Whose hands did the charts left by Zheng He's fleet end up in?
If the Ming Dynasty once managed a world that spread all over the world, who wrote the subsequent history?
In the fifteenth year of Wanli, an official ship that had been reported to have sunk was still receiving food. The official who checked the accounts disappeared, and a page of copy leaked out of the yamen, leading to a pursuit for hundreds of miles along the coast. No one thought that this account led to an overseas guard station that disappeared from the map. The people there have been waiting for more than a hundred years to keep their ancestral seals.
Back then, Zheng He's fleet brought military households, craftsmen and orders from the Ming Dynasty to the oceans. There are warehouses at the port and soldiers on the shipping routes. If overseas immigrants encounter robbery, they can ask the court for help. Later, military expenditures were cut off one after another, and official ships no longer went to sea. Rich merchants from the south of the Yangtze River took over the old shipping routes, and Western merchant groups obtained nautical charts and shipbuilding technology. The ports that were protected in the past became colonies under the gunfire of others. Later, the guards were deleted, their achievements were rewritten, and even those who clung to their homeland became aborigines with unknown origins in the history books.
Lin Huaiyuan took that account and set foot on the old route.
The lost fragments of the "Yongle Dadian" contain the destroyed shipbuilding methods; the world map drawn by Westerners contains the secret notes of the Ming Dynasty shipbuilders. Why does the Qin Dynasty in "Wei Lue" point to America? Why are the old monuments of Red Earth Kingdom engraved with Chinese characters? Whose world does the golden city described by Marco Polo belong to?
The deeper the old accounts are investigated, the more ships come to silence them. Lin Huaiyuan finally understood that what those people were afraid of was that the overseas survivors would recognize each other again, know where their ancestors came from, and know who had cut off their way home.
Bintonglong Waigang in this chapter was not under the jurisdiction of the Annan court at that time. Bin Tong Long is the Phan Lang area south of Champa, roughly located in today's Ninh Thuan Province, Vietnam. In 1471, the northern capital of Champa was captured by the Le Dynasty, but Champa was not destroyed. Its royal family and remaining territory continued in Bintong Long in the south.
In the fifteenth year of Wanli, that is, 1587, Bintonglong was still ruled by the king of Champa. The person in power at that time is generally recorded as Boklangharao, who controlled his own royal city, army, port and taxation. Therefore, the tax collectors, spear-wielding soldiers and port envoys in the foreign ports in the novel are all officials of Bintong Longwang City, not from the Le Dynasty, Mo Dynasty or the Nguyen family. Maritime merchants like the Pu family could guarantee foreign ships and deal with port officials, but they had no power to change the orders issued by the royal city.
The "Bin Tong Long Outer Harbor" in the novel refers to the coastal harbor of Panlang and the port city of Champa, and does not correspond to a modern port with the exact same name. It is the gateway to the foreign trade of Bintong Longwang City, and specific affairs are jointly maintained by the port envoys, local leaders and maritime merchant families stationed in the royal city.
At that time, Hue and Quang Nam further north were guarded by Nguyen Hoang and were still nominally under the Le Dynasty; further north, the Le Zheng forces were still at war with the Mo Dynasty who occupied Thang Long. In other words, the narrow strip of land where Vietnam is located today belonged to several different forces at that time and cannot be generally regarded as one regime. Fujian boat owners are accustomed to collectively refer to the Bintonglong area as "Champa".
The story begins in the fifteenth year of Wanli, which is 1587 AD.
At this time, the Ming Dynasty had not yet reached the end of its dynasty. The north was temporarily stable, and the southeast sea trade was increasingly prosperous. Silver, spices, sumac and other goods from overseas continued to enter China. Chinese silk, porcelain, sugar and ironware were also transported along the sea route to Luzon, Siam, Champa, Java and further places.
Longxi and Yuegang, where the story begins, are both in Zhangzhou, Fujian. In the first year of Longqing, the imperial court established Haicheng County in the lower reaches of the Jiulong River, allowing merchant ships to collect invoices and trade with the East and the West. By the fifteenth year of Wanli, it had been twenty years since Yuegang opened to the sea. There are both merchant ships that collect invoices and pay taxes, fleets that go to sea privately, and armed maritime merchants that transport goods for big merchants, escort them, and even compete for ports. There is often no clear line between officials, merchants and thieves.
Yuegang is also an important gateway for Ming Dynasty to connect overseas silver. The Francois had already occupied Luzon and transported American silver to Asia via the galleons route across the Pacific. A large amount of silver flowed into Fujian and then into various places in the Ming Dynasty. Whoever controls the fleet, ports, invoices and account books can make huge fortunes from this route.
