tributary mission. All foreign communications had to be forwarded to
the appropriate authorities in Beijing.^6
Tribute, as opposed to trade items, was to consist only of the local
products of the country. Detailed instructions were issued on how
emissaries were to be received and conducted to and from the capital.
Trade accompanying tribute was strictly regulated. Goods could be
exchanged only in a specially organised market close to the govern-
ment Residence for Tributary Envoys, under official surveillance.
Members of the mission not proceeding to the capital were permitted
to trade locally, but not to purchase implements of war or, curiously,
books on history. Departing ships were forbidden to transport ship-
building materials, food over and above what was needed for the
voyage, or any Chinese passengers.
The elaborate ceremonial for the formal presentation of tribute
took place in the imposing surroundings of the Forbidden City in
Beijing. We can gain some idea of how impressive these ceremonies
were from the accounts of European envoys allowed to present tribute
in the seventeenth century (Portuguese, Dutch, and from the
Vatican). No such accounts record the impressions of Southeast Asian
envoys, but one has only to walk the way they must have taken into
the outer courtyards of the Forbidden City to imagine the scene they
encountered.
The foreign delegation would be assembled before dawn by atten-
tive Chinese officials, who conducted them to the Tiananmen (Gate
of Heavenly Peace). From there they approached the Forbidden City
proper, guarded by the soaring Wumen (Gate of the Meridian) with its
imperial yellow roof tiles. By the time the envoys passed through into
the first courtyard, over marble bridges, and through a side gate beside
the Taihemen (Gate of Supreme Harmony), they would see before
them the serried ranks of officials drawn up in the vast 200 metre
square courtyard before the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
There they waited, awed by the magnificence of silken banners
and embroidered robes, until the booming of a great bell and the
Enter the Europeans