No. 237 Maritime Archaeology in the People's Republic of China ...

to have many well established trading ports. For centuries
it enjoyed contact with the outside world. From early on its
seaports developed a booming trade which transformed the
region from a frontier to one of the principal trade centres
of the Chinese world. The port cities of the region came to
support large foreign communities. Visible today are the
remains of ancient mosques and tombs that testifying to the
large Arab population.
The emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Wan Shengzi, actively
urged the development of foreign trade through an open door
policy. He appointed Zhang Mu as the minister in duty to
deal with commerce of Fuzhou. The Fujian people regarded
Wan Shenzi’s foreign trade as the greatest of achievements
in his career and built a monument in memory of this. The
inscription reads:
...There are many rivers in the Fujian Province connecting to
the sea which are suitable for navigation. There are many sail
boat in seaport named Huanqi. The seaport is with a strange rock
and storming sea, making ship upside down usually and dangerous
to sailing. He offered a sacrifice to the gods...after that the
dangers were moved by thunder with the help of gods the next
morning...He encouraged and rewarded the foreign traders and
granted this area of sea the name as Gangtan seaport...(cited in
Wu Chunming, 1990a:3).
There are differing opinions on the location of the Gangtan
seaport in the Ming state period. Zheng Yidan has taken the
area between Mazhu Islands and Huanqi Peninsula near to
Dinghai as the original Gangtan of the Middle Ages (Zheng
Yidan, 1988, cited in Wu Chunming, 1990a:3).
Dinghai was considered the first line of defence and a
gateway to the city of Fuzhou. Dinghai kept the gate location
to the Fuzhou harbour in the northern port of Minjiang River.
The harbour was the first transfer station and docking location
of the port of the Minjiang River.
Some Chinese academics are of the opinion that the
Gangtan harbour built by the empire of the Ming state under
Wan Shengzhi during the Five Dynasties period (907–960 AD)
was located at Dinghai (Yu Wei Chao et al., 1992).
...Dinghai in the north and Meihua in the south, standing facing
each other, guarding against the invasion through the seaway,
had been the zone of defence of capital Fuzhou. The position
of Dinghai is still more important than that of Meihua, for the
later one is nearer to the inner port, and the former is [the] only
one which stretches out directly into the big sea. It is the most
important position of defence of capital, regarded as the location
of throat...(Anon, 1922 quoted in Wu Chunming, 1990a:4).
A religious stone tablet of the ancient Persian dynasty was
discovered in Dinghai, indicating the flourishing situation
of the overseas trade development during the Yuan Dynasty
(1271–1368 AD). Many of the cultural relics that come from
the sea-bed around Dinghai (brought to the surface through the
activities of shell dredgers) are also evidence of the quantity
of material derived from this commercial enterprise.
The hinterlands of the great seaports of the Fujian Province
were developed to meet the needs of the export trade. During
the peak of maritime trade the ceramic was the most important
product to be exported to Japan, South-East Asia, south of
Asia and west of Asia and to the east of Africa. The kiln sites
dating to the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties have been the
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subject of ongoing archaeological investigation in China in
recent years. The relationship between the Bai Jiao 1 wreck
site and the export of ceramic material from these Fujian kilns
is discussed in Section 2.
In 1368 Nanjing was made the capital for the Ming Dynasty.
Mongol invasion from the north and the raids and piracy by
Japanese merchants lead to increasing unrest in the southern
coastal regions. The situation continued in the Qing Dynasty.
A defensive policy was taken during this period through the
closing of the seaports and the prohibition of seagoing.
In the period of Hong Wu (1370’s)...people living in the coastal
areas were forbidden the sail out by themselves...(Zhuan Jinhui,
1989 quoted in Wu Chunming, 1990a:4).
The emperor also removed all the customs at Guanzhou,
Quanzhou and Mingzhou.
The region had a strong military presence and a number
of castles (eleven) were also built to resist the aggression by
pirates. Dinghai was one of the critical locations along the
Fujian coastline.
In Hongwu 21st of the Ming Dynasty (1388 AD) five command
departments of the army were set up along the Fujian coastline...
and twelve Qianhu troops (with 1000 family in each) were commanded
under these departments, they were Dajin, Dinghai,
Meihua (Ming Shi et al quoted in Yu Wei Chao et al., 1992).
The Dinghai castle was built in the Ming Dynasty and still
remains today. It continued to be a strategic military post in
the Ming and Qing dynasties, and maritime trading remained
important.
Also, the graveyard site of Japanese merchants dating to
the Ming Dynasty was discovered in Dinghai showing the
maritime transportation and the trading vessels to Fuzhou
docked first in Dinghai (Yu Wei Chao et al., 1992).
Chinese ocean-going boat building technology
A wide variety of vessel types are recorded to have traded
throughout the South China Sea from as early as the 1st century
AD. However, it appears widely accepted that the Chinese
empire did not possess large ocean going vessels before the
8th or 9th century (Manguin, 1984:199). As noted above it was
only after the Song Dynasty came to power that an ocean-going
navy was established and overseas trade encouraged. Before
this period the shippers along the prosperous trans-Asiatic
trade route that called at ports in southern China were from
other countries, many from South-East Asia. Between the
3rd and 8th century maritime trade flourished in South-East
Asia and it is from this period that Chinese historical sources
describe vessels of considerable size belonging to the ‘South
Seas’ people (Manguin, 1984:200).
Historical evidence and ethnographic records from South-
East Asia tend to recognise two clearly defined shipbuilding
traditions. One is that of the Chinese junk, as described since the
European arrived in the area (and well documented in Needham,
(1971); Worcester, (1959, 1971) and, Waters, (1938, 1939)).
Evidence of the junk is also found in the early 18th century
Japanese scrolls Tõsen No Zu and Gaikoku Sengu Zukan
which provides eleven iconographic examples of Chinese ships
(Figure 3), and ships’ tools (Oba, 1974:351–362). Five technical
parameters were selected by Manguin (1984:197) to describe
various shipbuilding traditions and included the general shape