416 Boundaries and Beyond
policy toward maritime trade and its overseas subjects can now be
examined in greater detail. The most immediate question is: Why was
Chen Yilao punished?
Chen was a native of Longxi District, Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian
Province. He had a nephew by the name of Chen Kong who owned a
provision shop in Xiangshan, Guangdong Province. In 1736 (the βirst year
of the Qianlong Reign), Chen Yilao, aged 30, paid his nephew a visit. On
being told about the trade opportunities in the Nanyang, he made up his
mind to try his luck abroad. In December of the same year, he bought
trade goods such as tobacco and tea and set sail from Macao, headed for
Batavia (Ke-la-pa) on board a Portuguese ship. Trade was lucrative there
and he decided to remain.
The following year, Chen “bought” a Makassarese wife for 53 dollars.
She bore him two sons and one daughter. During his sojourn in Batavia,
Chen not only learnt how to speak the local tongue well, but was also on
amicable terms with the Dutch ofβicials. Appreciative of Chen’s business
talents, a certain “headman” invested the sum of 30 thousand taels in his
trade.^4 This investment paved the way for Chen to make a bigger fortune.
In 1739, Chen returned to his native village once to visit his mother,
traveling via Macao. At the end of the year, he sailed back again to
Batavia from Macao on board a foreign ship, roughly ten months before
the massacre of the Chinese settlers in Batavia in October 1740, but he
was not on the site when the tragedy occurred since he arrived back in
Batavia only in November 1740. B. Hoetink has stated that Chen actually
conducted his business in Semarang, where he became an important
merchant. After Batavia and its suburbs had been emptied of Chinese in
the wake of the massacre, the Dutch authorities in Batavia sent for him to
act as an “introducer/mediator” (introducteur) of the Chinese who would
arrive from outposts of the Archipelago and from China.^5
On June 28, 1743, Chen was appointed one of the two newly-appointed
Chinese Lieutenants.^6 He was put in charge of commercial transactions
- The wealthy servants of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) often lent
money to the Chinese at high rates of interest or invested in the trade through
the Chinese network. See Leonard Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers,
Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht-Holland: Foris
Publications, 1986), pp. 83, 124. - B. Hoetink, “So Bing Kong”, p. 373.
- B. Hoetink, “Chineesche ofβicieren te Batavia onder de Compagnie”, Bijdragen
tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie 78 (1922): 90. In
Chen Yilao’s deposition to ofβicials after his arrest, his designation is said to
have been a Chinese Captain (jiabidan). His choice of this title was probably for
the sake of convenience because it was better known in China.
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