Chinese Empire

Naval Power and Exploration in Imperial China

China was, for most of the imperial period, the greatest maritime power in the world. The Han sent envoys to Rome and beyond by sea. The Tang dominated the maritime trade of Southeast Asia, and the Tang ship is the ancestor of the junk. The Song invented the magnetic compass, the sternpost rudder, and watertight bulkhead compartments, and built the largest wooden ships afloat anywhere. The Yuan launched two invasions of Japan and one of Java, all by sea. The Ming sent Admiral Zheng He on seven voyages that took the Ming treasure fleet from Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf and the East African coast. The same dynasty then imposed a strict maritime ban that crippled Chinese seafaring for four centuries. The Qing inherited the ban and went further: the haijian policy of 1655–1684, the destruction of Chinese shipping in 1661, and the long restrictions on Chinese merchants left the south China coast almost devoid of large vessels, while European and Japanese ships filled the vacuum. By the time of the First Opium War in 1839, the Qing navy consisted of antiquated junks easily destroyed by British steam frigates, and the pattern of nineteenth-century Chinese humiliation by sea was set. This section surveys the long arc of Chinese naval power, and complements the broader narrative in the Chinese military section and the history of imperial China.

The section has three parts. The first part surveys the early period: Han maritime trade, Tang maritime power, and the Song as the high point of Chinese naval technology. The second part examines the Mongol invasions of Japan and the Ming treasure voyages, with the Zheng He expeditions treated in detail in our in-depth piece on Admiral Zheng He. The third part covers the long retreat: the Ming maritime ban, the Qing haijian policy, the destruction of Chinese shipping in 1661, and the gradual decline of Chinese naval power from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. The story of the Zheng He voyages is also discussed in the Chinese emperors section (the Yongle Emperor was the patron of the voyages) and the Chinese culture section (the voyages had a profound cultural impact on Chinese understanding of the world).

Han and Tang Maritime Trade

The Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) inherited from the Qin an empire oriented toward the inner Asian steppe, but the southern coast was already developing its own commercial patterns. The Han court sent envoys to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia, and Chinese chroniclers of the Han record voyages to Cattigara (probably in southern Vietnam), Jinlin (probably in the Malay peninsula), and possibly to the Roman Empire via the Indian Ocean. The most famous Han voyage is that of the envoy Gan Ying, dispatched in 97 CE to reach the Roman Empire via Parthia; Gan Ying turned back at the Persian Gulf when his Parthian hosts warned him of the dangers of the sea crossing. Whether or not Han ships ever reached the Roman Empire is debated, but the existence of the embassy shows that the Han court was aware of the maritime route and willing to invest in it.

The Tang dynasty (618–907) built on the Han foundations. The Tang capital Chang’an was the terminus of the overland Silk Road to Central Asia and the Maritime Silk Road to Southeast Asia. Tang merchants traded through the port of Guangzhou, which had a large foreign quarter, and Tang ships carried Chinese silk, porcelain, and tea to Southeast Asia, India, and the Persian Gulf. Tang maritime regulations, preserved in the Yuanhe Junxian Tu (元和郡縣圖, the Tang geographical encyclopaedia), describe a system of coastal patrols, port authorities, and customs stations. Tang ships, while smaller than the later Song junks, were the largest in East Asia, and Tang maritime technology influenced the development of the Arab dhow and the Indian Ocean sailing tradition. The longer history of the Tang is told in the Chinese dynasties survey.

Song Ships and the Compass

The Song dynasty (960–1279) was the high point of Chinese naval technology and the apogee of pre-modern Chinese seapower. The Song junk (jūncáochuán) was the largest wooden ship in the world, with watertight bulkhead compartments (a Chinese invention), sternpost rudders (also Chinese), and a sophisticated rigging system that allowed the sails to be trimmed to the wind direction. Song ships were up to 100 tonnes in the Northern Song and over 200 tonnes in the Southern Song; some ocean-going junks exceeded 1,000 tonnes. The Song navy used these ships to patrol the Yangzi, to trade with Southeast Asia, and to fight the Jurchen Jin (the dynasty’s main northern enemy) and the Western Xia (the Tangut state in modern Gansu and Ningxia). The Song navy was the most powerful in East Asia, with paddle-wheel ships, fire ships, and a sophisticated signalling system.

