Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Kingdoms, Volume 78

General Discussion on Sea Defense II Originally missing from the text, now supplemented

Treatise on the Maritime Trade of Eastern Guangdong By Xiao Lingyu of Qinghe

In the twenty-third year of the Kangxi reign 1684; Kangxi was the fourth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, the Zheng clan in Taiwan was pacified Referring to the surrender of the Kingdom of Tungning, the last Ming loyalist stronghold, and the maritime ban was broadly lifted. In the twenty-fourth year, following the petitions of provincial officials, Customs Houses were established at Jiang Jiangsu, Zhe Zhejiang, Min Fujian, and Yue Guangdong. Consequently, merchant ships from the interior were able to trade throughout the Southern Seas.

The Dutch, having assisted our forces during the pacification, were the first to request mutual trade. Other "seafaring foreigners" original: "Bird Barbarians," a period term for Westerners whose ships seemed to appear like migratory birds followed their lead and submitted, gazing with respect toward the imperial stars original: "Dou Niu," referring to the North Star and the constellation Ox, symbolizing the Chinese Emperor, arriving annually by sea from great distances.

The English were the last to knock at our gates. Their nations are all located in the "Great Western Ocean" the Atlantic, vast and unfathomably distant. Since the Han Dynasty, the routes to the "Western Regions" reached only as far as the Southwestern Seas and stopped. However, if one examines the two chapters on the Western Regions in the Book of Han The official history of the Han Dynasty, finished in 111 CE, one can understand the relationship between the "Western Regions" and the "Western Ocean"...