Page 115 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters

established for the interim period: sugar was purchased in Bengal and shipped to Persia, ves- sels returned to India and Bengal from Persia with cargo and bullion, the bullion was used to buy textile and indigo. In addition, the opium trade from Bengal to India proved profitable.. Cinnamon and textile for the return cargo to Batavia was almost always available; shipping between Coromandel Coast/Ceylon and Batavia was possible all year round. The complex shipping around Taiwan Further away from Batavia, at the northeastern corner of the intra-Asian network, the needs of the retourvloot were also felt. There, the VOC had to deal with local circumstances that often required specific vessel types and effective organisation. The VOC proved able to maximise their shipping around the arriving and departing fleet for Europe. Through flexible employ- ment of a differentiated fleet, they were able to attune and synchronise as much as possible the needs of both systems. This same efficiency can be seen in the organisation of shipping at the local level. The nature of the organisation in Taiwan was determined by local (indirect) trade with China and strict regulated trade with Japan. The Chinese goods assembled in Taiwan had to be sent to Japan in a short time frame due to the strict dates that were set by the Japanese authorities and the monsoon conditions. Subsequently, the goods returning from Japan had to be sent off as soon as possible to Batavia together with the Chinese goods for the retourvloot or to the re- tourschepen in the Pescadores that had sailed on from Batavia to the Far East. The retourschepen could not be loaded in Taiwan because: the entrance to Fort Zeelandia – a canal – was too shallow and the roadstead too dangerous to dock at. These factors made logistical organisation very complex. The larger ships anchored at the Pescadores, a group of islands off the coast of Taiwan. Small vessels carried the cargo from the fort to the larger ships. These smaller ships with a limited cargo capacity were not as suitable as the large ones for the shipping between Taiwan and Japan. The weather and sea conditions could make it very difficult to sail in and out of the canal. It was a logistical challenge to have sufficient vessels with a limited draught but reasonable cargo capacity and good sailing capabilities available for a short period. The VOC’s answer was to use small flutes and local vessels. Outside this busy season, only a few of these small flutes could be used for the shipping with Tonkin (Coolhaas , p. ; Case Study -) Most of these vessels therefore, left the region for Batavia in March, at the end of the northeastern monsoon, with the last products purchased from China. Most of these flutes would make a stopover at Siam to load timber, sapan and rice for Batavia (Coolhaas , p. ). There were strong military demands on the VOC in the Taiwan region, first to remove the last pockets of Spanish power and later, to cope with the aggression of the Chinese pirate Cox- inga. For these reasons, soldiers had to be shipped from Batavia. Part of the fleet assigned to sail to Japan and Taiwan had to wait for the arrival of soldiers from the Netherlands, who were shipped directly after their arrival. The shipping of food supplies was also an issue for Taiwan, but the area was less dependant on Batavia than the Spice Islands. Some food came from China and large quantities of rice and oil were shipped from Siam. A few ships left Batavia early in the shipping season for Taiwan and in April/May for Siam; they sailed almost empty with some Persian silk that had arrived the previous year; food supplies for Taiwan; deerskin for Japan and a ballast of boulders. On the return voyage, some ships made a stop at Siam and used the precious metals from Japan to buy wood and rice. If loading at Siam did not take too long and they made the voyage to Batavia in good time, these ships could sail directly to the Spice Islands with rice at the end of the west monsoon period. The smaller vessels needed for the busy loading season left for Taiwan in April/May at the start of the southwest monsoon. They could transport any currency that had arrived late from the Netherlands to buy Chinese products. After all the vessels had arrived in the region in September, the loading had to follow a set sequence. First, the retourschepen that had sailed to Taiwan to collect some of their return cargo had to unload any cargo intended for the Asian Knitting all the threads together: the logistics of the network 