–149. Moyriac de Mailla has a complete translation of Chen Mao’s memorial, which advocated the ban on the Nanyang trade. Zhonghua Shuju, Qing Shengzhu shilu, vol. 271, p. 658; see also Dou Ruyi and Sun Rong, Huangchao wenxian tongkao, vol. 33, pp. 26a–26b.

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Yet the 1717 sea ban proved to be flexible and adaptive, in that it was only imposed on Java and Luzon, and not on the entire “Southern Ocean” (nanyang). Since the emperor did not mention any other Southeast Asian countries, such as Siam and Vietnam, as argued by Zheng Yangwen, maritime merchants could adroitly declare to the Customs Office that their final destination was Siam, but then secretly make a quick stop in Java. More importantly, could the customs officials realistically enforce the rule that all Chinese vessels had to stop at Nan’ao? This was almost impossible, especially given that, at the time, Java and Luzon were controlled by the Dutch and the Spanish respectively. The superintendents of the Customs Offices also recognized these loopholes and reported such problems to Kangxi. Yet the response to these reports was a simple “noted” (zhidao le) – which was not much of a response at all – and went without any substantial action. How should we interpret this seemingly lazy method of management, given the context? Some might simply call it inconsistent. But I suspect that the situation was much more complicated. I would argue that Kangxi’s actions toward sea trade were neither lazy nor arbitrary, but based on a double standard. The emperor clearly had reservations about the dangers of foreign missionaries and traders after the Rites Controversy (even though he himself respected Western astronomy and mathematics).45 For instance, an imperial edict reports that the emperor had nightmares about European countries threatening the Qing Empire on all sides: The Russians, Dutch, and Portuguese, like the other Europeans, are able to accomplish whatever they undertake, no matter how difficult. They are intrepid, clever, and know how to turn a profit. As long as I reign, China has nothing to worry about from them; yet, if our country were to become weak, or if we failed to control the Chinese in the southern provinces who have had numerous contacts with foreigners, what would happen to our empire? With the Russians to the north, the Portuguese from Luzon to the east, the Dutch to the south, [they] would be able to threaten China in numerous ways.46

Apart from the imminent danger posed by foreign traders and missionaries, Kangxi was also aware of the potential threat posed by Qing subjects who traveled abroad and became involved in subversive 45

46

Zheng, China on the Sea, pp. 76-68. See Benjamin A. Elman, “Who Is Responsible for the Limits of Jesuit Scientific and Technical Transmission from Europe to China in the Eighteenth Century?”, in Clara Wing-chung Ho (ed.), Windows on the Chinese World: Reflections by Five Historians (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), pp. 45–66. This imperial edict was first translated into French by Father Antoine Gaubil (1689–1759), a French Jesuit who served in the Qing court during Kangxi’s reign. Laura Hostetler later translated part of this edict into English. See her Qing Colonial Enterprise, p. 40.

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activities. As a result, he limited the length of stays abroad, prohibited Chinese emigration, and restricted foreign sea trade.47 Yet the emperor also recognized, from previous experience, that imposing another comprehensive sea ban would make life difficult for coastal communities, which could cause disruption and threaten national security. As Lan Dingyuan, a Qing expert on maritime affairs, once famously portrayed the developmental patterns in southeast China, “five or six families out of ten were dedicated to sea trade or the fishing industry” (wanghai mousheng, shiju wuliu).48 Kangxi had a sense that it was just unrealistic to harshly block the coast and restrict respective sea trades. The emperor thus believed that maintaining a flexible and adaptive sea blockade policy would allow his empire to straddle a comfortable line between keeping the potential dangers of foreigners in check and maintaining peace and prosperity along the coast. The emperor strove diligently to maintain the older policy of equilibrium. But, in June 1722, six months before his death, the “1717 sea ban” was eased. In 1721, when a series of rice and grain shortages struck Guangdong and Fujian provinces, the rice imports from neighboring or inland counties were no longer sufficient.49 Consequently, a number of officials in south China promptly advised Kangxi to authorize rice importation from Southeast Asia (mainly from Siam). Gao Qizhuo, the governor general of Fujian, appealed as follows: The arable land in southeastern China is limited, but the population is large. Since the pacification of Taiwan, the population has increased day by day. What eventually followed is a shortage of rice to feed the people. The only way to resolve the problem is to “open the ocean” (kaiyang) so that the surplus from trade can make up for the domestic shortfall, and both the rich and the poor will benefit from it . . . Such a benefit will further increase by instructing seagoing junks to carry a certain amount of rice on their return journey to Fujian.50

To alleviate the increasing danger as quickly as possible, the emperor did not hesitate to endorse the importation of foreign rice from Southeast Asia and to permit sea merchants to sail across the “Southern Ocean” in order to purchase edible grain. Indeed, this seems to be the first time the Qing government had authorized rice imports in order to alleviate a worsening situation that could fuel unrest and rebellion. As a result, in June 1722, the sea ban was once again relaxed, but not canceled. And we 47 48 49 50

Wills, Pepper, Guns, and Parleys, pp. 194–198. Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World, p. 72. Lan Dingyuan, Luzhou chuji, juan 1, “lun haiyang mibu daozei shu,” p. 41. See Zheng Yangwen, China on the Sea, pp. 84–86. Qing shizhong shilu, juan 54, p. 18.

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should keep in mind that imperial control over the sea trade (especially the rice trade), via the customs system, was not weakened when the sea ban was relaxed. Instead, governmental control over the customs network was tightened after the death of Kangxi in December 1722, marking the beginning of the second wave of customs transformation under the Yongzheng emperor.

Customs Offices in the Yongzheng Era An energetic and astute ruler, the Yongzheng emperor was a very different man than his father, Kangxi. He was ruthless with his brothers and officials who opposed his accession, and he had to endure accusations that he had usurped the throne. By all accounts, “he was blunt, strict, and severe, with little of Kangxi’s showmanship and aesthetic tastes.”51 In spite of this, however, Yongzheng, as I have already briefly mentioned in the introduction of the book, was a prominent figure who further rationalized bureaucratic administration, centralized imperial control, and left an indelible mark on Qing history. Indeed, he has been called “an early modern state-maker of the first order.”52 His objective was to develop the structure of every administrative unit through government supervision. As a consequence, throughout his thirteen-year stewardship, he imposed centralized – if not authoritarian – power over the empire’s four Customs Offices. Announcing that the hallmark of his empire would be discipline and efficiency, Yongzheng introduced a set of regulatory and institutional changes in the provincial customs agencies in order to establish greater uniformity in the administrative practices that pertained to shipping (maoyi zhi shi). In 1724, he required maritime officials to publish copies of a list of laws and distribute them to maritime merchants. Meanwhile, he ordered customs officers to post the official laws and to crack down on those who did not comply with them.53 Each customs superintendent was likewise required to report at all provincial substations the precise details of the shipping conditions in his province, including the amount of revenue collected and each season’s vessel registrations.54 Such “reporting practices” were significantly more stringent than those during the Kangxi years. As the Fujian governor Liu Yuyi commented in 1742,

51 53 54

52 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, p. 66. Rowe, China’s Last Empire, p. 68. Qingding Da Qing huidian shili (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban wenhua gongsi, 1969), p. 8259. Qingding Da Qing huidian shili, p. 8257.

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Before 1729, Fuzhou customs did not have to submit detailed reports regularly to the Beijing government, since Emperor Kangxi embraced a comparatively flexible management style. During the Yongzheng period, we were told to report every single figure to the emperor without any excuse and delay.55

Yongzheng was persistent in supervising the amount of customs revenue, not only because he intended to centralize imperial power over every administrative unit of his empire, but also because he saw the importance of stabilizing the commercial market along the coast through maintaining a steady flow of silver. Throughout the eighteenth century, the Chinese used silver ingots, instead of paper currency, for large market transactions. As a result, the stability of both domestic and long-distance sea trade largely depended on the circulation of silver within the market.56 By regularly surveying statistics regarding monthly maritime import volumes from Customs Offices, the central government could decide whether it was necessary to impose a corresponding levy to control the price of maritime goods at a stipulated amount. These policies indicate how the Yongzheng government actively monitored – if it did not intervene in – the sea trade by adjusting the imposed levies in order to obtain specific goods and also to prevent the dangerous depletion of silver. The Yongzheng administration aimed at maintaining the stability of the commercial markets involved in the sea trade by using this intervention strategy to mediate the circulation of silver across East Asia. This policy to tighten ties between the central government and the sea trade serves as an example of the increasing role the Manchu government assumed in mid-eighteenth century Asian maritime commerce. In addition to monitoring the flow of silver, the Yongzheng emperor was equally concerned with the selection of customs superintendents and their accountability. Before Yongzheng came to power, customs superintendents were selected through a so-called lottery system that was traditionally employed in the internal Customs Offices (queguan). Early in the Shunzhi period, the Grand Secretariat administered the lottery. The candidates in the selection pool were overwhelmingly Manchus who had worked in the six ministries (liubu). In the first decades after the Customs Offices were established, for instance, the system was dominated by Manchu officials. For example, the first supervisor of the Fujian 55 56

“Qianlong zhao neige huke tiben: Guanshuixiang” (preserved in Beijing diyi lishi dang’an guan), no. 39, “Liu Yuyi memoir, dated Qianlong qinian shiyue ershier ri.” Marius B. Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 8–10. As for the flow of silver in the early modern period, see Dennis O. Flynn, World Silver and Monetary History in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Brookfield: Variorum, 1996); Richard von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

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Customs Office was Usiba (Wushiba), a former director of the Ministry of Revenue (Hubu langzhong), while the supervisor of the Guangdong customs was also a Manchu officer, Irgetu, who had long been working in the Department of Revenue (Hubu). Throughout the Kangxi era, the emperor had maintained this system, but he had reduced the Secretariat’s power by transferring “lottery control” over to the Manchu commanders stationed in Beijing. In contrast to his father, during the first few years of his rule Yongzheng eliminated the lottery system and replaced it with a much more sophisticated selection process. The emperor formulated his own strategy to ensure that the most capable officials were recruited for his empire’s Customs Offices. High-ranking provincial civil or military officials were required to make recommendations for every customs superintendent candidate. The emperor would then evaluate the short-listed candidates before making any direct official appointments.57 In practice, this proved to be a remarkable reform for the customs administration. It reduced nepotism and bribery, as well as incompetency.58 Nonetheless, although the selection process was revised, ethnic Manchu still dominated the customs bureaucracy. So, for over half a century, almost all Han Chinese held only subordinate positions in the Customs Offices. Before 1735, among the forty supervisors in the Guangdong offices, for instance, twenty-four (60 percent) were ethnically Manchu, fourteen were Chinese bannermen, and only two (Mao Keming and Zheng Wusai) were Chinese without banner affiliation (and were thus promoted for their knowledge of trade).59 In Fujian, between 1684 and 1735, thirty-seven out of forty-four supervisors were Manchu, while five were Chinese bannermen, one Han Chinese (Shi Qixian, who took office in 1686), and one Mongolian (Samha, who took office in 1711). The situation in Zhejiang was very similar. Of the seventy-four supervisors hired between 1686 and 1733, fifty-three were Manchu, eight to thirteen were Chinese bannermen, and only seven Han Chinese were appointed (which includes Tu Yi (?–1723), taking office in 1722, Yan Shao, taking office in 1724; Wang Yidao, taking office in 1725; Jiang Chengjie, taking office in 1727; Sun Zhao (?–1733), taking office in 1727; Cao Bingren, taking office in 1732; and Wang Tan, taking office in 1733).60 Yongzheng and his son 57

58 59 60

Nonetheless, as Yongzheng aimed at enhancing the degree of centralization of imperial power, Customs Offices were also staffed by personal clients of the emperor rather than by recommended candidates. See Da Qing shizong xianhuangdi shilu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), juan 7, p. 52. Da Qing shizong xianhuangdi shilu, juan 7, p. 52. See Yue haiguan zhi, juan 7, pp. 20b–51a. Yue haiguan zhi, juan 7, pp. 20b–51a. See also Fujian tongzhi, juan 107, pp. 21b–22a; Yu Chenglong and Wang Xinming (eds.), Jiangnan tongzhi (Nanjing: Fenghuang

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Qianlong both recognized the need to make greater use of Chinese officials (since most Han Chinese were much more familiar with maritime affairs). Yet most of the palace officials were conservative and slow to make changes. As late as the 1770s, it was still official policy that no Manchu should serve under a Chinese in a bureaucracy in which the former were not serving in the highest official positions. It was not until the 1820s that Manchu domination was threatened, when more Chinese were appointed as customs superintendents under a torrent of external and internal crises. Yet we should be very careful not to divide customs officials too neatly into those who were bannermen and those who were not (just as late nineteenth-century customs historians have tended to divide customs officials into two categories: Han Chinese and non-Han). Although the Manchu supervisors were given jurisdiction over seaports with customs headquarters, their positions as superintendents largely depended on Han Chinese provincial civil and military officials. In most cases, the Han officials shared many of the administrative duties of the Customs Office and jointly represented the throne on critical customs issues. More importantly, the Han Chinese officials were the linchpin in co-operating with the local commercial elites in managing coastal and harbor affairs. For instance, in the Zhenjiang Customs Office, the Chinese provincial officers in posts other than the Customs Offices were key in allying local merchants with Customs Offices in order to overcome the problems of dangerous tides and consequent siltation along the Zhejiang coast.61 Even in the Guangdong Customs Office, where the emperor continued to appoint special Manchu superintendents to oversee critically important foreign overseas trade that was transacted through Canton, the special intendents had to work closely with the mostly Han Chinese yamen personnel to maintain commercial prosperity. Compared to his father, Yongzheng was more suspicious of the sea trade that was transacted with Western Europeans. The Jesuit Matteo Ripa (1682–1745), one of Kangxi’s favorite painters, once described the difference between the two emperors as follows:

61

chubanshe, 2011), juan 105, pp. 20b–21b; and the Zhejiang tongzhi, juan 121, pp. 14b– 16a. See also Huang Guosheng, Yapian zhanqian de dongnan sisheng haiguan, pp. 41–46. Branch customs offices in Zhejiang located at the mouths of rivers were subject to tidal bores and siltation. Vessels from Fujian and Guangdong often could not anchor in these sea ports and were forced to offload cargoes to shallow-draft craft, or had to proceed to more distant customs ports for inspection and payment of duties. To solve this problem, the provincial Han officials (on behalf of the merchant groups) advised Zhejiang customs to adopt flexible arrangements for the inspection of and payment of duties by inbound vessels. After a series of negotiations, the customs office agreed to allow ship merchants to use a nearby harbor to expedite customs procedures if the destination harbor was unnavigable. See Huang Guosheng, Yapian zhanqian de dongnan sisheng haiguan, pp. 41–46.

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A few months after [the death of Kangxi], all Europeans were summoned to appear before the Too-yoo-soo [Board of the Imperial Household], when the mandarins 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 not one of them was allowed to enter it unless by his Majesty’s special permission, as in Scipel’s case and my own.62

Further, the Yongzheng emperor established a set of rules for foreigners who resided in Beijing by restricting their activities in the city. Aside from the restrictions established in Beijing, the emperor was equally worried about the potential dangers that could occur from foreign traders scattering across the coastal region. It is possible to glean Yongzheng’s view of the foreign sea trade from Kong Sunxun and Lan Dingyuan’s memoirs.63 In order to facilitate the importation of rice from Southeast Asia and further rekindle the prosperity of the coastal economy, Kong proposed to “open the sea” for maritime business by completely cancelling the “1716 sea ban.”64 Like Kong, Lan Dingyuan (together with his brother Lan Tingzhen) also criticized those who supported the embargo. A specialist on overseas trade, whom Fujian and Guangdong officials frequently consulted, Lan argued that, when compared to Japan and European powers, Southeast Asian countries were too small to threaten the Qing Empire: Japan devastated Jiangsu and Zhejiang during the Ming dynasty. Many people still have clear and painful memories of the massacres. The weapons of the red barbarians [the Dutch] and of Western countries, such as Britain, Spain, and Portugal, were more advanced than China’s. Their ships could withstand storms, and their people were ambitious, cunning, and aggressive. They set out to conquer every land they visited. When we set about protecting China, we should be concerned with Western countries and Japan, but not with Southeast Asia.65

Despite these observations, Yongzheng was hesitant to give a green light, inclined as he was to prevent any potential threats from foreigners. 62

63 64

65

Matteo Ripa (trans. Fortunato Prandi), Memoirs of Father Ripa during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China: With an Account of the Foundation of the College for the Education of Young Chinese at Naples (New York: AMS Press, 1979), p. 124. Kong Sunxun was by that time the governor general of Guangdong and Guangxi. Ironically, Kong became antiforeigner in the year that followed, writing to Yongzheng, “those foreigners who came without a reason should not be allowed to stay, even though they came to trade and make money; they cannot settle in China here and mix with our people.” See Diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Ming–Qing shiqi Aomen wenti dang’an wenxian huibian, vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999), p. 144. Lan Dingyuan, Luzhou quanji, juan 3, pp. 2a–b.

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Suspicious by nature, he asserted, “We must be extremely careful and always heed the warning about the lack of safety routines; we can thereby prevent any potential concern (about foreign encroachments) from coming true.”66 Regarding potential crises, Yongzheng was likewise convinced that Chinese citizens who stayed abroad would be exposed to and return with evil designs on their motherland. He wrote, I do not really mean that I want to see these people come back [Chinese maritime traders who departed from China]. What I am concerned with is those who left and settled in foreign lands, since they must harbor the idea of returning to China one day. Once they return home [to China], we cannot guarantee that there are no traitors among them who might harbor bad designs.67

Nonetheless, along with all of his uneasiness and vexation, like his father, Yongzheng learned a lesson about being too harsh and hasty. He was aware of the danger of a domestic economic crisis if a strict sea ban were to be imposed again. If coastal merchants were prohibited from the sea trade, as under Shunzhi and in the early reign of Kangxi, the emperor feared that anyone who felt “rejected and suppressed” would turn to piracy or even collude with foreigners in clandestine activities that ranged from undercover trade to the illicit exchange of metalwares and weapons.68 Meanwhile, the emperor also realized the importance of the sea trade between Chinese and foreign traders. One of the reasons the emperor tolerated the presence of Western missionaries in Beijing was that he did not want to scare away European traders who traded with Chinese businessmen – even though he did not stop keeping his eye on these foreign traders: The Yongzheng Emperor does not like religion. The high-ranking officials and the princes stay away from us for this reason. We only seldom show up at the palace. The Emperor needs us for the tribunal of mathematics, for the affairs of the Muscovites, as well as for the instruments and other things that come from Europe, because he fears that if he loses us, the foreign merchants will no longer come to Canton; that is why he is still tolerating us here and bestows on us extraordinary honors.69 (L’empereur n’aime pas la Religion. Les Grands Officiels et les Princes nous fuyant par cette raison. Nous ne paraissons au palais que rarement. L’empereur a besoin de nous pour le tribunal de mathematiques, pour les affaires des 66

67 68 69

See his reply to the memoir of Liang Wenkai, a colleague of Kong Sunxun. Cited in Diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Ming–Qing shiqi Aomen wenti dang’an wenxian huibian, pp. 140–141. Taipei Gugong Bowuyuan, Yongzheng zhupi yuzhi, vol. 8 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1965), pp. 49–51; see also Wang Hongbing, Qingdai qianqi haifang, pp. 39–46. Kong Yuxun, “Xiurong yanhai botai yinfang shi,” in Yongzheng zhao zhupi yuzhi, no. 1, “Kong Yuxun,” pp. 26b–27a. Antoine Gaubil, Correspondance de Pékin, 1722–1759 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1970), p. 128.

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Moscovites, et pour les instruments et les autres choses qui viennent d’Europe. Il appréhende que s’il nous chasse d’ici et de Canton, les marchands ne viennent plus à Canton; voilà pourquoi il nous souffre encore ici et à Canton, et nous fait môme de temps en temps quelques grâces et honneurs extraordinaires.)

In fact, the Yongzheng emperor could hardly close the door on the foreign sea trade at that time due to the shortage of rice production – which is very similar to the quandary faced by Kangxi in the 1720s. In the early Yongzheng years, as the supply of rice had been stretched to its limit, there was a demand to open up foreign rice markets in order to relieve the unevenness in the rice supply and, above all, to quell the local disorder that soon followed. As Gao Qizhou, the governor general of Fujian and Zhejiang, reported, In Nantai county of Xinhua prefecture, people have plundered rice shops . . . in Fuzhou, people have demanded that the price of rice be lowered . . . when Governor Mao Wenquan refused to lower the price, people broke into his office compound and destroyed his official sedan. In Jianning county of Zhaowu prefecture, people [are engaged in] large-scale protest . . . In Tingzhou, people have chased and harassed Magistrate He Gudong, and in Shanghang they have plundered the rice depot.70

A wholesale lifting of the restrictions on foreign sea trade would have resulted in a flood of rice imports from Southeast Asia, which would have immediately relieved the shortages among the poor. In considering the above issues, Yongzheng and his Grand Council essentially agreed to reduce the maritime restrictions. The only question that concerned the emperor was how to properly regulate the links between the coastal merchants, the foreigners conducting business in Southeast Asia, and the wider maritime world. In response to all of this, Yongzheng decided to impose a more statutory web of commercial management by introducing administrative measures that intensified imperial control over the Customs Offices. In this way, he reconciled the bureaucratic impulse of uniformity with the diversity of “foreign dangers” and “local interests.” From then on, Qing customs officials intensely supervised and policed all trade routes, as well as the conduct and behavior of foreign traders, most especially the British East India Company and the overseas Chinese traders.71 For instance, upon its arrival, each foreign vessel had to register at a customs house and pay taxes on its cargo. All shiploads imported by foreign merchants had to be inspected prior to sale, otherwise their goods would be labeled illegal and unwarranted, and confiscated in bulk by the Customs Office, regardless of their value or quantity. 70 71

Taipei Gugong Buwuyuan, Yongyheng zhupi yuyhi, vol. 8, pp. 49–51. Da Qing Shizong Xianhuangdi shilu, juan 7, p. 52; see also Yongzheng Ningbo fuzhi (1741), juan 12, p. 67b.

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Unregistered foreign vessels could get sacked if customs officials found evidence of moonlighting.72 In some key commercial hubs (e.g. Canton and Fuzhou), the customs officials who mainly worked with prominent local merchants were even told to keep a watchful eye on settlements of foreigners to prevent crime and disorder.73 In the eighteenth century, foreign vessels (yangchuan) that approached China’s coastline were allowed to dock at trading ports in southeastern China, including Shanghai, Ningbo, Dinghai, Wenzhou, Quanzhou, Chaozhou, Guangzhou (Canton), and Xiamen.74 Compared to most of the times in the Ming, when merely Macao was open to foreign traders and Yuegang and Guangzhou to tribute vessels,75 the opening of the southeastern coast was clearly a huge step toward moving away from seclusion. However, even most European traders were permitted to trade in these seaports; they tended to stop at Canton simply because it was much closer to Southeast Asia and sailing farther north was not profitable. Also, even though “foreign traders occasionally attempted to trade at ports other than Guangzhou, they always had to abandon those efforts, [because they became] frustrated by their dealings with the local authorities.”76 As a consequence, Canton began handling an increasing volume of long-distance trade and the Canton Customs Office swiftly became one of the busiest and also a key nodal point in the trans-maritime network that connected China, Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean region, and Western Europe. Against this backdrop, beginning in the 1720s, the Chinese commercial elites who excelled through their dealings with European traders also proliferated in Canton at the same pace. In 1725, in response to the growing number of “overseas trade experts,” Yongzheng soon refined the aforementioned baoshang zhidu by establishing an umbrella organization, known to foreigners as the cohong system. Its 72 73 74 75

76

See Bo Zhifan (Jiangnan Songjiang tidu zongbing guan), Junjichu dang’an (Yongzheng 6 nian, December 5, no. 402008790). See Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, juan 5, p. 205. Da Qing Shengzu Renhuangdi shilu, juan 5, p. 205. It should be noted that Guangzhou in the late Ming also played an active role in overseas trade by accepting foreign traders “outside of the old tribute regulations.” As explained by Roderick Ptak, the Yuegang system set up by the Ming court enabled merchants from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou to sail abroad. “This system, which encouraged Chinese trade abroad but kept foreign players (especially the Dutch) at a distance, became a dominant feature in Fujian. Thus, while Fujian came to play a more active in the late Ming, Guangzhou played a more passive role by accepting foreign traders . . . eventually, the old system broke down as many local ports besides Guangzhuo also opened up to external trade.” Roderick Ptak’s argument is summarized by Geoffrey C. Gunn, see his History without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000–1800 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011), p. 105. Leonard Blussé, “Review Article on Gang Zhao’s The Qing Opening to the Ocean: Chinese Maritime Policies, 1684–1757,” American Historical Review, vol. 119 no. 3 (June 2014), p. 869.

