Page 163 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 3 Enamelled Porcelain Consumption in Eighteenth-century China

further transfer was often necessary at Longkou at the mouth of the lake, thirty

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kilometres away from Poyang Lake. Map 3 shows that from Poyang Lake, some of

the boats followed the Grand Canal and its associated waterways north to reach

Beijing. This route was also used by the transportation of ‘imperial wares’ to the court

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during the eighteenth century. Other boats went south on the Grand Canal to reach
Hangzhou. Other rivers and waterways coupled with some overland transport allowed

porcelain cargoes to reach such seaports in Fujian province, Zhejiang province and

Guangdong province.

The most cumbersome but frequently used route in the seventeen and eighteenth

centuries ran from Jingdezhen to Guangzhou (Canton) in southern China. This route

began in Poyang Lake and proceeded up the Gan River 赣江 to Nanchang 南昌, as

marked by the author in Map 3. Re-loaded onto smaller river boats, the porcelain cargo

would then continue upstream to Ganzhou 赣州. Continuing on smaller rivers, the

cargo boats eventually reached the southern border of Jiangxi province and

Guangdong provinces. When they reached the town, Dayu 大庾, at the southern

border line of Jiangxi province, they needed to cross the Mount Meiling to enter

Guangdong province. Here the porcelain had to be hand carried over the Meiling Pass

(it was also called Yuling Pass), a stretch of some 30 kilometres that reached about

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275 meters above sea level.

88 Jiang Siqing, Jingdezhen ciye shi [History of the Porcelain Industry] (Fuliang county, 1936),
p.42.
89 Qiuli, ‘Qing zhonghouqi Jingdezhen dayun chuanban ciqi jiejing xianlu de kaocha’ [The
Investigation on Transport Route of Jingdezhen Imperial Porcelain to Beijing during Mid and Late
Qing dynasty] (MA dissertation, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, 2013). p.15.
90 Sten Sjostrand and Sharipah Lok Lok bt. Syed Idrus, The Wanli Shipwreck and its Ceramic
Cargo (Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, 2007), p.64.
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