[Article] Maritime Transport of the Yuan Period

The maritime transport of Song-Yuan China was divided into northern and southern lines with the Huai River as the boundary. Shipping agents of the two lines were called beihao and nanhao, respectively. The beihao mainly used the following three routes: (1) the sea route from Hangzhou to Zhigu (presentday Tianjin); (2) the route running along the Grand Canal from Hangzhou to Zhigu and then travelling along the North Canal (Grand Canal) to Tongzhou; and (3) the route along the Tonghui Canal from Tongzhou to Daidu. The nanhao travelled either of the following two paths: (1) the sea route from Quanzhou through Fuzhou to Hangzhou and (2) the inland water route running along the same path from Quanzhou to Fuzhou and then following the Min River towards upstream and going through Qianshan to Hangzhou. Meanwhile, maritime trade was routed through the Xiyang route (western route across the South China Sea), the Dongyang route (eastern route across the South China Sea), the Qingyuan (Ningbo/Mingzhou)-Hakata route (connecting Zhejiang to Japan), and the Fujian-Ryukyu/Kyushu route. The Xiyang route was the most important route in the Yuan period from Quanzhou/Guangzhou via Champa and Melayu (in Sumatra) to the Indian Ocean. On this route, Champa and Java rose to prominence as transit points, replacing Dayue (Vietnam) and Zabaj/Javaka/Sanfogi (in the Sumatra region), respectively. The Dongyang route started from Quanzhou, went south along the east coast of Taiwan Island to the Philippines, and ran through Borneo Island and the Malacca Strait to the Indian Ocean. It is said that around that time, Ryukyu (present-day Taiwan and Okinawa) and Sanyu (the present-day Philippines) emerged as transit points and then, in the Ming period, the Dongyang route itself gained greater importance as it was linked to Japan. The route connecting Hakata and Qingyuan called “Ocean Route” in Japanese historical records was served as the mainline of trade between Japan and China in the Song and Yuan periods. The Yuan Dynasty strengthened its control over maritime traffic under the centralized mercantilism during Minster Ahmad and Minister Sanga. More specifically, they intended to reestablish a maritime administration comprehensively centred on the financial branch of the Jiangzhe provincial government with the maritime trade bureau and the salt tax bureau under its umbrella. In other words, they tried to build a system to directly bring the revenues not only from the tax but also from the Nanhai trade connecting the inland and maritime transportation from coastal area to the capital city. However, this policy provoked a strong backlash from local powers of Zhejiang and Fujian and returned to a previous way, where marine transport relied on powerful local families (emerging local elites), as the maritime stations established to connect the South China Sea trade routes to the transport lines of nanhao were abandoned after Minster Sanga was executed.