Expanding Possibilities 375
and the southern ports by the Gulf of Siam, such as Songkla, Ligor and
Pattani.^85 The trade with China centering on Bangkok represented the
most important branch of Siam’s foreign trade. It expanded rapidly after
the Siamese expulsion of the Burmese forces of occupation in 1769.^86
Among the Chinese home ports trading to the Nanyang, Amoy is the
one which immediately strikes the eye. Wherever they went, the South
Fujianese merchants, embarking from their home port in Amoy, retained
their predominant position in the Nanyang trade for a lengthy period
of time.^87 Highlighting its leading role in the maritime trade in the early
eighteenth century, the contemporary Qing scholar Lan Dingyuan says
that the Fujianese looked on Ryukyu (Liuqiu), Luzon, Sulu, Batavia, Siam
and Annam “as if they were ... offspring playing around their knees”.^88
Some scattered information tells of about 21 junks departing from Amoy
on voyages to the Nanyang at this time. In 1733, another Qing document
gives the βigures of 28 to 30 ocean junks leaving to trade abroad with a
cargo worth 60 to 70 thousand foreign silver dollars each, or at times
with much more than 100 thousand foreign silver dollars on each ship.
Homeward bound, they brought back goods worth two to three million
foreign silver dollars.^89 The number of returning junks soon increased
to more than 50. In 1752 there were 65 junks sailing back from abroad.
The βigures two years later were even more impressive, with 70 leaving
and 68 returning.^90 A year later, 74 junks returned to Amoy from the
Nanyang.^91 Since smuggling activities were always present, these βigures
reβlect only the recorded trade shown in the ofβicial documents.
In the 1730s, the cargo carried by each ocean junk trading to the
Nanyang was often worth a hundred thousand taels and a proβit of 100
to 200 per cent could be expected. In 1786, as a contemporary author
recalled, Amoy was crowded with ocean junks. Another source recorded
that in 1796 more than one thousand ocean junks and merchant junks
originated from Amoy.^92
- Sarasin Viraphol, Tribute and Proϔit, p. 47.
- John Crawfurd, Journal of the Embassy, pp. 408‒9. Refer to Sarasin Viraphol,
Tribute and Proϔit, for a detailed account of the Siamese-Chinese trade. - Chen Kuo-tung, “Qingdai zhongye xiamen de haishang maoyi”, pp. 481, 504. For
the late seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, refer to Ng Chin-keong, Trade
and Society. - Cited in Akira Matsuura, Qingdai fanchuan dongya hang yun, p. 188.
- Cited in ibid., p. 7.
- Ibid., pp. 30‒1.
- Zhou Kai, Xiamen zhi, juan 5, p. 180.
- Ng Chin-keong, Trade and Society, pp. 56, 60‒1.