This book is set against the backdrop of a buried maritime history. In this story, Zheng He's fleet left behind not only several voyages, but also ports, shipyards, granaries, observatories, immigrant settlements and old guardhouses all over the world. As the imperial court stopped ocean-going supplies, this huge maritime system gradually collapsed. Some people took the opportunity to embezzle trade, some deleted maps and files, and some removed ships and ports that were still in use from official books.
Many years later, history books only left simple records such as "sea ban", "suspension of sailing" and "tribute". Those overseas strongholds that have lost contact, the forgotten shipping routes, and the Ming Dynasty survivors scattered in foreign lands have slowly disappeared outside the words.
This is the world when the story begins: it is still strong on the surface, but the old order at sea has been loosened; new wealth is pouring in, and the fight for wealth and shipping routes has quietly begun.
Bintonglong Waigang in this chapter was not under the jurisdiction of the Annan court at that time. Bin Tong Long is the Phan Lang area south of Champa, roughly located in today's Ninh Thuan Province, Vietnam. In 1471, the northern capital of Champa was captured by the Le Dynasty, but Champa was not destroyed. Its royal family and remaining territory continued in Bintong Long in the south. In the fifteenth year of Wanli, that is, 1587, Bintonglong was still ruled by the king of Champa. The person in power at that time is generally recorded as Boklangharao, who controlled his own royal city, army, port and taxation. Therefore, the tax collectors, spear-wielding soldiers and port envoys in the foreign ports in the novel are all officials of Bintong Longwang City, not from the Le Dynasty, Mo Dynasty or the Nguyen family. Maritime merchants like the Pu family could guarantee foreign ships and deal with port officials, but they had no power to change the orders issued by the royal city. The "Bin Tong Long Outer Harbor" in the novel refers to the coastal harbor of Panlang and the port city of Champa, and does not correspond to a modern port with the exact same name. It is the gateway to the foreign trade of Bintong Longwang City, and specific affairs are jointly maintained by the port envoys, local leaders and maritime merchant families stationed in the royal city. At that time, Hue and Quang Nam further north were guarded by Nguyen Hoang and were still nominally under the Le Dynasty; further north, the Le Zheng forces were still at war with the Mo Dynasty who occupied Thang Long. In other words, the narrow strip of land where Vietnam is located today belonged to several different forces at that time and cannot be generally regarded as one regime. Fujian boat owners are accustomed to collectively refer to the Bintonglong area as "Champa".
The story begins in the fifteenth year of Wanli, which is 1587 AD. At this time, the Ming Dynasty had not yet reached the end of its dynasty. The north was temporarily stable, and the southeast sea trade was increasingly prosperous. Silver, spices, sumac and other goods from overseas continued to enter China. Chinese silk, porcelain, sugar and ironware were also transported along the sea route to Luzon, Siam, Champa, Java and further places. Longxi and Yuegang, where the story begins, are both in Zhangzhou, Fujian. In the first year of Longqing, the imperial court established Haicheng County in the lower reaches of the Jiulong River, allowing merchant ships to collect invoices and trade with the East and the West. By the fifteenth year of Wanli, it had been twenty years since Yuegang opened to the sea. There are both merchant ships that collect invoices and pay taxes, fleets that go to sea privately, and armed maritime merchants that transport goods for big merchants, escort them, and even compete for ports. There is often no clear line between officials, merchants and thieves. Yuegang is also an important gateway for Ming Dynasty to connect overseas silver. The Francois had already occupied Luzon and transported American silver to Asia via the galleons route across the Pacific. A large amount of silver flowed into Fujian and then into various places in the Ming Dynasty. Whoever controls the fleet, ports, invoices and account books can make huge fortunes from this route. This book is set against the backdrop of a buried maritime history. In this story, Zheng He's fleet left behind not only several voyages, but also ports, shipyards, granaries, observatories, immigrant settlements and old guardhouses all over the world. As the imperial court stopped ocean-going supplies, this huge maritime system gradually collapsed. Some people took the opportunity to embezzle trade, some deleted maps and files, and some removed ships and ports that were still in use from official books. Many years later, history books only left simple records such as "sea ban", "suspension of sailing" and "tribute". Those overseas strongholds that have lost contact, the forgotten shipping routes, and the Ming Dynasty survivors scattered in foreign lands have slowly disappeared outside the words. This is the world when the story begins: it is still strong on the surface, but the old order at sea has been loosened; new wealth is pouring in, and the fight for wealth and shipping routes has quietly begun.