The Song also developed the maritime technologies that would change world history. The magnetic compass was first mentioned in Chinese sources in the Wujing Zongyao (武經總要, Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques, 1044) as a land navigation aid; by the late Song, the mariner’s compass was a standard instrument on Chinese ships, and Chinese compass technology was transmitted to the Arab world and then to Europe, where it would make the Age of Exploration possible. The Song also developed the watertight bulkhead (still used in steel ships today), the sternpost rudder (also still in use), and a sophisticated system of sampan and fuchuan lighters for river and coastal work. The Song navy was destroyed in 1279 at the Battle of Yamen, in which the last Song emperor drowned and the Mongol Yuan completed their conquest of the Song. The longer story of the Song and the Mongol conquest see our in-depth piece on the Mongol conquest of the Song.

The Mongol Invasions of Japan (1274 and 1281)

The Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 were the largest seaborne invasions attempted before the twentieth century, and the only major naval operations of the Mongol world empire. The invasions were ordered by Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor of China, in retaliation for the refusal of the Japanese Kamakura shogunate to accept Mongol overlordship. The first invasion, in 1274, involved a fleet of 900 to 1,000 ships, with perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Mongol, Korean, and Chinese soldiers. The Mongol force landed at Hakata Bay in northern Kyushu, fought a series of skirmishes with the Japanese defenders, and withdrew after a single day of fighting, possibly because of the death of the Mongol commander and possibly because of a storm. The second invasion, in 1281, was much larger, with 4,000 to 4,500 ships and perhaps 100,000 soldiers, divided into an Eastern Route Army (from Korea) and a Southern Route Army (from southern China). The Japanese defenders, having built a stone wall across Hakata Bay, held the invaders on the coast for two months until a typhoon (the famous kamikaze, “divine wind”) destroyed much of the Mongol fleet.

The Mongol invasions of Japan have been read both as a military defeat for the Mongols and as a logistical failure. The Mongols, having no maritime tradition of their own, were dependent on Korean and Chinese shipbuilders, and the assembly of the 1281 fleet alone took two years and required the labour of thousands of Korean conscripts. The fleet was destroyed by the typhoon before it could land its main force, and the survivors who made it ashore were cut off from their ships and defeated piecemeal. The invasions had no lasting consequence in Japan, but they had a major impact in China: the Southern Song, the Mongols’ next target, was finally conquered in 1279, and the campaign produced a Mongol tradition of seaborne warfare that the Ming inherited. The Chinese dynasties survey and the Chinese military section discuss the Mongol world empire and its Chinese context.

The Ming Treasure Voyages of Admiral Zheng He (1405–1433)

The Ming treasure voyages of 1405–1433 were the most spectacular display of Chinese naval power in history, and the largest organised seafaring expeditions in the pre-industrial world. The voyages were conceived by the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403–1424), the third Ming emperor, who used them to project Ming prestige, to establish a Chinese presence in the maritime trade of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, and (some historians argue) to look for the dethroned Jianwen Emperor, his nephew, who had reportedly fled the palace in a fire. The commander of the voyages was Zheng He (1371–1433), a Muslim eunuch of Mongol or Hui origin who had served the Yongle Emperor since childhood. The longer story see our in-depth piece on Admiral Zheng He.

The seven voyages of Zheng He took the Ming fleet to the major ports of Southeast Asia (Java, Sumatra, Malacca, the Malay peninsula), to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), to the west coast of India (Calicut, Cochin, Quilon), to the Persian Gulf (Hormuz, Basra), to the Red Sea (Mecca, Jedda), and to the East African coast (Mogadishu, Malindi, Mombasa, Sofala). The fleet was enormous: the largest ships, the treasure ships (寶船, bǎochuán), are traditionally said to have been 130 metres long, dwarfing the contemporary European caravel (which was typically 20 to 30 metres). Modern scholarship has questioned the exact dimensions of the treasure ships, but the fleet certainly included dozens of ships of 100 to 130 metres, plus hundreds of smaller support vessels, with perhaps 27,000 personnel in total. The fleet was armed with cannons and hand weapons, and the voyages included minor military actions, including the capture of the King of Ceylon in 1406 and the suppression of a pirate confederation in Sumatra in 1407.

