Maritime History

One number kept spinning in my head long after I closed the Wanli Zhangzhou Fu Zhi at one in the morning. 2,500 zhang. That’s not just the length of a wall. That’s a nine-kilometer iron-clad defensive line. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhangzhou’s prefectural city was far larger and more sophisticated than any casual image of a “small southern Fujian town” would suggest. It wasn’t a city with a wall around it. It was a military machine wrapped in brick and stone. ...

A Question About “Paying Money” How much tax did people in Quanzhou pay? This question sounds mundane, but the taxation data recorded in the Wanli Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette and Qianlong Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette tells a real story about imperial finances and ordinary people’s lives. During the Wanli era, Quanzhou implemented the “Single Whip Law”—converting various taxes into silver for unified payment. During the Qianlong era, it became “Merging Poll Tax into Land Tax”—the head tax was abolished and folded into land taxes. ...

Introduction: The Blue Uprising in Geographic Cracks Among the 3,000-kilometer coastline of Fujian, the rise of Yuegang (Moon Harbor) in Zhangzhou is a miracle in Chinese maritime history. Due to the “saddle-like” topography of Fujian—blocked by the Wuyi and Daiyun mountains—the ancestors developed a survival philosophy: “The sea is the field for the people of Fujian”. Although the early Ming Dynasty enforced a strict “Sea Ban,” the inherent geographic advantage of Yuegang at the mouth of the Jiulong River allowed it to flourish as an illicit trade hub. Eventually, the Ming government was forced to lift the ban in 1567 (Longqing 1), designating Yuegang as a legal “Ocean Market”. ...