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The Emergence of China as a Sea Power During the Late Sung and Early Yüan Periods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Jung-Pang Lo
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Extract

One of the topics of Chinese history that deserves greater attention is the nature and direction of the expansion of the Chinese people beyond the geographical confines of China. It is a subject which, for want of more information, is still so cloaked in generalities as to present the misleading impression that the Chinese have always been a landbound people oriented towards the land frontier of the north and northwest. A Western scholar, for example, has written: “China has never been a sea-power because nothing has ever induced her people to be otherwise than landmen, and landmen dependent on agriculture with the same habit and ways of thinking drilled into them through forty centuries.” In a recent work we find this statement: “Essentially a land people, the Chinese cannot be considered as having possessed seapower…. The attention of the Chinese through the centuries has been turned inward towards Central Asia rather than outward, and their knowledge of the seas which washed their coast was extremely small.”

Type
Special Number on Chinese History and Society
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , August 1955 , pp. 489 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1955

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References

1 Fairgrieve, James, Geography and World Power (London, 1921), 242.Google Scholar

2 Elridge, F. B., The Background of Eastern Sea Power (Melbourne, 1948), 47.Google Scholar

3 The Northern Sung navy consisted of eighty-six river units and four coast guard squadrons, which made use of eight shipyards, three naval supply depots, and one coast guard training center, all attached to provincial forces (hsiang-chün). See Sung shih (Chekiang Printing Office, 1875), 189:7–12.Google Scholar

4 Sung shih, 173:20Google Scholar. Also see Chao-ting, Chi, Key Economic Areas in Chinese History (London, 1936), 113–148.Google Scholar

5 The Mongol plan was to occupy Ross Island and Quelpart Island, off the southern coast of Korea, from which they intended to send ships to harass the littoral of Southeastern China. See Yüan shib (Kiangsu Printing Office, 1884), 6:11, 167:9.Google Scholar

6 Contrast the statement in Sung-chi san-ch'ao cheng-yao (Political abstracts of the three reigns at the end of the Sung) (early Yüan), (Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng ed.), 5:59: “Chang Shih-chieh, an infantry officer, was placed in command of the navy and Liu Shih-yung, a naval officer, in command of the infantry. The misuse of trained men resulted in misfortune to the nation.”

7 Sung shih, 167:2Google Scholar. Also Sung hui-yao kao (Peiping National Library photolithographic reproduction, 1936)Google Scholar, section on military affairs (ping), 29:33, and section on government (chih-kuan), 40:4.

8 Sung shih, 186:8–9Google Scholar; and Wu Ch'ien, Hsü-kuo kung tsou-i (Memorials of the Duke of Hsü) (Shih-wan-chüan-lou ts'ung-shu), 3:5.

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18 The ships in Cheng Ho's fleet averaged 2000 liao , according to Kuan Chingch'eng , “Cheng Ho hsia hsi-yang ti ch'uan” (The ships in Cheng Ho's voyage to the Western Ocean), Tung-fang tsa-chih , 43.1 (01 1947), 48Google Scholar. Since a liao, according to my estimates, equaled about 500 pounds this would mean a burden of about 500 tons. The dimensions for the large ships mentioned in many Ming works, a length of 444 feet with a beam of 180, are excessive when compared with the known tonnage of vessels of the period.

19 Ngo Si-liên , Dai-viêt su-ky toàn-tho' (Complete historical works' of Great Viet), quoted in Tatsurō, Yamamoto, Annan-shi kenkyū (Researches in Annamese History) (Tokyo, 1950), 275Google Scholar. Also see Maspero, Georges, “Le royaume de Champa,” TP. 14 (1913), 158f.Google Scholar

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21 The creation of the Southern Sung navy is said to have stemmed from sea-borne commerce, both legitimate and illicit, the overseas campaigns of the Yüan period from the ambition of Qubilai Qan, and the naval expeditions of early Ming from the efforts of Cheng Ho or a group of court attendants to please the emperor by bringing back rare objects from abroad. In the opinion of this writer, the causes were more profound and fundamental and included economic and social forces, the will of the people and the character of the governments, knowledge of nautical techniques and a naval tradition.

Similarly, although a detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, the writer believes that it is necessary to look beneath the superficial symptoms to find the basic causes for the abrupt termination of maritime development about the middle of the Ming period and the naval weakness of China in subsequent centuries. It is my belief that the underlying causes for the withdrawal of China from the sea were the combination and interaction of two factors, one physical and the other psychological.

