Page 40 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

6 C. Wu

Both Amoy and Gulangyu had been indeed the spatial extension of Yuegang seaport
from west to east. Koxinga (Guo Xing Fu, "!&, Chenggong Zheng, """)
merchant group entrenched at Xiamen island and developed the maritime trans-
portation of Xiamen seaport during late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Fujian
custom of!ce (Shibosi) was moved to Xiamen in Yongzheng ("") 6th year (1728),
then Xiamen developed its maritime trade and replaced Yuegang as one of four
legitimate maritime trading seaports in China during early Qing Dynasty.
Xiamen Zhi (Chronicle of Xiamen Prefecture, !""$") of Qing Dynasty
recorded:

During the turning period of Ming and Qing dynasties, Koxinga controlled maritime trade
of southeast China and all foreign merchants bought Chinese exported cargoes at Xiamen
seaport.” “Xiamen island is located at the region between Zhangzhou and Quanzhou sea-
ports and controls the maritime transportation to Penghu ("") and Taiwan. Xiamen had
been the gateway of Fujian maritime trade with foreigners since the early Qing Dynasty.”
(Zhou 1967, pp. 37, 124, 143, 323)
In a word, the seaport of Yuegang and adjacent Xiamen had been the cultural
succession of ancient seaports system in Fujian maritime area. Yuegang-Xiamen
seaport was main transiting terminal of maritime cargoes to and from Manila
galleons across the Paci!c and the east of South China Sea during late Ming and
early Qing dynasties.

1.1.2 Yuegang-Manila Navigation Developed for Trading
with Spanish Galleon and Connecting with Early
Maritime Globalization

The main reason of the rising of Yuegang seaport in Ming Dynasty had been the
“smuggling” trade of Hokkien maritime merchants in the East Ocean (""),
especially the maritime trade at Manila with Spanish galleons which navigated
between America and Philippines across the Paci!c as a key part of early global-
ization since mid 16th century.
Anyway, the Yuegang-Manila navigation as the maritime connection between
the Philippines islands and mainland of eastern Asia grew up on the foundation of
prehistoric and historical navigation of East Ocean, continuing the thousands of
years’ seafaring across Taiwan strait since Neolithic age. Archaeological investi-
gations have revealed that the earliest East Ocean navigation had been carried out
by aboriginal Minyue (!!) and ancient Hokkiens since Neolithic age. The
archaeologists reconstructed the sea route of proto-Austronesian emigration from
the coast of Fujian and Guangdong, across Taiwan strait, seafaring step by step to
Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesian and getting to Paci!c archipelagoes (Lin 1958;
1987; Bellwood 1997).
The historical documents described the sea route of East Ocean navigation from
Fujian and Zhejiang of southeast China to Yizhou ("!, now Taiwan), Penghu