Information and Knowledge 195
introduced the world to China, neither their maps nor their writings and
contributions to scientiβic knowledge had a signiβicant impact on the
Chinese people and, by the eighteenth century, the initial enthusiasm
shown by the Ming-Qing Courts had largely died away.^9 One rare example
of a Chinese map that closely resembled the Western-style world map
can be found in Haiguo wenjian lu. It was prepared by Chen Lunjiong, a
Chinese who was not part of Court circles.
A change of attitude can be seen in the generation of scholars that
included Liang Tingnan (1796‒1861), who was assigned to begin the
compilation of the Yue haiguan zhi (Gazetteer of the Guangdong maritime
customs) in 1838, by which time the presence and impact of the West was
being palpably felt and there was a sense of an impending crisis. The work
was intended to explain the maritime world. Imperial Commissioner Lin
Zexu (1785‒1850) had consulted Liang Tingnan on matters relating to
coastal defenses against threats from the West. The two men had similar
ideas about maritime affairs.
Geographical Knowledge and Perceptions of
the Maritime World
The present discussion concerns two sectors of the maritime world
known to the Chinese: the Nanyang and the Da Xiyang (the Great Western
Ocean). The following is a general survey of the Court discussions as
recorded in the Qing shilu during the Qianlong era.
The Nanyang
An examination of the Qianlong reign in the Qing shilu reveals the Qing
obsession with traditional perception of maritime defenses (haifang).
Despite the cumulative knowledge available in late imperial times of
the maritime world since the arrival of the Europeans, the Qing limited
their attention to security within the Inner Ocean (neiyang) and coastal
regions. The case of Taiwan is most illustrative. Almost without exception,
discussions among Court ofβicials on the governance of the island stressed
during the late Qing under the intense impact of the West] (Beijing daxue
chubanshe, 2000), p. 5.- Sun Zhe 孙喆, Kang Yong Qian shiqi yutu huizhi yu jiangyu xingcheng ya njiu 康
雍乾时期舆图绘制与疆域形成研究 [A study of mapping and the boundaries
during the Kangxi, Yongzhen and Qianlong reigns] (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin
daxue, 2003), p. 269.