The physical factor was the re-orientation of the nation to the north and west. The population grew, but instead of the rush to the southeastern coastal provinces and resulting congestion which characterized the Sung, Yüan and early Ming periods, the movement was more leisurely and the distribution mote even. Colonists followed the old routes through the Kansu Corridor into Turkestan or marched southwestward into Kweichow, Kwangsi and Yunnan. The revival of Mongol power turned the strategic attention of the Ming government to the northwest while it attempted to close the seaports as a defensive measure against the wako from Japan and the adventurers from Europe. The Manchu court also turned its back on the sea while it sought to extend the boundaries of the Ch'ing empire towards the west and southwest.

As the attention of the state was directed again towards the northwestern frontier and the population drifted into the interior provinces, so the mind of the people turned inward and became preoccupied with non-maritime interests. The writings of the Neo-Confucian school of Sung philosophers began to hold sway over the minds of thinking men resulting, as Yen Yüan, Ku Yen-wu and other Ch'ing scholars have charged, in the stifling of the initiative of the Chinese people. A belief in the political centrality, cultural superiority and economic self-sufficiency of China ran counter to the desire for intercourse with foreign nations and the acceptance of ideas and goods from abroad. The emphasis on agriculture served to eclipse commerce and industry, the overweening concern for classical studies made men lose interest in technology, and the exaltation of the literati led them to scorn military pursuits. Officials of this turn of mind deliberately destroyed the charts used in Cheng Ho's voyages to forestall further naval expeditions. They so discouraged shipbuilding that in a book published in 1553, barely a hundred and twenty years after Cheng's last voyage, came the admission that the art of building “treasure ships” was lost. Those for whom the call of the sea remained strong were faced with government bans on emigration and on participation by private individuals in foreign trade.

22 Lao Kan , “Liang Han hu-chi yü ti-li chih kuan-hsi” (The censi of the two Han dynasties and their relation to geography), Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 5.2 (1935), 179–214Google Scholar; also Bielenstein, Hans, “The census of China during the period 2–742 A.D.,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastem Antiquities, 19 (1947), 135f.Google Scholar

23 Yao Pao-yu , “Chung-kuo li-shih-shang ch'i-hou pien-ch'ien chih ling-i yen-chiu” (Another study of the climatic changes in Chinese history), Shih-hsüeh chüan-k'an (Canton: Sun Yat-sen University), 1.1 (12 1935), 111–146Google Scholar. Also Co-ching, Chu [Chu K'o-ch'ing], “The aridity of North China,” Pacific Affairs, 8.2 (07 1935), 207–217.Google Scholar

Between the opinion of Sir Aurel Stein that Central Asia has always been dry and the hypothesis of climatic pulsation advocated by Ellsworth Huntingdon, there is a wide range of views as to the cause or causes of the decline of China's Northwest, and the theory of progressive desiccation still finds support from a majority of geographers. Some are of the opinion that increasing aridity was a result of the withdrawal of glaciation (Kropotkin, Prince, “The aridity of Eur-Asia,” Geographical Journal, 23.6 [06 1904], 722–734)Google Scholar; others adhere to the view that the structural weakness of the loess makes it susceptible to erosion and that the top soil was carried off by winds or washed away by rains (Tieh, T. Min, “Soil erosion in China,” Geographical Review, 31.4 [10 1941], 571–590)Google Scholar. Deforestation is also held responsible for causing erosion (Englaender, A. L., “The origin and growth of deserts and the encroachment of deserts on North China,” JRAS-NCB, 59 [1928], 146–168).Google Scholar

24 Ch'üan Han-sheng , T'ang Sung ti-kuo yü yün-ho (The T'ang and Sung empires and the canals) (Nanking, 1947), 3–5.Google Scholar

