"Taking history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall." Wei Zhi, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, said this. Everyone knows it, but few people really understand it. Looking back at countless setbacks in history, there is often a sigh that "the only lesson that mankind can learn from history is that mankind will never learn from history" (Hegel).
On the one hand, there is something wrong with the method of reading history; On the other hand, many histories have not been read. Therefore, "reading history but not knowing the rise and fall."
As far as the history of China is concerned, the history of the ocean is rarely paid attention to, and people’s understanding of it is far less than that of the land, but the modern predicament just comes from the ocean. This can be understood why the Ming and Qing Dynasties repeatedly banned the sea, and why the construction of the navy always lagged behind … When the Portuguese initiated a new tactic of line queue, shelling as the mainstay, and taking turns to fire guns, the Eastern Navy still maintained the traditional "jumping positions" tactics, and the guns could not be accurately aimed, but only had a deterrent effect; However, the tactics of Zheng Zhilong’s fire-boat assault and mutually assured destruction in the late Ming Dynasty were still regarded as strange tricks during the First Opium War … History constantly punishes those who ignore it, which also reminds contemporary readers that marine history must be read.
It takes only one wave to rest and another to live.
Don’t read marine history because it is difficult to read. First, there are few historical materials, second, there are many centers, and third, there are constant changes. Unlike land history, it gives people a clear sense of order from top to bottom (or from the center to the edge) and a sense of linearity from ancient times to the present, but this sense of order and linearity is mostly artificial and easily becomes a cognitive shackle.
How to read marine history? Mr. Ge Zhaoguang’s "Research Methods of Asian History: Centering on Modern East Asian Seas" provides us with a gateway. This book is a class handout, which is easy to understand and focuses on methods.
From the land history, "Kublai Khan’s eastward expedition to Japan" is only a "small incident", which is intended to digest the "accidental factors" such as the surrender and defeat in the Southern Song Dynasty, and its influence is limited. From the perspective of marine history, the Yuan Dynasty was "the first globalization in human history", which brought different civilizations into a unified time, that is, "the place where the sun rises and the place where the sun sets now belongs to us." This was a formatting, and the traditional Confucian social structure in the Central Plains (scholars, peasants, industry and commerce) was also disintegrated. "Expedition to Japan" is an inevitable step in the expansion of world history. Its failure has aroused the national consciousness of Japan and Korea, and turned the post-Mongolian era from "integration" to "separation".
Another example is the "Wanli War to Aid Korea". From the perspective of land history, the Ming Dynasty, Japan and North Korea played a three-way game, and the Ming Dynasty consumed national strength and national subjugation was also related to this. However, from the perspective of marine history, the Portuguese, Siam, etc. all tried to get involved in order to modify the "tribute-trade order" centered on the Ming Dynasty. Japan failed in the challenge and turned to lock the country for more than 200 years, but the price of retaining the old order was that it made mistakes again and again in the era of great navigation.
In fact, there are quite a few materials on the history of the ocean. This book introduces the Records of Yan Hanglu of the North Korean Ambassador, the Records of Chaotian of the Vietnamese Ambassador, and the Abnormal of Hua Yi of Japan, all of which are giant works, with inscriptions and personal collections, which are vast and many details are refreshing. Take Emperor Daoguang as an example. His appearance is rarely mentioned in official history, and there is no big difference in official drawings. However, Vietnamese historical materials call him "the Spring and Autumn Period is forty-five, and his teeth have all fallen off", and Korean historical materials also call him "the teeth have all fallen off". It can be seen that the so-called lack of historical materials is actually less reading, and ignorance will have a price.
From the perspective of marine history, we can truly realize that "one wave only begets another". History is intertwined, changing, and mutually causal. There is no eternal center. Only with eternal mobility and courage to change can we be in an invincible position. This book has a deep trust, and it smells like "a piece of snow flying after reading".
Businessmen who are not protected by the empire
"So the king went to China (personally), and he killed the resisters and ransacked it." In Tabari’s History, the story of the Yemeni king’s "conquest" of China was recorded …
In the early history of various countries, there are many legends of "previous broadness", and it is these legends that inspire businessmen to explore without avoiding difficulties and dangers. As early as 713 A.D., Arab trade envoys had gone to the Tang Dynasty. From the 8th to 10th century, Arab maritime merchants dominated the Maritime Silk Road-unlike the land Silk Road, which often had wars, the Maritime Silk Road continued to be peaceful, and merchant ships in the Indian Ocean rarely carried weapons.
In "Going East and Going West: A Study on the Trade History of the Maritime Silk Road in the Early 8th-13th Century", the author Chen Yexuan presented a very different picture from the "era of great navigation"-there were no "swordsmen" and "semi-merchants and semi-thieves", and the government rarely participated in the maritime business. Arab maritime merchants live in various ports and cooperate with local people. Most of the Southeast Asian countries come to China as "tribute envoys". During the Huang Chao Rebellion, more than 100,000 Arab maritime merchants in Guangzhou were killed, so they had to move to Kedah, Malay Peninsula, and then gradually moved back to Guangzhou, where they met with Nong Zhigao’s rebellion and suffered heavy losses.
From the 11th century to the 13th century, maritime merchants in the Song Dynasty became the main body of the Maritime Silk Road, with Egyptian, Indian, Southeast Asian … China ships accounting for the majority. In the Song Dynasty, maritime merchants also adhered to the rules of Arab maritime merchants, only being "merchants not protected by the empire", but ignoring the other side of Arab maritime merchants-daring to take risks. For a long period of time, few people were able to visit China twice, still courageously.