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task was to organize the mercantile elites who engaged in the SinoEuropean sea trade. In co-operation with the Canton Customs Office, the cohong was legally responsible for using government control to regulate matters of trade, particularly those with the British and French. Due to the structured customs network and the cohong practice, international commerce between China and the rest of the world steadily grew – without any significant incident – under the thirteen-year rule of the Yongzheng emperor. Over the fifty-year span between 1685 and 1735, more than 1,500 trade ships sailed between Southeast Asia, Japan, and twenty-five coastal Chinese ports, arguably an unprecedented volume of foreign trade in the history of imperial China.77

Customs Offices in the Qianlong Era When the Qianlong emperor ascended the throne, China’s domestic sea trade was experiencing explosive growth. According to the archives of the Zhejiang Customs Office, for instance, the Customs Office branches in Zhejiang inspected and registered at least 15,000 vessels, over 70 percent of which were domestic trading ships.78 In fact, by the time Qianlong came to power, the cargo ships that routinely hugged the coastlines were using eight main routes, in four sea zones, with interlocking regional circuits that facilitated the movement of commodities, people and information along China’s maritime highways (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2.). There were eight prominent regional networks. (1) On the route from Fujian to Taiwan, merchants exchanged Taiwanese rice, sugar, oil, and deer products for porcelain, clothes, salt, and iron from the mainland.79 (2) On the shortdistance route between Fujian and Guangdong, Fujian traders, mostly from Futai, shipped rice, wheat, and ox-bones to Guangzhou in exchange for miscellaneous products. (3) On the route that operated between Fujian and the Jiangzhe region, Taiwanese and Fujian traders carried sugar products to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and brought back olives, oils, furs, cotton cloth, silk, satin, and yarn. (4) On the route that linked Fujian and the Bohai region, southern traders transported sugar, paper, pottery, 77

78 79

See Iwao Sei’ichi, “Kinsei Nisshi boeki ni kansuru suryoteki kosatsu,” Shigaku zasshi, vol. 62 no. 11 (1953), pp. 981–1121; and Yamawaki Teijiro, Nagasaki no Tojin boeki (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1964). Akira Matsuura, “Shincho zenki no Sekko kaikan to kaijo boeki,” Shien, vol. 85 (1997), pp. 19–32. Deer products were hot commodities, since hides were sold in Japan for tremendous profit and venison fetched high prices in China, as did antlers and genitals, that were sold as medicine. For details, see Rubinstein, Taiwan: A New History, p. 92; Teng, Taiwan’s Imagined Geography, p. 33; Shepherd, Statecraft and Political Economy, p. 365.

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Shengjing

Beijing

Ya lu

Jinzhou

Zhili

R.

Sea of Japan

Bohai Lüshun Sea

Tianjin

Korea

Dengzhou

Yellow R.

Yantai

Yellow Sea

Jiaozhou

Shandong e Rout

7

Jiangsu Yangzhou

Dinghai

ina

Yan

gt z

eR

.

ute 4

Hangzhou Ningbo

G

Hainan Is.

So

ut

h

Ch

i

na

Se

1

Taiwa n

Shantou

Macau

Pearl River Delta

ute

Tai Strawan it

ng doGuangzhou g n (Canton) ua

Ch

Ro

Fujian Xiamen (Amoy)

st

Ro

Ea

ut e3

Zhejiang

Fuzhou

Sea

Ro

Shanghai

Pa c i f i c O c e a n

a

0 0

300 miles 500 kilometers

Figure 4.1 Eight major sea routes I (highlighting sea routes 1, 3, and 4)

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Shengjing R.

Sea of Japan

Bohai Lüshun Sea

Tianjin

Korea

Dengzhou

Yellow R.

Yantai

Yellow Sea

Jiaozhou

Shandong

Ro

Jiangsu

ute

Yangzhou

Ro

8

gt z

eR

.

ute 6

Shanghai

Dinghai

ina

Yan

Hangzhou Ningbo

Sea

Beijing

Ya lu

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Fuzhou

st Ea

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5

Ch

Zhejiang

ng doGuangzhou g n (Canton) ua

GMacau

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Rout

Hainan Is.

h h C t u So

in

a

Se

Pa c i f i c O c e a n

e2

Pearl River Delta

Taiwa n

Xiamen (Amoy)

Tai Strawan it

Fujian

a

0 0

300 miles 500 kilometers

Figure 4.2 Eight major sea routes II (highlighting sea routes 2, 5, and 6)

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pepper, and wood products in exchange for bean dough, melons, red pears, yellow beans, medicines, and salted meat. (5) On the route that ran between Guangdong and the Jiangzhe region, sugar products and pine from Guangdong were shipped to Jiangsu in return for cotton, local silk, and a quantity of bean dough (imported from Tianjin). (6) The route from Guangdong to Shandong and Tianjin was the longest domestic maritime trade route. Here, traders from the north carried yellow beans, wheat, and bean dough to Guangdong in exchange for pottery, paper, and sugar goods. (7) On the route that connected the Jiangzhe coast (Jiangsu, Zhejiang) and Bohai Sea (Fengtian, Shandong), Bohai traders transported bean dough and wheat to Shanghai, and yellow beans, green cakes, pears, and melons to Ningbo and Zhenhai, in exchange for tea, cotton, and southern silk products. (8) The final route was the shortest sea route, linking Jiangnan and Zhejiang, and focusing on the exchange of Jiangnan porcelain for Zhejiang pears, tofu, and walnuts. Table 4.2 Summary of the eight domestic trade routes No.

From

To

Trading goods

1

Fuzhou (Fujian)

Taipei (Taiwan)

Processed goods (Fujian); Rice, oil, sugar, deer products (Taiwan)

2

Fuzhou (Fujian)

Guangzhou (Guangdong)

Rice, wheat, ox-bones (Fujian); mulberry silk, persimmons, plums, longan (Guangdong)

3

Fujian

Jiangsu and Zhejiang (Jiangzhe)

Sugar products (Fujian); indigo, olives, various oils, cotton cloth, silk, satins, yarn

4

Fujian

Shandong, Tianjin, and Fengtian (Bohai region)

Sugar, paper, pottery, wood products (Fujian); bean dough, melons, red pears, medicines, salted meats (Bohai region)

5

Guangzhou (Guangdong)

Jiangsu and Zhejiang (Jiangzhe)

Sugar products, pine (Guangdong); cotton, cotton cloth, bean dough (shipped from the north), local silks (Jiangzhe)

6

Guangzhou (Guangdong)

Shandong and Tianjin (Bohai region)

Sugar products (Guangdong); bean dough, yellow beans, wheat (Bohai region)

7

Fengtian, Shandong (Bohai region)

Shanghai (Jiangsu), Ningbo, Zhenhai (Zhejiang)

Beans, wheat (Bohai region); yellow beans, green cakes, pears, melons (Shanghai); tea, cotton, cotton cloth, silk (Ningbo and Zhehai)

8

Jiangnan

Zhejiang

Porcelain (Jiangnan); pears, tofu, walnuts (Zhejiang)

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In response to the momentous growth of the domestic sea trade across the maritime frontier, the Qianlong emperor established additional satellite substations over the entire customs network. These newly established substations reinforced and stimulated the growth of the eight shipping ties within and between the seven maritime provinces. They also served as commercial hubs and distribution centers for small seaports and their immediate hinterlands, thereby spurring the development of “a commodity economy in the more remote locations on the coast.”80 For example, in the last few years of the Yongzheng era, Fujian had about twenty substations that were responsible for collecting taxes from trading vessels and for overseeing the process of registering merchant vessels. The number of substations significantly increased during the Qianlong period. And by 1743, according to the report prepared by Celeng, the customs superintendent in Fujian, sixty more “collection stations” (the so-called “money and rice ports” (qianliang kou) or “red-receipt ports” (hongdan kou) were established at locations that extended over 2,000 li along the coast.81 These newly established customs ports were designated to handle the sea trade from particular cities and locales. In some substations, special customs officials or commercial firms (minfang) were appointed to oversee and protect the interests of the local traders.82

80 81 82

Huang, “Chinese Maritime Customs in Transition,” p. 178. “Qianlong zhao neige huke tiben guanshuixiang,” no. 5. Although local merchants relied on the protection provided by government, they organized to enforce commercial rules among themselves, protecting themselves from being cheated. See Ping-ti Ho, Zhongguo huiguan shilun (Taiwan: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1966); and Peter Golas, “Early Ch’ing Guilds,” in G. William Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 555–580. Arguably, such mercantile networks were critical in maintaining and regulating a much safer and equitable commercial climate between local merchants in the eighteenth century. Yet Chinese merchants were not the only traders aiming to establish “local justice”; other examples appear in many locations. For example, Maghribi Jewish merchants also formed mutual agreements between themselves. If any one of them cheated an entrusted other, the entire group would boycott the cheater until he made restitution. See Avner Greif, “Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders,” Journal of Economic History, vol. 49 no. 4 (December 1989), pp. 857–882. American merchants from New Julfa likewise agreed to blacklist any member who acted dishonestly when employed by another New Julfan. See Sebouh Aslanian, “Social Capital, Trust, and the Role of Networks in Julfan Trade: Informal and Semi-formal Institutions at Work,” Journal of Global History, vol. 1 no. 3 (2006), pp. 383–402. The Chinese, Maghribi, and New Julfan examples thus reveal that merchants themselves work with each other and swiftly collect information about other merchants’ behavior. Similar examples can be found in Mexican California, and the trans-Saharan slave trade of Western Europe. For details, see Kären Clay, “Trade without Law: Private-Order Institutions in Mexican California,” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, vol. 13 no. 1 (1997), pp. 202–231; and Sebastian Prange, “Trust in God, but Tie your Camel First: The Economic Organization of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade between the

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In return, the provincial merchants were expected to assist the Customs Office and police themselves by maintaining the stability of their commodities’ prices, supply, and quality. This practice per se is, in fact, quite similar to how the bakufu leaders in Tokugawa Japan forbade nonsanctioned merchant groups from infringing on the activities of the chartered merchant houses in the eighteenth century. By receiving the “protection” provided by the government, members of the charted trade association (kabu nakama) had to pay fees to the bakufu and regulate their trading activities.83 At almost the same time, an expansion of the customs network also occurred in Guangdong. Prior to the 1750s, Guangdong province had eight prefectural Customs Offices, which were located in Chaozhou, Huizhou, Guangzhou, Zhaoqing, Gaozhou, Qiangzhou, Leizhou, and Lianzhou. Under Qianlong’s reign, this institutional framework greatly expanded. For example, in Chaozhou, which is located in the northeast corner of the Guangdong coast, eighteen customs stations, including ten registration passes and eight tax-collection ports, were established across the seven coastal counties of Raoping, Chenghai, Chaoan, Haiyang, Jieyang, Chaoyang, and Huilai. Likewise, ten additional collection stations were set up in Huizhou prefecture, and in Lufeng, Haifeng, and Guishan counties. Meanwhile, thirty satellite inspection and registration stations were founded across the delta counties of Dongwen, Xin’an, Panyu, Nanhai, Xiangshan (Macao), and Xinhui (Jiangmen), which were across Guangzhou’s customs network. And ten branch stations were established in Leizhou and Qiangzhou: six in Gaozhou, three in Lianzhou, and one in Zhaoqing.84 The situations in Jiangsu and Zhejiang went through very similar processes. By the 1750s, eighteen customs ports had been set up across Jiangsu province, all within 600 li of the Shanghai headquarters. Among the eighteen stations, Shanghai (on the Huangpu river) and Liuhe (on the south bank of the Yangtze in Taicang) were the busiest. And while the former served as an entrepôt for vessels arriving from Fujian and Guangdong, the latter was the key harbor for merchants engaged in the northeastern sea trade, especially in the cotton trade. In fact, ever since the Song period, and likely much earlier, the Jiangnan region had long been praised as the center of cotton spinning and weaving in China. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Shanghai gradually became the

83 84

Fourteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Journal of Global History, vol. 1 no. 2 (2006), pp. 219–239. For details, see Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 300–301. Xi Yufu et al. (eds.), Huangchao zhengdian leizuan: Guanshui (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1969), juan 85, pp. 7–10.

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biggest distribution and transhipment sea port for the cotton trade, connecting neighboring provinces as well as the rest of the world.85 And by the early nineteenth century, a series of sand junks sailed north from Shanghai and Zhapu carrying cotton products to the Bohai region in exchange for white beans, salt pork, bean oil, and bean dough. In order to alleviate the increasing workload of the two customs stations, three additional checkpoints were then established on Chongming Island, and ten more stations were set up in the three estuary counties of Taicang, Suzhou, and Changzhou. As with Jiangsu, the Zhejiang Customs Office also experienced rapid growth in its number of substations. Apart from the customs head office at Ningbo, initially there were new customs ports set up in six locales: Zhapu, Ganpu, Zhenhai, Dinghai, Jiazikou, Wenzhou, and Ruian. As maritime traffic continued to increase across the Zhejiang sea zone, in the second quartile of the mideighteenth century, an additional eleven substations and fifteen branch ports were established at the mouth of the Yangtze River, in order to process the intra-provincial trade that took place between Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. It should also be noted that the location of those newly established substations in Zhejiang changed frequently not only with shifting trade patterns but also with geographic conditions. For example, when the port of Zhapu became silted, an additional port station nearby was immediately requested to be set up and served as a “new port.” A similar situation happened in Fujian. When the condition of the harbor at Quanzhou declined, the port of Hanjiang quickly rose in commercial importance and consequently was made a new inspection collection station, designated the key terminus for the bilateral trade with the port of Zhanghua in Tawian.86 The increasing number of substations also required more customs personnel, thereby tripling the number of customs officials stationed in the four coastal provinces. Revenue from customs was insufficient. Consequently, the Qianlong government had to spend extra funds to finance these newly established customs stations, in order to continue to operate and maintain a significantly robust customs structure. These substantial funds had to cover not only the salaries of official customs staff, but also the necessary surcharges to support the sub-bureaucratic, or extrabureaucratic, customs officials who worked outside the customs stations. Thus the operation of the Customs Offices largely depended on the 85 86

Zhang Zhongmin, Shanghai cong kaifa zouxiang kaigang, 1368–1842 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1990). See Xi Yufu et al., Huangchao zhengdian leizuan, juan 86, p. 4. Huang Guocheng, Yapian zhanzheng qiande dongnan sisheng haiguan, pp. 59–61, 131–136.

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performance of a range of complex tasks that were mostly handled by a group of sub-bureaucratic Han functionaries (including the yamen staff ). Their responsibilities included recruiting labor, boatmen, and interpreters; purchasing provisions for foreign merchants; editing documents; and collecting general port maintenance fees. Additionally, they acted as conduits for the official customs officers and collected special donations and gifts from local businessmen to cover a portion of the local Customs Office’s expenses.87 In the 1760s, the Qing court was able to finance the costs of maintaining the increasing numbers of customs houses by imposing supplementary and heavy taxes on local and foreign traders. But by the 1770s, the Qianlong government was facing difficulties in covering these expenses, as it was beset with declining land tax revenues, the disruption of the currency system, and a series of economic crises. Almost sixty percent of these costs were raised by fees collected from the European shippers who were eager to trade with China at that time.88 As discussed in the preceding section, the European traders were allowed to sail up the coast to conduct their business. Therefore, in 1756, the British proposed to the empeor their intention to set up and secure a permanent trading base for the tea and silk trades in Ningbo, a port city near Zhejiang and Fujian. From the outset, the Qianlong emperor was supportive in a lukewarm way, stating that “the British can go to either Guangdong or Ningbo; it is up to them.”89 His edict shows that the opening of Ningbo did not strike him as a problem. A year later, however, the emperor changed his mind completely, and the British received a stern imperial rebuke from him, as follows:90 Some seaports in Zhejiang (such as Ningbo) and Fujian (Fuzhou) are the same as Macao in terms of developing overseas trade. But if we open the port, it will lead more and more foreigners to make their homes in the interior, which is a strategic area. This is not consistent with our principle of eradicating all problems at the earliest opportunity . . . We shall, therefore, confine the foreigners to Guangzhou and will not allow them to come to Ningbo.91

Gang Zhao already critically examined the reasons why the emperor changed his mind, forbidding Western merchants to trade in Ningbo,92 87 88 89 90

91 92

Peiping Palace Museum (ed.), Shiliao xunkan (Beijing: Peiping Palace Museum, 1930), part 5, p. 159. See Huang, “Chinese Maritime Customs in Transition,” p. 185. Da Qing Gaozhong Chunhuangdi shilu, vol. 15, pp. 916–918. Perhaps because Qianlong discovered a new pocket of illegal Christian missionaries in the late 1750s, he feared a renewed wave of heterodox proselytizing in his empire. See Rowe, China’s Last Empire, p. 144. Da Qing gaozong chun huanggdi shilu, juan 15, pp. 1023–1024. See Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean, pp. 169–186.

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it would also be useful if we evaluate his decision within the inner–outer ruling model. To the Qianlong emperor, both Canton and Ningbo were located within the inner sea; but, comparatively speaking, Ningbo was located closer to the capital region, the interior China, and guarding the mouth of the Yangtze river; in turn, it was strategically more important within the inner sea perimeter. By contrast, Canton was geographically located on the fringe of the empire, despite its enduring economic significance. Yet among the broader inner–outer ruling model, from a geostrategic perspective, Canton was less important than Ningbo in terms of the geographical distance between the capital region and these two cities. As a result, British traders were only permitted to do business in Guangdong through the hong merchants who were supervised by the Customs Office. The year 1757 thus became a watershed for Sino-British relations in which the Qianlong government began to interact with the British, one of its biggest trading partners at that time. Even though the Qianlong government sought to trade with the outside world, the Manchu authority was reluctant to repeal any official restrictions that kept in check any potential dangers that foreigners might cause from afar. European traders, at that time, were often cast as warlike and greedy in official documents (i.e. the government’s stance here was mostly about a fear of disruption by foreigners and the ceasing of monopoly benefits). Therefore new regulations (such as the Canton system) were developed to ensure that foreign traders interacted with the global market as it pertained to the Qing, in a measured and, from the Qing perspective, more beneficial manner. To put it another way, these new regulations emerged because the Qing court decided to remain connected with the vital global market, but in a more managed and less threatening way. Speaking of new regulations set up by the Qing to interact with the global market, most scholars will come up with the Canton system (or the so-called “one-port policy” (yikou tongshang). When they examine the ascent of this system, some historians consider Qianlong’s trading policies passive and retrograde, as these policies kept Westerners from directly accessing the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu traders.93 For example, in his The Walled Kingdom: History of China from 2000 BC to the Present, Witold Rodzinski argues that Sino-foreign trade was solely dominated and stimulated by Western Europeans:

93

See, for example, Dai Yi, “Qingdai Qianlong chao de Zhong Ying guanxi,” Qingshi yanjiu, no. 3 (1993), p. 3.

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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 favoring a further growth in foreign trade, which it regarded as of marginal importance . . . the bulk of the China trade rested in British hands, with the East India Company playing the principal role, until its demise in 1834.94

Here, the high Qing is cast as passive regarding foreign sea trade, as if it maintained a remarkable disinterest in maritime affairs. However, this explanation calls for careful scrutiny. First, far from “being self-sufficient all the time,” e.g. in rice production, the Great Qing was eager to establish trading networks because foreign sea trade was critical to its economy.95 The policy of the Manchu emperors in managing the sea trade concurred with the sensibility expressed by Charles de Montesquieu: “the natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace.”96 Rodzinski’s characterization of the political outlook of the high Qing government is therefore not apt. Moreover, although the Qianlong administration promulgated a set of regulations for overseas shipping, in fact the Qing court reacted flexibly and responsively to the needs of foreign traders. For example, although all foreign vessels were strictly supervised by the Customs Office, at the same time the Qianlong government increased the number of Western headmen (as assistants to the Customs Offices) to accommodate private foreign traders – especially those with few or no connections with the British East India Company (EIC). Additionally, contrary to the old practices, Western traders (including EIC merchants) were permitted to remain in Canton during the winter. Moving to Macao was no longer compulsory, as it had been at the beginning of the 1760s. Last, but certainly not least, Canton was not the only seaport open to Western traders. Only the British were restricted to trading in Canton, but not other foreign traders. In fact, in the late eighteenth century, the “one-port policy” did not apply to all foreigners. The reason most nonChinese traders were found in Canton at that time is because it provided them with all the necessities for conducting proper business while, at the same time, most of them found it unprofitable to sail further north. Therefore, instead of paying extra attention to the “one-port policy,” it seems more appropriate to focus on the “one-country–one-harbor”

94 95 96

Witold Rodzinski, The Walled Kingdom: A History of China from 2000 BC to the Present (London: Fontana, 1985), pp. 177–178. Zheng, China on the Sea, p. 9. Charles de Montesquieu (ed. and trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold Stone), The Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 338.

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(yiguo yigang) principle.97 According to the logic of governance in the Qing, for the sake of feasibility foreign merchants were strongly encouraged to trade in one specific province (harbor). For instance, the Ryūkyū traders were supposed to trade in Fujian, the Japanese in Jiangsu, the Siamese in Guangdong, and the Vietnamese in Guangxi. This policy reflects that the Qing was willing to supervise and manage foreign traders, deliberately and accordingly within its guarded management framework. As a result, when the British were eager to open more port cities near Shanghai, the Qianlong emperor swiftly rejected their requests. Essentially, this is because, from the Qing court’s point of view, British traders were supposed to trade only in Canton, but not in other port cities, based on the yiguo yigang principle. According to the Customs Office, special tax exemptions were also provided for the importation of food, supplies, and refreshments for the foreign traders who resided in Canton. In addition to tax deductions, measures were taken to protect the foreign merchants’ basic rights and their property.98 However, this flexibility in responding to the needs of Western traders, ostensibly to maintain a peaceful sea trade with them, did not yield positive results. For instance, British traders, in particular, were not satisfied with the Canton system because they were uncomfortable with being exploited by the Cantonese merchants. And more importantly, they aimed to penetrate to the fullest extent the lucrative markets of East Asia.99 In 1794 and 1816, respectively, when the Macartney mission and the Amherst visit both failed to sway the established Qing trade policies,100 both sides found themselves at odds in terms of reaching a mutual agreement. Britain’s demand for free-trade privileges led to a confrontation with the Qing Empire in south China. This was

97 98 99

100

Chen Guodong, Qingdai qianqi de Yue haiguan yu shisanhang, p. 9. Yao Xiangao (ed.), Zhongguo jindai duiwai maoyishi ziliao, vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), pp. 222, 227, and 231. China was considered a relatively important commercial partner of the British Empire in Asia. According to the description of H. B. Morse, the British “had striven for a third of a century to obtain entrance to China trade, and had had no success.” See H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company, 1635–1834, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), p. 31. As a matter of fact, the British were not the only Europeans eager to explore the commercial and trading market in China. C. G. F. Simkin has also observed that from the eighteenth century onwards, European powers fought against each other in order to take part in the Chinese market, a struggle for profit which continued over the centuries and which economic historians recognize as a “historical constant.” See C. G. F. Simkin, The Traditional Trade of Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 251–260. For a revisionist account of the Macartney mission, see James L. Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).

