The Boundless Sea

by David Abulafia

  55. Yule and Cordier, transl. and eds., Travels of Marco Polo, vol. 2, p. 255; Delgado, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet, p. 111.

  56. Yule and Cordier, transl. and eds., Travels of Marco Polo, pp. 255–60.

  57. Clements, Brief History of Khubilai Khan, p. 163.

  58. Delgado, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet, pp. 126–53.

  59. Ibid., pp. 158–64 (Vietnam); pp. 164–7 (Java); Clements, Brief History of Khubilai Khan, pp. 192–206 (Vietnam), pp. 215–18 (Java); Yule and Cordier, transl. and eds., Travels of Marco Polo, vol. 2, pp. 272–5 (Java).

  60. Conlan, In Little Need of Divine Intervention, pp. 246–53, docs. 57–65.

  61. Souyri, World Turned Upside Down, p. 62.

  62. A. Kobata and M. Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations with Korea and South Sea Countries: an Annotated Translation of Documents in the Rekidai Hōan (Tokyo, 1969), p. 69.

  63. R. Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu: an Archaeological Study of Island Communities (Honolulu, 2013), p. 196, and frontispiece.

  64. Ibid., pp. 273–4, 290–91.

  65. David C. Kang, East Asia before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (New York, 2010), p. 72.

  66. G. Kerr, Okinawa: the History of an Island People (2nd edn, Boston and Tokyo, 2000), pp. 22–3, 39–42, 45–50, 52.

  67. Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu, pp. 202–4.

  68. Kerr, Okinawa, pp. 55–6.

  69. Ibid., pp. 62–71; Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, pp. 1–2; Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu, p. 198.

  70. Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, p. 26.

  71. Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu, pp. 207–11, 214–19.

  72. Cited by Gipouloux, Asian Mediterranean, p. 66, and in part by Souyri, World Turned Upside Down, p. 152.

  73. Cited by Gipouloux, Asian Mediterranean, p. 71; sapanwood: Wang, Official Relations, p. 97.

  74. Gipouloux, Asian Mediterranean, p. 70; Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu, pp. 205–7.

  75. Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu, pp. 224–5, table 8.2; also pp. 300–301, 315–18.

  76. Gipouloux, Asian Mediterranean, p. 68.

  77. G. Kerr, Ryukyu Kingdom and Province before 1945 (Pacific Science Board, Washington DC, 1953), p. 41 n. 36; Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, p. 53.

  78. Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, plate section, p. 2.

  79. Ibid., p. 19.

  80. Ibid., pp. 55–6; Kerr, Ryukyu, p. 46.

  81. Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, pp. 86–7.

  82. Ibid., pp. 93–6.

  83. Kerr, Okinawa, p. 92.

  84. Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, pp. 104–5, 107.

  85. Pearson, Ancient Ryukyu, pp. 309–14.

  86. Kerr, Okinawa, pp. 93–5, 120; Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, p. 24.

  87. Kerr, Ryukyu, pp. 45–7 (and n. 38a); Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, pp. 101–29 (Melaka), pp. 147–63 (Java), pp. 124–5 (licence of 1511); Souyri, World Turned Upside Down, p. 152.

  88. Armando Cortesão, transl. and ed., The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires (London, 1944), vol. 1, pp. 128–31; cf. Kobata and Matsuda, Ryukyuan Relations, pp. 126–9, citing the Commentaries of the Great Afonso d’Albuquerque.

  89. Souyri, World Turned Upside Down, pp. 148–51.

  12. The Dragon Goes to Sea

  1. A. Schottenhammer, Das Songzeitliche Quanzhou im Spannungsfeld zwischen Zentralregierung und maritimem Handel: unerwartete Konsequenzen des Zentralstaatlichen Zugriffs auf den Reichtum einer Küstenregion (Stuttgart, 2002), pp. 5, 51, 176–7; Y. Shiba, Commerce and Society in Sung China (Ann Arbor, 1970), pp. 90–91.

  2. B. Hayton, The South China Sea: the Struggle for Power in Asia (New Haven and London, 2014).

  3. M. Pollak, Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries: the Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire (2nd edn, Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 266–7.

  4. Jung-Pang Lo, China as a Sea Power, 1127–1368: a Preliminary Survey of the Maritime Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese People during the Southern Song and Yuan Periods, ed. B. Elleman (Singapore, 2012), pp. 197–201; A. Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 5, part 2: Sung China 960–1279 (Cambridge, 2015), p. 492.

  5. D. Heng, Sino-Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century (Athens, Ohio, 2009), pp. 133–4; Lo, China as a Sea Power, pp. 201–2.

