Gems of Chinese Literature/Lan Ting-yüan-The Southern Barbarians
THE barbarians of the south can do no harm to China. The prohibition against trade should be cancelled and the people allowed to do business with them, supplying the deficiencies of the Middle Kingdom from the superabundance of the lands beyond the sea. There should be no delay in this matter.
Recently, a Lieutenant-Governor of Fuhkien presented a secret memorial to the Throne, stating that he suspected the merchants engaged in foreign trade of selling ships to the barbarians, and that the latter carried rice away to other countries, which practice might ultimately become a great loss to China. He also feared that foreign ships were addicted to piracy, and requested that all native vessels might be prohibited from going abroad and so lessen the risk of such calamities. This was but the shallow, narrow-minded opinion of a book-worm, the limited area of sky which appears to a man sitting at the botton of a well! He himself regarded it as the far-reaching foresight of a statesman, as an excellent plan laid at the feet of his sovereign;―but he was wrong. His Imperial Majesty K‘ang Hsi took it very much to heart, fearing that there was at any rate some chance of what he said turning out to be the case. Accordingly, he made enquiries both among high officials and private individuals; for he had his suspicions about those statements, and wished to get hold of some person who was acquainted with the affairs of these distant peoples, from whom he might learn the actual truth. However, at that time none of the officials had ever been beyond the seas, and it was impossible for private individuals to communicate direct with His Majesty; so that nothing was done and the prohibition came into force, contrary in fact to His Majesty's intentions. Now only those who are versed in the affairs of the maritime nations are competent to give an opinion on the desirability of encouraging their trade. The barbarian countries beyond the sea are thickly scattered about like stars. Of all of them Korea is nearest to the holy city (Peking), and there ceremonies and laws are observed. Of the eastern nations the Japanese are the fiercest and most important. Beyond Japan there are no barbarian nations of any magnitude. Descending a little we come to Lewchow, which consists of a number of islands of different sizes extending over about two thousand li. Their watercourses all debouch on the east coast, beyond which there are no other nations. The southern barbarians are many in number. Luzon and Singapore are among the largest; Brunei, Sulu, Malacca, Indragiri, Acheen, Johore, Banjermassin, the Carimon islands, and many others, are all infinitesimally small and not worth mentioning. They have never dared to entertain bad intentions towards China. Annam and Southern Cochin-China are connected together, like Kuang-tung and Kuang-si; and beyond these we have Cambodia, Ligor, Chiya, Patani, and other nations to the south-west, of all of which Siam is the most important. To the extreme west there are the red-haired and western foreigners, a fierce violent lot, quite unlike the other barbarians of the western islands. Among them there are the English, the Islamists, the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese. These are all very fierce nations; their ships are strong and do not fear typhoons; and their guns, powder, and munitions of war generally are superior to those of China. Their natures are dark, dangerous, and inscrutable; wherever they go they spy around with a view to seizing other people’s lands. Of all the island barbarians under the heaven the red-haired barbarians, the western barbarians and the Japanese are the three most deadly. Singapore originally belonged to the Malays, who were in the habit of trading with these red-haired barbarians. Subsequently, they were ousted by them, and the place became a barbarian harbour and emporium. Luzon also was a Malay colony, but because the Catholic religion was permitted there, it fell similarly into the hands of the western foreigners. During the Ming dynasty Japan rebelled, and many provinces were overrun by them, so that even now the people of those parts cannot mention the name of the robber dwarfs without a shudder. The numerous nations of southern barbarians have never yet given the slightest cause of trouble to China: their only business is trade and the circulation of goods. Now there is no prohibition against trade with Japan or with the red-haired barbarians, and the Catholic religion of the western foreigners is spreading all over the land, Canton and Macao being actually open to them as places of residence; only against these innocent southern barbarians has a prohibition been put forth which stops all intercourse with them. This surely requires some investigation. For the people of Fuhkien and Kuang-tung are very numerous in proportion to the area they inhabit; and as the land is not sufficient to supply their wants, some five or six out of every ten look to the sea for a livelihood. Articles paltry in our estimation acquire the value of jewels when carried across the sea to these barbarians; all the dwellers on the sea-bord send off their trifling embroidery, etc., in the foreign-going ships for sale, and receive annually from the barbarians many hundred thousand taels of silver, all of which comes into China. Thus no small issues depend upon the cancelment of the prohibition. Before trade with these southerners was stopped the people of Fuhkien and Kuang-tung were well-to-do, and the scum and riff-raff of their populations went off to try and enrich themselves among the barbarians. Few remained at home either to starve or to steal. But since the arrest of commerce, merchandise cannot circulate and the people daily find it more difficult to support life. The artisans complain that there is no market for their manufactures; the traders sigh that they are unable to carry them to those distant ports. For the four or five thousand taels which it takes to build a foreign-going junk are