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followed by a century of Western economic imperialism in various port cities and special trading spheres.101 After the two Opium Wars, the administration of the Customs Office was once again restructured, with numerous Westerners serving as officials.102 As the front line of engagement with foreign traders, the Customs Offices were subject to a new wave of transformation that forced them to focus on more direct commercial ties with forceful Western powers rather than on their established channels and their guarded sea trade practices. Due to its increasing political weakness, the Qing court was compelled to reassess its method and its approach to managing maritime businesses and commercial activities.103

Concluding Remarks The establishment of four Customs Offices and the development of a policy of guarded engagement demonstrates that the Manchu leaders had actively developed an understanding of their own position with regard to specific sea spaces during the long eighteenth century. Under its stewardship, the high Qing monarchs aimed to convey a state-centric sovereignty over a wide swathe of coastal seawaters, by making use of its customs structure to supervise, manipulate, and monitor maritime shipping within its inner sea space. Compared to mid- and late Ming monarchs who saw sea commerce as malicious and evil, or at best “something bearable,” the Qing court guided it in a rather active and pragmatic way. And above all, the development of the Customs Office belies the conventional notion that Manchu maritime policies were motivated by overriding ideologies of seclusion and stagnation. On the contrary, they were framed by the agendas of particular emperors in different historical moments, as seen in three main shifts or transitions between the Kangxi and the Qianlong reigns. Boosted by strong sales of Chinese tea, silk, and porcelain in

101

102

103

On Western, particularly British, imperialism and gunboat diplomacy in Asia, see Christopher Munn, “The Chusan Episode: Britain’s Occupation of a Chinese Island, 1840–46,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 25 (1997), pp. 82–112; and David Killingray (ed.), Maritime Empires: British Imperial Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004). Article 10 of the Rules Supplementing the Treaty of Tianjin required the Qing government to employ foreigners at all trading ports to establish and maintain a new customs system. For details, see Hans van de Ven, “Robert Hart and the Chinese Maritime Customs Service,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 40 no. 3 (July 2006), pp. 545–548; Robert Bickers, “Purloined Letters: History and the Chinese Maritime Customs Service,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 40 no. 3 (July 2006), pp. 691–723.

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Western Europe,104 both domestic and foreign sea trade grew dramatically after 1700. The rapidly globalizing economy prompted the Qing court to take a more activist approach to customs affairs. Like the Ottoman and Russian emperors,105 the Manchu rulers viewed their inner sea space as neither castle-like buffer zones nor irrelevant far-off expanses. Rather, for them, this sea space was a frontier of strategic and commercial importance that required deliberate tactics of governance. Yet, in parleys with the British merchants who were seeking to establish more trading bases near Zhejiang and Jiangsu, the Qianlong emperor decisively adjusted his trade policy in response to the challenges of a new wave of commercial and cultural globalization. Indeed, the Canton system is notable in revealing a more guarded and “Sino-centric,” if not “Qing-centric,” approach to monitoring the sea trade with Western countries than the previous methods for monitoring commercial networks. Looking at the development and transformation of the Customs Office in the high Qing, from a broad chronological perspective (from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth), it is no exaggeration to say that the Qing court paved the way for Chinese participation in a world that is both militarily and economically dominated by Western empires. It did so in several ways. First, the customs system was the earliest coherent and fairly streamlined government institution for managing domestic and overseas trade in Manchu history. The Customs Office was undoubtedly the most prominent institution that stimulated and contributed to the explosive and dramatic growth of the sea trade between northern and southern China (especially from the 1750s to the 1830s). Yet, more importantly, it served as a significant pretext for China’s later participation in the modern global economy under high imperialism and partial colonization.106 Second, the advent of the customs system also prompted co-operation between China’s central government and the country’s local commercial elites. From the 104

105

106

Jacob M. Price, “The Imperial Economy,” in P. J. Marshall (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), Table 4.4, p. 101. Ronald C. Po, “Tea, Silk, and Porcelain: Chainese Exports to the West in the Early Modern Period,” in David Ludden (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). For instance, in exploring the significant, yet often overlooked, linkages between the Ottoman Empire and the sea, Giancarlo Casale argues in his recent monograph that scholars have underestimated the importance of the Ottoman “soft empire,” which, as he writes, was “based not on territorial expansion, but instead on an infrastructure of trade, communication, and religious ideology.” See his The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). But, of course, to focus on the customs structure alone is to overlook the existence of other important conduits that played a key role in facilitating the eighteenth-century growth of trade. These include, for example, the significance of overseas Chinese, improved shipping technology, maritime expertise, and the aforementioned guild (huiguan) connection.

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baoshang zhidu to the cohong practices, local commercial groups assumed a more significant role in urban port governance, harbor management, and various trade activities. This co-operation proved effective and continued during the era of the early treaty ports (c.1843–1870), when coastal China was subject to a new process of globalization.107 It was only during the 1900s that the relationship of mutual dependency between the central government and local merchants began to weaken. During this era, local businessmen embarked on overseas shipping on their own terms, without the administrative supervision and financial support of the central government.108 Furthermore, the institutionalization of the Customs Offices also represented a major step in connecting China’s overseas trade to Western nations. The path to this event involved negotiations with foreign envoys and internal political machinations (mostly between 1770 and 1800), and has been covered in many previous studies. However, this chapter has mainly highlighted that the eighteenth-century Qing court, like Tokugawa Japan, did not isolate itself from the wider maritime world. Indeed, it was characterized by maturity and sophistication, but it then moved toward a more guarded engagement with Westerners and the empires that stood behind them. But most importantly, the policy of guarded engagement should not be equated with anti-foreignism or xenophobia. Most historians generally accept that the Canton system, which most assume could not evolve beyond a certain point, indicates China’s profound repudiation of Western trade and technology.109 In practice, however, the Qing court was not resistant to contact with Europeans, nor was it merely a passive respondent to the mounting external pressure to engage in sea trade. It was not the case, then, that the Manchu leaders lacked the means to conduct, or an interest in conducting, foreign trade via their maritime frontier in the long eighteenth century. Even after the Canton system was initiated and prior to the First Opium War, the Qing court justifiably maintained dealings with Western merchants, if not rationally, then by adjusting to the Western traders in numerous ways. In light of this, the friction between the Qing and the seafaring Western empires might indicate that the two sides adapted different policies of 107

108

109

See, for instance, Jane Kate Leonard, “Coastal Merchant Allies in the 1826 Sea Transport Experiment,” in Wang Gangwu and Ng Chin-keong, Maritime China in Transition, pp. 271–286. After the Boxer Uprising, the Beijing government almost lost control of some key economic provinces. The emergence of the “joint defense of southeast China” (dongnan hubao) serves as a very good example. See David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (London: W. W. Norton, 1998), pp. 335–349; Maxine Berg, “Britain, Industry and Perceptions of China, 1792–94,” Journal of Global History, vol. 1 (2006), pp. 269–288.

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engagement with different strategic concerns and economic calculations. But it does not mean that those European empires had to trade with China “on humiliating and frustrating terms,”110 thereby resulting in a torrent of diplomatic conflicts and military confrontations. Despite the remarkable features of this guarded management policy, the Qing’s approach was not flawless. And after the 1750s, problems became especially obvious. The foremost among them was that, other than Canton, a majority of port cities lacked the expertise to handle affairs in maritime shipping. In many cases, the Customs Offices lacked the qualified agents and translators they needed to operate customs business. There also existed a divide between prefectural administration (local officials in coastal cities) and provincial-level administration (county officers of higher rank). For example, in the province of Zhejiang, while officials in Ningbo hoped to benefit from the sea trade, the officials in the provincial capital of Zhejiang did not take the sea trade and its prospects seriously. Inconsistencies of these kinds proved to hinder the Qing court in its attempts to fully exercise an effective, or open, policy toward sea trade. There also existed a divide between coastal and inland officials. By inland officials it is not meant that all of them worked exclusively in inland provinces. Rather, they are labeled ‘inland officials’ for the purpose of this study because they were less inclined toward overseas shipping, particularly with Western traders. Some of these officials worried that the opening up of a sea trade would possibly invite potential dangers along the country’s coast. Indeed, their concerns more or less mirrored the Kangxi emperor’s earlier remarks of 1717, commenting on the potential dangers brought by the Russians, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and other Europeans that I mentioned earlier in this chapter. These inland officials believed that a flexible sea trade policy would generate a profound impact on coastal security in terms of administering the maritime frontier – as the sagacious Kangxi emperor had reminded them. To many of these officials, whether to facilitate an overseas trade is also a matter of whether or not to allow Western influence to penetrate the coastal area. The Qing had already experienced some penetration of Western influence in the spread of Christianity, and this always caused some uneasiness. As such, when it came to a policy of overseas trade, these inland officials preferred to maintain a relatively conservative tone. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Qing court could not truly exercise 110

See W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello, Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another (Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2002); Jack Beeching, The Chinese Opium Wars (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), pp. 18–19.

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an open policy but rather maintained a style of guarded management for a fairly long time and, eventually, came up with the Canton system. One explanation for the Qing court’s reluctance to move beyond its policy of guarded management was the Guangzhou officials’ insistence on trading with the West only out of Canton. They justified their reasoning because the Canton Customs Office was relatively better organized and streamlined than were the other Customs Offices along the coast. But more noteworthy was Canton’s unique geography. This was a special port city with unique access to the interior and northern reaches of the country. This uniqueness made the port especially attractive to foreigners. Further, Canton’s favorable location, linking it to Southeast Asia, could not be ignored. At the time, this city was the key platform that facilitated the Sino-nanyang trading circuit, which had established a regular trading pattern between China and Southeast Asia at least as early as the tenth century. Over time, the circuit was transformed from a platform that linked China and Southeast Asia to a corridor that gave Chinese traders access to the wider markets available in the Indian Ocean region and in Western Europe. Even though Canton was ideally situated as an indispensable node in the maritime network, the Canton customs officials faced chronic problems, thereby destabilizing the guarded managerial structure. From the time of the Yongzheng period, critical reports had been piling up in the capital, Beijing, on corruption among the Canton customs officials. The reason for this corruption is simple – overseas shipping was extremely profitable. Imagine Canton after the 1750s – this commercial center drew over 100,000 merchants, annually, from all over the world. The Canton officials held the authority to interact with all of the merchants. In the absence of a set of strict guidelines and a monitoring system, most of the Canton officials became greedy and corrupt. They cared about nothing but maximizing their profits. During the Qianlong era, after the Canton system was firmly established, the Canton officials grew even more corrupt, causing some foreign merchants to trade elsewhere in China. For instance, some British traders went to Ningbo to conduct their business because they were treated relatively fairly there.111 Lastly, some historians thought the Qing was anticommercial, anti-sea trade. And to a certain extent this was not a false claim, as the Qing was very much agriculturally based and heavily relied on agricultural production. Even the Qianlong emperor himself had mentioned on many occasions that agriculture was key to the state and to the well-being of the

111

See Gang Zhao, The Qing Opening to the Ocean, pp. 178–179.

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people. Yet, as this chapter has demonstrated, we now learn not only that the Qing court did not expend all of its energy on agricultural development, but also that its efforts in maritime customs administration were proactive and pragmatic. Even though there is no question that the Qing would need to prioritize the former over the latter, the expanding commercialization along the coast of China and the South China Sea served as a constant reminder, to the emperors and the coastal officials, of the importance of maritime commerce. Therefore it would be not convincing to simply argue that the Qing court was fundamentally anticommercial because it was argriculturally oriented. The other thing that cannot be overlooked is the connection between the Qing’s guarded management policy and the inner–outer framework. As we have seen, the Qing did not simply see the maritime frontier as a strategic belt that was attached to its empire when it was exercising its sea trade policies. Instead, it regarded its blue frontier as an avenue that led to profit, fortune, and prosperity. The core idea of the concept of ruling the empire, according to an inner–outer model, which set up demarcations and boundaries, was not a concern for the Qing court when it formulated its maritime trading policies – unless the topic of its trading policy was elevated to the question of security. For example, when the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors found it necessary to initiate embargo policies, the Qing court clearly stated the demarcation of the inner sea (coastal seawater in which engaging in the sea trade was forbidden) and the outer sea (the overseas market that would cause other problems to erupt, such as piracy). When the Qianlong emperor had to decide whether to open Ningbo, in addition to Canton, to overseas merchants, Ningbo was located more strategically within the perimeter of the inner sea.

5

Writing the Waves

A breath of airy being Floating in the universe Where from ancient times The sun and moon’s spheres Have been immersed.1 Zhang Zhao (1691–1745), “Gazing at the Sea” (Guan hai)

Introduction In his verse “Gazing at the Sea,” Zhang Zhao, the Jiangsu native and Qing dynasty writer, conceptualized the sea as the cradle of nature, embodying the sun and moon since prehistoric times. With a stroke of Zhang’s brush, the seemingly peaceful and silent ocean was often filled with unfathomable energies. But he was not the only writer, within China’s poetic and cultural landscape, to feature the sea. In fact, from early antiquity, the sea has played an important role in Chinese cultural history. From ancient times, when the Shanhai jing was compiled, the Chinese never looked upon the sea with indifference. Like the mountains and forests and other natural landscapes, the sea was recorded, imagined, conceptualized, and written about in a variety of ways.2 Cursed as a mythical hostile monster, worshipped as a superior impervious deity, or seen as a protective frontier, the sea was seen as being inextricably linked to Chinese society and depicted within its literature. Whatever passion and conceptualization the textual records may have conveyed about the sea, it was a presence that could not be ignored in the Chinese context.

1

2

Zhang Zhao, “Guan hai,” in Xu Shichang (ed.), Wan qingyi shihui (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1996), juan 58, p. 2335. The original text is qiankun fu yiqi, jin gu jin shuangwan. See Liang Erping, Haiyang ditu: Zhongguo gudai haiyang ditu juyao (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 2011), pp. 1–4.

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Writing the Waves

Although the literature reveals the intimate link between the sea and Chinese culture, from early imperial times, it would be impossible to outline all of the ancient texts that mention the sea within the confines of one chapter. Therefore I focus on the maritime writings of three noteworthy writers from the long eighteenth century:3 Chen Lunjiong (?– 1751), Wang Dahai, and Xie Qinggao (1765–1821). Unlike the more literary texts, which depicted the sea as a poetic trope or a mysterious sphere full of mythical fantasies, maritime writings in the high Qing invariably reflected a keen sense of the physical and cultural geography of the empire’s maritime frontier and its impact on coastal defense and on the societies along its littoral. Compared to earlier maritime writings, published in previous dynasties, the writings of the above three authors introduced a new way of looking at the political, economic, and social conditions in coastal regions and the spaces that affected maritime shipping and military strategies. Surprisingly, despite their considerable contributions to the conceptualization of sea space, most of their writings have not been sufficiently studied by Chinese and Western historians. One reason for this neglect could be attributed to the fact that contemporary scholars have been inclined to study the geohistorical writings that focused on the inland frontier regions during the early and high Qing.4 This is similar to the work of historians who have long focused more on Qing conquests in Inner Asia than on its policies regarding its rule across the maritime frontier. By analyzing how Chen, Wang, and Xie conceived of maritime space, I believe we can better evaluate their contributions to geohistorical scholarship in terms of the Qing and its rule during the long eighteenth century. Their writings can also give us a more thorough understanding of the meaning of the maritime world for the intellectual community of coastal China, especially when combining their work with 3

4

By maritime writings I mean the writings that can be read as a projection of consciousness, ideas, and sentiments onto the sea. These writings often reveal themselves to be mirrors of the writer’s own concerns about the maritime world. By geohistorical studies I refer to a broad range of practical subjects, including local customs, topography, history, politics, and economic conditions. See Zou Yilin, Zhongguo lishi dili gaishu (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1993), pp. 1–2. Some scholars might also include travel writings (yuzhi) within the scope of geohistorical studies. See Richard E. Strassberg, Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China (Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 1–56. Most of the geohistorical writings in the high Qing deal with the foreign world centered on Inner Asia, which reflects the intense Manchu concern with the threatening posture of the western Mongols and the expanding Russian empire. See Liang Qichao (trans. Immanuel C. Y. Hsu), Intellectual Trends in the Ch’ing Period (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. xxvii– xxviii; David M. Farquhar, “Origins of the Manchus’ Mongolian Policy,” in John King Fairbank (ed.), Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 198–205.

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the information found in official Qing documents that we have come across in previous chapters. This focus on just three maritime writers inevitably raises the question: were they representative of the Chinese scholar-official class as a whole? The short answer to this is ‘no’. Wang Dahai and Xie Qinggao never held government office. And although Chen Lunjiong served in the Guangdong naval forces, neither he nor the other two maritime writers enjoyed special social or economic status. They were people whom historians of early modern Europe would refer to as “middling sorts.”5 During their lifetimes, their writings had only limited circulation in some coastal provinces, such as Guangdong and Fujian. It was only after the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that their ideas were widely circulated. In fact, during the Opium Wars, some prominent officials and literati, such as Lin Zexu (1785–1850) and Wei Yuan (1794–1856), began citing their works.6 Unfortunately, Chen, Wang, and Xie were not renowned political figures, theorists, or writers. Consequently, historians tend not to refer to their works. And although these three maritime writers regarded themselves as intellectuals, in the Chinese context, and hoped to be successful officials or prominent leaders, they never achieved their goals. Nevertheless, their lack of prominence should not be taken as a measure of the worth of their writings. Indeed, their ideas, patterns of thought, and writings grew out of the social and cultural environment in which they lived. Their writings reflected how the maritime world was conceptualized from that perspective. Although they were not as well known as Gu Yanwu (1613–1682) or Gu Zuyu (1631–1692) and other geohistorians, their conceptualizations of the ocean as a geographical, political, cultural, and trans-regional landscape were exceptional. Even more noteworthy is the way they incorporated into their conceptualizations of the seascape the customs, religions, and commercial practices of other maritime countries (haiguo, e.g. Japan and some Southeast Asian and Western European countries). As keen maritime observers, Chen, Wang, and Xie may have been among the first writers to report on the growth of European sea power and its navigation and expansion overseas. They also may have been the first to identify the global thrust of European commercial expansion in Africa, Latin America, and Asia in the long eighteenth century. Their 5 6

See, for example, Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996). It should be noted that Wang Dahai’s Haidao yizhi was even translated into English by an English Congregationalist missionary, Walter Henry Medhurst (1796–1857), in 1848.

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work provided a more detailed account of the European seaborne powers, thus subtly altering the Chinese worldview at the time. It is important to keep in mind that, in illustrating a number of maritime countries, these maritime writers were decisively influenced by the “Sino-nanyang ” connection. Nanyang (South Ocean), as pointed out in the preceding chapters, refers to the sea that surrounds Southeast Asia; and the Sino-nanyang connection is the tie that indicates the historical connection between the Chinese coast and Southeast Asia. It is because of this Sino-nanyang connection that maritime writers were customarily interested in depicting the history, economy, and culture of the “South Ocean” region. As one of the significant gateways that connected Europe and East Asia in the eighteenth century, the nanyang region thus became the lens through which these three maritime writers described and examined the Far West (i.e. Europe). By viewing the sea as an open-ended space and by generating geographical knowledge on a global scale, they were forging links not only between the Qing and the rest of the world, but also between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Although some of their illustrations were not accurate enough to convey the exact circumstances of the Western world, these writers nevertheless had begun to rethink their worldview from a maritime perspective, thereby positioning the Qing not as the greatest power in the world but as an empire that coexisted with other countries. A Sino-centric worldview had dominated Chinese political and cultural ideology since the Zhou era more than 2,500 years ago. Therefore, focusing on the maritime writings of Chen, Wang, and Xie can help us rethink the connection between the geohistorical studies and the maritime writings that pre-dated the First Opium War. With the rise of geohistorical studies in the early Qing, which emphasized the importance of evidence-based frontier studies,7 most historians began investigating the inner Asian frontier region, while only a few were interested in the maritime frontier. In fact, one of the things that set the three maritime writers apart from other writers of the time was their sense of “maritime consciousness,” a perception that I have emphasized throughout the book. Yet, before turning to these maritime writings in detail, we must first consider the Chinese geographical tradition that existed before the long eighteenth century in order to situate these writings in a broader historical perspective.

7

Benjamin A. Elman, “Geographical Research in the Ming–Ch’ing Period,” Monumenta Serica, vol. 35 (1981–1983), pp. 1–18.

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The Chinese Geographical Tradition and the Conception of Tianxia The tradition of maritime writing as a genre of literature dates back to the Warring States period. That it is closely connected with the history of geohistorical studies in imperial China is well known. Among the various significant features of Chinese geohistorical scholarship are studies of foreign and unfamiliar regions, which illustrate how the Han Chinese projected and represented their cultural identity across the known space of the world. Such features show that the Chinese regarded themselves as highly civilized, and other social groups surrounding them as inferior and uncivilized. This worldview was based on the concept of tianxia, which literally means “all under heaven.” The first mention of tianxia was recorded in Yu’s Tribute (Yugong), a text traditionally attributed to Da Yu (Yu the Great, c.2205–2105 BC) – the legendary hero who is best remembered for having tamed an epic flood.8 In this conceptualization of tianxia, the world was divided into five zones (wufu) and nine geographic divisions (jiuzhou), with the midstream region of the Yellow River at the center. It should be noted that this center was not only a geographical index used to differentiate the five zones (as they were established in accordance with their respective distances from the Yellow River), but also an index for measuring these zones’ cultural levels. The farthest region was occupied by people who were considered to be the most uncivilized and was identified as the desert zone (huangfu). The center was populated by the most civilized group and was known as the privileged zone (houfu). As most ancient Chinese believed that they inhabited the center of the world, “civilizing the rest” became their “natural” mission.9 It has been pointed out that the Chinese used their assumed “cultural superiority” as the cornerstone for establishing relationships with neighboring tribes and civilizations.10 As such, the tianxia ideology encoded China and its surrounding states along an axis of “superior center, inferior periphery,” which dates back to the early imperial epoch. And most of the geographical writings up to the Ming–Qing transition were arguably part of this same established tradition. 8 9

10

See Mark Edward Lewis, The Flood Myths of Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), pp. 52–53. Ban Gu (32–92), Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), Chapter 28, pp. 1523–1537; see also Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (ed.), Lebenswelt und Weltanschauung im frühneuzeitlichen China (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1990). Richard J. Smith, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing and Its Evolution in China (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), p. 29.

