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

1 China’s Rise as a Naval Power

China’s Rise as a Naval Power 23 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.1 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.2 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 23 1 Xu Yichao, Zhongguo Dixing Yanjiu (Chongqing: Zhongguo wenhua fuwushe, 1943), p. 224. 2 Samuel W. Williams, The Chinese commercial guide, containing treaties, tariffs, regulations, tables, etc., useful in the trade to China & eastern Asia; with an appendix of sailing directions for those seas and coasts (Hong Kong: A Shortrede & Co., 1863), 5th ed., Appendix, pp. 1–190 passim. China_Sea Power Chap1.indd 23 2/13/2012 1:05:33 PM 24 China as a Sea Power 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.3 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.4 The seaboard provinces of southeast 3 This was also the case in the 1949 Chinese Civil War. See Bruce...