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Zaitún's Five Centuries of Sino-foreign Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

D. Howard Smith
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Extract

The modern city of Ch'üan-Chou, in the Province of Fukien, China, and Situated Near to Amoy on the Formosa Strait, was from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries the chief port for the ocean-going trade between China and the West, particularly during the Sung (A.D. 960–1280) and the Yüan (A.D. 1280–1368) dynasties. An extensive and lucrative trade was carried on with Java, Sumatra, India, and the Persian Gulf. Through Arabic, Persian, and Syriac speaking intermediaries precious products of China found their way on to the European markets. In the thirteenth century the city of Zaitún, as it was known in the West, excited the admiration and wonder of the Polos, the early Franciscan missionaries, and Muslim travellers by the size and wealth of its commercial undertakings. With the fall of the Mongol (Yüan) dynasty about the middle of the fourteenth century the city fell on evil times from which it never fully recovered, for though some considerable trade was carried on during the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties, Ch'üan-chou as an international port declined, and its great rival, Canton, grew from the time that Portuguese traders were allowed to establish themselves at Macao.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 90 , Issue 3-4 , July 1958 , pp. 165 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1958

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References

page 165 note 1 Ju-kua, Chao, Chu FanChih transl. by Hirth, and Rookhill, (St. Petersburg, 1911), p. 17Google Scholar.

page 166 note 1 Ibid., p. 22.

page 167 note 1 An account of this early post-war discovery was given by ProfessorFoster, John in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, for 04, 1954Google Scholar; followed by an article in the Illustrated London News for 14th May,1955. Both articles are excellently illustrated.

page 167 note 2 Chuang Wei Chi's account is to be found in Chinese, in the K'ao Ku T'ung Hsün (), 1956, No. 3, pp. 43–48 (Peking).

page 168 note 1 Yule, Henry, Cathay and the Way Thither (London, 1915)Google Scholar. New edition, ed. by H. Cordier, vol. 1, p. 172.

page 168 note 2 Ricci, Aldo, The Travels of Marco Polo transl. into Engl. from the text of Benedetto, L. F. (London, 1931), p. 261Google Scholar.

page 168 note 3 Ibid., p. xiii.

page 168 note 4 Aldo Ricci, op. cit., pp. 263–4.

page 168 note 5 Ibid, p. viii.

page 169 note 1 Henry Yule, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 257.

page 169 note 2 Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 117–119.

page 169 note 3 Ibid., p. 25.

page 169 note 4 Ibid., p. 109.

page 170 note 1 Cary-Blwes, Columba, China and the Cross (London, 1957), p. 61Google Scholar.

page 170 note 2 From the letter of Andrew of Perugia, written in 1326. See Yule, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 72.

page 170 note 3 Yule, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 73.

page 170 note 4 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 183–4. The monastery visited by Odoric was probably the famous Buddhist Monastery, founded in the T'ang dynasty, and boasting two great seven-storied pagodas.

See also, Ecke, G. and Demiéville, P., The Twin Pagodas of Zaylon (Harvard, Univ. P.. 1935)Google Scholar.

page 171 note 1 Yule, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 229. A “fondaco” was a mercantile establishment and lodging-house in a foreign country.

page 172 note 1 A full account of this discovery is to be found in Chinese, in the Wen Wu Ts'an K'ao Tz'u Liao (), 1955, No. 5, p. 98 (Peking).

page 172 note 2 Chau Ju Kua, Chu Fan Chih () ed. by W. Rockhill, Tokio, 1914. Pt. 2, chapter Hai An, p. 16b.

page 172 note 3 Kao Ku T'ung Hsün (), 1956, No. 3 (Peking). Plates: pg. 12, No. 1.

page 172 note 4 The author is indebted to Prof. J. Robson of Manchester University for identifying and translating these Arabic inscriptions.

page 173 note 1 For references to this stele see Pelliot, , Articles in T'oung Pao 31 (1935), p. 314Google Scholar; 32 (1936), pp. 211–212, and Duyvendak, , T'oung Pao 34 (1939), p. 381.Google Scholar

See also the discussion of Cheng Ho's origin in Pelliot, , T'oung Pao 31 (1935), pp. 274–279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Pelliot entertained some doubt as to the reliability of the inscription on the stele, but Duyvendak believed that its testimony might be safely accepted.

page 174 note 1 Ecke and Demiéville, op. eit., pp. 90–92. Plate 69c shows a cow offering milk to a lingam: one of two panel reliefs with lingam representations, now in the outer wall of a small shrine to the N.E. of the K'ai Yüan temple. See p. 21.

page 175 note 1 Op. cit., pt. l, p. 21b.

page 176 note 1 Op. cit., pt. l, p. 24b.

page 176 note 2 For a translation of the inscription see Goodrich, Carrington, Art. Recent discoveries at Zayton, J. Am. Oriental Soc. 77, No. 3 (1957), p. 163Google Scholar.