The treasure voyages were ended in 1433 by the Xuande Emperor, who succeeded the Yongle Emperor’s son, the Hongxi Emperor, in 1425. The reasons for the end of the voyages are still debated. The official court historians, writing under later emperors, blamed the eunuch faction for the expense. Modern historians have pointed to the long-term cost of the voyages, the hostility of the Confucian bureaucracy to maritime activity, and the reorientation of Ming strategic interest toward the northern steppe. Whatever the cause, the end of the voyages was a turning point in Chinese history: the Ming court, having once sent the largest fleet in the world to the East African coast, would within a century prohibit Chinese subjects from sailing to sea at all. The longer story of the Yongle Emperor and his policies is told in the Chinese emperors section.

The Ming Maritime Ban

The Ming maritime ban (海禁, hǎijìn) was a series of imperial edicts, beginning in 1371 under the Hongwu Emperor and continuing intermittently until 1567, that prohibited Chinese subjects from engaging in overseas trade or sailing in the open ocean. The ban was driven by a combination of fiscal, military, and ideological concerns. The Hongwu Emperor, having fought his way to the throne as a peasant rebel, was deeply suspicious of the merchants and sailors of the south coast, and feared that maritime activity would produce wealth and political power that could challenge the throne. The ban was also a response to the wokou (倭寇, “Japanese pirates”) raids of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which Japanese and Chinese pirates harried the south coast. The ban was enforced by the weisuo garrison system, which patrolled the coast and confiscated illegal vessels.

The ban had mixed results. In the short term, it did suppress Chinese overseas trade and deprive the south coast of legitimate commerce. In the long term, it drove Chinese merchants into smuggling, encouraged corruption among coastal officials, and created a class of haidao (海盜, sea bandits) and haishang (海上, “sea merchants”) who operated outside the law. The ban was repeatedly relaxed and reimposed: the Xuande Emperor allowed limited trade with Southeast Asia in the 1420s; the Jiajing Emperor reimposed the ban in 1524 and persecuted the coastal populations; the Longqing Emperor finally lifted the ban in 1567. The lifting of the ban, and the partial reopening of maritime trade, was one of the conditions for the late Ming commercial boom, but the ban had already done its damage. The Chinese economy section treats the longer story of maritime trade, and the Chinese culture section discusses the cultural effects of the ban.

The Qing Maritime Decline

The Qing dynasty (1644–1912) inherited the Ming maritime ban and went further. The Qing court, having conquered China from the north, was particularly suspicious of the south coast, the base of Ming loyalist resistance. In 1655 the court issued the haijian (海禁, “sea ban”) policy, banning all Chinese maritime activity. In 1661, the Qing court ordered the Great Clearance (遷界, qiānjiè), forcing the entire population of the south coast, from Guangdong to Zhejiang, to move inland by 30 to 50 kilometres, with the abandoned coastal zone burned and patrolled. The Great Clearance was one of the most traumatic episodes of early Qing history: hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, and the economy of the south coast was devastated. The policy was finally lifted in 1684, after the suppression of the Three Feudatories Rebellion, and the Qing court attempted to revive maritime trade through the Kangxi Emperor’s system of guan shang (官商, “official merchants”) licensed to trade with Southeast Asia.

The Qing maritime system was, however, increasingly unable to compete with European and Japanese shipping. The European East India Companies — the Dutch VOC (founded 1602), the British EIC (founded 1600), and the French and Danish equivalents — established trading posts at Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), and other ports, and dominated the maritime trade of East Asia. The Japanese Sakoku policy of 1639, which closed Japan to all foreign trade except the limited Dutch and Chinese trade at Dejima, had the unintended consequence of pushing Chinese merchants into the European-dominated trading system. By the nineteenth century, the Chinese maritime economy was a shadow of its Song and Ming predecessor, and the Qing navy was a fleet of small junks with antique cannon.

The First Opium War of 1839–1842 was the moment of reckoning. The British expeditionary force, with steam-powered iron-hulled frigates and modern artillery, destroyed the Qing fleet in a series of engagements in the Pearl River delta and along the coast. The Treaty of Nanking (1842) opened five ports to British trade, ceded Hong Kong to Britain, and required China to pay an indemnity. The Second Opium War (1856–1860) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) deepened the humiliation. By the time of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, Chinese naval power was essentially extinct, and the imperial system itself was at an end. The story of the fall of the imperial system is told in the section on the fall of imperial China.

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