guangzhou is a famous historical and cultural city of state level, which was founded for over 2210 years. as a time-honoured city, it boasts a very accurate definition: the big port since han and tang dynasties and the original place of modern revolution.

[big boat built in nanyue]
guangzhou is the birthplace of the silk road on the sea in china. from the beginning of the west han dynasty to the dynasties of jin, sui, tang, song, yuan, ming, and qing, guangzhou had already been served as foreign trading port. today, we can still find the relics and sites of the dockyard of (qin and han dynasties), the temple of south china sea god (sui dynasty), light pagoda of huaisheng temple and fanfang (tang dynasty), and shisanhang foreign commercial firm (ming dynasty).

the relic of dockyard of qin dynasty located inside guangzhou cultural bureau at zhongshan no.4 road. three juxtaposed dockyard platform and wood processing ground were discovered on the eighth culture-level, five metres deep. in 1975’s trail excavation, among which a port dockyard was uncovered at no.1 and no.2 dockyard platforms respectively. the chute was made of skateboard with railway underneath and stock on its surface together to build a dockyard platform, the chute was 1.8 meters or 2.8 meters wide and 100 meters long. also discovered were the iron tools such as adzes, chisel, and qin-han banliang coins，and copper arrowhead etc..

the dockyard was originally built in the qin dynasty and was forsaken in the years between wen and jing’s reign of the west han dynasty. after the dockyard was excavated. it was covered again for preservation. the problems such as: the structure of the dockyard platform and the ship body and how the ship went down into the water are remained to be solved till larger excavation and further research are performed.

all these show that early in the qin dynasty, shipping industry was germinated in guangzhou.

from the development of the silk road on the sea, china’s shipping activities can be traced back to the neolithic period, mainly in the lingnan region. the region has long coastline and was studded with a galaxy of small or big islands, with south sea on its south and pacific ocean on its east. four or five thousand years ago, in the neolithic times, nanyue primitive people who lived along the coastline of south sea had already engaged in fishery by little flat boat.

the qin-han period, is an important time for developing navigation and long-distance shipping. according to history record, during the time when first emperor of qin put down the rebellions in lingnan, a branch of qin army who stationed at panyu (today’s guangzhou) exclusively built a large number of ships for putting down the rebellions in ouyue.

guangzhou was the basis of ship building in ancient china, and a large number of ship models were excavated from the tomb of east han. these included freight boat, ferry, and ships that carried both people and goods. only from the ship-shaped potteries, excavated from east han tombs in guangdong, people can find that the ship can be divided into front, middle and rear cabins. the front cabin was low and broad with a arch-shaped wooden roof, the middle cabin a bit high and of square shape, the rear cabin high and a little bit narrow, which was called steering tower with slope-shaped roof, also with a low building at the rear part. this kind of ship had a high waterline, a large loading capacity quite suitable for shipping in deep sea. this reflects that the ship building technology and capacity of production had already reached a high standard in guangzhou two thousand years ago.

from the relics of dockyard of qin dynasty, the size of dockyard was quite large even two thousand years ago. at that time, wooden ship of 8 meters wide, thirty meters long and with a loading capacity of fifty to sixty tons could be built out.

during the west-east jin period as well as south dynasty, people in guangzhou could build ships that carried five to six hundred people and loaded ten thousand hu goods. the most spectacular ships of guangzhou were those with four storeys of four meters or so high. the ship could carry large quantities of silk to foreign countries against the large sea waves.

guangzhou boasted a large size of shipping industry in the middle and late period of tang dynasty. six kinds of ships could be built then, including storied ships, combating ships and cruise, ranking top in the world in the aspects of combating capacity concerning performance, equipment, loading capacity, power. no wander, as it was recorded in the foreign book: the travelogue in china and india that only the huge chinese fishing ships can sail smoothly against the storming sea of persia gulf. hence, foreign businessmen liked to travel by chinese ships.

in the song dynasty, the shipping industry in guangzhou got expanded. the ships were so big that could carry hundreds of people and foods for a whole year’s use. people could also raise pigs and brew wines on the ships. at that time, the ships were equipped with compass—the most advanced maritime equipment in the world.

in yuan dynasty, five hundred big ships were built in guangzhou, which could sail to java. the four-storied ships could carry one thousand people, where bedrooms, sitting rooms, cargo holds and lavatories all were available

in the modern history of china, the earliest foreign factories appearing in china was the dockyard in guangzhou. in the year of 1845, a scottish person named john couper, established the couper dockyard at changzhou of huangpu in guangzhou. this was the first dockyard built by foreigners and beginning of chinese modern shipping industry.