  6. H. Clark, Community, Trade, and Networks: Southern Fujian Province from the Third to the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1991); W. Eichhorn, Chinese Civilization: an Introduction (London, 1969), pp. 262–7; Heng, Sino-Malay Trade, pp. 38–63; Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, pp. 437–525.

  7. Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, p. 487, table 14.

  8. Lo, China as a Sea Power, p. 204.

  9. Ibid., pp. 56–7.

  10. Heng, Sino-Malay Trade, pp. 40–44.

  11. Ibid., p. 125.

  12. Ibid., pp. 44–8, 59, 161–7; also Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, pp. 485–91.

  13. Lo, China as a Sea Power, pp. 67–70.

  14. Ibid., pp. 61–4.

  15. Heng, Sino-Malay Trade, pp. 54–6, 59–62; Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, pp. 509–18.

  16. Shiba, Commerce and Society, p. 46; Heng, Sino-Malay Trade, p. 58.

  17. Heng, Sino-Malay Trade, pp. 149–90.

  18. Lo, China as a Sea Power, p. 197.

  19. Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, pp. 493–501.

  20. J. Chaffee, ‘The Impact of the Song Imperial Clan on the Overseas Trade of Quanzhou’, in A. Schottenhammer, ed., The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 34–5; J. Kuwabara, ‘On P’u Shou-keng, a Man of the Western Regions, Who was Superintendent of the Trading Ships’ Office in Ch’üan-ch’ou towards the End of the Sung Dynasty’, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, vol. 2 (1928), pp. 1–79, and vol. 7 (1935), pp. 1–104.

  21. Jung-Pang Lo, ‘Maritime Commerce and Its Relation to the Sung Navy’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 12 (1969), p. 68; Lo, China as a Sea Power, pp. 121–85.

  22. Zhu Yu (1111–17), cited in J. Needham and C. Ronan, The Shorter Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, 1986), vol. 3 (largely devoted to navigation, and bringing together material from several parts of the complete work), pp. 28–9, and more extensively pp. 1–59; J. Needham, Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 243–4; also cited by A. Aczel, The Riddle of the Compass: the Invention That Changed the World (New York, 2001), p. 86; J. Huth, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way (Cambridge, Mass., 2013), p. 99.

  23. Needham and Ronan, Shorter Science and Civilization, vol. 3, pp. 2, 9, 56, 59.

  24. Lo, ‘Maritime Commerce’, p. 69; Schottenhammer, Songzeitliche Quanzhou, pp. 295–9; H. Clark, ‘Overseas Trade and Social Change in Quanzhou through the Song’, in Schottenhammer, ed., Emporium of the World, pp. 51–2.

  25. Schottenhammer, Songzeitliche Quanzhou, pp. 86–7.

  26. Clark, ‘Overseas Trade and Social Change’, p. 51; J. Guy, ‘Tamil Merchant Guilds and the Quanzhou Trade’, in Schottenhammer, ed., Emporium of the World, pp. 283–308; Schottenhammer, ‘China’s Emergence as a Maritime Power’, p. 444.

  27. J. Stargardt, ‘Behind the Shadows: Archaeological Data on Two-Way Sea-Trade between Quanzhou and Satingpra, South Thailand, 10th–14th century’, in Schottenhammer, ed., Emporium of the World, pp. 308–93.

  28. K. Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu, 1985), p. 207.

  29. R. Pearson, Li Min and Li Guo, ‘Port, City, and Hinterlands: Archaeological Perspectives on Quanzhou and Its Overseas Trade’, in Schottenhammer, ed., Emporium of the World, pp. 194–201; G. Kerr, Okinawa: the History of an Island People (2nd edn, Boston and Tokyo, 2000), pp. 62–71.

  30. Lo, ‘Maritime Commerce’, pp. 70–77; Shiba, Commerce and So
ciety, pp. 187–8.

  31. Hung Mai, cited in Shiba, Commerce and Society, pp. 192–3; Clark, ‘Overseas Trade and Social Change’, pp. 47–8; Champa: Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development, pp. 183, 187; J. Chaffee, The Muslim Merchants of Pre-Modern China: the History of a Maritime Asian Trade Diaspora, 750–1400 (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 59–60.

  32. Yang Fang, cited in Shiba, Commerce and Society, p. 203.

  33. Shiba, Commerce and Society, pp. 204–6.

  34. Ibid., pp. 182–3; Clark, ‘Overseas Trade and Social Change’, pp. 53–4.

  35. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), pp. 254–5, 270.

  36. Ho Chuimei, ‘The Ceramic Boom in Minnan during Song and Yuan Times’, in Schottenhammer, ed., Emporium of the World, pp. 237–81.