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Unlike the voyaging empires of Western Europe, which realized the importance of maritime navigation and exploration during the age of discovery, the late Ming still conceptualized the world from a Mingcentered perspective. Although, as the supreme Asian power, it was likely to come into direct contact with other civilizations across the ocean, most geographers and literati in the Ming were nevertheless almost unaware of the existence of the Mediterranean or the Atlantic regions, let alone the numerous studies of those places. Guided by the concept of “all under heaven,” the Ming’s Chinese intellectuals were largely dependent on the traditional sources of information on the wider world, which had been generated centuries earlier.11 Even though detailed maps of the world were being produced, such as the Jesuit Matteo Ricci’s famous map, these geographical materials only circulated inside the imperial court and not among ordinary intellectuals.12 Perhaps the Chinese only began to re-explore the wider world during the early Qing, when a new trend in geohistorical studies emerged. This trend must be briefly discussed in light of the geographical texts written by Gu Yanwu, Gu Zuyu, and other geohistorians.13 The studies conducted by the two Gus not only faithfully recorded the history of the frontier regions, but also reflected a changing consciousness that indirectly altered their conceptualization of tianxia and the frontier regions. Their writings are best remembered for their analyses of the history, geography, and society of the Qing Empire’s inner and southwestern 11

12

13

From a certain perspective, however, there should be nothing particularly surprising about this. As pointed out by Casale in his The Ottoman Age of Exploration, p. 22, “To take an analogous example, no one would expect navigators or learned scholars from late medieval Genoa to be intimately familiar with Scandinavian geographical studies. Quite naturally, the lands of the Baltic had their own intellectual traditions and a shared set of practical concerns that were distinct from those of southern Europe, so even if individual pilgrims, church officials, or merchants traveled from one place to the other, it would be unreasonable to assume that because of this the two regions had access to exactly the same body of knowledge about the world. In a similar way, Chinese in imperial times simply embraced a basic understanding of the world that was common and familiar to them. As such, some distant sea spaces such as the Mediterranean, the Western Pacific, and the Atlantic remained a remote and unfamiliar region in their geographical studies before the Ming-Qing transition.” See Cordell D. K. Yee, “Traditional Chinese Cartography and the Myth of Westernization,” in J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 174–175. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Gu Yanwu and Gu Zuyu revolutionized the methodology of conducting geohistorical research and laid the foundation for future studies. For more details about the two Gus, see Willard J. Peterson, “The Life of Ku Yen-wu (1613–1682),” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 28 (1968), pp. 114–156, and vol. 29 (1969), pp. 201–247; Gu Zuyu, Dushi fangyu jiyao, juan 1, p. 4a. See also Peng Minghui, Wanqing de jingshi shixue (Taipei: Maitian chubanshe, 2002).

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Asian frontiers.14 Their method of examining the frontier influenced many subsequent geohistorical studies. Some of these latter works were compiled by scholar-officials or supervised by the imperial court,15 while others were made “beyond the purview of imperial supervision” and published by private publishing houses. The development of geohistorical studies in the early Qing not only stimulated comprehensive re-examinations of various inland regions and Inner Asia, but also provided a way for Chinese intellectuals to (re) conceptualize the maritime spaces along China’s shores. As a consequence, geohistorical research fostered a kind of “sea consciousness” among some Qing scholars. These scholars came to view the sea as a fundamental, yet tangible, space that linked it to faraway lands. Although the Qing court was principally concerned with westward inland expansion in the eighteenth century, some geohistorians and members of the educated elite were interested in the blue frontier. Rather than viewing the sea as a barrier that led nowhere or as a hindrance to communication, they regarded the ocean as a trans-regional contact zone that “led everywhere.”16 Before the outbreak of the First Opium War, maritime writers, such as Chen Lunjiong, Wang Dahai, and Xie Qinggao, realized that there were a growing number of economic and cultural encounters taking place between the Qing and the world across the sea. They saw the ocean as a passage of connections that linked two or more geographical spheres, and some of them even suggested that the Qing should be (re)positioned in a multicultural, or multilayered, world model. While the maritime writings of the eighteenth century were influenced by the outstanding geohistorical research of Gu Yanwu and Gu Zuyu, these writings were simultaneously heir to a legacy of maritime accounts that had been published during the Ming. And this serves as one of the close and remarkable Ming–Qing connections from a maritime angle. After the great expeditions led by Zheng He from 1405 to 1433, the exotic nanyang and its western extension, which stretched from the China Sea to the east coast of Africa, was painted in vivid detail in 14 15

16

Hou Deren, Qingdai xibei bianjiang shidixue (Beijing: Qun yan chubanshe), pp. 1–16. Laura Hostetler has argued that in the course of the eighteenth century, as the size of the Qing Empire almost doubled, the Manchu showed considerable cartographic interest in the peoples recently subjugated by them. She also mentions that the quest for knowledge about non-Chinese tribes on the empire’s internal frontiers was mostly carried out by official representatives of the Qing court with increasingly rigorous empirical methods. See her Qing Colonial Enterprise, p. 5. Compared to the Chinese, the Europeans changed their attitude toward the ocean early in the sixteenth century. Before the fifteenth century, according to Daniel Boorstin, “the Ocean led nowhere; in the next centuries people would see it led everywhere.” See Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York: Random House, 1983), p. 154.

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the Yingya shenglan (The Overall Survey of the Ocean Shores). Ma Huan, a voyager who accompanied Zheng on three of his seven expeditions, compiled this survey.17 The widely circulating Yingya shenglan was significant because it gave the Chinese images of unfamiliar oceanic regions that extended outwards from China to the east coast of Africa – apparently remote and distant places, from the perspective of traditional writings. Situating, if not authenticating, Ma’s personal experience in the context of the outer sea, it thus injected new emotion into the historical imagination as it pertained to this heretofore vaste and unknown region.18 In addition to the Yingya shenglan, the substantial section on foreign countries recorded in the Xu wenxian tongkao, edited by Wang Qi (1530–1615), and the private jottings in such works as the Dongxiyang kao (Study of the Eastern and Western Oceans), written by Zhang Xie, also influenced the style and context of maritime writings in the high Qing.19 For instance, maritime writers in both the Ming and the Qing did not compile their studies merely out of personal interest in geography. Most of their writings were a practical response to problems related to coastal governance and the empire’s security. In the prefaces of their accounts (e.g. xuyan),20 most maritime writers express their hope that their works will be manuals and guidebooks that will contribute to political and social–economic stability across the maritime frontier (jinghai). As Chen Lunjiong, one of the maritime writers we will address below, explicitly stated, “Apart from dedicating it to the Kangxi emperor and my father, this work [the Haiguo wenjian lu] aims at providing valuable information for the officials in charge of the maritime frontier areas (ren haijiang zhe) to properly govern the coastal region.”21 In both periods, maritime writers also used similar keywords for maritime matters (haiyang zhi shi). For instance, they delineated the outer sea spaces as the “Large Western Ocean” (daxiyang), the “Little Western Ocean” (xiaoxiyang), and the “Southwestern Ocean” (xinanyang). They also tended to use the term yangren to refer to foreigners, waiyang to indicate regions beyond the Qing Empire’s orbit, haiyu for “sea words” (languages spoken by crew members), and haitu for sea charts, or the

17 18 19 20

21

Ma Huan, Yingya shenglan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985). J. V. G. Mills (ed. and trans.), Ying-yai sheng-lan: “The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores” (1433) (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1997), pp. 1–23. Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World, p. 95. Yet not all prefaces of these maritime writings were written by the authors of the texts themselves. While some prefaces were written by them, some were prefaced by their friends or colleagues. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, “Preface,” p. 11b. We will discuss what Chen meant by “to govern the coastal region properly” below.

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maritime diagrams we have come across earlier. As another example, when Wang Liu (1786–1843) stressed the need to obtain extensive background information on maritime countries in order to help the state’s writers better safeguard the country, he used the term waiyang yudi, following Zhang Xie, for maritime countries in the far West.22 In his writings, Xie Qinggao carefully and effectively used the sea charts produced in the Ming period, thereby producing a relatively accurate picture of the seascape in Southeast Asia.23 Furthermore, maritime writers in the Ming and Qing assiduously used names found in ancient Chinese records to indicate places as they were named during the Qing. For example, they used the Han-era term ‘Da Qin’ to refer to eighteenthcentury Rome. Whatever similarities might be found in their approaches to the terms used to name regions and ports, the above examples suggest that the methods of exploring the sea in the eighteenth century partly reflected similar established explorations that dated from Ming times. Eighteenth-Century Maritime Writings The Record of Things Seen and Heard among the Maritime Kingdoms (Haiguo wenjian lu) was completed in 1730. Its author, Chen Lunjiong, was a native of Tong’an who served as a general in various places along the southeastern coast (e.g. Suzong and Wuzong). Born into a merchant family in Fujian, from early childhood Chen had numerous opportunities to interact with the sea. In fact, his family’s close connections to overseas trade are what distinguish Chen from other maritime writers. His father, Chen Ang, was a successful businessman who frequently conducted sea trade with the Japanese and the Southeast Asians. As Chen Lunjiong himself stated, My father was born into a poor family, but he was a trained businessman in overseas shipping across the outer ocean. Apart from that, he was good at sailing. He could identify the most favorable wind direction and the wave action for his voyages: not every experienced sailor was able to do that.24

Because of Chen Ang’s maritime expertise, Shi Lang, a commander in chief of the Qing navy (see Chapter 3 for more on Shi Lang), invited him to join the campaign to annex Taiwan. After Taiwan was conquered in 1683, Chen Ang was appointed to assistant general (fudutong) in Guangdong, where he assisted in training the navy.25 So Chen Lunjiong’s 22 23 24 25

Xie Qinggao, Hailu, “Wang’s preface on Hailu,” p. 2. Xie Qinggao, Hailu, pp. 4, 6, 11, 18, 22, 24. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, “Preface,” pp. 10a–11a. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, “Preface,” p. 10b.

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family background enabled him to develop a sophisticated knowledge of the maritime world and also to follow in his father’s footsteps into officialdom. In 1721, he received his first posting as brigadier (canjiang) of southern Taiwan, where he served in several positions at that rank, before being promoted to regional commander (zongbing) of the eastern Guangdong naval force. From the Kangxi to the Qianlong periods (1721–1747), Chen was transferred to different coastal cities, where he collaborated with a number of sea merchants and Westerners, who provided him with firsthand information about the customs and lifestyles of many foreign regions. Inspired by the practical geohistorical research of the late seventeenth century, Chen searched for facts about unfamiliar parts of the world that would enlighten the intellectuals and ruling elites. He then began to compile the Haiguo wenjian lu, using both his personal experience and some of the Ming writings that were mentioned earlier. Notwithstanding his expertise and firsthand knowledge, his work did not gain wide circulation during his lifetime. It was only in the mid-nineteenth century that he was frequently cited in official documents and private writings, such as the renowned Haiguo tuzhi (Illustrated Treatise on the Sea Kingdoms), written by Wei Yuan, and the Sizhou zhi (Geography of the Four Continents) by Commissioner Lin Zexu. The impact of Chen’s work in the nineteenth century presumably surpassed that of all subsequent unofficial writings about the sea during the eighteenth century. Indeed, Chen Lunjiong was considered one of the most authoritative writers on the maritime world during the period of the Opium Wars.26 Chen drew illustrations of the maritime space he had access to in South China. Wei Yuan, for example, in his Haiguo tuzhi, excerpted long descriptive passages from Chen’s study on Southeast Asia, Japan, and especially India. Wei praised Chen’s work as a dependable source for finding foreign places and locations.27 To compile his work, Chen made use of the maritime writings published in the Ming, including the aforementioned Dongxiyang kao and the Xu wenxian tongkao, as well as his extensive maritime connections. But Chen did not realize that some of the information in those Ming materials was inaccurate. As Zhang Weihua has argued, some parts of Chen’s work “portrayed, often imperfectly, the

26 27

Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World, p. 96. In fact, Wei Yuan drew long descriptive passages from Chen’s work on Southeast Asia, Japan, and especially India. Wei appeared to have regarded the study conducted by Chen as the authoritative source on these regions. And what makes Wei Yuan’s research much more compelling is that he did not rely on those “outdated” Ming geographies, as most Qing writings did.

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maritime world as it was known in the previous dynasty.”28 In spite of these deficiencies, however, Chen’s work represented how a scholarofficial living along the coast conceptualized the maritime space in the eighteenth century. It presents the sea along the China coast as a medium connecting a variety of concerns, such as the governance of the littoral and territorial control. Chen’s Haiguo wenjian lu contains a wide range of information about the maritime world. It introduces some measurements and navigational directions used to promote the consolidation of Qing sovereignty across the ocean. In describing the geography of the maritime frontier and in interpreting the miscellaneous reconnaissances of the European seafaring powers, Chen provides valuable insights into Chinese perceptions of the sea and guidelines for Chinese maritime strategy. In the lengthy opening chapter of the Haiguo wenjian lu, entitled “Tianxia yanhai xingshilu” (Maritime Conditions along the Seafront),29 Chen relates the geography of the Bohai area. He then moves on to detail the southern coast of the empire, covering Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. Chen envisioned a comprehensive protection strategy that wove together an extensive dragnet for maritime defense that extended up China’s entire coast and included important seaports, coastal cities, and also the entrances to China’s inland waterways. Chen believed that concerns over China’s coastal cities and access to its inland waterways mainly stemmed from the violence inflicted by pirates, with Jiangsu and Zhejiang being considered the most problematic districts.30 Thus he suggested that more fortifications in key areas be established along the coast (e.g. Congmin, Langshan, Dinghai, Zhapu, Wuzong, and the Island of Pi (Pidao)), in order to “sweep away all potential dangers.”31 Chen introduced to his readers the importance of both arming and fortifying these strategic strongholds and having an effective system of sea patrols to secure and maintain coastal communications. However, the introduction of this work does not provide a comprehensive solution for achieving these ends. In fact, it only focuses on the strategic importance of the key locations along the coast – something to which Chen gave considerable weight in his preface: “if China would like to strengthen its maritime militarization, the ruling elites must first thoroughly analyze the coastal geography before launching a long-term development of coastal

28 29 30 31

Zhang Weihua, Ming shi Folangji Lüsong Helan Yidaliya si zhuan zhu shi (Taibei: Dongfang wenhua shuju, 1973), p. 43. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, shangjuan, pp. 1a–8a. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, shangjuan, p. 2b. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, shangjuan, pp. 3a–4b.

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Table 5.1 Chen’s “maritime categorization” Ocean regions

Number of pages

The Eastern Sea (dongyang) Southeastern Ocean (dongnanyang) Southern Ocean (nanyang) Small Western Ocean (xiaoxiyang) Great Western Ocean (daxiyang)

8 (shangjuan, pp. 9a–12b) 9 (shangjuan, pp. 13a–18a) 18 (shangjuan, pp. 19a–27b) 6 (shangjuan, pp. 28a–30b) 10 (shangjuan, pp. 31a–35b)

defense.”32 In Chapter 1, Chen then shifts his focus to the outer sea space. In setting the scene, he arranges the sea’s geography into five parts to correspond to his perception of the five major divisions, or ocean regions, of the maritime world beyond the inner ocean (as described in Table 5.1). Although Chen might have been aware of how the West divided the maritime world into geographical divisions, he did not adopt that framework because it did not conform to the Chinese view of the ocean. Instead, he used traditional (Chinese) vocabulary to describe these maritime regions, thereby continuing to use the Chinese term yang for each division. He arranged the major ocean regions in sequence, from east to west, beginning with the Qing’s close neighbor, Japan, in East Asia, then moving to tributary states in Southeast Asia, and finally concluding with Europe. Chen’s ocean-based geographical categorization is worth consideration because it did not use the traditional “civilized-versus-barbaric” yardstick to divide the world along the lines of the tianxia matrix, in which geographical distance mattered most. For instance, even though the West, or the Great Western Ocean, is located far away from the Chinese cultural sphere, Chen did not depict it as culturally inferior. For Chen, these places were, in some regards, comparable to the Qing in terms of their history and cultural development (jianyou yu Zhongguo xiangsi).33 In other words, Chen did not see the Qing as singularly superior to these maritime countries located in the Far West. In stark contrast to the conception of tianxia, his version of maritime geography made geographical distance less important in measuring the cultural difference between China and other civilizations.

32 33

Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, “Preface,” p. 11b. Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjian lu, shangjuan, p. 24b.

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The Yanhai Quantu Chen was also a cartographer. One of his famous coastal diagrams (haitu), entitled Yanhai quantu (Complete Overview of the Coastal Region), was an undated and colored scroll map.34 And this is probably the original sea chart that provides the basic features of the Qisheng yanhaitu map I mentioned in previous chapters. Chen’s Yanhai quantu was delicately drawn, from right to left, on a paper scroll. According to a description in the Nanjing Museum, where the original map is preserved, the height between the margins is thirty centimeters, and the total length, from right to left, is 928 centimeters. The Yanhai quantu was followed by the Sihai zongtu (Map of the Four Seas) and four other coastal maps that depicted the Pescadores, the west coast of Taiwan, the inner mountains of Taiwan, and the Hainan region. All of them are appended to the Haiguo wenjianlu. Judging from the sea space described in the Yanhai quantu, this maritime diagram clearly delineates the areas of seawater that Chen conceptualized as being part of the Qing Empire’s inner sea space. A significant feature of most of the coastal diagrams and atlases produced under official supervision in the Qing is that if the area was beyond governmental control, then it would not be described in detail and might even be left blank, because, as highlighted in Chapter 2, “the extension of Qing mapping was directly related to imperial expansionism.”35 Other examples of these types of maps include the Guangdong yanhai tu (Map of Guangdong Coast) and the Zhe Tang jianbian tu (Simplified Map of Zhejiang and the Qiantang River). Unlike the sea spaces that had “not yet entered the map,” the Taiwan Strait, Bohai Sea, Hainan Island, and the west coast of the Pescadores were introduced thoroughly in Chen’s Yanhai quantu, though without clear geographical limits. These maritime sectors arguably served as part of the domestic sea space that was under administrative governance. In order to maintain peace and control throughout the region, Chen was convinced that considerable attention should be paid to the Shandong coast and the Leizhou peninsula (the southernmost part of Guangdong), the two strategic regions that guarded two “key entries” of the coastline.

The Haidao Yizhi The Desultory Account of the Islands of the Sea (Haidao yizhi), written by Wang Dahai and published in 1791, was another significant maritime 34 35

Chen Lunjiong himself and Peng Qifeng (1701–1784) wrote the preface. Teng, Taiwan’s Imagined Geography, p. 143.

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writing produced during the high Qing. This was important because it was the first comprehensive study by a Chinese scholar that specifically focused on Dutch control of Java and the Strait of Sunda and their powerful hold on Asian trade in the Indonesian archipelago. Wang has been called “one of the very few Chinese who traveled overseas and left an account of his adventures” in Southeast Asia.36 Wang Dahai (who also went by courtesy names Biqing and Liugu) was a native of Longxi, in Fujian province. In 1783, after failing the civil service examination, Wang worked as a sea trader in Southeast Asia and lived in Java for almost ten years.37 Although Wang devoted most of his energy to sea trade, he never stopped writing. His associate Li Wei wrote this in the preface to the Haidao yizhi: My townsman, Wang Dahai, in his youth, possessed irrepressible vigor of mind and, scorning to submit his lucubration to the criticisms of the examining official, gave up his prospects of advancement to official rank and contented himself with the publication of private essays.38

During his lengthy stay in Southeast Asia, Wang Dahai continued to assemble primary sources about the culture and history of the islands in Southeast Asia, eventually compiling six volumes of his Haidao yizhi in 1791. Although some might take Wang’s work as only a personal account, it is personal only in the sense that he provided a succinct record of his daily experiences – of whom he met, what he saw, the seascapes, and the weather. For instance, in the chapter “Fruit and Flowers,” Wang introduces various species of plants, such as champaka, Lawsonia americana, plantain, and sugarcane.39 However, the main purpose of this account appears to have been recording the distances between different seaports, noting where hazardous weather conditions might be encountered, where aboriginal peoples were particularly irksome, and whether stopping at ports afforded food and clean water. In his preface, Wang writes, We have heard that districts have their statistics, just as kingdoms have their histories. No statistics are recorded that give an account of the hills and rivers, the appearance of the country, its antiquities, production, inhabitants, works of art, 36 37

38 39

Blussé, Visible Cities, p. 72. Between 1783 and 1793, Wang also served as preceptor to the children of the Chinese captain of Pekalongan, a port city on the north coast of Java. From his writings, we can see that Wang decided to settle in Java. He married an overseas Chinese woman from a moderately affluent family. Li Wai’s “Preface,” in Wang Dahai, Haidao yizhi (Jiaqing edition), p. 6a. See W. H. Medhurst, Ong Dae Hae [Wang Dahai], translated by W. H. Medhurst, the Chinaman Abroad: or a Desultory Account of the Malayan Archipelago, Particularly of Java (Shanghai: The Mission Press, 1848), pp. 69–75.

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regions, and the superstitions of a district. In short, nothing should be omitted . . . European countries are originally on the outside margin of civilization, and their being assimilated, now, to the villages of our inner land is entirely owing to the virtuous influence of our august government, which transforms those distant and unknown regions by the innate force of its majesty . . . Although far from being intelligent, I dare not refuse to carefully record the things which I have seen and heard, together with some references to the country and its inhabitants; in short, every individual word and action worthy of being noted down, thus publishing the whole, in order to render some small assistance toward correcting men’s minds, and spreading right principles in the world.40

This excerpt shows that Wang wanted to better acquaint China, Southeast Asia, and the Western world with each other. Although some of these maritime countries were located beyond the domestic sea space of the Qing Empire (e.g. Java and the Malaccas), Wang’s record (as he traveled over the seas) showed how they influenced China, both economically and culturally. In addition to identifying sea routes, port cities, and stopping places, with names transcribed into Chinese, Wang detailed the strict Dutch trade monopoly; their base at Batavia in western Java and in the northern Javanese ports of Banjarmasin, Makassar, and Banda; and above all how these business centers were connected with Qing soil.41 The nature of these descriptions suggests that Wang’s study was not merely a personal handbook but also a treatise that expressed deep concern for practical matters involved in managing the Qing’s relations with maritime Asia. In the eighteenth century, Zhou Xuegong had this to say about the book: Wang Dahai’s work is calculated to make up the deficiencies of our former accounts, being equally clear and perspicacious as the Records of Things Seen and Heard in the Western Regions (Xiyu wenjian lu). This one little work serves to extensively testify that the instructions of our august dynasty have gracefully wafted over the sea.42

Like Chen’s Haiguo wenjian lu, the aim of the Haidao yizhi was thus to serve as a substantial compendium for those who were interested in exploring the wider maritime world and coastal governance. It did so by providing firsthand information that reflected the political and economic realities in Southeast Asia at the time. The Hailu In 1820, twenty-nine years after Wang published his Haidao yizhi, Xie Qinggao completed his Records of the Sea (Hailu), which is considered by 40 42

Medhurst, Ong Dae Hae, pp. v–vi. Wang Taihai, Haidao yizhi, p. 2b.

41

Wang Taihai, Haidao yizhi, pp. 4–12.

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later Qing writers to be one of the most important works on “current” maritime affairs produced in the long eighteenth century. Born into a middle gentry family in eastern Guangdong, somewhere near presentday Meizhou, Xie was an astute polyglot. Even though he did not take the civil service examination, he learned a variety of European languages and also some Southeast Asian ideographs. As one of his closest friends, Yang Bingnan, recalled, Xie “was smart, brave and multilingual since his early years.”43 However, despite his talents, Xie had no interest in an official career, but instead was committed to sea trade in Canton.44 Sprawling along the Pearl river’s banks, in the late eighteenth-century, as discussed throughout this book, Canton was a vibrant coastal city with a long history of commercial interaction with foreign merchants. Indeed, it was the place to be for conducting overseas business as it had a significant European population and, in the late eighteenth century, was the only Chinese seaport open to Western traders. This gave Xie plenty of opportunities to interact with Westerners. Xie’s life suddenly changed, however, when, at the age of eighteen, while en route to Southeast Asia, he was shipwrecked, and then rescued by a Portuguese captain and escorted all the way to Lisbon, Portugal. Xie did not immediately return to China but decided to stay in the West.45 Unlike most of his Chinese contemporaries, Xie’s willingness to spend ten years traveling throughout Western Europe made him exceptional. Between 1783 and 1793, he witnessed the political, economic, and cultural differences that existed between China and this part of the world. In Hailu, a record of his European travels, Xie demonstrated that he was a man of learning and also a merchant with personal experience of the “New World” far beyond his Chinese homeland. In 1793, Xie returned to the Qing and settled in Macao. But unfortunately, his eyesight began to fail and he eventually became totally blind. His friend Yang Bingnan assisted him in writing down the story of his remarkable travels. In 1820, the Hailu was published, as a slim volume, to “perpetuate his knowledge and experience.”46 Comprising three chapters, the Hailu touched upon the geographical locations, politics, and trading conditions Xie encountered in both Southeast Asia and Europe. In the first two chapters, Xie examined the history and culture of Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and the southern part of the Malay peninsula. An insightful traveler, Xie recorded the changing 43 44 45 46

Xie Qinggao, Hailu, p. 329. “Preface written by Lü Tiaoyeng,” in Xie Qinggao, Hailu, p. 331. “Preface written by Yang Bingnan,” in Xie Qinggao, Hailu, p. 329. “Preface written by Yang Bingnan,” in Xie Qinggao, Hailu, p. 329.

