China as a Sea Power, 1127–1368

A Preliminary Survey of the Maritime Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese People During the Southern Song and Yuan Periods

Jung-pang Lo, Bruce A. Elleman

• Publisher: National University of Singapore Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9789971695057
• eBook ISBN: 9789971697136
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Lo Jung-pang argues that during each of the three periods when imperial China embarked on maritime enterprises (the Qin and Han dynasties, the Sui and early Tang dynasties, and Song, Yuan, and early Ming dynasties), coastal states took the initiative at a time when China was divided, maritime trade and exploration subsequently peaked when China was strong and unified, and declined as Chinese power weakened. At such times, China's people became absorbed by internal affairs, and state policy focused on threats from the north and the west. These cycles of maritime activity, each lasting roughly five hundred years, corresponded with cycles of cohesion and division, strength and weakness, prosperity and impoverishment, expansion and contraction.


In the early 21st century, a strong and outward looking China is again building up its navy and seeking maritime dominance, with important implications for trade, diplomacy and naval affairs. Events will not necessarily follow the same course as in the past, but Lo Jung-pang's analysis suggests useful questions for the study of events as they unfold and decades to come.

PART I

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO CHINA’S MARITIME EXPANSION

CHAPTER 1

China’s Rise as a Naval Power

The rugged southeastern coast of China extends from Hangzhou in the north to the border of Indochina in the south. Its shoreline is 3,050 miles, or 57 per cent of the total length of China’s shoreline of 5,360 miles. Islands and headlands, inlets and bays, form the intaglio of the coast. Zhejiang province alone has 1,806 islands off its coast. Add this number to the 599 islands off Fujian province and the 540 islands off Guangdong province and China’s southeastern coast has 2,945 islands, or three-quarters of all the islands along its entire coast.⁵⁷ Of China’s 62 typhoon shelters, 47 are on the southeastern coast and four on the coast of Formosa and the Penghu Islands. Four of the remaining five North China anchorages are on the Shandong Peninsula.⁵⁸

The development of natural harbors into seaports depends largely upon their accessibility to the hinterland. They must have adequate and economical means of communication. There are excellent harbors on the coast of Shandong and Liaodong, but they have not thrived because they lack rivers to link them with the interior. The ports on the southeastern coast of China are similarly handicapped. They are cut off from the interior provinces by the Nan Ling mountain range, and by rivers that are too short and too swift to carry goods and passengers very far inland.

While the best harbors on the China coast did not always become good ports, paradoxically the ports that flourished do not always have good harbors. Guangzhou (formerly Canton), situated at the confluence of three rivers, is one of China’s oldest seaports. By rivers it is accessible to Guangxi in the west and Hunan in the north, and by a road built in the Tang period across the Nan Ling it is accessible to Jiangxi. Yangzhou also prospered as a port because of its location at the junction of the Yangzi River and the Grand Canal. Shanghai, opened as a seaport during the twelfth century, gradually superseded Yangzhou. Traders from Shanghai served the economy of Central China as far inland as Sichuan. Tianjin, known as Chih-ku 直沽 during the Yuan period, rose to become the major port of North China when grain from the south and merchandise from abroad, conveyed north by canals and by the sea, were funnelled through Tianjin to the great capital of Qubilai Qan (Khubilai Khan) and Emperor Yongle. It became the gateway of North China. Guangzhou, Yangzhou, Shanghai, and Tianjin all required continuous dredging to keep their ports open.

These zones of ingress into the interior of China are also the most strategic areas of the China coastline. In the whole history of China there were few places whose possession was more bitterly contested than the hundred-mile stretch of the Yangzi estuary near Shanghai. It is not only the entrance to the vast interior of China, but the Grand Canal is the main corridor of north-south traffic. It is the nerve center of China. History has shown that domination of this area is the preliminary stage to mastery of the entire nation. History has also shown that in any war for the possession of this vital area, the opening battles were usually fought on land to the north of the Yangzi River Basin, in the region of the Huai River, but that the outcome of the struggle was invariably decided by naval battles on the waters of the Lower Yangzi.⁵⁹

