22 Boundaries and Beyond
permanent residence in the trade ports. Within a few generations, from
the late Tang period the descendants of foreign merchants in general
and Arabs in particular had undergone a process of indigenization and
they became Chinese (Tang ren).^70 These foreign residents and their
indigenized descendants were the best mentors the Chinese could have
had in maritime affairs. Today there is still a temple located by the inner
waterway to Guangzhou that has stood there since around Ćĉ 600. It is
dedicated to the Sea God of the Nanhai (Nanhai zhi shen) and was a very
popular place of worship for the seafaring people during Tang times. It
might be a good indication of Chinese engagement in seafaring activities.
Shipbuilding is another factor that should be considered. Longer-haul
shipping would have required seaworthy vessels. From early times China
has had a long coastline and it improved its shipbuilding techniques in
tandem with the increasing demand for vessels. At the very least, βishing
had been undertaken and water transportation was used in the daily life
of the littoral people for centuries. By around 2,500 years ago, the use of a
water-borne force in wars by states such as Yue and Wu on the southeast
coast was a frequent occurrence. By this time, large warships that could
carry up to nearly a hundred men on board were being built.^71 In the late
Tang era, Chinese-style junks built in China were widely preferred and
used by resident Arab merchants in their long-distance voyages to the
Indian Ocean.^72 In Song times, when Chinese shipyards were capable of
building large, seaworthy junks for long-distance voyages, shipbuilding
technology reached new heights.^73 The more advanced features of the
ships included the use of watertight-compartment techniques and the
compass.^74 That is to say, the Song people were without doubt technically
capable of βitting out ships for longer-haul voyages when the commercial
incentives made it worthwhile to do so.
- Citing Chinese texts, Kuwabara Jitsuzo says that China was known to foreigners
(including Muslims) as Tang 唐 and Chinese as Tangren 唐人. Refer to Pu
Shougeng kao, p. 103. - Wang Guanzhuo 王冠倬, 《中国古船》 [Chinese ships during ancient times]
(Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 1991), pp. 9–10. - Kuwabara Jitsuzo, Pu Shougeng kao, pp. 51, 91–3, 95.
- Ch’en Hsin-hsiung 陳信雄, ”Song-Yuan de yuanyang maoyi chuan: zhongguo
haiwai faszhang dingsheng shiqi de jiaotong gongju” 宋元的遠洋貿易船:中國
海外發展鼎盛時期的交通工具 [Long-distance trading ships during the Song-
Yuan periods: the vessels used during the peak period of China’s overseas
development], in Zhongguo Haiyang fazhang shi lunwen ji, 2 (Taipei: Sun Yat-sen
Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 1986), pp. 1–38. - Kuwabara Jitsuzo, Pu Shougeng kao, p. 98.
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