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political and trading conditions in the Straits of Malacca and also the rise of European influence across the Southern Ocean (nanyang), covering the trading kingdoms of Srivijava and Malacca. Xie cautioned that the rapid developments in Southeast Asia brought about by Western influence might become a threat to the Qing Empire in the near future.47 Xie’s concern with the Malacca Straits is significant, since it reflects China’s long-standing interest in the region as a center of Asian interaction and communication, an interest that extends back as far as the seventh and eighth centuries.48 Xie’s observations here are reasonably positive. It is precisely these kinds of observations that make his study a sophisticated early Chinese reconceptualization of the non-Chinese world, one that was becoming increasingly influenced, in the eighteenth century, by Western Europeans. In the final chapter, Xie described some of the cultures he had encountered in the Far West, as well as their spread across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Xie explored several countries located in what we now call “Europe,” which raises the question whether he himself viewed these countries collectively as “Europe” proper or only as being part of “Europe.” In other words, did Xie use a specific term to label Europe as a single geopolitical entity? As far as I can tell, Xie did not employ a standard term to refer to all of the Western regions he explored together. Rather, he loosely applied such terms as xiyang (Western Ocean), daxiyang (Great Western Ocean), wai daxiyang (Outer Great Western Ocean) and xinanyang (Southwestern Ocean). Further, Xie did not use the word ouluoba, the Chinese word for Europe as a unity, which was commonly used by scholar-officials later in the late nineteenth century.49 Although he did not consistently use a term or label for Europe as a unity, Xie was aware of the connectedness of the countries he described, if only vaguely. This sense of connectedness resembled the traditional Western connections as they were understood in China, if not East Asia. If Xie had not perceived such largely implicit connections, then he would not have used the notion of a series of “oceanic categories” (e.g. daxiyang or xinanyang) to categorize those selected Western European polities he discussed in the third chapter of his Hailu. And although Xie expressed this sense of connectedness, he was also sensitive to the regional diversity among the maritime kingdoms in the Far West. For instance, he observed that the Dutch shared similar customs with the Portuguese, 47 48 49

Xie Qinggao, Hailu, juan 2. Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World, p. 35. Though it has to be noted that the term Ouluoba was found in a Ming writing, Sancai tuhui, complied by Wang Qi.

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the French and the Prussians. But he also noted that they maintained their cultural uniqueness in many ways.50 So even though Xie did not come up with a specific standardized term to identify the vast landmass that we now call “Europe,” he did understand that the regions he lumped together as “Western” were not simply a randomly diverse collection of territories, but rather could be regarded, at least to some extent, as a coherent region located in the Far West.

Illustrating Maritime Countries (Haiguo) For Chen Lunjiong, Wang Dahai, and Xie Qinggao, the sea was not only a region that required maritime militarization to ensure the empire’s security; it was also a geographical contact zone that connected China to the wider unfamiliar world. As such, these three maritime writers were not only forging links between the Qing and its domestic sea space, but also mediating the familiar and the unfamiliar. Although their descriptions of the unfamiliar were somewhat selective and stylized, they no longer regarded the ocean as a mythical, untouchable space or an unknown barrier that kept other peoples geographically apart from them (the Chinese). Rather, they saw the ocean as a spatial medium to use for exploring other accessible civilizations. Like the geohistorians who had researched Inner Asia, such as Gong Zizhen (1792–1841), Sun Chengze (1593–1676), and Shao Yuanping (1662–1735),51 the maritime writers of the eighteenth century understood the problem of conceptualizing the world from a Sino-centric perspective. Consequently, they devoted much of their studies to the 50 51

Xie Qinggao, Hailu, p. 220. In his Chronological Account of the Emergence of the Yuan Dynasty (Yuanchao diangu bianniankao), Sun Chengze collected detailed materials about the geography, architecture, economy, social customs, education, and political institutions of Mongolia. See Nicola Di Cosmo, “Beasts and Birds: The Historical Context of Early Chinese Perceptions of the Northern Peoples,” in his Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 93–126. Additionally, Shao Yuanping abridged and reorganized the History of the Yuan Dynasty (Yuanshi), which was written by official historians in Ming times, and finally published the Topical Studies of Mongolian History (Yuanshi leibian). Shao Yuanping, Yuanshi neibian (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1987), juan 1, pp. 1–7. In his thorough study of the Yuan Dynasty, Shao re-examined the distinctive traditions and customs of the herdsmen, and further underlined the historical significance of the Mongol Empire. Showing great affinity to evidential research and geohistorical studies, Wang Huizu (1730–1807), Qian Daxin (1728–1804), and Wei Yuan also made considerable efforts to rectify dubious and inaccurate details in the Yuanshi. They even indicated that the Mongolian cultural tradition was very similar to the Han’s because they both have a long history. Wei Yuan, Yuanshi xinbian (Yangzhou: Jiangsu guangling guji keyinshe, 1990).

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evaluation of other Southeast Asian and European countries, from which a sizable number of advanced civilizations had emerged. Most maritime writers wrote about the early origins of these states and traced the history of their first maritime contact with China. These writers also examined the institutional organizations that accounted for the wealth and power of these states, and outlined their cultures and customs. These maritime writers did not insist on seeing the Qing as the center of the world and they expressed this view in their writing. Through their texts, illustrations, and/or maps, Chen, Wang, and Xie each introduced, to their readers, the physical features of the known globe, including its continents, oceans, and seas. Usually beginning their observations with Asia, they recognized that the northeastern corner of Manchuria was connected to Russia, while Kokonor was located in the southeast frontier of the Qing Empire. In the northwest, Turkestan was composed of many states, as noted in the early Han records of the Western Region (xiyu), whereas the various tribes, such as the Kirghiz and Burut from beyond the frontier, were seen as traditional tributary peoples. The tribute countries, such as Korea, the Pescadores, and the various countries bordering the south (i.e. Cochin China, Siam, Burma, Laos, and Nepal) were connected to China by the East Asian Sea. Located across the Eastern Sea (dongyang), Japan was one of the Asian states that did not subordinate itself to Qing authority. But, according to these writers, Japan had sent envoys to China, studied Chinese culture, and remained intimately connected with China for centuries. In addition to these Asian states, there are islands situated in Southeast Asia, including Java and the other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. Except for the sea off the eastern coast of Australia, these regions were often described as trading spheres that were frequented by numerous merchant vessels and were connected by major seaports, such as Jakarta, Banten, Manila, and Malacca. This trading sector was also closely connected to the Qing, especially the southeastern coast. As Wang Dahai observed, Those who ply the oar and spread the sail [in Southeast Asia] are principally the inhabitants of the Fujian and Guangdong provinces, who have been in the habit of emigrating for the space of 400 years. From the early part of the Ming Dynasty up to the present day . . . those of our countrymen who have remained and sojourned in those parts, after propagating and multiplying, amount to no less than 100,000.52

52

Wang Dahai, Haidao yizhi, pp. 1b–2a.

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Europe was usually referred to as the “Great Western Ocean” (daxiyang) in these maritime writings. Although this continent was bordered by a series of mountain ranges, it was essentially a maritime sphere that was otherwise encircled by the sea. Maritime writers depicted Europe as being almost the same size as Asia. They conceptualized it as a region composed of many civilizations that came and went long before the Han dynasty. For example, according to Chen and Xie, Europe had been inhabited even before the Qin–Han eras, when its people roamed and hunted for their livelihood. Indeed, during the early Han period, the state of Rome, in Italy, had already founded a governmental system and had opened up the territory around it (on the four sides) to form a unified power in the Occident. The state that Han histories referred to “Da Qin” probably referred to the Roman Empire. However, Chen and Xie failed to provide an overview of a European history that began in antiquity. Instead, they focused on the continent’s more recent history (xiangjin lüeyuan). By the eighteenth century, Western Europeans who came from the “Great Western Ocean” (daxiyang) were described as foreign, yet superior, as they had produced machines and were accomplished at sailing ships. These technologies enabled them to reach almost every corner of the globe, across the seven seas, and accomplish their expansionist missions.53 For instance, in one description of British expansion, it is asserted, Maritime commerce is one of the chief occupations of the English, and wherever there is a region in which profits could be reaped by trading, these peoples strive for them, with the result that their commercial vessels are to be seen on the sea. Commercial traders are to be found all over the country. A large foreign mercenary army is also maintained. As a consequence, although the country is small, it has such a large military force that foreign nations are filled with fear.54

Some maritime writings briefly mentioned Africa. But generally this huge continent was sketched as a triangular-shaped landmass surrounded by an ocean. However, in the context of bridging the familiar and the unfamiliar, because Zheng He had reached the eastern coast of Africa on three of his voyages, from a Chinese cultural perspective the continent was considered to be historically connected to China. The Dutch and Portuguese conquest of some western and southern coastal areas of this landmass was also recorded. Though very sketchy, most of the descriptions by maritime writers cast the people of Africa as black barbarians, or 53 54

Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjianlu, shangjuan, p. 25a. Xie Qinggao, Hailu, p. 251. The text is translated by Jeanette Mirsky. See her “The Great Chinese Travelers,” in Mark A. Kishlansky, ed., Sources of World History (New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1995), pp. 126–128.

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black ghosts (wugui).55 These people were thought to be chaotic and barbaric – notions the Europeans used to justify exploiting them.56 In considering the existence of various states and civilizations, several remarkable features in these maritime writings are worth mentioning. First, these writers generally categorized the world according to the oceans, even though place names were also listed or introduced. One significant example is the categorization Chen Lunjiong used in Haiguo wenjianlu. Chen deliberately divided the world outside China into five zones, using the names of five oceans as his indicators (i.e. the Eastern Sea, the Southeastern Sea, the Southern Ocean, the Little Western Ocean, and the Great Western Ocean). By categorizing the world on the basis of a maritime model, Chen’s study shows the author’s emphasis on the importance of the seas. Second, the works of maritime writers usually begin with descriptions about the Qing Empire (or the Da Qing guo).57 They then describe Korea, Japan, the Pescadores, the states of the South China Sea (nanyang), the various countries of Southeast Asia, and the islands of the South Pacific. Then they address the political and social features of India, the states that border India and Tibet, and Western and Central Asia. The final section is usually dedicated to descriptions of Western Europe (and sometimes Africa), with particular attention paid to the Atlantic seafaring powers, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, and Britain. Although, when mapping geography, these maritime writers were generally sensitive to their Qing identity, they did not exaggerate the importance of the Qing Empire. For instance, in his xihai zongtu, Chen Lunjiong even suggested that the Da Qingguo (the Great Qing) was not located at the center on the map, but rather rested on top of the Asian continent, in a corner.

From Nanyang to Europe As argued throughout this book, the Chinese conception of the wider maritime world was decisively influenced by the “Sino-nanyang connection” (China–South Sea connection).58 Against the backdrop of this traditional Sino-nanyang framework, maritime writers of the eighteenth century were customarily interested in depicting the image of nanyang, 55 56 57 58

In the Haiguo wenjian lu, Africa is named “the country of black monsters” (Wugui guo). For details, see Xu Yongzhang, “Haiguo wenjian lu zhong Feizhou diming kaoshi,” Huanghe keji daxue xuebao, vol. 4 no. 4 (December 2002), pp. 91–97. See his Sihai zongtu, for instance. Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World, p. 35.

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thereby shaping Chinese geopolitical perceptions of maritime Asia. Most writers devoted the lengthiest sections of their studies to the history, geography, and current situation of this maritime location. In fact, this Sino-nanyang connection was the lens through which these eighteenthcentury maritime writers conceptualized the West and the quickening pace of European commercial and political expansion in Southeast Asia.59 To be more specific, these maritime writers usually focused on Vietnam, Siam, Burma, and Java because these states were connected to the Qing by tributary politics and ongoing sea trade. They argued that Southeast Asian states had had their own governmental structures since the Han dynasty. But at the same time, they paid tribute to China in order to maintain a peaceful relationship with each succeeding Chinese Empire.60 For example, since the Qin era, historians sketched the history of Vietnam (also known as Annam and Champa) in relation to China’s own dynastic periods. This was a time when China first controlled parts of Vietnam. Siam, Burma, Sungora, Patani, and Trengganu had also been listed as China’s loyal tributaries since ancient times.61 Yet maritime writers also realized that when Europeans began encroaching on the region, the tributary connections between China and these Southeast Asian countries gradually began to change. Wang Dahai and Xie Qinggao, for instance, commented on the European threat to Southeast Asia. The practical question that concerned them was what the Qing could do to maintain a balance of power in the nanyang region. As such, both writers subtly proposed that the Qing use trade links with these states more effectively in order to exert political influence and counteract Western influence. In light of these circumstances, Wang and Xie sought to send the message that the Qing could no longer take its security for granted, and, above all, it could not remain oblivious to the changes taking place in the East Asian geopolitical sphere. Maritime countries that had been previously described as weak and inconsequential tributary states were now treated as substantive civilizations. They had developed semi-independently, according to

59

60 61

The Chinese traditional relations with the nanyang developed with the growth of the nanhai trade (trade with Southeast Asia countries). In the beginning, around the Tang– Song period, trade was based on luxuries associated with court demand for exotic goods and encouraged by both court and officials who used the tributary system to promote trade. This pattern was dramatically altered from the late Song to the Qing period by the expanding Chinese junk trade, which came to control and dominate both the Chinese coastal trade and that of maritime Asia. For fuller details, see Leonard, Wei Yuan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World, pp. 33–62. Xie Qinggao, Hailu, pp. 13–24; Wang Dahai, Haidao yizhi, pp. 1a–4b. Xie Qinggao, Hailu, pp. 37–40.

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individual patterns, and over the preceding decades they had become increasingly influenced by the Europeans. Furthermore, Chen, Wang, and Xie considered Europe to be exotic, in contrast to the states that had established tributary relations with the Qing. These writers were particularly alerted by the historical, sociological, and expansionist development, across the European continent, of Spain, France, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands. They believed that these maritime countries (haiguo) had gained eminence because they possessed technology that was capable of “harnessing guns and cannons” (jingyu huojiao), which they thought the Qing should imitate as much as possible.62 With their use of new weapons and their increasingly accurate scientific techniques in navigation and cartography, Westerners had extended their influence around the world. They successfully invaded the Americas, Africa, Australia, the Pacific islands, and South Asia, as well as numerous places throughout Southeast Asia. As a consequence, these major European states shared the benefits of their policy of overseas expansion. With each nation aiming at specific political and poweroriented goals, the European peoples maintained a close identity with their own particular state and fought with a patriotic zeal that made even small states, like the Netherlands, powerful.63 According to Chen, Wang, and Xie, these states also possessed impressive seaports and public services, such as banking, water systems, educational institutions, and other amenities that suggested a high level of cultural accomplishment (wei haiwai qinshan ye).64 The cultural level implied by the provision of such services in Western Europe put the continent closer to China, in terms of civilization and culture, than to the Inner Asian or Southeast Asian states.

62 63

64

Chen Lunjiong, Haiguo wenjianlu, shangjuan, p. 25a. For example, when Xie Qinggao mentioned the administrative structure of the Dutch, he admired it greatly. It appeared to the author that the Dutch government was now ruled by four ministers rather than a particular monarch. Having noted that the power of the king was taken away by those ministers, Xie was amazed to see that the country was still able to maintain its strength and power across the continent and even the seven seas. Other than their overseas achievements, the author was very much impressed by the Dutch, even though the Netherlands is only a small country, in managing their country with such a good and deliberated administrative strategy – in which they successfully consolidate the loyalty of their peoples. See Xie Qinggao, Hailu, juanxia, p. 6. Taking once again the Hailu as an example, one of the public services that much amazed Xie was the water system designed by the mayor in London. According to the author’s description, the water system of London was made up of a sizable number of small pipes hidden behind the walls of the buildings. These small pipes were directly linked to the river Thames so that citizens in town could simply collect useable water from their water taps. And the government would monthly collect “water taxes” to maintain this water service. See Xie Qinggao, Hailu, juanxia, p. 11.

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Yet, although these three maritime writers realized the institutional and military superiority of the Western powers, they failed to offer a comprehensive and substantial strategy that could help protect the Qing from the growing menace posed by those same powers. Moreover, their endeavors to redefine these Atlantic powers failed to evoke a favorable response from most of the officials and literati in the imperial court. Ultraconservatives, as well as some “inland officials” (the term that I invented in Chapter 4), believed that, unless it was strictly regulated, contact with Westerners would contaminate Chinese culture. For instance, Li Wei regretted seeing that “Wang Dahai had given his attention [in Haidao yizhi] to such a strange and distant region [under European control], which had not yet come under the influence of our civilizing teaching.”65 To mainstream literati, the broader vision of the maritime world could not compete with the Confucian classics and canons. As such, the worldview embraced by Chen, Wang, and Xie failed to generate a viable and substantial alternative for the Qing court in terms of preparing it to deal with the fierce aggression of various imperialistic powers prior to the Opium Wars.

Concluding Remarks Influenced by geohistorical studies, and supplemented by evidential and cartographic research, Chen, Wang, and Xie produced, to a substantial degree, detailed and verifiable descriptions of the maritime sphere and hoped their writings could contribute to coastal governance. In their efforts to make such a contribution, they studied the haijiang (maritime frontier) district, rediscovered the traditional nanyang region, and added important information about the wider world that went beyond the conventional tianxia order; indeed, they challenged it. These writers relied mainly on their personal experiences, as they revised and updated Chinese knowledge of maritime Asia and gave special attention to issues of maritime affairs, such as how to stabilize the maritime frontier, how to guard against pirates and other potential dangers from the sea (shizhi tuzei), how to properly manage domestic and foreign sea trade, and how to keep the domestic sea space safe and sound (potao fujing). As a result, this suggests that there were Qing intellectuals who did not suddenly open their eyes to the maritime world after the arrival of Western gunboats in the nineteenth century. Rather, because maritime governance, commerce, and migration had long been a major part of Chinese life 65

Li Wai’s preface, in Haidao yizhi, p. 7a.

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along the coast, Qing intellectuals had been constantly and assiduously gazing at the maritime world since the Song–Yuan period. Additionally, Chen, Wang, and Xie’s examinations of other maritime countries (haiguo) in Southeast Asia and Europe conformed to the statecraft approach. Unlike such administrative documents as imperial edicts and official memorials, which mainly focused on maritime militarization and customs management along the coast, the works of these three maritime writers discussed the historical and geographical significance of regions that lay beyond the maritime frontier. In this regard, the ocean provided them with an opportunity for charting a world connected to the Qing via both the sea (geographically) and also numerous maritime activities (trade and travel). In their conceptualizations, the sea was an interconnected chain of separate regions, accessible and ready for exploration. They used the sea as a starting point to illustrate and examine the world of maritime countries outside Qing borders, to locate those haiguo in the Far West (i.e. the Atlantic and the Mediterranean regions), and to formulate strategies to protect their country. Nevertheless, we have to be attentive enough that these maritime writers failed to formulate a strong voice that helped shaped the Qing maritime policies. In Philip Kuhn’s expression, they could only be labelled the “maritime interest group,”66 which surfaced again in the crisis leading up to the Opium War. Throughout the long eighteenth century, we have to understand that their writings were even disregarded by those “inland officials” who did not prioritize the maritime frontier over the land border. In fact, the Qing produced many more ethnographic gazetteers about the “mountain peoples” of the Southwest and Taiwan than about peoples from those maritime countries. Arguably, most of these maritime findings and writings went to motivate the majority of intellectuals in later generations, in the mid-nineteenth century, but probably not the eighteenth, to rethink the role of the Great Qing in a world full of interactions, synergies, and contestations across a vast, interconnected maritime landscape. And we have to accept that the strongest maritime consciousness among the intellectual community was always along the Guangdong and Fujian coast, and this was considerably a regional, but not an empirewide, priority. What if this maritime consciousness had spread across a larger intellectual community more thoroughly within the Qing Empire? If so, the maritime history of the nineteenth century may need to be rewritten substantially.

66

Philip A. Kuhn, Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008), pp. 377–378.

Conclusion

The defeat of the Qing navy in the Opium Wars, the Battle of Fuzhou, and the Battle of the Yellow Sea in the nineteenth century paved the way for the dynasty’s downfall.1 Because these humiliating defeats took place at sea, scholars and laymen alike have long tended to believe that Qing leadership lacked a “maritime consciousness.”2 However, it does not follow that the loss of these three sea battles during the nineteenth century can be explained simply by asserting that the eighteenth-century Qing court was unable and impotent to comprehend and administrate the blue frontier. Indeed, the Manchu leadership’s efforts at maritime militarization and customs institutionalization indicate that the idea of “ruling the sea” (jinghai or dinghai), which was rooted in a concept of an inner–outer binary space, had been facilitated by the Qing authority for at least a century. Eighteenth-century maritime writers who had settled 1

2

Julia Lovell gives a lucid account of the First Opium War by using a variety of primary and secondary sources. See her The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (London: Picador, 2011). The most illuminating study of the Second Opium War in English remains Catherine Lamour and Michel R. Lamberti (trans. Peter and Betty Ross), The Second Opium War (London: Lane, 1974). For details about the Battle of Fuzhou in 1884, see David Pong, Shen Pao-chen and China’s Modernization in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 241–243, 261. On the impact of the Sino-French War, see Benjamin A. Elman, “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China’s Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865–1895,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 38 no. 2 (May, 2004), pp. 315–381. On the inadequacy of the Qing navy during the First Sino-Japanese War, see Allen Fung, “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 30 no. 4 (1996), pp. 1007–1031, Richard J. Smith, “Foreign Training and China’s Self-Strengthening: The Case of Feng-huangshan,” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 10 no. 2 (1976), pp. 195–223. On the SelfStrengthening Movement and most of the Sino-foreign battles in the mid-nineteenth century, see Kwang-Ching Liu, “Nineteenth-Century China,” in Ping-ti Ho and Tang Tsou (eds.), China in Crisis, vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 93–178. For example, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, even though the maritime consciousness of China (as a continental power) is introduced, what occurred during the high Qing is completely ignored. See John B. Hattendorf (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 397.