The maritime merchants in Song Dynasty fell into the same predicament as the Arabian maritime merchants: the environment was tolerant and the business was developed; The big environment is tight and falls into recession. They don’t want to get into trouble, but in traditional society, the mobility of maritime businesses is naturally regarded as an unstable factor. Su Shi accused him of saying, "Only Fujian is mostly engaged in maritime business all the way. During this period, people who are in danger still dare to attract traffic to make profits."
Since the mid-Song Dynasty, the coastal boat people have been incorporated into marine households. Since then, the government’s tolerance policy has been repeatedly interrupted for various reasons. "Stay out of it" failed to protect the rising maritime merchants in Song Dynasty. Because they missed historical opportunities again and again, the dynasty and maritime merchants went to double defeat.
History is infinitely complicated, and there are constants: those with high efficiency will always win, and those with low efficiency will always lose. Endless grievances and countless excuses cannot change the general trend. Arabian maritime merchants came to the east and Song Dynasty maritime merchants went to the west, all of which walked on this basic law. This book traces the grey line of the early history of the Maritime Silk Road, giving readers a different kind of enlightenment.
Looking for the lost memory of the Indian Ocean
"The incense in the dragon saliva is the most expensive. Guangzhou has no less than a hundred thousand every two, and the second class is also fifty or sixty thousand. " In Song Dynasty, Zhang Shinan wrote this in "Travel Official Ji Wen". Long Xianxiang is the intestinal secretion of sperm whales, which is only produced in the Indian Ocean. When the Song and Shang Dynasties dominated the Maritime Silk Road, Song Huizong "wore green silk through his neck". After Zheng He, China’s maritime merchants withdrew from the Indian Ocean, and Long Xianxiang gradually became a legend.
In "Between People: China and the World in Ocean Asia", the author Yang Bin hooked the story of Emperor Jiajing and Long Xianxiang-Jiajing was addicted to Taoism and needed Long Xianxiang’s "fast training" urgently, but he bought it at a high price, but "nothing for more than ten years". In 1556, Jiajing even launched a nationwide power procurement, and barely scraped together more than 2 Jin. By 1560, it was discovered that most of them were fake, only one or two pieces were real, or bought from the Portuguese. By this time, the Portuguese had taken control of the Indian Ocean route, and only they could find Long Xianxiang. Thanks to Long Xianxiang, the Portuguese were able to occupy Macau.
"History of Ming Dynasty" accused Jiajing of being dissolute, but did not delve into the reason of "being controlled by others".
From the perspective of land thinking, persistence is better than progress, so Liu Daxia dared to "take and burn" Zheng He’s archives (this is disputed), and finally "gradually drifted away from China, becoming more and more blurred, and even disappearing" in the Indian Ocean.
The purpose of this book is to find the lost memory of the Indian Ocean. From the shipwreck Quanzhou No.1 in the Song Dynasty to the shipwreck Blackstone in the Tang Dynasty, and even the shipwreck Nanhai No.1 in the Southern Song Dynasty, it is proved that China and the Indian Ocean once had close ties.
In addition, Beibi was circulated in China for thousands of years, and there was a special Beibi warehouse in Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty, while Beibi for circulation was only produced in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The ginseng fruit in The Journey to the West, the nail-less seagoing ship made in the Song Dynasty, and even the tortuous description of the Maldivian "harbor love" in the Ming Dynasty … all of them are clues to the past in Yang Bin’s works.
This book consists of 21 columns, which is colorful and shows the richness of history from different aspects-Chinese civilization also came from the sea, and only by retrieving the memory of China in the ocean can it fully present its elegant demeanor.
What can marine history tell us?
Cheng Yi, a philosopher in the Song Dynasty, once asked the teacher, "This table is on the ground, and I don’t know where the earth is." Behind Cheng Yi’s question is a great panic: everything we know comes from suspicious sources, but it is rarely questioned. In other words, what kind of atmosphere you are in, what kind of opinions you will have. If you want to break your opinions, you must first break the atmosphere. Haneda Zheng’s "Looking at the Ocean from History: 300 Years of Exchange in East Asian Seas" is a masterpiece.
This book intercepts three hundred years of East Asian history, which is divided into three stages according to the logic of marine history, and each stage has its central task. The changes in China, Japan and Korea, which seem to be accidental, are actually historical "prescribed actions".
In the stage of opening up the sea border (1250-1350), whether the Southern Song Dynasty "founded the country to the sea", or the Yuan Dynasty started the sea trough, or even the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties in Japan, the sea communication between Korea and the Yuan Dynasty was strengthened, which was a transition from land to sea.
In the competing stage (1500-1600), the Ming Dynasty implemented the maritime ban system, Japan built its own tributary order, and the "Wanli Aid Korea War" involved three East Asian countries, while the Portuguese and the Spanish also joined the competition, and the East Asian waters were connected with the "Great Navigation".
In the stage of living and living separately (1700-1800), the Qing Dynasty’s "one-stop trade", Japan’s "closed door" and North Korea’s "closed door" maintained exchanges and goodwill with each other while fighting against the "great navigation order", helping each other with shipwrecked fishermen, but remained indifferent at the government level.
The three stages are ups and downs, but the routes of China, Japan, Korea, Japan and South Korea have hardly changed, and each port has its own expatriates … Obviously, there must be a consensus running through it, and the cognition based on it, like the earth, holds up history, but it is difficult for modern people to understand after the baptism of modern nation-state concept. When modern people feel "what if it had been?", when they cling to "this is our original" and when "why I am so different" is repeatedly mentioned … history deviates from the ocean perspective, and "historical garbage time" becomes the protagonist instead.
The value of this book lies in giving readers a pair of "ocean eyes" to look at history. Between the lines, it reveals deep concern: Have we really understood "where is the earth?" How to understand the true logic of history without being confused by narrative pleasure?
