legend of sea pearl and guangzhou fair in ming dynasty

the pearl river, (also called the yue river), stretching as far as 2,500 km, is the longest river in south china and the national third longest river. it originated from a small river that extended 95 km from guangzhou to the sea entrance. it gains special reputation for it flowing through zhouhai island. the pearl river nowadays is a general term referring to xijiang river, dongjiang river, beijiang river and other rivers in pearl river delta. both in terms of length and drainage, the pearl river is the third one in china. with its yearly volume of flow, 340 billion steles, it’s second only to yangtze river.

the pearl river in a narrow sense is the river that starts from northeast of guangzhou where branches of pearl river meet, and from north to south first, and then west to east flows through the city of guangzhou.

among all the chinese cities then, old guangzhou took the lead to opening to the outside world. like a bridge, it connected china with other countries in the field of politics, economics, religion and culture. foreign trade then fell into two categories: exchange of tributes and market trade.

as far tribute exchange was concerned, it took place between governments. that is, a foreign country presented its tribute and then got tribute from chinese government in return. the tribute exchange often happened after officials signed their agreement. in return for foreign friends’ tributes, chinese emperors gave them gifts of the same value, or rather much more precious than what were presented. as the window to the world, guangzhou shouldered the tasks of receiving the foreign officials and seeing them off.

the tang government used to offer rich payoffs to those foreign tribute-suppliers. after market trade came into being, the trade between china and other countries was carried out on the equal basis just like today. to make money and to run the trade in order, a special organization for supervision was set up.

the places where many foreign commercial aliens lived in tang dynasty were called “fanfang” and the market of it was called “fanshi” in guangzhou. “fanxue” were schools opened for children of these aliens. the song dynasty witnessed thousands of commercial businessmen coming there for trade.

the 2nd year of kaiyuan of the tang dynasty (714) saw the establishment of an agency of market trade in the charge of appointed officials. the agency functioned as follows: first, impose taxes on ships from overseas; second, pick out would-be goods from import and purchase it on behalf of the emperor; third, manage business affair; forth, take the overall charge of the seaway commercial dealing. ever since then, the government began to standardize the management of seaway trade, and gave birth to a new management system and management methods for international trade. it was only in guangzhou then that the agency of market trade was established in the tang dynasty.

in the 4th year of kaibao of the song dynasty (971), the emperor issued an edict to set up an organ for the management of foreign trade, which is the earliest one of that kind in china.

the song government revised the regulations on international trade and put them into wide use all over china, which justified the important role guangzhou had played in foreign trade. in the foreign trading port, citizens took the priority to availability of clothes ceaselessly from many other countries.

there were over 140 countries in contact with guangzhou in trade in the yuan dynasty. zhou zhengchong mentioned in one of his books about timetable of three route to foreign countries: from guangzhou to zhancheng city (in the south of today’s vietnam), it took eight days; to sanfoji, eight days in the south route; to pujialong (today in the north of java), with favourable wind one month only. in another routine leading to africa, iben bertun, a morocco, started in 1325 from his country and arrived in 1347 in quanzhou first, and then in guangzhou. he regarded guangzhou as incomparable metropolis in the world then.

in the ming dynasty, foreign trade could find expression only in tribute exchange.. guangzhou at that time was the appointed port where foreign ships must berth; therefore, the port lodged most of the foreign ships to china. hostels flourished in the ming dynasty in places like quanzhou, lingbo and guangzhou. hostels supplied the foreign traders with every possible service then, such as transportation, medical care, entertainment, boarding and lodging to show ready welcome and make our foreign friends feel at home. hostels in different places were named differently, for instance, laiyuanyi hostel in quanzhou, anyuan hostel in ningbo, huaiyuan hostel in guangzhou. huaiyuan hostel possessed 120 rooms. such regulation of foreign trade lasted over 100 years in ming dynasty.

to be exact, huaiyuan hostel, built in the 4th year of yongle of the ming dynasty (1406), lied in xianzibu, a place in the outskirts of guangzhou, just near xiguan shibafu road. under the control of special officials in charge of management of foreign trade, huaiyuan hostel became the place where import was examined and levied taxes on before it was purchased. sometimes relevant regulations of the government were announced in notice there. meanwhile, foreign trade dealers had to sell the goods left after the purchasing by the chinese government with the help of some well-informed brokers. their payment from china enabled them to take back many chinese specialties to their own countries.

in the period of kangxi’s reign, with the north bank of the pearl river stretching south, huangyuan hostel was gradually separated away from the riverbank. on the south of the hostel stood shisanhang foreign commercial firm, a substitution of huaniyuan hostel.

ming dynasty witnessed the western invasion. portugal took possession of moocow in a crafty plot, and dutch seized taiwan by force. these invaders based their trade business on moocow and almost monopolized the oriental market.

tremendous commercial profit drew businessmen to guangzhou from fujian and guangdong. ever since the wanli’s reign in the ming dynasty, there was regular market fair every summer and winter, which lasted from several days to several weeks. nazi, the third head of institution functioning in taiwan, said the chinese traders made a bigger fortune in the trade with foreigners than manila and dutch businessmen when chinese government allowed portuguese to reside in moocow to buy goods in guangzhou twice a year. since the portuguese in moocow couldn’t afford that abundant products gathered in guangzhou from all over china, some commercial dealers from north china or inland exported their unsold products to manila and thai in their own ships.