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along the coast were likewise aware of the importance that the Qing court placed on maritime management. Hence we should put to rest the view that the sea did not interest the Qing court or the literati before the outbreak of the First Opium War. Nevertheless, even though the Qing did not lose sight of its sea borders, we have to take into account the fact that their primary concern throughout the eighteenth century was still with the Inner Asian frontier. The perceptible threat from the military confederation of nomads was greater than that of pirates along the coast and that of the (potential) threat from respective maritime countries (haiguo). It was, therefore, appropriate to allocate their main resources to the Inner Asian frontier, where the Manchu sent their extensive military expeditions and devoted most of their strategic attention, until the victories of the mid-eighteenth century. Here, I have to remind my readers that this study does not attempt to suggest that the maritime frontier was more strategically important than the inland frontier was. What I would like to emphasize is that, in governing such a vast land-based territory, and contrary to what historians have commonly assumed, the Qing did not overlook the importance of managing its blue frontier. Launching campaigns in Inner Asia does not mean that the Qing failed to treat its inner sea space as an integral part of its empire. And we should not simply apply the kind of thinking derived from the film series Heshang (River Elegy), which was built directly on a crude opposition of yellow earth and blue sea, to explicate the Qing strategic thinking over its continental and maritime frontiers.3 Despite understanding the geostrategic significance of Inner Asia, the Qianlong emperor also clearly indicated that “it is essential to keep the maritime border safe and sound in order to protect the merchants and eliminate the gangsters” (baoshang jingdao),4 whereas a sizable number of officials in the high Qing, such as Jiaoluo Manbao, Gao Qipei, Gao Qizhuo, Huang Shijian, and Mao Wenquan, admittedly maintained that the defense of the maritime zone was linked to security and economic prosperity along the coast.5 Arguably, the Qing conception of the 3

4 5

In fact, the film series Heshang has considerably affected Chinese national consciousness as well as Western history since 1988. The main theme of the film highlights that China, using the analogy of the Yellow River, was once at the forefront of civilization, but subsequently dried up due to isolation and conservatism in the Ming because of its ban on maritime activities. Therefore the revival of China must come from the flowing blue seas which represent the explorative, open cultures of the West and Japan. See Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee (eds.), An Intellectual History of Modern China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 514. Qingshi gao, juan 135, p. 3985. To recall a couple of examples here: Jiaoluo Manbao suggested to the Kangxi emperor that “in order to alleviate the problem of pirates along the coast, it is of utmost importance

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sea was generally based on the sense that national stability depended on the various maritime networks that linked mainland China (and especially the coastal provinces), both economically and culturally, to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia, and even further west.6 The navy and the Customs Offices were thus committed to policing and regulating the sea lanes that traversed the different sea zones; and the empire’s aim was to foster the provincial sea trade, to resolve conflicts across a wide swath of the coast, and above all to protect its interests at sea. In a nutshell, the Qing was an empire which engaged in extensive interaction on all of its frontiers, and one that responded flexibly to challenges on multiple fronts. From Taiwan’s conquest in 1683 to Emperor Qianlong’s death at the age of eighty-seven in 1799, the Great Qing was considered a “golden empire” whose wealth was based on invasion, occupation, and stabilization. During the first three-quarters of this “golden age,” the Qing court strengthened the navy by increasing its numbers of both warships and soldiers along the coast. Contrary to the conventional perception that the Qing government paid no attention to naval affairs until after the First Opium War,7 the high Qing administration did not ignore the sea, as this book has borne out. Compared with the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk state (in Egypt), which were only occasionally able to dispatch major fleets to defend their fellow Muslims,8 the Qing court implemented practical naval policies to consolidate its political control and economic hegemony in the sea space that stretched from the Bohai Gulf to the coast of Guangdong. Unlike the European powers of the time, the

6

7 8

to select the best officers carefully before assigning them to administrate the coastal county.” Zhongguo diyi lishi danganguan (ed.), Kangxi chao manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi, pp. 822–823. In a similar vein, Gao Qipei also admitted that “since the coastal provinces are significantly important to the coastal economy and fishing industry, we have to be watchful in the selection of coastal officers.” See Zhongguo diyi lishi danganguan (ed.), Yongzheng chao hanwen zhupi huibian, vol. 1, p. 954. It should be noted that a number of sea lanes are not only included within the China coast, but also extend into the Sea of Japan, South Asia, the Indian Ocean, and even the Arabian peninsula. For that reason, sea lanes connecting China and its neighbors were not only vital to the Great Qing, but also to all states with economic and security interests in Asia. Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China’s Navy in the Twenty-First Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), pp. 4, 189. A notable, but short-lived, exception to the general weakness of Muslim naval states was an effort by a powerful group on the Malabar Coast to mobilize naval power and mercantile wealth. See Genevieve Bouchon, Regent of the Sea: Cannanore’s Respose to Portuguese Expansion, 1507–1528 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988), and Genevieve Bouchon, “Sixteenth-Century Malabar and the Indian Ocean,” in Ashin Das Gupta and M. N. Pearson (eds.), India and the Indian Ocean, 1500–1800 (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 162–184.

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eighteenth-century Qing navy was not designed to pursue territorial expansion on the high seas. Rather, its aim was to provide the empire with a means to engage in maritime trade, to maintain a transportation system to protect this trade, and to intimidate foreign sea powers as part of its foreign relations. The development of the navy empowered the Qing Empire to subordinate its maritime tributaries as dependents, such as Korea and the Southeast Asian states. It also provided Chinese merchants along the coast – for example, in Bohai and Guangdong – with access to commercial investment and the resources that promoted the accumulation of wealth. Although the term “sea power” usually refers to states with naval forces that are designed to carry out their imperialist policies of acquiring colonies and achieving their other ambitions, naval historians view it as something much broader in scope: “maritime commerce created by necessity had always preceded naval forces . . . armed fleets were brought into being for the protection and security of peaceful merchantmen and the merchant marine comprised the reserve and the backbone of the fighting service.”9 As such, “sea power” has been theorized as an actualization that employs sea forces to gain control of a particular maritime zone for a particular period of time, to eliminate potential threats to the friendly side, and to enable the friendly side to effectively utilize the ocean to undertake political, military, and economic action, and, when necessary, to strip the hostile parties’ command of the sea, and stop them from using the ocean or cause their maritime activities to be limited.10 By acknowledging the political and economic intentionality of the Qing court, rather than ceding to the Qing’s exclusion as an exclusively terrestrial power, this study includes the Qing Empire among the world’s sea powers of the time. It also includes the Qing in the broader discourse on sea power and its analysis. At least in the eighteenth century, the Qing was a willing participant in the East Asian Sea trade networks within which the Manchu empire itself had emerged. Its naval development, commercial policies, and claims to sovereignty across a specific maritime territory can be compared to those of other Asian and European powers. As with the Ottoman Empire, the Qing navy was tasked with protecting the empire’s wealth and providing for and supporting the consolidation of state control over its inner sea space. The Qing used its navy to 9 10

P. A. Silburn, The Evolution of Sea Power (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1912), p. 97. J. R. Hill, Maritime Strategy for Medium Powers (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1986), p. 229; Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

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dominate a significant portion of the East Asian Sea. It also used diplomacy, without direct military engagement, to gain the submission of competing states, such as Japan and Vietnam. All of this indicates that the empire was effective in establishing and furthering its political objectives, including the complete control of its commercial seawater and the numerous strategic islands off its coast. Nevertheless, it is not enough to simply stress that the eighteenth-century Qing Empire did not ignore its maritime frontier and should not be omitted from discussions of the “sea powers” of the time. It is also important to acknowledge the merits of investigating the logic that the Qing court applied when it modeled and conceptualized its maritime space. Looking at the Qing’s conceptual framework of inner and outer sea spaces helps us better understand its maritime governing policies and also better connect its strategy of managing its maritime frontier with the strategies it used on its inland frontier. This inner–outer correlation, which forms the basis of the division of the sea, enables us to grasp the logic with which the Qing distinguished its inner tributaries from its outer tributaries in Inner Asia. While not always strictly hierarchical, this inner–outer conceptualization was one of the guiding principles of the Qing court’s frontier policy. Yet, needless to say, it was the Han Chinese, and not the Manchu, who were the source of this correlation. In other words, the Qing adapted the Ming tradition of managing its maritime frontier, even though the Ming did not suggestively apply the inner–outer model to the sea. But in any event, this still indicates that the Manchu were willing to heed the experience of their (Han Chinese) predecessors in formulating their logic of governance. However, we must be wary of the notion that the Qing simply copied the Ming’s strategies of maritime governance (Qing cheng Ming zhi). Even though the Qing may have learned frontier management from the Ming, in various respects, there are identifiable differences between the two regimes. For instance, the Qing claimed more maritime territory as inner sea than did the Ming. This expanded territory required a refined and deliberate territorial measurement and management strategy. Moreover, the Qing was more committed than the Ming to incorporating the offshore islands into its empire. Consequently, new policies were required to extend its reach toward those islands and the surrounding seawaters through new patrol routes and policing sectors. Last, but certainly not least, the economic and political climate of the eighteenth century was very different from that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Throughout the eighteenth century, the scale and volume of domestic and overseas shipping greatly expanded along China’s coast. The Qing government dealt with this by establishing the Customs Office to monitor and regulate the rapidly expanding maritime market in East

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Asia. If we concur with the argument that the Qing opened itself up to the ocean through its trade policy and attitude, we must acknowledge that the Customs Office was a critical means with which to facilitate and actualize such an opening up. However, assessing Qing maritime trade policy requires that we recognize the importance of maritime militarization and not simply focus on the Customs Office. It was the dragon navy that made the sea space sound for various kinds of sea trade. Indeed, the Qing’s “guarded management strategy” could hardly have been actualized without a strong and formidable naval force, and the peace and stability of the maritime frontier could hardly have been maintained. While the Qing was capable of setting up a navy across its inner sea space in the eighteenth century, the threat from the sea was arguably insignificant at that time – even the threat from pirates. The renowned pirate specialist Robert Antony once called 1520–1810 the golden age of Chinese piracy, dividing it into three great waves. The second wave covers 1644 to the early 1790s – the closest period to the time frame of the present study. Antony argued that, soon after Taiwan was subsumed into the empire, both the overseas and the domestic junk trade increased, thereby stimulating the growth of China’s coastal economy. Not surprisingly, this favorable development also furnished ample opportunities for small-scale parasitic maritime predation in the form of petty piracy. But, unlike in the mid-Ming or early Qing, the violence of petty piracy in the eighteenth century rarely crossed over into the level of professional piracy, and thus posed little threat to either government or commerce. During this period, piracy was indeed small-scale, but the reason for this must be acknowledged. By conventional thinking, eighteenthcentury piracy was not excessive due to the recovery of the coastal economy. As a result, pirates were less violent and easily managed during the high Qing. However, I have some reservations about this turn of mind. First, as I have shown in this book, several economic slumps occurred throughout the eighteenth century, such as rice shortages. Second, although the coastal economy expanded, this did not guarantee that the problem of piracy could be completely remedied. Instead, I believe that the structured and comprehensive management of the inner sea (by the navy and the Customs Offices) was key to the coast’s relative peacefulness (compared to the late Ming and the early Qing). In other words, the Qing relied not only on economic policies, including a set of collaborative measures with coastal businessmen,11 in maintaining peace 11

As argued by Paola Calanca, piracy in southern China diminished greatly in the eighteenth century in large measure because wealthy and powerful coastal families in Fujian decided to back the new Qing government and oppose piracy. See her “Piracy

212

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along its maritime frontier, but also on implementing its naval maneuvers. Although eighteenth-century piracy was not as threatening as it had been in previous eras, the significance of the Qing’s maritime militarization project cannot be underestimated as such. On the contrary, its naval project deserves considerable credit for limiting the piracy problems. The navy was responsible not only for patrolling the inner sea but also for conducting thorough investigations and evaluations of coastal conditions. Furthermore, maintaining a navy was not cheap. For instance, the Regulation of Warship Construction in Fujian (Qinding Fujian sheng waihai zhanchuan zeli) indicates that the typical warship required repair every three, five, and ten years, which were usually costly endeavors. Thus we can reason that the Qing financially sustained a navy for nearly a century in order to maintain itself as a maritime power that could suppress and overpower pirates and other potential dangers from the sea. Speaking of potential dangers, in addition to pirates, also worrisome to the Qing were domestic rebels who excelled in sea battle, and neighbors such as Japan. For instance, the Kangxi emperor had early warned his government: “the Russians to the north, the Portuguese from Luzon to the east, the Dutch to the south, [they] would be able to threaten China in numerous ways.”12 The Yongzheng government, likewise, had long kept an eye on the Chinese who had ventured and settled overseas; it also kept close watch on the Japanese. The Qianlong emperor was equally worried about potential invaders from the South China Sea and the Far West.13 Therefore we know that the high Qing emperors took a broader view of the importance of the empire’s maritime frontier, and not just in relation to the petty piracy and illegal smuggling that took place along the coast. Their policies of maritime militarization and customs institutionalization were not simply reactions to contingencies or unexpected circumstances but were deliberate, precautionary strategies that provided an effective response to the changing dynamics of the maritime region – from incursions by invaders to the growing sea trade – that aimed at longlasting and thorough coastal governance. Yet, as I emphasize in this study, the eighteenth century was not a period of absolute peace and

12 13

and Coastal Security in Southeastern China,” in Robert Antony (ed.), Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Violence and Clandestine Trade in the Greater China Seas (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp. 85–98. See “Customs Offices in the Kangxi Era” in Chapter 4. Matthew W. Mosca specifically argues that the Qing court between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries adapted institutional practices and geopolitical assumptions to co-ordinate a response across their maritime and inland borderlands in order to meet the growing British threat. See his From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transformation of Geopolitics in Qing China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), pp. 163–236.

Conclusion

213

prosperity. As such, the empire was actually facing various kinds of problems or challenges in terms of maintaining effective imperial control and central co-ordination over its maritime frontier from the Kangxi to the Qianlong eras. Beginning in the later phase of the eighteenth century, the Qing court failed to maintain itself as a sustainable sea power within a global setting. In fact, as I have demonstrated in the introduction and throughout the book, the decline of the Qing maritime force did not occur suddenly at the end of the eighteenth century: its weaknesses had built up over time, especially since the middle phase of the Qianlong era. Meanwhile, European states had significantly enhanced their maritime dominance by using advanced naval machinery and technology. Until the beginning of the First Opium War, the Qing navy remained focused on ridding itself of pirates and dealing with illegal trading activity. And although the navy continued to aim at guarding the empire from potential enemies, such as Japan and Russia, it was technically incapable of sailing off to the high seas, and the lack of a regular, professional training regime crippled its combat capacity. Unlike Peter the Great (1672–1725; r. 1682–1725), who designed a comprehensive naval structure for the Russian Empire within one short decade,14 even with the knowledge of Russia’s maritime policies the Qianlong government continued to overlook the urgency of providing specialized naval education and training marine surveyors. At that time, the Qing court was satisfied with its naval power. The Qianlong emperor and most of his officials believed that the “well-trained” seawater troops that came from the Green Standard army were competent and brave enough to defeat any enemy on the sea. Even though the Qing court did not lose sight of guarding the country from the external world, they obviously underestimated the level of potential danger from afar. Furthermore, the emperor did not see the need for naval strength to be increased expeditiously. Yet in the new era the Qing faced a level of domestic chaos and imperialistic encroachment that rendered such a moderate, if not conservative, policy prohibitive. In the transition from the Qianlong to the Jiaqing period, the Qing court was even more directly marred by significant economic crises, a torrent of natural disasters, and two destructive rebellions: the Miao Rebellion, which began in 1795, and the White Lotus Rebellion, which took place a year later. During this period of formidable turmoil, it took time for the Qing to reform its governing apparatus, from one that exhibited “an extraordinary combination of expansion and stability”15 14 15

Matley, “Defense Manufactures of St. Petersburg,” pp. 411–426. Crossley, The Manchus, p. 108.

214

Conclusion

to one aimed at resolving overpopulation, economic malaise, and two destructive rebellions. Unfortunately, Jiaqing’s policy reforms were unable to bear fruitful outcomes in any attempt to restore the empire. As a result, the so-called “glorious facade” erected by the Qianlong emperor could not be maintained at the turn of the eighteenth century. With the demise of the Qianlong emperor and his many decorated officials, the Qing navy descended into passive incompetence. The new Qing administration became significantly less proactive in safeguarding the inner sea space. Already strained by the expense associated with suppressing the prolonged domestic rebellion and without any apparent external threat, the Qing deemed it unnecessary to militarize the coast. Add to this its rigid political and strategic culture and the traditionbound scholar-officials who were tied to land forces as the foundation of state power.16 The government of the time even resorted to borrowing money from merchants and religious parties in order to support its military operations against the Miao and the White Lotus.17 As for the navy, nepotism, corruption, and funding shortages rendered it incapable of maintaining its combat capabilities. Over the course of the early nineteenth century, it became so decayed that it could not even effectively control the petty crime that took place along the coast. The Customs Office faced similar challenges that put it in perilous decline. Although the high Qing’s leadership had moved toward close engagement in domestic and foreign sea trade, the regime’s internal crises did not permit the Jiaqing and, later, the Daoguang governments to reform the customs structure. Unlike the preceding governments, which maintained ultimate autonomy in managing customs issues, the Daoguang court was eventually forced to refashion the established customs structure to meet the new stipulations of the Europeans, who were now imposing free trade at sea. In the years immediately following the First Opium War and the opening of five treaty ports, the British attempted to increase both their profits and their commercial advantage in the trading sphere by assuming control over China’s Customs Office, using it as its

16

17

It should be noted that these officials did not just pop up in the nineteenth century. There was always a land-focused interest group throughout the eighteenth century. Yet I do not attempt to highlight the rivalry between land-focused and maritime-focused officials here, as this could be another exciting research project. What I would try to argue is that the confrontation between these two groups of officials in the eighteenth century is not as acute as that in the nineteenth century, especially after the Second Opium War. It is very much because the strategic response to the threat of maritime invasion before the Opium War was different from the the strategy employed after the war. Da Qing lichao shilu (Renzong chao), juan 91, pp. 6b–7b.

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“imperial cornerstone in China.”18 By then, foreigners dominated the administration of the maritime Customs Office. This would have profoundly undermined the Qing inner–outer binary in administrating sea trade and maritime business. Yet, although the Qing was brought to its knees in the mid-nineteenth century, we must avoid the temptation to conflate the high Qing with this unfortunate outcome. Perhaps it is now time to acknowledge one of the most common omissions of the conventional studies on imperial sea powers: the maritime initiatives and concerns of the Qing court before nineteenth-century Western encroachment. The Qing’s maritime vision and its awareness of maritime territoriality, similar to Asian state building, is primarily, if not exclusively, seen as a “response to the West” and a derivative of foreign pressure. Theorists tend to consider the Qing Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and India’s Mughal Empire as agrarian, continental powers, with weak and elusive connections to maritime management and coastal governance. However, the easy exclusion of the Qing from consideration as a maritime empire is not tenable, as the evidence of this book demonstrates. Even though Western powers undoubtedly paid far more attention to maritime defense and offense than did the Qing in the early modern period, this book does not argue for equivalency. Rather, I hope to reveal that the Qing dynasty was more involved in maritime management than has been acknowledged. To be more specific, the triumph of the high Qing maritime policy was its effectiveness in acting – or at least appearing to act – independently and exclusively on its own behalf in maritime affairs. Its ability to manipulate its naval force and impose maritime customs served to assure the physical security of an empire with a 14,500-kilometer-long coastline. It also served to legitimize Qing order across its inner sea space in East Asia. The Qing Empire, which is considered to have been one of the largest land powers in Asia, did not lose sight of the strategic and logistical realities of governing its vast maritime landscape. Nor did the Qing Empire suddenly broaden its horizon after the First Opium War. Instead, it had gazed at the maritime world constantly and precautionarily. Although the Manchu were renowned for their land-based military campaigns, this does not mean that they were unable to exert their influence along its blue frontier that extended beyond continental China in the long eighteenth century.

18

Donna Burnero, Britain’s Imperial Cornerstone in China: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, 1854–1949 (London: Routledge, 2006).

Appendix 1 “Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Introduction This appendix consists of two tables, entitled (A.1) “‘Inner Sea’ and ‘Maritime Frontier’ in Imperial Documents” and (A.2) “‘Outer Sea’ in Imperial Documents.” The respective tables show how some keywords, namely neihai 內海, neiyang 內洋, haijiang 海疆, waihai 外海 and waiyang 外洋, were applied by scholar-officials, as well as by emperors themselves, from the Shunzhi to the Qianlong periods. I should emphasize that this appendix is by no means an exhaustive account of all imperial records of those keywords. In particular, for imperial documents that bear indistinguishable messages, I select only one or two examples among them. Nor have I included in the tables imperial documents written in Manchu. Limitations of space preclude their inclusion. Finally, I should say a word about the design of the tables. Both are in chronological order and the original texts (keywords underlined) had no punctuation, as it were. The “Remark” column contains either a highlight/summary of the text or my observations. Author’s Notes Dates are written in the following format: (initials of the reigning emperor) (year of reign): (month)/(date) Example: Kangxi year 6, October 14 康熙六年十月十四日 will be “KZ 6: 10/14” For the additional month in Chinese calendar (runyue 閏月), a plus sign (+) is added after the number of the year Example: Qianlong year 10, additional June 10 乾隆十年閏六月十日 will be “QL 10: 6+/10”

216

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

217

General Observations (1) From the following tables, we will get a glimpse of how emperors and scholar-officials applied these keywords in raising their concerns about the maritime frontier. Yet, as I highlighted specifically in Chapter 2, the inner–outer model may not always have been explicitly hierarchical. Having said that, the inner sea (neihai/neiyang) does not merely connote “domestic sea,” nor does outer sea (waihai/waiyang) connote “foreign, indifferent sea space.” This is related to perspectivism and political ideology. Please refer to Chapter 2 for details. (2) We must remember that in the demarcation between inner and outer sea space, some Qing official documents literally identify inner sea space as waihai or waiyang. Thus the word wai (“outer”) did not essentially connote a sense of externality or exteriority. Refer to Chapter 2, particularly the section “A Double-Layered Framework,” for details on this as well. (3) I have observed that the terms neihai/neiyang and waihai/waiyang were frequently applied in the Qianlong era (1736–1796). This makes it quite evident that a growing number of maritime issues (haiyang zhishi) were being raised during that time. Nonetheless, it does not necessarily mean that the Kangxi and the Yongzheng governments cared less about the maritime frontier than did the Qianlong. The representation may be different if we include other keywords, such as haiyang 海洋 (the ocean), haishi 海事 (maritime matters), haimao 海貿 (maritime trade), haigang 海港 (seaport), haijun 海軍 (the navy), haizei 海賊 (pirates), jinghai 靖海 (pacifying the ocean), and dinghai 定海 (stabilizing the ocean). After all, the purpose of this appendix is to demonstrate how the inner sea and the outer sea were being used literally in imperial texts. (4) As I have already pointed out in the book, I should also mention that other keywords (apart from neihai and waihai) and conduits (in coastal maps, for instance) also provide evidence for the inner–outer model. The model can be projected in an inexplicit way. The examples listed in the following tables, for instance, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

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“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.1 “Inner sea” and “maritime frontier” in imperial documents Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

SZ 11: 4/13

Man-Han piaoqianchu 滿漢票簽處

NA

SZ 12: 12/11

Li Qifeng 李棲鳳

廣東巡撫

SZ 16: 11/15

Tong Guoqi 佟國器

浙江巡撫

KX 51: 8/?

Libu 禮部

NA

KX 55: 3+/?

Bingbu 兵部

NA

Date

Original text

Remarks

總漕沈文奎為塘報事 奉旨內海寇劫掠情形 併傷亡官兵確察議奏 仍著嚴加防禦毋致再 有疏虞又刑部為首獲 叛逆公審已確事奉旨 吳鼎闞名世等著即就 彼處斬餘俱依議賀王 盛等著作速審明具奏 未獲叛黨黃表等勒令 嚴緝務獲毋致漏網 揭報今粵東情形東有 閩逆鄭成功厚集船隻 犯潮西有陳奇策等阻 海作祟全省船隻不足 分防內海各口亟須備 造戰船二百隻請敕部 議覆動項打造 揭為鄭成功負固海島 馬信等附逆偷生茲當 敗之餘自生悔悟我皇 上注念海疆恩威並用 既遣大兵征討復頒天 語重申恭即廣布海濱 遍行曉諭謹將奉到敕 諭日期題報 諭禮部朝鮮國王李焞 奏前往伊國境內海洋 捕魚船隻請再行嚴禁 現今內地海洋小寇雖 飭地方官嚴行查拏但 海面遼闊時或有之邇 來浙省海洋賊寇潛行 劫奪。官兵追捕遊擊 一員被傷身亡曩者附 近朝鮮海洋潛行捕魚 船隻曾經申飭盛京將 軍及沿海地方官員嚴 加巡察緝拏 但海洋緝賊較陸地倍 難嗣後無論內洋外洋 之賊該管官能獲一半 者免其處分其各省內 外洋名臣部無憑稽查

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

Reminding Beijing to solidify defense of seaports across the inner sea to guard against Zheng forces Stating that the emperor cared about the maritime frontier

Setting up policy concerning the domestic sea space of the Chosen state

Standardizing the policy toward pirates from the inner and outer seas

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

219

Table A.1 (cont.)

