Page 77 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

44 M. Liu

2.5 The Developing of Xiamen Seaport in Qing Dynasty
and Its Transportation of Porcelains in the South
China Sea

In the 23th year Kangxi court (1684), Zheng family kingdom surrendered to
the Qing Dynasty and the Qing Empire announced the abolition of the sea ban
policy. Then the new customs in four major seaports including Xiamen and
Guangzhou were set up for administrating the maritime trade in the southeast coast
of China. In the 15th year of Yongzheng court (1727), Xiamen was admitted as the
only of!cial seaport of Fujian’s overseas trade, the only national ship ferry across to
Taiwan, and one of the legal seaports setting sail for South China sea (Zhuang
2001). At that time of early Qing Dynasty, most of the maritime merchants were
from Fujian, and then Guangzhou. Many foreign ships including Spanish galleons
were permitted to dock and trade at Xiamen seaport.
The rising and developing of Xiamen seaport in Qing Dynasty promoted the
change of the ceramic industrial situation of south coast of Fujian. Revolving
around the Xiamen seaport, the ceramic industrial center moved eastward from
Zhangzhou area to Dehua, forming a vast export ceramic industrial area including
Dehua (Fig. 2.10: 1–5), Yongchun, Anxi (Fig. 2.10: 6–10), Hua’an, Nanjing in
south of Fujian, and Raoping (!$), Huilai (!%), Dapu and Chaozhou in east of
Guangdong, etc., flourishing in mid and late Qing Dynasty. Xiamen seaport
developed to be the transporting and exporting center of ceramics in southern
China. After the rising of the maritime merchants of Zhejiang and Jiangsu and their
controlling the oversea trade with Japan, the merchants from Fujian and Guangdong
focused more on maritime trade with southeast Asian seaport. Since 1970s, a series
of maritime archaeological work were carried out at Xisha islands (Paracel Is.) and
a number of shipwreck sites and underwater cultural relics were discovered,
showing the navigation history from the Southern Dynasties (!&) to Ming and
Qing dynasties. Most of these cultural relics were blue and white porcelains dating
to the mid and late Qing Dynasty, spreading at each one of the Xiasha islands and
representing the flourish of commercial navigation across this region (Fig. 2.11; Liu
2012). The style of the blue and white porcelains from these sites were similar and
most of them were inferior. The most common decoration patterns are dragon with
cloud, flying phoenix, character “Shou ($, longevity)” writing pattern, flowers of
magic fungus, plucked branches flower, pavilions architecture, sailing boats,
landscape, poetry and so on. Except for a few products of Jingdezhen Kiln, most of
them are identi!ed as the products of Dehua, Dongxi, Anxi kilns of southern Fujian
and some kilns of Eastern Guangdong.