Expanding Possibilities 369
extensive trade into the interior. A European resident in Canton was
amazed by the considerable amount of foreign cotton re-exported in
their vessels.^62
From the information he gathered in 1831, John Phipps calculated that
a total of 846 junks put in at Macao and Jiangmen in the neighborhood
of Canton. Among them, 80 had arrived from Amoy and 150 from
Zhangzhou, both in southern Fujian. The vessels from Huizhou and
Chaozhou in Guangdong numbered 300. Another 300 junks were plying
between Jiangmen and the ports in Fujian. A total of 16 junks sailed to
Tianjin and the Liaodong (Guandong / Manchuria) coast from Canton.
The carrying capacity of junks undertaking short-distance voyages was
below 200 tons. The 16 junks in the long-distance trade to the northern
ports were large junks owned by Fujianese. They left Canton when the
semi-annual southeast monsoon began to blow and returned at the end
of the year. The commodities exported to the north were medicines,
dried fruits, sugar, piece-goods, glassware and embroidery. Returning
junks brought pears, apples, peaches, dates, raisins, βigs, vegetables, peas,
wines, cured mutton and venison. The smaller junks brought back silk,
alum, white lead, betel-nut, ceramics, oil and numerous miscellaneous
articles. The exports from Macao were composed of tin and pepper, plus
other Portuguese imports.^63
The Min-Yue merchants also frequented another coastal port,
Shanghai, that was on its way to becoming a major shipping center in
the late eighteenth century. The majority of the maritime merchants
in Shanghai originated from Fujian, Canton and Chaozhou which is a
good indication of the eagerness and responsiveness of these people
to chase new opportunities.^64 By the 1830s, Shanghai had established
itself as a prominent meeting place for merchant junks plying between
the north and south. One could see hundreds of ships anchoring at its
harbor. Every day there were some 30 to 40 Fujian junks arriving from
Taiwan, Guangdong, the Indian Archipelago, Cochin-china, Siam and
other places.^65 Rhoads Murphey refers to a contemporary source about
the Shanghai shipping as follows:
H.H. Lindsay made one of the few foreign efforts to guess at the
volume of Chinese trade on the eve of the treaty port system. His
report enumerates 400 junks, averaging between 100 and 400
tons, entering the port of Shanghai weekly during July of 1832.- Anon., “A Dissertation”, p. 32.
- John Phipps, Practical Treatise on the China and Eastern Trade, pp. 201‒2.
- Ng Chin-keong, “The South Fukienese Junk Trade at Amoy”, p. 312.
- John Phipps, Practical Treatise on the China and Eastern Trade, p. li.