Date

Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

Original text 應令該督撫造冊諮部 以備查核倘有以內洋 失事捏稱外洋者守汛 官及該管官俱照例議 處從之 伏乞皇上特簡記名人 員補授台州府知府迅 發赴任庶於海疆要區 大有裨益

YZ 2: ?/?

Huang Shulin 黃叔琳

浙江巡撫

YZ 7: 6/30

NA

NA

揭報江浙同屬海疆請 准與閩省一體南洋貿 易

YZ 9: 1/24

Aersai 阿爾賽

福州將軍

揭為三江口新設戰船 與各營水師戰船請自 九年為始亦照閩省各 營水師戰船改定三年 小修五年大修十年拆 造之例舉行實於海疆 大有裨益

YZ 11: 7/9

Yang Yongbin 楊永斌

廣東巡撫

沿海要缺查開復留粵 題補知縣林寅于海疆 甚為熟悉以之補授洵 屬人地相宜

YZ 13: 4+/20

Lu Chao 盧焯

福建巡撫

奏為臣因閩省道府無 幾處處皆海疆重地道 府大員有整飭官方辦 理政務之責離任辦銅 歷有二三年之久一歲 兩運來而復去新舊疊

Remarks

Recruitment: petitioning the emperor to replace an official guarding the maritime frontier Stating that Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian were part of the maritime frontier; their sea trade policies should be in accordance with each other Maritime militarization: in order to consolidate the maritime frontier, it is essential to repair warships on a regular basis Official replacement: official replacement along the maritime frontier should be made to appoint a person who knows the sea well enough Stating that most areas in Fujian province were strategic corridors connecting to the maritime frontier

220

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.1 (cont.)

Date

Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

QL 5: 6+/15

Hubu 戶部

NA

QL 6: 12/?

Yang Chaozeng 楊超曾 Huang Youcai 黃有才

兩江總督

QL 8: 1/?

Libu 吏部

NA

QL 8: 2/?

Bingbu 兵部

NA

QL 8: 12/10

Gongbu 工部

NA

漳州總兵 官

Original text 署不無貽誤地方敬陳 管見伏乞睿鑒 咨實錄館查雍正二年 十月內兩淮鹽政噶爾 泰奏七月內海潮衝決 灶丁漂没奉旨淮商鹽 觔恐一時不能煎辦應 作何接濟民食該部議 奏將議覆原案抄錄送 館 請將崇明鎮中左右奇 四營並川沙吳淞二營 額設沙船內輪屆拆造 之年每營各改造爛鼻 頭船一隻隨發外洋其 原設小哨船九隻留資 內洋巡緝從之 咨內閣奉上諭臺灣惟 藉鹿耳為門戶稽查出 入今任遊匪潛行往來 殊非慎重海疆之意著 該督撫提鎮嚴飭所屬 文武官弁將各弊留心 清查並於汛口防範周 密不使稍有疏縱庶民 番不致缺食港路亦可 肅清 漳州府屬詔安縣西連 粵東南臨大海北抵平 和東接漳浦民俗強悍 奸宄易于潛藏巡防宜 周應添守備一員把總 一員兵八百八十三名 以重海疆事 本部議覆署廣督策楞 奏海疆戰船緊要請歸 就近道員監修

Remarks

Shipwreck in the inner sea

Vessles were dispatched to patrol both the outer (deeper) and inner (shallower) seas Security issue: the court should enhance its defense structure to solidify its control over the maritime frontier surrounding Taiwan Recruitment: the naval force stationed in Guangdong should be expanded in order to secure the maritime frontier Warship repair: stating that the warships guarding the maritime frontier were of utmost importance

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

221

Table A.1 (cont.) Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

QL 12: 2/6

Libu 吏部

NA

QL 12: 8/3

Chang An 常安

浙江巡撫

QL 23: 10/14

Lai Bao 來保

大學士總 管內務府 大臣兼管 兵部事務

QL 26: 6/16

Zheng Rui 徵瑞

軍機大臣

QL 31: 12/4

Fu Heng 傅恒

大學士兼 管吏部戶 部事務總 管內務府 大臣

QL 33: 2/?

Yin Jishan 尹繼善

大學士管 理兵部事 務

廣州係海疆省會重地 應否於將軍標議裁四 營內酌留一二營歸於 督提管轄等事

QL 35: 10/27

Gao Jin 高晉

兩江總督 兼署漕運 總督

為阜寧縣事主李朝科 行舟於鹽城縣內洋被 盜題參疏防文職鹽城

Date

Original text

Remarks

移會稽察房福建巡撫 [陳大受]奏閩省為海 疆重地在在需人與他 省情形不同請准敕部 於候補候選人員內揀 選知縣八員佐雜十員 引見候旨酌量差委題 補 題報杭州府海寧縣知 縣王緯親母何氏在署 病故例應丁憂所遺員 缺係繁疲難三項相兼 海疆要缺應于屬員內 揀選調補 題覆浙江鄞縣事主楊 文學舟在內洋被劫一 案應將二參限滿不獲 之專汛把總黃郡良兼 轄參將鄭謝天照例各 降一級調用 英咭唎國探水船一隻 到口詢據通事稱該貢 使因船身過大吃水三 丈余尺恐天津海口不 能收泊令該頭目先來 探量現探得天津內洋 水淺大船不能進口外 洋又無山島可以灣泊 題覆原任江蘇按察使 李永書奏請嗣後外洋 失事照現在內洋失事 例議處內洋失事照道 路村莊例議處予以實 降等語應將所奏之處 毋庸議

Stating that Fujian was a strategic province along the maritime frontier

Official replacement along the maritime frontier

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

The inner sea of Tianjin was too shallow for large vessels

Shipwreck: suggesting that shipwrecks found in the outer sea should be treated in the same way as those found in the inner sea Security issue: reporting Guangzhou as a strategic site of the maritime frontier Security issue: reporting piratical activities in the inner sea region

222

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.1 (cont.)

Date

Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

QL 35: 11/?

Gao Jin 高晉

兩江總督 兼署漕運 總督

QL 37: 6/10

Zhong Yin 鐘音

閩浙總督

QL 53: 3/?

Libu 吏部

NA

QL 51: 4/17

De Bao 德保

QL 53: 4/20

Min Eyuan 閔鶚元

禮部尚書 兼管樂部 太常寺鴻 臚寺事務 署都察院 左都御史 兼總管內 務府大臣 鑲黃旗漢 軍都統 江寧巡撫

QL 53: 5/10

Shu Lin 書麟

兩江總督

Original text 縣典史吳吉定武職鹽 城營外委千總田蕃等 巡防海洋各事宜一海 洋盜案例飭該管文武 員弁帶同事主會勘洋 面內洋易於勘定在外 洋失事疆界難定查勘 每多稽延 為內洋船戶被劫題參 疏防武職 移會稽察房奉上諭嗣 後著該省將軍與督撫 提督分年輪值一人前 渡臺灣實力稽查整頓 以期永靖海疆但遠渡 重洋究係涉險如該將 軍督撫提督內有年逾 七十者著免其前往以 示體卹 題報淡水同知潘凱因 相驗回程適遇生番滋 事冒昧往拏以致突被 戕殺吏部既照內洋內 河漂沒身故之例減等 給予廕贈臣部亦應照 例給半葬銀五十兩一 次致祭銀五兩 為浙江仁和縣事主陸 煥章於乾隆五十二年 十一月十九日船至南 匯縣五團內洋地方被 盜題參疏防文職南匯 縣知縣任兆炯等員 題參浙江仁和縣事主 陸煥章於乾隆伍拾貳 年壹月於南匯縣內洋 被盜案疏防限滿贓盜 無獲請查參疏防武職 代分巡係南匯營把總 鞠嘉謨等人

Remarks

It is easier to survey the inner sea than the outer sea

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region Administration: suggesting the sequence of dispatching generals to Taiwan to substantiate control over the maritime frontier Shipwreck: stating that the way of treating shipwrecks in the inner sea was the same as that in the river region

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

223

Table A.1 (cont.) Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

QL 53: 5/24

Sun Shiyi 孫士毅

兩廣總督

QL 53: 8/21

Shu Lin 書麟

兩江總督

QL 53: 9/10

Li Shiyao 李侍堯

閩浙總督

QL 53: 11/6

Yichebu 伊轍布

護理福建 巡撫印務

QL 53: 11/ 22

Kui Lun 魁綸

福州將軍 暫兼署閩 浙總督鹽 課

為浙江鎮海營拏獲盜 犯吳阿興供認在太平 縣鱟売內洋夥劫客船 燕窩等物

QL 54: 1/24

Fu Kangan 福康安

協辦大學 士閩浙總 督

為盜犯郭心等在太平 縣後壳內洋行劫不識 姓名商船事主錢文題 參疏防武職黃巖鎮標 右營把總趙以仁等又 失察

Date

Original text

Remarks

題報廣東新會縣船戶 馮紹倚渡船於乾隆五 十二年十一月二十一 日在新寧縣屬五里排 內洋被劫銀錢貨物一 案所有疏防文武職名 乞敕部議覆 為漳浦縣民許惠停舟 寶山縣內洋被盜題參 疏防武職吳淞營參將 德爾卿額川沙營把總 盛雲龍署外委王贊蘇 松鎮總兵魏轍等 題參臨海縣事主李成 發在該縣牛樁東首內 洋被劫一案疏防武職 係署黃巖鎮標左營把 總何啟高外委俞殿邦 等 為海澄縣船戶王有財 船隻在金門鳥嘴尾內 洋被盜行劫殺死水手 題參疏防文職前任金 門縣丞調補鳳山縣縣 丞歐陽懋德等四人

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region; the ship was hijacked and sailors were killed Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region; the pirate Wu Aqin confessed to hijacking the ship and the merchandise Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region; the officials in charge were being denounced because they failed to handle the accident properly

224

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.1 (cont.) Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials

QL 54: 2/6

Lang Gan 琅玕

浙江巡撫

QL 54: 8/16

Xingbu 刑部

NA

QL 54: 12/18

Shu Lin 書麟

兩江總督

QL 56: 5/8

Fu Song 福崧

浙江巡撫

為鄞縣商船戶范茂祥 在象山縣鎖門內洋被 盜一案疏防限滿贓盜 無獲題參疏防文職象 山縣知縣葉和侃等五 人

QL 56: 5/16

Jiaoluo Wulana 覺羅伍拉納

閩浙總督

為浙江鄞縣船戶范茂 祥在象山縣鎖門內洋 被盜一案疏防限滿贓 盜無獲題參疏防武職 昌石營把總王應元等 六人

QL 56: 7/10

A Gui 阿桂

大學士管 理兵部刑 部戶部三 庫兼掌翰 林院事領 侍衛內大

題覆閩省乾隆五十五 年分海澄縣船戶方應 金等船隻在金門烏沙 頭內洋被盜毆傷水手 等案緝拏命盜首犯未 獲各官照例議處

Date

Original text

Remarks

為閩省船戶侯朝寶在 平陽縣官山內洋被劫 疏防限滿贓盜無獲題 參疏防文職署平陽縣 知縣事杭州府經歷陳 世傑等四人 臺灣鎮總兵奎林等所 奏笨港汛守備李文彩 得受偷越船隻番銀依 例擬絞殊非整飭海疆 之道李文彩應遵旨改 為斬決 為江蘇省崇明縣民季 源茂行舟內洋被盜一 案盜犯首夥九人雖限 內經鄰縣拏獲五名溺 斃一名

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region

Stating what is the way to govern the maritime frontier (haijiang zhi dao)

Security issue: reporting piratical activities across the inner sea region; five pirates were captured and one was found drowned Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea region; five officials in Guangdong were criticized as they failed to break the case Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea region; six officials in Zhejiang were criticized as they failed to break the case Security issue: a sailor onboard was attacked by another sailor in the inner sea

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

225

Table A.1 (cont.)

Date

Name of offices/ officials

Position held by officials 臣兼管鑲 黃旗滿洲 都統 NA

Original text

Remarks

移會稽察房兩江總督 書麟等奏為朝鮮國難 民李光三等八人遭風 打至通州二甲內洋港 口循例給與口糧夫舡 伴送進京咨明禮部遣 回該國 為內洋停舟被劫題參 疏防武職

Shipwreck: victims from Korea were found in the inner sea

QL 57: 5/?

Libu 禮部

QL 57: 6/19

Shu Lin 書麟

兩江總督

QL 58: 12/10

Ji Qing 吉慶

浙江巡撫

為臨海縣通詳閩省船 戶林合興等三船在太 平縣鱟
內洋被劫題 參疏防文職前任太平 縣參革知縣孫潢等員

QL 59: 1/ 19

Jiaoluo Wulana 覺羅伍拉納

閩浙總督

QL 59: 7/21

Jiaoluo Wulana 覺羅伍拉納

閩浙總督

QL 60: 12/12

Ji Qing 吉慶

浙江巡撫

為馬巷廳商船戶曾興 良船隻在金門草嶼內 洋被盜劫去衣物題參 疏防武職署福建金門 鎮標右營右哨千總曾 國選等員 為浙江鎮海縣船戶朱 太和在臨海縣川礁內 洋被劫題參疏防武職 署黃巖鎮標中營千總 事把總單廷鎧等員 為黃巖縣民林沅機在 樂清縣七子礁內洋被 劫一案疏防限滿贓盜 無獲題參疏防文職前 任樂清縣知縣祝雯彬 等員

Security issue: a vessel was hijacked and the respective official was criticized Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea region; officials in Linhai county were criticized as they failed to break the case Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea

226

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.2 “Outer sea” in imperial documents Names of offices/ officials

Position held by official

SZ 13: 2/30

Xingbu 刑部

NA

SZ 16: 4/?

Mou Yunlong 牟雲龍

浙江巡按 監察御史

KX 13: 6/?

Yang Jie 楊捷

江南提督

KX 51

Ma Sanqi 馬三奇

鎮海將軍

YZ 6: 8/?

Emida 鄂彌達

杭州將軍

YZ 6: 10/?

Gongbu 工部

NA

Date

Original text

Remarks

題覆浙江違禁漁戶朱 雲朱盛等聯舸私出外 洋甚至謀買賊旗奸弊 滋生應以違禁貨賣下 海之律杖懲 揭為鄭逆猖狂竊踞盤 樂今梅勒鎮將諸臣同 時用命所有賊船俱遁 外洋遂收復盤石隨職 一面申飭道將收復樂 清又一面嚴飭寧紹台 杭等府沿海汛地防禦 突犯 咨為據定海鎮總兵官 報稱賊艘突迫象協各 汛似有窺犯情形又五 嶼門青門外洋俱皆瞭 見高篷船隻自南往北 戧使不定瞭不見旗幟 狗洞門外洋有舡六七 十隻停泊因隔遠難查 確數俟再瞭明另報 應嚴飭沿海管轄大吏 並文武各官於沿海口 隘及內地所屬稽查訪 緝則賊在外洋可以俘 獲賊歸內地可盡根株 矣應如所題從之 臣等遵上□日議設浙 江滿洲水師營查平湖 縣乍浦地方系江浙海 口要路通達外洋諸國

Prohibiting fishermen to enter the outer sea

福建浙江江南江西廣 東湖廣山東等省額設 內河外海戰船所關甚 钜承修之員每有逾限 不即修完及修完而未 能堅固者因議處定例 稍輕之故也

Security issue: beware of all kinds of piratical activities from the outer sea

Security issue: some suspicious vessels spotted in the outer sea

Security issue: setting up strategies to suppress pirates in the “outer sea”

Highlighting the strategic importance of a port city in Hangzhou, which is connected to overseas countries located in the outer sea Reporting the expensive costs of repairing both the inner water navy and outer sea navy

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

227

Table A.2 (cont.) Names of offices/ officials

Position held by official

YZ 7: 7/?

Neige 內閣

YZ 10: 9/15

Date

Original text

Remarks

NA

粵東三面距海各省商 民及外洋番賈攜資置 貨往來貿易者甚多而 海風飄發不常貨船或 有覆溺全賴營汛弁兵 極力搶救

Hao Yulin 郝玉麟

廣東總督 署福建總 督

QL 2: 2/6

Bu Xi 補熙

漕運總督

QL 4: 2/18

Yin Jishan 尹繼善

刑部尚書

QL 6: 6/23

Depei 德沛

閩浙總督

QL 7: 5/?

Pei Shi 裴鉽

浙江提督

為海澄縣舡戶張合利 舡隻在七星礁外洋被 劫獲賊麥阿鎮等一案 揭參疏防武職署理金 門鎮總兵官印務延平 協副將李之棟等員 為船戶黃可士等於雍 正十三年三月八日舟 至阜寧縣所轄外洋被 劫獲犯李五等一案題 參疏防武職廟灣營外 委千總顧之宗等 題覆張漢傑等二十一 人在通州外洋行劫沈 元明竹船審實周瞿士 等七人病故不議張漢 傑等五人免死減等發 遣脫逃盜犯張汝藤等 九人嚴緝務獲 揭為網舡戶陳道周在 大羊山野猪礁地方被 搶鹽米衣被等物一案 查此案盜犯同夥六人 已經全獲又據勘明被 劫處所係屬外洋所有 武職疏防之統轄署定 海鎮總兵官印務陞任 紹協副將宋愛等相應 題參 中國商民被風飄入外 洋該琉球國王加意照 看

Ordering the Guangdong authority to rescue foreign traders from the outer sea who experienced shipwreck Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the inner sea region; responsible officials were criticized as they failed to break the case

Asking the monarch of the Ryūkyū kingdom to look after Chinese businessmen who escaped shipwreck in the outer sea

228

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.2 (cont.) Names of offices/ officials

Position held by official

QL 7: 10/?

Lasutu 那蘇圖

QL 7: 12/?

Date

Original text

Remarks

閩浙總督

查海疆立法自宜嚴密 但內地外洋情形各別

Lasutu 那蘇圖

閩浙總督

(磐石) 該營止設小艇 二隻僅可內港巡查不 能外洋歷險

QL 8: 3/1

Qing Fu 慶復

雲南總督 署理兩廣 總督

QL 8: 3/27

De Pei 德沛

兩江總督

揭為臣標水師營參將 李德民病故員缺查有 右翼鎮標中營遊擊甘 國寶堪以陞署雖該員 現署陸路但內河不比 外洋該員生于海濱平 日留師水師請准其署 理 題報武弁內有水陸誤 用人員寧國營守備王 錫耀在於內外洋面逐 加試驗該備在船指揮 頗為熟諳誠為諳練舟 師堪任外海水師之員

The situation of the outer sea is different from that of the inland region Vessels from Pengshi can only patrol the inner harbor but not the outer sea Stating the differences between the inner river and the outer sea region

QL 11: 12/16

Yin Jishan 尹繼善

兩江總督

QL 13: 2/8

Keerjishan 喀爾吉善

閩浙總督

QL 15: 9/9

Keerjishan 喀爾吉善

閩浙總督

題參蘇松水師鎮標左 營遊擊俞躍瀚每年輪 巡外洋染患潮濕右腿 實難上馬且年逾五旬 精力漸衰醫治不痊已 成痼疾請旨將其勒令 休致 題報福建澎湖左營綏 字十四號雙篷船一隻 駕廠交修駛至東吉外 洋遭風衝礁擊碎照例 請銷造補溺水得生兵 丁請准賞卹 題報定海鎮標中營隨 巡外洋千總張掄元所 坐運字二十三號雙篷 舟古船又遊擊李大倫 所坐中營運字六號水 艍船右營遊巡外洋遊 擊鄭謝天所坐運字九 號水艍船遭風損壞需 用工料部價應請動支

Recruitment: General Wang Xiyao should be recruited because he excelled in commanding his navy in the outer sea General Yu Yuehan was infected with a maritime disease because he patrolled annually in the outer sea Shipwreck: a vessel experienced shipwreck in the outer sea

Reporting the cost of repairing the patrol vessels of the outer sea

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

229

Table A.2 (cont.) Names of offices/ officials

Position held by official

QL 15: 9/9

Shi Yizhi 史貽直

大學士兼 吏部尚書 兼理工部 事務

QL 22: 5/14

Keerjishan 喀爾吉善

閩浙總督

QL 22: 6/?

Xingbu 刑部

NA

QL 25: 8/5

Lai Bao 來保

大學士總 管內務府 大臣兼管 兵部事務

QL 30: 7/29

Su Chang 蘇昌

閩浙總督

QL 31: 2/19

Yang Xifu 楊錫紱

漕運總督

QL 33: 8/8

Liu Lun 劉綸

協辦大學 士吏部尚 書暫行兼 署戶部尚 書

Date

Original text

Remarks

題覆江南蘇松水師鎮 標各營改造兼巡內外 洋哨船四隻用過工料 仍屬浮多應令該督照 例核減造冊具題核銷 題報臺灣水師左營定 字四號趕繒船在料羅 外洋遭風擊碎例免賠 補准動錢糧造補並溺 水病故受傷獲生各兵 照例賞卹撈拾壞料飭 營估變另報充餉 移會稽察房廣督咨稱 粵民梁國富潛往浙省 充當番舡買辦現奉諭 旨押解來京交部治罪 業在監病故又奏請將 粵海關徵收外洋番船 現行各稅令浙海關悉 照徵收事 題覆廣州水師旗營官 兵在外洋操演水戰應 如廣州將軍福增格所 奏由將軍副都統等每 年輪派一人督率前往 並將赴洋操演日期照 例報部等事 題報試用武進士魏大 斌呈請改調水師經金 門鎮總兵官談秀帶出 外洋親加試驗于水性 船務均屬諳曉理合題 明准予改調水師 為鹽城縣事主孟汝鹽 埰捕漁船二隻在新洋 港外洋被劫題參疏防 武職外委千總陳朋等 員 題覆乾隆三十二年分 廣東番禺縣民人陸贊 等由外洋運米回粵糶 濟民食照例各給予九 品頂帶給予議敘執照 並監生蔡志貴照例給 予吏目職銜

Reporting the cost of repairing the patrol vessels of the outer sea Shipwreck: a war junk experienced shipwreck in the outer sea near the Liaolu region (Taiwan Strait) Taxing foreign vessels from the outer sea

Drilling exercise in the outer sea

Patrolling the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea Importing rice to Canton from the outer sea region

230

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

Table A.2 (cont.) Names of offices/ officials

Position held by official

QL 38: 7/21

Xingbu 刑部

NA

QL 42: 6/10

Zhong Yin 鐘音

閩浙總督

QL 52: 5/17

De Bao 德保

禮部尚書 兼總管內 務府大臣

QL 52: 11

Libu 吏部

NA

QL 53: 6/20

Sun Shiyi 孫士毅

兩廣總督

QL 54: 6/22

Ayanga 阿揚阿

暫署兵部 印務都察 院左都御 史

Date

Original text

Remarks

移會稽察房江蘇巡撫 薩載奏遍查江省各海 口出入貿易商舡內實 無許繡峯其人恐係奸 商在洋捏名影射再查 商船出入外洋稽查最 宜嚴密臣現在督飭遵 照部文實力辦理俾奸 商不致越境影射而蘇 商辦銅濟鑄更無從藉 口稽阻奉硃批該部知 道 為福安縣商人陳福利 等在浙江雇船回閩在 霞浦縣青嶼山外洋面 被劫題參疏防武職福 建閩安水師右營右哨 貳司把總王廷棟等三 人 題覆福建把總陳開桂 外委洪海等因公差遣 在外洋遭風淹斃應照 例給與該員等全葬銀 並致祭銀 移會稽察房吏部議覆 閩民黃崑山商舡在浙 江太平縣外洋被盜一 案該撫琅玕等不能預 為防範又未能飭所屬 上緊拿獲咎無可辭均 照例降級調用 題參所有因廣東合浦 縣船戶林洪興於乾隆 五十二年十二月八日 夜在南澫外洋被劫船 隻錢銀衣物一案疏防 限滿贓賊未獲而疏職 之文武職員 題覆福建海壇鎮標左 營永字十號趕繒船在 磁澳外洋遭風擊碎並 非管駕不慎照例免其 賠補應准動項造補再 溺水淹沒兵丁照例賞 銀

Reminding officials to carefully inspect vessels coming from the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Shipwreck: a Fujian vessel experienced shipwreck in the outer sea Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Shipwreck: a Fujian vessel experienced shipwreck in the outer sea

“Inner Sea” and “Outer Sea” in Imperial Documents

231

Table A.2 (cont.) Names of offices/ officials

Position held by official

QL 55: 8/?