  37. Schottenhammer, Songzeitliche Quanzhou, pp. 197–215, 225–67; Shiba, Commerce and Society, pp. 6–10.

  38. Chaffee, ‘Impact of the Song Imperial Clan’, pp. 33–5.

  39. Schottenhammer, Songzeitliche Quanzhou, pp. 279–80 (diagram and photograph), 287–91; Needham and Ronan, Shorter Science and Civilization, vol. 3, pp. 87–9.

  40. Needham and Ronan, Shorter Science and Civilization, vol. 3, pp. 68–75.

  41. Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, transl. and eds., The Travels of Marco Polo: the Complete Yule–Cordier Edition (3 vols. bound as 2, New York, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 249–53; even more fanciful than the hungry whale is D. Selbourne, The City of Light (London, 1999), with its nonsensical claims that similarly grand ships owned by Spanish Jews regularly travelled back and forth from the Middle East to China in the thirteenth century; see D. Abulafia, ‘Oriente ed Occidente: considerazioni sul commercio di Ancona nel Medioevo – East and West: Observations on the Commerce of Ancona in the Middle Ages’, in Atti e Memorie della Società Dalmata di Storia Patria, vol. 26, M. P. Ghezzo, ed., Città e sistema adriatico alla fine del Medioevo. Bilancio degli studi e prospettive di ricerca (Venice, 1997), pp. 27–66.

  42. Yule and Cordier, transl. and eds., Travels of Marco Polo, vol. 2, pp. 234–6.

  43. Heng, Sino-Malay Trade, pp. 65–9.

  44. A. Schottenhammer, ‘The Role of Metals and the Impact of the Introduction of Huizi Paper Notes in Quanzhou on the Development of Maritime Trade in the Song Period’, in Schottenhammer, ed., Emporium of the World, pp. 125, 147, 149; Pearson, Min and Guo, ‘Port, City, and Hinterlands’, pp. 201–3.

  45. Schottenhammer, ‘Role of Metals’, p. 152.

  13. Light over the Western Ocean

  1. Wang Yi-T’ung, Official Relations between China and Japan 1368–1549 (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), pp. 22–4; Shih-Shan Henry Tsai, Perpetual Happiness: the Ming Emperor Yongle (Seattle, 2001), pp. 193–6.

  2. E. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405–1433 (New York, 2007), p. 25.

  3. Ibid., p. 220; cf. L. Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas: the Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405–33 (New York, 1994), p. 82; original text: Luo Maodeng, San Bao tai jian xi yang ji (Beijing, 1995) – I am grateful to Chang Na for supplying these details.

  4. Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 126.

  5. Ibid., pp. 99, 181; T. Brook, The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (Cambridge, Mass., 2010), pp. 93–4; Zheng Kan-zhu, Zheng He vs. Ge Lun-bu (Hong Kong, 2005), with thanks again to Chang Na; and J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol 1: Introductory Orientations (Cambridge, 1954); on Needham, there is an admiring but sensationalist biography by S. Winchester, Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (London, 2008; US edition: The Man Who Loved China, New York, 2008).

  6. G. Menzies, 1421: the Year China Discovered the World (London, 2004); G. Menzies, 1434: the Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance (London, 2008); J. Needham and C. Ronan, The Shorter Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, 1986), vol. 3, pp. 152–9.

  7. B. Olshin, The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps (Chicago, 2014).

  8. Wang Gungwu, ‘The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca, 1403–05’, in L. Suryadinata, Admiral Zheng He and Southeast Asia (Singapore, 2005); Tan Ta Sen, Cheng Ho and Malacca (Melaka and Singapore, 2005).

  9. Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 16.

  10. Tsai, Perpetual Happiness, pp. 178–86.

  11. Ibid., pp. 187–93.

  12. Ibid., p. 80.

  13. C. Clunas and J. Harrison-Hall, eds., Ming: 50 Years That Changed China (London, 2014).

  14. Tsai, Perpetual Happiness, p. 71; Hong-wu: Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 17–20.

  15. Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 182.

  16. Ibid., pp. 147, 157–9, 162–3 (okapi), 182 (giraffe), 192 (giraffe); T. Filesi, China and Africa in the Middle Ages (London, 1972), pp. 29–30, 80 n. 99, and plate 6 (giraffe).

  17. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, ‘The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores’ [1433], transl. J. V. G. Mills (Cambridge, 1970); Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan: the Overall Survey of the Star Raft, transl. J. V. G. Mills and R. Ptak (Wiesbaden, 1996).

  18. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 34, 36; Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 81–97, including Cambodia, Taiwan, Ryukyu, etc.