The nature and temperament of the Southern Chinese reflect the lively topography and warmer weather of the country. They were progressive in thought and restless in action, imaginative and enterprising, quick-witted and adventurous, adapted by nature to commerce and nautical pursuits. The words “Guangzhou” and “merchant,” “Ningbo” and “sailor,” “Fujian” and “navy,” are commonly associated.⁶⁰ The seaboard provinces of southeast China cannot support a large population. In Zhejiang and Fujian, mountains occupy 90 per cent of the area. Yet these were the provinces that during the Yuan period had the highest population of the nation.⁶¹

Nature has also served to advance movement out to sea. Mountains separate the different parts of the southeastern coastal regions, so the easiest means of communication was by sea. Contact between the coastal strip and the administrative centers in North China is even more difficult. As late as a hundred years ago, a government courier, provided with the best available facilities for travel, required a minimum of 56 days to cover the 1,900 miles from Guangzhou to Beijing on foot, and at least 32 days by horse.⁶² Four to six months was the usual time for most travelers.⁶³ On the other hand, even in the crudely constructed Arab ships that frequented the China Seas a thousand years ago, it took only 22 days to sail the 1,900 miles from Guangzhou by way of the Singapore Straits to the island of Java.⁶⁴

The Early Thallasic States

The organization of the first naval force in China has been ascribed to King Wu of the Chou 周 dynasty (1046–1043 B.C.), by which time the use of boats had become quite common and the art of boat-building had advanced far beyond the stage of dugouts and rafts.⁶⁵ In the ninth year of his reign, it was recorded that he summoned his naval commanders (ts’ang-hsi 蒼兕) to mobilize ships to transport his troops on his eastward march.⁶⁶

It was also during the time of King Wu that states such as Ch’i 齊 on the rocky peninsula of Shandong, Wu 吳 in the lower valley of the Yangzi, Yüeh 越 in hilly Zhejiang, and Ch’u 楚 in the lake region of present-day Hubei and Hunan were enfeoffed as states. For a long time, Wu, Yue, and Chu were considered to be barbarian states. As they became sinicized they grew in strength and, for reasons of their geographical setting, they and the state of Qi developed into naval powers. By the sixth century B.C., naval wars increased in frequency and magnitude.

As early as the eighth century B.C., there were already intrepid mariners who, by sailing from island to island, crossed the straits from Shandong to Liaodong and along the coast to Korea.⁶⁷ In 710 B.C., during a famine in Korea, Korean ships came to the states of Lu and Qi in Shandong to buy food.⁶⁸ Shandong became the principal center of maritime activities. In 656 B.C., when Qi planned an invasion of the southern state of Chu, there was a proposal to send a fleet down the coast for a surprise attack on Chu instead of a march by land forces through the states of Chen and Zheng (in present-day Henan).⁶⁹

Apparently the southern Chinese took to the high seas a little later than northerners.⁷⁰ In 603 B.C. when Chu invaded Wu, the Chu forces traveled eastward by the Huai River instead of taking the shorter and more direct route by way of the Yangzi.⁷¹ By 549 B.C., there was mention of a Chu fleet’s attacking Wu,⁷² and gradually the Yangzi came to be the scene of naval battles. In 525 B.C., when the men of Wu fought a Chu fleet at the battle of Chang’an (near Tang-t’u 曾塗), they lost their flagship Yü-huang 餘皇, which they later recaptured in a feat of derring-do.⁷³

In 523 and 518, there were records of Chu’s building fleets,⁷⁴ but in 489, Wu inflicted a defeat upon the Chu fleet, capturing their admiral and seven officers. Fear spread through the hearts of the men of Chu, who thought the forces of Wu would destroy their state.⁷⁵

Wu’s defeat of Chu, its rise as a naval power, and its achievement of ascendency over the other feudal states was likely the work of Wu Yuan 伍员 (better known as Wu Tzu-hsü 伍子胥),⁷⁶ a former Chu officer who entered the service of the Wu ruler Ho-lü 闔閭. Four years after the defeat of Chu, a Wu fleet ventured on the high seas, when, in 485 B.C., Wu warships under the command of Hsü Ch’eng 徐承 sailed up the coast to attack Qi. Although it was defeated, it had the distinction of initiating the first known sea battle in the history of China and perhaps in the history of East Asia.⁷⁷

