Expanding Possibilities 379
waterway at the southern end of the Jing-Hang Grand Canal. By the early
eighteenth century, there were already some ten thousand Quan-Zhang
people engaged in the rice trade in the commercial section of the city
by the Chang Gate in the vicinity of Fengqiao, the major rice market of
Soochow. It was an important node in the Quan-Zhang business networks
in the Lower Yangzi region.^105 It can safely be assumed that Fujian
merchants owned the junks embarking from Soochow. There were two
possible routes to reach the sea; one headed north to enter the Yangzi
River, and the other turned to the south to the port Zhapu. No information
is available about the route the junks took to enter the sea, but it seems
more likely the vessels headed southward.^106
Turning to the cargoes of the Sino-Vietnamese trade, John Crawfurd
informs us that the most valuable items were “imported from Amoy,
consisting principally of wrought silks and teas; and the least valuable,
from Hainan”. Exports from Vietnam consisted of cardamoms, areca-
nuts, sugar, luxury woods, eagle-wood, ebony, cotton, rice, stic-lac, ivory,
furs, hides, horns, deer sinews, ornamental items particularly those
obtained from a species of king-βisher, cinnamon, salt-βish, salt, varnish,
dyes, gold and silver bullion. The Chinese junks were in fact prohibited
from entering the ports of the country without a special license, but they
anchored off the coast and smuggled their cargoes on board.^107 The bulk
of the trade between the minor ports of both Hainan and Vietnam can
be described as “peddlers’ trade” in nature, carried out by a multitude of
seafaring adventurers.
Despite its lively trade with China, the total amount was said to
have been less than one-half of that between Siam and China.^108 When
compiling his information, John Crawfurd’s main interest was in fact not
so much in the volume of trade, but the penetrating power of the Chinese
junk trade on the basis of what he had seen in Siam and Vietnam. He
therefore suggested that the British might well beneβit from conducting
- Ng Chin-keong, Trade and Society, pp. 97‒8, 122.
- Regarding the shipping routes, see ibid., pp. 118, 122‒3, including maps; also
John Phipps, Practical Treatise on the China and Eastern Trade, p. li. Akira
Matsuura furnishes us in his Qingdai neihe shuiyun shi yanjiu, Ch. 4, with a
meticulous description of the inland-waterway shipping in Soochow during
Qing times. He also accounts for the Min-Yue merchants in Zhapu, as well as
the linkages between Zhapu and the coastal and overseas trade. See also Akira
Matsuura, Shindai hansen engan kounshi no kenkyu, p. 53, and Section 3, Ch. 3. - The quotes and other information are cited from John Crawfurd, Journal of the
Embassy, pp. 512‒3. - Ibid., p. 513.