  19. O. W. Wolters, The Fall of Śrivijaya in Malay History (London, 1970), p. 155.

  20. Cited from the Qing dynasty official history of the Ming by Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 180.

  21. Wolters, Fall of Śrivijaya, p. 156.

  22. Tan Ta Sen, Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia (Singapore, 2009); Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 68–9.

  23. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 11–12; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, pp. 61–3.

  24. Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 50.

  25. Ibid., pp. 52, 148–9, and p. 191, doc. ii; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, pp. 89–92.

  26. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 18–19, 23.

  27. Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, p. 33: ‘27,000 government troops’; see the reconstruction of a ship’s hold in the charming Cheng Ho Museum in Melaka; cf. Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 105.

  28. Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, transl. and eds., The Travels of Marco Polo: the Complete Yule–Cordier Edition (3 vols. bound as 2, New York, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 249–53; Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 109.

  29. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 102–3, 113, 116.

  30. Ibid., pp. 116–21.

  31. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), p. 156; Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 112, table of dimensions.

  32. S. Church, ‘Zheng He: an Investigation into the Plausibility of 450-ft Treasure Ships’, Monumenta Serica, vol. 53 (2005), pp. 1–43.

  33. Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, pp. 96–100, with quotation from the Taizong Shilu on p. 100.

  34. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 137–40 (see p. 138 n. 9); Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, p. 67; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, pp. 100–101; on Ma Huan: J. L. L. Duyvendak, Ma Huan Re-Examined (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke akademie van wetenschappen te Amsterdam. Afdeeling letterkunde. Nieuwe reeks, deel XXXII, no. 2, Amsterdam, 1933); and Mills’s introduction to Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 34–66.

  35. Wolters, Fall of Śrivijaya, p. 74.

  36. Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, p. 53; Taizong Shilu, cited in Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 55; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, p. 102; also Wolters, Fall of Śrivijaya, pp. 73–4.

  37. Liujiagang inscription of 1431, in Dreyer, Zheng He, Appendix ii, p. 192; also Changle inscription of 1431, ibid., Appendix iii, pp. 195–6; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, p. 103.

  38. Yule and Cordier, transl. and eds., Travels of Marco Polo, vol. 1, pp. 423–30.

  39. Melaka: Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 55.

  40. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 62–5.

  41. Taizong Shilu ibid., pp. 67–8; Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 64–5.

  42. Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, p. 116.

  43. Ibid., pp. 116–17.

  44. Text in Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, p. 113.

  45. Dr
eyer, Zheng He, pp. 68–9, 71.

  46. Text translated by Chu Hung-lam and J. Geiss in Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, pp. 218–19 n. 108.

  47. Wolters, Fall of Śrivijaya, p. 157.

  48. Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 53–5.

  49. Tan, Cheng Ho and Malacca; Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 77, 79–81.

  50. Maldives and Laccadives: Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 146–51; Hormuz (Hu-lu-mo-ssu): ibid., pp. 165–72.

  51. Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 78.

  52. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, p. 168; also Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 70–72.

  53. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 84, 86.

  54. N. A. al-Shamrookh, The Commerce and Trade of the Rasulids in the Yemen, 630–858/1231–1454 (Kuwait, 1996); Dreyer, Zheng He, p. 87.

  55. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 154–9; also Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 98–9.

  56. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 88–90; text of inscription in Filesi, China and Africa, pp. 60–61; Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 101–2.

  57. Filesi, China and Africa, pp. 18–20.

  58. G. T. Scanlon, ‘Egypt and China: Trade and Imitation’, in D. S. Richards, ed., Islam and the Trade of Asia: a Colloquium (Oxford, 1970), pp. 81–96; also N. Chittick, ‘East African Trade with the Orient’, ibid., pp. 97–104.

  59. Filesi, China and Africa, p. 21.

  60. Ibid., pp. 42–5; also plates 8–10 and 14.

  61. Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 91–7.

  62. Ibid., p. 137.

  63. Ibid., p. 144; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, pp. 162, 169.

  64. Changle inscription of 1431, in Dreyer, Zheng He, Appendix iii, p. 197.

  65. Liujiagang inscription of 1431, ibid., Appendix ii, p. 192.

  66. Changle inscription of 1431, ibid., Appendix iii, p. 195; Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas, p. 170.

  67. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 159–65; Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 73–7; Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 152–8; Dreyer implausibly considers that the 1431 description of storms at sea reflects experiences in 1432!

  68. Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, pp. 173–8; cf. Fei Hsin, Hsing-Ch’a Sheng-Lan, pp. 104–5.

  69. Cited from Xuanzong Shilu by Dreyer, Zheng He, pp. 162–3.