tied up in vessels which are rotting in a dock or upon the now desolate sea-shore. The occupation of these junks is gone. If put up for sale no purchaser could be found; and breaking them up to make smaller vessels would be like paring down the beam of a house to make a peg, or unpicking embroidered work to get a skein of silk. No one would willingly do that. Besides they hope that some day the clouds will break and the sun shine out, that the prohibition will be repealed and trade go on as before; and the loss of a single one of these large junks would reduce many families to misery and ruin. The present destitute state of the sea-bord population is entirely due to the stoppage of trade. Those of them who understand marine work and are accustomed to act as sailors are unable to adapt themselves to the duties of weight-carriers and earn their living as ordinary coolies. They prefer the dangers of the sea where piracy supplies them with their daily food. The rowdies and blackguards have still less before them. They go off in large numbers to Formosa, and there rebel against the Imperial Government as they actually did in the year 1721 under the leadership of Ch'en Fu-shou. It is a principle that nothing should be left undone which may turn out of the smallest advantage to the State and to the people; and, similarly, that everything likely to cause the least detriment to either should be incontinently cast away. Now to prohibit trade with the southern foreigners, so far from being advantageous, is very much the contrary. Of the sea-bord population the rich will be made poor, and the poor, destitute. Their artisans will be changed into loafing vagabonds, their loafing vagabonds into pirates and robbers. Further, Fuhkien has no silver mines and is dependent on the barbarians for its supply of that metal. But since the prohibition none has been forthcoming, and the result will be some such expedient as a paper, cloth, or leather issue, whereby great mischief will be done. The advantages of repealing the prohibition would be the circulation of goods and the absorption of our own bad characters; and thus the people would have the wherewithal to support their parents and rear their children. Hence it would follow that a larger revenue would be yielded by the Customs, and the country enriched by the wealth of the people. Surely this is no trifling advantage. As to selling their junks to the barbarians to carry rice out of the country, or cases of piracy committed by foreigners, such things have hitherto been quite unknown. To build a foreign-going junk in China costs from seven to eight thousand taels for a large one, from two to three thousand for a small one. How much could they get for these? A Chinese trader invests his money in a junk as a means of enriching himself; he intends to hand it down to his sons and grandsons. In case he ceases to care about trading abroad himself, he lets his junks out to somebody else and pockets so much per annum. He is not likely to wish to sell it. Besides, the barbarian wood is much stronger than our own; in fact our merchants buy quantities of it, a mast which costs there only one or two hundred taels being here worth as much as a thousand. The barbarians build their vessels much more strongly than we do, putting a whole tree where we should only use a plank, and where we use nails of a few inches they use nails of over a foot in length. Truly I do not think they would be overjoyed to receive our junks as gifts, to say nothing of paying a heavy price for them. Fuhkien and Kuang-tung produce but little rice, least of all Fuhkien. The people look to T‘aiwan for the half of their annual supply, or are partly furnished from Kiang-si and Cheh-kiang. Before the prohibition, a considerable quantity of rice was sent from the Philippines to Amoy. These barbarian countries produce plenty of rice and do not look to China for their supply. The merchants engaged in the foreign trade, being all men of means, would be hardly likely to risk running counter to the law; and under any circumstances, seeing they can get four or five taels per picul for conveying other goods, it is hardly likely they would accept the comparative trifle they would obtain for carrying rice, and offend against the law into the bargain. The biggest fool would scarcely be guilty of this. Hitherto our foreign-going junks have never been plundered on the high seas. Pirates hang about the coast and dodge in and out of islands, seldom going farther from land than two or at most three hundred li, for as but few junks go to a greater distance from the land than that, it would only be waste of time, to say nothing of their having no anchorage at hand, if it should chance to come on to blow. The foreign-going junks on the other hand leave the land thousands of li behind them, and being large vessels have no fear of the wind and the waves. No pirate junks could keep up with them. Besides the pirates have a fine field among the Cheh-kiang and Canton merchant vessels; there is no need for them to direct their attention to foreign-going junks. And even if they chanced to fall in with them, their own junks being so small, they would require a ladder to get up the sides. Pirate junks carry from twenty to thirty men; these sea-going junks at the very least over a hundred men. Neither would they wait for a hand to hand fight with the pirates, but would get to windward of them, and then bear right down on them and sink their junk. Piracy, therefore, is hardly a sufficient cause of alarm.,
That at the present moment, with His Majesty upon the throne and the empire at peace, and when all the human race are, as it were, but one family, we should prohibit trade only with the mild and gentle foreigners of the south, reflects somewhat upon those officials who know these things and yet do not speak them. Where is their loyalty, their patriotism, their care for men from afar and their solicitude for those who are near, their consideration for the prosperity of the Chinese people? Insignificant I, can only look on and sigh.