388 Boundaries and Beyond
majority of these vessels were owned by those who had their residence
in Shanghai or the neighboring ports. The junks coming from the south
numbered 1,000. Most of them had set sail from Fujian and made two
to three return trips each year. The value of their cargoes amounted to
1,664,996 dollars.^149
Overall, the coastal junk trade was sizable and lively. T’ien Ju-k’ang
reckons that, in the βirst half of the nineteenth century, there were more
than 1,200 junks active on the Guangdong coast and 850 of them were
trading vessels. The tonnage of these ships averaged 150 tons each, or a
total of 180,000 tons. On the Fujian coast, straits-crossing junks bound
for Taiwan numbered about a thousand. The average tonnage was 1 50
tons each and the total was 150,000 tons. There were some 2,000 to
3,600 vessels of all sorts, with an average tonnage of 50 to 150 tons each,
in the region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The total tonnage could be as high
as 350,000. A number of them traded to Fujian, but many of them were
local boats. Therefore it is difβicult to make an exact calculation of the
total number of junks operated by the Min-Yue people. On the basis of
T’ien’s βigures, there could have been more than 5,800 trading junks
present along the China coast around 1850, with a carrying capacity
of roughly 680 thousand tons. The total value of trade could have been
around 26,390,576 Spanish dollars.^150
The Nanyang Trade. Despite the declining fortunes and eventual
collapse of the Hong system in the early nineteenth century, the junk trade
in and around Canton managed to maintain its presence in the Nanyang
for some years after the Opium War. Large numbers of these vessels were
junks from Chaozhou. They traded to Vietnam and Cambodia. The large
junks set sail from Chaozhou, but not from Canton.^151 This group of junks
probably also made voyages to Siam. The branch of foreign trade with
Siam was considered by the Chinese to be the most valuable of all their
maritime commerce, considering the variety of goods and costs of the
imports. Almost the whole of the trade was conducted with Bangkok.
Junks arriving at Canton from Siam numbered some 15 large vessels
of 350 to 600 tons each. Two-thirds of them were owned by investors
on the Siamese side. Exports to Siam were much fewer than the imports
- As reported in “Maritime Junk Trade”, in NCH, I: 30 (30.2.1851), p. 119; and
FO 228/136, no. 151, Rutherford Alcock in John Bowring to the Earl of
Malmesbury, Encl. 5, p. 19b. - Tien Ju-kang,, “Zailun shiqi zhi shijiu shiji zhongye zhongguo fanchuan de
fazhan”, pp. 6‒7. - FO 228/136, no. 151, Harry Parkes in John Bowring to the Earl of Malmesbury,
Encl. 10, p. 75a.
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