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28 The reasons for the periodical eruption of the nomads is still a moot question among scholars. Huntingdon noted that the dry periods around the years 300, 650, and 1200 coincided with three outbursts of nomadic activity, (Civilization and Climate [New Haven, 1924, 3rd ed.], 319Google Scholar), and that beginning in 1000, the climate of Central Asia became progressively drier until a climax was reached in 1200 (Huntingdon, 3900. at the time of the Mongol invasions. Arnold Toynbee also subscribes to the theory that times of troubles during dry spells set nomadic migrations in motion, and he worked these out in cycles of six hundred years. He states, for instance, that the periods 375–675 and 975–1275 were dry. (“The causes of the occasional outbursts of the nomads out of their own domain on the steppes into the adjoining domains of the sedentary societies around them,” Annex II to III.A of A Study of History [London, 1934] 3:395–452Google Scholar; also see following “Note by Mr. G. F. Hudson,” 453–454Google Scholar). Raymond Wheeler, a geographer, believes there have been periods of recurring cycles of cold and aridity every five hundred and ten years, and that the middle of the fifth and the middle of the tenth centuries were cold and dry. (“The effect of climate on human behavior and history,” Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, 46 [1943], 38Google Scholar). For a discussion of this subject, see Huntingdon, Ellsworth, Mainsprings of Civilization (New York, 1945), 562–572.Google Scholar

Such climatic explanations have not been wholly accepted. The coincidence of aridity with nomadic eruptions fits better into the patterns of European history than into those of oriental history. The period from 300 to 600 was dry in China, according to the researches of Chu Co-ching, (“Climatic pulsations during historical time in China,” Geographical Review, 16.2 [04 1926], 276, table 5Google Scholar), but according to Yao Shan-yu (“Chronological and seasonal distribution of floods and droughts in Chinese history, 206 B.C.—1911 A.D.,” HJAS 6.3–4 [02 1942], 291Google Scholar, table 10), it was alternately wet, dry and wet. Both Chu and Yao agreed that the period from 1000 to 1300 was wet. If the findings of Huntingdon, Chu and Yao are accepted, one may question whether the moist climate in China and the aridity in Central Asia during the period from 1000 to 1300 had the effect of. accentuating the nomadic movements. Owen Lattimore, for one, believes that climate, although influential, was not the sole agent and that it was primarily social forces which caused the nomads to unite and become aggressive or to disperse and become weak. (“The geographical factor in Mongol history,” Geographical Journal, 91.1 [01 1938], 1–16).Google Scholar

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30 One survey gave 31.9 per cent and another 34.3 per cent. See Katō Shigeru, “Sōdai no shukaku-ko tōkei” (Statistics of the settled and transient households during the Sung period), Shigaku 12.3 (08 1933), 384, 387.Google Scholar

31 I-t'ang, Hsü, “Chung-kuo nan-pei chih jen-k'ou sheng-chiang” (Population fluctuations in North and South China), Bulletin of Chinese Studies, 7 (1947), 27–58.Google Scholar

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37 The revenue from maritime trade during the reign of Emperor Kao-tsung came to two million strings of cash. See Li Hsin-chuan , Chien-yen i-lai ch'ao-yeh tsa-chi (Random notes in court and in private life since the era of Chien-yen [1127–1130]; (1202) (Kuo-hsüeh chi-pen ts'ung-shu ed., 1937Google Scholar), pt. 1, 15:211; Wang Ying-lin , Yū hai (1270) (1883 ed.), 186:11; and Pai Shou-i , “Sung-shih I-ssu-lan chiao-t'u ti hsiang-liao mao-i” (The trade in spices by the followers of Islam during the Sung period), Yü-kung, 7.4 (04 16, 1937), 67Google Scholar. But during the first years of Kao-tsung's reign, the cash revenue of the state came to less than ten million strings (Li Hsin-chuan, 14:187, Yū hai, 186:11Google Scholar, and Hsü wen-hsien t'ung-k'ao, 30:3075Google Scholar, col. 2), which made the revenue from foreign trade twenty per cent of the total. A few decades later, when the cash revenue of the state rose to forty million strings, the returns from maritime commerce, two million strings, came to only five per cent.

38 Sung hui-yao kao, section on government, 44:20 and 44:24.Google Scholar

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40 Kuwabara Jitsuzō Sōmatsu no teikyo shihaku saiikijin Hō Ju-kō no jiseki , (Concerning the man of the western regions, P'u Shou-keng, who was Superintendent of Trading Ships during the end of the Sung) (Tokyo, 1923), passim.

41 Chu Yü , P'ing-chou k'o-t'an (1119) (Shou-shan-ko ts'ung-shu ed.), 2:1. Also the account of Ibn Batuta in Yule, Henry and Cordier, Henri, The Book of Ser Marco Polo (London, 1903, 3rd ed.), 2:250.Google Scholar

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