But Wu did not maintain its supremacy for long. The state of Chu to the west and the state of Yue to the south began to inflict defeats upon the Wu navy and, finally in the battle of Li-tse 笠澤 (now lake Lake P’ing-wang 平望) in 478 B.C., a Yue fleet annihilated the Wu navy and, four years later, Wu came to an end.⁷⁸ Yue, under its king, Kou-ch’ien 句踐 (496–70 B.C.), became the strongest state in eastern China. In 472 B.C., he moved his capital from K’uai-chi 會嵇 in Zhejiang⁷⁹ to Lang-ya 琅琊 in Shandong. For 89 years, Langya remained the capital of the thalassic state of Yue, whose territory extended along the coast of China from Shandong to Fujian. Both Langya and the former Yue capital of Kuaiji remained as the major seaports of China for more than five centuries.

The strength of Wu and Yue lay mainly in their possession of naval power. Their men were more accustomed to fighting on water than on land and they were able to triumph along the coastal seas, the rivers, and lakes of southeast China.⁸⁰ But reliance upon naval power alone also imposed limitations, and the men of Wu and Yue were unable to extend their military sway into the plains and mountains of North China.

A description of the Wu navy is found in the Yüeh Chüeh Shu 越絕書, a Han period work,⁸¹ in the following passage:

Helu [the king of Wu] in an interview with [Wu] Zixu, asked him about naval preparedness. [Zixu] answered “The ships are named ‘great wing’ (ta-i 大翼), ‘little wing’ (hsiao-i 小翼), ‘stomach-striker’ (t’u-wei 突胃), ‘deck ship’ (lou-ch’uan 樓船), and ‘bridge boats’ (ch’iao ch’uan 橋船). At present, in training the forces of the ships we use the methods of the land forces so that they can be effective. The ‘great wings’ are used as the heavy chariots of the land forces, the ‘little wings’ are used as the light chariots of the land forces. The ‘deck ships’ are like the infantry [hsing-chün 行軍; The hsing-ch’e 行車 (meaning ‘go-chariot’) in the text was apparently an error] and the ‘bridge boats’ are like the light cavalry.”⁸²

In another passage in the same book there is a description of the armaments of a warship in the “great wing” class:

[This was] Wu Zixu’s method of naval warfare: A “great wing” was 16 feet in beam and 120 feet long. It carried 26 fighting men, 50 men to work [i.e. to paddle], [including] three men at the prow and at the stern, four men to wield long grappling hooks, spears and axes, and one officer. In all 91 men. It carried four long grappling hooks, [four] spears, [four] long- [handle] axes, 32 cross bows, 3,000 bolts and 35 sets of armor and helmets.⁸³

Thus it appeared that only the officers, the soldiers, and the four men wielding grappling hooks and axes wore armor. From the list of armaments it appeared too that the soldiers first shot their bolts at a distance, then, when they closed in, grappled the enemy ships with hooks, boarded, and fought hand-to-hand.

The dimensions given in the Shui-chan Ping-fa Nei-ching 水戰兵法內經 (Military Tactics for Naval Warfare, Inner Classic), a work no longer extant, differ somewhat: “A ‘great wing’ warship was 15 feet 3 inches in beam and 100 feet in length, a ‘middle wing’ warship was 13 feet 5 inches in beam and 90 feet in length...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Foreword by Bruce A. Elleman
• Preface by Lo Jung-pang
• Acknowledgements
• Editorial Note
• Introduction by Geoff Wade
• PART I: FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO CHINA’S MARITIME EXPANSION
• Chapter 1. China’s Rise as a Naval Power
• Chapter 2. The Shift to the Sea
• Chapter 3. The Foundation of Chinese Maritime Power
• PART II: THE SOUTHERN SONG PERIOD, 1127–1279
• Chapter 4. Creation of the Southern Song Navy
• Chapter 5. The War of 1161 and the Expansion of the Navy
• Chapter 6. Development of Maritime Trade
• PART III: THE YUAN PERIOD, 1260–1367
• Chapter 7. The Emergence of the Yuan Navy: The Battle of Yaishan, 1279
• Chapter 8. Yuan Campaigns in the Eastern Sea
• Chapter 9. Yuan Naval Campaigns to the South
• PART IV: CONCLUSIONS
• Conclusions: The Collapse of the Yuan, Rise of the Ming, and China as a Sea Power
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright page