Expanding Possibilities 377
Alongside the outgoing trade, an increasing number of the Chaozhou
people had decided to stay on in Siam. The Jiaqing edition of the Daqing
yitong zhi (The unitary gazetteer of the Great Qing) in the early nineteenth
century describes the trend as follows:
To supplement the grain supply, the Chenghai [Chaozhou]
merchants were licensed by the local authorities to ship rice back
from Siam. This measure has been implemented for more than 40
years. However, it is said that only 50 to 60 per cent of those going
to Siam have returned with their rice junks.^97This is an indication of a trend of more maritime merchants moving their
bases of operation overseas.
The Nanyang Trade, 1800 to 1843
By around 1820, there were still seven junks heading to Java from
Amoy and Changlim. From Amoy there were three junks of 1,000 to
1,200 tons each and another four from Changlim of about 500 tons.
Their total tonnage was 5,300 tons. Six of these junks sailed to Batavia
and one to Semarang. The Chinese junks also visited other ports of the
Archipelago that were under Dutch control. Two from Amoy of 800 tons
and one from Changlim of 500 tons traded to Lingen in eastern Sumatra.
Three junks of 500 tons sailed to Borneo Proper (Brunei, at that time
including Sarawak), two Changlim junks of 500 tons to Sambas, three
junks of the same size to Pontianak, two junks of 500 tons to Mempawah,
and one of about 600 tons to Banjamasin, amounting in all to about 5,600
tons.^98
Another Chinese text printed in 1820 mentions a large Chinese
population in Kelantan and a few hundred more arriving every year.
Some ten thousand Chinese resided in Penang. The majority of the
Fujianese in Kelantan were engaged in pepper planting or trade, while
those from Guangdong took up mining activities. The text also mentions
the presence of Chinese in Malacca, Selangor and Kedah. In Kedah, the
Min-Yue people came to trade.^99 John Crawfurd notes that one Amoy junk
of 800 tons and another Amoy junk of the same tonnage visited Trengganu
and Kelantan respectively. Prior to 1820, a junk of 1,000 tons was trading
- Cited in Song Zuanyou, Guangdong ren zai Shanghai, p. 48.
- John Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, Vol. 3, pp. 182‒4.
- Cushman and Milner, “Chinese Accounts”, pp. 5, 33, citing Xie Qinggao 謝清高,
Hai lu 海錄 [Records of maritime affairs].