Fu Song 福崧

QL 58: 9/13

Date

Original text

Remarks

江蘇巡撫

江南吳淞營外洋水師 參將員缺江省現在寔 無合例人員堪以陞補 請敕部在鄰省應陞人 員內揀員補放

Wulana 伍拉納

閩浙總督

QL 59: 1/19

Wulana 伍拉納

閩浙總督

QL 59: 1/19

Wulana 伍拉納

閩浙總督

QL 59: 2/17

Chang Lin 長麟

兩廣總督

為浙江太平縣詳船戶 莊新盛在吊幫外洋被 劫棉花等物題參疏防 武職署黃巖鎮標右營 把總事左營外委林茂 貴等員 為江南崇明縣蔡雲山 商船在浙江定海縣盡 山外洋被盜劫去豆餅 紅棗等物題參疏防武 職定海鎮標左營外委 胡大成等員 題參閩人林星繼子林 偶在浙江太平縣大陳 山外洋被匪擄去案疏 防限滿盜犯無獲疏防 武職專汛係署黃巖鎮 標中營把總事左營外 委張得魁等 題參浙江鄞縣船戶史 贊榮等貨船在廣東歸 善縣屬北口北首外洋 被劫貨物傷斃王士相 案疏防限滿贓賊未獲 所有疏防文職統轄係 圖畢赫等

Recruitment: petitioning the emperor to replace an official guarding the outer sea of the Jiangnan region Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Security issue: reporting a case of piracy in the outer sea

Appendix 2 A Chronicle of Sea Patrol Regulations in the Long Eighteenth Century

1689 1704

1708

1714

1716

1717

1718

232

It is promulgated that if the captain of the navy does not lead the patrol himself, he will be demoted. A special regulation is enforced in Guangdong: the chief commander of the navy is required to lead a major sea patrol (zongxun 總巡) every spring and autumn of the year; these second-rank naval officers (fujiang 副將, canjiang 參將, youji 遊擊) are to lead a regular patrol every month. A special regulation is enforced in Jiangnan: the chief commanders of the Susong and Langshan naval bases are required to lead a major annual sea patrol. They are also required to report to the governor general the dates of the patrol in advance. Likewise, the chief commanders of Dinghai, Huangyan, and Wenzhou are obliged to operate a major annual sea patrol. The patrol must start on the first day of February and be completed by late September. The sea space off the coast of Shengjing must be patrolled by naval officers of various ranks. The format of these major monthly sea patrols should follow those in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. A special regulation is enforced in Fujian: the five squadrons of the Fujian navy, the two of the Penghu navy, and the three of the Taiwan navy should share the responsibility of patrolling the Taiwan Strait on a monthly basis. The Shandong navy is divided into three sections, namely the southern, the northern, and the eastern branches, to operate both monthly and annual sea patrols. The format should follow that in Fujian. A special regulation is enforced in Guangdong: the seawater surrounding Nan’ao Island has become increasingly important. The chief commander stationed on the island should collaborate with naval officers in Qiongzhou in operating the sea patrol. In addition to the regular major sea patrols

A Chronicle of Sea Patrol Regulations

1730

1736

1747

1752

1760

1789

1800

233

conducted by the Fujian navy, two extra annual patrols near the Nan’ao region must be conducted. Sea patrols along the coast of Fujian and Zhejiang should be conducted every two months, subject to changing climatic conditions. If the weather does not permit the sea patrol to take place, then the commander in chief should report this to the governor general. The western part of the waiyang of Guangdong is divided into two branches: upper and lower. Both branches are required to share the responsibility of ensuring safety across the region. Doan Ke Thien 尹繼善, the governor general of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi (Liangjiang zongdu), proposed that more vessels should be deployed to patrol the sea. Specifically, the number should be doubled. The Qianlong emperor soon approved his proposal. It is promulgated that the Dengzhou navy is required to conduct a sea patrol across the Bohai Sea in May, June, July, and August of each year. The navy stationed in Haitan, Fujian, and the one in Jinmen, Fujian, should conduct a joint sea patrol in March and September of each year. The governor general of Fujian should finalize the exact date of the joint mission. A similar promulgation pertaining to a joint sea patrol was also enforced in Zhejiang and Guangdong. Huang Jintai 黃進泰, the Jiangnan tidu, compiled a report detailing the flaws in the existing regulations for sea patrols. The Qianlong emperor agreed to refine the system according to Huang’s suggestions. The Qianlong emperor decided to loosen some of the harsh regulations pertaining to the sea patrol. The emperor stated, “If the weather does not allow the commander to operate an annual or monthly sea patrol, then he should report to the governor general and reschedule the mission.” A complete set of regulations concerning the sea patrol, entitled Xunyang shuishi renyuan daixun chufen zeli 巡洋水師人 員代巡處分則例, was finalized and published.

Appendix 3 Glossary of Chinese Characters

bai hu suo 百戶所 bainian guochi 百年國恥 bajiang chuan 八槳船 baoshang jingdao 保商靖盜 baoshang zhidu 包商制度 baqi shuishi 八旗水師 Bo Zhifan 柏之蕃 Bohai 渤海 canjiang 參將 Chen Jin 陳進 Chen Lunjiong 陳倫炯 Chengshan 成山 changshe shuishi 常設水師 Chouhai tubian 籌海圖編 cun genben 存根本 Da Qing lüli 大清律例 Da Qing yitong zhi 大清一統志 Dagu haikou wei shenjing menhu, qing zhi zhanchuan yi bei haifang 大沽海口為神京門戶, 請置戰船以備海防 dao 道 Daoguang 道光 Daoyi jilüe 島夷紀略 Da Qing huidian 大清會典 Da Qing Shichao shengxun 大清十朝聖訓 Dengzhou shuishi 登州水師 di bijin waiyang, yicang jianfei 地逼近外洋, 易藏奸匪 difang zhufang 地方駐防 Dinghai 定海 dinghai 定海 dizai neihe, shiwu jianshao 地在內河, 事務簡少 Dong Xi Nan haiyi zhuguo zongtu 東西南海夷諸國總圖 Donghai 東海 234

Glossary of Chinese Characters

dongnan hubao 東南互保 dongnan yang 東南洋 Dongsansheng yanhai ge kouan, yi Jinzhou Lüshun wei youyao 東三省沿海各口岸, 以金州旅順為尤要 Dongxiyang kao 東西洋考 dongyang 東洋 Dou Bin 竇斌 Du Zhen 杜臻 dubiao shuishi 督標水師 Dushi fangyu jiyao 讀史方輿紀要 Fan Shichong 范時崇 Fang Junshi 方濬師 fenghou 烽候 fengzhou 封舟 fenjie 分界 fudutong 副都統 Fujian haiguan shuiwu, zhe jiangjun guanli 福建海關稅務, 著將軍管理 Fujian tongzhi 福建通志 Fuzhou 福州 gai haiyang zhi da 蓋海洋之大 Gao Jin 高晉 Gao Qipei 高其佩 Gao Qizhuo 高其卓 Gong Zizhen 龔自珍 Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 Gu Zuyu 顧祖禹 guahao 掛號 guanchuan 官船 Guangdong yanhai tu 廣東沿海圖 Guangyu tu 廣輿圖 Guochao xianzheng shilüe 國朝先正事略 hai 海 Haidao yizhi 海島逸志 Haifang shulüe 海防述略 Haifang tongzhi 海防通志 Haifang zonglun 海防總論 haiguo 海國 haijiang guanxi jinyao, bushi liuxin jicha 海疆關係緊要, 不時留心稽查 Haijiang yangjie xingshitu 海疆洋界形勢圖 haiguan 海關

235

236

Glossary of Chinese Characters

haijin 海禁 Hailu 海錄 hailu lianfang 海陸聯防 haishang 海商 haishang xin Qingshi 海上新清史 haishang maoyi youyi yu shengmin 海上貿易有益於生民 haitu 海圖 haiyang guangda 海洋廣大 haiyang huishao 海洋會哨 haiyang zhishi 海洋之事 haiyu 海語 haiyun 海運 han bianchui 捍邊陲 Hanghai shuqi 航海述奇 Heishuiyang 黑水洋 Heshang 河殤 houfu 侯服 houying 後營 hubu langzhong 户部郎中 huishao 會哨 Huang Qing zhigong tu 皇清職貢圖 Huang Shijian 黃仕簡 Huang Yuanxiang 黃元驤 huangfu 荒服 Huating 華庭 Jiang Yuanshu 蔣元樞 Jiang–Zhe fenjie 江浙分界 jianghai huishao 江海會哨 Jiangnan tidu 江南提督 jianyou yu Zhonguo xiangsi 間有與中國相似 Jiaoluo Bayande 覺羅巴廷德 Jiaoluo Manbao 覺羅滿保 Jiaoluo Langxu 覺羅琅玝 Jiaozhou shuishi 膠州水師 Jiaqing 嘉慶 jicha 稽查 Jijing 雞頸 jinghai 靖海 jingji 京畿 jingyu huojiao 精於火噭 jinhai 禁海 Jinzhou 錦州

Glossary of Chinese Characters

237

Jinzhou 金州 jiuzhou 九州 Juan Jian Penghu Xiyu futu tushuo 捐建澎湖西嶼浮圖圖說 kaiyang 開洋 Kangxi 康熙 Kong Yuxun 孔毓珣 Lan Dingyuan 藍鼎元 Lan Tingzhen 藍廷珍 Laowanshan 老萬山 Lao Zhibian 勞之辨 Lei Xing 雷興 Li Wei 李衛 Li Yuandu 李元度 Liangjiang zongdu 兩江總督 Liaodong 遼東 Lin Shuangwen 林爽文 Lin Zexu 林則徐 Liu Guoxuan 劉國軒 liubu 六部 Lu Kun 盧坤 Lüshun 旅順 lüying shuishi 綠營水師 Ma Huan 馬歡 mangmang dahai wu bianan, miaomiao tianya wu jintou 茫茫大海 無邊岸, 渺渺天涯無盡頭 Mao Wenquan 毛文銓 maoyi zhi shi 貿易之事 Menwen laodang 滿文老檔 minchuan 閩船 miting 米艇 Moergen 墨爾根 Mu Tianyan 慕天顏 Nan’ao 南澳 nanbei fangqu 南北防區 nangkuo sihai, bingtun bahuang 囊括四海, 併吞八荒 Nantai 南台 Nantai an zhi sansheng shidao tu 南台按治三省十道圖 nanyang 南洋 Nanyue zhi 南越志 Nayancheng 那彥成 neihai/neiyang 內海/內洋 neihe 內河

238

Glossary of Chinese Characters

neiting 內廷 neiwufu 內務府 neiyang shishi, wen wu bingcan, waiyang shishi, zhuanze guanbing, wenzhi mian qi canchu 內洋失事, 文武並參, 外洋失事, 專責官兵, 文職免其參處 Ni Yuanlu 倪元璐 Ningbo 寧波 Ninghaizhou 寧海州 paotai 炮台 Penglai 蓬萊 Pidao 皮島 potao fujing 波濤弗靜 qi gesheng neiwai yangming . . . ying ling gai dufu zaoce zibu, yibei chahe 其各省內外洋名 . . . 應令該督撫造冊諮部, 以備查核 Qi Ying 耆英 qian hu suo 千戶所 Qiankun fu yiqi, jin gu jin shuangwan 乾坤浮一氣, 今古浸雙丸 Qiankun yitong haifang quantu 乾坤一統海防全圖 Qianlong 乾隆 qianying 前營 Qinding Fujian sheng waihai zhanchuan zeli 欽定福建省外海戰船 則例 Qing cheng Ming zhi 清承明制 Qing kai haijin shu 請開海禁書 Qingchu haijiang tushuo 清初海疆圖說 Qinzhou 欽州 Qiqihaer 齊齊哈爾 Qisheng yanhai tu 七省沿海圖 queguan 榷關 ren haijiang zhe 任海疆者 renchuan anle, guoyang pingshan, shuang peng gaogua yong wu you 人船安樂, 過洋平善, 雙篷高掛永無憂 ru bantu 入版圖 shachun 沙船 Shandong Dengzhou zhenbiao shuishi qianying beixun haikou daoyu tu 山東登州鎮標水師前營北汛海口島嶼圖 Shandong haijiang tuji 山東海疆圖記 Shandong Zhili Shengjing haijiang tu 山東直隸盛京海疆圖 Shanhai guan 山海關 Shanhai Jing 山海經 Shao Yuanping 邵遠平 shenjing 神京

Glossary of Chinese Characters

239

shengshi 盛世 Shi Lang 施琅 Shibosi 市舶司 shisan hang 十三行 Shitai quantu 十臺全圖 shizhi tuzei 矢志圖賊 shubu zhi chengyuan zhi she, suo yi fang waihuan . . . sui zhongfei hexi 殊不知城垣之設, 所以防外患 . . . 如必當建城, 雖重費何惜 shuicheng 水城 shuishi 水師 shuishi tidu 水師提督 shuiwu 水務 shun feng xiangsong 順風相送 sihai 四海 Sihai zongtu 四海總圖 Sun Chengze 孫承澤 Sun Hui 孫蕙 Tianjin 天津 Tianqiao kou 天橋口 tianshui wuya 天水無涯 tianxia 天下 tianzao dishe zhi xian 天造地設之險 Tian Wenjing 田文鏡 tongshang yuguo 通商裕國 Tuohunbu 托渾布 wai daxiyang 外大西洋 waidao 外島 waihai/waiyang 外海/外洋 waiting 外庭 waiyang shangren 外洋商人 waiyang yudi 外洋輿地 waiyang ze zhi xunshao guanbing, neikou [neiyang] ze zhi zhouxian yousi 外洋責之巡哨官兵, 內口[內洋]責之州縣有司 waiyi bingchuan huoji neiyang, ju diaobing jishi quzhu 外夷兵船或 寄內洋, 俱調兵立時驅逐 Wang Dahai 王大海 Wang Dayuan 汪大淵 Wang Liu 王鎏 Wang Lun 王倫 Wang Qi 王圻 wanghai mousheng, shiju wuliu 望海謀生, 十居五六 wangqi 皇氣

240

Glossary of Chinese Characters

Wanli haifang tushuo 萬里海防圖說 wei haiwai qinshan ye 為海外欽善耶 Wei Yuan 魏源 weiru bantu 未入版圖 wen 文 wu 武 wufu 五服 wugui 烏鬼 Xia Lin 夏琳 Xiamen 廈門 xiangjin lüeyuan 詳近略遠 Xiangshan 香山 Xishan zaji 西山雜記 xiyang 西洋 xiyang guo 西洋國 xiaoxiyang 小西洋 Xiaoting Zalu 嘯亭雜錄 xiaoxiyang 小西洋 Xie Qinggao 謝清高 xiyu 西域 Xiyu 西嶼 Xiyu wenjian lu 西域聞見錄 Xu Baoguang 徐葆光 Xu wenxian tongkao 續文獻通考 Xue Chuanyuan 薛傳源 xuyan 序言 yamen 衙門 Yang Lin 楊琳 Yan Ruyi 嚴如熤 Yao Qisheng 姚啟聖 yanbian linhai wuli wei neiyang 沿邊臨海五里為內洋 yang 洋 yangchuan 洋船 Yangfang jiyao 洋防輯要 Yangtu 洋圖 Yangyuchi 養魚池 yanhai paotai, zuzi fangshou 沿海炮台, 足資防守 yidai yi lu 一帶一路 yiguo yigang 一國一港 yikou tongshag 一口通商 Yin Jishan 尹繼善 Yilibu 伊里布

Glossary of Chinese Characters

241

yiti junzhan 一體均霑 Yongle 永樂 Yongzheng 雍正 you Dinghai wei zhi hanwei, shi neihai zhi tangao ye 有定海為之捍衛, 是內海之堂奧也 you zhiren er houyou zhifa 有治人而後有治法 Yu di tu 輿地图 Yu Qi 于七 yuan jin zhi chu 遠近之處 Yugong 禹貢 Zhang Xie 張燮 Zhang Zhao 張照 Zhao Lian 昭槤 Zhe Tang jianbian tu 浙塘簡便圖 Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 Zheng Deyi 張德彝 Zheng Guanying 鄭觀應 Zheng He 鄭和 Zheng Zhilong 鄭芝龍 zhengshui 徵稅 zhi 止 zhidao le 知道了 Zhili 直隸 zhiwai faquan 治外法權 zhizhao 知照 Zhongshan chuanxin lu 中山傳信錄 zongbing 總兵

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Index

bajiang chuan, 125 balance of great Asian powers, 22 Batavia, 131–132, 195 Bohai, 25, 33, 35, 37, 46–47, 60, 91, 97, 99–100, 103–104, 114, 139, 144, 164, 167, 170, 191, 208–209, 70, 107 century of humiliation, 2 Chen Jin, 90 Chen Lunjiong, 182–183, 187–190, 198 Chinese century, 133 coastal fortresses, 25, 136 cohong, 55, 152, 163–164, 177 contact zone, 30, 32, 54, 187 continental empire, 3, 5, 27 cun genben, 62 Customs Office, 22, 26, 72, 133, 143–144, 148–150, 175–176, 178–179, 208, 211, 214 Da Qing yitong zhi, 56 Daoyi jilüe, 50 deep structure, 25, 32, 42 Dengzhou, 59, 101–105, 108 Dou Bin, 108 doubled-layered framework, 62 Du Zhen, 135 East Asian Monsoonal System, 39 East Asian Sea, 9, 23–25, 33–36, 39 Eastern Ocean, 49, 140, 153 eight major coastal trading routes, 144

Guangdong yanhai tu, 193 Guangzhou, 128–129, 131, 151–152, 163, 169, 179 guarded management, 20, 26, 143 hai, 23 Haidao yizhi, 193 Haifang shulüe, 99 Haifang zonglun, 100 Haiguo, 183 Haiguo tuzhi, 190 Haiguo wenjian lu, 188–191 haijiang, 9, 23, 204, 216 Haijiang yangjie xingshitu, 34 haijin, 76–77 Hailu, 195–197 haitu, 10, 35, 49, 188 haiyang huishao, 119 han bianchui, 62 He Qiutao, 33 Huang Yuanxiang, 102 huishao, 104, 117 imperial maps, 55–56 inner–outer framework, 62, 84, 86–87, 145, 180 inner sea, 17, 26, 46, 50, 57, 62–63, 69–70, 73, 78–79, 82, 84, 86, 89, 116–117, 137, 172, 175, 180, 207, 134 Jiang Chenying, 100 jianghai huishao, 117 Jiaoluo Bayande, 112 Jiaoluo Manbao, 135, 152, 207 Jiaozhou, 101–103 jinghai, 188

Fang Guancheng, 114 Fang Junshi, 64 fengzhou, 75 fenjie, 70, 98 Fujian, 112, 120–121

Ka’i hentai, 115

Gao Qipei, 207 Gu Yanwu, 183 Gu Zuyu, 183

Lan Dingyuan, 155, 160 Lan Tingzhen, 121, 160 land–sea protection, 133

291

292

Index

Lao Zhibian, 54 Lattimore, Owen, 29 Li Wei, 20, 135, 140 Li Yuandu, 54 Lin Shuangwen, 18 Lin Zexu, 183, 190 long eighteenth century, 18 Lu Kun, 128 Lüshun, 59–60, 109–110 Ma Huan, 188 Mahan, 11–12, 73–74 Mao Wenquan, 162, 207 mare clausum, 77 mare liberum, 77 maritime affairs (haiyang zhishi/shuiwu), 87, 97, 112, 144, 159, 173, 196, 204, 215 maritime consciousness, 10, 15–16, 184, 205–206 maritime defensive realism, 10 maritime frontier, 10–11, 14, 16, 18, 22, 25, 30, 46, 49–50, 67 maritime militarization, 5, 19–20, 23, 25, 52, 90, 95, 97, 124, 142, 191, 205– 206, 212 maritime power, 3, 5, 10, 14, 67, 137, 212 maritime writings, 182, 184, 187–189, 200–201 minchuan, 37 miting, 129 Mu Tianyan, 146 Nan’ao, 129–131, 153–154 nanyang, 48–49, 54, 89, 126, 140, 153–154, 184, 187, 197, 201, 204 naval education, 112, 213 naval management, 9, 28, 96, 122 naval patrols, 21, 57, 71 naval zone, 11 new Qing history from a maritime perspective (haishang xin Qingshi), 7 Ni Yuanlu, 146 one belt, one road, 9 outer sea, 17, 25, 46, 50–51, 60, 62, 74, 104, 180, 188, 210 Panyu, 48 paotai, 102, 133–135, 137 Penghu, 125 Penglai, 47 Pidao, 91 Prince Yinxiang, 112 Qing cheng Ming zhi, 210 Qingchu haijiang tushuo, 99

Qisheng yanhai tu, 36, 98 queguan, 72, 148, 157 ru bantu, 60 sea ban, 76, 146, 149, 151–153, 155, 161 sea power, 2, 11–12, 15, 73, 75, 89, 141, 183, 209 shachun, 37 Shandong haijiang tuji, 100 Shandong Zhili Shengjing haijiang tu, 91 Shi Lang, 93, 122, 189 Shi Wenbing, 108 shipwreck, 41, 71, 196 shisan hang, 132 shuicheng, 100 shun feng xiangsong, 38 sihai, 47 Sino-nanyang connection, 184, 201–202 Southeastern Ocean, 49 Taiwan, 8, 10, 18, 21, 51, 56, 72, 76, 80, 92, 121, 123, 136, 138, 146, 150, 164, 189–190, 205, 208, 211, 19 Taiwan bingbei shouchao, 51 third frontier, 27 Tian Wenjing, 63 tongshang yuguo, 147 Wang Dahai, 182, 193 Wang Lian, 115 Wanli haifang tushou, 35 Wei Yuan, 183, 190 wei-suo, 103 xiaoxiyang, 188, 192 Xie Qinggao, 195, 198 xiyang, 49–50, 188, 197 Xu Baoguang, 75 Yan Ruyi, 128 Yangchuan, 163 Yangtu, 65 Yanhai quantu, 193 Yao Qisheng, 93 yiguo yigang, 174 yikou tongshang, 172 yingxuntu, 66 yiti junzhan, 85 Yu Ming, 108 Zhang Xie, 14, 33, 52, 188, 189 Zheng Chenggong, 76, 93–95, 122 Zheng Deyi, 33 Zheng He, 10, 49–50, 73–74, 187, 200 Zheng Keshuang, 95, 122