412 Boundaries and Beyond
involvement in local commerce. The Spanish authorities chose to work
with the assimilated Chinese, known as the Chinese mestizos. The
expelled migrant Chinese soon found sanctuaries from which to continue
doing their business on the more remote islands.^227 In other words,
accommodation, localization and integration became potent weapons
adopted by the Nanyang Chinese merchants to avoid potential trading
difβiculties.
Retrospective Observations
The prosperous age of the eighteenth century had set in train two effects
in Qing China: population growth and a maturing commodity economy.
The changing socioeconomic conditions contributed to the waves of
outward mobility that in their turn led to the expansion of marketing
networks conducive to the rapid development of the coastal and overseas
junk trades. The trading ports were hives of activity and witnessed the
emergence of an entrepreneurial mercantile community. Each domestic
or foreign port functioned as the commercial node of a subregional centre
for the distribution of imported commodities and the collection of local
specialties for export. By means of inter-port shipping, the trading junks
linked up the nodes along the China coast and in the Nanyang to form a
vast, vibrant interregional market during a lengthy period of nearly 150
years.
Undoubtedly, it was the spirited and untiring Min-Yue seafarers who
had created the panorama of the coastal and overseas junk trade during
the period in question. The South Fujianese and the Chaozhou people
represented the major contributors to the boundary-transcending
trade expansion. The third group of players from the region, namely the
Hainanese, βitted out the majority of their junks to sail to the coasts of
Vietnam and Siam.
Throughout the period, the Min-Yue junk trade retained the salient
feature of being “people’s trade”, involving both substantial merchants
and numerous peddlers from the Min-Yue subregions. The narrative
would be incomplete if the numerous migrants who joined the voyages of
the trading junks were left out of the picture. This category of seafarers
would themselves become traders, procurers or simply consumers
of imported items from China. Therefore, the strength of the maritime
enterprise can be attributed to the collective contributions made by the
investors from the home ports, traveling traders and peddlers on board
the ships, resident merchants or agents in the trading locations and
- Anthony Reid, “Flows and Seepages”, p. 45.
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