[shipping route to the whole world]

silk road in china was divided into land route and sea route.

the earliest flourishing silk road on land was started from chang’an (today’s xi’an) passing through hexi corridor, crossing talimu basin and pamier plateau and then to some countries such as turkey, iraq, and syria till the destination country rome. however, after the middle period of tang dynasty, the silk road declined for some reasons.

silk road on land was suspended for several times and then gradually waned while the silk road on the sea, starting from guangzhou or quanzhou thrived along with the shipping industry of the world.

guangzhou is the birthplace of silk road on the sea and the forerunner of foreign trade of china’s history. it became in china the most prosperous trading port connecting chinese civilization with the rest world civilization.

(1)   the opening of the shipping line during the qin-han period signified the preliminary form of the silk road on the sea.

in the relics unearthed from the nanyue king tomb of west han in guangzhou, people found a bundle of ivories from africa, and also a silver box that was similar to the silver vessels of king artaxerxes of persia in iran. these are the earliest shipping goods that have been discovered till now.

(2)   the four hundred years lasting from three kingdoms, east and west jins, south and north dynasties to sui witnessed the development of silk road on the sea.

at that time, silk road on the sea liking guangzhou and daqin (the ancient rome) was formed, and the regular shipping date was fifty days from guangzhou to napoti (today’s java). by the end of east han, the eminent monk faxian who went to tianzhu (today’ india) to acquire buddhist scriptures took the way back home through silk road on the sea.

meanwhile, long voyage shipping lane linking asia, africa and europe was extended further. the trading ship started from guangzhou, then sailed through the south sea, the pacific ocean, the indian ocean and the persian gulf, exporting textures, potteries and tea to foreign countries and taking back gold, silver, coloured glaze, ivory and eaglewood back to china. at that time, foreigners came to china to do business through guangzhou were largely increased. they were from 15 countries. in particular, after the establishment of sui dynasty, king suiyang had attached great importance to the foreign trade. a new silk road on the sea was opened then. it started from guangzhou, went along the annan (today’s vietnam) and zhengna coastline, and finally got to the east coast of the northern part of malaya.

(3)   during the zhenguan’s reign of tang dynasty, guangzhou virtually became the famous port in the world with unprecedented frequency sea-faring. each year, over 40 foreign trading ships arrived in guangzhou and ships shuttled between guangzhou, the south sea and the persian gulf. at that time, there were six regular shipping lines among them of which two were chinese trading ships and four were respectively persian gulf, arab, and ceylon’s brahman trading ship and sending messenger ship of tang dynasty. these six shipping lines were all concentrated in guangzhou and the most renowned one was called guangzhou foreign shipping line, which connected ninety countries and related areas. from guangzhou to the south sea, the indian ocean, the persian gulf and countries on the east coastline. this shipping line was the longest in the world then, it linked china with the region like southeast asia, south asia and arab countries. these regions were the distributing centres of chinese silk and were also the political, economical, religious and cultural centre s of the world.

(4)   in yuan dynasty, there were 150 countries trading with guangzhou. guangzhou expanded another three shipping lines: one is to north of java; another is to the apennines of mediterranean and the last one is to the east coast of africa.

in the late 15th and early 16th century, after the “great geographic discovery” by colombia, in the world appeared three new shipping lines: guangzhou to philippine to latin america, guangzhou to europe and guangzhou to japan.

(5)   in ming dynasty, there were regular fairs held in guangzhou in january and june each year. many famous and expensive goods such as perfume, pearl, ambers, rhinoceros horns, ivories, hawksbill turtles were transported by ships to guangzhou and transacted in prescribed zones.

in 18th century, guangzhou opened its shipping line to north america. on february 2, 1784, “china queen”, the 360-ton america trading ship, set sail with 40 ton american ginseng to china. on august 24th in the same year, the ship arrived in huangpu port of guangzhou, which was the beginning of direct trading between china and america.

at that time, guangzhou had already opened shipping lines in all directions. the silk road on the sea that connected guangzhou to the rest of the world would realize the big transportation cycle on the sea.