42 Boundaries and Beyond
elephant tusks, wax, buffalo horns, sugar and some other miscellaneous
goods.^148
Whenever circumstances allowed, the trading junks would make a
transit stop at a Chinese port, Amoy, Guangzhou, Wenzhou, Ningbo or
Putuoshan being among the most favored, to sell some of their Southeast
Asian products. This stop was also a good opportunity to procure such
merchandise as raw silk and silk fabrics or to collect goods for which
they had placed an advanced order. Replenishment of stocks of water and
food was almost routine. Given the prevailing weather conditions, many
junks would have probably required repairs to damaged βittings after a
stormy voyage.
Such were the storms, there were occasions on which the ship’s captain
found it necessary to charter or purchase another ship to continue the
voyage if his original vessel was damaged beyond repair. Even the actual
sale of a ship was not unlikely if a junk owner suffered heavy business
losses during the voyage. His last resort would have been to sell his vessel
to another junk trader at the port of call.^ Sometimes there was a crew
change at the transit port. Furthermore, as junks were trading ships, they
also functioned as passenger ships, picking up or dropping off passengers
at each port of call during the voyage. Offering a passenger service was an
opportunity to recoup some of the expenses of the voyage or even cover
business losses.^149
All these situations indicate the existence of a mature, astonishing
triangular tosen trading network between Southeast Asia, coastal China
and Nagasaki. The foremost goal of the junk traders at all times was to
maximize proβit through a βlexible mode of operation.
The “Chinese Century” and the Ascendancy
of the Europeans by the Early Decades
of the Nineteenth Century
Two parallel developments in maritime trade began to take place in
maritime East Asia in the sixteenth century. One was the emerging
Chinese predominance in the seaborne trade. The eighteenth century
- Shimada Ryuto, “Siamese Products in the Japanese Market during the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, in Large and Broad: The Dutch Impact
on Early Modern Asia, ed. Nagazumi Yoko, pp. 147, 149. - For information, see documents in The Junk Trade from Southeast Asia, ed.
Yoneo Ishii.
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