370 Boundaries and Beyond
If this was broadly typically of the year as a whole, Shanghai was
already one of the leading ports of the world, with a volume of
shipping equal to or greater than London’s.^66Farther north lay the port of Tianjin. It became a commercial node for
the Min-Yue merchants no later than the early eighteenth century. In
1797, as a record shows, “a large portion of the levies received by the
Tianjin customs derives from the Min-Yue merchants, who arrive here
to trade. The two provinces dispatch several score or even around one
hundred junks each to trade to Tianjin.”^67 The Chaozhou group formed
the majority of the Guangdong merchants.^68 The third and fourth months
(April to June) of the year saw the arrival of the Min-Yue merchants in
Tianjin on board their junks loaded with sugar, ceramics, preserved
fruits and other items from the south, as well as spices and drugs, pepper,
shark’s βins and other produce from foreign countries. They made the
return voyage after the onset of autumn, carrying on board such northern
specialties as cotton and piece-goods. An increasing number of trading
junks were to arrive here in the following decades. Increasing numbers of
Min-Yue merchants decided to remain and settled in, founding hundreds
of business βirms. By the mid-nineteenth century, there were more than
βive thousand Guangdong merchants in Tianjin.^69
Scaling the Heights in the Nanyang Trade
The Nanyang Trade Prior to 1800
While the Min-Yue people became the most active maritime group in
China’s coastal trade, their trading junks were also making their presence
felt in the Nanyang. As early as the Qin-Han periods (221 ćĈ‒Ćĉ 220),
China had established contacts with this part of the maritime world.
During the Tang-Song era (618 ćĈ‒Ćĉ 1279), thousands of Muslim traders
from the Middle East congregated in such Chinese port cities as Canton,
- Rhoads Murphey, “The Treaty Ports and China’s Modernization”, in The Chinese
City between Two Worlds, ed. Mark Elvin and G. William Skinner (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 40. - Akira Matsuura, Qingdai fanchuan dongya hang yun, p. 102.
- Liu Zhenggang 刘正刚, Guangdong huiguan lun gao 广东会馆论稿 [A
Preliminary Study of the Guangdong Guild Halls] (Shanghai guji chubanshe,
2006), p. 6. - Pang Yujie 庞玉洁, Kaibu tongshang yu jindai Tianjin shangren 开埠通商与近代
天津商人 [Opening up for Trade and the Tianjin Merchants in Modern Times]
(Tianjin guji chubanshe, 2004), p. 43.
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